Category Archives: blogging

Archive 6

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Are polymaths extinct? In the ancient world polymaths shared expertise in various fields of knowledge. One example is Leonardo da Vinci — not merely a painter, but sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, cartographer, botanist and writer. More recently, Thomas Jefferson fits that definition as a horticulturist, political leader, architect, inventor, and founder of the University of Virginia. Is it possible to be a polymath in this modern world?

As it relates to blogging, can effective bloggers be polymaths? Copyblogger offers some habits of effective bloggers. The list includes:

  • prolific
  • concise
  • focused and consistent

(Link: 8 Habits of Highly Effective Bloggers)

One of the things stated as an attribute of an effective blogger is:

Successful bloggers choose a topic and stick to it.

They write consistently about their chosen subject… Even when they write about something that seems to be off-topic, they relate it back to the niche they know…

This makes practical sense as far as marketability. You don’t expect comic books sold at a doughnut shop. But what about a gas station? Of course, you purchase gas at a gas station, but most gas station owners don’t make profits from the sale of gasoline. Most of their revenue comes from products sold inside the gas station. In high school, I stopped by the gas station routinely to purchase comic books. Should blogs be doughnut shops or gas stations?

In the marketing world, as in the blogosphere, an individual who chooses a topic and sticks to it is a specialist or consultant. In Peter Rubie’s Telling the Story, he presents this definition of genres:

The development of genres came about as a marketing necessity. “Category” and “genre” are marketing terms… Their purpose is basically to help you more easily find what it is you’re looking for.

Telling the Story then goes on to list seven narrative nonfiction categories: adventure, travel books, biography, history, military, memoir and true crimes. The music industry follows the same protocol: country, pop, rock, hip-hop, and so on into the sub-genres of goth-metal, indie-folk-americana, afro-celt, etc. What Copyblogger proposes is to be marketable to your online audience. If you’re a tech blog, write about technology. If you’re an organic gardener, write about gardening. If you’re a mom, write about mommy stuff. That way your online readers are trained to expect only doughnuts at the doughnut shop.

The question is this: if blogs are specialized, will that make the community more or less knowledgable? I’ve noticed that art blogs often link to other art blogs. I understand that the reason for this is to create a strong community. The challenge with specializing content is that the specialists become islands of highly focused, topical knowledge surrounded by the waters of ignorance of other general knowledge. Jacques Barzun explores the idea of specialized knowledge and more in The House of Intellect. Let me go back to the opening paragraph where I stated “more recently, Thomas Jefferson…” Between Thomas Jefferson and our present information age, the society and culture has changed so dramatically that I wonder if our institutions of intellect suppress the nurture and nature of polymaths.

NOTE: https://coffeehousejunkie.wordpress.com/2010/06/18/is-it-possible-to-be-a-polymath-in-todays-culture/

Confessions of a coffeehouse junkie, revisited

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The genre of blog writing is nearly obsolete. As far as I can tell. This is based on a conversation I had a couple months ago.


“You’re son told me you have a blog,” she said.

“Huh?” I replied.

My family was invited to a small, casual dinner party.

“Yeah, he also said you’re an artist and poet,” she said. “I used to have a blog. I mean. That was years ago. I’m not really a writer, but I blogged.”

She continued to tell me what she blogged about and where. We were both active around the same time period (by active I mean posting writings nearly daily). That was before the rise of the major social media platforms. I shared that part of what I enjoyed about the genre was the interaction with people. The exchange of ideas. The sense of being part of a greater community.

“I mostly just write on Facebook now,” she confessed. “Remember, back when, you could only leave a comment on a blog post?”

“That’s right,” I recalled out loud. “There were no like buttons or social media share icons.”

After that dinner party, I updated the art page of my blog. And planned to contribute more time and resources to blogging again.

2.

I composed a post about the value of journaling with plan to publish it the first week of March. But it ended up in the draft folder.

Mid-March I wrote another post. This one was about discovering a collection of my old art work. But it too is in the draft folder. Well. Actually. I eventually posted it near the end of April.

But the genre of blog writing is passé. Outdated. Why do I still do this?

Then I remembered rule number eight: “Every word on your blog is a word not in your book.”

3.

Shifting focus, I started work on a book. Or rather a series of books. Inspired by August Derleth’s Sac Prairie books, like Walden West and Countryman’s Journey. I set to work on the first manuscript.

Derleth presented a non-linear collection vignettes and entries about his home town. I moved in the direction of a daybook, or journal. Instead of spending a year at Walden Pond, or Sac Prairie, I collected entries and stories of a year in the life of a cultural creative edging toward a digital nomad.

Thoreau and Derleth drew from nature, whether from a pond or prairie. I discovered the ubiquitous screen became the prominent pool of inspiration for the first manuscript. One book manuscript became two and three. The metaphor of the glowing computer laptop screen began to crack and shatter by the fourth book manuscript.

