Funny enough just two weeks earlier Salmon had written a piece calling the paper out for not posting this sort of stuff, so it's a nice about face. But it also is a really interesting way to tell a story differently. As I see it most of what journalists are doing these days is not a lot different that what they were doing when we weren't all staring at screens for eight hours a day. Of course there are exceptions, whether it's liveblogging Wimbledon or, well, I can't really think of another example right this minute but I'm sure there are more. Journalism, for better or worse, is still mostly the same journalism it always was and we still engage with publications in the same sort of ways (albeit with more lists and slideshows now that they're on the web).
Source materials seems like an incredibly interesting and untapped area of innovation for news organizations. While I understand that posting this sort of stuff is often out of the question, it can't always be and I have to believe there's much fun to be had in telling stories through the documents collected instead of just the paragraphs that boil them all down. I guess some might see this as diminishing the role of the journalist, who has traditionally been tasked with finding the story, I'm not sure I agree. I dont think that there's any less of a need to find the story in a sea of documents, I just think this is a different (and hopefully more compelling) way to tell it.
Fundamentally, I think, a media inventor is someone who isn't satisfied with the suite of formats that have been handed down to him by his culture (and economy). Novel, novella, short story; album, EP, single; RPG, RTS, FPS--a media inventor doesn't like those choices. It turns out a media inventor feels compelled to make the content and the container.
I think maybe we've all become a little too comfortable with our CMSes (whether they be some big enterprise job or Wordpress or even Tumblr and Twitter). While these do an amazing job getting content out into the world, they also dictate how we present that content. Most CMSes want words, in paragraphs, in stories. Even Tumblr, for it's different approach, now just spawns content that can be scooped up and turned into a 150-page book with pictures.
So as not to end on a down note, though, the whole point of writing this is that I'm pretty excited with the stuff the New York Times is trying in this realm. They're playing with ways to tell stories and lots of others are as well (though most of them are outside the big news organizations). Even MSNBC's new page design seems like a step in a new direction. So please don't take this as some sort of whine about the state of things, but rather as excitement for what's coming.
What value is there in "process stories" that explain how things in politics, or elsewhere, came to fruition?
George Packer makes a very interesting point about Obama's press strategy, which shies away from stories that explain the political process. Packer writes that people in the administration "say that the Obama hates 'process' stories because they end up focussing on trivial matters of personality. They also say that the White House wants to give the impression that everything flows from the top."
To which Packer replies:
This last is the one that troubles me most. Even if such a thing were possible, it isn't healthy. I'd even say it's undemocratic. Something as vast and complex as the U.S. government cannot be presented to the public along the same lines as a Presidential campaign. In the end--I saw this happen to the Bush Administration in Iraq--the result is that the White House doesn't seal information in, but, instead, it seals itself off from information. The levers of government eventually stop working because no one in the bureaucracy wants to explain what's going on for fear of the White House press office, which means the ability to think clearly grows sclerotic.
Two things I find interesting about this: First, it's a non-partisan criticism of the way the Obama administration does stuff. We don't have enough of that in politics. Second, I am in complete agreement that there is really value in the process. Actually it reminds me of something Robin wrote over at Smarkmarket about what makes Packer's New Yorker colleague, Atul Gawande, so good: "It's a first person narrative -- and not tentatively so. There are I's everywhere in this piece, and it's wonderful." I think politicians (and the media, frankly) underestimate the value of this sort of narrative.
I was amazed by this during the financial crisis last year. As politicians were trying to figure out what to do with TARP there was an incredible lack of clarity about what was going on. I suspect this was because the politicians were being brought up to speed on how the financial system works and they didn't want everyone to see, but I think it could have been a real calming influence to have someone sit down America and explain what the hell was going on. (For what it's worth, Rick, COO of The Barbarian Group, wrote one of these for the company and I think it went a long way (I know it did for me).
