Not Seth Godin

Every once in a while, someone sends me an email saying, "Is this really you?"

Of course, it's a silly question, since if an admin were secretly responding to my mail, a question like this certainly doesn't end the subterfuge. You'd need to do something like ask in Navajo or some secret code.

Anyway, I don't have a staff. It's just me. (Though having a staff seems to work really well for Tim.)

Which leads to this post. I don't use Twitter. It's not really me. I also don't actively use FaceBook, and I'm not adding any friends, though I still have an account for the day when I no doubt will. I also don't use Flickr or MySpace or Meebo.

My reasoning is simple, and it has two parts. First, I don't want to use a tool unless I'm going to use it really well. Doing any of these things halfway is worse than not at all. People don't want a mediocre interaction. Second, I don't want to add a layer of staff between me and the tools I use and the people I interact with. I think both of these ideas go together, and unfortunately, they're also a paradox. If you want to be in multiple social media and also have a day job, you're going to need a staff. Scoble is the poster child for being everywhere, all the time, but it's all he does.

In 1993, we installed a primitive form of chat on our network at work. I think it was called SnapMail. I discovered pretty quickly that I was spending three or four hours a day using it. I was really good at it. And I also didn't get as much done as I needed to. So we ripped it out. Just because it was stimulating doesn't meant it helped with our goal.

So, please don't worry if it's really me. If it's me, I'll tell you here.