Another Top 10 Tips to Survive & Thrive at SXSWi
March 10, 2010
Everybody has their tip list. Heck, I read them all and take what sounds good myself. But some friends of mine who are first-timers to SXSWi this year asked me for my best tips and so, why not put them here for anyone who could use them?
It’s by no means comprehensive. What list of 10 things can be? Nor will it work for everyone. It’s just a few of the things I pass along when my friends ask.
So here there are – in no particular order… aside from that last one.
10 Tips
1) Don’t ever, ever count on making it to more than 2 events/parties/dinners per night — you can RSVP for any & everything because there will be so much you will want to make it to – and who knows? You might be the one to make it to 8 events in 3 hours. (I know people do, but I just set my limit at 2… that way if I make it to 3 or 4? I’m really rockin’ it!!) But remember that going with the flow is more important. If you let it happen? You’ll end up being where you’re supposed to be. Which is hopefully not hoofing it half-way across Austin to wait in an hour-long line to get into the shoulder-to-shoulder, screaming-volume-only, uber-High-Profile event when a lot of the most amazing folks are someplace else in small groups talking and being happy they are where they are and who they are with.
2) Bring REALLY good shoes – the average person walks at least 10 miles a day during SXSW, sometimes more. If it weren’t for George Smith saving my feet with cute non-traditional Crocs (last year when he was doing social media for them)? I would’ve been down for the count by day 2. Everything is “just a couple of blocks from here” even if that means it’s really 3 miles and you’ll be walking the whole way because the cabs are full. The one night I sacrificed sensibility for fashion in the name of ‘cute shoes’ was the night I got blisters.
3) Stick the following in your laptop bag/purse/whatever:
- A couple of BandAid Advanced Healing Blister Ampoules (if you need these? You’ll NEED these. If not, be someone’s hero)
- Small bottle of hand sanitizer
- A couple of pens & business cards (even if you have them somewhere else) – lojack is sometimes faster
- A bottle or 2 of 5 Hour Energy – you can’t always find coffee when you need it. This will get you through w/o dying by 3pm.
- Chapstick
- Excedrine/Tylenol/Advil… something for headaches
- Colgate Wisp toothbrush, gum, mints – something that keeps your breath from being toxic 1/2 way through the day… trust me, you won’t get a chance to go back to brush your teeth.
4) Bring your powercords everywhere you go before 6pm — because you will never really get back to them once you are out for the day and nothing sucks more than dead laptop/phone syndrome. But you’ll probably want to ditch them before heading out for the night. If your hotel is too far away, see if you can drop them in a friend’s room that you’ll be out with.
5) If you use an iPhone? Make one specific page for your Twitter client, Foursquare, Whrrl, Gowalla, Flickr and whatever everyone else tells you on Day 2 that they are using — but don’t count on getting ANY reception from AT&T inside the convention center – it’s major hit or miss there. Last year they had to upgrade their hardware mid-conference and still most of us could only get reception on 5th floor or higher of our hotels.
6) After you check in, find a place in your hotel room that you can hang your badge (easily visible!) The minute you walk in – take it off and hang it up. And put it on the minute you walk out. Pretty much everything you want to get into day or night will require your badge. You might as well just wear it all the time when you’re out and take it off when in. Nothing worse than missing something because you can’t find your badge.
7) Speaking of badges? Plan on getting your badge on Thursday night if you get in early. The line will still take 30m-1h, but that’s better than the 3 hour wait on Friday or Saturday!! :\
Make a point of going to the Techset Blogger Lounge at least once (room 19a this year.) It’s where you will see people you never manage to run into the rest of the conference and it’s a good place to get caught up on email and whatnot while still networking – if you get there first thing in the morning instead of afternoon? You’ll get a better spot to plug in. Also, make sure to thank your hosts Steph Agresta & Brian Solis if you see them. TechSet & Microsoft Phone makes an oasis that you will really appreciate.
9) If there’s someone you really want to see/meet/hang out with? Make a concrete plan. With 30k people in attendance, you may not ever see them otherwise. Even if the plan is “we’ll both for sure be at TechKaraoke” – make a rough time and location like “meet you at the bar furthest from the singing on the first floor around 9p?” And then of course, ask your friends if they are on any panels or core convos. You can always meet up at a session and then head out for coffee or cocktails afterward.
10) Don’t forget to experience SXSW. If you’re a geek? You’re probably trying to twitter, check-in someplace, post a pic, make a video, write a blogpost, check your email… It’s easy to get TOO wired and to forget that you really should take this time to get some quality realspace interaction on. Scale back the social media and get with the social. Next week you can go back to interacting only online.
10 1/2) Come to this because you love me – even though it’s right smack-dab in the middle of All Hat No Cattle 2… 
Okay, seriously, don’t YOU want to know what I’m going to tell you to ditch? Sure ya do. I’ll see you there.
Did I forget to mention bring duct tape? You never know when you’ll need duct tape. And have fun. Seriously. HAVE. FUN.
Twitter Lists – Hot or Not?
November 1, 2009
This week the rest of the Twitterverse got a look at the long anticipated Lists feature. Despite the polite request by Twitter for the beta testers to keep it mum, rumors had naturally leaked about their existence. The careful systemwide rollout by the Twitter team heightened the anticipation and excitement as more and more users logged in to see that the new feature had been added to their account.
The technorati have been weighing in with mixed reviews. Some folks like Robert Scoble love the feature and others like Chris Brogan find it to be less than desirable.
In the next few days to weeks, there will be dozens of posts on Lists – because it really is a radical change in the functionality of Twitter and will continue to have ramifications the effects on the usage of the platform.
Of course, like any good GeekMommy, I’ve done my own tests, research and analysis. And like any other blogger out there, I’m ready and willing to overshare share my findings with you.
Pros and Cons
For the sake of clarity, I’m resorting to ye olde bulletpointed list. It seems that embedding analysis in long paragraphs tends to get the information skimmed and comments pop up that get stuck on misconceptions.
On the Plus Side
I find it good to look for the positives first. After all, tools are created to be useful, right? And if I’m being candid, this tool can be really useful. Used beneficially, I can see where it’s very appealing.
- Sharing Great Resources – Lists make it easier for you to share good resources with someone who isn’t as familiar with the people you follow. If you’re a political wonk and know that 2 dozen people out of the thousands you follow already are the ones to read when it comes to current politics? Making a list for those who wouldn’t know which ones you’d suggest is an awesome tool
- Filtering Your Own View – granted, most people who want or need viewing filters have already switched to a 3rd party application such as Tweetdeck, Tweetgrid or Seesmic that allows them to create groups. But this is built in Twitter integration. The benefit of which is that all of those 3rd party apps will have to incorporate the ability to view Lists, so you don’t have to rebuild your groups if you move from app to app. The groups will now be lists and only have to be built and maintained in one place.
