Michael Shoe

Michael

  • Ghost email configuration: how to send newsletters from your own email address with Ghost (Pro)

    Ever wonder how your favorite email newsletter sends you emails from a personal email addresses such as pat@starterstory.com instead of something like noreply@starterstory.com? With Ghost you can manage your email configuration easily. However, there could be some complications.

    “noreply”: The default email configuration in Ghost

    If you belong to the not-so-technical camp but still desire to write online, Ghost’s hosting service could save you some trouble. When you set things up right, you will be able to write a post and publish it on the site and send it as an email newsletter to your subscribers at the same time.

    This is my first newsletter sent to myself with Ghost. The email was sent from noreply@michaelshoe.com via m.ghost.io. The only thing I did before this was linking my own domain with Ghost, and magically, I am capable of sending out email newsletters in bulk to my subscribers (though I still don’t know the mechanism behind)!

    I want to get “personal” with my dear followers.

    To be specific, my goal is to accomplish these two things: 

    1. Enable readers to reply to the sending domain (i.e. replying to noreply@michaelshoe.com) and have a direct one-on-one email communication with me (i.e. hit reply, write an email to me directly)
    2. Use a custom email sending domain to send out newsletters, i.e. replace noreply@michaelshoe.com with something like hi@michaelshoe.com

    The process, as it turned out, was easier said than done. 

    Enabling readers to reply to the sending domain

    Accomplishing #1 is my priority, since it is important to talk to my dear subscribers directly in my initial phase, an embodiment of “doing the things that don’t scale” mantra. I tried to reply to noreply@michaelshoe.com, and then checked my personal email – the one I used to sign up to Ghost – the email was nowhere to be found.

    I then went to my domain registrar, Porkbun, to look for some clue. Porkbun actually provides free email forwarding up to 20 for free if you purchased a domain with them, and I swiftly set it up to have emails sent to noreply@michaelshoe.com delivered to my personal email. However, even though I can receive emails sent to noreply@michaelshoe.com, I can only reply via my personal email address. Additionally, I disliked “noreply” as it presents a robotic feeling, and it literally tells people NOT TO REPLY. So I kept on looking for a better solution.

    Just type in “noreply” in the first box and type in your own email address in the second

    Use a custom email sending domain to send out email newsletters

    To accomplish #2, I first activated an email account with my domain registrar, Porkbun, by leveraging their free three-month email domain service. Now I have my own custom email domain, hi@michaelshoe.com, with their email host. I also configured DMARC, an additional security measure that uses SPF and DKIM to help prevent email spoofing, even though I have absolutely no idea what it means (more on this later). After I’ve acquired my own email domain, I also set it up so that I can send and receive emails from hi@michaelshoe.com in my Gmail mailbox. If you are also using Porkbun, you can read “How to Set Up an Email Address in Gmail” here.

    If you are using Ghost (Pro) to send email newsletters, there are two places where you need to make further configurations if you want to use your custom email sending domain. The first place is your membership portal, and the second place is your newsletter.

    Membership portal

    Your membership portal (Membership -> Portal settings) is the place to: 

    1. Customize the look & feel of your signup button and your signup modal
    2. Change the support email address, i.e. the email address that sends the welcome email to the first-time subscriber 
    Membership -> Portal settings -> Account page

    Newsletter

    “Newsletters” is the place to:

    1. Customize the design of your newsletter, i.e. how it arrives in your subscribers’ mailbox
    2. Set up basic newsletter info, i.e. name, basic descriptions, and sender email address and reply-to email address

    Solving one problem created an even bigger one

    I changed all email addresses to my own hi@michaelshoe.com, both for the Membership Portal and for the Newsletter, and then gave it a shot. Something horrible happened afterwards: all my email newsletters and signup welcome emails went straight into spam; when I dug them out of the graveyard, they were covered with a warning sign like this:

    What made this an even bigger problem was that regardless of how I tried to tell Gmail that this wasn’t spam, Gmail was adamant about its original opinion. I clicked on the “Looks safe” button, and marked it as no spam, and tried sending again. Again the letter ended up in the spam.

