{ "version": "https://jsonfeed.org/version/1", "title": "Chris Vannoy", "icon": "https://micro.blog/v/avatar.jpg", "home_page_url": "https://micro.chrisvannoy.com/", "feed_url": "https://micro.chrisvannoy.com/feed.json", "items": [ { "id": "http://chrisvannoy.micro.blog/2024/02/04/experimented-with-my.html", "content_html": "
Experimented with my aeropress recipe, changing the water from 180 to 185.
\n\nAnd was astonished by the difference. In a bad way!
\n\nSaid recipe:
\n\n20 grams coffee - 8.5 on encore grinder\n180-deg water (third wave classic)\n100 grams water. Stir\n100 grams water. Plug, wait 2min\nPlunge. Fill with hot water
\n", "date_published": "2024-02-04T11:37:27-05:00", "url": "https://micro.chrisvannoy.com/2024/02/04/experimented-with-my.html" }, { "id": "http://chrisvannoy.micro.blog/2024/02/03/lets-talk-about.html", "title": "Let's talk about intent", "content_html": "\n\nIn a recent life, I used to joke that I was in charge of all the “creepy stuff” at a Marketing Technology startup.
\n\nI was a product manager in charge of things like identifying anonymous visitors, intent (more on this soon) and advertising targeting.
\n\nI helped build systems which would take an ip address, triangulate it between different sources of identification and settle on what company or account to attribute it to in a world at the time where most everybody was working from home.
\n\nAlong the way, I talked with lots of providers of third-party identification and intent about what they had and how they do things so we could integrate it into our own systems.
\n\nI’m not in that world anymore, and don’t particularly care to get back into it, so let’s talk a bit about how it all works. And why this dude is about to have a bad time - even if he’s right about a lot of it!
\n\nSo, for those not deep in this space, let’s talk about marketing.
\n\nMarketers at Business To Business (B2B) startups - newish companies, largely fed by venture funding, and largely selling to one another - are increasingly tied to sales teams and revenue numbers as part of an overall Go To Market (GTM) strategy (this space loves their acronyms).
\n\nAs part of that, sales hunger for leads - folks to talk to about buying their software or services. And sales drives revenue, and revenue drives venture funding and so forth. When it’s working well, it’s all a very fun and somewhat virtuous cycle.
\n\nSo a lot of marketing has become sales assistance and support as a primary driver. There are still some folks doing squishier “brand awareness” marketing but they’re few and far between.
\n\nMarketing works to drive folks to their website and offerings through content, or advertising, or social media posting.
\n\nOnce those visitors land on the site, in order to turn them into sales leads, they need to be identified.
\n\nOne way to do this is through what’s called “gated” content - things like ebooks, reports, templates and such that require a visitor to leave an email address and various other data to get access to the content.
\n\nThe other way is to try and tease out who the visitor is using things like third-party cookies or their ip address to try and unmask them to one degree or another.
\n\nThen you can reach out to these companies to try and set up a proper sales call.
\n\nIn addition to these first-party sources of leads, there also exists a universe of third-party “intent” offerings that can be used to build lists for sales teams to try and do cold outreach to, or to power Account Based Marketing (ABM) programs of advertising.
\n\nThese platforms - Bombora, 6Sense, Demandbase, etc - do the same anonymous identification I mentioned earlier, trying to tie an anonymous visitor to a company. Then they look at the pages or sites they’re visiting and attach that visit to various terms or keywords.
\n\nAnd they can also tie the company identification to lots of sources of company firmographic (location, size, revenue, etc) data to filter lists of companies by.
\n\nSo, they can make it so you can say things like “Show me all the companies with revenue above $50 Million in San Fransisco that have looked at pages about content distribution” and then you can hand that list of companies to your cold-calling/emailing team (typically called Sales or Business Development Representatives) or use them for advertising targeting using platforms like Terminus.
\n\nMany of these intent platforms will also calculate things like “spikes” or “surges” which are intended to indicate a change in the consumption of things about these topics.
\n\nNow that we have the background out of the way, here’s some of the ways this can go wrong.
\n\nA lot of the data sources behind this are shared between providers. They’re all essentially using the same blocks of ip addresses and the same wells of third-party cookies and drawing intent from the same set of media partners and the like.
\n\nFor the company identification, they’re making guesses based on various probabilistic algorithms across all these different data sources. Sometimes these guesses are really good! Sometimes, they are very wrong.
