I Quit Gtalk

June 18th, 2010 by AV Flox in Uncategorized

In 2008, a study of productivity and instant messaging (IM) discovered that IM seemed to help in increasing productivity, shocking long time proponents that chat programs were detrimental to the office.

I joked at the time that this was all the reason I needed to keep chatting. The truth is, by 2008, I’d largely quit using most chat programs, except for Gtalk, which I used to talk exclusively to my friend Dean, who excels at coworking. And when I say “excels at coworking,” I mean he never makes casual conversation, largely stays on topic of whatever we’re writing at the time, and leaves long pauses between messages be. He’s busy — I’m busy. He gets it.

Time went on and, as I used that Gmail account for more interviews and personal things, a lot of people were added to my chat list. It was convenient because having them on my IM list meant that if I needed their help for something we were working on, I could reach them right away.

But then something terrible happened. People started to message me all the time. Now, I dig all of you, and I would love to talk to all of you, but the bottom line is that you’re not the only ones messaging me and I don’t have time to chat with all of you. I can’t just switch back and forth between something I’m writing and the chat window. I envy you your ability to multitask and the fact some of you have the ability to play at work – I do. If you have openings to sit around and blog and chat at your company, totally contact me.

As it is, I don’t have that luxury. The bottom average for me is six posts a day – and that doesn’t include interviews and research I am doing for future posts. I need the time I’m at my computer to focus on what I’m doing.

And apparently, no one gives a damn if someone’s status is set to Busy.

I’m tired of explaining that I’d love to talk but I can’t. I shouldn’t have to explain to every single person who messages that I can’t chat when my status has a paragraph describing that I’m not available and I’d appreciate no messages unless they’re work-related.

So last night, I quit Gtalk. And guess what happened? I got everything done that I needed to do. And I loved it.

This is what it means: if you’re a good friend and you need me for something, shoot me a text. One text, I don’t need more. I’ll get back to you when I can. If you don’t have my number, direct message me or @reply on Twitter, or send me an e-mail. If you e-mail, keep it simple. I need to be able to get the gist within the first two seconds of opening it. The inverted pyramid – you know how newspapers do it? Who, what, why, where, when, how, in 28 to 32 words. Like that.

As for calling – I hate speaking on the phone and will avoid it as much as possible unless you’re my parents or it’s business-related. So don’t be hurt if you get shot to voicemail immediately. It’s not you, it’s me.

I sincerely appreciate it.

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Worth Paying For

June 17th, 2010 by AV Flox in Uncategorized

Some food for thought on free content from Patricia Handschiegel, owner of the cross-platform advisory startup and incubator, 9:

Good things cost money to make and consumers like good things. The media/internet/etc 2.0 mindset is that everybody wants to shop at the flea market when in reality, plenty of consumers are willing to buy Christian Louboutin.

I could get all the free fashion content I want online but 98 percent of those sites don’t have access. They don’t get to pull in any sample they want, they’re not flying to Market and Fashion Week, etc. around the world to find the things I can’t find myself. So, in addition to consuming the stuff people are giving away on the internet, I pay to have greater access through other outlets because for me, that’s the value.

This is how consumers operate. It’s why despite that there are free football games all weekend long, hundreds of thousands of people pony up major cash to have subscription packages. What drives consumers to want to pay for things (including content on platforms) is value, driven by either access or quality.

Free also signals that something isn’t worth paying for, even if it is. It’s something people see all the time in service industries like consulting and PR. The second somebody says, “I won’t pay to have XYZ from a company,” it signals that the company has little true value to that person. By giving away your product for free out of the gate, you’ve trained them on this perception. The only way out is to create a second channel of value and work to migrate them over. Some will go, some won’t. That is how it goes.

Charging consumers for quality and access doesn’t mean they won’t like you. In fact, it’s likely the other way around. Getting them to adapt to paying for products that cost money is more a marketing than a business problem. Create value or the perception of value, and work to migrate those who are interested towards it. It’s a basic truism in any business on any platform, offline or not.

