Last week I wrote about my inability to put together a piece of IKEA furniture. Turns out that, based on the post, many readers had strong opinions about my intelligence (or lack thereof.) According to exactly 38 emails, I am about as “skillful as a surgeon with the tremors. “  (And that was one of the nicer of the comments [...]

V. Czechut writes: “I am wondering if you can clarify a point you made in today’s email.  {Note from Amy: she’s referring to this blog post which she gets via email, not RSS.}  You said that ‘most folks can’t look at data objectively.’ What does that mean?  I ask because we just spent $80K+ with a web analytics consultant who [...]

{Note from Amy: This is an important post If you don’t want to read the story, skip down to the end and ask yourself the questions. Hopefully, they’ll make you think about your e-commerce site or your blog in a different way.} *** Last night, I was at my favorite gym in LA. Unlike the chi-chi-la-la meat market I wrote [...]

Yesterday, as I was barreling through the drugstore, a woman blocked me in the vitamins/supplements aisle.   “How many of these do I need to take a day?” she yapped.  “I didn’t bring my glasses and the print is too small.”   I looked at the bottle.   The print may indeed have been too small on the back of [...]

Trisha Lynde says “I attended one of your webinars last week. At the end, someone asked what you thought was THE most important thing for traditional direct marketers to do (we’re a privately held business that sells primarily through the mail — catalogs, flyers, postcards, and the like.)  Before you could answer, I got disconnected and was unable to reconnect.  WHAT WAS THE ANSWER?  [...]

So, about a month ago, I got bitch-slapped. Literally. Yes, I know, for some of you that was the best thing you heard all day monthyear. To make a long story short, I was in the airport. There were two soldiers (in uniform) in front of me and a very smelly (read: hadn’t showered in weeks,months, years) woman in back of me. As [...]

Despite the fact that he’s a lawyer (in Beverly Hills, no less), my friend, Brian, is one of the most incredible men I have ever met in my life. Brian is rocket-scientist sharp; well-read, well informed and well-versed; heartbreakingly sweet; a loving, single parent to two energetic young boys; easy to talk to and easy to be with in general; [...]

Elizabeth Smythe says: “What is an absolute? You said we’re supposed to use them but how can I if I don’t even know what they are or where to find mine?” Oh Elizabeth, there are so many snarky replies I’d like to give you but alas, this is a serious subject that deserves a serious answer. Here’s the thing…. Users [...]

I am looking for a house in the Seattle area… Actually, that’s a lie. “Looking” would imply that I’m actively doing something and the truth is that I am hoping that the perfect house will just fall from the sky. (No Wicked Witch analogies please. I said Washington, not Kansas.) A couple weeks ago, I was coming back from a [...]

I recently saw you speak at a seminar and you made a comment about measuring DTS. What is it? I asked around and nobody here seems to know. We use Omniture. Good question.   It seems that very few people measure DTS and it is, by far, one of the most helpful metrics you’ll find. DTS is the number of Days [...]