{Originally published on SmartWomansGuides}

Today I had an interesting and educational experience. One of the great bloggers I follow on Twitter introduced a friend of his to the community. This friend is apparently well-known by many but, unfortunately, not me. But, since I trust the blogger who recommended him, I went to go check out the newbie’s profile. But I was foiled – the newbie didn’t have a profile! Gasp!

In an effort at brevity, I joked that the newbie’s Twitter profile was a little slim – no website link, no bio, nada. Just his name and a picture (which was a nice picture, admittedly). Frankly, I didn’t want to have to google the newbie to find out about him. Maybe I’m too focused on instant gratification, but well, fair enough, maybe I am. The web is all about instant info and ease and convenience and I’ve bought in.

One of my other Twitter buds messaged that this newbie was already so well known that he didn’t need to create a profile to get followers and he was busy. Wow. Not only did I still not know about this newbie (who now I wanted to know about even more, since he’s so busy and great) but now I felt like an outside, the only one left in the world to not know who he was just on his name and picture. The big capital “L” for loser felt squarely tattooed to my forehead.

After a moment of being stunned, the conversation got me thinking – are you ever so big that you don’t have to introduce yourself? You can guess my answer – a resounding NO.

Being focused on beginners, I try to be aware of the idea that there are people who aren’t living in my personal world, who don’t live in my bubble of experience. Like meeting people who’ve never heard of Twitter, or who have never purchased anything online, or don’t know what RSS is, it’s easy to think that maybe they’ve just been living under a rock. That’s not very kind or compassionate and it’s a bit foolish from a marketing point of view. It gives the impression that you don’t care.