Dave Pollard: awfullypersonal

That's Awfully Personal -- the end

Fri, 01 Oct 2004 17:00:21 GMT

I've reluctantly decided to end That's Awfully Personal, since it failed to pick up on the popularity of Friday Five. The questions were designed to be more thought-provoking and more personal than most Friday Five questions. For those who enjoyed TAP, here's a group that has resurrected The Friday Five, which is getting a reasonable number of participants each week. Thanks to all who participated -- it was fun while it lasted. /-/ Dave

Awfully Personal Question for September 18, 2004

Sat, 18 Sep 2004 05:03:44 GMT

Welcome to That's Awfully Personal, an opportunity for blog writers and readers to reveal a little more about themselves than might normally happen during the daily blogging process, and hence get to know each other a bit better. It's a little like the late, great Friday Five, but more challenging. Each week our Awfully Personal Panel will post one or more new questions for you to answer on your blog, or in the comment space below if you don't have a blog.

For more on how That's Awfully Personal works, please see the How to Play section below. Here is this week's Awfully Personal Question:

Classic question with a twist. You're approached by a very rich stranger with an unusual offer. She will contribute half a million dollars to a charity or humanitarian organization of your choosing provided you agree to work for that organization, full time, for the next five years, in a job of your own design, for which she will pay you another half a million dollars. Do you take the deal, and, if so, what's the organization and what role would you design for yourself in it?

How to Play "That's Awfully Personal":

Subscribe to (i.e. join) this Yahoo group to get the weekly question(s) sent to you automatically by e-mail each Friday.
On Saturday, or whenever you get around to it, post one of the questions and your answer to it on your weblog or web site.
Then come back here (you may want to bookmark this site) and click the 'comment' button under the question(s) of the week. If it's your first time, you'll be asked to enter your e-mail and the URL of your blog or website. Then just note that your answer is up. Other readers will then be able to read it on your site by simply clicking on your name in the comments thread. You can check out other people's answers at the same time. Or, if you don't have a blog or website, you can post your answer right in the comment box.
If you have questions or observations about "That's Awfully Personal", or would like to become part of our Awfully Personal Panel that selects the weekly questions, e-mail us.
If you have a suggestion for Question of the Week, e-mail us and our Panel will review it and, if selected, they will acknowledge you as the author with a link to your blog. Questions should ideally be challenging, so that the answers will be revealing (when answered honestly). But this isn't Truth or Dare -- we want people to want to answer honestly and to have to think a bit before they do.
"That's Awfully Personal" was developed when The Friday Five closed down. The questions are more thought-provoking and, well, more personal than most Friday Five questions. If they're too serious for you, here's a group that is resurrecting The Friday Five, which you might enjoy instead.

Awfully Personal Question for September 11, 2004

Sat, 11 Sep 2004 02:58:04 GMT

You're on the fast track to the top of a Fortune 500 company: Your salary has doubled in two years and you're up for another promotion, to a VP position, next month. But you were accidentally copied on a confidential e-mail intended only for the president of the company, that reveals that the company has clearly been involved in some unethical activities: (1) an unreported chemical spill into a river in Nigeria, (2) a bribe paid to an official to win a major Italian government contract, and (3) a large liability for an employee pension shortfall that is not shown on the books.

The president has left a voice mail asking you to come to his office 'at your earliest opportunity'. You've talked to a friend of yours, a lawyer, and she's advised you that most whistle-blowers find their careers at an end, and some get sued for libel. At the same time, she says you could also be charged as an accessory if you fail to report these issues.

Situation 1: The president acknowledges that he knows you received the e-mail, and that the issues discussed are legitimate, and then asks you to say nothing, and that he's prepared to have the company indemnify you from any liability that should arise as a result of your non-disclosure.

Situation 2: The president acknowledges that he knows you received the e-mail, but says that the issues are 'complicated' and there are legitimate, legal reasons why they have not been disclosed. He asks you whether it is your intention to take any action regarding the messages.

What do you do in each case?

