Patience has never been my long suit.     When I want something I tend to want it right now, thank you very much,  and would you please get it for me right away.    Yet patience is an absolutely essential trait in most any kind of planned social media.      Today,   while I should be writing that new book  (and I did get started on it and wrote perhaps 20% of it the other day) I find myself working on an experiment to promote the #definethis daily word game.    It will take several weeks to fully implement this new strategy and will take months in fact to see how well it does or doesn’t pay off.       I think the trick will be to stick with implementing it over those weeks and months until it becomes clear how well it works.    I am trying real hard to learn patience,  as it applies to giving strategies time to prove themselves or clearly fail.  I am not going to go into the strategy here  (I have to save something for the book) but if you enjoy obscure and unusual words,   I certainly invite you to join us in the daily Twitter word game.   Just visit the #definethis blog every day for the latest word and concise instructions.

I also today find myself wanting to tell an acquaintance that he comes across so salesy that I these days am making almost every effort to avoid hearing from him.   Lately this guy seems to send me an instant message every day or so.    I never reply to these IM’s anymore,   and I have already unsubscribed from all of his updates.   We were introduced by someone who is a good bit further along the road from acquaintance to friend in my own personal account books and I really don’t want to un-friend  (because it would likely be noticed and might spark hurt feelings and public sentiments).     Some days,  I wish I weren’t so thoroughly Southern and would just tell the guy to leave me alone.   /sighs   I actually know that I will not ever tell off my salesy acquaintance,  or even admit to him that I find his IM’s annoying.   I know that being gracious with socially inept people is one of the duties of those who would claim to have decent manners.    And sometimes,   putting up with a boor is simply one’s duty.