Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Thinking in Hashtags

We went shopping for clothes today. This is not something we do very often, but my wife had a gift card for Dillards so we went to see if we could find anything. My wife finally found some shirts she wanted to try on, but the store was short-staffed so the first couple of fitting rooms we tried were locked up. Eventually we found an open fitting room and a salesperson, and my wife said the salesperson laid out the clothes she was trying on in the dressing room, ruffled them up, and generally made it look like a display before leaving and letting her try them on.

I'm sure the salesperson was doing her job the way she's supposed to, and many people would consider that customer service, but I was thinking that true customer service would've had all the fitting rooms unlocked instead of treating your customers like potential shoplifters. Actually, what I thought was
#realcustomerservicewouldvebeentohavethefittingroomsunlocked
Seriously, that's the way the thought generated itself in my head.

I'm not saying this is necessarily important, there may be no "there" here, but I find it interesting that apparently my online activities have actually affected the way I think. If I'm actually thinking in hashtags, then it's almost like I've changed the grammar of the way I think. I find that fascinating. Has anyone else found themselves actually thinking differently as a result of how you interact online?

5 comments:

  1. Me, too! I have started typing hashtags in emails, only to realize that the person (who's not on twitter) would likely have no idea what I meant. I think there needs to be a physical gesture for hashtag (in the vein of air quotes) for use in conversations.

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  2. I'm a fan of lists. Nowadays, I'm trying to use Remember the Milk to sort them out. Love it.

    A few days ago, the computer was off so I grabbed a post-it note to write a little something before I forget. To my surprise, I found myself tagging it. I had never done that before.

    Not sure what the use of a tag is on paper, except that the note would end in RTM afterwords. But it was kind of compulsive: how could I not tag it?

    Tags are probably hard-wiring our brains.

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  3. This is a great story. I have been fascinated by the ways hashtags have evolved and the clever ways people have been using them. They are a great new format/genre or something.

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  4. Even though I haven't had a regular blog for a couple of years, I still find myself writing in my head about events that I'm living through. For example, yesterday I attended a concert in Aspen. During intermission, I was blogging in my head about the nice man I'd talked to before the concert started. Was I born to be a blogger or does blogging take over one's brain so thoroughly that you view the entire world as a potential blog post? To answer that, let us know if you planned this hashtag post while you were in the store. Did you write it in your head on your way home?

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  5. Jude - Yes, I started composing the post in my head while still in the store. Scary.

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