- Viewing Other Peoples’ Filters – Twitter used to have an awesome feature that you could view someone else’s twitterstream the way they saw it. Many of us used this as a good way to find new people to follow – you’d go to a user’s profile that you liked/respected/found interesting, click on the tab that let you see their stream and see what they saw. When that feature went aways it was a loss, because you could no longer put yourself in someone else’s seat. Now, with the ability to follow someone else’s public List, you can regain part of that functionality. Since Lists are currently limited to 500 members though, if the author of the List follows more than 500 people, at best, you can get a partial view. Still, if the List mirrored someone’s “preferred view” you might see what they look at most of the time in one of those apps like Tweetdeck.
- No Commitment – presently, when you follow someone else’s list, you’re simply giving yourself a link to that view, not following any of the list members. Again, it’s more like clicking over to see someone else’s stream than actually adding people to yours. Sort of a try before you buy. You can always click to view the members of the List and follow or unfollow folks from there.
On the Minus Side
- Noble Intentions Are Not the Norm – the potential for abuse/misuse of Lists is high. Let’s be candid, shall we? There will always be people who use something with the best of intentions and there will always be those who use it with the worst of intentions. If the beneficial uses outweigh the destructive ones? Then it’s a good idea. But relying upon people to not abuse something or use it for harm is naive. Let’s talk about how this feature can be abused, shall we?
- yes, this is a real troll lister
1) Negative Lists – it’s all well and good to find yourself on the “Really Smart People” list, it’s not exactly a joy to see your name on the “Stupid Egotistical Ass” list. Sure, we can say that people “shouldn’t care” or “should grow thicker skins” but ’shoulds’ and ‘ares’ are two different things. The truth is that most people are hurt when people say mean things about them. Especially in public. Worse yet? What if that list comes up on the first page of Google? Sure, it’s not supposed to mean anything really – but what happens when the HR person Googling your name comes up with a bunch of links to lists that are vile? Do you really think that impression won’t linger in the back of her mind?
2) Gaming Lists to Swindle the Unwary – for quite some time now, there has been an element on Twitter that has used high “followers” numbers to indicate to potential clients that they were some sort of “social media expert” and the unwary were not clued in to the number of tools that allowed people to ‘game’ that number using loopholes that allowed them to artificially inflate those numbers. Lists will be even easier to game. That the number of lists one is on is shown on a users profile page is a weakness that will be exploited. “I have over 50k followers and am on over 300 Lists for Social Media Experts” is a phrase that we can expect the unwary to hear as they are pitched by these “experts.” How can you game them? Far more easily than getting 50k followers. Each account is able to create up to 20 lists with up to 500 names on the list. Expect to see services that say “join this service and create 20 lists with names of other users and you will be on thousands of lists yourself shortly!” Yes, this will happen. Yes, the knowledgable will discount the influence of number of lists quickly. But just like people still think that number of followers means something as a metric, so too, they will look at number of lists as one.
- Unintentional Hurt or Offense – Chris Brogan covered this thoroughly in his post so I’ll just outline it simply. I know that we’re all supposed to be emotionally secure adults, unaffected by inclusion or exclusion from being put on someone else’s Lists. I know that more than one person is going to comment about that below. But can we drop the pretense? Even the most secure, well adjusted person feels a little twinge of disappointment when s/he isn’t included by someone s/he respects and thinks values them back. Sure, I don’t care what a stranger on the Internet thinks of me – but I sure as heck do care what someone I respect and value thinks of me. If I don’t make your “really awesome cool people” List? I probably won’t say anything, because I’d rather pretend that it was accidental rather than intentional… because finding out that it wasn’t an oversight? That would hurt.
You know what? I don’t want to hurt or offend or exclude anyone I care for. And I know I would. I know that at some point, someone I care about would feel left out or disappointed. I don’t want to be “that gal” – the one who left a dear friend off of the list and didn’t find out until years later that she was hurt but didn’t want to say anything.
- People Are Subjective, Not Objective – so you set out to make a list of “Thought Leaders” in your area. You’re adding people to your list when you realize that @UserX really should be on the list. S/he is generally considered a thought leader after all. But damn it all, you *hate* @UserX! You think s/he is a fraud. You just can’t bring yourself to endorse @UserX. What do you do? Pay lipservice to @UserX and add them? Or leave them off the list knowing full well that you are being less than honest with your list? Tough call, isn’t it. Emotions can and will play a factor in most peoples’ Lists.
- Changing the Twitter Ecosphere – this one I know won’t make a lot of sense immediately, but it will in a couple of months. Lists will change the way people engage on Twitter – and probably not for the better. The ability to follow someone *else’s* list without actually having to commit to anything will change things in the long run. As a new user, I now no longer have to commit to following someone to see them regularly. I can follow a list they are on and read that list whenever I choose. Do you know I’m interested in what you are saying? No. Do I know you exist? Not necessarily. Currently, if you follow me, I get notified. I go and look at your twitterstream and decide if you’re real, not spamming me, and not offensive. If so? I follow you. Now, you follow a list that follows me. You might @ me, I might @ back – but if I click through to your stream and see you aren’t following me? The likelihood I’ll follow you is slim. Have we engaged? Do we have a relationship? Nope, not really. What will this do in the long run? Not sure exactly, but relatively sure that it’s not going to help me connect with new people. The value of Twitter for me has always been in connecting with people and I suspect that value is just about to be diminished.
Well That’s Most of My Story
So honestly, if you made it through all of that (wordier than I intended again) I think you might understand why I am opting out of the whole “List creation” experience. I certainly don’t think it’s “evil” – but I think the negatives outweigh the positives.
I kind of hate the fact that I’m going to have to monitor the Lists people put me on semi-regularly to see whether or not I have to block some trollish attempt to put me on a derogatory list. Every moment that I have to spend doing that is one that I don’t get to interact with people I want to on Twitter. But I’m also not going to wait until Twitter figures out how to monitor their own nifty feature to see that it’s not abused.
I appreciate if you love the positive aspects of Lists. I just hope you now appreciate that there are negative aspects which I doubt Twitter considered when they implemented the feature.
What did I miss? Something positive or negative that hasn’t come up yet?
