Facebook Invites (How Not To)

I recently posted the following to my Facebook timeline:

Facebook folks, if you are using your personal account to promote your business or services, send out mass INVITES to events and workshops to your entire friend list, etc. I am probably going to unfriend you. You need to set up a separate business page and direct your solicitations and invites to folks who have specifically LIKED your business, rather than to every single person you know.

I don't mind an occasional update on what is going on, but my INVITE list is often filled with invites to events I have no interest in from folks I rarely if ever see that are pretty much the Facebook equivalent of SPAM.

Despite this, one of the main offenders on my friends list proceeded to send out a spammish INVITE just this morning. And was summarily unfriended.

I look upon invites from the perspective of "what if everyone behaved that way". I have 580 Facebook friends. Not bragging; it's just that I move through many communities - yoga, music, arts, local, history, glbt, etc. and a few in particular (yoga teacher training, GLBT summer camp, and the Falcon Ridge folk festival) tend to be "meet lots of people" places. Mind you, that 580 is a conservative number of "friends" - I have a fairly rigid "if we've never met in 3D, we're not friends" policy, I almost never make friend requests (but also rarely turn them down), and I have a "one friend connection per person" policy for folks who have multiple facebook identities.

Now, if every one of those folks used Facebook to promote a business, hobby, group, or cause with a handful of events or activities per month, I'd be looking at 1000-2000 "invites" per month. Declining Facebook invites would become a full time job, and I'd no doubt miss a lot of events and invites that I want to see in the "noise" of the unwanted solicitations.

We're not talking about a party here - but rather things like a weekly meditation class, or a monthly reiki training. Hey, I teach yoga. I could, I imagine INVITE all 580 of my friends to each of the three yoga classes I teach weekly, every one of the dozens or so Guinea Pig gigs we play. But no, because that's abusing the system.

Learn how to use the technology, folks. Set up a business page for your business, and send out invites to those who have specifically LIKED the page and expressed interest (and no, accepting a friend request is not an acceptance to get dozens of event invites). Create events for your activities, but instead of inviting 100s of people to each event (and forcing them to decline through gritted teeth of resentment) just post it to your personal and/or business timeline - folks will see it.

And if you are active in a cause, be mindful of flooding your timeline with posts about rescue animals or queer rights or politics or whatever. While nowhere near as intrusive as excessive invites, my "friends" list has several dozen people who I effectively ignore (using the Facebook tools) because of one too many "URGENT PIT BULL RESCUE" post or whatever. Love animals, my pup is a rescue, but I really do not want to weed through 20 such posts on my timeline each day.

Doing the social media dance, whether you are using it for personal or professional purposes, is walking a tightrope between "out of sight, out of mind" (under utilizing the platform) and "annoying your fans" (resulting in "unlikes" and "unfriending") 

Persistence

I've been getting phone calls for my brother. It's a foreign sounding gentleman (india? middle east?) and he asks specifically for my brother. I tell him there is nobody by that name here. He hangs up, and a few days later, same dude calls back. Bill Collector? Telemarketer?

What's really weird is that my brother has not lived with me since the mid 90's. And there is a whole raft of changes that have come between then and now, including:

* I have a new name
* I've moved twice
* I've changed phone numbers 4-5 times, moving from personal lines to business lines, and back
* For 7-8 years, I had no personal utilities (electric, gas, cable, phone, water) in my name (I moved in with a roommate)
* My brother never had utilities in his name at the old place.
* I do not get a lot of telemarketing calls (on do not call list) and I also do not get calls to other folks who share my last name. So it seems kind of targeted.
* I do get occasional bill collector / marketer calls for other folks who used to have my number.

Totally weird. All I can think of is that this guy has followed a string of "call forward" references from Waterbury to Newington to Hartford to Newington to New Britain.

Alternately, the guy I bought my condo from shares my brother's given name, and perhaps they are conflating that with my last name. Next time they call I am gonna see if I can find out what the heck they want....

Leash Your Dog II

A) Newington has a leash law. More specifically, the community gardens at Deming Young Farm also has a leash law. Your dog was not on a leash.

B) "He's not friendly" means keep your (unleashed) dog away, please.

C) If you call your dog and he does not come, he is not under control. No how, no way.

D) If my (leashed) dog snaps at your (unleashed) dog who is not paying attention to you, it's not my fault, it's your fault.

