Reboot 7 was fun, quite a lot of fun actually, and I’ll post up some of my notes later as a replacement for a proper post while I spend my free time stripping wallpaper.  I’m finally having a chance to think about the weekend (and will probably do a lot more thinking while stripping my new place of its old wallpaper).

‘A-Listers’ are A-listers for a reason.

Determination, focus, and the ability to prioritise people into those of value, and those not of value.

At first I thought people were being rude to me.  Nothing explicit, just that while I was talking to them they seemed to be ‘elsewhere’, always casting their eyes around looking for other people to talk to.

But they aren’t being rude – they are being direct to the point of being abrupt.  While I might happily chat away about random subjects with someone I’ve just met, for however long the conversation lasts – ‘A-Listers’ seem to evaluate whether you have anything important to say, anything that they can use to advance their own career or if you are a potential ‘customer’. 

If not, then they consider the conversation of little value, and look for something of more value.

It’s not that they are wrong, just as there are Type-A and Type-B personalities, there are people who have different reasons for wanting to talk to others.

I like chatting to people because I’m interested in them, who they are and what they do – it’s a sort of diffuse curiosity.  Others, seemingly mainly A-Listers, seem a lot less interested in making friends, but more interested in finding contacts, and resources.

This is why I’ll never be an A-Lister.  Not only do I not have some shining goal to aim towards, because I am a dilettante, and I don’t want to devote my existence towards the singular goal of being respected in my field.

Others do, and I think I’ll leave them to it.

All this is my impression, no offence is intended, I am not a social scientist, these thoughts are not a value judgement.