Buondì.
The January Sale is O.V.E.R., the coupon code is no longer valid, and I’m back to doing something other than customer service, thank goodness. Oh the tales I could tell…
One thing that came up recently, during an email exchange with a club member, was how some people, it seems, don’t look at the website to see what’s there before petitioning me for help. That’s appreciated, grazie mille!
I guess it’s not surprising, though. These days, we only get to look at what the social media platforms’ algorithms decide will interest us, no thinking required, no choosing necessary (choosing requires mental effort.)
Those of us who use apps on our smartphones or tablets will be shown precisely what to do next. Language learning with an app appears to be a linear progression from A to Z, with everything all nicely mapped-out, no matter what needs and preferences we may once have had.
I’m anxiously waiting for the surely not-too-distant moment at which we can basically just plug ourselves in and update with media or languages to be learnt. No wait, how old-fashioned of me. Surely there’ll be a Bluetooth connection between our smart devices and our brains, so no plugging in will actually be required. Just click to connect and begin transfering data!
Visit a website? Do those still exist? Would I need to type a long address, or something?) Look at the ‘menu’? Choose something?
How old-fashioned! How outré! What are they thinking? Do I even HAVE a browser (was that the word?) on my tablet?
Anyone wondering, for example, where they could locate more of my wit and wisdom, all the best articles from each year, going back to the stone age, collected together for reading convenience, SHOULD ABSOLUTELY NOT visit the ‘Best of’ page. After all, if Facebook hasn’t suggested it, there’s clearly nothing worth reading. And there’s a lot of it. Who would have the time?
There are, perhaps, people out there who’ve just signed up for online lessons and might be wondering what to chat about with their online teacher, though I’m pretty sure that the Conversation section of the club website would be of no use. Unlike Instagram, there are no pictures. Unlike Youtube, there are no videos. Just words, how could that possibly help?
Listening comprehension practice? Surely it would be a waste of valuable miliseconds clicking the ‘Listening‘ or ‘Dialogues‘ links in the, what was it called, ‘menu’?
Like reading or history? Maybe Google them then, because clicking ‘Literature‘ or ‘History‘ just to see what’s there would likely be a waste of time.
Oh, and the page with ‘Other Resources‘ for people learning Italian? Just words, too. I expect the easiest thing would be to email me and ask.
I blame myself. No, really! I actually do! Invariably at the end of articles like this one, I link to the club website, like we used to do back in the day. My assumption was that people would follow the links, out of curiosity or burning need, and so find something they could profit from. Then I got old and set in my ways… The world has moved on, Daniel, get with the program!
I’m absolutely aware that I mustn’t distract people with other things that they might want to read and listen to, or they’ll just get confused and go back to Facebook or Insta.
Bene, I’ll try to learn my lesson. We have fourteen thousand or so club members, about a quarter of whom will read this. And a proportion of those who do will be wondering why they bother with long emails about learning Swedish from someone they’ve never met.
Why indeed?
N.b. Actually, the club website does get LOADS of traffic, though it seems that a lot of it is not club members assiduously using the 1576 pages of free material to improve their Italian, but random visitors sent by Google (99% of visits sent by search engines come from them). Thanks boys!
Scroll down to the Appendix to see what Google’s bot found that you might have missed…
A venerdì, allora!
Appendix
The table below shows ‘page views’ so far TODAY (it’s 08.39 CET as I type this), with links so you can see what people have stumbled upon. There are absolutely no videos.
Laury Burr says
Ciao Daniel
I love today’s post! Have you been trained in the art of negative selling or did you deduce it for yourself, I wonder?
No, seriously, people make money out of teaching people how to sell by, in effect, saying “well, you won’t want xyz…” Apparently it works, so hopefully people will change their behaviour. Well, a few anyway!
And as for the “you’ll want to see this / buy this” algorithms, I totally share your cynicism! Having seen an exposé (on British TV, Channel 4 iirc) of the big A’s business practices, where their “best buy” isn’t always the cheapest, being biased towards those that give them the best return, I’m glad I’m one of the minority who don’t trade with them. Anyway, any algorithm that claims to know what you “want” or “need” has to be questioned – or, maybe, even totally ignored! Hell, can’t we make up our own minds? – it seems not! The scary thing – well, one scary thing, doubtless there are others! – is that one day, when we’re even more dependent on these machines than we are now,, the machine will stop. (“The Machine Stops” was written by E M Forster in, iirc, about 1905 – yet the machine was essetially a computer that managed everyone’s lives via a terminal in each home.)
But you don’t want to read that… 😉
Something else that people probably won’t want to do is subscribe to – and read – Easy Italian News. I’ve been doing the former for months but only today did I actually succumb to temptation and read today’s edition. Rats, what’ve I been missing? (Well actually, technically, I haven’t missed them – they’re all there, in my inbox, so some catching-up may follow!) But no-one else is going to want to that, are they? Or, just maybe….
All the best!
Daniel says
Ah no, I’ve not had any such training. Draw your own conclusions from that. But I do have an MBA, taken at an Italian business school, in Italian. What a silly idea that was!
Or maybe I’m not trying to sell stuff at all, but to just help people learn, which is what teachers do. Sometimes, a kick to the rear is an effective motivator.
A word to the wise, though. Don’t worry about all the editions of EasyItalianNews.com you may have missed previously. Just do this one, and tomorrow’s, and Tuesday’s.
Buono studio!
Laury Burr says
Grazie Daniel!
Don’t worry, my prime focus will be on the most recent editions!
Good luck with persuading folks to learn – for my sins (no, don’t ask, not that I’d tell you 😉 ) I found myself running a small Italian conversation group (it’s a U3A group so we’re all over 60) and when I sent out an email listing some youtubes that people might want to watch there was protest, especially from one member – ironically an ex TEFL teacher – saying she didn’t have time. Horses, water, drink…!!
All the best!