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.

The case against anonymity

or 

'Another kind of tweetgret'

I know, coming from me, not exactly what you'd expect to hear.

[Disclaimer: Tongue not in cheek for this post]

As a few of you already know, late last week I met with one of my 'follower/friends' (and no, I'm not naming names unless they give the the nod).

Anyway, for those of you who know why I keep my anonymity (and that I'm pretty strict about it) you can imagine this is/was a bit unnerving.  Of the thousand or so of you out there, up until a few days ago, there were exactly zero that had ever (knowingly) seen or met me.  

The mini-meet went great (IMHO).  We talked about twitter (and its weirdness), our significant others, how we ended up in our professions, non-work related projects, etc. 

An interesting side note -- this person, notwithstanding evidence (i.e. the meeting itself) that I might actually share it with them, respected (wc?) my anonymity enough that they didn't ask me who I really was and as far as I could tell the thought didn't even cross their minds (that might not be the case though as I'm not psychic).  Then again, they just might not care (entirely possible as well).

Overall this was the type of person I would enjoy getting to know better - trustworthy (I believe), smart, funny, kind, etc. - and likely would if we were in the same office or met under different circumstances.

And there's the wrench - of the hundreds of you I've had conversations with, odds are there's a significant number that I would enjoy real-life business or personal relationships with (in the platonic sense - seriously people - happily married w/ Coglings, remember?).

Of course, without my anonymity there's little chance I would've ever met a fraction of you, or if I had, there's little chance the relationship would be the same.

This mask I voluntarily put on every day, gives me the freedom to spew hellfire about my clients and co-workers, make inappropriate comments, and do what I do (not sure there's a suitable word for it).  At the same time it keeps me in the shadows (at least while at this place of employment) when it comes to really interacting and taking anything to the next level. Quite literally this persona (with the exception of #Masquertweet) is 99% talk...140 character talk...but talk nonetheless.

It'll be interesting/challenging to see how this progresses....

5 of 25 real things

Yes, this was inspired by the stupid FB trend.  

I thought would be more interesting here since, quite literally, 0 (zero) of you know me IRL (in real life) and sometimes 140 just isn't enough.  

Presented in the occasional 5 bullet segments (that way when I've been ignoring the blog for some time I can throw another five up here to buy myself some time...:)

1. I've never been west of Las Vegas, and before that (since it was for business and all I saw was the inside of the convention center and the place we rented (so it doesn't really count...)) Colorado.
2. I haven't owned a car for nearly 9 years.  The only time I miss it is when I rent one.
3. Notwithstanding my flirtering I am very happily married w/ little coglings.  (Sorry twitter-ettes).
4. Politically I'm 90% bleeding heart liberal.
5. I'm a Google Ho - if I can use Google for a service I do: mail (for my real accounts), docs, applications, maps, video, phone ...(except subway maps...just doesn't work well).

WTF's a #Masquertweet

Some of this info in this post has been updated - after reading, please check here for more info.

Well it started innocently enough...

For those of you who have been following me for some time know I tweet anonymously for numerous reasons. As does @prdude and @aerocles recently became more open with his id (check his blog http://aerocles.blog.com/ as well as prdude's at http://www.indefenseofpr.com too!).

And so we went here

and here...
Along the way @jessisjuicy hopped on (w00t!) and we came up with a name:

(Because #twitterade sounds like something you drink after a long tweeting session.)

Unfortunately @prdude refuses to sing Broadway show tunes and snuggies have been banned. But we are expecting cupcakes (and cupcakes ? men! ;)) and have a few leads out for booze distributors.

We believe it might be the first masked tweetup (though we may be wrong). There's also been some talk of mixing it with #tweetnaked.

And so where are we now? Here's what we know:

• The #Masquertweet will take place in NYC
• It will take place sometime in July (not the week/end of the 4th) July 16th
• We do not have a venue yet, are seeking one and have been in contact w/ Heather Dueitt @hdueitt who's got some great leads.
• We're happy to consider vendors, anyone wanting to provide promos, etc. drop one of us a tweet or email.
• To be kept in the loop, RSVP yes or maybe at http://twtvite.com/0cv35v http://tinyurl.com/rsvp09
• We'd love to make this totally free/open bar - so sponsors very welcome. Or buy this apartment and I'll put all the bounty money into the event (Please send any other reward arrangements our way, we're happy to advertise...).
  
• This is not a flack only event...assistants can come too ;). No really, any and all are welcome, even journos =]
  

If I've missed anything (pretty sure I have), drop me a note or a tweet.

--PRCog

Some of this info in this post has been updated - after reading, please check here for more info.