Canuckflack

I had a chance to speak to a passel of Canadian government communicators about social media yesterday, and I promised them I would post a number of useful links to help them work around implementing social media in their workplaces.

So here goes:

• How the Social Web Came to Be, Part 1 and Part 2 and a linear time line in pdf
• Social Media Marketing vs. Social Marketing, via the Church of the Customer blog
• Network of Public Sector Communicators - a New Zealand blog written by a govt type
• 26 free tools to monitor buzz and online conversation. This is a must read, folks!
• Blog search tools: Google, Technorati, Blogpulse, IceRocket, Bloglines,
• E-government and Web 2.0, from Cisco.
• Introduction to Twitter (via KDPaine and Jeremiah)
• Big Brands and Facebook, a Forrester presentation
• the Three Types of Government Blogger, by me
• Four Tenets of the Community Manager, by Jeremiah, and even more detail and advice from Jake McKee

I’ve obviously missed a lot of resources, and I encourage my readers to mention more in the comments, so I can pass them along to the more disadvantaged.

Wow. These guys must have really been doing hallucinogens.

“… The Shags shared stages, fans and a recording studio —Trod Nossel in Wallingford—with the likes of Bram Rigg Set, Uranus & the Five Moons, Fourth Ryke, The Wildweeds, The Bearies, The Lively Ones and the mysterious George’s Boys, all of whom left behind some righteously raw singles as well as a vault of previously unreleased material …

… Rob DeRosa remembers The Shags mania well. As a teenager, too young to vote or drink but not too young to rock, DeRosa used to follow bands like The Shags, Bram Rigg Set and The Wildweeds around. That is to say, he and his friends would be driven by their parents to places where these shaggy-haired bands were playing …” (New Haven Advocate)

“… the most promising development at Abercrombie may be its international expansion, still in early stages. The company’s Canadian stores are hugely popular, generating three times the revenue and profits of the average U.S. counterparts …”(Barron’s)

Technorati Tags: A&F, Abercrombie

I think we’ve all noticed a rush to Facebook as a source for journalists, especially when someone under the age of 25 suffers an untimely death.

In Europe, sites like Bebo are providing similar information.

Which is why the British Press Complaints Commission is looking into how journos use social networks and content found online in their reporting. The essential question is: when can information and media posted online be repurposed by journalists (and others)?

More information can be found in an interview between BBC reporter Chris Vallance and the head of the PCC.

The indicators of Facebook addiction are easy to spot. The first article reporting the tragedy usually includes:

• a candid low-res photos of the victim, bylined “Facebook”
• quotes from several of the victim’s friend
• some mention of the victim’s aspirations
• a reference to a recent trip, party or getaway with friends

Subsequent updates often mention group and school affiliations, reference to rememberance sites on Facebook, and favourite bands. Oh - and speculation from “friends” about the role of substance abuse, inappropriate or ill-considered behaviour, or school group dynamics in the death.

In short, all the personal detail and reaction that reporters have always found hard to get - and mainly by doorstopping a grieving family minutes after they learned of the death.

h/t to Chris Vallance via Robin Hamman

In-store television channels are not a new development, but I will grab an opportunity to riff on a tactic wherever possible. Kroger has just announced that they have built a television network (KTV) to serve the internal communications needs of their central division.

“… Each store has two servers with storage capacity and on-demand video, Kroger spokesman John Elliott said. Programs will include anything from quarterly financial messages from the company president to safety instructions for meat cutters …” (Rockford Register Star)

This may be some programming you could expect on similar channels:

• The 5 Second Rule and the Safe Handling of Meat
• Your 401(k) and Your Future: We’ll always have hours on the night shift
• Wax on, Wax off: Entry Level Jobs
• Channeling Bob Ross in Bathroom Decoration
• Creative Accounting in Determining Expiry Dates
• Our New CEO is Better Than Our Old One
• Cashier and Stockboy: A Story of Forbidden Love
• The Grocer’s Chiropractor: One Box Too Many
• How To Spot A Mystery Shopper
• My Barbie Oven is My CoPilot: a Food Sampler’s preparation guide
• Bleach and Ammonia: A Shortcut to the Cemetery
• How to Detail a Buick - your manager’s Buick
• That Market Analyst Is A LIAR
• One Lick Too Many: One night shift employee’s mastery of Guitar Hero 3 - and resulting unemployment

Technorati Tags: in-store tv, internal communications, grocery

Come on. Give me a break.

