Humor: Not Everyone Gets The Funny

Humor is one of the most subjective topics there is. One person’s knee-slapper is someone else’s furrowed brow. Want a couple examples? Thought you might.

I offer two written items, one from my Twitter feed and the other from my Facebook page. A very pleasant husband and wife team of sales specialists and authors of the book “Selling Naked on the Phone” tweeted me asking for my favorite sales tip. I made my answer a two-parter. For communication: Make sure your communications are phrased and spelled properly because you never know who’s paying attention. For Selling Naked on the Phone: Avoid wicker.

For my trouble, I got a question back from them: What’s wicker?

I had the same problem on Facebook.

A “humorist” posted the question while promoting her video, “Does anyone have back pain?” My comment: “Nope, I’m all caught up.” Their response: “???” This surprised me because one of the characteristics of a humorist is being able to look at things from a different angle. This “humorist” wasn’t being very flexible.

Aside: Because of her question marks, I broke one of my cardinal rules and explained the joke. I commented, “Back taxes. Back alimony. A little joke.” Haven’t heard from her since.

If a statement is funny, it should get laughs whether it’s written or spoken. But just as there will always be someone who doesn’t get the joke in the form of the spoken word, the same is true in writing. And I understand that.

But wicker? Really?

Names, the More the Better

I’m noticing a pleasant trend on such sites as Facebook and LinkedIn, as well as in general practice elsewhere. Married and divorced women have begun to use all three names as an identifier. They have begun to use their maiden names as well as their married names. Sometimes they’re hyphenated, sometimes not. I have a few ideas why this is happening, but I’ll keep them to myself for now, so as not to influence the responses.

I’ll be surveying my three-named female friends and contacts in an attempt to ascertain why this phenomenon is taking off so rapidly. The fact that so many women seem to be converting at once is what piqued my curiosity.

So I’ll send out the survey and you ask your friends what’s what, and we’ll see what information shakes out. If you find out something interesting, please let me know. Three-named women, feel free to respond directly.

Linkbook and FacedIn

There’s something I’ve been saying to my audiences about e-mail for a long time, and it’s that e-mail is whatever we want it to be, whether we use it for business letters or a form of instant messaging. You can use it for both, but confusing the two can lead to disaster. The same holds true for Facebook and LinkedIn, except for the disaster part.

LinkedIn started as the stodgy business site where you’d find such announcements as “This month, I’ll be in Fargo, ND, speaking to the annual convention of the National Society of Flange Adjusters” and “Read my latest article in the March issue of the Wall Street Pennysaver.”

And on Facebook, you could find such riveting status updates as “dude hear are pics of me geting waisted on spring break sorry their out of focus” and “I’m eating cheese now.”

A few changes have happened in the way some of us are using these social networking sites. Or maybe it’s a change in attitude toward them. (I’m talking about these two entities because I use them. I’m on Plaxo Pulse, but I really don’t pay much attention to it.  And whatever happened to MySpace?)

Have you noticed a change in the respective tones of Facebook and LinkedIn?  I’m seeing hints that many of us are using them interchangeably. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing; I’m just throwing it out there.

Lately LinkedIn is lightening up and Facebook is forming part of our marketing strategy. I have many friends and contacts in both networks, and 99% of them are balanced in their use of both sites. But I’ve seen a few of them instigate the creeping casualness on LinkedIn and strafe us with business blasts on Facebook.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe the two networks are in imminent danger of becoming each other. But I do notice a centering trend. Do you?

More to come on this topic in the next newsletter. (Subscribe to the Legacy Road Comminique here) Weigh in with your own observations and I’ll try to include them in the article.