How to Play "That's Awfully Personal":

Subscribe to (i.e. join) this Yahoo group to get the weekly question(s) sent to you automatically by e-mail each Friday.
On Saturday, or whenever you get around to it, post one of the questions and your answer to it on your weblog or web site.
Then come back here (you may want to bookmark this site) and click the 'comment' button under the question(s) of the week. If it's your first time, you'll be asked to enter your e-mail and the URL of your blog or website. Then just note that your answer is up. Other readers will then be able to read it on your site by simply clicking on your name in the comments thread. You can check out other people's answers at the same time. Or, if you don't have a blog or website, you can post your answer right in the comment box.
If you have questions or observations about "That's Awfully Personal", or would like to become part of our Awfully Personal Panel that selects the weekly questions, e-mail us.
If you have a suggestion for Question of the Week, e-mail us and our Panel will review it and, if selected, they will acknowledge you as the author with a link to your blog. Questions should ideally be challenging, so that the answers will be revealing (when answered honestly). But this isn't Truth or Dare -- we want people to want to answer honestly and to have to think a bit before they do.
"That's Awfully Personal" was developed when The Friday Five closed down. The questions are more thought-provoking and, well, more personal than most Friday Five questions. If they're too serious for you, here's a group that is resurrecting The Friday Five, which you might enjoy instead.

Awfully Personal Question for September 4, 2004

Sat, 04 Sep 2004 19:59:02 GMT

You've just reached the end of a week-long business project in a country far from home and you're rushing to catch the last Friday flight home to your Significant Other, but due to a weather delay, the flight's cancelled. Suddenly you spot X, a very attractive person from your project team who you just met on the Monday, but who you find out was also rushing home to their SO and is in the same situation as you. You're both re-booked on Saturday morning flights and have told your respective SOs your new arrival time. X says to you:

"You know, I've always wanted to find out if what they say about this city is true. You know, about the clubs that have live sex shows and the swingers' bars and the unadvertised haunts where hash and ecstasy and viagra are right on the menu. Since we're stuck together, and we both have SOs, what do you say we pretend to be a married tourist couple and explore the city safely together. We agree in advance: No hanky-panky, we're 'just looking', and we look out for each other. I'm sure the taxi drivers would know where to take us. You game?"

Question: Are you game? And do you order any of those 'special items' on the menu? And what do you tell your SO when you get back?

How to Play "That's Awfully Personal":

Subscribe to (i.e. join) this Yahoo group to get the weekly question(s) sent to you automatically by e-mail each Friday.
On Saturday, or whenever you get around to it, post one of the questions and your answer to it on your weblog or web site.
Then come back here (you may want to bookmark this site) and click the 'comment' button under the question(s) of the week. If it's your first time, you'll be asked to enter your e-mail and the URL of your blog or website. Then just note that your answer is up. Other readers will then be able to read it on your site by simply clicking on your name in the comments thread. You can check out other people's answers at the same time. Or, if you don't have a blog or website, you can post your answer right in the comment box.
If you have questions or observations about "That's Awfully Personal", or would like to become part of our Awfully Personal Panel that selects the weekly questions, e-mail us.
If you have a suggestion for Question of the Week, e-mail us and our Panel will review it and, if selected, they will acknowledge you as the author with a link to your blog. Questions should ideally be challenging, so that the answers will be revealing (when answered honestly). But this isn't Truth or Dare -- we want people to want to answer honestly and to have to think a bit before they do.
"That's Awfully Personal" was developed when The Friday Five closed down. The questions are more thought-provoking and, well, more personal than most Friday Five questions. If they're too serious for you, here's a group that is resurrecting The Friday Five, which you might enjoy instead.

Awfully Personal Question for August 28, 2004

Fri, 27 Aug 2004 13:08:22 GMT

What will your next car be? What does your choice say about you? How long would you expect to keep it? And if your choice is practical (tempered by financial or weather reality), and money and weather were no object, then what would your choice be?

If you could design your own car, what would it be like?

