Jamie’s Two Cents
In Which Jamie Welcomes the Lurkers, and Lays the Smacketh Downeth in a Nice Way
OK, first things first. Naomi had a post a few days ago, and we saw the lurkers (and I use this term nicely, it is not meant to be derogatory) come out of the woodwork. Sometimes we get so used to seeing the same names on the comments on different posts that we forget that there are other people reading these posts whom we have never met. While it is always awesome to see our regular commentators show up and put in their two cents, it was especially awesome to see so many new names in the comment section.
So lurkers: this part is for you. We want to encourage everyone to feel like they can take part in the discussion that is IttyBiz, so take this as your official welcome to the party. Please, please, please use the comment section on this post if you have any comments or suggestions on what we can do to make it easier for first-timers to feel comfortable enough to take part.
Secondly, it was previously suggested that the time may have come for us to set up some comment rules. Since unruly behaviour tends to upset my wife and therefore ruins my day, I agreed to take on this task. Please pay attention, I don’t want to have to come find you. If you haven’t already read How To Avoid Running Your Mouth Off On-line, perhaps that is the best place to start.
The rules are pretty simple.
Please treat the IttyBiz blog the way you would treat a party to which you are invited and know some but not all of the guests.
If you come to the party only to hand out your business card to everyone in attendance and then promptly leave, you will not be invited back.
If you continually and pointlessly talk smack about the host(ess) or their guests, you will not be invited back.
If you are a bigot, racist, homophobe, or goat-lover at our party, you will not be invited back.
If you are any of these things in the privacy of your own home, that’s your business.
If you contribute to the discussion at the party, you will always have a standing invitation to our party.
If you are the person who always brings more alcohol than is strictly necessary, you will always have a standing invitation to our party.
If you can voice a dissenting opinion in a thoughtful way, you will always have a standing invitation to our party.
If you treat others with respect and kindness, even when offering a criticism, you will always have a standing invitation to our party.
Perhaps most importantly, it’s our little home business party. We are the sole arbiters of who is invited and who is not. (Case in point, we have decided that two people can be sole arbiters, and there’s nothing wrong with that.) Most transgressions will likely get a warning first, but if we’re really pissed off then maybe not.
Welcome, and please enjoy the party.
Image credit : Givepeasachance
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Amen, brother. I’ll bring the keg.
(I’ll be Photoshopping that picture today, and putting it up at my front door…)
-Brett
Is there food? There should be food.
I can bring food. :)
These are pretty reasonable. Can I steal them and bland them up a bit? (Gotta bland ‘em–my blog is more of a business blog after all. Then again, maybe I’m thinking about that wrong…)
I also vote for the food. And margaritas. I’ll bring the margaritas.
I’ll be the girl who has too many of those margaritas and ends up dancing on a table…. Will I be invited back? ; )
Margaritas, uh oh… only if there’s no pool… long story involving skinny dipping….but I can bring the guac…and a brush.
A paint brush.
*finds it hard to break out of lurker mode and stares at the screen for a long time trying to come up with something witty to say*
Hmmm . . . this will only be my second comment ever, although I have been reading this blog for several months now. Hopefully, you will not take this as me being an asshole. Cuz, well, you invited me to comment.
I agree with your rules. Which is pretty much why I don’t comment. I read this blog because I find Naomi’s writing to be rather entertaining. However, as a marketer myself, I find myself disagreeing with the content of this blog rather often. I figure, “Hey, it’s not my party, so who am I to come in there and say they are all idiots. They can do things their way, I’ll do things mine, and everybody stays happy.”
So there you have it. Hopefully I have not just made some enemies. If Naomi ever says something that I find absolutely brilliant, I will comment on it. Otherwise, I will just keep my thoughts to myself.
Best wishes and good health.
@Brett : I forgot to include the photo credit, that’s done now so you can grab the larger version.
@Andrea R : Absolutely, bring all the food you like. I happen to be partial to nachos and guac, but I think Janice is already bringing the guac.
@Matt : Steal forth! But yeah, you might want to bland it up a bit, maybe take the goat-lover reference out.
@Carole : You will definitely be invited back. But we take no responsibility for any table-related injuries. And we may laugh at said injuries, but only if they’re not serious.
@Janice : I think we’ll actually put in a pool, just to see what happens.
@Brent : Welcome! You make a really good point. We try and welcome dissenting opinions because, well, we’d kinda be jerks if we didn’t. Not to worry, we’re not enemies (now I’m thinking of like East Coast bloggers vs. West Coast bloggers) but please, if you can find a way to let us know when you disagree that would be great. Having a lot of people who agree is pleasant but makes for a rather short conversation.
