Sending my book to people in L&D / p2
Having sent the same email to a handful of individuals in different firms, I dedicated and signed a copy of the book for each one.
Then I wrapped each signed copy of the book, like this:
In case it’s not obvious: the blue scribble was added to the photo to protect privacy.
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Personal voice note and web page
Next, I recorded a short (approx one minute) voice note for each person.
I uploaded all the (very similar) notes to this site.
Then I created a new web page for each individual, using the person’s firstname-lastname for the URL.
I posted the relevant voice note to each person’s page, and added a transcript.
Then I went over the whole thing again to sprinkle links throughout the text of the transcript, sending readers to read other relevant resources if they should be interested.
Having created several almost identical pages, I went through each one to make sure I had added the right audio recording. I didn’t want a page addressed to Katharine to feature audio addressed to Alison, if you see what I mean.
This process of recording, uploading and checking took me about 2 hours.
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Personalised art print
Next, I grabbed envelopes and pens and cellophane-wrapped art prints of “Simon’s Dahlias”.
I took the prints out of their protective cellophane wrappers and wrote on the back of each one by hand.
Redacted the surname for privacy reasons, but wanted you to see that the URL contains the person’s first name.
In each case, the handwritten message was (nearly) identical.
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Using Evri (the website), I ordered postage for each parcel. This is the kind of thing that would send me round the bend if I did it only occasionally – as a one-off.
Doing it in batches speeds up the process and allows me to listen to music and even have Quite A Good Time. If you really want to know, I listened to Fred Deakin’s The Lasters on Bandcamp.
I took the packages around the corner to the nearest Evri collection point.
I hope…
that the book and the art print will be a pleasant surprise for the people I’ve chosen. I hope they will be intrigued to hear my voice note, on a webpage that bears their own firstname-surname.
Want to see a specimen of that page? Well, you can.