“… a Grande Latte provides you with half the dairy you need for the day …”

That was part of the copy in a full page got milk? ad in this weekend’s New York Times magazine.

Sure. Half the dairy you need, at triple the price.

A collection of Twitter messages you will never see in your friends’ feeds. Some business oriented, some rude, some techie, and some attempting to underline the deep rifts that are developing in how we communicate with each other.

• Just posted half-ass del.icio.us link post at tinyurl…
• This message is confidential. If it was not meant for you, please delete it
• Sitting alone in airport lounge, wondering what my kids look like
• Blue Horse Shoe Loves Anacot Steel
• I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house which I had built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts
• I don’t think we’re going to clear that brid….
• Miss Smith: please take a tweet
• If you need a friend, get a dog.
• le francais suit*
• I bill each tweet in 10 minute increments
• Twitter: the document management solution
• Am I as cool as I think I am?
• Tweet - for when you don’t care enough to cross the unconference to speak to someone
• Twitter is like IRC, but with icons
• I think I’m going to show her my “O” face. Did I just tweet that?
• Tora Tora Tora

*that one’s for the Canadian civil servants

Technorati Tags: Twitter, tweet, business messages, office communications

“… it’s a bit like making sausages. You don’t want to see them made, but they sure taste good …”

I love charcuterie. Of all shapes and sizes. Of all flavours, from savoury to hot. Fatty to dry.

Problem is, really good charcuterie demands careful preparation, respect for the process, and skill honed over time. And paying trough the nose.

“… His meats earn above their weight class, too. Eve’s $16 charcuterie plate, which features 12 to 15 of [Dan] Fisher’s sausages and terrines, brings in $32,000 a month, Fisher says. Nowadays it seems like charcuterie is on every menu in town whether or not it’s made in-house …” (Washington City Paper)

Still, you have to admire an industry where a specialist like Salumi Artisan Cured Meats can plainly state that some products - even commonly available ones like pancetta - aren’t available. And others won’t be ready until the spring.

Technorati Tags: charcuterie, smoked meats

You open up a freshly-purchased magazine, and dozens of subscription cards fall out. They clog up every third page, stick to feature layouts, and make you slip on the floor.

It’s a giant waste of paper. And Outside magazine recognizes that its readers, in particular, may not appreciate the mess:

“… Beginning with the March issue, the magazine is cutting roughly 20 million annual sub cards in an effort to save trees and be more sustainable, a palpable concern among its rootsy readers …” (Folio)

Outside seems to think growth from online subscription renewals will eventually replace treeware renewals.

But magazine publishers continue to insist that subscription cards are an essential part of their marketing strategy. After all, what better marketing is there than overpricing single issue sales and then undermining that strategy with a campaign of large scale and drastic pricing cuts based on volume sales?

I think U.S. automakers can answer that question.

Nevertheless, Wired magazine tells us in a blog post that

“…they’re part of our business model. It’s not just about money, really — it’s about your eyeballs. See, advertisers pay based on audience size. And blow-in cards are a cheap way to snag subscribers and boost numbers: It costs a glossy monthly about $10 to acquire a new reader through one of those cards. But using direct mail? $25 — or more…”

As Rex pointed out, Wired delivered this ecologically unfriendly and largely unwanted news in a lighthearted design - in the print version of the magazine, their note about blow-in cards was printed in the design of a … blow-in card.

Unfortunately, the “Death to Blow-Ins” Facebook cause only has 29 members, so this marketing gimmick may have years of longevity left.