Add to my perspective please. But if you’re just going to say “people shouldn’t be offended”? Yeah, don’t waste your time. I already addressed that above under Negative Lists.
The Scoop on That One Contest, Week 2 (Contest/Giveaway)
June 7, 2009
“Ice cream is exquisite. What a pity it isn’t illegal.” ~Voltaire
Seriously. If Voltaire’s wish was granted, I’d be in a lot of trouble. Or maybe even in jail. Maybe they’d serve ice cream in jail though. It would totally be worth adding a year or two onto my sentence for the right ice cream… mmmm.
What’s that? Oh, yes, sorry – I was daydreaming. You don’t really blame me, do you? I’m willing to bet it took you a second to get past your own mental image of the perfect ice cream to read further. (If it didn’t, you have super-human strength. Did you see that picture?)
Anyhoo. It’s time for the 2nd of 4 posts I’m going to make this month that will result in one of you winning FREE Blue Bunny® Ice Cream for a whole year.
The Prize
Each of four winners will receive a shipment of one carton of Blue Bunny® ice cream and one Blue Bunny® novelty pack each month for a calendar year. You’ll receive a menu of Blue Bunny® ice cream and novelties every month, and have the opportunity to choose the carton and novelty that you’d like to receive. Each winner will also get a Welcome Kit complete with spoons, bowls and an ice scream scoop to get them ready! The prize value is $97.80 per winner. Sorry, only one winner per household – we want to spread the joy around!
The Contest Details
You will have the opportunity to enter your name & a valid email address using the form below. If you don’t win this week, your name will still be submitted for the remaining drawings. So if you entered last week, but didn’t win? You can have up to 4 entries for the last drawing!! (Assuming you haven’t already won!) If this is your first week, you can still have up to 3. See last week’s description of the rules for further information (or feel free to email me if you’re still confused!)
How Winners Are Chosen
Each week’s drawing closes at Sunday 11:59pm ET and the winner that week will be chosen from all valid entries submitted according to the method listed above. The winner for each drawing will be selected at random using a number generated from Random.org based on the total number of valid entries received between the start of the contest on June 1st and the date of the drawing. Winners will be notified via email and will have until the next drawing to reply. In the event that a winner does not reply within the time given, or the email is returned as undeliverable, a replacement winner will be drawn using the same method. Duplicate or multiple entries for the same week will be deleted. Winner must be legal resident of one of the 50 United States or the District of Columbia, and supply an address where s/he can receive an over-nighted package of ice cream/novelty on dry ice – unfortunately, this means no P.O. Boxes will be accepted.
So the dates work out like this:
- 1st drawing — now closed winner drawn & notified Monday June 8th
- This drawing — open Monday June 8th thru Sunday June 14th – winner drawn Monday June 15th
- 3rd drawing — open Monday June 15th thru Sunday June 21st – winner drawn Monday June 22nd
- 4th drawing — open Monday June 22nd thru Sunday June 28th – winner drawn Monday June 29th
So now that I’m all drooly and day-dreamy… I thought I’d share with you that there’s also an option for those of us watching our caloric intake and yet still in love with le glaceau. Blue Bunny has a Premium Light option that has 1/2 the fat and 30% fewer calories than its regular version. I’m putting it on my shopping list for tomorrow. Because now, I’m even more jealous of you guys than I was last week.
In the interest of full disclosure? I am being compensated for holding this contest (this is a lot of work dude!) but I don’t get the ice cream – so I really am jealous!! But very happy for the four winners. I just have to buy my own 100 Calorie Bars.
I’m sending the email now to Week One’s winner as drawn by Random.org – if it’s not you? Then you’ve still got 3 more chances (including this one) to enter and possibly win! Good Luck!!
Week 2 is now closed.
I Scream, You Scream – Okay, Don’t Scream, But Dude… (Contest/Giveaway)
June 1, 2009
A couple of weeks ago this really nice person from Barkley, the PR and ad agency for Blue Bunny® Ice Cream asked me if I’d want to hold a contest on my site that allowed me to give 4 of my readers this really incredible prize… FREE Blue Bunny® Ice Cream for a whole year.
Of course I said no. Because I love you guys and I’d end up having to hate 4 of you out of sheer Ice Cream Envy if I did.
Wait, no I didn’t! I said “Are You Freaking Kidding Me??!! Of Course I’ll Do It!!!!”
So here’s the deal: The month of June is going to be Ice Cream Central around here…
The Prize
Each of the four winners will receive a shipment of one carton of Blue Bunny® ice cream and one Blue Bunny® novelty pack each month for a calendar year. You’ll receive a menu of Blue Bunny® ice cream and novelties every month, and have the opportunity to choose the carton and novelty that you’d like to receive. Each winner will also get a Welcome Kit complete with spoons, bowls and an ice scream scoop to get them ready! The prize value is $97.80 per winner. Sorry, only one winner per household – we want to spread the joy around!
The Contest Details
Starting with this post, you will have the opportunity to enter your name & a valid email address using the form below. If you don’t win this week, your name will still be submitted for the remaining drawings. But each week you have the chance to submit another entry – up to 4 (once per post) – and that will increase your odds!
Let me explain that a little better. If you enter every week, you will get one entry per week… if you don’t win that week? Your entry will roll over into the next drawing as well – BUT – if you come back and enter again, you will have another entry into that week’s drawing.
So you can just enter now, and you will have 1 entry for each week. Or you could come back next week, enter again and have 2 entries for drawings 2, 3 & 4… If you enter every week? You can have up to 4 entries for the last drawing!! (Assuming you haven’t already won!)
How Winners Are Chosen
Each week’s drawing closes at Sunday 11:59pm ET and the winner that week will be chosen from all valid entries submitted according to the method listed above. The winner for each drawing will be selected at random using a number generated from Random.org based on the total number of valid entries received between the start of the contest on June 1st and the date of the drawing. Winners will be notified via email and will have until the next drawing to reply. In the event that a winner does not reply within the time given, or the email is returned as undeliverable, a replacement winner will be drawn using the same method. Duplicate or multiple entries for the same week will be deleted. Winner must be legal resident of one of the 50 United States or the District of Columbia, and supply an address where s/he can receive an over-nighted package of ice cream/novelty on dry ice – unfortunately, this means no P.O. Boxes will be accepted.
