Twitter

Twitter, for those of you not using the incredibly addicting micro-blogging site, is like one big chat room with a 140 character limit for each update. The level of addiction increases as you follow and are followed by more and more people. As more people start to tweet about their lives, their locations, and general randomness, a few Twitter police have emerged from the crowd with the intention of spanking Twitter users for what they deem to be inappropriate uses of 140 characters.

I’m tired of seeing people tweet about how or how not to tweet. Twitter is still relatively new, we’re all still figuring out how to leverage the 140 characters for value, and no one has mastered what it means to be a good twitterer/tweeter/tweep etc. Take that soap box you’re standing on and use it for something meaningful. I might use my other blog to write a full post on this subject.

Men

Some of you are great, some of you think with your dicks, and some of you are just plain dicks. Here’s the problem. I think I’ve given too many men the impression that I’m bedable — an easy lay. Sorry to disappoint fellas, but a girl like me isn’t going to give up the milk for free. Realistically, after reading my post on sexpectations, you shouldn’t even want it. This milk is sour (that is a terribly poignant analogy).

There is also a handful of you who don’t know what to do with me. You’re not interested in the sex, and for some reason or another you’re completely turned off by my personality. That’s okay. We don’t have to like each other. If, however, I make an effort to send good things your way and I’ve never done anything but speak of you highly, why do you insist upon disliking me? Maybe you think I’m one big pretender, but if you do, have the decency to tell me to my face. Please, a little common courtesy is all I ask for.

Gossip

I’m usually pretty good about not spreading gossip. I like to stick to the facts. Every once in awhile, however, a really juicy piece of information crosses my path, and I can’t help but follow the grimy trail of dirt until I reach the filthy core of the secret. Lately, however, the tables have been turned. People are gossiping about me. People I trust are telling people I don’t trust things about me and/or my sex life that are either blatantly untrue or too true (hence the secret part). It goes the other way too…people I don’t trust are making up lies and passing them off as the truth. There’s only so many times in a week I want to hear, “just so you know XXXX said this about you…”.

It’s hard not to feel like I brought all of this messiness upon myself. I’m caked in mud and trying to dine at a four star restaurant, of course I’m going to draw unwanted negative attention. Perhaps the easy remedy to the problem is to lay low, or blog less, but the reality is that as more and more people find my little sex blog, the more I’m going to have to develop a thicker layer of impenetrable skin.

This is a post that I’ve been meaning to write for awhile, but I think you’ve done more justice to the subject matter than I could ever have. What you’re blessed with is an outsider perspective, and what I’m cursed with is knowing that every single word you right is true. I am very much a part of the conference circuit, and men love the attention of a pretty girl. Exhibitors result to getting “booth” babes to attract attention…wtf? When did a conference become the type of venue where Hooters wasn’t the after hours event but the in-conference feature?

To the question of marriage, I too have lost all faith in the idea of monogamy. My parents, who are monogamous, represent an ideal that seems pretty much unattainable. Maybe it has something to do with my dad’s commitment to the church, to his willingness to accept his flaws and not give in to his lust, or maybe it’s because my parents are simple folks and the glitz and glamor of the spotlight has never burned in their loins.

I’ve reread this comment several times, and having just been to Hooters (I do kind of like the place), and a number of conferences, I have found that exhibition halls tend to purposely mashup business material with in-your-face sexual assaults. Combine this with the social nature of events and the expectation of free drinks, and you end up with a breeding ground for infidelity. It’s almost like one big Frat party where the costs are always expensed to someone else.

Think about this. When you go to Hooters what are your expectations? You expect to see gratuitous amounts of cleavage and an abundance of butt checks. Given that the setting was purposely created to provide you with sexual stimuli, you are essentially encouraged to stare, drool, and act like a brutish and neolithic man. You’re expected to consume the T&A. It’s just the nature of the business.

Now think about conferences for a moment. What are your expectations? You expect to network, you expect to learn, and more and more you’re expected to party. Social mixers are now very much integrated with the actual event, but to make matters even more sexually stimulating, you’re also expected to check out the exhibition hall, where savvy exhibitors use pay-per-hour females to dress scantily clad (much like Hooters a girl) and lure you over to their booth.

