Rhetorical Questions, or The Pinewood Derby Clunker

I've discovered that I'm not very good at being by myself. I'm not sure why that is. Maybe it's because I've never been without a parent, sibling or roommate living across the way. It might be my overactive imagination that creates monsters around every corner. Whatever it is, there's little hope for change now.

Besides making me a bit of an attention junkie, my lack of alone time makes me very good at quality time. I love to hang out with all kinds of people, whether in real-time or online. I actually like to devote my full attention to one person at a time, and I love community of any sort. Which means I'm a natural at social networking...

All right, so far, despite all of the wonderful advice that seems to come out hourly to retweet and reply to followers and followees , most of my interactions seem to be pretty one-sided. I have a mere 100 and a half followers, and I'm following only twice that many. I don't have many DMs or @ mentions. I'm no Twelebrity. (For the record, I think Twitterspeak is verging on ridiculous, but for that reason is humorous enough that I'll continue for the time being). Survey says: ARN e-edition is still a nobody as far as social media goes.

My revelation: Who cares? I like the people I'm associated with. More importantly, I'm learning a lot about the things it takes to be a good person, in addition to a good marketer or PR rep or social media, uh, media-er. And you know what? I can do those things. I am doing those things. And eventually, people will start to notice that we're doing things right and our product is great to boot.

I love the Subaru commercial with the little boy getting his car ready for a pinewood derby (model wooden cars, for those of you with little knowledge of the mystical world of Boy Scouts). "Just build something you're proud of," his dad says. That turns out to be a clunker, while his opponent's car is obviously not the original creation of a 6-year-old. Well, of course, it should be no surprise the "ugly" car takes the day. The tag line: "Isn't it nice when honest virtues win?"

Yes, of course it's nice. But how many people can say that and mean it? Is it really so important to make something we're proud of? And what is it we're proud of, exactly? Is it the money we've made or the relationships we've formed? The information we've capitalized on or the information we've shared? It certainly doesn't have to be one or the other, but is one more valuable simply because it's measurable? You can't have a good meal, a good story or a good friend without quality time. Why should a good business be any different?