I try to keep an open mind about most things, but sometimes I wonder if that’s a good idea. After all, isn’t there that old saying about not keeping your mind so open that your brains fall out? I really don’t believe that old saying (despite the way my avatar looks, there’s been no danger of my brains falling out of my head) but I do wonder if there’s a cost to keeping yourself open to every possibility.
There’s an anecdote about Douglas Adams, possibly exaggerated, that goes like this: (more…)
Yesterday I received a free lesson in how easy it is to miscommunicate.
SCENARIO
I Tweeted the following last night on Twitter:
Publishing to Web is like doing a show without audience. But not as much as publishing print is.
Andrew Gorham, the Toronto Globe and Mail arts editor (who would know a lot about writing for print media, right?) picked up on my Tweet and said the following:
@MarkDykeman Dream on, mon frere. Wishing does not make it so.
Followed by:
Riddle me this: Why do non-print writers have such hostility to print?
Liz Hover, who blogs here, asked:
@andrewGorham They do? I write for both print and web. What gives you the impression folks are hostile?
To which Andrew replied:
@lizhover stuff like this: RT @MarkDykeman Publishing to Web is like doing a show without audience. But not as much as publishing print is.
And they basically dropped it there.
I Tweeted Andrew a couple of times, as per the following:
@andrewGorham wishing what? just describing how it does feel at times, regardless of the reality. But, shrug, that’s the way it is.
and
@andrewGorham @lizhover look, I think you are misunderstanding me. It’s not hostility. I’m describing the lack of contact with audience.
EXPLANATION:
I was trying to say one thing and I believe that Andrew misinterpreted what I was saying. (more…)
Dear Readers:
My friend and co-worker Phil Hawkins made this short video – I helped him write part of the script. It’s under nine minutes long and it shows what you can accomplish even if you don’t have mega movie studio capabilities. I think it’s a great little piece of work, but I may be biased.
He’s rated it PG-13 but there’s not really a lot of objectionable content. It’s a bit of a tragedy, talking about how we can never really escape ourselves…
Have a look, won’t you? Thanks! (more…)
The blog post in which an annoying market survey made me wonder about the future of news, or that some people think that there might be a future for news.
The Atlantic.com had a reader survey that I let myself participate in today (yesterday, actually). Buried in the annoying usage and demographic questions were a bunch of questions related to what I thought was important in a news website/company. (more…)
Some of you who are smarter than me probably figured this out a long time ago, but I experienced a mini-epiphany about social media that I thought I’d share with you. If you find that you spend hours browsing through social media sites and feeling dissatisfied or disappointed a lot of the time, you might be playing emotional slots with yourself, hoping to find a jackpot. (more…)
