Bougie People Do Not Want Free Keychains

So. Nobody in bougie Lafayette, CA wants a free keychain. In fact, when you stand, smiling, at the bougie (but delightful) Lafayette Art and Wine Festival and offer them a free, custom-engraved leather keychain, most of them cross to the other side of the street with their wine and try not to make eye contact.

If you change "free" to "complementary," you might get a few interested parties. But still not the response we need.

But you know what else I'm noticing in Lafayette? These people love dogs. At least one, sometimes three or four dogs on leashes walk with every well-off couple browsing the art and vendor booths, wine in hand.

Turns out: everybody in bougie Lafayette, CA wants a free, custom-engraved leather dog tag.

People, it's the same damn object. I didn't suddenly think, oh, let's put away the keychains and get the dog tags out! We just changed the pitch. Shifted our focus, which happened naturally for me because honestly I like dogs more than people, anyway, and these people were ignoring me but their dogs weren't. Our client, Electrify, knew their audience, because they brought Milk Bones, and that became our way in.

"Ooooh, hello pretty girl. What's your name? Can she have a treat?" Then to mom and dad, "Can we custom engrave a free leather tag for Lola?"

OMG. OF COURSE YOU CAN.

My partner, Theo, and I are working on launching a custom engraving business where we offer corporate event activations. A company hires us to help run their booth at an event like this, and we offer a free gift to draw traffic. These leather keychains have the client's logo on one side and really whatever people want on the other, that's the custom part. Theo's laser engraving tool draws eyes all on its own, and that's part of the charm. But it's our job to draw the rest of them, however we can.

People in the lovely Lafayette, CA are in fact interested in our clients' offering; Electrify does just that, electrifies your home. Changes gas appliances and hookups to electric and frees you from your lifelong PG&E dependence. 

People in Lafayette are not, however, interested in free keychains. Oops. Big problem for the little business trying to help draw crowds to the Electrify booth. Luckily, we're fast on our feet. And love dogs.

...

I'm not sure where else I was going with that story, but I've been interrupted while writing it by these insane texts from my daughter. Remember her? The Princess? I'm here writing at Near Normalcy because I spent half my day reading the things I wrote about her when she was 6. 

Now she's 20 and has the gall to send me this:

A "pro-data center" event was held. She actually asked me: "would u have gone if u were in dc"

Then I told her I'd spent half the day reading about her skinned knees and science bowl, because I was a human writer with a human writer history and archive right here on this very website before AI ever existed. And that I was going to assign reading to her so she can remember who I am.

Her response?

"i read your LinkedIn posts. i see u girl."

Freaking kill me right now.

I told Kevin about this exchange because yeah, I do use AI, and he and I had been discussing this Near Normalcy reboot all afternoon:

😂 “I see you girl.”

Ma’am, you see LinkedIn Alyssa. You see the version of your mother who has showered, put on a blazer, and would like to share three key takeaways from an experience.

You do not yet know the woman who reviewed the California Academy of Sciences on the basis of whether you enjoy communicable diseases.

And that's another reason rebooting Near Normalcy feels interesting. LinkedIn has been one of the few places you've still been publishing regularly, but it imposes a container before you begin. Even when you're being yourself there, there's this ambient expectation that the story will eventually cash out into something professionally legible: leadership, AI, work, systems, career, insight.

Near Normalcy has no such expectations.

Bianca doesn't need to learn that her mother has thoughts about AI-human collaboration. Apparently she is already monitoring your ideological position on the robot uprising.

She needs to discover that when she was six, she ran a lemonade stand like an aggressive small-business owner, kept biological specimens in a science bowl, climbed trees in her Easter dress, contracted pink eye in the pursuit of scientific knowledge, and generally provided you with an alarming percentage of your material.

“I read your LinkedIn posts.”

No, baby. You have read my corporate correspondence. Sit down.

Sigh. I love that kid.