Event 4 – What type of animal are you? [REPORT]

Each time I head out to the meeting point of a new chapter, there are butterflies in my stomach. I always wonder to myself: “Is this working? Who will show up?”

As CeCe and I headed out to the London Zoo for Chapter 4, the butterflies in my gut were there again. However – as with the previous chapters – the day ended with feeling invigorated and having a sense of purpose validated. After today I asked myself “How can this work better?”

It’s time to make a few changes and think about moving up a gear.

But first a little backstory on how Chapter 4 went, and why I’m feeling inspired…

Pure instinct on display

The London Zoo received the most votes out of three choices when the public were polled last week, but that’s technical. On an emotional level, once the popular choice was in, the next decision was to figure out what the game at the zoo might be, and I thought of a past experience that could be improved upon.

A long, long time ago (when I was single), some friends and I had attended a speed dating event. Upon arrival we were handed a “ice breaker/conversation starter” card with suggested questions to… well, break the ice as you rotated potential partners. One of the questions on the card was: “What type of animal do you most identify with?”

At the time my friends and I thought the question was childish, but it stuck in my mind, and once the poll results were in and the zoo won, I remembered that question and thought; why not use real live animals from all over the world to play a better version of that game?

A day at the zoo is a great opportunity, not least because animals (and I’m including all living things under that term) live on pure instinct. Observe them; animals live for the moment, and all their senses are sharp, honed and employed. Animals sense earthquakes before our best technology can, and anyone who has had a pet can attest that they know if you are sad or if someone is in the house is “not right.”

And of course animals all have different gifts that we humans admire: some animals are aggressive and brash, some are shy but nimble. Some operate solo, some collaborate. Some have to violently kill their food, others quietly dig, build traps or climb to eat. We see in animals pieces of ourselves and our own human instincts, traits and prowess. We name cars and other consumer products after admired animals. (And hey, let’s face it; just staring at a giraffe close up can be one of life’s greatest pleasures.)

So the zoo was a great idea for an event. However, despite a high level of interest and voting, not a lot of people actually turned up on the day, partially because some big and violent protest froze central London and transport. However, there was an upshot; recently a fair amount of people have gotten in touch with me, and it’s clear that I need to make some changes to how this site works.

So…

Let’s talk turkey

Recently I’ve received messages from all sorts of people; some would-be participants (one girl got in touch to say she googled “love treasure hunt” to arrive on this site), some inspired ideas, advice, some criticism, and a few more business type messages. Let’s look at the latter for a moment; the business of AreYouMyPartner. Let’s talk turkey.

I often get asked by business minded people who my target audience is, or what my path to market is, objectives, scalability, milestones, critical path, etc. etc. etc. All good questions of course. The AreYouMyPartner mission statement is above: Meet. Play. Love? At the time I write this, AreYouMyPartner is a blog and a few social media presences… and so far I have not advertised, PRed or marketed any of them. I’ve only told a few friends. I have my reasons.

In the first place, I want to see how a few honest people would react to this site, and then “grow” organically (and intelligently) in the best interests of the people who actually get involved. AreYouMyPartner is, at heart, a story that needs to evolve naturally.

But here is my personal belief and ethos that underpins why I’ve started this site: I believe I can make a positive difference in the way people use internet to date. There are a lot of things that are going to have to work themselves out in time, but every journey starts with a single step.

I have big dreams, the experience to back it up, and I’m willing to take the time to get this right. Right now, like our friends the animals at the zoo, I’m acting on pure instinct. But I aim to refine that impulse when the time is right.

More on the “how” in the next chapter…

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More photos from the day:

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This post is part of Event 4. To see all Event 4 posts, click here.