Archives for March 2018

CNN.

March 27, 2018 · By Amy Swift Crosby

Dear CNN,

As I watched your recent interview with Mark Zuckerburg, I found myself shaking my head in disbelief. Not because the tech titan now finds himself in the middle of a data sh$t storm, but because your reporter conducting the interview, Laurie Segall, appeared to be flirting the Facebook CEO into answering questions. In this age of #metoo and equal pay, are you serious?

Did CNN intentionally enlist a beautiful female reporter – and then instruct her to bat her eyelashes, cock head suggestively and use a modulated voice to intentionally coax sound bites out of the normally private Zuckerberg?

Here’s the message you sent viewers.

We need to be seductive to get information.
We need to employ mating signals to make men trust us.
We can’t be forthright when asking for appropriate information.
Our voices have to be soothing and gentle to be persuasive.

I wonder if it ever crosses the minds of Anderson Cooper or Don Lemon to modify their behaviors in these ways. Erin Burnett certainly does not appear to.

CNN, you may have a lot on your plate in the age of fake news and perpetual fact checking, but I’m pretty sure Ms. Segall could have gotten the same information by just being the grounded, legitimate journalist she already is.

These kinds of shenanigans really date you as a news organization.

Please don’t encourage them.

Regards,

Every woman you know

Small Business

Just.

March 13, 2018 · By Amy Swift Crosby

@smnyc

This typography took about 6 minutes. And 23 years.

Funny thing about this word…

We use it to imply “merely” when what we really mean is just the opposite.

“Can you just tweak this design?”
“Can you just re-write this page?”
“Can you just tell us what’s missing?”

Here’s how I see it. If you are the one doing the asking, then it’s not “just” something. It’s actually “the” something that is most important to you; it’s the one thing you want me/us/them to do fix/consult/improve… because it matters and because you want it done by someone who knows how best.

If you are the one being asked, you may recognize the dynamic and share this perspective. To “just” offer digital strategy, or “just” eyeball the numbers or “just” whip up the design is only possible because of hard-earned experience. In our world, “just” ignores the hours in the trenches it took to get here. This word also may also trigger the alarm bells of someone who wants to justify asking for lower fees or who expects a quicker turnaround. This could be true for an artist, instructor, writer, creative director, contractor, service provider- -or anyone who does something you can’t do, and who makes it look easy because it’s their 1,000^th rodeo.

I’m not saying I don’t make this mistake on the regular – I forget or overlook the minimizing effects this can produce, too. But I try to stop myself from using “just” in front of a favor or project I need someone to do for me knowing the effect it can have on me. Assuming to know how long something really takes relies on guesswork. And even if I’m right and it takes them less than 10 minutes, the only reason that’s true is because they’re really good and very experienced at doing what they do.

Not trying to nitpick. But a little awareness to an oft-misguided presumption that shows up in what are otherwise earnest communications will hopefully allow more good deeds to be done. Language that implies appreciation for the importance of a service goes a lot farther than unwittingly minimizing (and thus diminishing) another person’s talent at it.

I have found that the best requests express the assumption that we actually have no idea what goes into making “it” happen for someone else…and our best shot and getting what we need is acknowledging that.

Just sayin’.

Big Life

Unfollow.

March 6, 2018 · By Amy Swift Crosby

There's discipline in intentional limitations.

Might we glean something from this dreaded word, and might I possibly be the last person to come to this seemingly obvious conclusion? Forgive me in advance if you’re miles ahead.

In a conversation with one of my favorite clients recently, when I shared my own (common/clichéd/sadly normal) conflict around certain feeds on Instagram, he told me this:

“You’re not alone. I just unfollowed everyone I know so that I can exclusively follow the people who truly inspire me.”

What a novel idea! (first thought.)
What if I offend them? (second thought.)
What if they don’t even notice? (third / but not final thought.)

And later, in the post-conversation-mental-marinade, the justification cycle went something like this:

But I follow them to know what they’re doing, because it’s part of my job to be aware and connected to the marketplace, to observe influencers, and because my peer group follows them, and because they like my stuff so I should like their stuff, and because 40k other people follow them so…maybe I should too…and so on.

Really?
Really.

Lately, I’ve found myself flattened more than inspired, after looking at Instagram. And, the data says there are a lot of us. While I love posting and sharing with my own followers, because it feels warm and cozy, I feel unprepared with what sometimes reaches out from the screen and slaps me around a little – messages that annoy and provoke and then linger like a low-grade fever. Certainly not a crisis or even a curveball, they are much more a commentary about what provokes feelings I don’t deem worthy than of any wrongdoing by anyone else.

Logic would have it that if something feels bad, it is bad. But that ain’t Insta. With inspiration, connection and beauty can sometimes come addiction, bitterness, and envy. It is a platform that shines at presenting one (gorgeous) version of everyday reality. While it doesn’t take much time relative to the course of a day or week, the focus that it does pull seems out of whack with my priorities. It beckons me to questionable places – unproductive lines of dialogue that would otherwise never start.

So why do I/we persist?
Because the world does it?
Because the dopamine outweighs the depression?

We’ve become a little bit enamored with knowing what’s up with other people. It’s fun. It’s voyeuristic. It can be awesome sometimes.

One route is to unfollow, assuming you have the willpower to do it. But even if you can check that box, this platform remains a fixture for most of us because the good outweighs the bad. It calls for resolution, one way or the other.

As for me, I’ve reframed the Insta visual playground and am #following the Marie Kondo approach to social media in general:

Edit feed.
Limit time.
Ask myself…

Is there joy? If not = “unfollow.”