    At this point, I’ve exhausted all my skills and methods, so I resorted to the Ghost support team for help. They replied within a few hours and gave me a clearcut solution – disable DMARC in my email hosting. It worked.

    As it turned out, Ghost (Pro) offers custom sending domains, but this feature is only supported on the Creator Plan or higher on Ghost (Pro). As a humble Starter Plan user, I don’t have the luxury to this feature.

    I’ve figured out how email configuration works in Ghost, but decided it’s not worth it to change.

    At this point, I was able to accomplish both goals, i.e.:

    1. Enable readers to reply to the sending domain (i.e. replying to hi@michaelshoe.com) and have a direct one-on-one email communication with me 
    2. Use a custom email sending domain to send out newsletters (hi@michaelshoe.com, instead of the default “noreply”)

    However, I’ve decided to revert back to Ghost’s default sender addresses. I’m not technical enough to figure out the problems, and it’s just not worth it to risk not delivering the newsletters into every subscriber’s mailbox. It doesn’t matter how personal-sounding your name is if all your emails are ending up in the readers’ spam. Ghost has done a great job to ensure deliverability and it’s just too risky for me to change that. Plus DMARC sounds too important to be turned off.

    I still want to have that personal connection with my subscribers, and my solution is simply to add my hi@michaelshoe.com email at the bottom of each newsletter so people can just click and start writing to me. 

    P.S. the question that finally got answered: who created the “noreply” email domain and why I can only send, but not receive, emails from it?

    This question finally got answered by the Ghost support team (kudos to them!). 

  • Piles Karel and the Art and Skill of Universal Solution

    Piles Karel and the Art and Skill of Universal Solution

    Piles Karel Problem

    Piles Karel is a relatively simple problem. In a 7 by 5 world, there are three piles of beepers in the first row, and Karel should pick them up.

    The simplest method would be to get Karel to move to each beeper location and pick all the beepers up, and move to the next pile, etc. The code will look at this following the method:

    def main():
    move()
    while beepers_present():
        pick_beeper()
    move()
    move()
    while beepers_present():
        pick_beeper()
    move()
    move()
    while beepers_present():
        pick_beeper()
    move() 
if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

    Incorporating Decomposition

    While the above code does the job, it’s hard to read. 

    Karel really is just doing two things while solving this problem:

    1. move
    2. pick up beepers

    Move is just … move, and there is no room for further docomposition. However, we can write a new function to have Karel pick all the beepers on a single spot. 

    def pick_all_beepers():
    While beepers_present():
        pick_beeper

    So whenever there are beepers present, we can just use pick_all_beepers( ):

    def pick_all_beepers():
    While beepers_present():
        pick_beeper

def main():
    move()
    pick_all_beepers()
    move()
    move()
    pick_all_beepers()
    move()
    move()
    pick_all_beepers()
    move() 
if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

    What if we don’t know the exact size of world and locations of beepers?

    Before we were dealing with a certain world with a set size and beeper locations. We are using our human eyes to spot where beepers are located, and we are actually doing half of the work.

    How can we write codes so that Karel can deal with an uncertain world? Would Karel be able to identify where beepers are located, pick them up, and stop right in front of the wall?

    This is a very important point. Whenever we are writing codes, we should try to provide a universal solution that is capable of dealing with all types of situations.

    Recall that Karel does only two things in solving this problem:

    1. move
    2. pick up beepers

    And Karel should be doing exactly those two things while its front is clear. And because we don’t know the exact size of the world – the world could be just ONE single column – meaning that Karel may not be able to move at all, we still need Karel to pick up those beepers in her original spot. After that, Karel should move and pick up beepers until she hits the wall.

    The final solution

    The code then will look like this:

    def main():
    pick_all_beeper()
    while front_is_clear():
        move()
        pick_all_beeper()

def pick_all_beeper():
    while beepers_present():
        pick_beeper()
if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

    This solution can work in all sizes of worlds, and it’s much more readable by human eyes. Karel is doing exactly what the names of those functions are telling you: she first picks all the beepers in her position, and while her front is clear, she will keep moving and picking all beepers in each spot, on spot at a time, until she faces a wall, i.e. her front is NOT clear.

