General
Contact Information
Computer Skills
RSVPs and Evite
Descriptive Tags and Descriptions
Manners
Meeting People
Mobile Phones
Dating
- We ask that guests dress appropriately. For the large
and smaller cocktail
parties, cocktail party dress is preferred, business dress is
acceptable, more informal dress — including
business casual — is not.
Please read our
dress code. .
If dressing up is not something you enjoy
("I'm a casual type of person"), realistically these parties are
not for you.
- Bring your business cards with you in case you meet someone
with whom you want further contact.
If you don't have business cards,
Professional Taste Printing
will print 1000 cards for as low as $35.
After every party, I get a dozen e-mails from people
who say they met someone, the other person wrote down their
phone number and e-mail address, and they can't read it.
Wouldn't it just be easier if they had a business card and gave
it to them?
- You need to provide us with your year of birth. Starting in 2006,
many of the smaller cocktail parties will be age specific.
For anyone added in 2006 or thereafter, we require that they
provide their year of birth before they are accepted for
membership. For guests who joined before 2006 and have not yet
provided their year of birth, we'll permit them to stay on the
list, but they won't be invited to any of the age-specific
parties. After that grace period, those who have not
provided their year of birth will be placed on hold
until they do so.
- Please e-mail us a photo. For the first couple of parties that you
attend, we will send your photo to the facilitators, who make a
particular point of looking out for newcomers to they can introduce
them to the regulars. You should e-mail your photo to
James, who will distribute your photo to the facilitators.
- You will need to provide a primary e-mail address.
This should be an address that you check regularly
(at least twice a week). We strongly recommend that it
be a permanent (or at least long-term) e-mail
address — e.g., if you have a Hotmail
address and you're not certain you'll remain at your
employer for the next decade, wouldn't it make sense
to have invitations sent to your hotmail account, so
that if you leave your employer and you forget to
tell us your new work e-mail address, you'll still be
receiving invitations?
If possible, please provide us
with an non-AOL address. AOL's anti-spam programs
are notorious for blocking
mail that should not be blocked (these are called
false positives) and when you then
try to deal with them, their technical support is the
worst in the world.
- You should provide all of your other e-mail
addresses. That way, if your primary e-mail address
goes bad, we can send invitations to your other address.
- You should provide us with all of your telephone
numbers — home, mobile and work. We ask this
for two reasons. First, if all of your e-mail addresses bounce,
my secretary can call you and find out your new e-mail
address. Second, for social events, sometimes we need to reach
people by telephone. For one event, the location changed
at the last minute. We had mobile or other telephone numbers for 12
of the 15 people who said they were coming. For the other
three, we sent e-mails, but two did not see the e-mail in
time and they went to the old location. I do not want this
to ever happen again.
Providing this contact information is not optional — if
you want to be on the invitation list, we must have all of your e-mail addresses and
all of your telephone numbers. It should also go without saying that if I or my secretary
contact you by telephone or e-mail, that you should respond not just promptly, but quickly.
From my point of view, managing a large invitation list is challenging enough without the additional hassle of
dealing with unresponsive people.
Please note that we do not provide your contact information
to anyone, and we do not share e-mail lists with anyone.
(Read our privacy policy.)
I am regularly contacted
(several times a month) by groups that suggest we share lists. I tell them the
following: "I won't provide you with any of the e-mail lists. If you have an event
that meets our criteria for sending invitations, I will send an Evite to those
who have asked to receive invitations in that category of event. In a lot of ways,
that is better than my providing you with all of the e-mail addresses,
because the list deteriorates over time, as people change their e-mail
addresses, while I and my secretary keep the addresses current, so if you have an
event in the future, we'll send another Evite and the percentage of bounce backs
will be much lower."
- You must have basic computer skills. If you don't know how
to respond to e-mail, or how to click on a link in an e-mail
so you can then be logged into the Evite system,
you might want to take a basic computer course before you
start coming to these parties. Comments such as "I'm an old
fashioned kind of person" or "I prefer the telephone"
simply don't cut it.
- You should have installed the current version of whatever
Web browser you're using. In our Web site, we use advanced
CSS3 (cascading style sheets)
features which older browsers do not support.
- Your Web browser should be enabled to run
Javascript. Some of our forms use Javascript for
validation of data you input.
The second and third expectations are not unique to us.
Almost every major commercial Web site — from
Amazon.com to
Drugstore.com to
eBay to
Google — uses these technologies. Please note that we do not have the resources to provide
technical support relating to computer issues. Instead, you should call your
Internet service provider, the technical support hotline at your company,
or a friend of yours who is savvy about computers.
