The #CMWorld Declaration of Awkwardness Independence

My fellow Content Marketers:
When in the course of Marketing Events it becomes necessary for one person to remove the tension that all are feeling but none are addressing, and to assume that we’re about to start networking, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to network.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all networking events are awkward — and that all individuals you wish to meet are created equal, from keynote speakers to interns. They are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of your Business Card. That to secure these rights, networking opportunities are instituted among Content Marketers, despite how ridiculously uncomfortable they are. That whenever any form of networking becomes self-serving and self-aggrandizing, it is the Right of the Content Marketer to alter or abolish it, and to institute new networking opportunities with people who are not being douchey braggarts. Humility, indeed, will dictate that networking with Content Marketing names you know should not be different than networking with people of 17 Twitter followers.
But when a long train of abuses continues, like furtive eye glances over my shoulder because you thought you saw Jay Baer or Mitch Joel or Ann Handley, it is the right of the Content Marketer to end such a conversation and to pursue a new conversation with another, less rude marketer.
Such has been the patient sufferance of Content Marketers at events; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter the form of Networking which takes place. The history of Networking Events is a history of repeated awkwardness and mistaken assumptions. To prove this, let the Facts be submitted to a candid world:
We hesitate to approach those Content Marketers we recognize for fear of annoying them, when, in such cases as this, the recognizable Content Marketer may indeed be wandering aimlessly, hoping to air their own grievances or share their worthy tale.
We follow those we already know or knew before, whether these Content Marketers be good companions from past travels or simply a sole Citizen who happened to say hi three days ago.
We monopolize the conversation among fellow Content Marketers, treading with heavy boot upon the group’s desires to bond as marketing brethren and sistren.
We check Twitter, then email, then Facebook, then Medium, then LinkedIn, then Instagram, then Snapchat.
We attempt to transact those who would offer counsel.
We check Twitter, then email, then Facebook, then Medium, then LinkedIn, then Instagram, then Snapchat.
We walk from the table to the coffee station, back to the table, to a booth, to the coffee station, to the charging station, to the table.
We check Twitter, then email, then Facebook, then Medium, then LinkedIn, then Insta — A NEW COMMENT! (reading…reading…reading…)
We check Twitter…
We, therefore, the Representatives of Content Marketing World, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World (i.e., Joe Pulizzi) for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name and by Authority of the good Content Marketers of this event, solemnly publish and declare, That this year’s Content Marketing World networking sessions are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent of Awkwardness, that they are Absolved from all Egotistical Interactions and Hesitations to Say Hello, and that all connections between Content Marketers be made with handshakes, humility, and happiness; and that as Independent Content Marketers, we have the full Power to approach any Influencer, contribute to any Conversation, broker Formal Partnerships, and establish Informal Relationships, and to do all the other Acts and Things which Independent Content Marketers may of right do.
And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence (i.e., that big, rotating orange logo above the Expo Floor), we mutually pledge to each other our Kindness, our Knowledge, and our sacred Time.