@brent: Naomi (who is too lazy to type her own comment and gets be to be her bitch) says Thank you for coming out and saying you disagree with me. I have a feeling everyone disagrees with me but they are too afraid to say so :) You’re thoughts are very refreshing.
PS- You are not an asshole. (Well maybe you are, I really don’t know you that well. But if you are I couldn’t tell from your comment).
Perhaps I’m being naive (I’m probably being naive) but… what’s wrong with liking goats? Or am I way missing something?
I’ll totally bring food to your party. Especially sushi. But I’m down with bringing anything else too. :) Except pies. I don’t do pies. Particularly lemon meringue. :-/
I think the main reason (for me at least) that lurkers don’t join in much is that you have an amazing comment community (which is a wonderful thing) but most of your commenters seem to know eachother so it sometimes might be intimidating, like showing up at a party where everyone is friends and you don’t know anybody but the host.
Also, sometimes I don’t really feel like I have much to contribute to the party/post, so I keep quiet.
I thought I was never coming to the party again until I discovered that excess booze got me a free Golden Ticket.
And then I thought, whew. It’s a good thing I just opened that pub.
Hi, Jamie!
@ Allison : Yeah, that’s a good point. I’m like that at actual parties; if I don’t know many people I just stand in the corner. But I’m trying to give that up. People are pretty friendly here and definitely won’t mind if you join in. Also, no worries about the pie. I got sick once as a kid eating way too much lemon meringue, and now almost 30 years later I still can’t eat it.
@Everyone else : If you get a chance maybe you wouldn’t mind saying hi to some of our new peeps? Let’s make them feel welcome.
@Tei : How is it I didn’t find out until just now that I know a pub owner? :)
Oh, man. I know a LOT of goat-lovers who are going to be pissed. Way to go.
@ Jamie- uh oh… stock up on the towels.
@ Allison- I met Matt over Fabio. And James over some fancy knickers. Of course Naomi started it all. But it’s a very friendly crowd.
@Brent- What do you market? Curious cat here.
@Jamie & Naomi - Thank you for the welcome. If you want me to, I will begin commenting with some of my dissenting opinions. I simply did not want to potentially jeopardize any customers who may see my comments and say “Hey! He has a point. These guys SUCK!” (OK, maybe not quite that extreme.)
I promise to be as respectful as I can, and try not to be too much of a douche. If I cross the line, just tell me to shut up, and I will go back to lurker mode. Again, my intent is not to be an asshole or offend anyone.
@Janice - I do very similar to what IttyBiz does, only I am in the USA. I specialize in marketing consulting for small businesses. I am in the process of blowing up my old site because it has degenerated into suckiness. Once it doesn’t suck as much anymore, and with Naomi & Jamie’s permission, I will post a link here.
Jamie,
Fine rules, dude. Give that woman a backrub and tell her she can worry less now. (Forget booze; massage cures all ills.)
*shouting* Happy Mother’s Day, to my favorite arbiter of questionable comments.
Regards,
Kelly
MOST AWESOME comment policy ever. So well described. Now I’m kind of sad that I don’t ever have insults or overbearing behavior (or the constant handing out of business cards) in MY comment section.
:)
@Jamie - Funny, I was actually going to call my rules The Goat-Lover’s Rules of Order. I guess maybe not now.
(@Janice - Shh. The Fabio super-secret project is still in the works!)
@Brent - Heh. That’s funny. I tend to reign in my comments because I didn’t want to jeopardize any of my potential customers who might be Googling me.
No GOAT-LOVERs? Well, heck…… but llamas are still okay, right?
Well said. I like the personal touch in the way the rules were written. The couple of rules I suggested weren’t anywhere near as colorful.
There is SO much love in the room right now!
BTW have you heard back yet from the demon commenter who triggered all of this blog lovin’ in the first place?
Ah, the curse of bein’ 20 — too young to bring the alcohol, and too old to feign ignorance about said alcohol. Can I at least bring the Monopoly? Nothing screams hanging out with professional writerfolk like Monopoly (Scrabble is too tame, and predictable.)
I’ll leave the other partygoers the red and yellow blocks — I’m going for the orange, baby! Not low-rent like the purples but not high class like the green — comfortable without the McMansion feel.
Okay, I’ll admit to being a lurker - I’ve been reading and recommending IttyBiz to my friends for months now (I think since you had the first Digg storm kick over your site).
