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Imagining Better

February 24, 2021 by Scott "Q" Marcus

We’ve all heard the expression, “It’s hard to remember that your objective was to drain the swamp when you are waist-deep in alligators.” 

We have been battering alligators and hunkered down in crisis mode for way too long.  

According to Wikipedia, John F. Kennedy, our 35th president, incorrectly stated in a campaign that the Chinese symbol for “crisis” (危機)is made up of two words: “danger” and “opportunity”. (As it turns out, the two words are better represented by “danger” and “changepoint” although Google’s translation page breaks them down to “danger” and “machine”.)

It appears that finally, after way too long, the sun is timidly peeking its healing rays over the horizon and a new world is rising.

Although a long road lies yet ahead, we are gradually evolving into this new era, wearily struggling to heal the bruises and scars brought upon us by too many crises in too short of a time.

Whatever the etymology of “crisis,” it is indeed a period of introspection and an opening to shake things up; in essence, to design a new normal.

After all, if we always do what we’ve always done, we’ll always be where we’ve always been. Speaking for you, me, and the guy down the street, I am convinced none of us want to re-experience another 2020.

On social media, a meme is making the rounds. It shows a photo of a handwritten note; on it is penned, “Nothing should go back to normal. Normal wasn’t working. If we go back to the way things were, we will have lost the lesson. May we rise up and do better.”

In reply to my posting of the meme, a friend commented, “…sounds like you didn’t like your life…  I sure in the hell want mine back!” Although well-intentioned I’m sure, that misses the bigger point.

Firstly, we’re never returning to “normal,” however that’s defined.

What we experienced last year – and continue to do so — is a tectonic plate paradigm shift in how we live. The culture of 2025 will be as different from 2015 as 2015 is from 1965. Whether that’s “good” or “bad” or simply “is” can be debated but the profound influences that a pandemic, economic crash, urban turmoil, and the most divisive election and aftermath in the last 100 years cannot be swept under the rug. Those influences are now in our DNA, never to leave us.

Yes, I miss being in plays, traveling, meeting friends at coffee shops, going to services with my congregation on Sundays, eating at restaurants, and not having to mask up or avoid others when I walk down the street. And Lord almighty, do I miss hugs. Of course, I crave those and want them back.

But as stated, disasters bring opportunities and we have to admit that the old system, whatever that was, was not working on lots of levels. After all, if it was, we wouldn’t be where we are now.

So, to that end, in the belief that we each contribute to the future by what we each envision, I’m posting my wish-list of a future “new normal.” [Read more…]

Filed Under: Affirmation, Current Events, Inspiration, Newspaper Column, Overcoming Obstacles Tagged With: change, covid 19, future predictions, inspiration, lifestyle change, pandemic, politics, radical change, social networks

Guerilla Marketing: Clever Use of Email Autoresponder

July 25, 2009 by Scott "Q" Marcus

June’s sample size for the International Inspiration Index is larger than the previous two months, in part due to what I would like to consider a clever use of my email’s auto responder. Most people use their auto responder when they leave their office for awhile. We’ve all received those emails:

“I am out of my office until hell freezes over. I will check my email when I return. In the meantime…”

So, I thought, “Why not use the auto responder as a marketing tool even when I’m in town?”

I use it to promote something I consider important and since I get so much email in a day, it makes sense to broadcast to everyone who sends me email — including people I don’t know. I mean, after all, if I have message I want to get out, why not really get it “out there?”

So, I change my auto responder pretty regularly. In the latter half of June, I could see that the responses to the I3 were weaker than I wanted, so I turned on my auto responder and I set it up to broadcast to anyone who sent me an email. (My auto responder has an intelligent feature so it will only send you a reply once per week so my regular emailers will not get the same message over and over and over again. When I change the message, it resets the database.)

In the auto responder, I stated:

I’ll respond to your email as soon as I can. However, in the meantime, please help me with my long-term project by taking this survey: http://www.AttitudeIndex.com

Answer the 4 questions. It’s anonymous. It’s a survey on attitude. Please refer it to others also.

Thank you.

What happened?

That’s the cool thing. My survey responses really climbed. Also, because my survey’s closing page directs them to other web pages of mine, several people continued on to see what else I do and from that, several people signed up for my newsletter, including people I would have never thought of.

Social Networks Kick In and Spread the Message!

facebookOne of my good friends, Jess Pettit, is extremely active on Facebook. Because she speaks to colleges, she has a few thousand friends. She got the autoreply and forwarded it out to her network. That really kicked it into high gear! Normally, I’ll get one or two people a day who respond to my survey. The day Jess sent it out, I had 25.

I regularly change my auto responder now when I have a message I want to get out.

Filed Under: Communicating, International Inspiration Index, Misc, Poll or Survey, Power of Attitude Tagged With: attitude, auto responder, autoresponder, email, facebook, good friends, guerilla marketing, inspiration index, jess, pettit, social networking, social networks

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