Also, while I'm on the topic of writing, I've been thinking a lot lately about the difference between the way I was taught to write and the way I actually do. Like everyone else I was taught the basic essay structure: Tell them what you're going to say, say what you're going to say, tell them what you've said. However, the way I write here is far more off the cuff. I had no idea I was going to write about my writing style at the end of this post (in fact, this post started as a link to the Packer quote and eventually started to go a little long for the sidebar). I prefer to just flow through ideas, something that doesn't feel quite right in other media (which probably explains why it's seldom done by journalists), but works quite well for the relatively intimate setting of a blog. I guess it speaks to something I've mentioned before: Blogs are more like interpersonal communication than mass.
This is, of course, the media's characteristic flaw. The bulk of reporters and editors at major political media institutions have almost no understanding of substantive public policy issues. And they conjoin to their ignorance a kind of contempt for people who do understand them. Consequently, people who are interested in such matters tend to be driven out of the institutions in questions. Instead, you get a self-replicating cadre of self-congratulatory and shallow people who enjoy doing this kind of coverage while sneering at people who care about substance.
Rush Limbaugh's reference to the mainstream press as the "drive-by" media may be an ideologically driven critique, but in the case of several major stories in 2007, including the Virginia Tech massacre, the media did reveal a tendency to flood the zone with instant coverage and then quickly drop the subject. The media in 2007 had a markedly short attention span.
The only way the media knows how to cover something is with "news." It's not entirely fair to blame the media for this, as I suspect that despite theoretically asking for the contrary, the public pays the most attention to those that are constantly feeding new information. The point was also summed up in the bullet right before the "drive-by" one in the report:
The media and the public often disagreed about which stories were important in 2007. For one thing, citizens suggested that the press failed to deliver sufficient coverage of some basic bread and butter issues, such as rising gas prices, toy recalls, and the legislative battle over children's health insurance. They also showed less interest than the media in the crisis in Pakistan and certain aspects of the Iraq debate, such as General David Petraeus' September appearance before Congress. To the extent the press covered distant parts of the world, people in some ways thought even that was too much.
Many have said that Post stories routinely assume a foundation of knowledge that they simply don't have. Some said that they don't understand basic terms like "public option" or "single payer." They want primers, not prognostications. And they're craving stories on what it means for ordinary folks and their families.
But how? The Post omsbudsman offers a guess, "I think they want more glossaries explaining basic terms, easily digestible Q&As, short sidebars that summarize complex concepts and graphics that decipher complicated data. And they want stories that say what health-care reform will mean to them." I'm not sure that's it though. I worry that this is one of those things the people say they really want, but then when it's there it turns out to not be so interesting. Generally, though, everything seems to come back to moving away from generalization in the media, which is alright by me.
What happens when you take dynamics from one medium and apply it to another? (And other random questions.)
Even before my McLuhan post a few days ago I had been thinking a lot about the idea of hacking a written medium: Essentially using it in different and news ways that it might not have been originally intended.
In the link to my recent Boards Magazine article I mentioned, "Also, I started the article with this, 'If you don't feel like reading this article here are the talking points.' Which made me laugh, but also it was kind of my way to hack a printed article. (As a side note, I've been noticing that when I write I use a lot more parentheses than ever before, especially in print. I kind of think this is in place of hyperlinks.)" Essentially it was an attempt (not necessarily a good one) to apply the dynamics of one medium to another (just as I mentioned using parentheses a lot more lately, which seem like the closest thing writing has to a hyperlink).
Anyway, the comments to the McLuhan post made me think more about it (if you haven't read them, I highly recommend it, as Adam, Charles and Barbara's comments are all deserving of a post on their own). The first paragraph of Adam's comment actually sent me reeling. (And on how many other sites do comments come in paragraphs? You guys are all so awesome.)
I've long maintained that communication online is 'talking' not writing. As you've explained, It's the real-timeness coupled with multimedia-ness that makes it accoustic in nature. Some may think that typed words means writing, but if you were to have a conversation of tapped dots and dashes (morse), or gestured shapes and motions (sign language) you would summarize that experience as having just 'talked' to someone not 'written' to someone (though you have indeed just 'written' information onto a medium even if it were only air). The real-timeness, the wideness of bandwidth to stimulate multiple senses, that's what makes it talking regardless of the tool being used.
Which got me thinking about what other ways I could mess around with the medium. For awhile I've been toying with the idea of doing email back and forth entries (of which I hope to have the first, I conversation with Johnny Vulkan, up soonish). In addition I've been thinking about questions and answers. But that seemed too straightforward, so I just thought I'd generally ask you all, what's on your mind? What have you been thinking about? What should we talk about?
