I chuckled when I received this email because 1) I’m the “blogger” this person is referring to and 2) he made sure I received this message.
I’m actually glad I received this message because I can finally complete a post that I’ve been wanting to write a long time.
Let me start by saying that the guy who wrote this email was the only person who gave me a hard time with my list – period. In 2014, he told me that people he perceived as powerful were missing from my list. Uh, no they weren’t. And last year I asked him to be on my list because I highly regard him and he was just totally uncooperative.
Allow me to dissect this message.
Part 1:
A few weeks ago a “blogger” asked me to submit an essay laying out what would qualify me as “one of the most powerful men…
I don’t ask for essays; I’m not going to read them. I don’t ask why you’re qualified; I know you are.
Part 2:
I turned in several versions, but we could not agree on word count, format etc.
There is nothing to agree on. I ask people to send a 200-word bio with a photo by a requested date if they are interested. Simple.
He then tried to debate about word count. He went through every bio on the powerful women list to determine if they were 200 words. He got to the final person and brought to my attention that her bio was 215 words.
Really??
Yes, he was that concerned about word count. I assumed that he was taking note of formatting while he was counting. He was not.
He submitted several articles exceeding 300 words instead of a 200-word bio. After about three versions, I asked him about the formatting. He said I should have said something sooner.
But he went through the bios of ALL 18 Powerful Women. Didn’t he notice how they were formatted?
Needless to say, that didn’t pan out well. He was the person I asked who was beyond uncooperative.
I shared this situation for several reasons.
1. If I were Crain’s Chicago Business, Forbes or Black Enterprise requesting information, there would have been no back and forth about anything and he would have submitted the requested information with no problems one time.
2. Even when you try to do good, there will be problem folks.
3. Know that the final Powerful Men on the South Side and Powerful Women on the South Side lists undergo at least 10 hours of major editing and revisions each before being published. What you see is not what I get.
4. Keep a watch on my Powerful People listing because things are going to expand beyond anything I can share at this time. I’m working on some things that will come to life in the early fall.
I just wanted to share this email that made me chuckle.