My point is that Hooters and conferences have become socially acceptable places to stare, gawk, and flirt with disaster. The more socially acceptable sexual flaunting becomes, the more difficult it will be to avoid temptation. Does monogamy have a fighting chance against our evolving sexual interests?

Yes I get the awkwardness of wearing jammies to a semi-professional networking function, and I blog about that in this post. BUT seriously…web innovators, strategists, evangelists…all you conversation starters…man up!

I sported some very cute pjs from the Victoria’s Secret Pink collection and definitely got mad props from conference/party attendees for my willingness to wear the wardrobe that would (and did) make the wearer the elephant in the room. I endured the funny stares and sideways glances as I traversed from hotel to cab, cab to Hard Rock, Hard Rock to cab, and cab back to the hotel. I really and truly owned the experience, but I just wish that others would have been more willing to step outside their comfort zone in the spirit of community building.

Just my two cents. Feel free to chime in! Oh and I failed to take any pics of me in my pjs so if anyone knows of any, please please please point me in that direction.

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I expect my coffee house to know my name because a. I made it a point to learn names and start conversations when I was in the biz and b. I get coffee from the same place every single day and I know I’m not unrecognizable given that I order soy lattes extra hot in the land of whole milk and cream.

Panera is failing me, and countless others that I hear complain, when it comes to ease of ordering and customer service. The problem starts when you enter the door – there’s two separate counters and no signs indicating that one counter and the accompanying registers serves the bakery and the other counter with more registers serves the patrons ordering lunch. Actually there is a sign over the lunch registers that reads, “Place Order Here.”

The question then becomes where do I stand in line?

At first I assumed that everyone should stand in one line, the lunch line, regardless of type of food being ordered. I made this assumption because that’s where everyone seemed to be lined up. I, like most people, tend to follow the crowd when I’m in unfamiliar situations. It was brought to my attention, however, that if I was ordering pastries, coffee, and breakfast items that I should stand in the shorter bakery line. Okay I guess this makes sense. Yet when I stand in this line during the lunch hours, the guests in the lunch line are audibly confused as to why us bakery patrons are being helped before them. Things get even more chaotic when the bakery staff start helping the lunch patrons and completely ignore the bakery patrons who come in during this mess.

Panera Tip: Don’t make your customers guess. Tell them where to go.

To make matters worse, by the time you figure out what line to stand in and you actually get up to a register the customer service staff is confused, disoriented, and rude. There have been a number of times when they’ve actually walked away from the register after beckoning me over. Mid-order I’ve had staff members disappear, start talking to other staff members, or simply not listen to what I’m trying to order. Normally I’m very forgiving if this a one time occurrence, but as a former manager it’s simply unacceptable to have the same consistently bad experience.

Panera Tip: Customer confusion leads to general chaos. Either eliminate the chaos or educate your employees on how to handle it better.

Now I’ve become so accustomed to something going wrong that I, as a customer, come in angry and ready for a fight. I’ve become the angry disgruntled customer that I always tried to win over when I was on the other side of the counter. I’m only coming to Panera because my options are limited and they happen to have an amazing Cinnamon Crunch bagel with decadent reduced-fat Hazlenut cream cheese. But I’ll forgo this bad-ass bagel the minute the Starbucks two blocks away actually opens. I’ll pay for my internet access in exchange for a consistently high quality beverage and a milieu that makes me calm (not angry).

So Panera, let me tell you how you can win me back and eliminate some of this mess:

1. Review the first two tips above and come up with an action plan to address them.
2. Pick a stance and stick to it. Either one ostentatiously marked line that serves all registers or two demarcated lines that serve just one function. Both of these options can be accomplished very easily.
3. Train your managers to develop a rush hour strategy. Chaos starts at the top and is inherited by everyone else in close proximity. When I was in charge, my strategy was very simple, put the stronger staff in the more noticeable areas. Then I would communicate the role that each staff member would play at the start of their shift, making it that much easier for everyone to feel prepared to handle chaos in a calm fashion.
4. Recognize and reward great customer service.
5. Pay attention to frustrated customers. Listen to them. Make them feel heard. Follow through and do right by them, whether that means comping their meal, giving them a coupon for a free meal on their next visit, or just acknowledging that you messed up.