No idea if this will work. Also, if you'd like slightly more tough brief (as we learned from Brian Eno, limitations are helpful), I'm going out to Montana in a few weeks to talk to a class about technology, media and the internet. What should I talk about? I figure I'll go back through the archives to get a sense of what I've been thinking about, but I also thought it was worthwhile to open up the question.
So yeah, that's about it. Not a ton of rhyme or reason here, so feel free to talk about whatever you'd like in the comments.
Some random thoughts inspired by Marshall McLuhan.
When I feel like I haven't been thinking to my potential I like to go read some McLuhan (I'm not kidding ... I'm a nerd). Anyway, figured I'd share a few quotes from an essay I just read called "The Media Fit the Battle of Jericho" from Marshall Mcluhan-Unbound.
Before I continue, let me just say that this was written in 1956.
The new media -- the new languages -- which have increasingly supplement writing and print, have begun to reassemble the multiple sensuousness of integral speech. Touch, taste, kinesthesia, sight and sound are all recreating the acoustic space which had been abolished by phonetic writing.
Under these conditions, prediction and evaluation are merely substitutes for observation. A basic feature of acoustic space is its inclusiveness. Visual space is exclusive. As our world recreates acoustic and oral culture by simply pushing on with devices of instantaneity and simultaneity, we need not fear the suppression of visual and written culture.
Lots of stuff in this one, I like the idea that the speed of new media brings us closer to the auditory traditions of communication. The speed starts to remove some of the levels of mediation. With that said, it doesn't destroy the other media, just pushes it in new directions. Neither print nor TV are even close to dead, just ask all those people out there hankering to see their names in either medium. They both still carry a weight that the web doesn't yet have. As Mcluhan explained in another essay I read this evening ("Notes on the Media as Art Forms"), "Reportage takes up the ordinary events in which we all participate, and changes them simply by virtue of the medium of print and photography." (Though the essay doesn't come out and say it, it's clearly a precursor to his tagline: "The medium is the message.")
The second quote hits on something I'v had on my mind for the last few months:
Any change in any medium always causes modifications in all other media or languages within the same culture. Today in our simultaneous world such changes are felt as abrupt and drastic. They always were. But now we notice.
It's the "they always were" that struck me. I've had a theory (certainly shared by others) that the web provides an amazing metaphor for how our brains work. Having a good metaphor, I believed, helps us to optimize our thinking. Now I'm not sure I don't believe that anymore (especially the second part as I think metaphors do great wonders for understanding complexity), however, I've been thinking lately that every generation is always sure whatever they have around is a great metahpor for whatever it is they're thinking about (in this case the brain). When the first book was printed I would be the common belief was that it was a perfect metaphor for a brain, nicely broken into chapters and verses, just as our thoughts are.
Now I do certainly still believe that the ability to visualize, understand and discuss networks is a huge boon society, it's hard to know what you don't know and in this case that's precisely how the brain functions.
Okay, so first off, this is not about politics, but rather about media. However, I need to use a political example to get the ball rolling. So, for those of you sick of this stuff, I'll be quick.
------ BEGIN POLITICAL TRANSMISSION ------
Throughout the run up to the election I had lots of conversations/arguments with lots of folks about things like polls. My argument tended to be something along the lines of, "sure, that poll is probably wrong in that way, but it's also probably wrong in 200 other ways and until you show me the data I don't believe any of it." (Again, not those exact words, but close.)
I had the same arguments around people talking about Palin supporters, especially those who lectured New Yorkers that they didn't understand. Now I happen to agree that most New Yorkers have no sense of what it's like to live somewhere else and do suffer from a bit of NASCAR blindness as Alan likes to call it, however, I also think most of what I read or heard about Palin supporters from those same people was equally reductionist but in a different direction.
------ END POLITICAL TRANSMISSION ------
What I've come to realize is that what I was hungering for was journalism/reporting. Not just calling up experts and getting their opinions on things, but actually going out and talking to real folks in real places or digging in some real research and sharing some hard numbers. The best article I read over the last few months was a New Yorker piece by George Packer about his time in Ohio speaking to undecided voters.