  • Jigsaw Karel and the Art (and Skill) of Decomposition

    One of the most important concept in coding is decomposition, which is the art and skill of dividing a big problem into smaller units. It’s a type of skill because you will need to know how to use different functions to get the results you want to see in each step; it’s a type of art because the basic functions won’t get the results directly, so you will need to figure out your way of getting there, i.e. the art of breaking down a big problem into smaller problem that the functions can work their magic.

    Jigsaw Karel, though not a complicated problem per se, illustrates this concept.

    The Problem of Jigsaw Karel

    The problem is quite straightforward. Karel starts from the bottom left and will pick up the last piece of the puzzle (beeper) and put it into the only empty spot. Karel will then return to its starting position.

    Remember, Karel can only do four things:

    1. move( )
    2. pick_beeper( )
    3. put_beeper( )
    4. turn_left( )

    The solution without decomposition

    I can certainly ask Karel to move and pick up the beeper and put it in the spot by using the four functions in the most basic manner without considering decomposition.

    from karel.stanfordkarel import *

def main():
    move()
    move()
    pick_beeper()  # Karel now stands on the beeper, and picks it up.
    move()
    turn_left()
    move()
    move()
    put_beeper()  # Karel now stands on the empty spot, and puts down the beeper.
    turn_left()
    turn_left()
    move()
    move()
    turn_left()
    turn_left()
    turn_left()
    move()
    move()
    move()
    turn_left()
    turn_left()

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

    The problem, however, is that the next reader of the code will NOT easily understand what I’m trying to do. Not unless I explain to him directly. In fact, I won’t be able to read it just about five minutes after I wrote this.

    The solution with decomposition

    So decomposition is really for human, not for machine. Machine doesn’t care or discriminate, and will be able put the puzzle back to its place no matter what. Human, on the other hand, might need some help in understanding.

    Now, let’s see how we can divvy up this simple problem and try make it more readable.

    At its core, the Jigsaw Karel problem is about picking up something, putting it down, and return to Karel’s original position. We can use the status of the beeper to separate the program, i.e. to decompose. Here are the steps:

    1. Move and pick up the beeper

    To finish this first step, Karel needs to move forward twice and pick up the beeper. We can simply name this function move_and_pick( ).

    def move_and_pick():
    for i in range(2):
        move()
        pick_beeper()

    2. Put the beeper in place 

    After that, Karel will take the beeper in her pocket to the empty spot in the puzzle. We can name this part put_puzzle( ).

    def put_puzzle():
    move()
    turn_left()
    for i in range(2):
        move()
        put_beeper()
    for i in range(2):
        turn_left()

    3. Return to initial position

    Now that Karel has finished her job, she needs to return to her initial position, which I call Ground Zero. So we can call this function return_to_zero( ).

    def return_to_zero():
    for i in range(2):
        move()
    for i in range(3):
        turn_left()
    for i in range(3):
        move()
    for i in range(2):
        turn_left()

    Now that we’ve defined the three decomposed steps, all we need to do is to call these functions in the main function. Here is my solution to Jigsaw Karel:

    from karel.stanfordkarel import *

def main():
    move_and_pick()
    put_puzzle()
    return_to_zero()

def move_and_pick():
    for i in range(2):
        move()
    pick_beeper()

def put_puzzle():
    move()
    turn_left()
    for i in range(2):
        move()
        put_beeper()
    for i in range(2):
        turn_left()

def return_to_zero():
    for i in range(2):
        move()
    for i in range(3):
        turn_left()
    for i in range(3):
        move()
    for i in range(2):
        turn_left()

# There is no need to edit code beyond this point
if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

    This solution is decomposed into three functions that are easy to understand. One doesn’t need to spend lots of time trying to figure out the coder’s original thinking.

