Are you afraid of a link?

Resistance to change was the theme when Amino turned six in March 2011. We’d changed some small things in the discussion forum, and the reactions made me think about how we respond to something new ourselves.

Resistance to change started with a link

We’d created Amino Svar with explanations of words new entrepreneurs might be unsure of. When one of those words appeared in a discussion, readers could click through to the explanation.

I saw it as help for new users. Some were happy, while others thought the extra links made the discussion hard to follow.

I was surprised how strong a reaction a small change could trigger, even among experienced entrepreneurs.

A better headline could help the new user

We’d also given experienced superusers the ability to edit headlines and move posts to the right category.

A post headed "I have a problem" didn’t say much. If the headline instead described the problem with a press release, the relevant people could spot it more easily.

I say we’d already seen lots of improvements and only a few errors, which were quickly corrected. That’s my account from back then.

Challenge habits from a secure base

My encouragement was to try something new: Music, food, art or a subject you didn’t normally follow. Small experiences could challenge your assumptions and provide inspiration.

At the same time, I felt it was fine to have a secure base. You didn’t need to change your entire life to investigate a new feature before rejecting it.

The video describes the changes and my attitude in 2011, not Amino’s current features or a study of users’ personalities.

Also read about Amino’s changes in 2011.

Resistance to change on Amino’s sixth birthday

It was Amino’s birthday when I recorded the video. Exactly six years earlier, in 2005, I’d spent the Easter holidays creating the first discussion forum. I remembered it as three days straight at the computer without sleep because I was so excited by the idea.

Now I could sit and smile about the first users arriving back then and Amino growing. I thought we had around 80,000 users, almost 20,000 visitors a day, just under three million page views a month and 800–900 posts a day. Those were the figures I gave in March 2011.

We’d really worked hard on improvements over the previous month. And I corrected myself in the video: It wasn’t just me. A hell of a lot of people had worked on it.

What interested me was the reactions when we changed something. I compared it with new banknotes, where people can shout that the old ones were better and everything is now awkward. Suddenly, there’s a bridge where there used to be another motif, and that alone can upset people. My experience was that many preferred things as they’d been.

No entrepreneur knows every difficult word

I’d thought entrepreneurs ought to be adaptable, and I did think they generally were. So it was a little amusing to see how strong a reaction some small changes on Amino could provoke.

One change was meant to help new entrepreneurs with unfamiliar words. There are words I need to think about or look up too. If you work in affiliate marketing, an abbreviation may be completely obvious to you but not to others. Conversely, those same experts might be unsure about interest calculation days or another subject.

So we’d developed Amino Iværksætter Wiki further and called it Amino Svar. I thought that was easier to say. We’d described around 500 difficult words. The explanations weren’t perfect, and there could be a spelling mistake even though I’d reviewed many of them.

A link could provide both an explanation and more help

When one of the words first appeared in a discussion, it was linked to the explanation in Amino Svar. The next time, it appeared as ordinary text. So the idea wasn’t to underline every single repetition.

Clicking let you see what the word meant. There might also be relevant expert blog posts and discussions our superusers had found. It was something we wanted to keep expanding.

I thought it was brilliant. How often had you sat there thinking: What the hell does that mean? What actually is B-skat? Here, you could get help while reading.

Many were happy, but others complained loudly that more links made the discussion confusing. I was quite sharp and called some of the reactions crybabies. The comparison with Wikipedia made me smile: A link to an explanation didn’t have to make a text impossible to read.

When I looked at the forum myself, I didn’t think there were many links. They were relevant. So I was surprised such a small change could be so hard to accept.

"I have a problem" doesn’t help the person who can answer

We’d also let superusers edit headlines and move posts. They were experienced users with lots of posts and good ratings. In the video, I mentioned more than 200 posts, at least twenty rated ones and an average rating above four as part of describing the people we trusted.

There was a big problem with new users writing "I have a problem" as the headline. It tells you almost nothing. Not many people want to click to discover which problem it is.

If it instead says there’s a problem writing a press release, PR people can notice the post and help. I used the image of twenty PR people rushing in to answer. So a better headline could help the new user while making the forum clearer.

Now a kind superuser could perhaps clarify the headline within minutes. Even so, there were worries that people would ruin and spoil each other’s posts. I’d rather people waited and investigated whether tidying up actually helped.

We’d edited hundreds of headlines

My account in the video was that we’d had two mistakes from new superusers who hadn’t quite understood the system. The bad headlines were quickly corrected. On the other hand, we’d edited hundreds of headlines and moved around a thousand posts to the right places.

So I thought Amino had become much clearer. That was my experience of the changes back then. I rather crudely mocked the fear that the sky would fall and World War III break out if someone was allowed to help with a headline.

Do you automatically get angry when something is new?

It wasn’t just a story about Amino. If you felt deep resistance whenever something new appeared, I thought you should work on yourself. For me, it was connected with the ability to innovate.

I put it rather starkly: Do you want to be the person who invents the next iPhone or the person who assembles it? I saw a difference in opportunities, pay and working conditions. My point was that the ability to think in new ways mattered, including for a country like Denmark.

If it really annoyed you that a door now needed pulling instead of pushing, or that a new version of Microsoft Office required learning some features, I thought your reaction was worth considering.

Try something different, but keep your secure base

My advice was to do something new. Travel somewhere you don’t normally choose. Try food you didn’t think you’d like. Listen to music outside your usual taste, perhaps jazz fusion. Look at art you don’t immediately like, or read a newsletter about something you didn’t think interested you.

I also mentioned watching Discovery and getting interested in things as different as huge machines or a craftsperson working with wood. The subject didn’t need to be something you’d chosen in advance. It was about being inspired, provoked and surprised.

Of course, you needed a comfort zone. It was fine to have your home, desk and pictures of your wife or husband. I wasn’t saying we should be rootless and run around trying new things constantly.

But with that secure base, I thought you should be able to cope with an underline beneath some words or someone helping with a headline. Think about what you can do differently. Challenge yourself and try to enjoy the times you’re surprised instead of automatically getting angry. That was my encouragement on Amino’s birthday. Also read Skab din egen succes about finding your own way and daring to try something new.

Best wishes, Martin

Read the birthday thread from Amino’s sixth birthday in 2011.