IT hates me because:

1. I don’t accept what they tell me as fact to be factual. I also don’t stop when they tell me something can’t be done.
2. I ask a TON of questions. To point #1, I’m never satisfied with “that’s the way we do things here” because I need to know the why behind the statement.
3. I want to change things and that scares them. They don’t want to be given more work, let alone new technologies they have to learn.
4. People like me and respect me. This includes my boss, their boss and (almost) everyone else in between. This respect means that my projects take priority on occasion.

IT shows their hate for me by (no it’s not all in my head):

1. Not responding to my voicemails or emails in a timely manner.
2. Sending almost noticeably condescending email responses to my boss and others not directly involved in the project.
3. Going to my boss behind my back and questioning why I get to attend certain meetings or make certain decisions (thankfully my boss is in my corner and keeps me abreast of these things).
4. Just plain ignoring me.
5. Trying to upstage me in meetings (which isn’t so bad because I’m usually given the opportunity to counter).

A few friends in the community biz have said that I must be doing something right if I have IT frustrated with me. I truly wish this wasn’t the case. Realistically, I know none of this is personal and that each of us have our own motivating factors for making and standing by decisions (on a personal level I actually like the IT guys and a few might like me too). The problem isn’t personal, it’s business, which means I’ll continue to push for what I know to be right and demonstrate success at every point possible.

Why I’m mentally blocked when it comes to blogging:

a. Topic tantrum – I’m having a fit deciding on my next topic. There are a million things I could speak to, but none of them are speaking to me at the moment (which is the most important). I came incredibly close to posting a social experiment of sort, but I’m not quite sure that I’m ready for the consequences. So it’s saved in draft form for that night when I have a few too many glasses of wine and it seems (again) like a brilliant idea.

b. Problem of the platform – My mood is more myspace, more raw and uncensored. I want to write about the taboo; the deep dark secrets that no one knows. This is isn’t the right place for that, unless I change this blog to private too, and my date book specifically says “write for the rabbit-hole”. Argh!

c. Insipid inspiration – Vapid in that it’s nonexistent. I need to be passionate about my writing. I need to be stimulated and craving the release of the written word. Trying to stuff scintillating story-telling into a sliver of time just doesn’t work for me.

So I’ll take this as a lesson learned. I will promise (to myself) to no longer force creativity in a predefined two hour block of time. I’ll let my mind and my experiences serve as my muse and force my calendar to make adjustments accordingly.

Okay time’s up. Next on the agenda: evening run.

Now that the flowery things have been said, it’s time for me to pull up a little dirt and note that despite the very perceivable changes taking place in corporate (and non-profit) America, I’m noticing an emerging tug-of-war between new talent and seasoned professionals. Positioning myself on the new talent team, not by choice but more in part due to an unspoken newbie hazing, I find little opposition to my presence. Where the struggle seems to be is more theoretical in nature. I’m embraced with arms wide open, but there are moments (granted they are few in frequency) when minds are still closed.

Just the other day I found out that another, more senior, individual at my company has been more than toying with the notion of creating a social networking site to enhance the means of communications between teams in each program. Hmm…funny…that’s strangely similar to my responsibility. As the information eventually trickled down, and it always does, a colleague and I wanted to find out about this competing effort so we scheduled time to discuss the matter. Long story short, everything is a go on this other project and I’m just now finding out about it. To make matters worse, I had to sit in the meeting and endure the fact that this individual was not only operating solo but was operating under the impression that she knew more about social networking, online communities, and social media than I did. She encouraged me to really think about social networking and how it could serve our programs (um…yeah…that’s what I’ve been doing since day 1…I have wireframes to prove it).

I reflected on the meeting (more like fumed and then reflected) and decided that I’m okay with being talked down to. I’m even okay with other people assuming they’re smarter than me. But what I’m not okay with is the revelation that the community of the organization is segregated and that we’re working against each other and not with each other. What’s the point? We’re only spinning our wheels.

I don’t need to win and I don’t need to be right, but at the end of the day I don’t want to be in a tug-of-war battle and find myself caked in mud because the struggle just doesn’t seem worth it.

And for the record, I’m young, not dumb. I know what social networking is!