Fotoshop by Adobé from Jesse Rosten on Vimeo.

Case in point: Yesterday a clueless media relations professional whom I do not know sent me an e-mail with the subject line: “I sent a poem to a wannabee crotchety old bitch.” He was alluding to my recent birthday post, in which I reflected on aging.

The comment this person attempted to append to that post — which I did not approve — was the poem When I am an old woman I shall wear purple. That was in itself a mistake, though not a fatal one. If ever there was an overused, reflexive cliche response to any woman who mentions aging in a positive light, that poem would be it.

So this PR guy e-mailed me to let me know he’d tried to post that comment. Here’s the start of his message, and where he really screwed up…

He wrote:

“Hello Amy. I don’t think I’ll ever get to put the word ‘bitch’ in a corporate email subject line ever again but happy birthday. I hope you like the purple dresses poem that I commented with on your blog. It has stuck fondly in my memory since I was 13 and while I probably won’t wear purple dresses when I’m older, I aspire to that living.

“Anyway, here’s a pitch with some findings further below…”

And he did, indeed, follow that intro with a PR pitch. The real reason he was contacting me was that he wanted me to write up for CNN.com (where I blog about mobile technology) a study that his company recently released.

What can I say, but: Ick! No! Not in a million years!

I bear no personal animosity toward this media relations rep. But his note squicked me so much that I think it’s worth offering as an example for what people should generally not do when reaching out to strangers in order to try to get them to do something for you.

What was wrong with his approach?

• Transparently slimy.I have no problem that he read a post on my personal blog that contained personal information. I wouldn’t have published that post if I hadn’t intended it to be public. However, using my personal disclosures as a basis to try to ingratiate himself, and then launch straight into a PR pitch, lacked finesse and forethought.
• Presumptuous.If he wanted to comment on my personal post — even with that cliche — fine. Other people who I don’t know commented on that birthday post, and I welcomed (and published) those responses. But it was presumptuous for him to assume that leaving a comment on my personal blog post actually created some kind of personal connection between us that might encourage me, more than otherwise, to use his pitch for a CNN.com story.Granted, I have sometimes struck up meaningful personal connections and friendships via blog comments, and sometimes these cross over with professional matters. This is a process that happens organically over time. Trying to engineer that in a single e-mail is a really bad idea.
• Inappropriate/rude. When I saw the word “bitch” in the subject line of an e-mail from a person with a male name whom I don’t know, I nearly deleted it as spam immediately. That’s not the kind of thing a man should ever say to a woman who doesn’t already know him and consider him a friend. Even if she recently used that word in a blog post. And especially if you’re trying to contact her for professional reasons. No matter what you do, that language just won’t look friendly or funny. Gender power dynamics suck, but they do exist. So it’s dumb to act like they don’t, especially when you’re trying to build bridges.

What could he have done instead? If he felt so moved, he could have left his blog comment. Really, that would have been fine. Cliche included.

Then if he wanted to pitch me, he should have sent me a separate e-mail that did not refer to his blog comment, and that did not use language which could easily be mistaken for a gender-based insult. From there, if I recognized his name, I might have noted or asked him about his blog comment. But it was inappropriate for him to draw this connection, since it implied that I should give his pitch special treatment in a professional decision.

There’s a huge fuzzy gray area between the personal and the professional realms, especially online. So I can understand why these missteps happen. Personally I think it’s futile (and fundamentally not credible) to try to separate the personal and professional spheres entirely. It’s better to blend them thoughtfully in a way that suits you. That’s what I’ve been trying to do since I got online way back in the early 90s.

Being ignorant of, or choosing to ignore, the emotionally and socially crucial distinction between personal and professional information (and how they might imply relationships and influence) leads to overstepping that can look invasive or offensive.

In light of this reality, it’s more important than ever for everyone (especially media pros of all kinds) to be aware that there is still a difference between personal and professional, and to use those different kinds of information mindfully in pursuit of your goals.

In my opinion, journalists should be equally mindful of this pitfall when scouring personal posts on blogs or social media in order to find sources to contact, especially regarding breaking news with deeply personal angles like a murder or arrest. If you want to use digital communication tools to build those kind of community connections, do that up front as much as possible.

If a journalist must approach someone they don’t know about a sensitive personal matter in order to cover a story, be very very sensitive to the personal/professional distinction. Don’t use their available personal info to ingratiate yourself by pretending to be their friend, or that you care for personal reasons, and then try to get them to give you the information for your story. That tactic can work, but it’s unethical and slimy. And from a practical standpoint, it can easily backfire in a way that not only thwarts your goals but undermines your personal and professional reputation in a very public, findable way.

I chose not to publish this PR guy’s name or employer because I really don’t want to smear him personally. He made a mistake, and this is a “teachable moment.” We can all move forward from that.

I just finished reading a killer classic fiction mashup (literally), Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. It’s a parody of the Jane Austen novel (which I tried to read in college and found unbearably tedious).

I must admit, though: The addition of a Night of the Living Dead-style zombie plague made all the endless fretting and plotting over how to present  oneself as appropriately marriageable in polite society surprisingly entertaining and understandable.

Because the thing is: The strictures of British aristocratic society — particularly how women were held in chattel status, and the ceaseless power plays of verbal indirection — were indeed nightmarish, soul-destroying, and cannibalistic.

Therefore, I don’t think it’s a stretch to consider this book a seminal feminist treatise. (God knows we need more entertaining seminal works of feminism!)

If you read this book (and I recommend it) don’t miss the reader’s discussion guide at the end. It contains 10 questions. Here are a couple of my favorites…

2. “Is Mr. Collins merely too fat and stupid to notice his wife’s gradual transformation into a zombie, or could there be another explanation for his failure to acknowledge the problem? If so, what might that explanation be? How might his occupation (as a pastor) relate to his denial of the obvious, or his decision to hang himself?”

