Hello. You. Yes, I want to talk to you, the person who has never yet left a comment, but who has read forever and ever here.
Today’s your day. You’re up. I’d love for you to leave just a small comment and say hi.
Now, given that 45,000 people get this blog sent to them daily, and that another 170,000 people swing by the site at least once every month, and given that I’m good for usually 20 or so comments a post, that means that this post, if you play along, should receive something like 44,980 comments.
But really, I just wanted to hear from you. Say hi? You, the long-time reader and consumer of all things here. Just say hi.
For everyone else, my wonderful friends who give me more than I give you when you comment here, thank you. I’m grateful for your contributions to my madness. You matter.
Let’s all greet the new folks. Shall we?
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Are We Addicted To Giving Our Own Opinions
The tools we use for social media have empowered us to be steady-flow commentators. Watch Twitter or Facebook during any event, and you’ll see our added commentary rolling along in time with the experience. At times, such as the US Presidential election, it was exciting to feel that experience, of everyone participating all across the world in an event. There are many more times where it feels like that.
In blog comments, on Twitter, all over Facebook, Yelp, YouTube, and several other sites, we’ve been groomed to give our opinion. We spit it out everywhere. We share, rate, criticize, deride, praise, and everything in between. Forrester’s Ladder graphic suggests that critics are second on the content ladder, just below creators.
But if you look at the ecosystem, and what we’ve built, are we “starting conversations” or are we inviting commentary? And what’s the difference? To me, one is an exchange of knowledge, whereas the other is more of an end product. Make sense? Commenting and giving opinions becomes an “object” or “artifact” or “creation” of its own. See where I’m going?
So the question becomes: if we’ve built all these tools, these comment buttons, these like buttons, these “share and add notes” buttons, how is this impacting our interactions and our communication? Now that we’ve gone from not having a voice to having tools to give our opinion about everything, how does this change us? How does it impact how we interact with people? What does it mean to the larger ecosystem?
Photo credit Hashmil
Get Your Email Answered
I just hit a new milestone, but not one that I love. I’m getting over 600 emails a day on average now. I did some really rough analysis and found that over 50% were people asking me for some amount of my time for their needs, 25% were “really nice people,” 20% were business opportunities, and 5% were people who really matter to me personally. A quick bit of math: if I answered 1 email a minute, 600 emails would take me 10 hours to answer. (1 minute is pretty decent unless I have to do some work, like fill out an email interview).
The thing is, we’re all busy. We all have tons of email. We have no time to get it all handled.
But what will you do to get your email answered (for the most part)? I’ve got a few thoughts, and this relates to some of what Julien Smith and I talked about in Trust Agents. If you want to improve your chances of an email being answered by someone (like me), here are some thoughts and ideas. I’m hoping you add yours to the comments.
This applies more to the business sense of email, not personal. If I know you, it’s okay to email me. Just forgive me that I’m having trouble drowning.
Get Your Email Answered
- Brevity. I have no time for huge rambling emails. Lead with what you need from me. Fill me in on the backstory (if you feel you must), and then end again with what you need from me. (Most imporant part: lead with what you need from me).
- Connectivity. If you talk with me on other platforms (like comment on my blog or talk with me on Twitter or Facebook), then I’m much more likely to know who you are.
- Skip the flattery. PR types: starting with “I love your blog” and then pitching me something I could care less about is a bit of a mismatch. You clearly don’t understand my blog if you’re pitching me stories that don’t relate to what I’m doing.
- Get right to it. Most emails have about 200 words of throat-clearing. Feel free to just be brief and to the point.
- Make it mutually beneficial. It’s very nice that you want me to help you get attention, but it’s rare that this does anything for me. Is there anything you’re going to do for my community to make this more worthwhile for them to care about you?
- Make every email about resolving to a close. I hate open-ended emails. Examples: “what would you like for lunch tomorrow?” Instead, how about, “I’m thinking about either tapas or Korean BBQ tomorrow. Do you have a preference?” One makes things close faster. The other makes the message linger.
- Give the right lead time. Asking me for something today is probably not going to happen. Asking me for something in three months is going to be forgotten. Think more in terms of two weeks for a typical response, or two or three months for something involving travel. Make sense?
- Equip a trust agent. It’s easier to get some kind of response by having someone who knows your target person introduce you.
What else? What else do you think will help?
By the way, since I started my contact form, I’ve found that I *love* responding to information that goes through it. It resolves to a Google spreadsheet, and I can bang out several dozen answers a minute on the form. Just a data point.
I look forward to your thoughts.
Photo credit bobster855
The Mirror Game
Listening to people’s opinions is a tricky thing. One reason we fall into low self-esteem is by paying more attention to what others say about us versus being guided from within. ( Want to learn more about that? Read Self-Esteem, by McKay.) In doing what I do, it’s difficult avoiding the mirror game.
I practice what I preach with regards to my advice that we grow bigger ears. I listen to people’s conversations about me, and then I decide whether it’s appropriate to engage. If you think for a minute that all these conversations are positive, glowing affirmations of my writing and ideas, think again.
Some folks have different opinions than mine. That’s always great. I learn by those kinds of posts, comments, and conversations. I’m always happy for discourse, if it helps me move ahead.
But often times, I come across comments by people who just don’t like me. It’s okay for folks not to like me, obviously. People can think what they will about me. Where I don’t do myself any favors is when I read their commentary or posts and then take to heart what they’re saying.
We have to remind ourselves constantly that not all who criticize are doing so for our betterment. I think that it’s important to learn from others, but with an eye towards not supplanting our own self-opinion with the random opinions of others. It’s a balance. Learn from the words of others, but keep your own thoughts and plans and self-image firmly in front of you.
Trusting the whims of the crowd to be our “mirror,” where we regard ourselves, is a dangerous practice.
Moved my 41400 Comments into Disqus
Boy, was I freaked out about not wanting to implement a new comment system on my blog. I have over 41,000 comments here. Do you think I want to lose even one precious word you’ve written back to me over the years? No. That’s the short answer. So I have put off moving to a commenting platform for a long time.
I’ll be honest, what got me to convert was that Giannii from Disqus did the conversion for me while I squirmed and winced and looked between splayed fingers, hoping against hope that it would go okay.
And now? It’s over. I’m there. I’m on their commenting platform.
But why? WordPress has a perfectly good commenting system. The answer is two fold: flexibility and searchability. The tools allow users and me to do more with commenting, and they also make it much easier to search the comments and for the comments to be found floating out on other platforms for better discovery.
I’m excited. I’m in. I’m happy with the service and with Giannii’s (and team’s) help.
Worth a look-see.