Unfortunately this kind of reporting comes few and far-between, with journalists instead opting to the regulars. In thinking about it the other day, I started to feel like maybe this was a reaction to bloggers. Clearly blogs play a big role in the mind of journalists (even though they likely play a smaller role in the life of most Americans). Blogs (including this one) are almost all conjecture. Few bloggers conduct original interviews, research or reporting. Mostly they just write about things they find interesting. Now there's nothing wrong with that, but I personally often find myself wanting more (which I think is probably part of why FiveThirtyEight was so popular).
So I guess my question is two-fold: A) Am I just missing something, or does it really seem like there's less good reporting/research coming out of the media these days? B) If not, why? Is it just because that stuff is more expensive than just calling an expert?
At the end of the day, I still very much appreciate what's out there and think there are some outlets doing a fine job delivering interesting stories with in-depth reporting frequently (the New Yorker comes to mind first). But what's up with the rest? How did this happen?
Oh, and this is all conjecture without any research or data to back it up. So (like you should with everything else you read) take it with a grain of salt.
What those behind the camera think about when they create their brand
Is this my brand?
On Valentine's Day, a former student opened fire in a Northern Illinois University classroom, killing five students, injuring sixteen and eventually taking his own life. I was on campus when it happened. This was my lightning strike, my Eddie Adams moment, albeit on a much smaller stage. My paper, the Daily Chroniclein DeKalb, Ill., was inundated with entreaties from media outlets wanting to feed off of our coverage. I kept on working for the next few days posting pictures and contemplating how my coverage of one tragic event would be more well known than the combined popularity of a thousand county fairs. It appeared that my brand was tending toward the tragic (I'd almost been crushed by a monster truck in August).
Photographers at newspapers this size are generalists--meant to cover anything and everything and do it quickly and well. But as a photographer and a writer in today's multimedia-crazed newspaper business, being good at everything sometimes means that you're good for nothing. As the furor died down from the NIU shootings, I confronted the fact that perhaps my brush with exposure had not furthered my journalism brand as much as I had imagined.
For all intents and purposes, a photographer's portfolio Web site is their brand. These sites run the gamut (In a relative sense as most photographers are not programmers as well) from accomplished shooters who worked their way to the world's hotspots largely without help from a major newspaper such as Chris Hondros to my former colleague Adam Gerik's proto-confessional photo blog. But if our brand is our Web site only, then it would seem to follow that the top 10 results for "war photographer" or "freelance photographer LA" could essentially corner the market. Metadata trumps hard work and killer documentary skills.
But that would be a fallacy. For all the change that the Internet has brought to photography, it has not changed certain universal truths. Scott Strazzante is a staff photographer at the Chicago Tribune. A past winner of the Newspaper Photographer of the Year in 2000, Strazzante has worked his way up the ladder by being a hard worker and a good marketer. Though he has been shooting since 1987, he does not yet have a portfolio Web site of his own. Despite this, his recently-published series on the encroachment of sprawl into rural Illinois took off via a convergence of buzz on listserves such as APAD and webzines such as PDN with the physical pages of the Trib and National Geographic.
"The one thing that the Web has done is devalued photographers. Now magazines go into Flickr and steal photos. Even though there are more outlets, it has really handicapped photographers because there's much more supply than demand," Strazzante said. "The top one percent will be fine. The kind of middle-tier photographers who haven't quite found their voice yet, they're the ones who are really going to suffer. It's almost become like society in general where it's going to be a greater divide between the rich and the poor. It's going to either be the super-talented or the people who are willing to give away their work for free."
Strazzante cites Vincent Laforet as an example of a photographer who has branded himself successfully. "He started out basically a sports photographer," Strazzante said. "Now, if anyone at a huge publication in America wants an aerial style, Vincent is it. He's made his name with creative aerial photography. He's now created a niche where he is the guy to go to for aerial photography. He's done that by being a great businessman in addition to being a great shooter."
