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One of the first hires we made at Buffer was for our customer support team, and that was intentional. We've always wanted every person who reaches out to feel genuinely valued and heard, striving to set the bar for exceptional customer support. That commitment to excellence in customer support hasn't changed in the nearly 15 years we've been in business. Over the years, we've built a team where everyone takes ownership of the customer experience and actively seeks new ways to deliver stand-out experiences. Buffer’s customer support team includes 18 talented teammates from seven countries, and the average tenure for our team is nine years. Through thoughtful planning with our four-day work week, we maintain 24/7 coverage for our customers, and this balance reflects our commitment to both our team and our customers. ➡️We’re currently hiring for a new Customer Advocate to join our team. Learn more and apply here Read on to learn more about how we approach customer support and how we work together. Customer advocacy metrics on buffer.com/metricsOur approach to customer support: The Hospitality Mindset“We believe in the remarkable power of giving people more than they expect.” -Will Guidara A key piece of Buffer’s Customer Advocacy team is our hospitality mindset. We adopted this mindset to level up the support experience and to provide clarity to our why, how, and what. A hospitality approach in customer support means that we strive to create standout, above-and-beyond, and personal experiences in every customer conversation. While many of our support conversations stem from customer friction or frustration, we believe we can still deliver an encounter that leaves a lasting impression. Our goal is to be the company that we would want to go to for customer support if we needed something. To keep this approach top of mind, we start by being curious and intentional in every customer conversation. This mindset also means that we look for ways to personalise and connect during each interaction. We’re working toward having fewer conversations about user friction and bugs by prioritizing product quality even more than usual right now. Our goal is to one day have more conversations with customers who reach out because they want to connect with us, whether to learn how to get the most out of Buffer, explore social media strategies, or share their successes and challenges. We always love solving problems for our customers, but the connections are what make our work meaningful. We draw a lot of inspiration from The Frictionless Organization, a book written by Bill Price and David Jaffe. 💙Read more about our hospitality mindsetOur guiding principles For each customer interaction we have with customers, we also have three guiding principles: Awareness (I understand and see you): Taking the time to really see the customer enables us to look between the lines for areas of frustration, opportunities to empower customers further, or doorways to build a deeper relationship.Clarity (I want to make sure you understand me): Our communication is our only medium to show our personality and ensure our customer is looked after. We provide the clearest path toward a resolution possible, focusing on how we can make it simple for customers to get to an answer.Empowerment (I can help you): We aim to be experts, not only as customer service professionals but also as experts at our product and how customers can successfully use it. We go above and beyond to find information for customers, and we're neither afraid to ask for help nor lean on each other to provide an above-and-beyond experience.Buffer's Customer Advocacy team on our 2025 team retreatWhat it’s like to work on Buffer’s Customer Advocacy team Each company approaches customer support differently; here’s what we do at Buffer. A team built on trust, ownership, and flexibilityWhat makes our culture truly special is the foundation of high trust, high ownership, and flexibility. Our team feels a high level of ownership of the customer experience at Buffer and have a deep understanding of their own impact as a support team member. We trust our teammates to create meaningful connections with every person they interact with. Most importantly, we trust each other to follow our instincts and make decisions that put our customers first. While we have a comprehensive internal FAQ and Wiki, we encourage our team to do what’s right for the customer. This model means everyone has significant autonomy in how they manage their work and relationships with customers. This level of ownership over the customer experience is rare and transformative. We recognize that ownership and decision-making skills come easier with experience, and that's not something we take for granted. We work closely as a team to support each other with questions, gut checks, and "second pair of eyes." This happens across Slack, Zoom calls, and even in notes in HelpScout. As team members build up a deeper understanding of our product, our customers, and our culture, their confidence and independence naturally grow. When someone is newer on the team, they tend to ask for more advice, which we welcome and encourage. Rather than having rigid processes in place, we lean heavily into trusting our team and the collaborative support approach we have in place. This foundation of trust we place in each other comes through in the service that we provide. It’s a joy to do the right thing by customers and that is something that I genuinely believe folks notice. How we operate without complex hierarchies Our team operates without escalation processes or complex hierarchies. We work alongside each other in the Advocacy team and with other teams to deliver the best possible experience. By increasing communication and collaboration, we believe we can improve both the support and product experience. We aim to be exceptional We have three pillars that are the foundation of how we work and the experience we want to deliver: Exceptionally FastExceptionally PersonalExceptionally InformedThese pillars guide our work as a team and help us with goal setting, both as a team and as individuals. Working remotely and creating a collaborative cultureOur team spans multiple time zones, and this has created something quite special: we've learned that distance doesn't have to mean disconnection. We've built systems for seamless collaboration that feel more like having teammates right next to you than working across continents. An ‘open office’ approach Slack serves as our virtual office, but it's far more than just a messaging platform. It's where team members pop in to say, "Has anyone else seen this come up?" or "I'm working on this tricky conversation — any thoughts?" Think of it as that open office environment where you can tap someone on the shoulder or call out a question to the room, knowing someone will be there to help. We're intentional about chatting transparently and openly about any conversations or support issues we're struggling to solve. There's something powerful about this vulnerability — when someone admits they're stuck or unsure, it creates space for the entire team to learn together. We've found that the conversations we struggle with individually often become the ones that teach us the most collectively. Open communication isn't just how we solve problems; it's how we all get better at what we do. Team members know they can reach out for help the moment they hit a roadblock, and there's never any judgment — just genuine eagerness to figure it out together. Whether someone needs help understanding a technical issue or wants to brainstorm the best way to respond to a frustrated customer, team support is always there. Collaborating closely across Buffer Collaboration is at the heart of everything we do. Rather than working in silos, we partner closely with teams across Buffer to identify friction points, enhance the customer experience, and deliver exceptional support. This cross-functional approach fuels continuous growth, both individually and collectively, which directly translates into better experiences for the people we serve. Our team regularly collaborates with Product, Engineering, Design, and other departments, ensuring customer insights flow naturally through every decision we make. This connection helps the entire company stay grounded in real customer needs. 📆Read about how we serve our customers while working four days a weekA few members of our Customer Advocacy team at our 2025 team retreatHow our Customer Advocates grow at Buffer We believe that customer support is both vital to our business and a fulfilling career choice for team members who genuinely care about helping folks and love solving problems. In our Customer Advocacy team, everyone interacts with customers regardless of their level or role. We focus on creating delightful customer experiences, both by supporting the successful adoption of our product and by digging into bugs and UX issues that need attention. As the team that connects most with our customers, we have an immense impact on our business. We've built our team around the idea that customer support professionals can both grow and specialize within this area. All team members need a broad foundation in our customer support fundamentals, but from there, they can choose their own growth path. Some remain generalists who excel across many areas, while others develop deep expertise in specialisations like AI, our Help Center, customer education, billing, technical troubleshooting, product development, and internal documentation. Within our team, individual contributors (meaning teammates who aren’t managers) have a career framework to provide clarity of what growth looks like to support furthering their careers and developing their skills. It is important for us that there are growth opportunities beyond the traditional management track. The framework shouldn't limit anyone to one path—we lean into self-led growth where each team member works with their manager to outline what personal growth looks like for them. The goal is to have clarity about where you may belong while encouraging everyone to find their own role and growth trajectory. 🌱For more on growth at Buffer, read How Individuals Advance at Buffer, Without Becoming ManagersThere's a genuine pride that comes with being part of Buffer's support team. Customer experience isn't just a department; it's a company-wide priority that everyone values. When you know your work directly impacts people's success and that your company truly invests in support excellence, it creates a sense of purpose that's hard to find elsewhere. View the full article

