The case for anonymity

As anyone bothering to read this post knows I had the sheer and absolute pleasure of hanging with @rachelakay earlier this week.

For those of you who are curious - she's an a complete delight!  I could go into all the ways she's great but I don't think I have enough room.  In brief - personally she's great - interesting, fun & funny and truly a joy to hang with.  Professionally - she certainly knows her stuff, doesn't pull punches and has real opinions.  If you're not following her yet - go now...I'll wait...

No really...go...

Once the hours of Guinness and wine faded I pretty much had to again consider my position.  Not that I really could easily change it, but if we 'don't learn from history' and all that good stuff.  Also, I was left with a different post-meet mood than from #1.  I admit, could've been the Guinness.

While I'm still constantly mystified at how I ended up here (I do know how it happened chronologically, just looking at the end point it makes little sense (I will cover this in a later post)) it really struck me that without this persona I would have missed out on the opportunity to meet with those of you I have, those of you I intend to, work with the half-dozen or so who have stepped up to help out with Masquertweet, or party with a hundred or so of my favorite people I've never met.

And so, while in the grand scheme it makes things more difficult overall since everything's a bit cloak & dagger in anything I do it is well worth it to have this opportunity.

Tangent alert: And in case anyone missed it - I'm now on FB.  Since I have virtually none of your email addies I'll need you to start - http://www.facebook.com/people/Peter-Cognoscenti/1818394291.

And in case anyone's curious...yes I do have an 'exit strategy' that should keep PRCog alive & active, but allow a bit of collar loosening in the coming months....That'll have to wait for another post tho...

Dear Twitter....your new @ settings suck

Ok, I don't usually post this quickly on anything but this one sucks particularly badly.

No, I didn't find this out on my own. I first saw it on @whitneyhess's blog.

So here's the beef - there's been a change to what shows up in your timeline - long story short (if I'm reading this right) - when someone you follow replies to someone you don't follow you won't see the update of the person you do follow.

Oddly enough I was working on a blog post on the train this evening reflecting that I get and find more good twitter people NOT through #followfriday but just by seeing who else my people are talking to and what they're talking about. Side note - the iphone/itouch keyboard is really quite wretched on a bouncy train.

Well this change basically takes twitter from a great cocktail party (my favorite analogy) where you can easily join any conversation and make new friends to a cliquey high school cafeteria where if you don't know the right people (or combination of people) you simply won't find a place to sit and wonder wtf you're doing there.

There's simply so many ways this sucks that it's difficult to even list them all. Here's to hoping this changes before I wake up tomorrow morning.

Update: WTF's a #Masquertweet

Hey All -

So, as an update to the original post some new info on #Masquertweet!

A final date has been set - July 16th!

We've also had some problems with the last RSVP page so we've put up a new page at Socializr - http://tinyurl.com/rsvp09 (Yes, the post-slash is intentional).

A clarification on costumes - There is NO requirement to be in full costume.  We do realize a large number of you will be coming from work (or job hunting). A few of us will certainly be in full costume, so if you're so inclined, don't feel awkward about showing up in over the top gear.

However, to stay true to theme, we will expect at least a de minimis mask appearance.

Flack Limerick I

Concept initiated by @karyncooks

Flack Limerick I

There once was a flack from Nantucket

Whose pitch was so slick you couldn't duck it

     He pushed send

     The hits never did end

Yet somehow the client still managed to f_(k it.