good story lallysingh. I've been amazed at how many leaders in their fields are willing to give their time and input, especially if you respect their time.
Two quick stories:
1. Once emailed a prominent venture capitalist/technologist a question. It was maybe 15 words long. He responded in 5 minutes with a one word answer that truly answered my question and helped tremendously.
2. Another time I was taking a data mining class while working and I asked my professor a question. It was regarding a situation at work and a solution that I proposed. After not hearing back from my first email, I sent him a follow up email asking if he had received it. He finally replied and said that if I wanted the answer, I would have to hire him at $250/hr, his going rate. Sure, I can understand his stance in that just b/c I paying for his class and instruction does not mean that I can get free consulting. But, why couldn’t he tell me that with a reply to the first email? Why couldn’t he just tell me if my proposed solution was in the ball park or not? Here’s the zinger, I wrote the same email to the author of the book we were using in this class. He responds in 24 hours with sincere and honest feedback regarding my proposal as well as a PDF of 4 pages of the upcoming edition that covered this topic. My respect for the author sky rocketed (and now I cannot recommend his services and books fast enough). Not so much for the professor.
A lot of "busy" people read email on their blackberries, so if the possible actions are difficult (not forwarding or terse responses) they forget about it (since the blackberry marks the item read and then it falls to the bottom of their inbox, never to be seen again.)
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I sent one in to John Carmack way back in the day (circa 1996-1997). I was massively underqualified at the time.
His response was personal and compassionate. It stung at the time, but long term I've got a lot more respect for the man for it.
good story lallysingh. I've been amazed at how many leaders in their fields are willing to give their time and input, especially if you respect their time.
Two quick stories:
1. Once emailed a prominent venture capitalist/technologist a question. It was maybe 15 words long. He responded in 5 minutes with a one word answer that truly answered my question and helped tremendously.
2. Another time I was taking a data mining class while working and I asked my professor a question. It was regarding a situation at work and a solution that I proposed. After not hearing back from my first email, I sent him a follow up email asking if he had received it. He finally replied and said that if I wanted the answer, I would have to hire him at $250/hr, his going rate. Sure, I can understand his stance in that just b/c I paying for his class and instruction does not mean that I can get free consulting. But, why couldn’t he tell me that with a reply to the first email? Why couldn’t he just tell me if my proposed solution was in the ball park or not? Here’s the zinger, I wrote the same email to the author of the book we were using in this class. He responds in 24 hours with sincere and honest feedback regarding my proposal as well as a PDF of 4 pages of the upcoming edition that covered this topic. My respect for the author sky rocketed (and now I cannot recommend his services and books fast enough). Not so much for the professor.
A lot of "busy" people read email on their blackberries, so if the possible actions are difficult (not forwarding or terse responses) they forget about it (since the blackberry marks the item read and then it falls to the bottom of their inbox, never to be seen again.)
Naturally, I'm sending this from a blackberry...
I was in that class, too, I think. (StatsXYX X=2 Y=5?) The professor was a great guy to me, so I'm sorry you had that experience.
different class.