Did you know you can customize Google to filter out garbage? Take these steps for better search results, including adding my work at Lifehacker as a preferred source. I usually focus on something a subset of the population gets wrong, so the rest of us can feel smart, but this week, I’m going bigger and broader, and describing something that you, me, and everyone we have ever met has been wrong about in the past, is currently wrong about, and will be wrong about in the future: mistaking correlation for causation. People have been repeating some variation of "correlation is not causation" since at least 1739, when David Hume articulated the concept in A Treatise on Human Nature. To paraphrase Hume: Just because two things happen at the same time doesn’t mean one is causing the other. Every smart person already already knows this, and it's repeated constantly, but we all still get it wrong. Here are some examples: The last 20 years of research on "gut biomes" could be wrong, partly as a result of both scientists and the media mistaking correlation and causation. (I've always had a gut feeling—get it?—this research was suspect.) For years people believed that drinking alcohol in moderation is good for your health. But it isn't. It's correlated with better health in some populations, but it doesn't cause better health. Defenders of mistaken beliefs derived from the correlation/causation fallacy will often compile volumes of data that shows a nearly exact correlations between, say, higher rates of autism and higher rates of vaccination, which makes it totally understandable to believe one causes the other. But there's no evidence that vaccines cause autism, and the correlation is probably because children received vaccines around the age autism is generally diagnosed, and we've gotten better at both vaccinating children and diagnosing autism. But "probably" is doing some lifting in that sentence. While no causal link between vaccines and autism has ever been demonstrated, there could be any number of reasons the rates line up. Classic debunking examples of correlation and causation, like the link between ice cream sales and shark attacks, tend to offer a pat explanation for the causal link—it only seems like ice cream causes shark attacks because both ice cream sales and swimming in the ocean rise when the weather is warmer—but even that is potentially mistaking correlation for causation. It makes sense, but we don’t actually know why those two numbers line up. And sometimes there just isn't any reason for connection between two pieces of disparate information. Check out the chart below. It's proof that the ratings of Two and Half Men directly correlates with the amount of jet fuel used in Serbia. Credit: www.tylervigen.com Or check out the exact connection between people googling "my cat just scratched me" and U.S. fruit consumption. Credit: https://www.tylervigen.com I made the second example on Tyler Vigen's Spurious Correlations, with a tool that will lets you make random connections all day. Not only that, the site uses AI to generate bogus "research papers" to explain the connection. In the case of the cats, ChatGPT offers this as a possible explanation: "Health-conscious households (those that track diet, buy fruit, etc.) are more likely to treat even minor injuries cautiously. A person who eats more fruit is not more likely to be scratched, but they are more likely to Google 'my cat scratched me' to check for infection risks or treatment steps." Even though I know it's bullshit, it still tracks. That's why we can never really stop being wrong in this specific way. Our brains want to believe. A neatly phrased explanation, a tidy chart, a plausible-sounding theory—it's so satisfying. A simple "we don't know" can't hold a candle to that certainty. Mistaking correlation for causation makes us go on fad diets and believe we're being healthy by drinking wine at dinner. It shapes health advice, public policy, and personal decisions in ways that can actually hurt people. The best we can do is try to be aware of it—when we read a headline that says "X causes Y," to assume this is a "cat scratches cause fruit consumption" situation until there's evidence that it isn't. View the full article

At Think Productive, we believe productivity isn’t about squeezing more into the day. It’s about working with clarity, focus, and intention. One of the most practical tools we use in our productivity workshops is the 4 Modes of Work model, a framework that helps individuals and teams match the right type of work to the right environment. Why Teams Need the 4 Modes of Work Modern organisations often default to one mode: meetings. Whether virtual or in-person, too much of our collective energy is consumed by unnecessary group discussions. The result? Burnout, meeting fatigue, and reduced productivity. The 4 Modes of Work framework gives hybrid teams and managers a practical way to design smarter collaboration. By naming and planning for each mode, organisations can reclaim focus, reduce distractions, and boost employee engagement. The 4 Modes of Work Explained 1. Solo Work Deep, focused work done alone. Examples: strategy writing, creative thinking, or preparing a presentation. Solo mode requires uninterrupted time and space, essential for knowledge workers who need to think clearly. 2. Tandem Work Two people working together in real time on the same task. Common in coaching, co-drafting, or pair problem-solving. For hybrid teams, Tandem mode reduces email chains and accelerates decision-making. 3. Tag Team Work Asynchronous handovers between people. You finish your part, then pass it to someone else. Ideal for distributed teams working across time zones or when deep reflection is needed before progressing. 4. Collaborative Work Multiple people together in real time, sharing ideas, making decisions, or aligning on actions. Collaborative mode should be used with intention, not as the default. Shorter, focused meetings deliver the best results. The Cost of Ignoring Work Modes When organisations don’t distinguish between these modes, inefficiency rises: Solo time disappears into a blur of notifications. Tag Team opportunities get replaced by unnecessary meetings. Tandem sessions are avoided in favour of endless email threads. The outcome? Slower projects, increased stress, and disengaged teams. How to Apply the 4 Modes of Work Look at your calendar for the week ahead and ask: Do I have enough Solo time protected for deep work? Could this long meeting be replaced with a Tag Team handover? Would 30 minutes of Tandem collaboration speed things up more than days of back-and-forth? By shifting just a few activities into their correct mode, teams immediately see improvements in productivity, engagement, and wellbeing. Why HR Leaders and Managers Should Care For HR professionals, people managers, and hybrid team leaders, the 4 Modes of Work model offers: A shared language for managing workload and expectations. A tool to prevent burnout and boost retention. A framework to design hybrid work cultures that balance focus and collaboration. Bringing the 4 Modes to Life At Think Productive, we integrate the 4 Modes of Work into our Leading Hybrid Teams workshop. Again and again, managers tell us it’s the missing piece: a simple, evidence-based model that makes hybrid working more effective. Want to help your team thrive in hybrid work? Explore our Leading Hybrid Teams workshop. The post The 4 Modes of Work: A Smarter Way to Design Your Day appeared first on Think Productive UK. View the full article

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Did you know you can customize Google to filter out garbage? Take these steps for better search results, including adding Lifehacker as a preferred source for tech news. The second-generation Arlo Video Doorbell is currently down to $59.99 on Amazon, a big drop from its usual $129.99 price and the lowest it’s ever been, according to price trackers. Arlo Video Doorbell 2nd Generation $59.99 at Amazon $129.99 Save $70.00 Get Deal Get Deal $59.99 at Amazon $129.99 Save $70.00 PCMag named it the best video doorbell of 2024, which says a lot considering how crowded the smart doorbell space has become. This is a wireless doorbell with a built-in camera that gives you a sharp 2K head-to-toe view of your doorstep. You can either hardwire it into your existing doorbell wiring for trickle charging or just stick with the built-in battery, which lasts up to four months before you need to recharge with the included USB-C cable. The housing is weather-resistant, so it’s fine outdoors, and the design is simple: white casing, glossy black face, backlit button, and a speaker tucked underneath. Day to day, it works a little differently than most. When someone presses the button, your phone actually rings like a call. Pick it up, and you’re instantly looking at whomever’s outside with options to talk back or play a quick pre-recorded message. The 180-degree lens is wide enough that you don’t just see floating heads but the full head-to-toe view, and motion detection makes sure it’s recording when someone shows up, even if they don’t press the button. Video looks sharp in the daytime, and while there’s no color night vision, the black-and-white feed still holds detail out to a decent distance, notes this PCMag review. Audio is clear enough for quick back-and-forth conversations, and there’s a built-in siren you can trigger from the app if you want to deter unwanted visitors. While live video is free, you’ll need an Arlo Secure subscription to unlock recorded event storage and smart alerts. At $7.99 a month for one camera, you get 60 days of video history, object detection for people, packages, and vehicles, plus animated alerts that help you see what triggered the notification without opening the app. Compatibility is solid with Alexa, Google Home, SmartThings, and IFTTT, though Apple HomeKit is missing. Our Best Editor-Vetted Tech Deals Right Now Apple AirPods Pro 2 Noise Cancelling Wireless Earbuds — $199.00 (List Price $249.00) Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge 256GB Unlocked AI Phone (Titanium JetBlack) — $699.99 (List Price $1,099.99) Apple iPad 11" 128GB A16 WiFi Tablet (Blue, 2025) — $299.00 (List Price $349.00) Roku Streaming Stick Plus — $29.00 (List Price $39.99) Deals are selected by our commerce team View the full article

AI visibility is how discoverable your brand is and how often your content gets referenced across AI platforms like ChatGPT, Claude, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode, and Perplexity. For example, here I’m using Ahrefs’ Brand Radar to analyze Tesla’s…Read more ›View the full article

Efficiency, process-first thinking, & rejecting tradition help build her "life-first" firm. Big 4 Transparency By Dominic Piscopo, CPA For CPA Trendlines Go PRO for members-only access to more Dominic Piscopo. View the full article

Efficiency, process-first thinking, & rejecting tradition help build her "life-first" firm. Big 4 Transparency By Dominic Piscopo, CPA For CPA Trendlines Go PRO for members-only access to more Dominic Piscopo. View the full article

