Manizesto

There’s a delicate balance between being friendly, competent and timely and just being creepy.

1. We like it when people use our names, but not if we haven’t told them it.

2. We like it when people smile at us, but not if they do it from a park bench 50 meters away and keep doing it as we walk by.

3. We like a nice firm handshake, but not when the person doesn’t know a handshake should only last one or two seconds, not 20.

4. We like Facebook friend requests, but not from people who aren’t our actual friends.

5. We like timely responses to our inquiries, but they can come too quickly. For example, I know of a company with technology that can call a person within seconds of them visiting their website. “Hello, Caroline, this is James. I noticed you’re looking at the MP3 players on our website site right now. Can I help you with that?”

6. We like it when Amazon sends us email offers based on what we’ve shopped for on their site, but how would you feel if they sent you a coupon for a product you looked at on a different site?

It’s best to use what you know about others wisely, to avoid singling people out for no good reason and to respect personal space (even personal “virtual” space should be respected).