The Dox Trap

The latest eword.

It came to mind from last week’s fruity Spook-y “whorehouse” wisdom.

The definition pictured above hails from googling.

Dox. A phonetic abbreviation of documents, as in docs (or even lifting from the dreaded Microsoft file extension, docx).

The idea being that you generally pursue nefarious subterfuge (stalking, out-flanking, dissing) armed with as much web history surrounding your ‘prey’ as you can mount up.

So it appears to have largely (fully?) negative connotations.

Yet it has mass appeal. Mainly, I fear, due to its seeming attraction to the bone idle.

Including the “Laptop Larries”, as I once heard them called by a Sales leader. Easily distracted by the flickering allure of the search bar.

Such information is very much a Secondary source. Abstract documentation. When the killer intel is pretty much exclusively Primary.

I agree that forewarned is often forearmed.  But even that scenario requires more than third-hand supposition.

Which reminds me how I wail each time a salesperson tells me how wonderful LinkedIn is for them. Gushing with leads, they claim. I’ve never heard such rubbish.

Shortcuts tempt the unwary. Second hand conflabs are no substitute for real, cold, hard knowledge.

This also brings up the classic demo- versus psycho-graphic distraction. You can glean all the ‘numbers’ you like from around the web. How well do they inform you what your prospect is thinking?

I almost feel too trad and old school saying this in the age of social media dominance… Quit doxing, start ringing.

There’s not a lot better than picking up the phone and edging your prospect towards that truly progressing conversation.