Technorati Tags: magazine subscription, blow-in cards

Barack Obama’s big banners for “Change” rely on an apt font: Gotham. The folks over at Helvetica noticed this, and pulled out an interview they conducted with Gotham’s designers:

“…Jonathan Hoefler and Tobias Frere-Jones spoke about the creation of Gotham during our interview for Helvetica, and looking back at their description of what GQ wanted from the font, it sounds surprisingly Obama-esque. “GQ had a dual agenda of wanting something that would look very fresh, yet very established, to have a credible voice to it,” says Hoefler. It also needed to look very masculine and “of-the-moment.” Mission accomplished. (Helvetica: A font we can believe in)

h/t to Jeremiah

Forget beta testers in Russia, India and Iowa. Forget launching a 0.6.3 version with only 10,000 users. Here’s an excerpt from a 1981 market research report on the first version of the arcade classic Centipede:

“… Although test results from these locations should still be valid, the CENTIPEDE games tested at the Mountain View Time Zone, the Cloverleaf Bowl, the Albany Bowl and the Ice Cream Dock are not identical to the production version of CENTIPEDE …” (Atari documents, pg. 26)

What names! You can imagine each of those locations, down to the placement of the snack bar and the stoners hanging out in the back. Here’s some more insight from Atari Marketing Management:

“CLOVERLEAF BOWL: This location does not seem to have a large base of highly skilled players. The clientele is similar to a typical street location in terms of the level of game play. The average age of players seems to be 9 to 16, with a fairly high ratio of female players.

For the first 2-1/2 weeks CENTIPEDE was placed near the bowling lanes. The game was then moved near the front entrance of the bowling center and seemed to pick up slightly in earnings …” (pg. 29)

In case you’re wondering, the game made between $210 and $260 a week.

“… ICE CREAM DOCK: During the fourth week [of the beta test] the ASTEROIDS CT game was robbed, which resulted in an artificially high percentage of gross figures for the other three games…” (pg. 31)

Here’s some statistics on the Mountain View Time Zone:

“… There are a total of approximately 87 games … with a mix of about 75% video and arcade pieces, and 25% flipper games. Berzerk, Gorf, Pac-man and Rally-X are the newest videos in the location…”(pg. 37)

This from the “lessons always repeated, never learned file”:

“…The most frequently mentioned negative attribute of CENTIPEDE was the trak ball… [34% did not like it]” (pg. 39)

And, finally, an observation from focus group tests:

“…The older group discussed cabinet styles [between the “upright” and the “cocktail”]. A strong preference was stated for the standard upright cabinets over the shorter versions because it gives them a feeling of control and allows “body english.”

You just KNOW that their “body english” was accented by tight jeans, headbands and maybe even mullets.

h/t to Banner Blog

Technorati Tags: video games, 80s, Centipede, bowling

Corporate communications specialists would recognize a lot in the tactics and strategies of old line Communist apparatchiks.

Fidel Castro, Ken Lay, Bernard Ebbers, Roger Smith, Yuri Andropov - who doesn’t remember the stonewalling, the suspicion and the sense of entitlement that seeped through their public words and actions?

When threatened, they would respond with indignation and counter-accusations.

Pity poor Fidel. He’s finally gotten so sick he can’t manipulate the tendrils of power and propaganda anymore. Even he (or his nurse) has recognized that the glorious facade has faded, and people were doubtful he would ever reappear in public.

Another Communist lion fades into the brush.

That leaves the Chinese, the Vietnamese and the North Koreans. And a gaggle of former Soviets.

Not a whole lot of effervescent personalities in that bunch.

What has happened to all the old Communist apparatchiks? Gray suits, gray hair, a posse of similarly gray doppelgangers, all piling out of four door sedans to appear at a Worker’s Rally or May Day parade.

A real cottage industry had developed around interpreting the symbolism of their spoken and written word: what did that headline in Pravda really mean? If the Second Assistant Prime Minister delivered a speech live on prime time television, did that mean his career was on the upswing?

These kremlinologists were our guides through the thicket of jargon, gestures and grimaces in search of political, economic and social insight.

I seem to remember watching former Soviet leader Yuri Andropov looking sickly and weak at a May Day parade - the resulting speculation about his tenure as leader was confirmed when he died within a year.

What’s the modern equivalent? A financial analyst? In many ways, their professional value is built from the implied ability to read the movements and twitches of the market.

There’s been discussion this week of a gentleman who’s built a habit of inflitrating quarterly earnings conference calls, simply to ask semi-literate questions about Six Sigma and process re-engineering.

Financial analysts are genuinely puzzled by his behaviour: it isn’t overly disruptive, and doesn’t appear to be prompted by malice.