I love finding new ways to use apps to make my life easier, but sometimes, I find that I'm using so much tech in my real life that I get a little bogged down. That's been true with my workouts and health for a while: I weigh myself in the morning on a smart scale, which distributes the data to a nutrition app, Apple Health, and Peloton. I go to the gym and use my Apple Watch's Workouts feature to track my cardio, then open up Strong to track my lifting. At home, I use Peloton to track my cycling workouts, stretching, yoga, and much more. It all gets to be a little much! That's why I was pumped when I found an overlooked feature on my Peloton app recently: I can track my non-Peloton workouts with it, meaning I don't have to fiddle as much with some of my other apps. I can keep more of what I'm doing in one place, easy to reference, and streamlined. How to track independent workouts with PelotonWhen you open your Peloton app, you'll see a bottom menu with five options: Home, Classes, Track, Community, and You. Most of these are pretty obvious and I'm guessing that the majority of the time, you're hitting Classes to follow along with one of the thousands of guided workouts the app offers for up to $44 per month. But a few weeks ago, I decided to hit Track just to see what it was all about. Credit: Lindsey Ellefson/Peloton Tapping Track brings up a screen that says Track an activity. You have options and those will depend on what types of classes or workouts you use the app for most often. For me at this very moment, the app suggests Outdoor Walking, Cycling, and Strength, but you can hit More options to see a whole slate of choices that include running, yoga, cardio, meditation, and more. When you select one of these, they'll be filed as "Just" classes in your Peloton history, like Just Ride or Just Walk. If that reminds you of the Apple Watch's built-in Workouts app, that's because it's basically the same thing. If you select one of those choices on Peloton, a screen pops up with a timer, start and pause buttons, a prompt to share your location "for accurate metrics," a calorie counter, and a heart rate tracker. Basically, the same stuff the Workouts app monitors, too. This is most useful if you've paired a heart rate tracker or wearable to your Peloton app, which is something I think everyone should do, since that will help the app better estimate your calorie burn and heart rate. Why I love thisFirst and foremost, I like to keep data in one place. I ride my Peloton bike frequently, for instance, but I also teach in-person spin classes, and I want to know how those two instances of cycling match up in terms of output, not only for my fitness goals, but for my continued success and employment as a teacher. Tracking my in-person classes with the Peloton app makes these two categories of cardio much easier to compare. Plus, I get better data this way. I tracked a lift the other day using the Peloton app, trusting it to monitor my heart rate and effort. I got a detailed graphic showing my heart rate over the two-hour span of my workout, a "strive score" (a Peloton-specific metric that measures your output), and a breakdown of how long I spent in each heart rate zone. You get different kinds of data depending on what you do, too. If you do a Just Walk, for instance, you get a little map of your route and can even see what your pace and elevation were at every point along it. Moreover, the strength workout was automatically added to my Workouts and Apple Health data, helping me satisfy the (admittedly arbitrary) goals I set within those apps for daily active minutes and daily burned calories. Credit: Lindsey Ellefson/Peloton That leads to another reason I like this setup: I use apps not just because it's important to track what I'm doing and monitor my progress, but because they force me into some accountability. As I mentioned, I try to meet my pre-set Apple Health goals every day by "closing my rings," but I also am dedicated to continuing my Peloton "streak" of active days. Do these things really matter? No, but doing them motivates me—and the threat of failing to do them on a given day forces me to action when I might otherwise choose to remain sedentary. View the full article

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go… 1. I want to opt out of my company’s “wellness” messages My company regularly pushes out “wellness” content to all employees — things like tips on diet, exercise, mental health, and mindfulness. The problem is that we don’t have the option to opt out, and I personally find a lot of the content intrusive or irrelevant. For example, I’ve received messages about topics that touch on sensitive health issues I’d rather not have my employer involved in. I don’t want to seem ungrateful or negative since I know the intention is to promote wellness, but I really dislike having this material pushed on me without a choice. I’ve tried ignoring it, but they send it out via email and instant message daily. Sometimes multiple times a day! I already provided feedback about this in an anonymous survey but there hasn’t been any change. Is there a professional way to directly ask my company to make this content optional? You could say, “Would you consider sending these through an email list that people could choose to opt out of, since some of these topics are sensitive ones?” You could also point out that people with a history of disordered eating are commonly advised to avoid diet advice and shouldn’t have it pushed on them by an employer (although that’s far from the only reason this is problematic). If that doesn’t work, you could ask that they all have a subject line that would allow you easily filter them. Or, if they already do, you could just go ahead and do that — but it’s valuable for them to hear people don’t like this. Also, you don’t need to be “grateful” that they want to promote wellness. They’re your employer, not your doctor, and you didn’t ask them to take this on … and if they really want to promote wellness, they could do things far more likely to have an impact and which are more solidly in their purview, like beefing up your health insurance and giving you more time off. Related: 8 ways to promote employee wellness that would actually work 2. Copywriter is using AI to produce bad work I work for a communications firm that produces a large amount of copy for our clients — social media, email campaigns, company blogs, brochures/fliers, white papers, billboards, print marketing, you name it. I’m a mid-level manager leading our copywriter team, though I don’t have hiring/firing power or much ability to set policy (I know). Ten years ago, I’d have to be on the lookout for clients sending content from their competitors, wanting to use it as the basis for their own marketing strategy. Obviously, I had to steer them away from direct plagiarism. Now, it’s AI. Clients are sending AI-generated text over without disclosure, expecting that we’ll use it wholesale in their campaigns. My direct supervisor is also a big fan of AI generation (to the point where she uses it even when it seems like it would have been easier to just write the email herself). And I learned recently that one of my direct reports is a big fan of AI — I recently ran some of his past assignments through an AI checker, and one from this year came up as 70% AI-generated, while one from 2020 came up as only 7%. He never disclosed to me that he was using AI on his assignments. I’m having a hard time sussing out the balance between my own gut reaction that this is bad for job security and for the future of the field as a whole and the reality that I can’t lay down a ban on the technology. For one, my AI-friendly team member has a longer and more casual relationship with my supervisor than I do, and there’s my aforementioned inability to set policy. I don’t want to come across as a luddite, and ethical arguments over stolen art aren’t going to go anywhere in this group (though they do move me!). But I do want to maintain some amount of credibility as a firm that creates high-quality content for our clients. And I know I’m not the only one who looks at AI-generated text and thinks “…ew.” Suggestions for how to navigate a team conversation about how to appropriately use AI tools, how to react to clients who submit AI-generated briefs, and how to minimize the amount of AI-generated copy my firm puts out? If the 70% AI-generated texts are just the norm for business now (sigh), then that means I can start filling out my report’s workload with additional tasks, right, since he’s not spending as much time drafting and polishing his assignments? In your context, your best bet is to skip the AI concerns completely and focus on the quality of the work — because it sounds like that’s the biggest problem, as well as the one that you’re best positioned to get tracking on. Handle the work that’s turned in exactly the same way you would have before AI was in use — meaning, presumably, that you’d flag the specific problems, ask for it to be redone, and generally coach team members to produce higher-quality work. If clients are suggesting text that you don’t think should be used, handle that the same way you would pre-AI. That approach will probably make your last question (about sending more work to your employee) moot, but start there. 3. Am I hurting my career by setting boundaries on my hours and workload? I’m a marketing designer at a tech company. My boss works nights, weekends, and even vacations. I keep normal hours because I value a life outside of work, but I still do high-quality work, meet deadlines, and get strong feedback from peers and other leaders. For years I’ve asked what it would take to be promoted to senior. Each time I meet their criteria, the goalposts move — most recently I was told I’d need to double my output, and they sometimes compare me to contractors who don’t have the same workload. Instead of coaching in real time, my boss critiques me after the fact for not knowing things I couldn’t have anticipated. As much as I’m grateful for all of my growth, sometimes it feels like I’ve grown in spite of their managing, instead of because of it. My self-esteem has taken a big hit and I’m working on strengthening it. I just got a therapist, hooray! Now I’ve been given two paths forward: be micromanaged into mimicking my boss’s style while doing twice as much work, or take a “self-guided” track at my own pace (which I chose). I can’t justify doubling my workload with no guarantee of more than a minimal raise. I told them I’d keep their feedback in mind as we go into the next quarter, while continuing to do dependable, strategic, high quality work. Am I hurting my career by keeping boundaries around work, or is it unfair that I’m treated as if that makes me less deserving? You might be hurting your career at this particular company by maintaining reasonable boundaries, but that doesn’t mean you’re choosing the wrong thing or that they’re right. But they’ve made it clear that they’re not going to promote you and will just keep moving the goalposts, so why not look elsewhere? You said you’ve been here for years now and they sound kind of horrible. You don’t need to stay! 4. What’s the benefit to my employer keeping me as an independent contractor? I know from reading your blog that I am almost certainly miscategorized as an independent contractor when I should be an employee. I’ve worked for my company for coming up on five years, and while there have been changes in the arrangement, even when I worked 40 hours a week as my sole source of income I have been treated, tax-wise, as a contractor. I have raised before being interested in being an employee, but it’s pretty clear that they have no interest in changing the arrangement whatsoever— telling me that it’s actually better for me to be a contractor because then I can “set my own schedule,” “be my own boss,” and “get work outside the company.” While the flexibility has been really nice, and is the main thing keeping me here, I don’t want to do additional work when I’m working full-time for one person— and I don’t feel like my own boss! I just have to do business admin for myself while still having a boss. In fact, I am fairly certain that pretty much every single person at the company is there on a contract basis— even though we do things I would expect a group of employees to do, like have weekly standup meetings, have company emails, have a ‘time off’ calendar (even though there’s no formal PTO policy, because, again, everyone’s a contractor). I guess my question is what is the motivation for the company to do this? Is it just to avoid certain costs? And when do I need to just get out? There have been things that have been really great about this job but as time goes on I just start to feel naive and like I’m being taken advantage of. The hourly rate is very good, but of course, it stops feeling that way when I pay for taxes and health insurance by myself. Your last sentence is exactly the reason your company likes keeping you as an independent contractor: it means they don’t have to pay payroll taxes (a cost to them of 7.65% of your salary, plus federal and state unemployment taxes) or shoulder the cost of other benefits like health insurance or paid time off. 5. Interviewing as a departing federal employee I am a federal employee in D.C. So obviously I am looking for a new job. For the time being, I have the luxury of not being desperate, so I am only applying to jobs I actually want. In an interview, one of the first questions is always, “Why do you want to work at company X/this job?” While I have been with the feds for seven years, I have only been in my current position for one. And it was something of a lane change from my prior work. It should be obvious to anyone that I’m looking around because of the drastic changes in my department. So how do I acknowledge the orange elephant in the room without making it sound like I’m just applying for every job in the area? “It’s an unstable time for government work, obviously, but for the moment I’m able to take my time looking for my next step to make sure it’s somewhere I”ll be happy staying for a long time. And I’m interested in this position because…” The post can’t opt out of company’s “wellness” messages, copywriter is using AI to produce bad work, and more appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