In today's newspaper market, it sometimes feels as if the chances are better that you'll be laid off than receive a decent-sized raise. David Zentz is a 29-year-old photojournalist at the Peoria Journal Star with an impressive track record of high-profile internships and clip-contest wins under his belt. In a good to fair market, he would likely be at a major metropolitan daily at this stage of his career. But as it is, he has been bought out by the new owners of his newspaper, GateHouse Media, who have been slashing expenses through voluntary buyouts across its properties since purchasing nine Copley properties last year.
Don't cry for Zentz, he has a plan. Los Angeles beckons and a career in freelance commercial and editorial photography awaits. The only problem? How to create the DZ brand.
"No one should ever market themselves as a generalist because it devalues your voice," Zentz said. "I can shoot everything, but I want clients to know what my interests are so I promote myself and market as more of a specialist in documentary and hard news. I'm trying to figure out how to create multiple brands."
"You can look at photo magazines and you'll see Paolo Pellgrin, Alex Webb. You can see their stuff and recognize it right away or at least say it looks like something he would have shot. People do work over years to consolidate their style and concentrate their portfolio to a specific thing and that will bring them more work."
Style then, is brand. Chris Bartlett knows that first hand. Bartlett has been shooting still life in the fashion and beauty world for 20 years, primarily editorial and some commercial work.
"There was a much wider middle ground in which to swim and there was a greater array of photographers who were not particularly hugely distinguishable from each other who were all capable professional photographers," Bartlett said. "To take a nice picture took more skill than it does now. What has happened is that the bottom has risen up because it's easier to come up with a competent photograph. The middle area, where people branded themselves but not really distinctly, that marketplace is sort of eroding and people with a combination of very clear style and brand plus a good business sense are carving out a little niche for themselves."
The practical applications of this hits right where it hurts. Bartlett recently did an estimate for a job he is shooting next week based on previous work he had done for the client 10 years ago. They came back and said they wanted his price to be about 60 percent less than his bid. His competition? The in-house digital studio.
"The rub here is that the art director wants me to do it because he likes the way I treat the subject matter but the money people are saying this is what we're going to be," he said. "It's up to me to compromise my rate to get the job or stand my ground and say 'I won't do it for less than that.' It won't be done to the level it would be done with my original estimate because I have to cover more ground in less amount of time to make money. That is a pretty familiar scenario."
The irony is that there is a lot more potential for money because of the wider audience, but everyone is expecting that work to be done for free. In order to compete for the jobs that pay good money, strong work is key. When you mention a photographer's name, Annie Lebowitz or Robert Capa to use two examples, an image has to pop into your head. People need to know that if they're spending the money, they're getting a certain treatment.
So, then, is my one picture that made it around the world my brand? I tend to believe that it's not. For one, few if any photojournalists have been hired based on one picture. Iconic images can catapult careers, but being good in today's newspaper, and commercial, markets doesn't always mean that you'll get the job. Thus the paradox of being a more attractive job candidate when you're cheaper and younger than when you're better and more seasoned. Bottom line concerns aren't making brands less relevant, but they are making most photographers' stake less valuable.
Eric Sumberg is a visual journalist and writer (For one more day) in DeKalb, Ill. On Saturday, he will pack his life into his car and head to New York to transition into the next phase of his life.
How not writing regularly actually creates a better final product.
I was having a conversation last week with my friend Jonathan (sadly blogless) about the state of news. The conversation went in a bunch of different directions, but the one I've been meaning to write about is the importance of RSS. Not so much the technology, but the effect it's had. The most important of these effects is showing the world the power of an irregular news cycle: Instead of coming out with new stories based on some deadline an editor came up with, most blogs publish whenever they damn well please. They can do this because they know that many of their readers have subscribed to the site and will receive updates whenever they come out. (For the record, I know that RSS adoption is still quite low. My point with this isn't so much about the actual subscriptions, but rather how the advantages of publishing this way will eventually spill over into the mainstream.)
Blogs, unlike newspapers and magazines, don't have to fill pages on a regular basis. If I don't write here daily I see no drop in readership (in fact, I often see a rise if I take a week off . . . but that's another story). That means, unlike newspapers and other media outlets, I don't ever have to create news. The vast majority of my readers are subscribed and they (you) will receive my writing when it happens thanks to RSS (which is the technology behind the email subscription as well in case you're wondering).
