They CAN Hear You Scream On The Internet

I am fuming right now.

I'm really not happy, but I will be sensible and pause before hitting publish.  However, if you're reading this sentence, you'll know that finishing the post didn't massage away my annoyance.

I first met Don Power when someone sent me to his personal blog to a post called "David Risley disappoints." As you know David is a friend of mine, and I was surprised to find a piece which was quite critical and full of many equally critical comments. My instinct was to ignore it - it seemed very much like linkbait from a new blogger.

But for some reason with Don, I always seem to ignore my instinct.

I commented, and got back just about the most patronising response I've ever had from another blogger. If you can be bothered, head over and have a look, but the coup de grace for me was the line "I am also a philosopher so I am quite used to making distinctions between one thing and another."

That was almost a year ago now. I moved on, and I'm sure Don did as well, and we've said hello and exchanged occasional and civilised emails in the meantime.

Don contacted me on Twitter recently and asked me if I would write a guest post for a site called Sprout Social Insights - evidently he has been hired to run the blog for the business, which sells a piece of software called Sprout Social - a social media automation tool and aggregator.

I should have stopped there.

I don't like social media automation. But I ploughed on, justifying my acceptance on the grounds that it was good exposure for "my" way of businesses using social media. So I agreed and told Don I'd get the post to him over the weekend.

Next I received an email from Don to confirm a whole series of guidelines for the guest post.

Once again, every instinct screamed at me to stop.

I really hate rules and regulations. Having been asked to create something, it felt strange to then be given a set of rules to adhere to. I'd presumably been asked to write a post because I have some skills as a writer, so to then stifle any creativity with a whole series of rules seemed absurd. My own attitude to guest posters is "Let it rip - any way you like. If I like it, it goes on the site, if I don't, it won't"

Again, I kept going, deciding to write what I wanted, and to ignore the rules. If Don chose to publish, that would be fine. If he chose not to, then I would use it myself.

I emailed it to him on Sunday. I was conscious that he hadn't replied by Wednesday, which was annoying, but I was busy speaking at two seminars, so I didn't do anything about it.

During the second seminar, I put my own Twitter account onto the big screen, to show something to the delegates,  and there was Don's face in my DM column:

The delegates thought it was funny.

When I'd finished speaking, I responded to Don:

And I guess he found the original email:

Are you with me so far? Things weren't going well, were they? I should have stopped, but it couldn't get worse, could it?

Today was the big day, and the post was due to go live at 3PM my time. Sure enough, at 1500 Don's automatic tweet hit my stream, telling the world that this link would take people to a guest post by @mikecj.

I clicked, and hit a 404 error page. I tried again, and the same thing happened. I checked the homepage, and there was no sign of my post.

At 1515, another auto tweet, this time from Don's personal account.

Same thing. An error page and nothing on the site.

It was then that the sweet irony hit me.

As a blogger who avoids Twitter automation, I'd chosen to guest post on a site that sells it. And the very tool it promotes was auto tweeting my name to the world, to an error page where my post should be!

At that point I kind of relaxed, and realised fate was teaching me a lesson. Sooner or later the issue would be fixed.

And sure enough, a couple of hours later the post went live.

That was when I really blew a fuse.

I'd carefully crafted my post, to finish a little "in the air." It's a common enough writing technique, especially for bloggers. It's often better to lead the reader to develop their own conclusions, to let them finish the story. That way, the teaching is much more powerful as it becomes learner-centred, rather than teacher-centred.

Well sadly, Don had chosen to ignore that, and he'd exercised his right as editor to add a final two paragraphs to my piece. Oh wait. What's this?

"2. We reserve the right to edit the post as we see fit - however we will
never ADD any new content to your post."

So that rule doesn't apply then. And the killer is the paras added are exactly the kind of twee, patronising drivel that will probably put any serious business person off from working with me in the future.

Divine justice?

It could well be.

Totally unnecessary additional paragraph in case anyone missed the point

Poor Don. None of this is his fault. His heart is in the right place, and he's earnestly doing a job for the website. He believes giving out copy rules and guidelines is professional, and he really did miss my email in his inbox. It wasn't his fault, or Sprout Social's that the tweets went out when the post wasn't live - it was a Wordpress time zone issue. And in adding those paragraphs, he was being helpful. Helpful to people less intelligent, who may not have got the message.

No, none of this is Don's fault. It's mine.

And it's time I started listening to the fucking voices in my head.