    Final thoughts

    Obviously, there is room for improvement. For example, there are several times when Karel has to turn left twice or three times, which can be simplified. If you think about it, turning left twice is actually turning around, and turning left three times is turning right!

    def turn_around():
    for i in range(2):
        turn_left()

def turn_right():
    for i in range(3):
        turn_left()

    In addition, you should pay attention to the continuity of the final status in each decomposed step. What I mean is that you should maintain a level of consistency in how Karel finishes a step. For example, if Karel picks up the beeper in the first step (function), she should also put the beeper down in the second step to stay consistent. In this way, Karel will always be ready to take action to the next step. 

  • The Harvard Business School Corporation: A Billion-Dollar Education Powerhouse

    In 2023, for the first time its the school’s history, the Harvard Business School made over 1 Billion dollars of revenue. Just like the Harvard Business School MBA degree, the crown jewel of business education, the school’s economic model is also an embodiment of what a great business looks like. 

    Anybody who thinks that the Harvard Business School is only in the education industry must look deeper in the School’s offerings. Unique among Harvard University’s 12 graduate and professional schools, the HBS has a self-sustaining business model, meaning that it doesn’t ask the University for any money. The School operates in the intersection of education, publication, and professional services. Let me explain.

    HBS funds its operations with cash from three primary sources: 

    1. MBA tuition and fees;
    2. Earned income from Harvard Business Publishing (HBP), Executive Education, and HBS Online; and 
    3. Philanthropic revenues, including current use gifts and distribution from the endowment.

    The HBS only makes about 14% of its total revenue from MBA tuition and fees. On a separate note, the School returns 66 million USD, or 43.4% of that 152 million, back to students in the form of fellowships. Another 27% of the total revenue comes from endowment and gifts. The rest 59% comes from three areas, Harvard Business Publishing (HBP), Executive Education, and HBS Online.

    Harvard Business Publishing (HBP)

    Harvard Business Publishing is where HBS differentiates itself from other business schools. In 2023, HBP made 310 million USD for the HBS, accounting for around 29% of the School’s total revenue. 

    Founded in 1994 as a not-for-profit, independent corporation affiliated to HBS, HBP has over 600 employees across more than ten locations all over the world, from NYC, Boston, to Singapore. The HBP has three business units: HBP Corporate learning, HBP Education, and Harvard Business Review.

    Harvard Business Publishing Corporate Learning

    The HBP Corporate Learning is in the B2B2C corporate training market. In other words, this BU needs to find corporate clients and close sales. The BU provides in-person, digital, or blended learning experiences to clients, which include large multi-national companies such as Coca-Cola and American Express. Harvard ManageMentor®, a major digital learning offered by HBP Corporate Learning, has 8,810,000 active users in 2023. 

    Because I never have the luxury to work for a company that purchases HBP Corporate Learning products, I can only guess that companies purchase licenses, aka accounts from HBP Corporate Learning, as employee/ executive training. Employees can log in to the platform using the licenses purchased and learn from there. Depending on the packages, employees may or may not be able to actually go to Harvard and study in person.

    Harvard Business Publishing Education

    The Education Unit of HBP monetizes the vast catelog of articles, cases, and other types of intellectual products, not only from the Harvard Business School, but also from other leading business schools around the world. The BU mainly targets educators, i.e. professors from universities looking to enhancing the instruction experiences by using HBS cases. It also provides partnership opportunities on institutional levels if the university desires to collaborate with HBP Education on a higher level. In 2023, there were 17,773,000 cases sold. The cases alone would mount to at least 150 million dollars for the Harvard Business School.

    Harvard Business Review

    HBR offers articles full of insights and should be read by all business professionals. Unfortunately, these insights are not free; anybody who wants to access HBR will have to pay at least $10 per month, or you are limited to only two articles per month for free. In 2023, on average HBR has 9,902,000 users per month.

    Executive Education

    Executive education was the second largest revenue stream for HBS after HBP, bringing in 224 million dollars, or around 21% of the total revenue. The HBS Executive Education provides both B2B and B2C offerings. For example, executives who want to further invest in their business education can choose one of HBS’s topic-focused, regional, or comprehensive leadership programs. Organizations can also engage Executive Education to train their team of executives, probably at a rather high price points.

