Dopp Juice Archive

Some people rely entirely on prayer. I find that prayer yields better results when I augment it with social media. Here was my recent cry to the Universe (made through a friends-only social networking website):

“I need to buy a car right now and I don’t know where to start. I haven’t owned a car in three years! I want something reliable that will run forever and gets good gas mileage. I don’t want to spend a lot and I’ve never bought a car without help before. Um… crap!”

The suggestions started rolling in. Honda Civic. Toyota Corolla. Vehix.com. Cars.com. Carfax.com. Kelly Blue Book. Names of trusted mechanics. Tips on finding the right insurance agency. Info about smog checks and DVM registrations. Reminders that rush hour traffic is sometimes slower than Caltrain. Reminders that I don’t have to do anything without help, ever, if I don’t want to.

This sent me in the right direction for research, and I quickly narrowed down my focus to exactly what I wanted: a 2000-2004 manual transmission 4-door Toyota Corolla with power locks/windows and in a dark color, somewhere local. Excellent. That was easy.

But then I scoured the listings and couldn’t find one. Well, that’s not true — I did find one, but it was at a really sketchy-looking small used car dealership with a disturbingly bad website. The car went crashing off my radar when I saw the dealer’s horrible “About Us” photo. Um, no.

[This photo is a direct lift from the website. I did not reduce its quality for dramatic effect.]

I went back to my social networks to tell them my tale of woe, and they agreed that the man behind the desk was not to be trusted. Peanut gallery quotes included: “where’s his computer? this is well into the 21st century; every work desk should have a computer at it,” and “The picture looks like he’s finalizing plans to take over the world… from his computer-less desk. Haha! ‘You’re right, Skeletor, it will be as easy as taking candy from a baby! Mu-hahahaaaa!’ ”

Meanwhile, I was decompressing on Twitter, feeling discouraged about the process and getting a lil’ bit silly in my musings. The twitterpaters cheered me up with hedonistic influence and emotional support. I remembered that I was shopping with an army behind me. They had my back.

And then, something magical happened. A friend who had been watching my prayers sent me a link to My Dream Car, being auctioned on eBay Motors from a dealership just south of San Jose. The “Buy Now” price was exactly my budget and exactly the value on Kelly Blue Book. I tried to brush it off as “too far away,” but then another friend offered to drive me there.

Frantically, I asked the Universe for tips on buying from dealers, and it filled my head with suggestions. Then I researched the vehicle history report on Carfax (completely clean) and looked up everything I could find out about the dealership. 400 people on eBay told me they were wonderful to do business with. That’s social media shopping for ya.

I showed up and walked straight to the car. The receptionist quickly tossed me the keys and let me take it for a test drive. It was just as delicious as I hoped it would be. The saleswoman showed up and asked how I was doing. I said, “I like this car. Can I buy it from you?”

She smiled and said, “Yes.”

Last night I stayed up later than my body wanted me to, doing little more than refreshing my inbox. Click. No new mail. Click. No new mail. Click. No new mail. Click. Junk mail. Click. No new mail. Click. Letter from a friend. Read. Keep as new. Click. No new mail.

It’s an addiction. Responding takes energy, but just checking to see if I’m being thought of only takes a click.

Having just returned from 11 days out on the East Coast in quasi-vacation mode, I’m behind on my inbox. There are about 50 messages that I intend to reply to, many of which could be handled in less than two minutes, but I don’t want to do that. I want to sit with each one and give it my full attention. I want to respond with as much time and focus as I would if I were looking the person in the eye. Many of these emails come from people that I can’t easily grab a coffee date with, so I want my response to genuinely convey my appreciation for them and my commitment to our relationship. Two minutes is not enough for that.

As a result, those emails sit in my inbox unanswered for days because I’m not ready to redirect my attention. I’ll usually flush that folder to zero about once a week, giving everyone the lengthy responses I believe they deserve, but let’s face it: seven days is not a quick enough response time for most people to feel loved.