In 2023, Apple introduced the Double Tap feature for Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2. This allows a user to perform common actions, like answering or starting a song, simply by quickly tapping their thumb and index finger together twice. It was an intuitive way to confirm when you wanted to do something on your watch without tapping a tiny touchscreen button, but what if you wanted to dismiss something? Now, with the release of watchOS 26, Wrist Flick is here to solve that problem. Also available on Apple Watch Series 9 (and higher) as well as Apple Watch Ultra 2 (and higher), Wrist Flick is kind of like Double Tap’s evil twin. If you get a notification you don’t like, or a call you want to mute, now you can quickly twist your wrist to dismiss it, like you’re tossing it into a garbage bin. To try it out, first install watchOS 26 on your Apple Watch. Using a paired iPhone with iOS 26 installed, open the Apple Watch app, navigate to General > Software Update, and start the upgrade to the new version of watchOS. Alternatively, you can simply ensure Automatic Updates are enabled, and so long as your iPhone has iOS 26, your watch will simply choose a time to update on its own while charging (likely overnight). Then, once watchOS 26 is installed, put on your watch and navigate to Settings > Gestures. Toggle on Wrist Flick. That’s it. You’ll simply need to wait for a notification or call to come in, or for a timer you want to silence to go off, and you’ll be able to turn it off with a quick flick of the wrist. It might take some practice, but essentially, you want to quickly rotate your wrist away from your body, as seen on this page on Apple’s website. Used together with Double Tap, the goal is that you won’t need to fiddle with your watch’s touchscreen for most basic activities anymore, so you won’t have to interrupt your workout (or, if you’re like me, you’re leisurely sit on the subway) by tapping away at it. The only limitation is that, while Double Tap has some basic mapping functions that let you customize what exactly it does, Wrist Flick currently doesn’t offer that level of control, instead sticking to Apple’s default “dismissing” behavior. That means you won’t be able to use it to, say, go back one tile in your Smart Stack, like how you can set Double Tap to advance you by one tile. Here’s hoping Apple expands its functionality soon. View the full article

We’re just 7 days away from the first official day of fall, and I’m almost giddy with excitement. I’m embracing my favorite cool-weather rituals and finding comfort in the fact that this seasonal shift is providing a greater sense of predictability. After a busy and chaotic summer, fall is when I once again find my The post Team productivity peaks in fall when you set the stage now appeared first on RescueTime Blog. View the full article

Did you know you can customize Google to filter out garbage? Take these steps for better search results, including adding my work at Lifehacker as a preferred source. Spotify is finally giving its free-tier customers a feature that’s been requested since the music streaming platform launched nearly 20 years ago: the ability to listen to any song they choose. That's right: The days of searching for a song, then hitting “skip” until it rolls around on a Spotify-generated playlist are over. Free-tier users can choose songs in three ways: through the search function, by clicking on any song from the Spotify interface, or by clicking on a link shared by other users. Free-tier users can also listen to podcasts through Spotify, and create and listen to playlists too. Spotify's previous "six skips per hour" rule also appears to be no more. There are still limitations to Spotify’s free accounts, of course. The most obvious is that you still have to listen to ads. Free users will also face a cap on how many minutes of music they can listen to on demand, won’t be able to queue tracks, and won’t be able to access Spotify’s “AI DJ” feature. (No great loss; trust me.) They also won't have access to another new Spotify feature exclusive to paid accounts: lossless audio. Premium Spotify customers to get lossless audio"Premium" Spotify perks are improving too. The first, most important upgrade in the long-awaited launch of lossless audio on the service. Lossless audio (streaming files that are bit-for-bit copies of the source material) is rolling out to over 50 Spotify markets from now through October. Premium users will also be able to send private messaging, to make music-sharing easier, and add and customize transitions between songs within a playlist. The changes make Spotify more competitive The upgrades to both levels of Spotify’s service aren’t really about making life better for users; they’re about staying relevant and profitable in a crowded and ever-changing marketplace. The hope from Spotify is to increase ad revenue by increasing the number of ears listening to ads, entice more free users to upgrade to pay services, and shed fewer customers who leave for other services. Until the change, Spotify’s free tier was close to a radio service—you could listen to music that you kind of wanted to hear, maybe, if you also put up with frequent ads. This model may have made sense when streaming was newer, but more and more younger users are turning to YouTube, where you can listen to whatever song you want (and see a video for it) on demand, and for free. And young people are discovering music on TikTok, not on Spotify. Changes to Spotify’s premium service are aimed at the more “mature” listener. Lossless audio doesn’t make a ton of difference without decent headphones or speakers. But “our music is lossless” has long been a selling point for Apple Music and Tidal, but it won’t be anymore. View the full article

Apple’s iOS 26 drops today, and with it comes a bunch of small tweaks and improvements to how your iPhone works. The catch? A lot of them are opt-in, so you need to turn them on before you can reap their benefits. Here are the settings you should turn on after updating your iPhone to Apple’s latest operating system, although note that some of them require an iPhone 15 Pro or later, as they rely on Apple Intelligence. Adaptive battery modeIf you’re like me, you can never decide whether it’s worth it to swap your phone over to Battery Saver mode. Now, if you have an iPhone 15 Pro or above, your iPhone can make the decision for you. Apple’s new Adaptive Power mode uses Apple Intelligence to intelligently determine when your battery usage is running higher than usual, and makes small tweaks to bring it back under control. These might include slightly dimming your display or slowing down less important tasks, like those that are running in the background or are particularly intensive. Then, once your phone’s been on an even keel for a while, it’ll start turning things back to normal. Think of it as a less aggressive “low power” mode that only affects certain processes, and can make adjustments based on more than your phone’s remaining charge. To try it out, simply navigate to Settings > Battery > Power Mode. Just don’t forget to turn it back off if you find its compromises aren’t worth the extra battery life. Turn on call screening Credit: Apple I’ll be honest—I barely pick up phone calls anymore. Instead, I usually prefer to wait until after the call, and then call back if the caller was someone I knew or if it was important enough to leave a message. This usually works out for me, but I’ll admit, sometimes I do feel a bit bad for leaving people who call me in the lurch, especially if it turns out they had a good reason to dial me up. That’s where Apple’s new Call Screening feature comes in. This one doesn’t require Apple Intelligence, so it’ll work on any iPhone running iOS 26. Simply open your Settings, then under Apps, tap Phone and look for the Screen Unknown Callers option. You’ll have three choices. Never will work just like before, with calls ringing for a bit before they go to your Recents list. But now, you’ve got two additional options you can choose instead. First is Silence, which will turn off your ringer for calls from unsaved numbers, then send them to Voicemail and display them in the Recents list. Essentially, it just cuts out the middle-man of having to wait for the caller to give up before you move on with figuring out what they wanted. But the more exciting addition is Ask Reason for Calling. Choose this, and your iPhone will pick up calls from unsaved numbers for you, then ask the caller a few questions about their reason for calling. You’ll see a transcript of their answers on screen, and then you’ll be able to choose whether you want to pick up. It’s a clever trick, and should make me feel a little less bad for anyone who tries to chat with me over the phone. I do wish it worked for Contacts as well, to be honest, but I can understand why my family might not be enthused to call me and get a robot secretary instead. Try out the new ringtonesWith iOS 26, Apple’s added a few new default ringtones to pick from. Six are variations of the classic “Reflection” ringtone, but there’s also a new one called “Little Bird.” You can find them all under Settings > Sound & Haptics > Ringtone, or check out the embeds below to hear them for yourself. This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed. This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed. Personally, “Bouyant” is probably my favorite, although my colleague Jake Peterson likes “Dreamer” the most. I’ll probably still stick with my custom ringtone, but if you’d rather not bother downloading a ringtone manually, you now have more choice than ever. Fix Liquid GlassThis next one is technically about turning a feature off instead of turning it on, but I couldn’t ignore it. With iOS 26, Apple’s redesigned its design language to focus on transparency, and not everyone’s a fan. If you remember the transparent bezels Microsoft added to app windows in Windows Vista, it’s a lot like that, but more aggressive. Essentially, instead of showing a solid background, many buttons and overlays will now appear clear, allowing a blurred version of whatever is underneath them to bleed through. Luckily, there’s a pre-existing accessibility control that essentially sets your iPhone back to how it was before. Simply navigate to Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size, then toggle on Reduce Transparency. This will bring back solid background across your entire iPhone, which you can see in effect here. Notice how the play button no longer allows blurred album artwork to bleed into it? If you prefer that flatter, more contrast-y look, this could be for you. Custom backgrounds in iMessageThis one’s just fun. Now, in iMessage, you set custom backgrounds for your conversations and group chats on a per-chat basis. These include presets, like Water and Sky, but you can also pick solid colors, choose a photo from your library, or if you have an iPhone 15 Pro or above, generate a background using Apple Intelligence. To get started, open a chat, click its title towards the top of the page, then choose Backgrounds. Note that your chosen background will appear for everyone in the chat, but if you don’t like a background someone else set, you don’t have to live with it. Go to Settings > Apps > Messages and disable Conversation Backgrounds to turn the feature off. Notification summaries for newsIf you have an iPhone 15 Pro or above, Apple is actually bringing back a previously deleted feature with iOS 26: Notification summaries for news and entertainment apps. These initially launched in the iOS 18.3 beta, but were quickly pulled after Apple’s AI had misrepresented some major BBC headlines, including one about United Healthcare shooting suspect Luigi Mangione. Now, Apple is confident enough to bring these notification summaries back, although with a new warning that says “Summarization may change the meaning of the original headlines. Verify information.” If you’re comfortable with that, according to my colleagues over at CNET, you don’t have to do much to turn them on. Apple will actually greet you with a splash screen once you download the iOS 26 update, which will ask your preferences for which apps will get notification summaries. You’ll have three options, and you can select as many as you wish. All other apps will summarize notifications from non-social apps, like Maps, while Communication & Social will throw in notification summaries for apps like TikTok and Mail. These were available already. What’s new (again) is the News & Entertainment option, which will add notification summaries for apps including BBC or Netflix. Simply make your choices, and you’re good to go. If you change your mind later, you can adjust your summaries under Settings > Notifications > Summarize Notifications. You can also adjust notification summaries on a per-app basis here, which isn’t available in the splash screen you get after installing iOS 26. Get clear icons in iOS 26 Credit: Apple Let’s say you actually like Liquid Glass, but think it doesn’t go far enough. In that case, you might want to turn your icons clear too, so you can see your background through them. I promise I won’t judge. To turn your app icons clear in iOS 26, simply long press on your home screen’s background until your apps start jiggling. Then, tap Edit in the top-left corner, followed by Customize. Then, choose Clear. You can also choose between Clear Light or Clear Dark, with the dark mode opting for a more subdued tint. This will make your app icons look like frosted glass, similar to iOS 26’s new lock screen clock. You do you. (If you’re like me, you might prefer the new Tinted Light Mode option instead, which finally allows you to set a custom color for your app icons’ graphical elements alongside a bright background. You can find it in the Tinted option next to Clear while selecting your app icon appearance). New ways to customize your lock screeniOS 26 gives you more control over how your phone looks while locked than ever before. To get started, lock your phone, then press the power button, tap and hold on the lock screen, and tap Customize. First off, you can now adjust the size of your clock by grabbing one of its corners and dragging it down, although this will only work with certain fonts. Second, you can now justify your widgets box to the bottom of the lock screen, as well as add an Apple Music search widget to it, if you like. If you actually start playing something, you’ll notice it’ll enable a large Now Playing interface that shows album art. Finally, there’s support for Spatial Scenes. When selecting a Photo wallpaper, you can now tap on a small icon of a mountain and a sun to separate the photo’s subject from the background. Now, when moving your iPhone, the subject will move with it, to help them pop. Your clock might also move to fill up space in the photo, including slightly behind the subject, to help give an illusion of depth. Or, your widgets might automatically shift to the bottom of the screen if placed elsewhere, to better frame the photo subject. Other settings you can enableThere’s plenty more you can do to make iOS 26 truly yours. If the above changes aren’t enough for you, here are 36 other tweaks you can make to get the most out of your iPhone’s new operating system. View the full article

