I never thought the key to making friends and influencing people would be dinosaur porn. Now, (as my 9th grade algebra teacher always said) I know what you’re thinking and you’re wrong. I do not read, write, or otherwise immerse myself in this very particular sub-genre. But through a convoluted chain of events, I do KNOW about its existence. Which, apparently, is enough to gain me a measure of notoriety.
It started rather innocently. As an author, I’m constantly told I need to get my work noticed. Yet how an earnest, unknown author does this must be some kind of alchemy, since it all seems to involve getting people to like you, then mystically translating their regard into a desire to read. I’ve never been very good at this People Alchemy. You see, the first hurdle is they have to like me – and I have no idea why people do that.
So I was at this work convention, at a cocktail party, where one of the ladies who worked for the company hosting the party was dutifully making conversation with me. I mentioned that I’m an author and she started in on the jargon of People Alchemy. Something about using social media to drive sales, if I remember, though again I felt like there was a vital component missing to this marketing wizard’s formula. And she sums up with, “There’s a market for anything.” To which I very logically responded, “Even dinosaur porn.”
Well, it was logical in my mind. Though I’ll admit I thought about how that sounded mere nanoseconds after saying it, figuring I’d rolled a critical failure in People Alchemy AGAIN.
And as I expected, it completely changed how she looked at me. However, the cognitive dissonance of using the words dinosaur and porn together didn’t cause her to trot away at a swift walk as I expected. Her eyes got really wide, then she smiled. Suddenly, I wasn’t ‘obligatory small talk target’ anymore. I was – interesting. Fun. Likable. She brought others into the conversation for the sheer joy of watching their faces as I repeated the words ‘dinosaur porn’ and explained the (sort of) innocent way I came to know about it.
The next day I ran into some of those people again. And I’ll admit, I expected that in the convention floor hub-bub away from the cocktails that made it a party they wouldn’t find dinosaur porn quite so amusing. I was wrong. If anything, they found it more entertaining. In fact, I was pointed out to several new people as “the one I was telling you about.”
One of the people I met turned out to be part of a professional organization for a rather specific area of expertise that I, by an amazing coincidence, happen to be involved with. I ran into him later at the convention on a more professional footing, which prompted him to give me his card so we could follow up about a professional networking opportunity.
I hadn’t rolled a critical failure in People Alchemy with my dinosaur porn comment. I’d somehow blundered my way to a critical success.
I’m still not sure how to repeat this success. But perhaps I’m not the abject failure at People Alchemy that I assumed. Or, maybe I should switch my writing genre to dinosaur porn. One of those things is the lesson here.
Ericka Kahler 