I guess in reality this is just a continuation of my "Nothing to Lose" piece (recap: big media fighting bloggers is kind of like fighting the crazy guy in the bar who doesn't care about getting hurt). My motivation is fundamentally different than a media outlet. I don't care about time-on-site or pageviews, I just want to put out consistently interesting information so that I can attract as much feedback as possible on my ideas.
Not really sure where else to go with all this, just though it was something worth throwing out there.
While I'm on the subject, here are some other thoughts I have on the news:
I've been quoting this Virtual Economics entry on the power of satirical news quite a bit lately. The basic idea is that "To overcome rational ignorance ["rational ignorance tells us that our votes can't possibly affect the outcome of an election"] we need more Onions, more Daily Shows, more Sunday Sports - diverse cultural forms that treat the news as entertainment, reach every section of society and reward individuals for taking the trouble to keep themselves informed." As Seamus writes early in the entry, that's because "Unless you're actually a politician or a lobbyist, knowledge of current affairs is pure indulgence. It follows that the people who know about the news are following it for fun."
I really do believe that a look at the front page of The Onion gives you a better idea of what's important in the world than just about any other publication.
We mostly read news for the social currency it offers us (you don't want to be on Wall Street and not have read the front page of The Journal). With that in mind I think we'll see more and more pre-chewed news like Talking Points on Current TV.(video below)
Okay, that's it for now. Have a good Monday.
Updates (12/2/07): In retrospect, this episode of Talking Points is really not any good. The idea behind it ("Knowing about current events isn't nearly as important as appearing to
know about them"), however, is the part I really dig.
Thinking about dangers of old media fighting new media and why blogging has hit a rough patch.
The other morning I had breakfast with chartreuse. After a few debates about sports, media and the state of the universe we got on the topic of blogs. I believe it began with us both saying we were generally unimpressed by what's out there at the moment. Not sure what it is, but it seems like there's less and less of interest being written (which of course leads to less interesting writing since everyone is really commenting on everyone else).
Anyway, the conversation eventually shifted and I got into my speech on why big media companies are having difficulty fighting in this new age. I think I've said it here before, but the argument goes something like this: Big media companies are used to fighting against other big media companies. CBS and ABC will fight over ad revenue or programming, but neither is willing to undercut the other at the expense of the television model. The incentive, then, is for a competitor to undercut the competition ever so slightly while at the same time raising the water line for all the players.
Today, however, CBS and ABC are competing against me. Obviously I don't have the numbers, but on a micro level, every minute you spend here is a minute not spent with them. The danger for the big media companies is that I don't care about their model: I haven't made a dime directly off this blog and don't plan to. That means they're fighting the crazy guy, and, as everyone knows, you never want to fight the guy with nothing to lose.
After going through my whole explanation (which I've rehearsed many times before), chartreuse looked at me and said "what would you do if you were a big media company?" I gave it some thought, and replied with something dumb . . . clearly he had an answer in mind, but I couldn't resist trying to come up with something. So after I gave my fairly dim-witted response, he gave me five words: "Give them something to lose.
And, as often is the case, he was exactly right. When I read Umair's post "Blogonomics 2007, Or How The Blogosphere Lost It's Mojo the other day, I knew I had to write about our conversation. Umair writes, "Most of the blogs that have gone pro have lost their mojo. They're boring now - not fun to read, losing their appetite for risk, they almost never take a position on anything anymore, in lieu of the same old middle-of-the-road presentation you can get, well, in any lame old newspaper."
In other words, they now have something to lose.
PS - I am updating the site a bit. Anyone who is over at the homepage will see that the Sidenotes have changed a bit (now include video) and there is a complete overhaul in the works. If anyone wouldn't mind helping me out by taking a look at the new design, I'd love feedback. You can see an early version at http://www.noahbrier.com/nb4.
So it looks like the New York Times experiment with TimesSelect is going to come to an end. This doesn't surprise me, as I never thought it was a very good idea in the first place. There's plenty of commentary on the decision, including a thoughtful breakdown of the error in strategic judgment by the Times. Seamus of at Virtual Economics adds a bit more insight writing, "This is about reducing the incentive for NYT's key asset - its writers - to strike out on their own as so many of the best newspaper writers have already done . . . Possibly that day has been put off a little longer by this latest move."