    Harvard Business School Online

    In 2023, The HBS Online had an enrollment of 41,803, and made 68 million USD, or 6% of the School’s total revenue. HBS Online offers courses in eight areas.

    1. Digital Transformation

    There is only one course offering under Digital transformation: Winning with Digital Platforms.

    2. Marketing

    There is only one course offering under Marketing for HBS Online, which is Digital Marketing Strategy.

    3. Business Essentials

    There are three course offerings under Business Essentials:

    1. Business Analytics: $1750
    2. Economics for Managers: $1750
    3. Financial Accounting: $1750

    Each course can be taken individually for the price listed. Additionally, you can choose to purchase all three as a bundle, called Credential of Readiness (CORe), for a total of $2500. CORe is probably the most well-known HBS Online offering, as you can see from many executives’ LinkedIn profiles. In 2023 there were a total of 4,776 CORe Participants.

    4. Leadership & Management

    There are seven courses under Leadership & Management:

    1. Leadership Principles: $1750
    2. Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability: $1750
    3. Organizational Leadership: $1750
    4. Management Essentials: $1750
    5. Strategy Execution: $1750
    6. Power and Influence for Positive Impact: $1750
    7. Negotiation Mastery: $1750

    Under this stream, you can also choose to get a Credential of Leadership, Impact, and Management in Business (CLIMB), but for a price higher than all courses individually combined, at $15,000. The reason might be that the Credential track also includes a capstone project, which is not available in any individual course.

    5. Entrepreneurship & Innovation

    There are six courses found under the Entrepreneurship & Innovation section:

    1. Entrepreneurship Essentials: $1750
    2. Disruptive Strategy: $1750
    3. Design Thinking and Innovation: $1750
    4. Launching Tech Ventures: $1750
    5. Negotiation Mastery: $1750
    6. Winning with Digital Platforms: $1750

    No credential is offered under the Entrepreneurship & Innovation stream.

    6. Strategy

    1. Disruptive Strategy: $1750
    2. Business Strategy: $1750
    3. Strategy Execution: $1750
    4. Sustainable Business Strategy: $1750
    5. Global Business: $1750
    6. Economics for Managers: $1750

    Interestingly, the CLIMB credential is also listed as the go-to course combo under the Strategy stream. You can also find some courses listed under different streams. For example, Economics for Managers is listed under both Strategy and Business Essentials.

    7. Finance & Accounting

    1. Leading with Finance: $1750
    2. Financial Accounting: $1750
    3. Sustainable Investing: $1750
    4. Alternative Investments: $1750

    8. Business in Society

    1. Business and Climate Change: $1750
    2. Sustainable Business Strategy: $1750
    3. Sustainable Investing: $1750
    4. Power and Influence for Positive Impact: $1750
    5. Global Business: $1750
    6. Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability: $1750

    Though it has the Harvard Business School name on it, the HBS Online really functions the same way as any online course product: at its core, it develops courses that can be taken remotely by anybody. The HBS Online also has a blog called Business Insights, and publishes articles on a wide range of topics, from accounting, analytics, to technology and work-life balance. But because it has the Harvard url behind it, these articles are able to take advantage of the high domain authority and rank much higher than any regular business blog, leading to a large amount of traffic to its top funnel. You can also subscribe to its newsletter. The quality of these articles, however, is not impressive (but you can check it out for yourself).

    From the HBS website, you can see that “HBS Online revenue decreased 3 percent to $68 million from $70 million in fiscal 2022, as the group continued to navigate the challenges of increased competition and higher learner acquisition costs”. This should alarm anybody interested in selling courses online – including me – that even HBS Online struggles within this competitive market.

    One of a Kind Business

    The Harvard Business School has one of a kind business model that can dwarf many of the public companies. 