So the dates work out like this:
- 1st drawing — open Monday June 1st thru Sunday June 7th – winner drawn Monday June 8th
- 2nd drawing — open Monday June 8th thru Sunday June 14th – winner drawn Monday June 15th
- 3rd drawing — open Monday June 15th thru Sunday June 21st – winner drawn Monday June 22nd
- 4th drawing — open Monday June 22nd thru Sunday June 28th – winner drawn Monday June 29th
Okay – I’m already jealous. Seriously – this is my kind of contest. And before you say “but wait, aren’t you trying to lose weight again GeekMommy?” Let me just tell you that one of my *favorite* desserts when I’m watching my calories? Yeah, The Orange Creme 100 Calorie Bars. Mmmm… (pardon my drool.) I like the Raspberry ones too, but GeekDaddy & I have been known to fight over the last Orange Creme bar in the box.
In the interest of full disclosure? I am being compensated for holding this contest (this is a lot of work dude!) but I don’t get the ice cream – so I really am jealous!! But very happy for the four winners. I just have to buy my own 100 Calorie Bars.
So what are you waiting for? An Invitation? Okay, I hereby invite you to enter. Good Luck!!
Entries for WEEK 1 are now Closed. Winner will be announced in a follow up post upon confirmation. Please don’t forget to enter again for weeks 2 thru 4!! ~GeekMommy
Just Remember, Okay?
May 25, 2009
Today’s intended post on Memorial Day remains unwritten.
Every year around this time I find myself watching war movies that wrench your guts out and leave you crying – and they’re only movies. They’re just pale reflections of what they represent. At the end, the guy gets up, wipes off the blood and the horror and goes to eat in the cantina on the lot.
Or I stop and spend time remembering those who did give their life in the service of their country… and inevitably, I travel down the road of grief & contradictions and confusions that attend it.
I never manage to write anything I’m happy with. So I just seem to put something up like this… Last minute on the day of. Hoping people kind of missed it. Because it’s not about me at all.
It’s about trying to find a way to say thank you to all of the men & women who gave their lives in the service of their countries. Whatever else they were or weren’t – they were soldiers. May they rest in piece.
Ethical Hacking – Beating Bad Guys for Fun & Profit (giveaway)
May 11, 2009
Quick! What do you think of when I say WarGames? Sneakers? Hackers?
If you aren’t stuck with an image of a young, blonde Angelina Jolie in your mind’s eye right now, then you are probably scanning over this sentence to see where I’m going with this and wishing I’d get to the part about hacking faster and explain the title of this post already!!
Recently, the amazing folks at Izea contacted me about a Certified Ethical Hacker Course valued at $2,895 from the EC-Council. Of course, my thought was “cool… where do I sign up? Oh wait, my security skills are way out of date. I don’t even work in the field any more!!”
Fortunately for both you and me, they weren’t suggesting that I should leave the cushy world of motherhood, blogging and social media and try to get into the highly competitive (but still damn cool and well-paying) world of Network Security.
They were thinking that I might want to be able to offer the chance for one of my readers to WIN an entire Ethical Hacking iClass package which would normally cost you (or your company) $2,895. This includes the books, lab manual, and online class.
We’re talking about Security Fundamentals, Ethical Hacking, Penetration Testing, Computer Forensics, Disaster Recovery, and Secure Programming here folks.
Seriously – there’s so much actually in the course that I can’t even begin to list it all here. Just check the course site & you’ll see. This is hard-core. So if you’re in the field and want to bolster up your credentials with a globally recognized certification, or you’re wanting to finally get your foot in the IT Security door (and this would be much more convincing to an employer than those scripts & bots you’ve played with) or you are just burnnnning to get back to work and know how much something like this is really worth in today’s economy – read on.
There are two ways enter and you can do one, either, or both!!
Comment on this Post:
Leave a comment tell me 1) why you want to become a Certified Ethical Hacker – and 2) go here, scroll down to the part where it says “During this five-day course you’ll learn” and tell me which topic sounds the most intriguing to you (personally? I’m all about the Buffer Overflows – but don’t tell GeekDaddy!)
Tweet this on Twitter:
“RT @GeekMommy I just entered your contest to become a Certified Ethical Hacker! http://urlbrief.com/98d904 #CEH”
Each tweet or comment counts as one registration, up to two registrations per person. The winner will be chosen at random by IZEA based on all entries.
Win an iPod Touch & $10 worth of Music
February 5, 2009
Call me crazy, but I kind of love Valentine’s Day.
Yeah, I know, I’m crazy. G’night to you too, Gracie.*
But it’s kind of nice to have a holiday devoted to Love. I mean, there’s one for just about everything else, including pretty much every sort of bizarre concept you can come up with from weather forecasting to beer guzzling – so why not Love?
Apparently, the folks at Walmart agree with me, so they’ve rolled out some spiffy stuff at http://www.walmart.com/sweetideas to help get you in the spirit – including blowing a Free Kiss from your iPhone to your sweetheart, sending a virtual valentine, or downloading one of the Top 10 Romantic Songs that were chosen by all of us ElevenMoms.
But here’s the part I really L-O-V-E about this Lovefest… Each one of us ElevenMoms was offered the opportunity to give away an iPod Touch and a $10 Walmart Giftcard so you can download some music to get your own romantic playlist started!!
Not feeling “in the mood” this year? That’s okay, you can enter, win, and put whatever stompy-angry-give-me-my-CD-collection-back-you-lousy-jerk music thrills your soul… and your Exes can eat their hearts out at how cool your brand new, Second Generation, 8 gb iPod Touch looks and how awesome you must be to have won it for free!
So what do you have to do? Well here’s the hard part… you have to listen to me! (I know, seriously, I make these things so difficult!!) Well, by me I mean “Tech Moms Talk” on BlogTalk Radio. Every Wednesday night at 8pm ET/5pm PT I’m found chatting away with some of the smartest women (and men!) I know over there.
On Wednesday 1/28, 2/4, and 2/11 – sometime during each show, I’ll be announcing a Secret Code Word (oooh!) all you have to do is come back here, enter that code in the form below and cross your fingers and hope for Sweet, Sweet Victory!!
Don’t have time to settle in with us LIVE on Wednesday nights? That’s okay – the shows are archived on the page so you can listen to them on demand!!
Additional Info: In the event the selected winner has not replied within 72 hours after being notified at the email address provided, another winner will be chosen at random. In the event that neither winner responds, the iPod Touch and $10 gift card from Walmart will go unrewarded. All prize taxes are the sole responsibility of the winner. Members of my family are ineligible to enter and win this contest, but are eligible to enter the contests of other ElevenMoms’ iPod Touch contests subject to their rules and participation.