If we lived in a more suspicious time - and if his interventions were more inventive - we might suspect this mystery caller of disinformation or economic espionage.

Instead, we’re simply wondering out loud why anyone would want to play in the dry world of financial communications.

Still, it’s notable that some analysts are disturbed that someone is toying with their conventions, processes and playground.

Difference is, this guy won’t get grabbed off the street, bundled in the trunk of a four door sedan, and get buried under the Louisiana Superdome.

Technorati Tags: kremlinologist, financial analyst, corporate communications

Hmmm. Walter Carl, of Northeastern University, seems to zero in on Twitter as a marketing tool for hacks and flacks keen on keeping up images.

“… “You want to use these tools to keep up on others, in a good way, of course, and to let them keep up on you,” said Professor [Walter] Carl, whose research focuses on social media. “But their perception is it’s surveillance.” One of the main reasons people embrace social media — Facebook, for instance — is to create identities for themselves and control other people’s perceptions of them.

“Maybe Twitter isn’t the right tool for that job,” he said. “The people who I see using it are an older demographic, people in marketing or P.R. or advertising, who use it for work, to present themselves as particular types of people. They’ll twitter, ‘I’m traveling,’ or ‘I’m going to interesting restaurants.’ They’re using it to do identity work.” (NYT)

You know what? He’s 70% right.

Technorati Tags: twitter, identity, self promotion

The Washington Post appears to have a strong online presence to complement its historic reputation as a news organization.

So why is the online news room across the river in Virginia? Washington City Paper takes a lengthy look at the conflict between the new kids and the kids with all badges.

Whose arts coverage gets precedence online? What about breaking coverage and on-the-scene photography? Can a newspaper reconcile a desire for consumer-generated recipes online with a strict “tested-in-house” policy in the paper?

What about online comments? Can racist and derogatory comments affect the reputation of a newspaper - even if they are from readers (leave alone the acknowledgment that they are WP readers)?

The WCP’s piece examines all these issues - dissecting them from both points of view - online and the newsroom.

“… Newsroom staffers frame the clash as a question of tastes and standards. As in, those people have none, and we do. The cry from the other side of the river is that the newsroom doesn’t get the Web. So long as the two organizations remain separate, those aspersions will continue crisscrossing the river, carrying more than just a nugget of truth with them.

It’s hard, after all, to expect washingtonpost.com to soak up the journalistic culture of the Washington Post. Newspapers don’t codify their standards and ethical sensibilities in a companywide memo. The process is far too sprawling and random: An editor kills a story over inadequate sourcing, a reporter makes a Jayson Blair joke on the elevator, a discussion breaks out in the cafeteria—can Woodward really reconstruct all those high-level conversations? Dot-com operatives, hunkered down in Virginia, miss out on all of it…”

Technorati Tags: Washington Post, online newsrooms, web editor

Will Smith’s Top 10 Red Carpet Poses - and they’re all him pointing. (Celebslam)

The renegade art of (unauthorized) rock biography (The Phoenix)

Burlington’s The Radiator - a low power station in Vermont. Which is funny, because radiators are loud, often distracting and frequently unreliable (Seven Days Vermont)

It’s 1985, and we’ve got a white breakdancing crew in unitards from Ottawa, old-school newsticker chyron, and CJOH’s Max Keeping. Oh, and when’s the last time you saw a clip from Flashdance in a news broadcast?

h/t to flabber

Technorati Tags: community radio, break dancing, Will Smith

Perhaps you were so inspired by Valentine’s Day that you spent hours sifting through thousands of songs to compile the perfect mixtape (or playlist, for you young kids). Or maybe you just slapped something together.

Either way, you’re probably still in high school or college.

But what were the chances you actually “scored” last night? Well, it all has to do with the Vicki Mendoza diagonal, illustrated above.

At the end of the night, did your soundtrack of love inspire sensual behaviour, or a frenetic and often confusing jumble of emotions?

THAT’s the product of the Mendoza diagonal. In an episode of How I Met Your Mother this season, Barney explained how your potential mate had to balance off their crazyness with a suitable level of hotness - much like the artists you picked for that mixtape.