    While it may look like MBA students are the main customers of HBS, I’d argue that MBA students are actually “products” of the School. HBS invests heavily on providing great education to the MBA students, including financial investments by providing scholarships and fellowships. These “products” go on to become decision makers in various industries, and they give back to HBS by ways of using their influence on Corporate America: not only will they be more likely to give gifts, subscribe to HBR, etc., but they are also more likely to allocate company budgets to Corporate Learning, one-time Executive Training, or employment of future HBS students, especially because of their ever-increasing decision-making capacities. 

    From a risk standpoint, the business model of HBS is considerably stable. In other words, it’s extremely unlikely that all revenue streams will go under at the same time. It has B2B and B2C products, e.g. Corporate Learning and HBR; it has build once, sell multiple times, e.g. HBS Online, as well as high-ticket services, e.g. Executive Education; it makes money from both investment and operations. All revenue streams stem from one core area of strength: the Harvard Business School scholar and research. 

  • Every Story Takes Only 5 Seconds to Tell: Examples of Matthew Dicks’s 5-second Moments in Stories

    Every Story Takes Only 5 Seconds to Tell: Examples of Matthew Dicks’s 5-second Moments in Stories

    Storytelling is one of the most important skills in life. However, rarely do schools teach storytelling, nor do people realize its importance.

    In his book Storyworthy, Matthew Dicks gives out some great instructions (You can read my structured book notes here) to decipher this crucial skill. Here let’s just focus on this one questions: 

    What qualifies as a STORY, really? 

    Your story must reflect change over time. 

    This is probably THE most important idea that will help you understand what a story really is:

    “A story cannot simply be a series of remarkable events. 

    You must start out as one version of yourself and end as something new. 

    The change can be infinitesimal. 

    It needs not reflect an improvement in yourself or your character, but change must happen. 

    Even the worst movies in the world reflect some change in a character over time.

    So must your story. 

    Stories that fail to reflect change over time are known as anecdotes.”

    At its core, every story takes only 5 seconds to tell.

    Stories are 5-second moments in your life when something fundamentally changes forever. 

    • You fall in love. 
    • You fall out of love. 
    • You discover something new about yourself or another person. 
    • Your opinion on a subject dramatically changes. 
    • You find forgiveness. 
    • You reach acceptance. 
    • You sink into despair. 
    • You grudgingly resign. 
    • You’re drowned in regret. 
    • You make a life-altering decision. 
    • Choose a new path. 
    • Accomplish something great. 
    • Fail spectacularly.

    Or, put in another way, the 5-second moment must reflect the change in YOU.

    Going back to the first point, the first thing you should do in crafting a story is to find the 5-second moment you want to tell, aka. the moment that you somehow change fundamentally. 

    • I was once this, but now I am this.
    • I once thought this, but now I think this. 
    • I once felt this, but now I feel this.
    • I was once hopeful, but now I am not.
    • I was once lost, but now I am found.
    • I was once happy, but now I am sad.
    • I was once uncertain, but now I know.
    • I was once angry, but now I am grateful. 
    • I was once afraid, but now I am fearless. 
    • I once believed, but now I don’t.

    Examples of Matthew’s 5-second Moments in Stories

    Before you check out the 5-second moments for each story, I would encourage you to listen to or read the stories first, and try to come up with Matthew’s 5-second moments by yourself. The links to the stories can be found underneath each title.

    1. Karen vs. the Patriots

    (You can read the transcript or listen to the story here.)

    Matthew thought his true love was with Karen, the most beautiful girl he had ever met, but then realized that his true love was with the New England Patriots, who had been there for him through better and through worse.

    1. This is Going to Suck

    (You can read the transcript or listen to the story here.)

    Matthew thought he was all alone in this world because his parents didn’t show up at the hospital after his terrible car accident, but he was wrong; his friends, who showed up to cheer him up, were the only family that he needed.

    1. Charity Thief

    (You can read the transcript or listen to the story here.)

    Matthew thought he was lonely with no one to help in life when his car broke down, but the man who gave him some gas money that night made him realize he knew nothing about loneliness. 

    By now you should have mastered the most fundamental idea of storytelling. Go out and find your 5-second moments.