Promotion
This week, I have no special product promotions or coupon codes to push (though I just tested the coupon codes from last week’s promotion and they apparently are still active if you missed out on the discounted calendars).
Instead, I’m going to simply flog my new personal Twitter feed. Want to follow it? Click here: http://twitter.com/wailinglist.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. So I’ll back up a bit.
I received an email last week from my boss, the VP of Online Marketing. Remember her? It was entitled simply, “You’re promoted! Let’s discuss at Happy Hour at 5!” The body of the mail said only, “Yes, I’m serious! Congratulations! You’re going to help the Marketing Department unleash the forces of Web 2.0 for Despair!!!” And it closed, as always, with the sign-off, “your boss, j.”
I kid you not. Whatever delusions I harbored about being promoted to the Writing Staff at Despair after authoring a new product were naive. One original, quotable aphorism apparently does not a true writer make…
Longtime readers of the Wailing List may not be surprised to learn that I immediately dove into my most trafficked of Bookmark Directories (”Escapes”) and started looking (again) at job postings on Monster.com. The pickings were unfortunately slim as is perhaps not surprising in this economic climate, and given the fact that every job interview I’ve had during my many years at Despair seems to go poorly (particularly when they learn who my current employer is), I steeled up the courage to meet Jennifer at her preferred east-side inebriation station, Nuevo Leon.
I arrived 20 minutes early, hoping to preempt her arrival and thus have at least few lucid exchanges before her descent into an oceans of triple sec, lime juice and Pretzel-salted drool. Unfortunately, there was some confusion about the time zone. (I assumed she meant Central Standard, as opposed to Newfoundland Time.) But, as Jennifer often says, and one can occasionally discern, “Anytime is the right time for a glass of tequila with a shot of lime.”
(Incidentally, will some subscriber to the Wailing List with far worse taste in music than I have tell me if this is a Jimmy Buffett lyric or an excerpt from some old Joe Walsh concept album I’ve never heard of- or something? As she stumbled her way through the line, she kept looking at me as if expecting I would help her complete the couplet and I unfortunately had to leave her hanging…)
The details of our conversation are better left to your imagination. The sum of it is this. My new “promotion” apparently isn’t the sort that includes an advancement in rank or position or salary. Instead it seems to entail simply an increase in my responsibilities, a tiny budget, and a new mandate to “Launch the company into Web 2.0 overdrive.” Like, now.
Yes- I can hear thousands of you groaning already. Web 2.0 is so 2004 and was ill-defined gobbledegook to begin with. According to Wikipedia, Web 2.0 was defined in 2006 as, “…the philosophy of mutually maximizing collective intelligence and added value for each participant by formalized and dynamic information sharing and creation.”
If the Internet has proven anything, it is that the fanciful, cyber-libertarian notions of “collective intelligence” that can be “maximized” by “dynamic information sharing” were just pure rot to begin with. If anything, the Internet has unleashed collective stupidity on a scale never before imagined… (Leeroy Jenkins, anyone?)
But remember, Despair didn’t even have a blog until August of 2007. So it seems entirely fitting that we are only just now aiming to catch up with that which was rendered passé several years prior.
Given the futility of my mandate, the paucity of my new budget ($500/mo), and the complete lack of guidance or direction I’ve received, I have decidedly modest goals. I was unironically encouraged to “do something historic”- and so that is my intent.
It starts withmy Twitter feed. (Those of you unfamiliar with Twitter can learn more about it here- but a simple explanation of it is that it is instant-messaging meets a blog- whereby subscribers can follow me on my daily journey through various mundane duties, irritating conversations, pointless revelations, whatever I choose to write about. The catch- no message can be longer than 140 characters. Think of it as blogging live in haiku.) I don’t expect most of you to subscribe- this being an admittedly throwaway outlet. But I’ll have a hard time convincing my boss this was a success if I end up with only a couple of dozen subscribers. So please, some of you, help!
I take as a given that Twittering is a largely pointless exercise that seems best suited as an outlet for narcissists and input for stalkers. Having been both in my lifetime, I can admit that earlier versions of myself might have rapturously embraced it as liberating. I harbor no such illusions now.
Admitting to its insufficiencies, Twitter nevertheless gives me exactly what I need to usher in ‘the Web 2.0 era at Despair‘. Namely, it gives me cover to do other things. Things otherwise impossible.
My inaugural Twittering event- inarguably historic by my definition- will be to host the World’s First Whisky Tasting Via Twitter. Starring myself and a couple of Despair friends, sponsored entirely by Despair. When life gives you lemons…
Those subscribing to my Twitter feed will get to join us on a historic voyage- as we imbibe and describe up to $500 worth of Single Malt Scotch Whiskies at a well-stocked bar in Austin. The Nose. The Palette. The Finish. Each will be described in 140 characters or less by Despair’s finest occupants of the lowest blocks on the Org Chart, until we run out of money.
In order to make this a ‘multi-camera’ experience, I will be setting up Twitter feeds for two-other Despair employees*. In this way, subscribers will be able to follow each feed in relative real-time. You’ll get three different perspectives on several of Scotland most-acclaimed whiskies (and occasional product placement for Despair.com, so as to keep this, er, legitimately promotional…). I’ll post those other Twitter feeds at my own Twitter site before the event. So follow me if you dare as I use the mandate of “unleash the forces of Web 2.0″ as political cover for turning my marketing micro-budget into a Entertainment Allowance for the Unsung Heroes of Despair. Namely, ME.
Oh, and please buy Despair products so I can keep my cruddy job!