Technorati Tags: HIMYM, Barney, mixtape, Valentine’s Day, playlist, How I Met Your Mother, Mendoza Line, Hot/Crazy

Why the hell would you do that? A natural response to any one of the songs singled out by I am Fuel, You Are Friends in a post called That’s Dangerous! :: the mix. There are 22 songs, including:

• touch me, I’m sick, by Mudhoney
• wondering where the lions are, a cover of the Bruce Cockburn song
• running with scissors, by Ben Lee
• a quick one, while he’s away, by The Who

Those are all things that white people like, described in detail on Stuff White People Like.

I’ll tell you one thing white people like: McSweeney’s Internet Tendency.

Posts like Candid New York City Rental Ads and Nora Ephron feels bad about Barack Obama’s Neck.

In the interests of full disclosure, I will admit to owning issues 1 through 6 of McSweeney’s.

Also white? The music blog Poptastic. Swedesplease is, as well.

And … as much as I hate to do it … the new music superblog, PopDose, is cornfed white. Abba and Mambo #5 featured in the same week?

But seriously, PopDose is a fantastic blog, drawing from the talents of Jefito, Jeff Vrabel, Jason Hare, Py Korry and many others. But it’s still Wonder Bread spread with Cheez Whiz and the crusts cut off.

Cross-promotion in support of a cross-promotion campaign!

The gist of this lengthy post: take a negative, add some humour and ingenuity and make it a positive!

God bless Rax from Splendid Communications. His agency has the Marmite account, and as part of their follow-up to a cross-promotion campaign earlier in 2007, he sent me this little note:

Canuckflack, Oh Canuckflack,
How we all love Colin McKay
So we’re writing him this romantic note
Because it’s Saint Valentine’s day!

His quirky take on the marketing world
Fills our lives with daily mirth
Which is why he is without dispute
The most gorgeous blogger on Earth…

You’ll always be our classic rock
As you guide us through what’s new
The communications industry has found itself
A poster boy in you.

Colin – a man like you, who knows his stuff
And can talk all things social media
Fills our minds with many naughty thoughts
About how we want to feed ‘ya…

So we’d like you to try new Lovers’ Marmite,
Which is laced with a bit of Champagne
You should have fellow citizens wondering
About that nice smell on the O-Train…

And so when you’re chomping on your morning toast
Before you head out to Uppertown
Don’t forget to reach for the Marmite jar
But you don’t have to put the butter down

Happy Valentine’s Day from Marmite
You’re our perfect date
Thanks for showing us some love
Instead of choosing to hate!

What cross-promotion, you may ask?

The fabulous Paddington Bear preferring Marmite over Marmalade ad:

But what’s the second level of cross-promotion?

Some little thing called “Lover’s Marmite” - a special blend of Marmite and Champagne only available for a limited time, with a special label on the back. A label where you can write the name of your special darling, as you hand them a jar of yeast extract that says “I Love You” on the front.

The only thing better would be used undergarments from your solo vacation to Thailand.

If that image wasn’t disturbing enough, take a look at the advert for “Lover’s Marmite”:

Honestly, I don’t know why I obsess over Marmite (the product), but Marmite (the marketer) has bowled me over twice in six months!

Technorati Tags: marmite, blogger relations, blogger outreach, Lover’s Marmite

Working through a meeting yesterday, and I came up with the following calculations to help you understand the probability of certain behaviours or actions occurring during a meeting:

Will the meeting be useful?

# of participants / # of decisions needed = X, where X<1 means the meeting is useful.

Will someone fall asleep?

If the (room lighting (in watts) / # of participants) > the room temperature (in farenheit), then someone will fall asleep

Will you leave to get a snack?

If on a conference call, length of call / # of participants = % chance you will leave to get a snack

Will you get stuck with work?

# of senior executives present / # or participants = % chance you will get stuck with work

Is it a colossal waste of time?

(# of “health breaks” + # of courses at lunch) / # of “breakout” sessions = X, where x<1 is an office retreat, x>1 is an association conference, and x=0 is an awards gala.

Will you start considering a new career?

# of windows in meeting room / # of powerpoint slides = X, where x<1 means you start thinking of better things to do.

Will the meeting organizer be mocked?

# of blackberries in room / # of participants = % chance meeting organizer will be mocked during his/her own meeting.

Was the meeting led by a consultant?

