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“Filters”

Ever watch your own behavior, looking for clues about who you are? SometimesI do and sometimes I

m surprised at what I see me do. It

s an interesting way toget insight, deeper or more, into who I am. I recognize that I

m more than what Isay or think. I

m also what I do. So with that in mind,I caught myself by surprise about a week ago when I realized that I had made anadjustment to a procedure that I perform about twice a day, everyday. It had to dowith email of all things. Usually I check my email at the beginning of my day andagain at the end of the afternoon. Of course if I

m anticipating some importantinformation of any particular sort I might check around noon or late at night, butmost often I check early morn & late afternoon. On this particular day, as I wasgoing through my list of messages, I saw myself clicking & deleting manymessages without reading them. And I was being pretty brutal about it. This wasnew behavior for me, or at least the recognition of it was.Probably like many of you, I have several email accounts, and for efficiency Ifunnel them into one account. On that account I have a spam filter and it seemspretty effective. The messages that get through are generally ones that I expectto find there. Social contacts & business connections, organizations whose goalsI support, subjects I

m interested in, you know, that kinda thing. And yet here Iwas blindly discarding some of them.Email burn-out? Bad mood? Info overload? Web distress? I decided to take alook at what precipitated my behavior and then decide what I

d do about it. Now,Emails from friends, Analog or Digital, rest assured your emails are opened. Thatsaid, everything as you

ll soon see, is subject to review. How about all thosemessages from organizations I support like animal & pet protection groups,organic food sites, and alternative energy sites? And what about the newslettersthat stream in daily from bloggers big & small? And there are others fromProfessional groups, Japan, my Credit Union, Social media sites, Creativesites… all that stuff. So ﬁnally, after thinking about my email overﬂow I arrived ata solution. I decided to deal with the contents of my email inbox like I handle mydiet. Let me explain.

I don

t control my diet by deciding what to do with the food that

s in my kitchencupboard. I control my diet by deciding what food I put into my kitchen cupboard.That

s not an insigniﬁcant difference.I like pets and take care of a cat...

you never “own” a cat

. Anyway, I

m concernedabout pets being abused, abandoned, or suffering the results of poor breeding.Things like that bother me and I like to keep abreast of pet related information. Isign petitions, re-post pet info that comes my way, and generally participate inpet awareness. That said,Awhile back, I noticed that one of the sites whose email I began to discardwithout opening, was a pet info site. Why? Well, because I was tired of opening adaily email only to be met with an unattractive landing page ﬁlled with productsfor $ale. Products for pets, products for pet owners, products that “show support”for a pet cause. Tiresome really. I used to wade through the site searching for theinformation I had signed up to receive. No more. Now I see the email with it

s titlehawking something

for sale

and with a mouse click! it

s disposed of unopened.I have choices. Other choices. Better choices. Different choices. It

s the web.I

m not a Masochist. Yet I

ll admit that I

ve requested much of the email I receive.Some of the sites promised to teach me something. About web business,technology, social media… all sorts of stuff that I wanted to do or do better. So inexchange for my email address, which as you know is the price of access, Ibegin receiving emails. Frequently they arrive frequently. Daily even.For a few weeks or months, longer for some, they provide information that I ﬁndinteresting. The concepts, the techniques, the perspectives deliver new info and Ifeel the reading investment is worthwhile. Then at some point in time, it doesn

tseem as worthwhile. What changed? I begin to notice the $ales Pitch more thenthe information. When the balance tips from the information to the $ale, I

malways aware of it. It

s a feeling, a transparent Tipping Point. A shift has begun.

This evolution, this shift, varies in time & intensity from provider to provider.There

s repeated emphasis on the $ale, Pushing me to “Buy Now” or lose the“Deal”. And, regularly recommending Afﬁliate links that when selected, whisk meto another offering of invaluable information, in exchange for my email address,of course. This scheme has become Commonplace, Predictable, Boring,Repetitive, and Alienating. But, I have an idea.In lieu of alienating me with all of those offers, often appearing prematurely in theconversation, what if the blogger, business person, writer, speaker, technocrat,site designer, et al, did this. What if these “

Pretenders

”

decided to “manage” mewith an offer rather than “assault” me with one.Now there

s a concept: Manage not Assault. It might appear something like this,After delivering some/most/all of the promised information I signed up to receive,an offer might appear within an email. Soft sell. Not frantic. A Deadline but not a“Deathline.” A simple message like: “Here it is, if you like the ideas and see thebeneﬁt of learning more, please click on this link for the details.” A pleasantsuggestion, not a threat to be excluded if I don

t “Act now! Today! This week!Because, Once it

s Gone it

s Gone!” Oh...My...God!!In an attempt to avoid this evolutionary

stuff

clogging my inbox, I

m taking actionto choose more carefully from the outset. I

ve established a layer of Filters that Iapply in choosing:•No Knee-jerk reactions. I Check the Source more thoroughly than before. Yes,I

ve bought Albums because the 1

Track was great, but now there

s iTunes.•Bookmark & Read directly from the blog or site prior to signing up. To make agood decision, I may discover what I need to know from a few random reads.•Offers will eventually come and that

s OK... unless they become abusive. If theSale becomes paramount to the detriment of the information, I resign.•Successful entrepreneurs aren

t necessarily successful Teachers. And a Highnumber of followers doesn

t necessarily indicate High Quality Info delivered.If it isn

t More than Numbers, It isn

t for me. Then,

Pretenders

in lieu of Teacher, Educator, Trainer, Instructor, Guide.

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"Filters"

Ever watch your own behavior, looking for clues about who you are? Sometimes I do and sometimes I'm surprised at what I see me do. Itʼs an interesting....

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