Looking back on 2022, one of our favorite team-based additions has been the implementation of "Not-a-Book Book Club". We have continued to share and discuss our new learnings every other Friday, alternating between shared group topics and a bring-your-own style report out. Here are some of our highlights from the last few months:
Raven and Geoff's Report Outs: Designing Surveys that Work and 9 Biases that Affect Survey Responses
The Designing Surveys that Work podcast from Intercom featured an interview with Caroline Jarrett on how to design surveys that garner responses - and useful ones at that. Key takeaways included a terminology clarification - what many of us think of as a survey - the collection of questions asked - is merely a part of the entire process, and the way a questionnaire is written should depend on what the asker is hoping to learn from the survey. The Mile Marker team agreed heartily with her point that catching people in the moment with a simple single question is one of the most effective methods - when clicking the little “x” is the same amount of effort as actually answering the question, questions are more likely to be answered. The 9 Biases that Affect Survey Responses that came up a few weeks later tied in nicely; it addresses the ways in which choices such as question order, question wording, and personal experiences of the survey-taker can impact the way they are answered. These articles made us reflect on some of the asynchronous work we ask our clients to perform during our planning phases as they present strongly as survey questionnaires, and we have implemented a team effort to review our documentation and look for improvement opportunities.
Fritz's Research Report-Out: Authentication versus Authorization
Authentication and authorization are terms that are frequently (and incorrectly) interchanged. In summary, authentication is simply confirmation that you are who you say you are while authorization focuses on what you do and don’t have permission to access once authenticated. This led to further discussion among the team - we wondered next, what does a Captcha count as? We learned it is a specific type of authentication called "challenge-response authentication", the same type used when asking for a login password, but with the intent to prove you are human rather than a specific human. Further conversation devolved enjoyably into discussion of HTTP Error 418: I'm a Teapot, an error created years ago as an April Fool's joke that has since been codified as an official error.
Daniel Report-Out: Focus on Activities with Asymmetrical Upside
To both end 2022 and enter 2023 on a positive note, let's look at asymmetrical upside as brought to us by our Founder, Daniel, who as a 5th grader appropriately won an Optimist Award from the local Optimist Club. Asymmetrical upside occurs when a decision has a high potential reward if successful yet minimal risk in the event of failure. Our Not-a-Book Book Club itself was a perfect example - as we have witnessed from our experience, our team has gained broader perspectives and positive team building conversations as a result of the program. But what if it hadn't worked out? Well, we would have tried it once or twice, said "this sucks", and dropped it from our routine, losing little more than some of our time. Identifying choices that offer an asymmetrical upside are a great way to discovering opportunities with unique value.
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