tl;dr I hate popularity contests and now I have to win one to get a job
How did I forget that I hate popularity contests? I have never felt popular except maybe briefly, by the end of my senior year of college, when it seemed like everyone knew who I was, probably because it was a small school and I was involved in a bunch of stuff. I consider myself a natural networker, because I love connecting people with other people, opportunities, or information, and I try never to burn my bridges, but this Challenge Detroit voting thing is so friggin' hard for me. Even asking for donations for 2Seeds was easier, because I was asking for a cause first and myself second. But asking people to vote for me so I can help a cause- even though it's pretty much the same in the end- feels different, I guess because it's a competition rather than a collaboration, and the benefit to the cause is more indirect. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised that even given the same goal (getting an opportunity to improve people's lives) I would way rather ask people for donations (of money, time, creativity- whatever they can give) than openly compete for attention. I want to engage others, I don't want to promote myself (except insofar as I need to, to get people excited about what I'm excited about.)
I guess that's another thing that bugs me; it's all quantitative, instead of qualitative. Everything boils down to numbers. And that's great, we need numbers and they're the easiest things to plug into metrics, but I'd rather make a large difference to a few individuals than an insignificant difference to a ton of people. I mean, I think a lot of the time you can only impact a few people even when you aim to impact many, but this "rope in everyone you know and also people you don't" stuff is really stressing me out. Whatever, the wide reach/shallow impact strategy is also effective, I shouldn't hate on it. It's definitely a pretty clever move on Challenge Detroit's part; it gets people to like their FB page/spread the organization's name and mission around, and also helps them gauge who's got the biggest network/who can tap what they have the hardest.
Maybe I should treat this situation the way I treated fundraising. I've identified groups, but not individual members of those groups- I should get on that. I still need to send out tailored messages (not everyone sees mass posts and many people also need to be reminded/asked twice, I learned that last time.) And whereas last time I needed depth because larger donations got me to my goal faster (although I loved getting $5 donations from my friends because they gave what they could, and that's the spirit of generosity), this time I need breadth, because more people sharing my voting link means more people will vote for me. So I need to really stress sharing the link, not just on my end, but on the end of my friends. Some of my friends will share the link without being prompted- but their friends won't share the link unless they've been convinced that it's worthwhile.
When I donate to things and then ask others to consider donating, I usually identify a new audience and mention them, since once the thing is in my hands it doesn't have the original friends-and-family audience anymore, and my friends-and-family are at too far a remove to automatically support it just because I do. Also, people don't click on really long things, although once they click on a hook they may want something longer. So I need a short, pithy statement that identifies a new audience and appeals to that audience.
Also, I'll need a goal as well as a deadline. Right now I just want to break 100 votes, but the top person has over 600 votes right now (everyone else has 300s and below, though, so it could be worse.) harg blargh blargh I'll figure it out.
I guess that's another thing that bugs me; it's all quantitative, instead of qualitative. Everything boils down to numbers. And that's great, we need numbers and they're the easiest things to plug into metrics, but I'd rather make a large difference to a few individuals than an insignificant difference to a ton of people. I mean, I think a lot of the time you can only impact a few people even when you aim to impact many, but this "rope in everyone you know and also people you don't" stuff is really stressing me out. Whatever, the wide reach/shallow impact strategy is also effective, I shouldn't hate on it. It's definitely a pretty clever move on Challenge Detroit's part; it gets people to like their FB page/spread the organization's name and mission around, and also helps them gauge who's got the biggest network/who can tap what they have the hardest.
Maybe I should treat this situation the way I treated fundraising. I've identified groups, but not individual members of those groups- I should get on that. I still need to send out tailored messages (not everyone sees mass posts and many people also need to be reminded/asked twice, I learned that last time.) And whereas last time I needed depth because larger donations got me to my goal faster (although I loved getting $5 donations from my friends because they gave what they could, and that's the spirit of generosity), this time I need breadth, because more people sharing my voting link means more people will vote for me. So I need to really stress sharing the link, not just on my end, but on the end of my friends. Some of my friends will share the link without being prompted- but their friends won't share the link unless they've been convinced that it's worthwhile.
When I donate to things and then ask others to consider donating, I usually identify a new audience and mention them, since once the thing is in my hands it doesn't have the original friends-and-family audience anymore, and my friends-and-family are at too far a remove to automatically support it just because I do. Also, people don't click on really long things, although once they click on a hook they may want something longer. So I need a short, pithy statement that identifies a new audience and appeals to that audience.
Also, I'll need a goal as well as a deadline. Right now I just want to break 100 votes, but the top person has over 600 votes right now (everyone else has 300s and below, though, so it could be worse.) harg blargh blargh I'll figure it out.