*seriously, tell me that someone else got that joke…
How I Learned to Stand Up for Myself and to Say No, Too.
January 23, 2009
The following post contains some details that may disturb some readers. Death, trauma, and pregnancy complications are discussed in some detail. If you are pregnant – stop reading this. Now. You can always read it later – but you don’t need this in your mind right now. Trust me. If you are sensitive to situations that involve medical complications or blood – stop reading this. Just figure that whatever happened from here? It taught me to stand up for myself.
Six years ago today, I was waiting around to check into Rose Medical Center in Denver for my inducement to have my baby girl. GeekDaddy and I kept calling the hospital to find out when I could come in, because seriously – 1/23… what a cool date for a birthday!
But apparently, there was some sort of “post-9-eleven” baby boom going on, so the Labor & Delivery floors of pretty much every hospital in town were overly full and there were women laboring in gurneys lining the hallway at the time. Something that just makes the whole experience joyous, I’m sure.
I was happy I had an induction scheduled, because otherwise they would’ve sent me home to “wait it out” despite the fact that I had been in non-productive labor for 72+ hours by the point I actually got checked into the hospital.
What’s “non-productive labor”? Oh, it means I was in full-on contraction mode… but my timing betweeen contractions was erratic. They tell you “come in when your contractions are 5 minutes apart.” Mine were along the mode of “5 mins, 5 mins, 20 mins, 5 mins, 5 mins, 16 mins, 5 mins, 4 mins, 18 mins…” For nearly 3 days.
This wasn’t exactly unexpected by me. My mother never went into labor “naturally” with either my brother or I either. I had told my OBs this and been reassured that they would “deal with that if it came to it.”
Their lax attitude should’ve been a huge red flag to me, but for some reason, wasn’t. I blame it on pregnancy hormones and an aversion to actual confrontation. You see, I should’ve been scheduled for a c-section, not an inducement. My due date had been pushed back from 1/6 to 1/11 and finally to 1/14. They finally scheduled me for the 23rd to be induced strictly because I had gotten so whiny. You know, given that I had such severe Hyperemesis Gravidarum that I had been on two different anti-emetics the whole way through my pregnancy and had been so sick for months that my students thought I must have cancer and be going through chemo… until I started showing.
Here’s the thing… my OB practice, which consisted of 5 doctors at the time, dropped the ball bigtime. Over the course of 8 months, I cycled through all 5 doctors – so I got to see everyone at least once. Since they rotated their on-call so they wanted to make sure you’d seen the person doing your delivery at least once. Every single one of them I went over my “history” with. I’m not going to burden you with details – let’s just suffice to say that at 36/37 I was extremely high risk for the complication that happened. I retold my concerns to every single one of those doctors and wasn’t listened to. I know, because they wrote it down several times in my chart – and it would’ve been a devestating blow if I had filed a malpractice suit.* (Reasons I didn’t are below.)
What complication? A condition called placenta accreta – which is the medical term for saying that the placenta attaches ‘abnormally’ or too firmly to the uterine wall. In my case, I had the rarest form of it, placenta percreta. Which means that my daughter’s placenta had actually grown through the uterine wall.
When I checked into the Emergency Room at 2 a.m. on the 24th (when they finally called us to come in) the guy doing the check in watched as I was rocked by a strong contraction more than once and said “I don’t understand, you are checking in for an induction, but you look like you’re already in labor…” Breathing shallowly, I said “I am.”
“Then why are you checking in for an induction?” he asked. “Because my contractions are not consistent and haven’t been for 3 days and you’d just send me home otherwise.” I replied trying not to bite my lip until it bled. “Oh… well, that makes sense – let’s get you up there then, how about we get you a wheelchair?” Fabulous!
I had to retell my story to the L&D folks upstairs, who gave me a room (with a pullout sofa for my husband) and said “well, your induction won’t start until the morning… your doctor should see you in about 5 hours… but you look like you’re in pain. When was the last time you slept? Would you like us to give you some Morphine so you can sleep for a bit?”
“Yes, please?” I said and then threw up on the floor… an action that I repeated but with “liter jars” repeatedly for the next 17 hours. Of course, past a certain point, they wouldn’t let me have water, so I just repeatedly vomited stomach acid. Because there’s some bizarre logic that says it’s better not to aspirate water into a breathing tube if you need surgery than it is stomach acid. Personally, I found the diluted stomach acid less painful.
So I slept for 5 hours and my poor husband didn’t – because some woman down the hall sounded as if they were torturing her repeatedly. In my morphine sleep, I kept thinking they should put that woman out of her misery and “put her down” gently. I guess I thought she was a wounded animal?
At 7:30 a.m. we wanted to know where the doc was. The nurse said she was just down the hall finishing another delivery, she’d go get her for us. The doctor who came in – whose name I will not reveal – had seen me only 1 time. Her first question was “who scheduled you for an induction?!” Um, the office?
It seems no one had told her. So instead of prepping by reading my file the night before, she just had to wing it. She wasn’t pleased. She had them ’start’ the induction with promises to be back “later that afternoon” after sleeping a bit. If you don’t know what an induction entails, you can Google it. I’ll spare you the details and the controversy. In fact, I’ll spare you most of the details until after the birth of my beautiful daughter at 6:50pm on January 24th… Six years ago tomorrow! The only thing I’ll say is “remember the liter jars I was using for the repetitive stomach acid upheavals – they will come in to play again.”
GeekDaddy accompanied Buttercup down to the nursery for the usual procedures while I stayed in the room with my epidural and my semi-delirium and my doula and the OB who had just delivered my daughter. We were chatting and I kept thinking “when will they bring the baby back? Why are these women looking so serious?“ What I didn’t know was that it had been 20 minutes and no placenta. I didn’t even know enough to know what they were waiting for. Finally, the doc said “I’m just going to reach in and get that placenta out manually…” and then all Hell broke loose.
Somewhere in the midst of the realization that the placenta was coming out in pieces and that I was now bleeding uncontrollably, the doc managed to get me to blurt out a simplified version of my medical history. She was rapidly being covered in blood and right after telling my doula to ‘push the button, scream if you have to, we need help!’ she started swearing. I can look up in my head right now and remember her saying “F**k! Why weren’t you scheduled for a c-section!?!” and then going on to describe in graphic terms the conditions of the placenta, my uterus, and the now gaping hole that was in the side of it. Trust me when I say you never want to hear an OB tell you that your uterine wall is “all ratty in there!” – but there’s some humor to it this many years later. I wonder if there’s a technical medical term for a ‘ratty uterine wall’?
