My name is Tatiana Platt. I moved to New York at the beginning of 2005 after marrying a New York architect named Campion Platt. I was a senior executive at AOL and relocated to an office at Rockefeller Plaza overlooking Central Park. I had the vast city at my feet and I was excited to embrace it! I had spent a lot of time in New York over the years, but nothing could have prepared me for the transition to living there full time. I thought my life had been busy when I lived in Washington, DC - little did I know how much busier it could become, and did. Because of my husband's business, on any given night there could be two, three, four or more social events to attend - and that would be after my having put in a full day at the office!
Aside from adjusting to the nonstop scheduling issues, and withdrawals of sleep, I was meeting many, many new people whose names I struggled to learn and remember. I had learned long ago (from politicos in DC) to say to people "Nice to see you" rather than "nice to meet you" when you run into someone that you may have met before. Too many times I was embarrassed to have someone say, "We've met before" after telling them how nice it was to meet them. Imagine, I was meeting a couple dozen new people a night if not more when I first moved to NY. I tried making notes to myself to remember who was who, but the real breakthrough for me was when I discovered that there was a thriving Internet space that covered NY society. I signed up to get New York Social Diary's daily email. I started visiting gawker.com, style.com, fashionweekdaily.com, bizbash.com.
And I started googling people's names. I armed myself with a Blackberry starting in 2006 and with my speedy web browser, I could even do it on the spot, while in the bathroom at a function before I stepped back out into a cocktail party. But it wasn't always easy. I am excellent googler after years in the Internet business, but NYers just aren't as googlable as Washingtonians were. Many NYers don't have corporate profile web sites, and when you searched on their names, you get a mish mash of articles where they've been quoted without biographical context, mentioned as having attended a function, or listed as a supporter of a philanthropic cause. Call me strange, but I was genuinely interested in knowing who these people were that I was meeting so that I could have more meaningful interaction with them. NYers tend not to ever ask "So what do you do for a living?" when you first meet. I attribute that to a combination of good upbringing, lack of interest, and assumption that if they don't know, they either are too embarrassed to let you see that, or else think that if they don't know, then you must not be important. Well, I still wanted to know. I have my parents to thank for that innate curiosity which I believe comes from years of being told to be well prepared, have meaningful discourse, and having lived the world over, make meaningful connections at every meet if possible.
But I digress. So, as I was embarking on this habit of mine of researching new acquaintances online, I fell upon a prototype web site that was creating a social mapping network of people in NY. It was very different from what the site has evolved into today, but I was fascinated by the fact that someone else out there seemed to realize, like me, that there was a gap to fill in providing a place to go to get a snapshot profile of NYers. In true Internet form, I tracked down the people behind the site (Jose Serrano and Seth Aylmer) through their domain name registration, sleuthing out their identity. From there a partnership was born.
I have since resigned from AOL and am working on a few different projects (watch this space!), but www.famegame.com remains near and dear to my heart. We have added all kinds of social networking features that will grow it into a full fledged network, but my goal is to build a place where people can learn more about each other and have more meaningful interactions, socially and professionally. Think of it as a prepopulated FaceBook, a LinkedIn with a personal bent and photos. I know that many NYers may be neither inclined nor have the bandwidth to spend time flushing out their profiles, but I am hopeful that once they see what a valuable resource this can be, they will want to participate in the presentation of who they are online. I also know there will be detractors. Some people will say this information is something you have to learn over years of interaction, that you can't expect short blurbs on people to replace knowledge that can take years to acquire by being a part of certain circles of New York society. Well, the Internet is about democracy and there is no harm in equipping people with information that might lead to more fulfilling relationships, relationships that in some cases might never come to pass if not for that small nugget of info about a hobby, mutual friend, or common area of interest. The famegame web site is also about creating business opportunities among the people in the network, and the brands, companies and philanthropic organizations with whom these people interact on a daily basis. This is a work in progress, forza new york!
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Monday, October 15, 2007
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
