The Way of the Chimp
The first struggle I had was to chose only one thing to learn. I, like Haufman have that “Renaissance man temperament.” Call it what you like, I have one. You know, “the dream list,” “the wish list,” “the what-would-you-do-with-a-million-dollars list” or “the bucket list.” So many things to do with so little time to accomplish it all. I want to learn how to sky dive, start a business, earn a doctorate degree, give better massages, (my wife likes this one the best), play the Ukulele, the guitar, the piano, learn how to speed read, fly a plane, scuba dive and the list just keeps going on and on. But I only need one thing to do this week and though I really was leaning toward the Ukulele and my wife was routing for massages, I chose the boring yet practical option of creating online newsletters campaigns through Mail Chimp.
Yeah, I know boring, but as a full-time missionary this has been a skill that I have been wanting to acquire and master for some time but never “found the time.” Something of the urgent always eclipsing the importance. With a forced “you will engage in rapid skill acquisition” place upon us this week I chose the most practical, I chose to learn the way of the Chimp. I told my wife there will be plenty of opportunities for me to continue my massage skills. 😉
Mail Chimp is an email marketing service provider, founded in 2001.[3] It has 3.5 million users that collectively send over 4 billion emails a month through the service.[4] So this week, with everything else on my plate, I made the attempt to finally learn how to master this very useful skill. I approached it with the ten principles of effective learning provided by Haufman.[1] The principle of jumping in over my head was an easy thing to do. As Haufman said, “noticing you’re confused is valuable. Recognizing confusion can help you define exactly what you’re confused about, with helps you figure out what your need to research or do next to resolve that confusion.”[2] This style of learning reminded me of what I teach in my CQ seminars entitled “How we learn.”
Notice the first level is Unconsciously Incompetent – “I don’t know what I don’t know.” This is the level where you are totally ignorant of all things dealing with, well, in my case, ignorant of the way of Chimp. Then I moved up to the Consciously Incompetent level – “I know what I don’t know.” This is the place of being in over my head. I have been exposed to new terminology that made me well aware that I was now consciously incompetent. Terms like CSV file, TXT files, segmenting features, campaigns, mergetags, autoresponder, template, analytics tracking and social sharing. I recognize some of the words but not in the new context of the way of the Chimp.
I began by importing my address list which turned out to be more than I expected. The Chimp does not except direct downloads from a Mac address box. Solution? Download another application that converts my list to an acceptable form for the Chimp to digest. On and on the struggle went. Back and forth I wrestled with the Chimp. Dodging bananas thrown at me. Fencing off failure. Breaking down barriers. From the list, to the design, to the test, to the formatting, to setting up the final campaign, the battle waged on until at last I prevailed. Victory was mine and I had learned the way of the Chimp! Newsletters from this International Missions Mobilizer would now be sent to my address list of 425 in a new slick looking format with hypertext links, pictures, banners, and all with analytics tracking. I have learned the way of the Chimp.
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