While I was clicking refresh on my inbox last night, I was also refreshing my twitter application, looking for other lost souls who were awake at 1am and trying to feel less alone. But twitter shocked me out of my daze when it stopped giving me tweets and started giving me error messages:

Twitter returned a "bad request" error. This happens when you exceed 70 requests per hour. Avoid running other Twitter applications or refreshing too frequently.

Am I really that bad?

For someone who resents the idea of responding to emails in less than two minutes or five sentences, I sure do adore a communication platform that limits me to 140 characters or less. Why? Because with Twitter, I can only type 140 characters, and people can only type 140 characters back to me. It’s the extra lite version of blogging, email, and phone calls, and therefore I am not able to use it as coffee date substitute. Sense of responsibility removed.

Let’s take inventory. I have 205 friends on Facebook. I have 124 friends on MySpace. I have 117 professional contacts on LinkedIn. I share my most personal writings with my 113 closest friends on a private network. There are 109 blogs in my “always read” folder. I follow 56 people religiously on Twitter. I realize that these numbers may seem low compared with some social media hounds, but here’s my commitment: (with the occasional exception of blogs,) these are all people I actually care about and am genuinely connected with. My networks are valuable to me and I fight to keep them that way. Because of this, those numbers seem absurdly high to me.

Meanwhile, I habitually leave the ringer off on my cell phone because I can’t stand small talk or interruptions. I also haven’t been available by instant message in over four years. If you need my attention immediately, I’ll respond to a text message (direct twitter messages have the same effect — but you have to be one of my Religious Fifty-Six for that to work). If you need my attention within an hour or two, email is best. But if I don’t feel like your email requires an ultra-quick or immediate response, it might get circulated into my “respond when I have adequate time” folder, and we already know how that works.

The exception to all of these is always work. I’ll answer my phone for clients and contractors. I’ll respond to their emails right away. I’ll even use instant messaging if it’s for the good of the project. You can see where my priorities are.

But when I’m not being paid for fast responses, I like to handle things in batches. I don’t do dishes as they get dirty; I wait until my sink is full and then I throw on my ipod and dance around my kitchen until it’s clean again. To me, that’s far more satisfying. I’m one of those focused passionate types who’ll naturally spend an entire day only walking, reading, writing, researching, coding, blogging, talking with a friend, or staring at the ocean. And if I’m extra lucky on those days, I’ll remember to stop and get lunch before 4pm.

Timothy Ferriss, in the Four Hour Workweek, recommends only checking and responding to email once a week, and using an autoresponder to let people know that this is how you function. Unnecessary emails and obsessive data hunger fall away.

I could see this working for a world traveler, but for a computer-bound web worker? Would that even be possible?

Or would it be embracing my natural system and ditching compulsive behavior?

This thought is so radical I think I need to go browse my inbox for awhile for comfort…

Once upon a time, there was a social networking website called Friendster.

Friendster had a good thing going for awhile, being the only decent social networking website on the Internet and all. But then Friendster made a few mistakes, and people stopped using it. Even though Friendster is still out there today, most people consider it dead.

Then another social networking website came along called Facebook.

Facebook had a good thing going for awhile, too. Since Friendster had already paved the way for social networking, there was already a broad user base to draw from, and LOTS of people joined Facebook. (Facebook made some pretty big mistakes, too, but we’re not going to get into that right now.)

Facebook and Friendster had a lot in common. They both let people post information about themselves. One of those information pieces was “relationship status.” You know, like single, in a relationship, married, etc. Friendster went a step further than the standard categories and added a category called “it’s complicated.”

Facebook decided this was a good idea, and they did the same thing. After all, many relationships are complicated, and it’s important to let people express themselves in a way that fits.

Then Dead-Friendster yelled out, No! No! We said that first! It’s ours! And they added a trademark symbol to it, to claim their territory.

And then the Internet laughed and ignored Dead-Friendster, because even though Dead-Friendster wanted to be important again, you just can’t trademark a complication.

And because the Internet is a cruel, cruel place, the Internet decided to give the trademark (in spirit) to Facebook. Just to spit in Dead-Friendster’s eye.

And they all lived complicatedly ever after.

The End!