James at eirepreneur writes:
‘maybe we can do business some day’
Startup entrepreneurs should read that a few times. We like to think of ourselves as great socializers in this country, and we are, but not in the same way as the entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley. As regards doing business we’re much more inclined to cost social capital in terms of immediate payoff. “Why bother with OpenCoffee, Barcamps and Podcamps if I don’t have a new customer or business partner next week?”. But in California social capital is a long term investment and one made without expectation of payoff.
I’m sorry James but that reads to me just like the have a nice day wishes you get from your local fast food franchise. It’s no more committal than that certainly. If they were genuinely interested then it would be immediately followed up. It sounds like a “let’s be friends” statement when a courting doesn’t go quite the way you planned it.
It has the desired effect of course, leading us to feel good about the person probably in a way we no longer respond to when conversing with a franchise employee. Familiarity, however, will breed contempt. Right now, it’s just new.
The fact that it costs nothing to smile is not lost on the locals who don’t always look for an immediate payoff. Indeed there are likely hundreds of instances where we can look at the people in the Irish blogosphere and wonder: where’s the payoff? Indeed we might as well look at the blogosphere itself and consider where is the payoff? There’s precious few people making a living off blogging and I blog variously for my personal enjoyment as well as for the entertainment of the masses – and not for the payoff (what payoff???)
Paddy’s Valley is, from what I can see, living RSS. It’s delivering the content to the people we want to read it. They’ll learn, we’ll learn – it’s the semantic web, just minus the web bit. I’m a cynic because I’ve been to enough trade shows and talked to enough businesses that I recognise ‘maybe we can do business some day’ as a substitute for ‘goodbye’. It’s notable that it wasn’t said by any of the companies and partners that I did end up doing work with. If anything it makes me consider the sentiment handed over with fries and coke as possible even more sincere.
It is said we must judge ourselves by our achievements and others by their intentions. Let’s see some intentions and not just words.
It sounds more like amazement that complete strangers are polite!
*shock horror*
Who would have thought it?