pick a race you can win.

Steve Rubel makes a great point today at MicroPersuasion, which got me thinking about something.

I dream of running a campaign where the information is released free-for-all, with interested parties (whether they be print journalists, bloggers, or simply interested people) have access to the same information, at the same time.

I will not get to do this any time soon, because it would massacre the potential for coverage in many major traditional media outlets.  The most important things I can offer to journalists I've worked with are relevance, accuracy and access, but while these are essential, they lack the pure excitement that getting something first, or something exclusively, can generate.

This is a really bad call on the part of everyone involved.

Social media means information is faster than journalism.  When someone was shot on the subway system, I heard about it through Twitter, several minutes before there had been anything authoritative on television or online about it.  It's the same logic as an album leak - if information exists, it will be shared first through unofficial channels.

This happens, because journalists are, and should be, held to a higher standard than anyone else sharing information.  Being better at times means being slower.  If you're researching, fact-checking, and carefully crafting a balanced article that deals with all aspects of a problem, the value isn't in doing it first.

The value of good journalism is doing it BETTER than the layman.  Not sooner.  Insisting that first is genuinely important encourages the audience to forget that.

Newspapers, television, magazines and radio aren't fast enough to win on speed without hampering the flow of information, or sacrificing quality.  But they've proven the value of careful, skillful investigation and exploration an innumerable number of times.

There was a time when daily was fast enough to be the source of new.  That time has passed, and we should adapt.

moo cards and social objects.

After agonizing about it for several months, I decided I should get some ‘blog cards’ that I could give to non-professional contacts that I meet in my random social endeavours. I think it’s important to keep my personal life out of my work, as similarly I don’t think it makes sense to give non-work contacts my work card (with office number and work email address).

After talking with my friend Lindsay (the same friend who introduced me to the Tumblr platform) I decided to try Moo cards.

The process was quick, easy and simple. For the relatively low total cost of 28 dollars (including shipping) and less than 20 minutes of my time, I have 100 cards (in three varieties) that should arrive in the next few weeks. I’ll post up pictures, etc. The cards I purchased are very simple, a line of text on one side, and 5 lines of contact info for me on the other.

The interesting part of this is that the format Moo operates in allows you to design 100 different minicards for an order of 100, if you wish. It’s inspired me to start doing editions (for as long as I need the cards, or for as long as Moo still offers the service).

Each edition (after the first set that all have the same text) will feature 10 copies each of 10 phrases, usually snippets or quotes from the blog. I figure this will serve as a both a conversation piece (each card having a fairly cryptic or argumentative line on it) and as a timeline – each sentence will be for that edition only, so people will be able to track what edition they’ve met me during.

Really, I’m just impressed at how simple Moo has made it to create a social object that is designed to be shared with everyone you meet.

let's try that again (second life).

Upon re-reading, I realized I can summarize that entire Second Life post into one sentence.

As a direct consequence of not having a clear or profitable plan, the Second Life experiment has stayed relevant beyond it's logical shelf life.

my english degree vs. my new media savvy

Vacations are good for creating a distance from one’s normal circumstances.  This has been useful as I’ve got a more accurate, I think, view of what I’ve been doing right and wrong in many creative and professional endeavors.  I’m not going to examine every conclusion I’ve come to, but I’ve spotted a large number of holes in how I’ve been conducting my online life, especially through this blog.

I’ve been playing to my personal strengths and habits, rather than the strengths of the medium.  In other words, I’ve been spooging habits from other writing I’ve done in my life into my blogging.  My English degree is showing through the cracks in the following prominent ways.

1)    What I write here is generally far too long.  Reading 1200-1500 words on a blog isn’t pleasant, and most people won’t do it.  But given my experience writing Lit papers, this feels like a short amount of space to express complex ideas from beginning to end.  I’m naturally verbose, but this is an easy thing to fix in two ways, I can either be concise, or break things up into multiple posts.   Which brings me to…

2)    Blogging is naturally serialized.  As in, nothing HAS to be expressed in terms of one long essay and complete idea.  I can take it piece by piece and spread it out, as most of it isn’t time sensitive.  If I published more complex ideas in 3 -5 post sections, it would also help me with my other major problem…

3)    Inconsistency makes it difficult to keep people interested.  I tend to not write at all, and then write 3000 words in a week, then not write for another 6 days.  Things don’t need to be all boom and bust, but here we are.

I’m hoping that by addressing these issues, I can point them out to other people, and watch them more closely myself.  The other big issue, or course, is that all I’ve posted here in a long, long time is text, which is, to say the least, not very engaging to all readers.

More to come.

sentences are the new paragraphs.

This came up randomly in the last LTI, but I think it has merit. The statement 'sentences are the new paragraphs' started out as a joke, but it is getting the job done as a 'medium is the message' style incomplete encapsulation.

Moving information is becoming cheaper, more intuitive, and largely seamless. If we go back to looking at letters, nonverbal long distance communication had to be of a certain importance to justify it. You wouldn't write a letter to someone if the only thing you had to say was 'I read a book today. Disappointing. Love you, Blank.' Letters require a certain amount of content to justify them.

This informed email, in that many earlier adopters send long emails. I personally find myself padding them at times, because I have an expectation of length. There's no physical reason for this, as email is more or less instantaneous, but it relates to the connection to traditional mail that is presumed. A letter, perceptually, has to be a full letter. An email, however, can be a few sentences and still fit into the little box I (and I assume we) have defined for it.

Instant messenger fits into a different world, because it's supposed to be direct, instant back and forth communication. It's conversational. There is no defined 'right' size for each message.

Twitter, Pownce, and Facebook status are the current end point of the lowering entry level to justify communication. Unfocused, sentence-length, and not aimed at any individual, they get sent not because they are important, but because they are expressive and additive. It reminds me of conversations had in creative writing classes, about how short a story could be while remaining a story. The common example is Hemingway's 'For Sale: Baby shoes, never used.' Which isn't a story, it's an allusion. This is what Twitter, Pownce, etc, the world of microblogging I suppose, fulfills. It's the venue where someone can write ' grande long americano. life is good.' and consider it justified use.

Sentences are the new Paragraphs; meaning that the level of justification needed for communication has dropped, due to lowering cost of entry, ease of use, and social role.

The interesting this is that this doesn't necessarily stunt communication in the least. It just requires that people use much of it as additive, rather than a complete experience. You can understand me just by reading my blog, or my journal, or personal conversations. Adding my pownce, my facebook and my flickr works quite well if you have context, though.

Just a thought.