Brandon Llewellyn, Head of Delivery at an Asana implementation agency called Cirface, shares real-world examples of AI-powered workflows that are transforming project execution. The post The Real-World AI Workflows Used by The Head of Delivery at an Asana Implementation Agency appeared first on The Digital Project Manager. View the full article

A reader writes: Should I give my coworker a heads up that everyone in our office sees her (Beth) and another of our coworkers (Sean) flirting and thinks they’re sleeping together? I’ve personally seen them chit chat and act all giggly together, as well as “check each other out,” like look each other up and down. Sean is twice the age of Beth, but Beth is still almost middle-aged. I think other people in the office are gossiping hard and, while I’m not 100% certain there’s anything going on (they’re both married), I heard that our director said something to Sean so now they don’t stop by and chat as often. Should I tell Beth how this friendship with Sean is coming off to people in the office? Also, how would I even say it? I’m also wondering if some of this is due to Beth being kind of conventionally attractive and bubbly with everyone. Unless you’re close friends with Beth, leave it alone. If she’s almost middle-aged, she has enough life experience to be aware of the risks. Plus, if your director did say something to Sean, they’re already aware. It’s definitely true that conventionally attractive and bubbly women can be at risk of being perceived as inviting male attention even when they’re not, but if they’re blatantly checking each other out, there’s probably more in play. (I’m not saying they’re sleeping together! Just that it sounds like there’s reason for the way it’s being perceived, beyond sexist bias.) What you can do, though, is shut down the gossip when you hear it. If people speculate on Beth and Sean’s relationship around you, you’d be doing a social good to say, “They’re friends and they’re both married. We should stop gossiping about this before a rumor does someone real harm.” The post should I tell my coworker that everyone thinks she and a colleague are sleeping together? appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

Buffer for iOS 26 is the biggest update we’ve ever shipped to our mobile app. The update includes: ✨ Fresh new design with Apple’s Liquid Glass system💡 New Ideas Shortcut + Action Button for saving ideas on the go⌚ Brand-new Apple Watch app (queues, goals, streaks, ideas)📅 New calendar day view showing all channels in one place🎯 Posting Goals with progress rings on your channel avatars+ Dozens more improvements that make Buffer smoother and more flexible for creators on the go.Download Buffer's iOS app This update also feels like a full-circle moment. Back in 2012, we launched our very first iPhone app, built by Andy, who’s still at Buffer today, leading the engineering work on iOS. That first app introduced a Safari bookmarklet so you could “Add to Buffer” while reading an article. Twelve years later, Andy is still building the same app with additional support from Daniel, our designer based in Malta, who has been leading the design vision for iOS 26. All of the updates from Buffer's iOS 26 releaseA modern experience with Liquid GlassBuffer's app now uses Apple’s new Liquid Glass design system in iOS 26. Navigation feels cleaner, widgets are smarter, and the app remembers where you left off. Highlights: Fresh new design with Liquid GlassSmarter widgets and onboardingReturn to your last spot in the appEasier channel switching with fewer modalsA playful new startup animation and smoother image loadingEasily capture content ideas on your phone or watchIdeas rarely wait until you’re sitting at your desk. With iOS 26, you can capture them the moment they come to you. Highlights: A new Ideas Shortcut in Control Center or the iPhone Action ButtonIdea Composer on Apple WatchBuffer now available in the Shortcuts appStay on top of your social media posting goalsConsistency is easier when you can see your progress. This update makes it simple to keep an eye on queues, goals, and streaks from your phone or your wrist. Highlights: Queue counts across organizationsPosting Goal settings for each channelProgress rings around avatars to track goalsA new day view in the calendarApple Watch complications for streaks, goals, and queuesBuffer on your wrist via an Apple Watch appFor the first time, Buffer is on Apple Watch. You can check your queue, track your streak, or capture an idea without reaching for your phone. Looking aheadI use the iOS app almost every day. Most of the time it’s jotting down post ideas when something pops into my head, or checking how many posts I’ve got lined up before a busy week. Other times I’ll flick through the calendar just to see everything at a glance. Those little check-ins that keep me on track. This update makes those moments smoother for me. Saving an idea is now one tap from the lock screen. The calendar is clearer and easier to work with. And if I want to keep an eye on my streaks or posting goals, I can do it straight from my watch. None of this would exist without Andy, who has been with the app since day one, and Daniel, who has led the design system work that underpins the whole release. Andy’s built on more than a decade of history with the app, while Daniel’s brought a fresh perspective and craft to the design. Together they’ve made the app faster, easier to navigate, and ready for whatever comes next. Give the new app a try and let us know what you think. Your feedback has always shaped Buffer, and I’m looking forward to hearing how this update fits into your workflow. View the full article

A reader writes: I inherited an entry-level administrative assistant, Mary, who has been failing to make deadlines and repeating preventable mistakes, and who has major issues with focusing at work. She tangled with her last manager because she felt attacked when asked to explain missed deadlines and now has been passed off to me. My team typically works 9-5, eats breakfast before we start work, and typically takes an hour or less for lunch breaks. We don’t have a break room, so most of us eat lunch at our desks. One large source of distraction for Mary is that she will spend up to four hours a day eating, and when she is eating her work trickles to a halt. It is not unusual for her to arrive after 10 AM with breakfast in hand and spend an hour slowly snacking with a bowl in one hand and a spoon in the other. She will order takeout for lunch that requires leaving for an hour to pick it up (we are in a traffic congested city) and then munch on it over the course of another two hours. Then she picks at a snack or lunch leftovers from 4-5 PM. While she is eating, her laptop is open but very little work is done or she is scrolling on her cell phone. On most days she only has 3-4 productive hours in the day. None of this extended snacking would matter if she was doing adequate work, but now when I get handed poor work with excuses, all I can think of is the two-hour spaghetti break that took place while she was supposed to be working. We work in an open plan office, so all of this is happening within feet of other team mates, who have admitted to being distracted by this drawn-out eating ritual. It feels like she’s using eating to avoid working, but I don’t know how to address it without seeming like I’m picking on her. Other people eat at their desks but they all get their work done. I’m also sensitive to the fact that many people have complicated relationships with eating. I wouldn’t like it if someone made me feel self-conscious about eating at work. This isn’t really about the eating, it is about the time spent not working. I really wouldn’t care if she for eight hours straight as long as she got her work done, but she is regularly dropping the ball and also not working full days. I answer this question over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here. The post my assistant is always eating instead of working appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

