A few weeks ago, my 11 year old didn’t want to eat a vegetable we were having for dinner.
She told my wife Jenny, “I don’t like parsnips.”
Jenny responded, “That’s OK, because that’s a yellow carrot, not a parsnip.” Then we had kind of a hostage/negotiator stand off moment.
I told L.E., “It’s fine to not like yellow carrots, but you have to eat them. It’s just one of those things you might not like but still have to do in life.”
She immediately looked at me and said, “You mean like email is for you?”
Well played, small child, well played indeed.
Ever since I got my first email in 1996, I haven’t disliked it, I’ve hated it.
If you’ve ever sent me one, you know this to be true because I probably didn’t respond. Or if I did, it started with, “I am so sorry it took me so long to respond.”
My personal hatred of email eventually poisoned my approach to sending out newsletters too. As an “Idea Generator,” the title I’m calling myself today because I get to do that, I never sent out ideas via email. But lately, I’ve been learning to love email. Why? Here are the top 3 reasons:
1. Social media is getting so crowded.
It’s really easy for you to miss the stuff I’m posting on this blog. This fall people told me, “I wish I knew you were doing a meetup in my town! I would have gone!” They didn’t know because I didn’t email them, I posted it on Twitter and hoped they happened to be checking it at that exact moment.
2. Email feels more like a one to one medium.
There’s a personal conversation part of email that I never really understood. The concept of you being able to open (or delete) an idea from me wherever you are, in your own time frame, as opposed to a huge social media blast from me is really awesome.
3. It’s easy to get accidentally blocked by a social media platform.
Recently, after years of using a certain social media platform, some technical glitch decided to block me. What if that happens again when I’ve got some time sensitive event or awesomeoness to tell you about and I can’t? An email system can certainly lock you out by the same kind of mistake, but if you have an email address from someone you can always just go use a different system to send out the email.
Bumping into those three realities has really challenged the way I think about email.
But there’s another really simple reason I’m going to start sending you emails. Want to hear it?
“I promised that if you signed up to receive emails from me you would get emails.”
Revolutionary, right?
I told you I would do one thing and then I didn’t do it. Around our house we call that, “lying.”
There are no secrets to social media, just opportunities to keep your word or break it.
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So what does that all mean?
Well, it means if you want to start getting my blog posts and best ideas delivered directly to your inbox click here to sign up for my newsletter. There won’t be any spam, just stuff I think is amazing. I’m going to write more in 2015 than I did in 2014 and I’ve got some fun things planned that I don’t want you to miss.
It also means that soon, if you’ve already signed up for emails from me, you’re going to get one. In it I’ll tell you where I’m headed with email this year in case you missed this post. And I’ll give you a super easy chance to unsubscribe. I don’t like getting emails that don’t apply to me and if the ideas I’m working on don’t apply to you, I really encourage you to unsubscribe.
That’s it.
You might feel like email is a yellow carrot, but I promise you it’s worth taking another look at.
Question:
Is there a technology you’ve avoided using?