The book series is part confession and part cautionary tale.

4.

I deleted the blog. The only thing that remains of that original blog is the screen shot featured in this post.

In truth, I deleted all blogs I maintained. Except this one.

Patience to reconnect broken hyperlinks

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Ever come across an article or blog post where the hyperlink leads to a deceased web page? That is what I discovered when scanning through old web log posts.

Exhibit 1

How to keep your job in journalism

POSTED ON MARCH 8, 2008
  1. Create killer content
  2. Pimp your work
  3. Brand yourself

This from Jason Sandford, founder of Ashvegas and veteran reporter. I shared my summary [1] and linked to his blog post. However, the hyperlink at the end of the post leads to a web page that reads: “Sorry. The Squarespace account ashvegas is not available.”

After a bit of research, it appears that Mr. Sandford migrated the blog content from Squarespace to an impressive hyperlocal news web page.[2] After scrolling for a decade, I found the original post [3] and reconnected the broken link. Problem solved.

Reading his original post, I learned that he quoted from a Robert Niles article [4] published two days before he shared excerpts with his readers.

Exhibit 2

The Knife Metaphor

POSTED ON JUNE 13, 2008

I do not know who created the image,[5] but I did provide a couple source links.

The hyperlink to The Flowfield Unity reads: “Nothing Found. Sorry, but we can’t seem to find what you’re looking for.” Follow Aja’s link I read a similar note: “Well this is somewhat embarrassing, isn’t it? It seems we can’t find what you’re looking for.”

I used to follow Aja on Tumblr. That is, before I quit Tumblr. The proliferation of adult content by users and providers prompted me to delete my account.

Sometimes I re-posted an image with source attribution. Link love was the proto-social media expression and polite thing to do.

Exhibit 3

A 90-second GTD primer

POSTED ON AUGUST 25, 2008

Surprisingly, the 43 Folders hyperlink from my blog post [6] is still active. Merlin Mann shared this — abridged here — jewel during Google’s infamous [7] August 11, 2008 outage:

  • Project. Any desirable outcome that requires more than one physical action in order to be considered complete.
  • Next Action. The next physical activity I could perform that moves a Project nearer to the outcome I want.
  • Context. Any limitation, opportunity, tool, or resource that lets me do one of the physical actions in my Project.
  • The Four Criteria Model. The notion that Priority is only one of four criteria in deciding what to do at a given moment.

The full, original post is worth reading. Especially for young readers who may find it interesting that even Google has service outages.

Exhibit 4

Poetry, the highest form of art

POSTED ON OCTOBER 8, 2008

Posted this Guardian lead paragraph [8] on my blog.[9]

“Imagine living in a society where poetry was considered to be the most important art form. Where a poet could easily fill a football stadium. Where a poet’s death was the top news story for days.”

Not surprisingly, the hyperlink is still active. Even if the article is more than a decade old.

Closing thoughts

I expected to find a lot more dead web pages and broken hyperlinks than I did. The sampling from 2008 of blog posts offers insight into journalism and social media.

Social media is reactionary. At its best, social media sneezes an ideavirus [10] that is contagious. At its worst, social media spreads toxic influenc-za.

Journalism reports news and events. To provide a permanent record for this age and the generations to follow. Journalism informs and educates readers. When done well, journalism inspires.

It is an easy tirade to attack social media as harmful rather than helpful. Equally, it is simple to launch a screed against poor quality journalism. Especially when broadcast news makes it effortless. (Side note: I do make a distinction between broadcast news and print/legacy news. But that is a topic for a different day.) It is fair to say that both journalism and social media may effectively be broken. Like an old, broken hyperlink they need time and patience to reconnect to a valid source.

NOTES:


[1] How to keep your job in journalism, accessed January 4, 2020.
https://coffeehousejunkie.net/2008/03/08/how-to-keep-your-job-in-journalism/

[2] Ashvegas.com.
https://ashvegas.com/

[3] “How to keep your job in journalism,” by Jason Sandford. First published March 8, 2008, accessed January 4, 2020.
https://coffeehousejunkie.net/2008/06/13/aja-the-flowfield-unity/

[4] “Keeping your job in journalism,” by Robert Niles. First published March 6, 2008, accessed January 4, 2020.
http://www.ojr.org/080305niles/

[5] Accessed January 4, 2020.
https://coffeehousejunkie.net/2008/06/13/aja-the-flowfield-unity/

[6] A 90-second GTD primer, accessed January 4, 2020.
https://coffeehousejunkie.net/2008/08/25/a-90-second-gtd-primer/

[7] “We feel your pain, and we’re sorry,” by Todd Jackson. August 11, 2008, accessed January 4, 2020.
https://gmail.googleblog.com/2008/08/we-feel-your-pain-and-were-sorry.html

[8] “Importing a passion for poetry,” by Sarah Maguire. First published October 6, 2008, accessed January 4, 2020.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2008/oct/06/poetry.in.translation

[9] Poetry, the highest form of art, accessed January 4, 2020.
https://coffeehousejunkie.net/2008/10/08/poetry-the-highest-form-of-art-2/


[10] Unleashing the Ideavirus, by Seth Godin, accessed January 4, 2020.
https://www.hachettebooks.com/titles/seth-godin/unleashing-the-ideavirus/9780786887170/

Remember when you didn’t use your real name on the Internet?