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Jeff Jarvis and Julia Allison Discuss Sharing at IWNY

June 10th, 2010 by AV Flox in blogging

It’s Internet Week in New York (#iwNY), which means everyone’s busy discussing web culture, media consumption and media creation. Here’s a 30 minute video of a discussion between the mircrocelebrity Julia Allison and champion of the overshare Jeff Jarvis that makes points I’m probably going to be brewing on for the next few weeks — if not more.

Watch live streaming video from internetweekny at livestream.com

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Business Meeting Does Not A Date Make

May 11th, 2010 by AV Flox in Uncategorized

I know asking someone out is scary, but men really have to quit using the pretext of business to get a woman to have lunch with them.

1. You and 6,302 People

I work from home, which basically means I don’t have the luxury of leaving work at the office. The workweek for me is seven days long – the only difference is that on some days, the post office and bank don’t work. In order to ensure against having no life and dying a miserable career death due to burnout, I divide my engagements into two categories: business and social.

Because so much of my business time is devoted to content creation and managing blogs, unless what you’re doing is directly related to what I do, I’m not going to be inclined to meet you. It’s not that you’re not amazing, I’m sure you are. There are just hundreds of people doing sex research and writing books on relationships that I’m going to want to do lunch with first.

Though, for the record, allow me to say that it’s far more likely that I’ll interview these people over the phone or e-mail than actually meet them in person.

Oh, I don’t think I need to mention this, but “let’s meet to talk about sex,” is not a loophole into my day-planner. If I had a penny for every time a man said that to me, I’d be able to fish this country out of debt, buy it, and then have you removed to Guantanamo for immediate waterboaring. I am so serious, that I’d go as far as to strongly recommend you don’t even joke about this to me. Unless you want to elicit an eyeroll and my immediate disdain, of course, in which case, by all means feel free.

2. Bait Me

My experience in a corporate environment has taught me that nine times out of 10, meetings are totally pointless. I must be baited, and since this is not a social situation, your winning personality won’t register as bait. Incentivize me.

And by that I don’t mean some nebulous “let’s meet to talk about how maybe we can [insert idea you can't or aren't really willing to make happen].” I mean “let’s meet and talk about [thing] so I can get started on [concrete things to mobilize aforementioned thing].” If that statement implies we’ve already spoken before, you’re half right.

Due to time constraints, I probably won’t be doing much (or, more likely, any) talking with you on the phone. A successful business meeting will come to pass after we’ve exchanged a few e-mails. These e-mails will not be “hi, how are you? My name is so and so and [insert entire CV] and I was thinking we could maybe talk about some opportunities together.” They will be relevant and concise: “You: sex blogger. Me: [profession]. I am working on [project] and I think it would be mutually beneficial if you participated by [activity].”

That’s all you need. Amazing, isn’t it? You don’t even have to tell me why it’s beneficial! Like obscenity, I will know beneficial when I see it.

3. It’s Money, Honey

If there is no relevance and no real incentive and especially if you have the audacity to use the words “pick your brain,” you better be willing to pay me.

I know you’re sitting there thinking “who the hell does she think she is”? I’ll help you out. I’m AV Flox and if you want to meet with me to pick my brain, it must be because you find my ideas valuable. Guess what valuable means? That’s right. That it has worth. And guess what? You’re paying. And when I say you’re paying, I don’t mean for dinner (though if you asked, you will be paying for that, too). I mean you’re paying for the value of my brain, which I have set at a starting rate of $2,000, in full and up front.

Nothing personal, baby. Business is business.

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Digital Beats Physical in Book Sales

December 28th, 2009 by AV Flox in digital

Amazon has reported that it sold more digital books than physical books this Christmas.

“We are grateful to our customers for making Kindle the most gifted item ever in our history,” said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com.

Forrester estimated that three million e-readers will be sold in the United States this year, up from a previous forecast of two million. They foresee e-reader sales doubling to six million in 2010.

It’s the end of an era. The digital age in which we now live is officially impossible to ignore.

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  • AV Flox writes about web culture; new media’s gradual overthrow of old media; trends in social media; and the complicated entanglements people get themselves into as we venture forth into this new world where, more and more, the analog is colliding with the digital.

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