\n\nThese guesses got a lot worse once the pandemic hit and everybody started working from home and were no longer tied to corporate networks in many cases. Additionally, a lot of internet usage is done through personal email logins rather than business email logins, so many of these sources have your gmail address and not your bigco.com email email address. These platforms and providers have to build bridges between those.
\n\nThat’s before you get into coffee shops and working spaces and VPNs that muddy the IP data even more.
\n\nFinally, the third-party cookie data is also increasingly shrinking in relevance. Those cookies only work in Google Chrome these days and won’t for much longer.
\n\nWhen you’re targeting advertising off of this data, it’s fine. You’re wasting some of your advertising budget, but nobody gets all that upset about it. It’s weird when you see a LinkedIn advertisement for something that isn’t a great fit for you, but most folks don’t think much about it.
\n\nThe problem you run into - and many of these platforms are starting to run into this problem now as many of their customers look for software subscriptions that they can cut - is when you hand this same data over to your sales team.
\n\nOnce your sales team is calling or emailing folks cold from them visiting your site or their showing some level of “intent” about some topic or another, that can be a different story. One or two misses of identification and many sales users of these platforms write off the entire endeavor.
\n\nIf you clicked through that LinkedIn post earlier, he mentions that he’s talked to customers of these platforms and didn’t find anybody all that excited about them. That’s largely feedback from sales teams which have likely been burned repeatedly by either bad account identification or flaky levels of “intent” being shown (where one or two page visits might be enough to “spike”).
\n\nAs a final bit of foreshadowing, this is all hazy and sketchy at the company level of the data. I’ve looked at them and spot-checked a lot of them - they’re bad and inaccurate about the company identification everywhere. And if they’re not, they’re extremely limited to company-owned IP addresses and sure-fire identities meaning you have lots of holes and not a lot of useful data to work with - quality, but no quantity.
\n\nWhen I cross-compared many of these services for company identification against things like internal signals, the best match rates I found was less than a coin flip for accuracy. Maybe they’ve gotten better in the last couple of years - but the world’s been making it harder for them, not easier.
\n\nThat linked LinkedIn post earlier also mentions launching a new thing that doesn’t just identify the company making a visit or showing intent, but the individual doing so.
\n\nI’ve talked with a lot of lawyers in my previous role … and that’s not going to fly if you’re doing any business or seeing any visitors from Europe - or California.
\n\nPrivacy laws such as GDPR and CCPA mean you’re taking on a lot of legal liability when you start tying together personally identifiable information (PII). Even the company level identification we’ve been talking about so far often involves sweet-talking lawyers to get things across the line.
\n\nIf you’re going to go down the PII rabbit hole and try to uncover the precise individual doing activities, you’re inviting a boatload of lawyerly attention the second you get big enough for them to care.
\n\nNot that I think you would!
\n\nBecause, as mentioned earlier - the folks who want the individual level are sales users. Everybody wants the Glengarry leads, after all.
\n\nToday’s company-level intent providers are already struggling with coverage, misidentification, and eroding trust.
\n\nNow imagine you try to figure out who exactly at those companies are making this activity. And imagine some Sales Development Representative somewhere fires off an AI-generated cold email outreach or picks up the phone and gives them a ring before they get ahold of somebody that doesn’t match.
\n\nHow long do you think they’ll keep doing that?
\n\nHow many times do they get wrong numbers, angry people, and coffeeshop strangers before they stop using it entirely?
\n\nFrom my experience, that number is quite low … and my educated guess is any service trying to dig out individuals is either going to trigger that experience frequently - or, if they lean into ironclad identification, there’s not enough meat on the bone to be valuable.
\n\nAnd that’s all before the lawyers get hold of you!
\n\nGodspeed, my dude, and good luck - you’ll need heaping amounts of both.
\n\nIf you’re a consumer like me and want to opt out of this world as best you can, use something other than Chrome, turn off third-party cookies, run a VPN and laugh.
\n\nIf you’re a marketer using one of these platforms, check with your sales teams and see how they’re finding the accuracy suits them. If they’re happy with what these platforms are unearthing, keep going! I’m not suggesting you stop doing stuff you and your team think are working!
\n\nIf they’re not happy, though, it might be time to try a different approach to marketing. Identify your audience, talk to them, be curious, try to be helpful! Don’t go looking for “intent”, look for ways you can be helpful and honestly help people. And then marry that with intent sources that are in your control - gated form fills, newsletter subscribers, social media followers (well, less this bucket), that sort of thing.
\n\nBut that’s me. Typing this behind a VPN …
\n\nStay safe out there, folks!