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Facebook is ubiquitous. In many ways it has replaced blogging. As an individual who has been blogging, well, since before the advent of Facebook, there were certain silent codes to blogging. Local bloggers like Edgy Mama, Ashvegas and Modern Peasant (who I recall may have been blogging before the advent of the internet), maintained a third–tier level of intimacy with blog readers. In other words, there were third-tier personal details that were disclosed on blogs, but other more intimate personal details that may or may not be disclosed in real life at local blogger meet ups. It appears that Facebook disregards a third-tier relationship between content provider and content consumer. Here’s a couple of articles I’ve read recently about Facebook.

Some excerpts from Gizmodo: Top Ten Reasons You Should Quit Facebook

10. Facebook’s Terms Of Service are completely one-sided: Facebook’s Terms Of Service state that not only do they own your data (section 2.1), but if you don’t keep it up to date and accurate (section 4.6), they can terminate your account (section 14)….

9. Facebook’s CEO has a documented history of unethical behavior: According to BusinessInsider.com, [Zuckerberg] used Facebook user data to guess email passwords and read personal email in order to discredit his rivals. These allegations, albeit unproven and somewhat dated, nonetheless raise troubling questions about the ethics of the CEO of the world’s largest social network…

8. Facebook has flat out declared war on privacy: Founder and CEO of Facebook, in defense of Facebook’s privacy changes last January: “People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people. That social norm is just something that has evolved over time.” … Essentially, this means Facebook not only wants to know everything about you, and own that data, but to make it available to everybody.

3. Facebook makes it incredibly difficult to truly delete your account

And here’s an excerpt from Wired: Facebook’s Gone Rogue; It’s Time for an Open Alternative

So in December, with the help of newly hired Beltway privacy experts, it reneged on its privacy promises and made much of your profile information public by default. That includes the city that you live in, your name, your photo, the names of your friends and the causes you’ve signed onto.

This spring Facebook took that even further. All the items you list as things you like must become public and linked to public profile pages. If you don’t want them linked and made public, then you don’t get them — though Facebook nicely hangs onto them in its database in order to let advertisers target you.

This includes your music preferences, employment information, reading preferences, schools, etc. All the things that make up your profile. They all must be public — and linked to public pages for each of those bits of info — or you don’t get them at all.

[Read More: http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/05/facebook-rogue/#ixzz0nY6uIYRD]

  • How will you remember anybody’s birthday?
  • How will you hear about parties?
  • You don’t care about privacy anymore. Remember when you wouldn’t use your real name on the Internet?
  • 80 million of you are addicted to Zygna’s Facebook game, FarmVille.

The Internet has allowed access to volumes of data. Yet, some personal details should be maintained behind firewalls or offline. I’m not sure if it’s entirely Facebook’s fault. Facebook users willingly surrender intimate details to the Internet gods. A good, old school blogger rule is this: the Internet is immediate and permanent; only post stuff you want to remain permanent and searchable.

The First Annual BlogAsheville Awards–plus nominations

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The First Annual BlogAsheville Awards

Nominate up to three BlogAsheville blogs in each category … Anyone may nominate blogs in this competition, so please post about it at your blogs and email me the results. Only bloggers on the BlogAsheville blogroll are eligible for nominations. Nominations will close Friday, June 15 at 11:59 pm.

1000 Black Lines has been nominated for:
– Best Writing (twice)
– Best Design (twice)
– Best Local Happenings

1000 Black Lines has NOT been nominated for:
– Blogger you’d most like to see naked
– Blogger I’d Most Like to Have a Beer With

So, take a look at the categories and email your NOMINATIONS to: scrutinyhooligans[AT]yahoo[DOT]com

Nominate 1000 Black Lines before midnight tonight!

Update: 2006 BlogAsheville Award Winners list.

Six Million Blogs

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Listening to The Divorce’s Redcoats and thinking about how Technorati tracks over 6 million blogs, (according to their Web site). How are magazine publishers ever going to make any money with Web logs flooding the information highway? Is this the end of print?

I scan through at least a dozen blogs daily (if not more) and I subscribe to at least four magazines (five if you include The New York Times). Why would anyone buy a paper copy if they can get the same info online for free? Halley’s Comment addresses this idea to some degree. She was pointing out that some Web sites share information while others charge you. Where would you go to get your information fix?

Do you subscribe to a magazine? If so, why?