communication. community. cognition.
Archive for May, 2010
Poorly Written or Poorly Read?
When Guy wrote this:
50 female bloggers to start reading today http://is.gd/cqN0C
Guy Kawasaki
GuyKawasaki
…did he really mean to hint that female bloggers only write, but never read?
@GuyKawasaki – Well, it’s about time.
Ike Pigott
ikepigott
The Art of Earning Curmudgeon Cred
May 26th
Anyone can be nice, but there’s an art to gaining credibility while being not-so-nice. (Really, these lines of distinction are useful in a number of fields and applications. It’s an exercise in understanding the tone of your language, and how people are more likely to receive your criticisms.)
The very stance of curmudgeonhood is one that can bring instant credibility, but you have to be careful or it will not last. If you are mean just for the sake of being mean, you will not do anything for your own reputation. You may in fact turn off the very people you are trying to influence.
From High Fives to Face Slaps
During the earliest days of Social Media, those pushing the technologies were almost optimistic to a fault. The way to build a name involved linking to the right people, agreeing with the right fundamental theses, and singing the praises of the new open world to come. There was very little space for the naysayer.
Now, one of the best ways to make a splash and establish an identity is to be as cynical as possible. There’s nothing wrong with being skeptical, as long as you are being productive.
Attributes of a successful curmudgeon:
- Honest – Say what needs to be said, and don’t hold back for feelings
- Direct – Identify the elements that need correction
- Hopeful – Write in a spirit that what you see as wrong can be made better
Negative attributes of an unsuccessful curmudgeon:
- Brutal – Say what needs to be said, taking opportunities for cheap shots
- Pointed – Identify opportunities to heap additional blame than is required
- Gleeful – Write in a way that celebrates the failure
Those who exercise curmudgeonhood for their own benefit (like those who would attack big targets, just to generate search engine linkbait) will tend to burn themselves out. Those who are truly interested in improvement instead of destruction may in fact enhance their reputation. Tone matters.
(Per my writing experiment, here’s how it unfolded.)
An Experiment in the Process of Writing
May 24th
I was wondering what Wave might be good for, then it struck me. It might be a window into the process of composition.
I recently wrote a post about writing, which ended up with a clever little turn as I tied everything back to the theme of the chicken and the the egg. It became the Chicken’s Guide to Writing a Better Blog Post.
Like many posts I am remain proud of, it was internally consistent and coherent, but not because it started that way. What you saw was still the finished product, and it is hard to separate the original sparks from the final polish when all you see is a post that is temporally “flat.”
What we need, if we truly want to get into the writing process, is a means of seeing the revisions as they happen. While WordPress does support multiple revisions of documents, there is no easy way to publish them all simultaneously.
Then I thought it might be instructive to do a Wiki, as you can spend all the time you want comparing revisions and seeing how the post evolves. But that would be a pain for the reader, and it would not be as evident what was changing, and why.
So in the hopes there would be a way to not bore the reader, I think I will embark on a little experiment. I think I will start writing posts (about writing) in Google Wave, and use it to track the changes in the document. Then, I ought to be able to showcase the changes, as I move bits and pieces of text around to suit my needs. I can start with the outline of the piece (where one exists, and in the case of this one, you really are getting stream of consciousness here), and fill in the bullets before filling them out.
Still might be a couple of other hurdles to cross, such as how to display it. Right now, I am hoping there is a way to export a Wave in motion – and if there isn’t, I can always play it back as a Jing screencast. Then embed it with the finished post.
Who knows, maybe *I* will learn something about how I write, once I see the playbacks.
Facebook Exit Strategy
May 18th
Just so I can find it later, my Facebook Exit Strategy:
1) Set Facebook Death Date. 2) Arrange contact info for friends. 3) Kill account. 4) Return in 30 days, make placeholder.
Ike Pigott
ikepigott
Where are you writing about?
May 18th
Yes, it is important to consider what you write.
And it’s important to consider for whom you write.
But have you thought about where you write?
Some of my posts are crafted at my cramped little nook at home, in a corner of the dining room.
Some of my posts are written in free moments in my office, at work.
Recently, I was asked by a coworker to edit a piece for a magazine. It needed a decidedly friendlier tone, because of the nature of the subject and the audience.
So I took it out to the atrium.
If you are cognizant of a particular mood or feeling you want to permeate your work, then choose a writing space that enables that sort of emotion.
- Light/Dark.
- Open/Closed.
- Airy/Tight.
- Private/Busy.
- Quiet/Noisy.
- Connected/Disconnected.
- Natural/Artificial.
There are many variables to play with, and you might not have the perfect spot that tickles all the factors you’d like to control. In some circumstances, I may take an older nugget or idea from Evernote, and just jot a few sentences there. It’s important to capture the thoughts while they are top of mind, but it’s also important to capture the influence that environment has on thought. Sitting at lunch, I can write half a blog post if I want in Evernote, and sync it up with my desktop (then with WordPress) later.
As a reverse exercise, describe the place where you do the bulk of your writing, composing and thinking. Do you see elements of that description bleeding over into your tone? Your content? Your subject selection?
Don’t be afraid to tweak your environment to get the results you want. Like real estate, good writing can be about location, location, location.
How to gain attention from doing the very thing I am doing right now to gain attention
May 17th
Follow this advice.
Wisdom
“Wisdom is easy. The application and timing of wisdom is hard.”