Accountability is key. By Domenick J. Esposito 8 Steps to Great Go PRO for members-only access to more Dom Esposito. View the full article

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The Pomodoro Technique helps project managers prioritize tasks, avoid burnout, and support their team’s energy. This guide breaks down the method, tools, benefits, and how to make it stick. The post The Pomodoro Technique Explained: Work Smarter in 25 Minutes appeared first on The Digital Project Manager. View the full article

And that’s where Ahrefs’ Brand Radar comes in. It’s one of the fastest-growing tools in AI brand visibility, with 100M+ prompts, 6+ AI indexes, and requires zero setup. Below, I share my favorite use cases and actionable workflows to turn…Read more ›View the full article

A reader writes: This is a bizarre situation that happened years ago and I always wonder how I and my boss should have handled it. I don’t drink alcohol for personal reasons. My boss, Walter, was aware of this — in my field, happy hours with clients and coworkers are common, and I’d usually attend and have a soda but made clear to Walter early on that I don’t drink. Relevant information: I have some moral qualms with it personally — not judging what anyone else partakes in, but it’s not something I have an interest in consuming myself. I have known a lot of alcoholics, and while my own abstinence from alcohol isn’t religious, I do think there are some similarities to those who abstain for religious reasons. One day, after years of working together, Walter, a few other coworkers, and I went out to a happy hour for drinks and appetizers. I ordered a water and everyone else ordered drinks. I think Walter ordered champagne, or maybe white wine, or some kind of light colored drink. We were sitting at a table and the restaurant was pretty dark, and it was hard to see. Often at bars when you order a water or a soda, they put it in a fancy cup so that your drink doesn’t stand out. Drinks arrived, including what I thought was my water. But apparently it wasn’t my water. Walter, seated next to me, didn’t say anything, and at first I didn’t notice. Whatever it was, it must have been a pretty mild drink, though I initially had only had a small sip or two. And because it was sitting in front of me and he didn’t say anything, I thought, surely this is my drink. After a little while, I realized Walter didn’t have a drink. Something clicked and I thought wait, is that not my water? Did they forget my water (a common occurrence)? Is that Walter’s drink? Thinking it’d be silly to ask, because surely Walter would have said something if I’d taken his drink, I proceeded to have several larger sips throughout the night, trying to figure out what it was. I don’t remember a strong taste, but I remember trying to determine if it was juice or seltzer or some incorrect order but not necessarily alcoholic. I do remember Walter kind of looking at me strangely as I took a sip of the drink at one point, but he didn’t say anything. Some time passes, we’re all making conversation, and I realize I’m feeling really dizzy. I have literally never had alcohol in my life, so a slight buzz from a small amount of alcohol is probably realistic. I started thinking, this must be something alcoholic, but I was too embarrassed to say anything to anyone. I felt very uncomfortable and didn’t know what to do. At some point, I made an excuse to leave. I felt uncomfortably dizzy walking to the train station, couldn’t quite think clearly, and was uncomfortable with the thought of consuming alcohol in general. I made it home fine but was confused and upset. The next work day, Walter was traveling on business and out of town, but I sent him an email pertaining to a work project. At the end of the email, as an aside, I mentioned the incident — something along the lines of, “By the way, sorry about taking your drink the other night — I’d accidentally thought it was my water!” Because I felt like I should acknowledge it. Walter took a long time to respond, and when he did, he started a whole new email chain instead of replying to the Outlook thread like you normally would. In the new email, he responded to my comments and questions about the project, and he didn’t acknowledge anything about the drink. Then we never spoke of this incident. How should we both have handled this? In retrospect, I think I should have said something as soon as I realized even the possibility of “this isn’t my water.” But also, it bothers me that he didn’t say anything, and it further bothers me that he seems to have intentionally avoided acknowledging what happened when I brought it up in that email. I recognize that this probably sounds like a small silly thing, but it was a big deal to me at the time. It doesn’t sound like Walter really did anything wrong. When you started drinking his drink, he was just as likely as you were to assume it was your drink and they’d forgotten his. If you, the person actually tasting it, thought it was yours, we can’t blame Walter for assuming that too. I’m also not sure we can read anything into the way he replied to your email. It’s a little odd that he started a whole new email to respond, but it’s not odd that he didn’t address what you said about the drink; it’s not necessarily something he would assume required a reply. Yes, it would have be normal for him to respond, “Oh, no worries” or “I figured since you were drinking it, it was yours and they forgot mine” or similar … but I think the subtext here is that you feel he should have apologized or checked that you were okay or otherwise treated this with the same import it held for you. I don’t think that’s the case though. What you wrote to him was very matter-of-fact (“sorry for taking your drink”) so it makes sense that he didn’t respond as if it were a big deal. If you’d instead said something like, “I realized after the fact I’d been drinking your drink and I felt really dizzy and couldn’t think clearly while getting home,” he likely would have had a different reply (at least I hope he would!). But the way you addressed it was very breezy, so it makes sense that he left it there. And sure, maybe he started a whole new email chain because he’s trying to eliminate evidence of him being a bystander to you drinking … but there would be no reason for him to do that. I don’t think you can read anything into it. So to your question of how you both should have handled it: if Walter noticed you drinking his drink and didn’t just assume it was yours, ideally he would have said, “I think that’s mine — I can order a new one, but I want to make sure you know there’s alcohol in that.” But again, he didn’t necessarily know or think about it (and it wouldn’t be weird if each team member’s drinking/non-drinking status wasn’t top of mind for him). On your end, once you realized you weren’t drinking water and were actively trying to figure out what it was, ideally — as someone who doesn’t want to drink alcohol — you would have stopped drinking it so you could find out for sure (by asking the waiter or so forth). You also could have asked a colleague for some help getting home if you wanted that (although by definition you weren’t thinking clearly, so it’s understandable that you didn’t). To me it sounds like just an unfortunate accident, and not something that needs to be treated with any more weight than that. The post I don’t drink, and I accidentally consumed alcohol at a work event — how should my boss have handled it? appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is one of the most important topics in search right now. It’s about making sure your brand shows up inside AI-generated answers — not just on traditional SERPs. As large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity reshape discovery, AEO ensures your content gets mentioned and cited where buyers are asking questions. But here’s the bigger truth: AEO is just one piece of a larger shift. We’re entering the era of Search Everywhere. Discovery no longer happens in a single Google results page. It’s happening across AI chat, overviews, forums, video, and social. And new data shows just how fast this shift is accelerating. New research from Semrush predicts that LLM traffic will overtake traditional Google search by the end of 2027. And our own data suggests that’s likely to be true. In just the past three months, we’ve seen an 800% year-over-year increase in referrals from LLMs. We’re seeing tens of millions of additional impressions in Google Search Console as AI Overviews reshape how Google displays answers. If your brand isn’t adapting, you risk disappearing from the channels your audience is already using. In this guide, I’ll explain: What AEO is and how it differs from SEO Why your existing SEO foundation still matters (and what to evolve) Practical steps to optimize for answer engines and drive measurable results What Is AEO and Why Does It Matter? Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is the practice of structuring and publishing content so that AI systems — like Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, ChatGPT, and Perplexity — pull your brand directly into their answers. But AEO goes beyond tweaking a few pages. It’s about making your brand part of the conversation when people ask questions. That requires three things: Publishing content in the right places where AI tools actively crawl and cite Earning brand mentions across the web (even without a link) Ensuring technical accessibility so AI crawlers can actually parse your content These engines don’t rank “10 blue links.” They generate answers. Sometimes they cite sources. Sometimes they don’t. Either way, the goal is to give the searcher everything they need without leaving the interface. That changes your job. With AEO, you’re not only optimizing for a click — you’re optimizing to shape the answer itself. Why AEO Matters Now Traditional search is still a traffic driver. That won’t change overnight. But discovery is moving fast: Success used to mean ranking #1. Soon there may be no “#1 spot” at all. The win condition is becoming the recommended solution — the brand AI platforms trust enough to include. The data tells the story: ChatGPT reached 100 million users faster than any app in history. And as of February 2025, it now has more than 400 million weekly users. Google’s AI Overviews now appear on billions of searches every month — at least 13% of all SERPs. And they appear for more than half of the keywords we track at Backlinko: Answer engines are influencing YOUR audience too. So it makes sense to start optimizing for them now. How AEO and SEO Work Together Let’s clear up the biggest question: “Isn’t this just SEO with a new name?” In many ways, yes. But there’s a reason everyone is talking about AEO right now. If you’ve been confused by all the acronyms — AEO, GEO (Generative Engine Optimization), AIO (AI Optimization) — here’s the point: They all reflect the same shift. Search is no longer only about rankings. It’s about visibility in AI-powered answers. Terms like AEO, GEO (Generative Engine Optimization), and AIO (AI Optimization) have exploded in interest — because they reflect a real shift. And with all the acronyms flying around, it can be tough to know who to listen to. We’re not saying AEO replaces SEO. But it does help reframe your strategy for how discovery works now — across AI tools, social platforms, and new surfaces beyond traditional search. From Traditional SEO to Search Everywhere Evolving From Evolving To SEO = Google Search SEO = multi-surface visibility (Search, AI/LLMs, social) Success = ranking for keywords Success = being found across Search + Chat SEO is a siloed function SEO is cross-functional + connected to product, brand, PR, and social Keyword-first content