- For the large and smaller cocktail parties, guests are expected
to RSVP through the
Evite system. Guests will continue to
receive invitations until they respond. If they do not
RSVP through two invititation cycles (consisting of over
ten invitations to a specific party in an invitation
cycle), they are removed from the invitation list.
Individuals who have a hard time RSVPing on time, returning
telephone calls and the like may want to read
my essay on
David Allen.
- We require that guests
create an Evite account before they apply.
This will allow you to view all
of your Evite invitations — whether
sent by more or someone else — in one
place. If you delete an Evite invitation I (or
someone else) sent to you, you can log into
Evite and it will be there. It costs nothing
to create an Evite account. There are now an enormous
number of people on the invitation list,
and a certain number of them have problems receiving and
processing Evite e-mails. Having an Evite account
eliminates 95 percent of these problems, and this is
why we require our guests to open up an Evite account.
- Once we create an Evite account, we strongly
recommend that you create an
Evite profile. This will allow others on the
invitation list to learn more about you. It costs
nothing to create an Evite profile. Creating a profile
is not required to be on the invitation list, however.
Those who do not write a descriptive tag and a description
pay a $20 admission fee for the large and smaller cocktail parties.
Descriptions (along with
public requests to the facilitators; private requests are sent
only to the facilitators) are sent to everyone who says they will
attend a cocktail party, unless they ask not to receive such report.
We used
to offer the option of opting out of having your description sent. We no longer offer
that for two reasons. First, only 1.5 percent of the guests choose this option.
Second, the code to handle these exceptions got increasingly complicated as
we added features to our database. It became increasingly clear that spending days
to write code to handle a request that 98.5 of our guests did not want made
no sense. So we no longer offer the option of our not sending your name and
description to those who will be attending the part.
As I note in the
history,
I started these parties because I wanted to create in Boston a social oasis consisting solely
of people with good manners and free of rude and
flaky people and
space cadets.
- If someone you've met at my parties e-mails you,
you should respond to their e-mail.
Not returning e-mails is not acceptable behavior.
- If someone you've met at my parties telephones you
and leaves a voice mail, you should return the call.
I suspect
Warren Buffet
is busier than you are,
and he returns every message the same day.
- If someone contacts you and you don't want to purse
further contact, say so in a polite way. Do so directly,
rather than indirectly. Not returning their phone calls or
e-mail, thinking they will get the message, is
unacceptable behavior.
Lots of people meet up with each other after meeting at
my parties, as potential friends, potential business contacts, or for dating.
- Particularly for a first meeting, you should reschedule or
cancel only under exceptional circumstances. Look at it from
their point of view — how do they know if you're really busy
at work, or you've changed your mind?
- If you have to cancel any appointment,
you should make every conceivable effot to reach them so that they
know this. You should telephone them — repeatedly if
necessary — at every phone number you have for them. You should also send them
an e-mail to all of the e-mail addresses
you have for them. You should keep trying until you reach them in person or receive an acknowledgement that they know you are cancelling.
- If you have to cancel a first meeting,
you should initiate rescheduling, even if they proposed
the initial meeting.
- Do not be late; rather, allow extra time in case there is
unexpected traffic. Why is your time more valuable than theirs?
- If you make an appointment with someone, it's a good idea to
confirm by e-mail, to eliminate the possibility of
misunderstanding. ("I look forward to seeing you again next
Tuesday at the Davio's on Arlington Street in Back Bay.
Let's meet in the couches by the bar. I'll have my mobile
phone (xxx xxx-xxxx) with me in case you are running late.")
- If you're meeting someone,
ask if they have a mobile phone. If they do, write their number down
in your calendar, so that you can call them if something arises.
- If you have a mobile phone, give them your number.
Make certain your phone is charged, have it with you,
and have it turned on.
That way, if the
other person is stuck in traffic or cannot find you,
they can call you.
Otherwise, what is the point in having a cell phone?
- Once your guest arrives, turn off your mobile phone.
It's rude to be answering your phone while you are meeting
with someone.
These parties are not singles parties, but a lot of people who come
are single and looking. Over 40 first dates occur after every large cocktail party.
- Don't date if you shouldn't be dating. If you're not over your
ex, wait until you are. If you're too busy to pursue a
relationship, tell this to the other person before you go out,
so they can decide if they want a first date with you.
- If you know you're not romantically interested in someone but
you want to pursue a friendship, let them know this before
you have dinner. They can then decide if they're open to new
friendships.
- You should be even more cautious about cancelling or rescheduling
a first date than for a Platonic meeting. The other person probably
has the normal anxieties, wishes and hopes for a first date.
If for some reason you have to cancel a date, you
should initiate rescheduling, even if you're the girl.