This is a key shift in the world at the moment. People are creating powerful personal brands on the back of their employer. Iain pointed out a similar trend in the agency world: "all of the really good people seem to have their own game going on. They’ve either started their own small companies, or they’re freelancing and living the life that they want, on their terms. (Or they’re heading that way fast and using their next jump or two as an experience-farming exercise). Which means that it’s quite tricky to get them to come and work for wages in a company." Thanks to a number of factors ranging from the low cost of publishing/owning your own media space (mostly in the form of a webpage) to better communication/networking skills, people are competing with the companies they once worked for.
The big problem for their companies are that they're working on much smaller margins. When you only need to support yourself and have next to no overhead, your revenue needs are far lower (it's all relative after all). On top of this, the people many companies are searching for (the "mini-CEO" Iain describes) are exactly the type of people they'll have trouble retaining. Seems to me that companies, like most other businesses, are going to take a serious look at how they're structured and do a better job of creating an environment where employees are doing more than "experience-farming."
Part Two
Okay, now onto the second portion of this entry where I praise the Times. On three occaisions over the last few weeks I have been surprised to find myself at the Times (or surprised by what I was seeing).
iPhone the Musical: Times gadget guy David Pogue does a song and dance about the iPhone. It's got 220,000 views on YouTube and is a perfect example of how to use a media audience to snap something into virality.
Bree, We Knew and Knew Ye: This is another Times blog moment. In this one they write about the death of lonelygirl15 (who got started a year ago). What impressed me was that the entry embedded a video from Myspace. Can you imagine a situation even two years ago where one major media outlet was embedding content that drove to another major media outlet? I've often said that the biggest difference between web 1.0 and 2.0 is that in 2.0 links don't open in new windows: You trust your audience can find their way back.
Freakonmics: Last, but not least, is today's announcement that the Freakonomics blog is moving over to NYTimes.com. I just noticed yesterday that Freakonomics had something like 110,000 subscribers which must be a nice little score for the Times. Not sure what the deal looks like, but clearly it's an opportunity for both parties.
I don't think blogs = strategy by any means, however, these three developments seem to signal different steps forward in an industry that desperately needs to redefine its business.
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Mostly random thought (from Twitter): Wow, I am now getting Ground Zero Mosque comment spam ... I don't know whether to be impressed or disturbed. (31 August 2010, 11:54 am)
Q: What is this site all about?
A: I think Michael Bierut explained it nicely a few years ago in response to people asking him why he didn't write more about design on Design Observer: "But the great thing about graphic design is that it is almost always about something else. Corporate law. Professional football. Art. Politics. Robert Wilson. And if I can't get excited about whatever that something else is, I really have trouble doing good work as a designer. To me, the conclusion is inescapable: the more things you're interested in, the better your work will be." Replace "graphic design" with "media/marketing/technology" (or whatever you'd like to call my field) and you've got my deal.
Q: Where else do you live?
A: Good question. All over the place as a matter of fact. On Tumblr for more randomness, Twitter for short bursts, Dopplr for places I'm going, Delicious for things I'm reading, last.fm for music I'm listening to, Flickr for photos I'm taking and Facebook because I don't really have a choice. (Oh, and Amazon for stuff I want people to buy me.)
Q: I meant that literally. Where do you live?
A: Oh, sorry, Brooklyn, New York is where I call home at the moment.
Q: Any other side projects you'd like to tell us about?
A: As a matter of fact, yes. There's How Much Does it Buy?, a calculator for the rest of us. Holy Crap! Facts (and accompanying Twitter feed) which is pretty much exactly what you'd expect. Da' Bears Blog is, in my opinion, the best Chicago Bears blog on the web (I don't write it, I just helped it get off the ground) and Tweemail is a little PHP script I wrote for getting Twitter updates by email. I'm also always working on a few other things and will let you know when they're ready for public consumption.
Q: Um okay.
A: Yeah, that's a fake question mostly so I can throw in this one other quote I like that I think sums up some of what I try to do here. This one comes from Albert Einstein (or at least the internet says so) and goes something like, "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough." Words to live by.
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