planning Intent and entity-driven topic planning with semantic structure Backlinks to pass PageRank Traditional backlinks plus more focus on brand mentions and co-citations Traffic as a core KPI Visibility, influence, and conversions across touchpoints as core KPIs Technical SEO as the foundation Technical SEO as the foundation (with additional focus on JavaScript compatibility) That means there’s good news: If you’ve invested in good SEO, you’re already a lot of the way there. AEO builds on the foundation of great SEO: Creating high-quality content for your specific audience Making it easy for search engines to access and understand Earning credible mentions across the web These same elements help AI engines decide which brands to reference. But here’s the difference: AI engines don’t work exactly like Google. That means some of your tactics (and what you track) need to evolve. So let’s walk through how to do that. 7-Step AEO Action Plan We’re still in the early days of understanding exactly how AI engines pull and prioritize content. But one thing is clear: You need to adapt or reprioritize some traditional SEO tactics for Answer Engine Optimization. The first three steps below cover overarching best practices for AEO. Steps 4-7 cover optimizing content for answer engines specifically (and how to track your results). Step 1. Nail the Basics of SEO As I said earlier, good AEO is also generally good SEO. But not everything you do as part of your wider SEO strategy is as important for answer engine optimization. I won’t go through all the fundamentals of SEO here. We do that in our guide to the SEO basics. Let’s focus on what really matters for answer engines. Make Your Site Easy to Read (for Bots) Crawlable and indexable: If AI tools can’t access your pages, you won’t show up in answers Fast and mobile-friendly: Slow, clunky sites hurt UX — and your chances of getting cited Secure (HTTPS): This is now table stakes, and it builds trust with users and AI systems Server-side rendering: Some AI crawlers still struggle with JavaScript, so use server-side rendering as opposed to client-side rendering where you can Show You’re Worth Trusting (E-E-A-T) AI wants trustworthy sources. That means showing E-E-A-T: Experience: Share real results, personal use, or firsthand knowledge Expertise: Stick to topics you truly know — and go deep Authority: Get quoted, guest post, or contribute to well-known sites Trust: Use real author bios, cite sources, and include reviews or testimonials Note: We’re not suggesting these AI tools have any sort of “system” built into them that aligns with what we call E-E-A-T. But it makes sense that they’ll prefer to cite content from reputable sources with expertise. This provides a better user experience and makes the AI tools themselves more reliable. Also, download our Free Template: E-E-A-T Evaluation Guide: 46-Point Audit Step 2. Build Mentions and Co-Citations AI systems don’t just look at backlinks to understand your authority. They pay attention to every mention of your brand across the web, even when those mentions don’t include a clickable link. Backlinks are still important. But this changes how you should think about building your wider online presence. Audit Your Current Mentions Start by auditing where you’re currently mentioned. Search for your brand name, product names, and key team members across Google, social media, and industry forums. Take note of what people are saying and where those conversations are happening. You’ll probably find mentions you didn’t know existed. Some will be positive, others neutral, and a few might need your attention. Also run your brand name and related terms through the AI tools themselves. Does Google’s AI Mode cite your brand as a source for relevant terms? Does ChatGPT know who your team members are? What kind of sentiment do the answers have when you just plainly ask the tools about your brand? For a more in-depth sentiment analysis, use Semrush’s AI SEO Toolkit. It’ll let you track your LLM visibility (a by-product of good AEO) in top tools compared to your rivals: The tool compares your brand to your rivals in terms of AI visibility, market share, and sentiment: And it’ll show you where your brand strengths are and where you can improve: Want to track your brand’s AI visibility? Get a free interactive demo of Semrush’s AI SEO Toolkit to see how you can compare to competitors across ChatGPT, Claude, and other AI platforms. Keep Building Quality Backlinks Just because mentions are more important than before with AEO, it doesn’t mean you should abandon traditional link building. Backlinks still matter for SEO, and they often lead to the kind of authoritative mentions that AI systems value. But expand your focus beyond just getting links. Further reading: How to Get High Quality Backlinks Aim to Build Co-Citations and Co-Occurences There are a few different definitions out there of co-citation and co-occurence. I’ll be honest: the definitions don’t matter as much as the implications. I’ve seen one source define co-citations as the exact thing another source calls co-occurence. So for this section, I’m just going to talk about what these are and why they matter, without getting bogged down in definitions. The first important way to think of co-citations/co-occurences is simply the mention of one thing alongside another. In the case of AEO, we’re usually talking about your brand or website being mentioned alongside a different website or topic/concept on another website. For example, if your brand is Monday.com, you’ll pick up co-citations involving: Your competitors (ClickUp, Asana etc.) Key terms or categories associated with your business (like “project management software”) Specific concepts or questions related to what you do (e.g., “kanban boards” and “how to automate workflows”) In Monday’s case, there are hundreds of pages out there that mention it alongside ClickUp and Asana in the context of “project management tools”: This suggests to Google and other AI tools that Monday and ClickUp are both related to the term “project management tools” and are both popular providers of this kind of software. The other common way to think about co-citations is mentions of your brand across different, often unrelated websites. For example, Monday being mentioned on Forbes and Zapier would be a co-citation involving them. To sum it up: If two (or more) brands/websites are often mentioned alongside each other, AI tools will assume they are related (i.e., they’re competitors) If a brand is often mentioned in the context of a particular topic, concept, or industry, AI tools will assume the brand is related to those things (i.e., what you offer) If lots of different websites mention a particular brand, the AI tools will assume that brand is worth talking about (i.e., probably trustworthy) Obviously, there’s a lot more to it, but this is a fairly basic overview of what’s going on. How to Put This into Action To build citations, co-citations, and co-occurences: Look for opportunities to get mentioned alongside your competitors. When publications write comparison articles or industry roundups, you want your name in that list. These co-citations help AI systems understand where you fit in your market. Participate in industry surveys and research studies. When analysts publish reports about your sector, being included gives you credibility (and any backlinks are a bonus). Get involved in relevant online communities. Answer questions on Reddit, contribute to LinkedIn discussions, and join industry-specific forums. These interactions create mentions in places where AI systems often look for authentic, community-driven insights. The goal is to become a recognized voice in your space. The more often your brand appears in relevant contexts across the web, the more likely AI systems are to include you in their responses. Step 3. Go Multi-Platform Going beyond Google is something top SEOs have been telling us to do for a long time. But AI has made this an absolute must. Platforms like Reddit, YouTube, and other user-generated content sites appear frequently in AI outputs. So, a strong brand presence on these platforms could help you show up more often. The benefits here are (at least) three-fold: Being active on multiple platforms lets you reach your audience where they are. This helps you boost engagement, brand awareness, and, of course, drive more conversions. AI tools don’t just look at Google search results. They pull from forums, social media, YouTube, and lots of other places beyond traditional SERPs. Being active on multiple platforms means you’re less exposed to one particular algorithm or audience. Diversification is just good practice for a business. Brian Dean did an excellent job of this when he was running Backlinko. That’s why you’ll see his videos appear in Google SERPs for ultra-competitive keywords like “how to do SEO”: We’re taking our own advice here. In fact, it’s a big part of why we launched the Backlinko YouTube channel: Here’s some quick-fire guidance for putting this into practice: People go to YouTube to learn how to do things, research products, and find solutions to their problems. This makes product reviews, tool comparisons, and in-depth tutorials great candidates for YouTube content. Podcast content and transcripts are beginning to surface in AI results (especially in Gemini). Building a presence here is a great opportunity to grab some AI visibility. TikTok and Instagram Reels reach younger audiences who increasingly use these apps for search. Short-form videos that answer common questions in your industry can drive discovery, and AI tools can also cite these in their responses to user questions. AI tools LOVE to cite Reddit as a source of user-generated answers (especially Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode). To grow your presence on the platform, find subreddits where your target audience hangs out and share genuinely helpful advice when people ask questions related to your expertise. Don’t promote your business directly — focus on being useful first. LinkedIn works similarly to Reddit for B2B topics. Publish thoughtful posts and engage in relevant discussions to help establish your voice in professional circles. These interactions can then get picked up by AI systems looking for expert perspectives. Step 4. Find Out What AI Platforms Are Citing for Your Niche What’s a powerful way to understand both what to create and what topics to target? To simply learn what AI tools are likely to include in their responses to questions that are relevant to your business. Start by directly testing whether/how your content appears in AI tools right now. Go to ChatGPT, Claude, or Perplexity and ask questions that your content should answer. In the example below, Backlinko is mentioned (great), but there’s also a YouTube video front and center. And forums are appearing too. These are places we might want to consider creating content or engaging with conversations. As you do this for your brand, pay attention to the sources they cite: Are they commonly mentioning your competitors? What platforms do they tend to cite? (Reddit, YouTube etc.) What’s the sentiment of mentions of both your brand and your competitors? As you do this, try different variations of the same question. For example, you could ask “What’s the best email marketing software?” Then try “Which email marketing tool should I use for my small business?” Notice how the answers change and which sources get mentioned consistently. In the example above, the first prompt mentioned MailerLite, which was absent in the list for small businesses. But the second prompt pushed Mailchimp to the top and mentioned three new options (Constant Contact, Brevo, and ActiveCampaign). If you were MailerLite