Anyhow, I think I’ll kind of slide over the next bit. Because it’s getting more detailed than I usually feel comfortable with when I recount it to folks. Over the next several hours, I received super-human efforts and amazing care in the effort to save my life. 9 pints of blood transfusions – they based the amount needed by the volume of blood that nurses had “sponged and scooped up off of the floor” into the 2 different liter jars that I previously mentioned. They came to the conclusion that I was going to die without surgery.
My husband briefly held up my daughter once, so I could see her, just in case it was the only time I did. 16 nurses, doctors, and other hospital personnel were with me at one point… I had 6 IVs in, 3 in each arm. Then the OB, whom I blame for none of this, did something astounding for a doctor in my experience. She asked if “anyone in the room” had any ideas on how to save me other than getting me into an OR for an emergency 
hysterectomy? The Deck Doc (a young woman going through her OB rotation) piped up that she had seen a (then) experimental surgery a couple of weeks before that was a radiological procedure called Uterine Artery Embolization – usually used for Fibroid treatment, it entails threading a tube up the femoral artery and injecting polyvinyl microbeads into the artery that supplies the blood to the uterus, blocking off the blood flow. In this case, I was the 5th person ever at Rose to undergo the surgery rather than emergency hysterectomy. I know because I was awake throughout the procedure… and half of the hospital apparently came in & out of the observation room to see. There were so many who wanted to, they took turns. I was really well known for the next 5 days that I was there.
I keep vacillating on sharing more details here. This is already long enough to be a short-story and yet too short to even begin to encompass what I and my family went through over the course of my time in that hospital following my daughter’s birth… But there’s a title above that says “how I learned to stand up for myself and to say no, too” and so far, all you’ve heard are horrific details about my daughter’s birth and my near-death.
So let me skip the minute gory details and get to the end of the story.
Those doctors and physicians assistants and personnel at my OB’s office? They didn’t listen to me. As a result, I almost died and I suffered irreparable damage to my reproductive system that required a tubal ligation. Since getting pregnant again would be a death sentence for both me and the baby.
Death is always a risk in childbirth – even in 1st world countries. But if even ONE person at my OB’s office had listened to my concerns? I would’ve been scheduled for a c-section, given late-term ultrasounds to see if the placenta was an issue, and treated as the high-risk patient I was.
Why didn’t they listen?
Because I didn’t demand it. I should’ve walked out of that practice the first time someone dismissed my concerns and found doctors who would listen. I should’ve stood up for myself repeatedly and didn’t. I should’ve been my own best advocate and if not listened to refused to put up with it until heard. Instead, I nearly lost my life because I entrusted it to people who weren’t paying attention.
I didn’t file a malpractice suit because I talked to the top malpractice attorney in the state and he said “Look, let’s be frank here… you could file a suit. There were so many instances of malpractice here that it’s amazing. Clear cut. Undeniable. Even in writing. But… you’ll waste your time and you’ll lose. Because you are alive, you have a beautiful, healthy baby girl, and you are 37 years old. I’m not going to smoke-screen you… no jury will award you damages because the defensive attorneys will argue that they saved your life, you have a child already, and your eggs are old.”
It was an awful thing to hear. Your eggs are old. Your uterine lining is ratty. They messed up, nearly killed you, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
But it was the truth and I knew it when I heard it. He could’ve filed a suit, charged me tons of money, and had the same result – but he was far more helpful… he was truthful.
So here’s another truth: that OB did save my life. I’m here. Every day I get to spend with my daughter is a blessing. A gift that I almost didn’t get. Six years tomorrow of days I almost didn’t have with her or my husband.
And the hardest truth? If I had believed in myself enough, had believed in my right to say “No, stop. Now listen… I have valid concerns and you are dismissing them without even thinking about it. Stop and listen or I’ll go find someone who will” she wouldn’t have had to save my life. I wouldn’t have had to see her covered from the neck down in my own blood. I wouldn’t have had to see my husband holding up my daughter ‘just in case it was the only time I ever saw her.’
Because as much as those doctors failed me – I failed me.
So for 6 years now, I’ve said what I need to say, done what I need to do, and had absolutely no fear of saying “no” because I never want to go through anything like that again.
Sometimes, I have to remind myself. Because old habits die hard. But that’s why I wrote this post. Because maybe it will help me remember. And maybe it will help you too.
Tomorrow I’m celebrating my daughter’s sixth birthday… But I’m also celebrating the beginning of the point where I became the best advocate for me that I can be. How about you? What’s it going to take for you? I hope it’s not as extreme as what it took for me.
SSDD? No, Different Day, Different Stuff.
January 6, 2009
Yesterday I got up and hit the ground running. Today I got up and hit the ground. Face first. Metaphorically, of course. It’s just been one of those days so far, ya know?
I envy consistent people. They move along at a fairly even pace – awakening each day to the same process, facing the morning with some sort of well-practiced routine that gets them up, showered, dressed, and even exercised in some cases, long before they have to engage their brains and settle in for a day’s work.
Even in my days as a corporate denizen I was never any good at that. Some days I’d get up and through the necessary ablutions, have time for breakfast, coffee, and a perusal of the day’s news before heading out the door. Other days I’d be hard pressed to get out of bed without first making best friends with the snooze button too many times and then experiencing a harried flight outward just making it to work on time. Which pretty much describes every day of my education from kindergarten to college as well. Consistency has been a battle for me all of my life.
I’ve pondered at times why some of us are capable of incorporating such routines into our lives and why some of us are not. It’s one of those “2 types of people” dilemmas. I’ve noticed that those capable of doing it are almost always trying to convince those of us who aren’t that we could do it if only we “tried harder” or “got in the habit.” In fact, I think they suspect that we’re just not trying or it would come as easily to us as it does to them.
And yet, still I have no “consistent bedtime” nor “consistent morning routine” nor, for that matter, a consistent anything. We say humans are “creatures of habit” but I begin to wonder if it’s true for all of us. I don’t drive the same way to places I go routinely. I don’t break down my work day into smaller processes like so many ‘getting things done’ books say I should.
Not for lack of trying, mind you. I’m 42 years old… believe me, I’ve tried. It’s just that something in me just refuses to ‘buckle down and fly right.’
This often makes it difficult for me to interact with the “if it’s Tuesday, this must be casserole night” crowd. My lack of consistent routine or ability to implement one comes across to them as flakiness. In fact, I’ve used that term to describe myself many times because it’s just easier than saying “I’m not like you.”