\n", "date_published": "2024-02-03T14:46:50-05:00", "url": "https://micro.chrisvannoy.com/2024/02/03/lets-talk-about.html" }, { "id": "http://chrisvannoy.micro.blog/2024/01/29/life-is-funny.html", "content_html": "Life is funny sometimes.
\n\nWas laid off from a company ~two weeks ago.
\n\nPicked up a consulting client and the engagement starts today.
\n\nThey’re located in the exact same coworking location.
\n\nAt least I know where the coffee is!
\n", "date_published": "2024-01-29T09:38:08-05:00", "url": "https://micro.chrisvannoy.com/2024/01/29/life-is-funny.html" }, { "id": "http://chrisvannoy.micro.blog/2024/01/16/anyway-new-folder.html", "content_html": "Anyway!
\n\nNew folder created: shipping_news
\n\nFiddling around with something new since I have a few.
\n", "date_published": "2024-01-16T19:17:54-05:00", "url": "https://micro.chrisvannoy.com/2024/01/16/anyway-new-folder.html" }, { "id": "http://chrisvannoy.micro.blog/2024/01/16/spending-the-evening.html", "content_html": "Spending the evening rummaging through my old personal projects to see if there’s anything interesting and salvageable in here.
\n\nSome folder names:
\n\nCan only vaguely remember what some of those are …
\n", "date_published": "2024-01-16T18:57:39-05:00", "url": "https://micro.chrisvannoy.com/2024/01/16/spending-the-evening.html" }, { "id": "http://chrisvannoy.micro.blog/2024/01/12/i-was-laid.html", "content_html": "I was laid off today, but before then I had written down as a goal for this year to build at least two non-day-job income streams.
\n\nThinking:
\n\nHave time now to make progress on some of these alongside job applications.
\n", "date_published": "2024-01-12T19:06:31-05:00", "url": "https://micro.chrisvannoy.com/2024/01/12/i-was-laid.html" }, { "id": "http://chrisvannoy.micro.blog/2024/01/01/a-parting-message.html", "content_html": "A parting message from the dwindling moments of 2023.
\n\nHappy New Year, folks! Let’s make it a good one with plenty of cheer.
\n\n\n", "date_published": "2024-01-01T00:08:55-05:00", "url": "https://micro.chrisvannoy.com/2024/01/01/a-parting-message.html" }, { "id": "http://chrisvannoy.micro.blog/2023/12/22/day-of-the.html", "content_html": "Day 12 of the 12 Days of Christmas Cookies, featuring my daughter’s favorites: Black and White Rolly Balls.
\n\nAnother family recipe that I might write up later - but these are dangerously good and might not last for the big man in a few days.
\n\nNow, a break before prepping cinnamon rolls on the Eve.
\n\n\n", "date_published": "2023-12-22T20:21:00-05:00", "url": "https://micro.chrisvannoy.com/2023/12/22/day-of-the.html" }, { "id": "http://chrisvannoy.micro.blog/2023/12/21/nearing-the-end.html", "content_html": "Nearing the end of my Twelve Days of Christmas Cookies - and still so many cookies I’d like to to make!
\n\nFor Day 11, I made shortbread in honor of a trip to Edinburgh I’m planning for next year.
\n\n\n\nSurprisingly addictive.
\n\n\n", "date_published": "2023-12-21T17:15:26-05:00", "url": "https://micro.chrisvannoy.com/2023/12/21/nearing-the-end.html" }, { "id": "http://chrisvannoy.micro.blog/2023/12/20/ive-baked-cookies.html", "content_html": "I’ve baked cookies for ten days in a row as part of what I’m calling The Twelve Days of Christmas Cookies.
\n\nTonight: Chocolate Peppermint Snaps from King Arthur again.
\n\nI think I made them bigger than the recipe expects - but I probably like them softer anyway.
\n\nAlso used white chocolate chips.
\n\n\n", "date_published": "2023-12-20T21:02:26-05:00", "url": "https://micro.chrisvannoy.com/2023/12/20/ive-baked-cookies.html" }, { "id": "http://chrisvannoy.micro.blog/2023/12/19/day-nine-of.html", "content_html": "Day Nine of my Twelve Day of Christmas Cookies!
\n\nGinger molasses cookies - another King Arthur Flour recipe, but a family favorite.
\n\nwww.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/s…
\n\nUsed a bit more flour and chilled the dough which made shaping way easier.
\n\n\n", "date_published": "2023-12-19T21:24:38-05:00", "url": "https://micro.chrisvannoy.com/2023/12/19/day-nine-of.html" }, { "id": "http://chrisvannoy.micro.blog/2023/12/18/twelve-days-of.html", "content_html": "Twelve Days of Christmas Cookies! Day Eight!