E) Deming-Young Farm is *not* a dog park. People walk their dogs there. Dogs (presumably dogs under control) are occasionally unleashed. But it's not a free for all; if your dog does not come when called, you really need to leash him/her. So stick the "He should not be at the park" up your stupid ass. He's FINE at the park if other dogs are properly leashed.

Why I am Not Voting (for my favorite yogis)

I'm not voting in the Talent Search (presented by Athleta). I'm not promoting my faves on Facebook, Twitter or my blog. I'm being a grinch about it all...

The first level of this is purely self preservation. I have at least 3 good friends and teachers in the running (and another half dozen acquaintances) and I am decidedly NOT playing favorites. Yeah, I know I can spread the love and all. But I'm not gonna work that hard for something I have issues with. Hear me out....

First off, I want you to meet someone. Hothead Paisan.

Now, behind my smiling, optimistic, calm demeanor, my yoga teacher loving self, there lurks this "Homicidal Lesbian Terrorist". Folks who have been in my guest bathroom will find a small shrine to Diane Dimassa, Hothead's creator. Diane and Hothead rock. One of my yogic struggles is to keep the anger, the righteous rage at bay. And for the most part, in the words of Ani Difranco, I'm not angry anymore.



So, back to Yoga Journal's Talent Search.

For years, Yoga Journal has gotten some flak for its choices of cover models (predominantly thin, young, and white) and to a lesser extent its content (skewing the same way). I've mostly just ignored it - it's not any more egregious than anything else in the popular media, and there's a lot of good stuff in there.

Over on the Yogadork blog, they've been holding a (Yoga Journal Shadow) Cover Modal Contest wherein yogis can submit their photos to document the diversity of yoga practitioners.

For our version, it’s not so much a contest as a declaration of satya (truth): We ask you send a photo of who you are, as a yogi, a real person, in any shape, size, age, gender or color/clinginess of clothing. We’re not selling magazines. No fancy poses required, but by all means go for what speaks YOU. Everyone is welcome to submit. Hey it’s no magazine cover, but your photo will be proudly featured in our gallery! (note: while there’s no one “winner” per se, stay tuned, there will likely be goodies handed out down the road for participants, TBA.)

Yoga Journal seems to read Yogadork, and so they came up with their own contest. But they've introduced some complexity. And by complexity, I mean "What the hell were you thinking?"

1) The YJ contest is heavily weighted to the same demographic presently gracing the pages of yoga journal. And although there is a counter movement of larger or less mainstream folks submitting their photos, it's a small movement counter to the 100's of more traditionally embodied yogis. So if we were trying to encourage diversity - FAIL.

2) The yoga journal contest adds the lovely concept of a 0 to 5 star rating for each photo. What are we rating here - looks? hotness? brand name yoga gear? difficulty of pose? beauty of the pose? quality of the photograph? beauty of the locale? popularity?.

3) On top of that, the number of votes cast are tabulated. So my three beloved yogi friends are going to walk away with some numerical rating of their practice or themselves (please, let it be 5 stars, they are all 5 stars in my book!), a tabulation of their popularity (number of votes) and the temptation to do a rack and stack within our little yoga community as well as within the greater yoga community. Bleah...

Now, maybe this contest is just a little bit of innocent fun, and I ought to just chillax and let it wash over me. Folks are submitting to the contest for all kinds of reasons - yoga changes lives, and we celebrate that and want to spread it around. People have had their lives turned around during their first yoga class, and they want to share that. I suspect most of us who have become teachers have that sort of motivation.

And I get that yoga in this country is a lot of things - a spiritual practice, a great way to connect with one's body, part of a fitness regime, a business. I teach and practice at an amazingly spacious and beautiful (spelled "costly to build and run") yoga studio, and the space, the decor, the heat, the lights all cost money that comes in the door because of my amazing teacher friends who bring 50 or 60 folks into the studio on a regular basis. So perhaps embracing that popularity, snuggling up to celebrity is just part of the bargain. I'm fine with a bit of duality or dancing with the shadow.

But still, I am bothered. It bothers me to see photos of (mostly) women rated on a 0 to 5 star basis. It bothers me to see individuals collecting votes on either a popularity or a visual aesthetic basis. It brings up that inner Homicidal Lesbian Terrorist - who wants to toss a feminist bomb into the miasma of patriarchal popular culture. And it bothers me to see something that is so precious to me, so deeply meaningful and life changing, cheapened and threatened by that popular culture.

