Bon Journal

The art of reciprocation

Life is about give and take. In the business world, it's buy low and sell high. "Do unto me as I do unto you."

In the cyberspace world, it's about reciprocal links. I link to your web site, and you link to mine. This helps to increase site traffic both ways.

In the beginning, I surfed the net and asked to reciprocate links. After almost five years of cyberspace presence, I receive requests to reciprocate.

But I don't always answer the e-mails or bother to reciprocate. Too busy I was. But occasionally, I spot an interesting reciprocation opportunity. Or I'll go back through my old e-mails and see if the oppportunity still exists.

This week, I re-read an e-mail from a duvet company about silk duvets, a subject I had written about last year (14 March 2002 Bon Journal). The advice was good enough to copy and paste to that page. So I e-mailed the lady that I did so and requested a reciprocal link or to order my CD off CBBaby. She was kind enough to reply back immediately to say she couldn't link to me because of the design of the business site, but she would be happy to send me a cashmere pashmina.

I was in heaven! I love pashminas. But I've never worn a 100% cashmere one.

analyticalQ visitors can support this site by clicking on the amazon.com or amazon.co.uk links in the Sponsorship page. that way, anything you buy will automatically generate a small token of appreciation to support this site. Other ways are by ordering a CD from CDBABY, although visitors in Europe can always order a CD from me directly (faster and cheaper).

One Bon Journal reader even ordered two books from my Amazon wishlist to send to me. That's a new form of reciprocation and much appreciated.

I consider buyers of items from my book sale and declutter sale a form of reciprocation. They give my books and things a good home, free me of space, and increase my financial wealth.

All these forms of reciprocation allow me and encourage me to update my Bon Journal, something I love to do --- but have to struggle to find the time to do so. And more importantly, reciprocation provides me the incentive to read and answer e-mails ---- which is something I want to do but find it hard to prioritise when everything else in the physical world is demanding my attention.

14 December 2003 Sunday

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