How to Play "That's Awfully Personal":

Subscribe to (i.e. join) this Yahoo group to get the weekly question(s) sent to you automatically by e-mail each Friday.
On Saturday, or whenever you get around to it, post one of the questions and your answer to it on your weblog or web site.
Then come back here (you may want to bookmark this site) and click the 'comment' button under the question(s) of the week. If it's your first time, you'll be asked to enter your e-mail and the URL of your blog or website. Then just note that your answer is up. Other readers will then be able to read it on your site by simply clicking on your name in the comments thread. You can check out other people's answers at the same time. Or, if you don't have a blog or website, you can post your answer right in the comment box.
If you have questions or observations about "That's Awfully Personal", or would like to become part of our Awfully Personal Panel that selects the weekly questions, e-mail us.
If you have a suggestion for Question of the Week, e-mail us and our Panel will review it and, if selected, they will acknowledge you as the author with a link to your blog. Questions should ideally be challenging, so that the answers will be revealing (when answered honestly). But this isn't Truth or Dare -- we want people to want to answer honestly and to have to think a bit before they do.
"That's Awfully Personal" was developed when The Friday Five closed down. The questions are more thought-provoking and, well, more personal than most Friday Five questions. If they're too serious for you, here's a group that is resurrecting The Friday Five, which you might enjoy instead.

Awfully Personal Question for August 21, 2004

Fri, 20 Aug 2004 18:40:10 GMT

You and your immediate family have been invited by a rich futurist foundation to participate in a grand experiment in community-building. Eight hundred people, a mix of singles, couples and small families, will be brought together for one week, all expenses paid, and invited to self-organize into twenty groups of 35-45 people each. Each group will be given a very comfortable, 20,000 square-foot communal home with all modern conveniences and communications on a 160 acre piece of wilderness land with its own solar/wind energy generator and its own greenhouse. The conditions are: (a) you can only bring one suitcase of possessions with you, (b) if you stay with the group for one year, and if the group meets its mandate, each member of your group will receive $100,000, (c) the group's mandate is to meet (virtually or in person) with the other 19 groups (they're on adjacent acreage) and develop a local economy by the end of the year that could produce all the essential needs of the 800 people, (d) you can't physically leave the 800-person community during the one year, but you can buy and sell things over the Internet and you can have all the visitors you want provided the others in your group are OK with it, (e) you receive a tax-free weekly living allowance of $1000, less your share of your group's Internet profits for the week, and (f) at the end of the year, and continuing for as long as at least 25 of the original group members remain, your group can continue to use the home as your own.

Questions: Would you at least show up to meet the 800 people and hear the plan? How likely would you be to find others and form a group by the end of the week? What would you be looking for in group-mates? Do you think you'd stick it out for the whole year to earn your $100,000 prize? Would you stay after that?

How to Play "That's Awfully Personal":

Subscribe to (i.e. join) this Yahoo group to get the weekly question(s) sent to you automatically by e-mail each Friday.
On Saturday, or whenever you get around to it, post one of the questions and your answer to it on your weblog or web site.
Then come back here (you may want to bookmark this site) and click the 'comment' button under the question(s) of the week. If it's your first time, you'll be asked to enter your e-mail and the URL of your blog or website. Then just note that your answer is up. Other readers will then be able to read it on your site by simply clicking on your name in the comments thread. You can check out other people's answers at the same time. Or, if you don't have a blog or website, you can post your answer right in the comment box.
If you have questions or observations about "That's Awfully Personal", or would like to become part of our Awfully Personal Panel that selects the weekly questions, e-mail us.
If you have a suggestion for Question of the Week, e-mail us and our Panel will review it and, if selected, they will acknowledge you as the author with a link to your blog. Questions should ideally be challenging, so that the answers will be revealing (when answered honestly). But this isn't Truth or Dare -- we want people to want to answer honestly and to have to think a bit before they do.
"That's Awfully Personal" was developed when The Friday Five closed down. The questions are more thought-provoking and, well, more personal than most Friday Five questions. If they're too serious for you, here's a group that is resurrecting The Friday Five, which you might enjoy instead.