Not very yogic, I know, and that's one more reason do be pissed off at Yoga Journal - for bringing this stuff up within me. This contest has even made me question my desire to teach yoga - that perhaps I'm hiding behind my own spiritual journey, that perhaps I ought to spend less time on my mat and more time changing the world. The fact that I have written (and rewritten this) four times in the past week and have yet to hit the PUBLISH button, for fear of offending, for fear of being unyogic - speaks volumes. Just one more example of me hiding, keeping my head low, being afraid to be seen.

As one of my (contest entering) teachers is wont to say "The f*cking healing journey". Yeah that.

Unfortunate Icongraphy

I've been watching (for reasons as yet unknown) Ken Burns' Civil War series on Netflix. The other night, watching the first episode (The Cause) I stumbled across two resonances with the present climate of political unrest.


An illustration of a southern protest, where "...Lincoln was burned in effigy...." is focused on a monument bearing a familiar flag.


A few minutes later in the episode, this quote, from the Charleston Mercury "The tea has been thrown overboard, the revolution of 1860 has been initiated."

Whatever one feels abut the Tea Party, I find it interesting (and somewhat unfortunate) that the iconography that has grown up around this movement is rooted (wittingly or not) in the images and language of the secessionist south.

The Bulletproof End of the Spectrum

It's a little thing, I know. And I'd hardly notice it except that I am an NPR junkie who listens pretty much non-stop.

There's a promo running right now about WNPR environmental reporting, and the interviewee in the promo is talking frogs. Not exactly a direct quote, but he says "....frogs are on the bulletproof end of the spectrum; they spend part of their lives on land and part in the water, so they are exposed to lots of toxins and are at high risk as a result."

Now, Frog Mutations are a pretty well known (if not fully explained) phenomena. Frogs are pretty sensitive to environmental issues. So I would not exactly refer to them as "bulletproof".

Call me Miss Cranky Pants, but wrong word, dude! And "boo" to WNPR for putting that particular clip in their promo so we're subjected to the improper usage repetitively....

*** End of Rant ***

Flashmob. Or Not.

Apparently, the Greater Hartford Arts Council organized (or, to use the word that I saw on Facebook today regarding this, choreographed) a "flashmob" today at State House Square. It looked kind of fun....



A small slice of uneasiness here....does something cool cease to be cool (or perhaps, become less cool) when it's used as a tool by an organization (regardless of how worthwhile)? When people are invited to come watch? When it's pre-packaged and marketed?

I think back to that staple of arena and stadium fandemonioum, The Wave. Wikipedia has a few alternate versions of how this got started, but as I recall from those early years, the coolness of The Wave was its grass roots origins, how one fan, or perhaps one rowdy section, would work to get it going, how each section in turn figured out that it was happening, and how the stadium sort of caught it's breath and watched, hoping it would make it around. No organization or marketing needed.

Today, with a mascot leading the charge, a video screen, announcer, and theme music proclaiming "It's Time for the Wave!" - it is simultaneously simple to get a wave going, and a lot less cool. It was plucked from the realm of "self entertainment by the masses" and co-opted by management.

So, an organized "flashmob" set up by marketers and with full sanction of all parties (official or no), with an invited guest list. Kind of cool. But only "kind of".

Addendum: A follow up tweet from GHAC. "Clear Channel Radio was at today's hARTfordFlashmob...were you?" 5 points from Gryffindor. Clear Channel? The bane of independent, local radio? Might as well announce that Walmart, Monsanto, and BP were there as well....."

Addendum II: And ctnow.com (Courant, FoxCT, WTXX, Advocate, etc.) describes this as Spontaneous Dance Breaks Out In Hartford. Sigh. A quick foray over to Merriam-Webster online provides several definitions of the word spontaneous, including:

5 : developing or occurring without apparent external influence, force, cause, or treatment
6 : not apparently contrived or manipulated : natural

Au contraire. This appears to have been completely contrived or manipulated. IMHO.

Jude = Arts and Tourism Crank and Marketing Curmudgeon. Guilty as charged.

Saab Stories

This morning on Where We Live.

I always thought the passenger side mirror was developed due to Saabs (joke). Because back in the day (late 70s / early 80s) it seemed like if someone came screaming up and passed in the right lane, s/he was driving a Saab. Or sat on your bumper and flashed the headlights if one was not doing 20 mph over the limit. I've never quite shaken the stereotype of the Saab driver as being a bit of a speed demon / hothead, although certainly other cars have filled that wanna-be race car driver niche in ensuing years.