\n\nCocoa Kisses! From another family recipe, and a full batch baked this time as a) a favorite and b) close to time to deliver a batch of cookies to folks.
\n\nDusted the cookies instead rolling them in the sugar. I like how they look snow-covered.
\n\n\n", "date_published": "2023-12-18T17:15:10-05:00", "url": "https://micro.chrisvannoy.com/2023/12/18/twelve-days-of.html" }, { "id": "http://chrisvannoy.micro.blog/2023/12/18/recipe-cocoa-kisses.html", "title": "Recipe: Cocoa Kisses", "content_html": "\n\nAs part of this Twelve Days of Christmas Cookies shenanigans I’m undertaking, I occasionally slip in a family recipe.
\n\nIn this case, these chocolate cookies have a Hershey’s Kiss in the middle and were one my favorites growing up - though dangerous because they looked very similar to another cookie that had a cherry in the middle (yuck!).
\n\nThese require a bit more work than most of the cookies I’ve been making, but are still mighty tasty.
\n\nCream together the butter, sugar and vanilla.
\n\nMix together the flour and cocoa.
\n\nAdd to creamed butter.
\n\nSlowly mix in pecans.
\n\nLet the dough chill in the fridge for one hour or so.
\n\nScoop out ~a tablespoon of dough, flatten it out and wrap completely around a kiss candy.
\n\nShape into a ball and place on an ungreased cookie sheet. They don’t spread much, so you don’t need a lot of space between.
\n\nBake at 375 Fahrenheit for 10-12 minutes.
\n\nLet cool slightly and move to a wire rack. Let cool completely before rolling in or dusting with confectioners sugar.
\n\nTwelve Days of Christmas Cookies! Day Seven!
\n\nGingersnaps!
\n\nRecipe: www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/g…
\n\nHad this saved for a whilee but had never made it before - mostly because I don’t use shortening a lot.
\n\nThe batch for tonight I burned the bottom of a bit, but still tasty.
\n\n\n", "date_published": "2023-12-17T17:38:18-05:00", "url": "https://micro.chrisvannoy.com/2023/12/17/twelve-days-of.html" }, { "id": "http://chrisvannoy.micro.blog/2023/12/16/twelve-days-of.html", "content_html": "Twelve Days of Christmas Cookies!
\n\nDay Six!
\n\nMexican Wedding Cookies. This time, a family recipe.
\n\nNotes:
\n\nTastes like nostalgia!
\n\n\n", "date_published": "2023-12-16T13:17:06-05:00", "url": "https://micro.chrisvannoy.com/2023/12/16/twelve-days-of.html" }, { "id": "http://chrisvannoy.micro.blog/2023/12/16/recipe-mexican-wedding.html", "title": "Recipe: Mexican Wedding Cookies", "content_html": "\n\nAs part of The Twelve Days of Christmas Cookies thing I’m doing, I’m mixing in a few family recipes.
\n\nThis is our version of Mexican Wedding Cookies.
\n\nI always remembered them as being the one green cookie we made each year - though they don’t taste anything like green. It’s just food coloring after all.
\n\nIn doing a bit of research on the name, this is a style of cookies originally called Russian Tea Cakes, but the name changed (and splintered) in the post-WWII Cold War period.
\n\nPreheat oven to 325 Fahrenheit.
\n\nCream together the butter and sugar.
\n\nIf you’re new to cookie baking: “creaming” means beating the butter and sugar together until it gets kind of light and fluffy. A mixer of some sort makes easy work of it, but you can break out a wooden spoon and make it happen eventually.
\n\nAdd the vanilla and a bit of green food coloring.
\n\nMix in the flour and chopped nut meats.
\n\nRoll the dough into 1-inch balls (a cookie scoop really helps standardize things).
\n\nBake on a ungreased cookie sheet 18-20 minutes. They don’t spread much, so you only need an inch or so between them.
\n\nLet the cool for a few minutes before rolling in confectioners sugar while still warm.
\n\n\n", "date_published": "2023-12-16T13:12:35-05:00", "url": "https://micro.chrisvannoy.com/2023/12/16/recipe-mexican-wedding.html" }, { "id": "http://chrisvannoy.micro.blog/2023/12/15/twelve-days-of.html", "content_html": "Twelve Days of Christmas Cookies! Day Five!
\n\nPeanut butter cookies! Cross-hatched and everything!