% chance meeting was led by a consultant = ((length of meeting) times (# of branded items left at each seat)) / number of times the following words are used (energize, operationalize, low-hanging, offline, priority, “report back,” or brainstorm)

Technorati Tags: productivity, time management, meetings

Mitch has nailed it. A lot of companies being slammed by online controversies - like Hasbro - just aren’t used to dealing with emotional, irrational and impetuous humans.

Their relationship with the marketplace is framed by the work of their distributors, an import/export firm, or a licence holder.

The issues involved are often complex, with plenty of lawyers involved. Corporate positions frequently cannot be distilled into blogger-friendly language without affecting corporate interests in liability, finance or intellectual property.

Any corporate public relations pro will recognize their dilemma.

As Mitch points out, it’s hard for a company built to a fifty year-old model to adapt to a new business flow chock full of eddies, breakers and dangerous rapids.

Increasingly, though, they are trying. People like Petro Canada or Ford are dipping their toes into the social media swamp - and taking the punches and expanding their influence.

The transformation of the corporation demands participation and understanding at many levels - not just in the marketing and communications department.

As Doug Walker points out in a comment to Mitch’s post, the simplest point of contact may just be the customer service representative - if finance, facilities and human resources help you expand your CSR force to deal with the pressures that can be generated by social media.

And that means finance, facilities, human resources, and the call centre manager will all have to understand the needs and challenges of playing in social media.
Oh - and Mitch’s other point, about bloggers demonstrating the same qualities they demand from corporations? I agree as well.

Anyone can build a bully pulpit, whether they’re a fascinating storyteller or simply a demagogue.

It takes a level of dedication and transparency to actually maintain relationships and effect change in a community - small or large.

Be like Ron Jeremy

While there may be an implied promise vis-a-vis your package, there is no guarantee about improved attractiveness. In fact, you will probably remain the same fat, overconfident and overly hairy person you have always been.

It’s important to note that at one time - the 1970s - it was fashionable to be a bear. That’s the only explanation for Barry Gibb’s open shirted chest pelt.

… but I must remind everyone that grey-haired John Roberts of CNN fame used to have a respectable career as a music journalist and video jockey up here in Canada.

I found this choice picture while watching a video compiled of clips from Soundproof, a 1980s cable television show that brought breaking alternative bands into a very rough set.

Note the mullet, faux hawk and parachute silk jacket with far too many tabs and buttons.

Oh my. In grade 4, I spent several months learning the role of second trumpet in the Richard Harris classic Macarthur Park. Paired with the theme from Rocky, it was the centrepiece of our annual music recital.

And it was painful. It scarred me for life.

And now WFMU has dredged up all those memories by featuring 12 - twelve! - different versions of the song.

I really like the SCTV version, with “Richard Harris” appearing on Mel’s Rock Pile. And here it is:

WFMU also featured a commentary on the song as one of the “top one hit wonders of the 20th century”:

Are you the type that likes listening to long form documentaries or character vignettes on public radio - but really get tired of sitting in your car in the driveway as they finish up?
I’ll admit something - I do not have a radio in my house. At least not one uncovered by dust and not hidden by old Christmas ornaments.

Which is why Speechification is so valuable to me - it’s a way to stumble across good radio programs without going for milk or motor oil.

Speechification is a not very orderly or predictable series of jot notes to interviews, broadcasts, documentaries and splashes of audio - on a wide variety of subjects. Exactly the sort of field guide to online archives you would expect from the varied tastes of Dan Hill, Russell Davies, Steve Bowbrick, Bobbie Johnson and Roo Reynolds.

Technorati Tags: speechification

What are the desirable qualities of an designer? How about a creative generalist? How about an unceasing appetite for information, for synergy, for identifying relationships?

Here are two takes: a short answer from Steve Portigal, and a long exposition by Steve Hardy, the Creative Generalist.

What is it that makes a great design strategist?

A great design strategist may not see themselves as a design strategist. They’re probably someone who has had a few different professional identities and gets excited by the spaces where disciplines, schools of thought, and methods overlap. They are curious and easily intrigued: they like to observe what’s going on around them and they’re good at listening to people.