I work in Georgia - Saqartvelo, not Atlanta, as a Peace Corps volunteer specializing in small business development. Your ideas are REALLY helpful, in that these people truly do have IttyBiz goin’ on. 100 lari a month (about $67) is a great salary where I work. Your post(s) about USPs have been super helpful, especially since I’ve been working with a university group to get a student-owned and operated cafe going.
Working in the developing world I find that marketing principles remain pretty much the same. People still want stuff. They still want to not pay for it. And they want you to explain why your stuff works for them in a special way. Naomi, thanks for the work you put into this!
All I want to know is, what happens if someone crosses the line? I mean, really… *toes the marker on the floor*… what happens if I cross this? An email? A nasty letter?… *toes toes toes*…
Oh, hey, can I still make passes at your wife? That wasn’t in the rules as a no-no. And you can’t change the rules now…
;)
I was a lurker for a while. What kept me from speaking up is that it took me some time to figure out whether Naomi was a caring human being or an evil psychob*tch. You can probably understand why I was confused at first.
I don’t comment much now mainly because I read about 50 posts a day, I try not to spend too much time doing it, and this blog gets a lot of comments, which I think you should ideally read before commenting (and I’m breaking my own rule in this case).
I’m afraid I don’t have any suggestions on how to bring out the lurkers though. I guess you could stoop to bribery if you wanted to.
@ Tracey — Yes. Much nicer than usual. :-)
@ Isabella — Aww, honey. We’re in Canada. Of COURSE you can bring the alcohol!
@ James — Dude, we know where you live. We would steal a car, drive down to your house, and take up residence in your front room. All of us, Jack and all. We would force you to cook us Chinese spaghetti for weeks on end. That would be punishment enough, as you well know.
And you’ll notice there was a conspicuous lack of “do not make passes at my wife” in the comment rules. I believe this is secretly because he likes it when the girls make passes at him.
@ Hunter… Yeah, the psychobitch thing. I get that a lot. Also, for people who meet me in person, lesbian gets bandied about a fair bit.
@ Brendan — That’s the awesomest thing I’ve ever heard. Can somebody please remind me to email this guy?
I love, love, love this blog. IMO, you don’t need to change a thing. I lurk. Now, I comment. Just to say thanks for all the great posts.
Well, sheesh, I’ve disagreed with you a couple of times, but certainly never said you were an idiot and certainly never even thought so - if everyone I disagreed with was an idiot, there’d be an awful lot of idiots running around.
Wait.. there ARE a lot of idiots running around!
But disagreement does not qualify someone to be in that group.
One simple question: if someone really thinks you are an idiot, why read the blog? There are blogs I simply cannot stand because of the rank stupidity that exudes from their pores: I don’t read ‘em. I have better things to do than argue with damn fools. In the early days of the internet, when we thought that snarling at the morons might send ‘em packing, yeah, I might have done that (truth in commenting: I did do that. I dooed it quite a bit, in fact). But nowadays? When there is so much GOOD stuff to read? Why bother?
I have to confess, I’m a lurker.. but only because I am laughing too hard with tears in my eyes to comment.
Will promise to try harder next time and have something wittier to say.
I’m the guy that brings too much booze and too much food (BBQ). So I guess we can hug it out.
I really appreciate all the great advice and helpful insight on IttyBiz, I am just usually too busy to comment. That was my excuse anyhow, I will now take time to make time.
**whips out his business card**
And hello everyone, My name is James… I am a blogger than runs a blog with his wife (Shala) about gardening & BBQ. Kind of a weekender, couple friendly website.
Lets be friends. ;) Oh and I bring lots of beer & food… didn’t I mention that?
Reminder: Naomi, email Brenden.
(You’re both doing good things.)
I come out of lurkdom sometimes but often am so in awe by all the intelligent discussion happening in the comments that I shy away from getting in there.
I love this blog. I feel like I know Naomi through the writing because her voice is so strong.
Great set of rules!
I’m trying to figure out what it is about Itty Biz that keeps me in lurker mode. I think it’s because I usually end up laughing so hard and you know, I don’t want to pee my pants in public. I know, that kind of thing is probably okay around here.
I’ll bring limes and coconuts and some rum for good measure.
Well, this must be my “outgoing” day for the year, I’m feeling bold - I’ll look at *your* shoes instead of my own when talking :)
Anyway, I’ll just join my virtual booze to the offerings (a fine Portuguese red, maybe? Or maybe Port?)