Awfully Personal Question for August 14, 2004

Fri, 13 Aug 2004 13:02:47 GMT

It's 2014, and you have a spouse (official or common law) and a child (adopted, if you like). The scenario outlined in Salon.com last week has come true: Tiny, anonymous, cheap, quality, long-range wireless stick-on video-cameras are the newest craze, and kids are sticking them everywhere and watching real reality TV instead of the commercial kind. Everyone spies on everyone, now, there is no more privacy, and people have just gotten used to it -- there are also no more lost children, backroom deals, police or spousal abuse, or secrets. Question: Would you be happy if your spouse wanted you to wear one at all times "just for your own protection"? Would you want your spouse and child to wear one? Assuming its source couldn't be traced, where might you plant these tiny hidden cameras to find out what you'd always wanted to know/hear/see, or to just to satisfy your curiosity.

How to Play "That's Awfully Personal":

Subscribe to (i.e. join) this Yahoo group to get the weekly question(s) sent to you automatically by e-mail each Friday.
On Saturday, or whenever you get around to it, post one of the questions and your answer to it on your weblog or web site.
Then come back here (you may want to bookmark this site) and click the 'comment' button under the question(s) of the week. If it's your first time, you'll be asked to enter your e-mail and the URL of your blog or website. Then just note that your answer is up. Other readers will then be able to read it on your site by simply clicking on your name in the comments thread. You can check out other people's answers at the same time. Or, if you don't have a blog or website, you can post your answer right in the comment box.
If you have questions or observations about "That's Awfully Personal", or would like to become part of our Awfully Personal Panel that selects the weekly questions, e-mail us.
If you have a suggestion for Question of the Week, e-mail us and our Panel will review it and, if selected, they will acknowledge you as the author with a link to your blog. Questions should ideally be challenging, so that the answers will be revealing (when answered honestly). But this isn't Truth or Dare -- we want people to want to answer honestly and to have to think a bit before they do.
"That's Awfully Personal" was developed when The Friday Five closed down. The questions are more thought-provoking and, well, more personal than most Friday Five questions. If they're too serious for you, here's a group that is resurrecting The Friday Five, which you might enjoy instead.

Awfully Personal Question for July 31, 2004

Fri, 30 Jul 2004 21:44:00 GMT

Revenge is sweet, they say. Think about the occasion in your life that caused you the most misery. If you had the opportunity to exact revenge for this humiliation or misfortune, would you take it? If so, would you definitely want, or definitely not want, or not care whether, the object of your revenge knew you were behind it? What kind of revenge would you prefer (you can choose more than one): (a) public humiliation, (b) signifiant financial loss, (c) family breakup, (d) physical injury, (e) isolation in some distant part of the world where you'll never see them again, (f) just an apology and if applicable, restitution?

How to Play "That's Awfully Personal":

Subscribe to (i.e. join) this Yahoo group to get the weekly question(s) sent to you automatically by e-mail each Friday.
On Saturday, or whenever you get around to it, post one of the questions and your answer to it on your weblog or web site.
Then come back here (you may want to bookmark this site) and click the 'comment' button under the question(s) of the week. If it's your first time, you'll be asked to enter your e-mail and the URL of your blog or website. Then just note that your answer is up. Other readers will then be able to read it on your site by simply clicking on your name in the comments thread. You can check out other people's answers at the same time. Or, if you don't have a blog or website, you can post your answer right in the comment box.
If you have questions or observations about "That's Awfully Personal", or would like to become part of our Awfully Personal Panel that selects the weekly questions, e-mail us.
If you have a suggestion for Question of the Week, e-mail us and our Panel will review it and, if selected, they will acknowledge you as the author with a link to your blog. Questions should ideally be challenging, so that the answers will be revealing (when answered honestly). But this isn't Truth or Dare -- we want people to want to answer honestly and to have to think a bit before they do.
"That's Awfully Personal" was developed when The Friday Five closed down. The questions are more thought-provoking and, well, more personal than most Friday Five questions. If they're too serious for you, here's a group that is resurrecting The Friday Five, which you might enjoy instead.