does this mean i can finally ask penelope trunk to connect on LinkedIn without looking crazy? / lessons in marketing

holy mocha do people have some strong emotions about starbucks.

i sit around thinking about my blog all day long, trying to come up with clever ways to spin my tales, and it ends up being the post i write in six and a half minutes about starbucks needing to grow up and get free wifi that garners attention.

ok. let me back up a second. see, because im addicted to online networking (see here) and because i have an unhealthy fascination with Penelope Trunk, i joined brazen careerist a while ago, which aside from having the great honor of being THE hardest url to spell in all the world, also connects you to people. I’m pretty sure it’s supposed to connect you to potential employers, but I don’t really understand that. so instead, i use it to spread my blog around the globe ( aka, give a full rss feed of my work to the site for free in hopes that maybe, someday, three people will click over to my actual blog).

i was under the impression that my posts disappeared into oblivion and that it was just another failed attempt to get the word out about how awesome i am, but alas, the folks at brazen careerist had other plans. yesterday, they randomly decided to feature my post about starbucks on the home page.

i was so happy that i took a screen shot and saved it to my desktop. but then. THEN, people started to explain to me how much of an idiot i was. Here’s a link to the starbucks post on brazen careerist, where you can view the comments in their entirety. don’t get me wrong, i pretty much think im an idiot all the time. but it was weird to have random peopled deciding that they thought i was stupid enough that they MUST, in an effort to save humankind itself, take the time express their disgust in my decisions so that maybe, hopefully, i will one day fix my evil ways and CHANGE!

don’t fret. for those of you too lazy to click over, i have decided to include a couple of the comments below:

so… you’re complaining because “free stuff” isn’t perfectly convenient and because *you* didn’t bother to take the time to read up the fine print? oh wait… didn’t those people who signed up for sub-prime mortgages do the same thing?

wow. that man just compared me to people who got bad mortgages. for the record, my credit is so far beyond repair that i really don’t think it’s fair to the people who could qualify for ANY kind of mortgage to be compared to me.

AND

Is it just me, or did this entire post just seem like an internet tantrum?

nope. not just you. that’s exactly what it was. i had NO freaking idea it was going to be a featured post on brazen careerist. if i had, i a. would have capitalized at least a FEW of the words, and b. would have presented less of a tantrum and more of a coherent argument.

AND (from the same commenter who said it was a tantrum)

Starbucks is not required to uphold your ridiculous fantasy of what the overly-trendy-yet-still-totally-“unique” coffee shop chain SHOULD be. They’re a business, as others above me have said, and are going to try to make as much money as possible. I’ve never heard it said that Starbucks offered free wifi, and why should they?

to be fair, a majority of the commenters seemed to sympathize with my plight:

Starbucks always had this arrangement. However, I agree with you that it is super annoying. Ever other coffee shop and restaurant on the planet is starting to offer free wi-fi, I don’t know why Starbucks thinks they are any more special.

AND

“It’s not a fun time.” Haha, at least their employees are empathetic. Don’t worry, I did this exact same thing one day last summer.

anywho, i have a learned a few things from this experience. A. all my posts should have the word starbucks in the title, just in case featured posts are chosen based on a list of pre-determined words.  B. i need to start back linking like a crazy person in case this happens again. that way people will find it easy to read my other work. c. in the online world, what sticks and what doesn’t has nothing to do with talent, and everything to do with how controversial your topic is.

and for those interested, i have taken my coffee business elsewhere. to a lovely, magical place where the wifi is ALWAYS free, the soup comes in bowls made from BREAD! and there’s plenty of booths to spread out on. that’s right, i have become a super loyal panera bread patron.

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ok. fine. i freaking joined linkedIn.

apparently I’m like eight decades behind the curve on this crap, but I have finally joined LinkedIn. For those of you even more behind than me, it’s basically like facebook, but without all the underage drinking photos and status updates.

or at least as far as i can tell.

the most annoying part about joining a new online thingy is that i have to learn all of its social norms. for example, I really, really, really want to link to this blog on my linkedin because im a stupid girl who’s sole life mission is to get more clicks. however, my brief assessment of LinkedIn has led me to believe that linking to this site on a professional network such as it is would be like like showing my boss my bra — it’s not something i want to show him, but if he finds it himself, no big deal. i guess. maybe. or maybe that’s not the best metaphor here.

anyway, ya. my boss is on LinkedIn. and by “my boss,” i actually mean, like 5 of my bosses. so that’s weird.

i asked them to be my friends. oh. wait. crap. that’s the facebook in me talking. im sorry. i asked them to be my “connections.” or maybe i invited them. or did i actually just ask them to connect to me?

sigh.

see. new social networks are SO hard.

just to recap, i now have two facebooks (one for undergrad and one for graduate school), a myspace, this blog, my twitter, a LinkeIn, a 20-something blogger account, a fule my blog account, and i also run my rss feed on brazen careerist.

in conclusion, if you’re thinking of inviting me to anything online. well, as you can tell, i’ll say yes.

i.just.can’t.resist.

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