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: Continue reading ‘The cost of keeping an open mind’ »

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. Continue reading ‘I like print media just fine thanks’ »

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! Continue reading ‘Shameless local filmmaker plugola time’ »

One year ago today I wrote a little blog post about something that I called Role Model 3.0.

Basically, I suggested that social media tools would lead to a new kind of role model or celebrity that was both cool and accessible.

A number of months later, much to my surprise, I realized that I was describing the microcelebrity.

I think I had good intentions with last year’s post, but I’ve come to think it was wrong.

Like a number of people have told me, either though their words or actions, people have limited scaling capability.  The more famous you become, the less time you have to respond, per fan.

Social media certainly provides more ability to scale and touch lots of people, but in the end, there are limits.

Therefore, I really don’t believe that Role Model 3.0 is the next iteration.

But let me put the question back to you:  do you think that technology helps the famous to keep making more and more individual connections?  Examples?

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.

Image by markhillary

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. Continue reading ‘Is this a sign that news is still viable?’ »

Image by runneralan2004

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. Continue reading ‘Why social media is like playing slot machines’ »