Six months ago I created an e-mail course for teams that are using Agile, Scrum, Lean, and Kanban. I called it the "Agile Tune-Up Kit" (shameless plug: http://bit.ly/15sz0Pl)
Man that was/is a freaking lot of work. Over 30 mini-classes so far. People get one each week. When people sign-up, I ask them for comments, and I hand-reply back to why they're there. When people unsub from the list, I apologize and ask what I could have done better.
I am learning this lesson, but very slowly. Whenever somebody unsubs from the list, I always look at what the last email they got was. Can I make it better? Am I writing the series too long/too short/wrong reading level/to the wrong audience? It's enough to drive you nuts.
But it's been a great lesson, because with any email list, you're naturally going to lose people. It actually doesn't have to have anything to do with what you're creating. Maybe they don't have time to read it any more, or their job changed, or they just clicked on the spam button on Gmail because they had too much stuff in their inbox. Yes, it might be something I can control. Or it might not. All I can do is do the best job I can, ask for feedback, and move on.
Every second and every bit of emotional energy I spend worrying about what I can't control is taking away from the things I can control. Creating things and interacting with people ain't like programming. Things aren't boolean, there are tons of hidden variables, and "debugging" doesn't work the way it does in code. Tough thing to learn.
Man that was/is a freaking lot of work. Over 30 mini-classes so far. People get one each week. When people sign-up, I ask them for comments, and I hand-reply back to why they're there. When people unsub from the list, I apologize and ask what I could have done better.
I am learning this lesson, but very slowly. Whenever somebody unsubs from the list, I always look at what the last email they got was. Can I make it better? Am I writing the series too long/too short/wrong reading level/to the wrong audience? It's enough to drive you nuts.
But it's been a great lesson, because with any email list, you're naturally going to lose people. It actually doesn't have to have anything to do with what you're creating. Maybe they don't have time to read it any more, or their job changed, or they just clicked on the spam button on Gmail because they had too much stuff in their inbox. Yes, it might be something I can control. Or it might not. All I can do is do the best job I can, ask for feedback, and move on.
Every second and every bit of emotional energy I spend worrying about what I can't control is taking away from the things I can control. Creating things and interacting with people ain't like programming. Things aren't boolean, there are tons of hidden variables, and "debugging" doesn't work the way it does in code. Tough thing to learn.