Ok, what is ghosting and why is ghosting
Two data points crossed my desk this morning. (Do things still ‘cross our desks ‘now that of course we no longer use desks very much?)
Data point 1: several news stories on a phenomenon called “ghosting.”
Ghosting is when people make an appointment for a job interview and never show up, or indeed agree to take a job and never show up for that either.
This phenomenon has been embraced by the media because it is so tentalizingly odd. And as an opportunity to take another swing at Millennials. (Because, you know, they are SO entitled.)
Data point 2: the new brusquness in business
I am noticing that people interact with you only if and only exactly when you are useful to them. Some of this behavior even from english clients who, being English, are normally quite particular in the manners department. These days people, otherwise perfectly nice, people tend not to acknowledge messages or respond in any way.
This could be those damn Millennials again. Because, you know, kids. What are you going do? Or this could be yet another sign of the end of civilization as we know it.
But there is a culture take.
The cultural take:
This could be one of the the aerodynamic properties you take on when you have much more work and much more distraction than you can possible dispatch in the first case, or endure in the second.
People are acting as if they now believe the following
I have a work window, and I have narrowed this window to a purpose. You, my contact or client, are germane to the task at hand. Or you are not. And if you are not, I am obliged to make you invisible. I just can’t spend any time on any contact unless contact with this contact is called for right now.
Two larger points:
1. As we noted in Culture Camp in June, this is an anthropological exercise, in which we infer a cultural change from a behavioral one. And in a perfect world we would do the ethnographic interviews that confirm or disconfirm this possibility.
2. We are changing, thanks to the new tech that makes it possible and the new press of business that makes it necessary. We are having to change the shape and function of just about every thing in our personal and professional life. We are a culture under construction. This too is a big theme of Culture Camp. (Hoping you, dear reader, can join us one of these days as we roll it out over several cities in the next year or so.)
