LinkedIn is the Cinderella to the evil stepsisters of social media, Twitter and Facebook. We're not really sure it's going to make it to the ball to meet her match but we sure hope she does. LinkedIn is overt about its purpose. It promotes itself as a professional networking platform. And for this reason, it's a lot kinder and gentler than the evil stepsisters.
Naturally, too, for this reason it's less successful. And it has some quirky sort of obviously missing-the-mark elements that are almost quaint in their cluelessness.
One of these is the message that periodically pops up to suggest we congratulate one of our contacts on their work anniversary.
I, for one, do not track my work anniversaries. Do you?
So whenever I get these odd messages I kind of giggle inside. They're trying to promote connection which I of course applaud. Compared to facebook and twitter it's downright altruistic. But what's inevitably the result? If you think about it, most of the congratulations we're going to receive on our work anniversary are going to be from people we've linked with but have never met. So, in a way, by definition, the "congratulations on your work anniversary" starts to read like a giant name tag that reads: YOU DON'T KNOW ME. BUT I DO CARE.
But last week, I actually found myself marking and celebrating a work anniversary. Labor Day 2021 was the 1st birthday of the Hear Me Out Monologues experiment. Take a look. And thank you to all the earnest, talented and generous writers, actors, musicians, technicians and audience supporters who helped us create the feeling of becoming an audience together via Zoom.
Look at what we've done together!
Roland Tec's Advanced Monologue Weekend (Oct 1-3) Course description and registration at: rolandtec.com