6. “Some critics have suggested that the zombies represent the authors’ views toward marriage — an endless curse that sucks the life out of you and just won’t die. Do you agree?”

So: Discuss….

Lately there’s been a meme going around called the “W list” — a lengthy list of links to high-quality blogs published by women.

As far as I’ve traced it back, the kernel of this movement began with an Aug. 7 post by PR blogger Valeria Maltoni. But the momentum really picked up when my friend and colleague, the noted PR/marketing blogger Toby Bloomberg, christened an expanded version of the list “the W list” on Aug. 16. Since then, the full list of links has been reposted on many blogs around the world.

The W list was Toby’s response to Ad Age’s Power 150, “a ranking of the top English-language media and marketing blogs in the world, as developed by marketing executive and blogger, Todd Andrlik.” That list was based mostly on quantitative popularity in Google, Technorati, and Bloglines — and it contained very few blogs by women.

Toby’s laudable aim was to bring much deserved attention and “Google juice” to accomplished female bloggers, many of whom are writing for niche communities and so don’t make the kind of numbers it takes to get on Ad Age’s Power 150. I think that’s crucial in any field, since (especially when you’re talking about blogs for a particular niche or industry), the quality of the content usually is far more important than search engine ranking, site traffic, or number of subscribers.

I’m honored that Toby included me on her W list, and I recognize many fabulous bloggers there that are worth checking out. I definitely don’t mean to trash this effort. However, there is a problem with it: I think it’s become a link farm, which could end up backfiring on the bloggers who post the list of links, and perhaps those who are included on it.

Here’s why I’m raising this red flag…

Earlier this year a similar list-meme of recommended bloggers, 2000 Bloggers, was making the rounds. Instead of a text list with links, this meme featured thumbnail photos of 2000 bloggers of all sorts, assembled into a photo montage with links. Bloggers were encouraged to republish that montage on their sites in order to increase the number of inbound links from around the web to the listed blogs, thus hopefully improving their positioning in search engine results.

Here’s the trouble with that general approach, as I discussed Feb. 6 in The Right Conversation:

“[Because of this meme,] there’s an awful lot of identical cross-linking happening online. And I can see it happening. Every time I check my feed reader (I have several search feeds for my name and URLs, so I can find out when I’m being discussed or linked to online), I see a slew of new links from new people who have posted the 2000 bloggers photomontage.

“Normally, inbound links are a great thing for traffic and search engine placement. And of course, there’s some social networking potential here too. However, tons of identical links from multiple sites might look like link farming to Google and other major search engines.

“Link farming is a problem, since it’s often employed to game the search engines to artificially boost the rankings of involved sites. Since it’s a problem, search engines have devised sophisticated algorithms to identify it.”

In a followup Feb. 7 post, I noted that Technorati had indeed responded to 2000 Bloggers as a link farm — in effect, erasing those links (and their effects) from its index. Since then, 2000 Bloggers appears to have constructively altered its approach to increasing the visibility of lesser-known bloggers.

I’m concerned that mass cross-posting of the W list links might backfire in the same way — which is why I haven’t posted it to Contentious, even though I support its goals and am a fan of many of the bloggers listed there. In my experience, trying to game search engines (regardless of intentions) is always a losing game for all concerned.

On the bright side, there are a couple of other W-list efforts I believe are very constructive and helpful. First of all, there’s now a W-list Facebook group (which I’ve just joined). That’s a great example of working with the intent of an online tool to further your community’s goals.

Also, there’s a W-List wiki, which could eventually have a beneficial effect on female bloggers’ visibility as long as its feed gets distributed to all the major aggregators (Technorati, Google Blog Search, etc.)

What do you think of the W-list? Did you decide to publish it or not, and why? Please comment below.

I just listened to the podcast of the July 27 edition of Colorado Matters, a show from Colorado Public Radio. The segment Some Districts Move Toward Gender Education. CPR’s Dan Meyers interviewed Kelley King, Director of Education at the Colorado Springs-based Gurian Institute, which offers gender education training to teachers.

The gist of their discussion was that boys tend to underperform in K-12 education, largely (according to King) because US K-12 teaching approaches have historically been more geared to the way girls tend to learn, get motivated and behave.

King said that one pervasive problem she saw as a teacher and principal in the Boulder Valley School District (BVSD) was that “We were having problem getting boys to rewrite and revise something that they’d already written. Once they wrote something, they were pretty much done with it. We realized we had to have something more motivating — which would be bigger audiences, pleasing someone other than just the teacher. …We know that boys aren’t as inclined to just want to please the teacher.”

BVSD experimented with approaches such as having students prepare work that they would read at an assembly, or to older children, and found that this did improve boys’ motivation and performance. Apparently, girls’ performance did not suffer.

This got me wondering about blogs…

Imagine this: A 5th grade class might have its own blog, but it’s not just open for any student to post. Students would work with the teacher to get their assignments or other work in good enough shape to post. That work would include revisions — and maybe even research, learning to include links and pictures, etc.

That content would then be available through a network of blogs, perhaps on the school’s site. Students would be encouraged to read and comment on other students’ work — and those comments would be moderated, and teachers would work with students to teach them about civility, tolerance, and constructive criticism as well as spelling, grammar, and coherence.

I’m not a boy, but I know this would have done wonders for my motivation in school! I pretty much got A’s if I liked the teacher and assignments, or F’s because I ignored them otherwise and did my own thing. I’m not sure this difference in approach King recommends is so much about gender as personality type, but who knows…

I know many K-12 classes already have blogs, but are any schools doing something like this? Or homeschool groups? I’d love to learn more. Please comment below