The Science of Communicating & Marketing Your Business

People ask what you do. I respond, "I bore people." That gets the polite chuckle usually followed by "No, really, what do you do?" (I'll throw the question out to readers of this blog; what do I do? Email me or post a comment. I'm dying to know what I do)

I listed my days' activities a while back. Sometimes I recount them. Sometimes I'll talk about projects I'm working on or research we're doing. Eyes glaze over, people begin nervously looking for ways to escape the sphere of my monologue.

I ask people to tell me about themselves and most respond with their job title, function, company ("Doesn't he know this is a business networking event?"). I'll listen then ask, "You've shared what, and that's nice. Now tell me about who." This seems an incredibly difficult task for most people. I've studied enough to know why, I'm just still surprised that it is so difficult. Someone decided to turn the tables and asked me to tell them about myself.

Not a problem. I started with music, went into reading, cooking, favorite movies, my writing (not this blog, my columns, academic and technical papers, etc., but my fiction, poetry, children's stories, ... you know, the interesting stuff). My family was mentioned in just about every topic. I think my facility responding made my inquisitor even more uncomfortable.

It was at this point that someone else entered the conversation and the subject quickly switched to Second Life.

Evidently Second Life is a place where -- in addition to everything else -- people can go and have...umm...affairs.

The mind convulses with the possibilities, doesn't it? Holy Porn Sites, Batman!

Not only can people have affairs (romances, engagements, entanglements, passionate interludes, ...), they can gossip about who's with whom.

Which was a lot of what my inquisitor did on Second Life. Gossip. I have no idea if she engaged in affairs. Didn't ask.

She did turn to me at one point and ask if I was on Second Life. She gave me information on her avatar (oh, excuse me, her "sim"). I thanked her.

But I was thinking, "Second Life? I don't find you interesting in real life. I'm going to waste my time online with you?"

Information overload. There's some information out there that can be easily offloaded, don't you think?

Please contact NextStage for information regarding presentations and trainings on this and other topics.

I'll be speaking at the Society for New Communications Research Annual Awards Gala Summit on 5-6 Dec 07 in Boston. Come on by and say hello.