and trying to reach small businesses, you’d want to understand why you’re not being cited for that particular prompt. Pro tip: Try it with different tools as well. They each have their own preferences when it comes to citing sources, so it’s a good idea to test a couple of them. You can automate this process with tools like Profound or Peec AI. These platforms run prompts at scale, helping you understand how and where your brand appears. But they can be pricey. That’s why I recommend you spend some time running these prompts manually at first. By the way: This isn’t just important for “big brands” or those selling products. You can (and should) do this if you run a blog, local business website, or even a personal portfolio. For example, consultants and freelancers will find these tools often cite marketplaces like Upwork and Dribbble. If you don’t have a profile on there, you’ll likely struggle to get much AI visibility. And if you’re a local business owner, you’ll often find specific service and location pages appear in AI responses: This is useful for understanding the types of content you should be focusing on for AEO. Now it’s time to decide what topics to focus on in your content. Step 5. Answer Your Audience’s Questions The way people search with AI tools is fundamentally different from how we use traditional Google search. This changes how you should plan your content. Traditional SEO taught you to target specific keywords. You’d create a page optimized for “healthy meal prep ideas” and try to rank for that phrase. But what happens when people are instead searching for “what to cook for dinner when I’m trying to lose weight”? The answer might involve healthy meal prep as a solution, but it’s a completely different prompt (not a search) that gets to that answer (not a SERP). When you run these queries through Google’s AI Mode, you see two totally different sets of sources and content types. For the “healthy meal prep ideas” query (which is a perfectly valid and searchable term), the focus is listicles, single recipes, and YouTube videos. And the format is categories (bowls, wraps, and sandwiches etc.) with specific recipes: But for “what to cook for dinner when I’m trying to lose weight,” the sources are primarily lists, forum results, or articles specifically around weight loss. In this case, the format of the answer is largely broad tips for cooking healthily and then some general cooking styles or meal types, rather than specific recipes: As more users realize they can use conversational language to make their searches, longer queries will become more common. This makes this kind of intent analysis critical. These longer, more specific queries represent huge opportunities. Most companies aren’t creating content that answers these detailed questions. The more specific the question, the more likely you are to show up when AI systems look for authoritative answers. You want to own the long-tail queries that relate directly to your product or expertise. But: You obviously can’t reasonably expect to create content for every single long-tail query out there. So how do you approach this in an efficient way? How to Choose the Questions to Answer Start by listening to the actual questions your customers ask. Check your customer support tickets, sales calls, and user feedback. These real questions from real people often make the best content topics — because they’re the same kinds of questions people will ask these AI tools. Don’t have any customers? No problem. Use community platforms to find these conversational queries. Reddit, Quora, and industry forums are goldmines for discovering how people actually talk about problems in your space. Step 6. Structure Your Content for Answer Engines AI systems process information differently than humans do. They break content into chunks and analyze how those pieces relate to each other. Think of it like featured snippets but more granular, and for much more than just direct questions. This means the way you structure your content directly impacts whether AI systems can understand and cite it effectively. Note: A lot of what I say below is just good writing practice. So while this stuff isn’t necessarily “revolutionary,” these techniques are going to become more important as you focus on AEO . One Idea per Paragraph Keep your paragraphs short and focused on one main idea. When you stuff multiple concepts into a single paragraph, you make it harder for AI systems to extract the specific information they need. Also avoid burying important information in the middle of long sentences or paragraphs. Front-load your key points so they’re easy to find and extract. And guess what? It also makes it easier for your human readers to understand too. So it’s a win-win. Use Clear Headings Use clear headings and subheadings to organize your content logically. Think of these as signposts that help both readers and LLMs navigate your information. And make sure your content immediately under the headings logically ties to the heading itself. For example, look at the headings in this section. Then read the first sentence under each one. Notice how they’re all clearly linked? This is a common technique when trying to rank for featured snippets. You’d have an H2 with some content that immediately answers the question… …and this would rank for the featured snippet for that query: This is still a valid strategy for traditional search. But for AEO, you need to have this mindset throughout your content. Don’t make every H2 be a question (this will quickly end up looking over-optimized). But do make sure the content that follows your (logical) headings is clearly linked to the heading itself. Break Up Complex Topics into Digestible Sections If you’re explaining a complex or multi-step process, use numbered steps and clear transitions between each part. This makes it easier for AI systems to pull out individual steps when someone asks for specific instructions. And it’ll make it much easier for your readers to follow. Also write clear, concise summaries for complex topics. AI systems often look for these kinds of digestible explanations when they need to quickly convey information to users. Include Quotes and Clear Statements Include direct quotes and clear statements that AI systems can easily extract. Why is this worth your time? Because pages with quotes or statistics have been shown to have 30-40% higher visibility in AI answers. So instead of saying “Email marketing could be an effective channel for your business,” write “Email marketing generates an average ROI of $42 for every dollar spent.” Note: Don’t just flood your content with quotes and stats. Only include them when they actually add value to your content and are useful for your readers. Use Schema Markup Schema markup gives you another way to structure information for machines. This code helps systems understand what type of content you’re presenting. For example, FAQ schema tells algorithms that you’re answering common questions. HowTo schema identifies step-by-step instructions. You don’t need to be a developer to add schema markup. Many content management systems (like WordPress) have plugins that handle this automatically. Make It Scannable Use formatting like bold text to highlight important facts or conclusions and make it easier for readers to skim your content. This helps both human readers and AI systems identify the most important information quickly. This has always been a big focus of content on Backlinko. We use lots of images to convey our most important points and add clarity through visualizations: And we use clear headings to make our articles easy to follow: The goal is to make your content as accessible as possible to both humans and machines. Well-structured content performs better across all types of search and discovery. And if your content is enjoyable to engage with, it’s probably going to do a better job of converting users into customers as well. Step 7. Track Your Visibility in LLMs How often are tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Gemini mentioning your brand? If you’re not tracking this yet — you should be. Tracking your visibility in AI-generated responses helps you understand what’s working and where you need to focus your efforts. But where do you start? And what should you track? Manual Testing as a Starting Point Start with manual testing. This is the simplest way to see how you’re performing right now. Ask the same questions across different AI platforms, like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Google (both AI Mode and AI Overviews). Take screenshots of the responses and note which sources get cited. Do this regularly, and you’ll start to see patterns in which types of content get mentioned and how your visibility changes over time. Honestly though: you’re going to struggle to get a lot of meaningful data doing this manually. And it’s not scalable. Plus, so much of what an AI tool outputs to a user depends on the previous context, like: Past conversations Previous prompts within the same conversation Project or chat settings This makes it challenging to get truly accurate data by yourself. This is really more of a “feel” test that, in the absence of dedicated tools, can provide a very rough idea of how answer engines perceive your brand. Use LLM Tracking Tools For more comprehensive tracking, dedicated tools can automate this process. Platforms like Semrush Enterprise AIO help you track your brand’s visibility across AI platforms like ChatGPT, Claude, and Google’s AI Overviews. It shows you exactly where you stand against competitors and gives you actionable steps to improve. Competitive Rankings is my favorite feature. Instead of guessing why competitors might rank better in AI responses, you get actual data showing mention frequency and context. Another option is Ziptie.dev. It’s not the most polished tool yet, but they’re doing some really interesting work — especially around surfacing unlinked mentions across AI outputs. If you already have Semrush, then the Organic Research report within the SEO Toolkit does provide some tracking for Google AI Overviews specifically. You can track which keywords you (or your competitors) rank for that have an AI Overview on the SERP. If you don’t currently appear in the overview, that’s a keyword worth targeting. Tracking the keywords you do rank for in these AIOs over time can help you gauge the performance of your AEO strategy. Why Talk to Your Boss (or Clients) About AEO? You’ve seen the steps. Now you need a story. AEO isn’t just a tactical shift — it’s a way to explain what’s changing in search without resorting to hype. AEO helps you frame those changes clearly: Traditional SEO still works Your past investments are still paying off But the bar is higher now Visibility means more than rankings Your brand needs to be mentioned, cited, and trusted across every channel AEO gives you the framework to explain what’s changing and how to stay ahead of it. You Need to Start Now to Stay Visible This space is evolving fast. New capabilities are rolling out monthly. The key is to start tracking now so that you can benchmark where you are and spot new opportunities as AI search matures. Grow your presence by adding a AEO approach on top of your SEO efforts: Continue optimizing for strong rankings and authority (AI still leans on this) But now, prioritize content and signals that AI engines are more likely to reference directly Want to learn more about where the world of search is heading? Check out our video with Backlinko’s founder Brian Dean. We dive into how search habits are changing and how you can build a resilient, multi-channel brand. The post Answer Engine Optimization (AEO): How to Win in AI Search appeared first on Backlinko. View the full article