\n\nDipping back into King Arthur for the recipe (because they’re solid, in grams, and haven’t let me down): www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/c…
\n\nPeanut buttery!
\n\n\n", "date_published": "2023-12-15T22:09:57-05:00", "url": "https://micro.chrisvannoy.com/2023/12/15/twelve-days-of.html" }, { "id": "http://chrisvannoy.micro.blog/2023/12/14/day-twelve-days.html", "content_html": "Day 4! Twelve Days of Christmas Cookies!
\n\nToday, I broke out the disher and made some chocolate cookies, again with a King Arthur recipe (I find theirs to be pretty straightforward and good).
\n\nwww.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/c…
\n\nMissing espresso powder, but still tasty!
\n\n\n", "date_published": "2023-12-14T20:15:23-05:00", "url": "https://micro.chrisvannoy.com/2023/12/14/day-twelve-days.html" }, { "id": "http://chrisvannoy.micro.blog/2023/12/13/twelve-days-of.html", "content_html": "Twelve days of Christmas cookies, Day 3!
\n\nGood ol’ chocolate chip. Trying this recipe from King Arthur Flour: www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/c…
\n\nDidn’t have enough corn syrup, so I swapped in molasses for the remainder.
\n\nWorked!
\n\n\n", "date_published": "2023-12-13T20:22:29-05:00", "url": "https://micro.chrisvannoy.com/2023/12/13/twelve-days-of.html" }, { "id": "http://chrisvannoy.micro.blog/2023/12/12/twelve-days-of.html", "content_html": "Twelve days of Christmas cookies, Day 2.
\n\nSugar cookies courtesy of Serious Eats: www.seriouseats.com/soft-and-…
\n\nThree baked for tonight, the rest headed into the freezer for baking later in the month.
\n\nNotes: Not bad. Could probably cook a little shorter.
\n\n\n", "date_published": "2023-12-12T20:46:16-05:00", "url": "https://micro.chrisvannoy.com/2023/12/12/twelve-days-of.html" }, { "id": "http://chrisvannoy.micro.blog/2023/12/11/twelve-days-of.html", "content_html": "Twelve Days of Christmas Cookies. Day one.
\n\nEggnog Snickerdoodles. Recipe from NYT Cooking. Couldn’t find run extract anywhere, so went with actual rum (Smith and Cross).
\n\nReally tasty.
\n\ncooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1…
\n\n\n", "date_published": "2023-12-11T22:24:40-05:00", "url": "https://micro.chrisvannoy.com/2023/12/11/twelve-days-of.html" }, { "id": "http://chrisvannoy.micro.blog/2023/11/24/settling-in-for.html", "content_html": "Settling in for my 35th stadium and school in my quest to see a game at every FBS football program. Today it’s Missouri at Arkansas for the totally-not-made-up Battle Line Rivalry. 🏈
\n\n\n", "date_published": "2023-11-24T15:46:55-05:00", "url": "https://micro.chrisvannoy.com/2023/11/24/settling-in-for.html" }, { "id": "http://chrisvannoy.micro.blog/2023/11/06/today-was-a.html", "content_html": "Today was a good reminder at how effective exercise is at improving my mood.
\n\nI’ve been a bit in the dumps lately (nothing specific, just ennui/malaise), but the moment I finished my first set of deadlift today it was like it all melted away.
\n\nLooking forward to getting in a run tomorrow, too.
\n", "date_published": "2023-11-06T18:45:38-05:00", "url": "https://micro.chrisvannoy.com/2023/11/06/today-was-a.html" }, { "id": "http://chrisvannoy.micro.blog/2023/10/28/i-suspect-i.html", "content_html": "I suspect I might be more of a Cal person than a Stanford person after seeing games at both back to back today.
\n\nStanford is just so, and park-like. And maybe a quarter full. It’s objectively great in amenities and symmetry and fit and finish, but it lacks soul.
\n\nExcept the band. The band is great.
\n", "date_published": "2023-10-28T20:48:14-05:00", "url": "https://micro.chrisvannoy.com/2023/10/28/i-suspect-i.html" }, { "id": "http://chrisvannoy.micro.blog/2023/10/28/i-missed-a.html", "content_html": "I missed a whale of a game when I had to leave stop one for the day (sorry Cal). But howdy from a 7-7 game in the second quarter at stop two: Washington at Stanford. This is the 34th stop in my quest to see a game at every FBS college.
\n\n\n", "date_published": "2023-10-28T19:15:31-05:00", "url": "https://micro.chrisvannoy.com/2023/10/28/i-missed-a.html" } ] }