This weekend will forever be epic in the eyes and hearts of partygoers everywhere; creating a new paradigm by which all parties must try and surpass. When I approached my parents about using their house to host my brother’s birthday they begrudgingly agreed and then asked how many people would be attending. My heart pounded a few times before casually blurting “80 to 100.” Surprisingly, they still agreed which meant the real planning could continue.
Thirty, in my eyes, marks true adulthood and is a time when people relocate and grow professionally. Many people also purchase their first home and start planning a family. Like I said, in my eyes thirty is superior to eighteen, twenty one, or any other age. Because we’re guys, it’s also the age when we start to think about maturing – though it seldom happens until old age.
Rallying invitations proved to be the most daunting of tasks. At one point I realized hunting down 100 of my brother’s friends won’t be easy. Number one: I don’t know many of them. Number two: People frequently relocate and move. Planning an event with people I know only casually proved to be overwhelming.
Luckily most people use Facebook which made the task of tracking people down somewhat unproblematic. With the birthday boy’s Facebook friends list open we picked 100 people from the list and messaged details and RSVP information. Using Facebook friends we were able to track down around 80% of people and get confirmed RSVP’s. However, we knew a certain portion of his friends may not have or use Facebook.
Those who we definitely wanted to invite but didn’t have contact information became testimonies to the tracking site Spokeo.com. I may have mentioned Spokeo in a previous article; it’s a website used predominantly by debt collectors and has proven unparalleled for online creeps. A paid subscription to Spokeo.com allows users to gather basic information about a person’s age, address, and online account information.
Spokeo.com reduced the unknown portion of my invite list to 10% and I was able to shrink the list to around eight question marks. Some of the eight question marks were more like: “Who is Josh’s friend Craig who sells paper?” Crossing these people off the list was most difficult and me being a procrastinator made it that much more off-putting after waiting until the last minute.
Lucky for me LinkedIn.com exists. LinkedIn is kind of the business person’s online stalking website. Recruiters and colleagues use LinkedIn to connect with other professionals. I used it to search for paper manufacturers in Craig’s geographic location and then narrowed the search by first name. Low and behold, I was able to find two paper companies employing salesmen named Craig.
Friday afternoon I made countless phone calls to scores of people who didn’t know my brother all in an attempt to locate the Craig and others on my list. One of the wrong Craigs I talked with introduced me to KLOUT.com; an online service that tracks how subscribers influence others on the website. After spending time on the KLOUT website I learned my Facebook posts aren’t too influential; however, I’m very good at letting people find me.
Aside from being very tired and having a splitting headache, I spent the day thinking about all the work and research that went into hosting the party of the year. Tracking people down using online resources is fun and easy provided the right tools are used. I even learned about a new utility to rate my online presence and increase my influential abilities. Somehow I made acquaintance with a guy named Craig who has oodles of even more useless information than I.
(Jeromy Patriquin is the President of Laptop & Computer Repair, Inc. located at 509 Main St. in Gardner. You can call him directly at (978) 919-8059) or visit www.LocalComputerWiz.com.