One of my buds asked me over the weekend why I often don’t namedrop, mostly in respect to this blog. Well, other than the quotes I use that already exist somewhere on the Interweb. It’s not the first time I’ve been asked about namedropping. And I usually my TL;DR response is that I want to respect their privacy and time.
My longer answer is a bit more nuanced. Here are my reasons to why:
- If I’m true to my emotions, I would love to namedrop at every opportunity I get. Given that some of the folks that inspire me to write specific pieces are echelons above me, it would help me get exponentially more traffic. And for a minute, I can convince myself that people come to my site for the content. Yet, in reality, there are confounding variables, part of which is whom I’m rubbing my shoulders with.
- Although I tell them during our conversation, I send my pieces to the people who inspire me retroactively. In receiving feedback, if existent, after I publish my thoughts, I can truly give a play-by-play cross section of my thoughts at any given time. If I believe the feedback/advice is pertinent, I will compound upon the advice in a future post. After I publish the pieces, if they want to be associated with it, they can, which leads to my third point.
- Fame is a fickle thing – a double-edged sword. I’m not saying my blog currently has millions of views every month, nor am I projecting that it’ll ever. Would be nice, but not a priority. But since I do write on a public blog which can be found via various search engines and browsers out there, I am cautious and respectful of people’s comfort levels in the face of the public eye. So, before they decide to have their names on my blog, I send them this incredibly intricate piece Tim Ferriss wrote about fame. On the bright side, social recognition, the opportunity to take on bigger projects, the ability to mingle with people of a similar or greater popularity, and more. On the flip side, stalkers, harassment, extortion, death threats and so on. In understanding the “disclaimers”, then I retroactively put their name up.
Because of these reasons, I’m also, to my friend’s credit, testing the question: Are these people real? The supposed elephant in the room. No matter how much I plead my case, there’s little I can do to convince you these individuals are real. I don’t host a podcast (although I may in the future), nor do I ask them to post on their social media about my content. If you don’t believe they are, they aren’t. If you do, I thank you for your confidence in me. And that’s all I can really say to that question.
Outside of the blog, I try not to namedrop, unless it becomes impossible to explain a conversation topic without using their name. I’ve had such cases before that upon using X person’s name, friends, family, coworkers, and/or acquaintances implore an introduction. After all, as my job entails, I live off of introductions. I live and breathe in a relationship-based industry. And because I do, I’d like to say I have a deep understanding with the value, as well as the risks, a person needs to take:
- to make an introduction (which I brief in this piece),
- but also, to receive an introduction.
The person making it is risking social capital, or in other words, their reputation. The person receiving it is risking time (and effort) allocation. And when you’re punching above your weight class, the person receiving it has to weigh the opportunity cost of taking an intro versus the projects they’re currently undertaking, as well as prioritizing a new contact over their existing network. If I do make an intro, I always shoot for a double opt-in, where both sides agree to it.
Early last year, I heard something I don’t know why it didn’t click sooner. As part of the Crazy Gremlin (CG) (long-story short, we couldn’t think of a better name) event series which I help co-host, we get in-person feedback with each and every attendee. Why? We can dig deeper than we can with survey forms, like:
- Understand the deeper emotional spectrum,
- Ask pertinent follow-up questions,
- And, notice macro- and micro-gestures that’ll supplement how forthcoming their answers are (i.e. Does a “9” on the NPS question really mean a “9”?).
For context, the thesis behind CG events is helping strangers become life-long friends overnight.
In that feedback process, one of our attendees told me: “I’m never going to come to your events again.”
I asked, “Why do you say that?”, assuming that we did something terribly wrong.
“You guys didn’t do anything wrong. In fact, you held a better event than I imagined. But in coming to the last event, I realized I would rather prioritize my current close friends than spend time meeting new people, whom I don’t know if I’ll catch up with later.”
He made me realize that:
- We failed at bringing people closer together, fundamentally being comfortable with being vulnerable, at that event.
- There’s a giant population of folks out there who say they want a social life and to meet new people. But what they really mean is that they’re still looking for that friend or group of friends with whom they can really truly be themselves with.
To this day, I don’t think namedropping or making intros when only one party could benefit is conducive to lasting friendships. So, although it makes me giddy, and you can argue, in a myopically-beneficial sense, I proceed cautiously.
#unfiltered is a series where I share my raw thoughts and unfiltered commentary about anything and everything. It’s not designed to go down smoothly like the best cup of cappuccino you’ve ever had (although here‘s where I found mine), more like the lonely coffee bean still struggling to find its identity (which also may one day find its way into a more thesis-driven blogpost). Who knows? The possibilities are endless.
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2 Replies to “#unfiltered #4 Namedropping and Intros – Why my default is to not to namedrop, Direct/Indirect Consequences, Making/Receiving Intros, and Notes on Friendship”