If you label someone as “inconsistent” it’s seldom a compliment. We try hard ourselves to come up with more flattering terms – ecclectic, eccentric, artistic, marching to the beat of a different drummer – but really? We’re just as baffled as to why we can’t do it as those who can are as to why we can’t.
I’ve been battling this for a long time now (based on starting kindergarten at age 5, I’ll go with around 37 years or so) and I think I’ve just had an epiphany of sorts for me. I need to quit trying to fit my little square self into that tempting round hole and try to figure out instead how to thrive as someone who will never have 2 days in a row that are the same (unless, of course, having 2 days in a row that are the same breaks the pattern, then it’s a given, right?)
So how does someone who is ‘consistently inconsistent’ turn that into an asset rather than a handicap? Well, I’m not sure yet. But I’m going to find out sometime this year and I’ll let you know. I’m done being down on myself for not being a ‘creature of habit’ – I’m ready to be a ‘creature of unpredictability’ with fabulous flair. Success doesn’t depend on fitting in, after all – it depends on rising above the crowd.
Please Leave a Message At the Sound of the Tone…
January 5, 2009
“Domo Origato, Mister Roboto…” – Styx
There’s been a bit of hubbub lately about automation on social networks like Twitter. Prominent folks have come out saying how anti-social it is to automate certain functions because it simulates engagement without actually being genuine.
I get dozens of automated Direct Messages (DMs) in my Twitter inbox daily that say something along the lines of “Thanks for following me! yadda-yadda-yadda…” After awhile I was on the band-wagon. “Don’t send me your auto-DMs! I don’t want your free e-book, or a link to your website! Be real!!!”
But I kept seeing these DMs despite the seemingly general sentiment against them. Then I realized something – those calling for the ‘end to the robots’ are also power-users. By power-users, I mean they’re folks who a) are followed by thousands of people and b) follow most of them back.
It’s that following back part that triggers these automated messages. Sent out from a variety of different services, the average user signs in once, sets up a generic “Thanks for following me! yadda-yadda-yadda…” message and doesn’t think twice about it afterwards.
So clearly, there’s a discrepency here: the usage/impression varies depending on how the user interacts on Twitter. If you follow less than one person a day, say maybe 5 a week, and only a couple of them send those messages – the annoyance factor is going to be far less.
That got me started thinking about automation in general. Since I had gotten behind on my own ‘followbacks’ in the month of December (to the tune of about 1500 people!) I turned to a friend of mine who really ‘gets’ thewhole automation thing – Jesse Stay [@jessestay] the creator of SocialToo.com.
The reason I contacted him was that I knew his service offered an option to “automatically follow back” those who followed me. I asked Jesse if that was “from the time I registered” or if there was a way I could retroactively follow all of those people whose notifications were sitting in my inbox, pushing it over 2,000 unread emails.
Jesse told me that he had been working on a premium option (now live) that allowed the user to run a ‘one time’ catch-up script. Was I game? Sure. Because at that kind of number, it would be easier for me to go back through them and unfollow people that I didn’t want to interact with than it would to a) open each email, b) click on the link to their twitter, c) click on the follow button (or not), d) go back to the email, close it and go on to the next. For fifteen-hundred-plus people. So Jesse ran the script for me. About 10 minutes later, what would’ve taken me hours was done.
Do other ‘power-users’ use this automated follow-back? I suspect so. There are some who probably do what I do and try to manually do it every day – but you know what? That’s a lot of time spent just going thru the notifications.
So is some automation good but other automation bad? My analysis? No. It’s how you use it that makes it effective or ineffective. To that end, I wanted to ask Jesse some questions about SocialToo.com and find out a bit more about what he’s done and why.
Here’s that Interview
GeekMommy: Jesse, I hope you don’t mind if I write about the fact that I turned to you for help with the automated following.
Jesse: That’s no problem – I’m probably going to turn that into a one-time payment, or possibly donation tonight or tomorrow as a new feature on the site if others would like that. I’m thinking maybe $15-$20 to turn that on once, but I may just make it a donation. (Note: the service is presently live at a one time fee of $5 on the SocialToo site ~GM)
GM: Your script took literally *days* off of my timeline for that. After the script ran, I went back through my following list and pared it down a bit based on whether or not people were following/engaging with me and also if they were spammy or scary – and I still had to go thru 348 pages of following folks on Twitter for that!
Jesse: I’m glad it could help. That’s why we started this – there were too many time-consuming tasks like that, and as Twitter grows that will only get worse.
GM: I really think that people are mistaking the tools for the issue. Anyone can use automation – but how they use it may or may not ‘work’ for someone else.
Jesse: Exactly. My goal is to try and satisfy those for automation, and those against automation, too. If you don’t like the auto-dms people send you, we’ll provide an option for that as well (I should note that I currently have a beta feature turned on for just my account that disables socialtoo-generated DMs from being sent to me.) Many, if not most people I hear from don’t mind them. Most of those people also aren’t following 4,000 people. We all have different circumstances, and should be able to control the way we use the service, and enhance the relationships we have as we use it.
GM: To me, the real issue with DMs is that they shouldn’t be tied to following. Just because I read your blog doesn’t mean I want to give you my home phone number too…. Likewise, just because I’d like you to have my home phone doesn’t mean I’m interested in reading your blog… The issue lies with Twitter, not with automation.
Jesse: Very true – I’ve got a post I’ve been meaning to write about this as well. Twitter relationships are broken. On Facebook, if I want to be your friend and follow your updates, you have to approve me doing so, and vice-versa. Once you approve me, there is a mutual relationship there, and both can know that they can see and follow each others updates if they choose. It’s built into the system. Then, Facebook has built in Friend lists and privacy filters to control what you want to see amongst those you have agreed to be friends with. Twitter gives no protection to users – relationships can be one-way, which IMO hurts the network. People can follow me but there’s no guarantee I’m listening, or even have the chance of listening down the road.
Then again, some people like that, and that’s how they use the service. There’s no wrong or right way to use the service – this is just my perception.
GM: That said, automation is a good tool used effectively. Ask anyone complaining about it if they have voicemail or not?
Jesse: Twitter itself is an automated tool – I don’t see people criticizing Twitter. These are all tools, and they’re built to give you flexibility to build the strongest relationships you can, and retain those relationships. I call it Relationship Metrics – the tracking of those you follow, and those that follow you, and finding ways to retain those followers and build strong relationships with them. The more people you can build a strong relationship with, the more “authoritative” (for lack of a better term) you can become.
