September 14, 2003

"Flyers are a Cacophonist's best friend"

INDIANA - So, I was trying to find guest bloggers by standing out in front of Cosi's cafe on Michigan in Chicago. I was holding up a sign that said "Free Blogathon." Almost immediately after setting up, I found what would be my single guest blogger. The rest of the people either worked hard to ignore me, or read the sign and then either smiled or looked at me funny. In any case, they kept walking. Occasionally I would try to quickly explain what I was after, but that didn't help. No one else even asked what was going on. That was even after I added a novel-length explanation to the other side of my sign: "Post your thoughts to my website. LIVE & FREE"

Certainly, many of these people were tourists - foreigners even - yet I think this also reflects badly to some extent on Chicagoans. In any fairly busy part of L.A., I would have been swamped with people at least trying to find out what "blogging" is. But, I guess that's why they live in Chicago and not California.

If there is a next time, I think I should print out some flyers explaining what's going on. Perhaps "Can I interview you for my Internet website?" might be a good tagline.

Posted to BloggingAcrossAmerica at September 14, 2003 07:22 PM

Comments

Ugh..that's too bad. My guess is you would have had better luck in Wicker Park or the north side of the city. Downtown tends to be very transient and in my experience, not as conducive to the type of atmosphere you were trying to provide. Thankfully Doug was around.

At any rate, sorry I missed your swing through Chicago (was in Wisconsin almost all weekend). Hopefully you'll return again sometime.

Posted by: Kevin at September 15, 2003 10:53 AM