Julia Ryberg

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Time to Kill Your Darlings?

Once every blue moon, any prudent home maker or content provider is well advised to establish or update an inventory of accumulated products.

In the world of online platforms, this involves a tech-savvy person to take a good look at the sitemap architecture as well as the quantity and quality of the content provided. In a more private setting, it’s a late-night kitchen cabinet and refrigerator rage fueled by the detection of funky dots in the food container.

This inventory is then analyzed and much brooded over: Does the content match the ambition? What is missing, what needs to be improved, what works exceptionally well and why?

The results of a web audit are then pooled with customer feedback and some benchmark analysis to strategically plan upcoming production efforts – a practice both sensible and efficient. In a home environment, you end up with a trash can jam-packed with the remains of over-ambitious culinary arts projects.

In both cases, you rely on hard data to make strategical decisions. This, as opposed to trusting your instincts and gut feeling. A healthy suggestion, and an opportunity to kill all your darlings whose best-before indicators have long passed. It is, if you will, the perfect occasion to create a graveyard for well-intended flops and has-beens.

Don't worry about the empty shelves by the way - those tend to fill up eerily quick.