GM: What made you decided to start SocialToo.com? Was it more a matter of wanting certain functions yourself and making them available for others, or of seeing people ask for something and fulfulling that niche? (or something else entirely!)
Jesse: It was a combination of the two. I don’t ever like to do things manually that could be automated. I was already manually following everyone who followed me on Twitter – I like to solidify the relationships of people that are interested in me. It’s just my policy, and it’s important to me. At the same time I wanted a way I could choose not to follow certain people. I believe it was Chris Pirillo [@chrispirillo] that mentioned he wanted a way to follow those that were following him on Twitter automatically, so I wrote a script for him to run on his servers (or Mac – not sure which). I ran the script for myself as well, and I built blacklisting functionality into it so I could exclude spammers and the like from being followed if I didn’t want to follow certain accounts.
Then, after following Guy Kawasaki [@guykawasaki], I noticed when he asked for the same functionality. I offered him my script, but quickly realized not everyone was going to be able to set up my script, and setting it up for them would require me asking for their Twitter credentials in person, which I really didn’t want to do. So I wrote a UI (user interface) around the script, put a database on the backend, and enabled it to support multiple users, allowing them to enter their own Twitter credentials in so I didn’t have to see them. And that was the beginning of SocialToo.com – I believe this was around April or May of this year.
Chris Pirillo also gave me some great advice as we were building it (along with Ponzi [@ponzarelli]) contributing to the auto-unfollow capability. Guy then later approached me with an idea about creating surveys you could Tweet to your friends, in similar manner to TwitPic, but for surveys and polls. I gave him some ownership of SocialToo, we built it out, and launched all features of SocialToo, officially to the public in November.
TechCrunch featured a survey Guy posted on our first day of launch, and we knew it was an instant hit. In just a month we have garnered near 5,000 subscribers on the service, and I expect that to at least triple in the next month.
GM: Do you foresee premium services down the line?
Jesse: Yes, we will be building on a Freemium model. The base features that are currently there should remain free. Our target market is small to even large businesses that want to better track the relationships of people that follow them on the social networks they belong to. We’re establishing a new concept I call “relationship metrics”, which tracks statistics around the relationships you create, along with another concept I call “relationship retainment”, helping you to retain the relationships you build. We’ll provide premium features on top of an already rich feature-set that will support these concepts.
GM: You managed a function for me by running a script that followed back for me over 1500 people in a matter of minutes – do you plan on offering something similar to users down the line? What about a script that does the opposite – unfollowing everyone for someone so that they could ’start over’ on their follow lists?
Jesse: Unfollowing *everyone* is a novel idea – I’ll think about that one, but I could certainly imagine that being a feature. To answer to the function we ran for you, the answer is yes, and hopefully in the next couple days. There is a chance that will be a one-time pay feature*, or perhaps at least a donation of some sort. We’re a completely bootstrapped company, so I’m very eager to start monetizing some of this! A family of 6 is not easy to support as an entrepreneur! (*again, this feature has been implemented since our interview, for a small one time fee of $5 ~GM)
GM: What are your plans for SocialToo.com in 2009?
Jesse: Expect some interesting partnerships with other products and services. I’m not going to say what right now, but we’re going to be launching some unique services that will make these partnerships much easier, and will provide a wealth of information for other products and services. Expect some interesting monetization strategies – in particular around the SocialSurveys themselves. There will always be a free option, very similar to what we provide now, but I have some ideas that could be win-win for our users and us as a company.
My hope is, as we become profitable, to hire several more people and build out the statistics much more than they are currently. I’d also like a much more solid and feature-rich Survey product. There will also be several new products released – remember, our goal is to be your “companion to the social web”. Whatever we can do to further complement your experience on the social networks you belong to, we’ll be working to do so.
Oh, and Twitter will not be our only focus. Very shortly, as soon as we solidify our focus around Twitter, we’ll be expanding features around the other networks we support (Facebook and Identi.ca), along with some new networks we haven’t yet announced. Keep an eye out for that, as I think that is what will make this service very powerful.
GM: How do you deal with people who are saying that “automation” or “robots” don’t have a place on Twitter?
Jesse: Those people are right, based on the way they use the service. People that don’t mind “automation” or “robots” are also right. Personally, I don’t enable auto-dm (except when I’m testing new features, which is happening currently) for my personal account [@JesseStay]. At the same time, I think it’s appropriate to auto-dm for our company’s @socialtoo account. We thank them for joining SocialToo and tell them how to contact us. I don’t think that’s any different than an auto-responder for new subscriptions to any new service. We’re just doing it through Twitter.
Some people have thousands of followers however. Getting a new auto-dm every minute gets annoying, especially when many of them are generic and meaningless. It’s my intention to provide solutions around this as well – our goal is to stay flexible enough to where we can satisfy the way multiple types of users use these Social Networks. For instance, I’m testing a feature right now which we may or may not release, in which you can opt to not receive SocialToo-generated auto-dms. That may or may not be released, but it shows that I am aware of the other opinion. We’re also working on better ways to make the auto-dms much more personal, and more real. For instance, I’ve found when you mention a person’s real name in the dm they are many times more likely to start conversation with you, and appreciate the message. People should have choices, depending on the way they use Twitter. At the same time we all have a responsibility to be responsible, and considerate of different types of users that may be overwhelmed by such features. There’s no wrong or right way to use these services.
There’s no wrong or right way to use these services… How many times have I said that? Yes, I have my preferences too – but in the end, telling someone else that how they use a service is “wrong” because it’s not how you do it? Is like telling them that they should like spinach because you do and they shouldn’t like kumquats because you don’t. Automation isn’t the end of the social aspect of networks like Twitter – used correctly, it’s something that just gets us to the socializing faster.
After talking to Jesse, I changed my policy. I now have an auto-DM set up – it says “Nice to meet you <<firstname>>. This *is* an automated message, but only to say I will check out your Twitter shortly” because I’m all about transparency. I’m not going to pretend it’s not an automated message – any more than I pretend that you’re talking to me when you reach my voicemail. But I do think it’s nice to acknowledge to someone that I’m not just going to ignore them just because I’m not online 24 hours a day.
Am I using the auto-follow feature of SocialToo right now? No, I’m back to my old methods of adding manually. Which means I need to quit writing this and get to back to my inbox. Thanks for reading (if you did) this lengthy post. I really think we’ll see people adapt to the automation tools the same way we have to voicemail and call-waiting… but until then, we may have to slog through a few unwanted DMs.
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