And they know how to use all this data to synthesize new patterns and communicate them clearly to a range of audiences. Charlie Stross, in the sci-fi book Accelerando, describes the profession of a “meme broker” and the intense amount of content they have to assimilate every day in order to do this.

Bruce Sterling calls this activity “scanning“ looking at all the sources one can and constantly asking what does this mean for my clients. Being able to work through all those data sources and pull out the implications is crucial for design strategy.” (Influx interviews Steve Portigal)

And here is the nub of Steve Hardy’s long but fantastic post:

I’ve identified five core areas at which Creative Generalists excel. They are:

• Wander & Wonder - finding possibility
• Synthesize & Summarize - presenting information
• Link & Leap - generating ideas
• Mix & Match - connecting people
• Experience & Empathize - understanding worldview

I’m working my way through Chuck Thompson’s Smile When You’re Lying, a wonderful and funny evisceration of the props and trickery of travel writing by a well-established travel writer. Here are two excerpts:

“… but I’d endured worse during all those Presidential Fitness Awards I’d narrowly missed in junior high. You want to kill a kid’s self-esteem, throw some fucking compulsory pull-ups at him and deny him a medal, three years running …”

“…Travel writers are a lot like recovering alcoholics. All they can talk about is their own trip, and it almost always boils down to the same story…”

You know, not all poets have hazy portraits of Walt Whitman in their bathrooms. New York Times magazine interviewed Charles Simic, the US poet laureate, in the magazine this weekend.

As a Yugoslavian-born émigré who endured the bombings of Belgrade during World War II and whose work is urban in spirit, why do you live in quasi isolation on a lake in New Hampshire?

It was an accident. I moved here when I got a teaching job at the University of New Hampshire in 1973. I am not rapturous about nature, although I live in nature. I don’t have some sort of nature poem where I idealize a sunrise or climbing a mountain or being outdoors.”

Some more curt but witty responses from a 1998 interview in the Cortland Review:

“….I’m a hard-nosed realist. Surrealism means nothing in a country like ours where supposedly millions of Americans took joyrides in UFOs. Our cities are full of homeless and mad people going around talking to themselves. Not many people seem to notice them. I watch them and eavesdrop on them…

Where do you find your inspiration these days?

Piece of cake. One needs inspiration to write when one is twenty. At the age of sixty, there’s the mess of one’s entire life and little time remaining to worry about.

Technorati Tags: poetry, Charles Simic, naturalism

Portland blogger discusses how to be the best faux sports journalist around. Tip #1? Don’t drink in the press box. No-one tell Jim Carr or Harry Doyle.

Young journalist complains about getting up at … wait for it … 6 am. (SPJ blogs)

“My life is begging for trailers” - from Creative Loafing Atlanta:

“…It wasn’t the official Disney campsite, but one of those bargain ones owned by a chain-smoking, retired forklift operator who kept his horny dog tied to a post by the check-in window. To my sisters and me, though, it was the Taj Mahal of trailer parks. We’d lie awake under the moon in a three-way spoon, counting stars and listening to the uncharacteristically subdued murmurings of our parents. It’s one of the few snapshots of immeasurable happiness from my past.

Technorati Tags: Sports journalism, Disney trailer

“Act like you just quit” - fantastic advice from Advertising for Peanuts.

That’s doesn’t mean flip your boss the bird, or burn down the Initech division where you work.

Instead, challenge the conventions, the traditions, the ingrained habits that have held you back.

Do you have a great idea gnawing away at your soul? Are there business processes you are certain can be improved?

Or do you just feel disaffected and detached from your work? Chances are, your colleagues and boss have noticed as well.

Think about that period between an old job and a new one. What’s your normal behaviour? You:

• immediately forget all the petty interpersonal conflicts that took up your workday
• begin forecasting the work environment, work projects and personal relationships you want to develop at your new job
• maybe even take a stab at career planning - imagining two or three steps into the future

That’s right. You embrace the opportunity to change, the opportunity to abandon all your old habits and your less-than-favourable practices.

Why not do that now? Change does not require packing boxes. It just demands a level of confidence and a willingness to risk the status quo.

You’ll be surprised by how others welcome your willingness to change your life and your performance.

Quitters may be dismissed out of hand, but you’re rarely faulted for trying your hardest.