Andrew Sullivan’s “Why I Blog”

Ichimame, an 19-yea...

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Andrew Sullivan of The Atlantic, a writer I admire, has written an ode to blogging that I like very much. Considering the fact that I’ve suffered from my first real bout of writer’s block over the past few days (thanks to a two-day trip to Rochester, NY, my work on a presentation about Web 2.0 technology, picking up a writing award in Manhattan, and a visit from my two college kids), reading Sullivan again has put me back on the right track.
Blogging is a solitary pursuit, and for me a pursuit that doesn’t pay the bills and attracts only a small (though loyal) audience. So occasionally, I run dry. But posting to my blog is constantly a thought that nags at me, reminds me that I’m still a writer. I might be getting older, I might be on a damned diet again, I might be finding excuses to avoid the gym, but my brain is still working. I want to learn, read and write.
Here’s what Sullivan says about blogging:

You end up writing about yourself, since you are a relatively fixed point in this constant interaction with the ideas and facts of the exterior world. And in this sense, the historic form closest to blogs is the diary. But with this difference: a diary is almost always a private matter. Its raw honesty, its dedication to marking life as it happens and remembering life as it was, makes it a terrestrial log. A few diaries are meant to be read by others, of course, just as correspondence could be—but usually posthumously, or as a way to compile facts for a more considered autobiographical rendering. But a blog, unlike a diary, is instantly public. It transforms this most personal and retrospective of forms into a painfully public and immediate one. It combines the confessional genre with the log form and exposes the author in a manner no author has ever been exposed before.

And when I’m feeling that this is so solitary a pursuit, I’ll try to remember how Sullivan describes the immediacy and companionship provided to a blogger by his readers, commenters and dissenters.

On my blog, my readers and I experienced 9/11 together, in real time. I can look back and see not just how I responded to the event, but how I responded to it at 3:47 that afternoon. And at 9:46 that night. There is a vividness to this immediacy that cannot be rivaled by print. The same goes for the 2000 recount, the Iraq War, the revelations of Abu Ghraib, the death of John Paul II, or any of the other history-making events of the past decade. There is simply no way to write about them in real time without revealing a huge amount about yourself. And the intimate bond this creates with readers is unlike the bond that the The Times, say, develops with its readers through the same events. Alone in front of a computer, at any moment, are two people: a blogger and a reader. The proximity is palpable, the moment human—whatever authority a blogger has is derived not from the institution he works for but from the humanness he conveys. This is writing with emotion not just under but always breaking through the surface. It renders a writer and a reader not just connected but linked in a visceral, personal way. The only term that really describes this is friendship. And it is a relatively new thing to write for thousands and thousands of friends.

The next time I run dry, I’ll return here for water.

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Creativity by Sir Ken Robinson

You will enjoy this 20-minute talk by Sir Ken Robinson at the TED Conference in 2007. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started in 1984 as a conference that brings together people from those three worlds. Since then it has become larger and broader.

The annual TED conference brings together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. The TED website makes the best talks and performances from the conferences available to the public for free. More than 200 talks from the TED archive are currently available. Robinson is an internationally recognized leader in the development of creativity, innovation and human resources. He’s worked with governments in Europe and Asia, international agencies, Fortune 500 companies, and national and state education systems, and cultural organizations that include the Royal Shakespeare Company, Sir Paul McCartney’s Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, and UNESCO. He also was Professor of Arts Education at the University of Warwick, one of the five leading research universities in the UK, for 12 years.

In this video, a must-see for every parent and teacher, Robinson makes a profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures creativity. Enjoy it and share it with colleagues, principals, teachers, and parents you know.

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Techno-Impersonal

BlackBerry user Dou...Image by Getty Images via Daylife

During the past week, I have suffered in a minor way from laptop withdrawal. My mother was visiting me from Florida (which explains my absence from this blog), and I was thoroughly part of the real world — Broadway shows, bus tours, dining out, shopping, conversing, catching up. Every now and then, it would occur to me that my laptop might miss me, but I was bonding with my 75-year-old Mom. And yet, when I sat down to check daily emails and write one freelance piece, she said stuff like: “Wow, does anyone talk anymore?” Or: “Are you always online?”

This week, National Public Radio’s Scott Cameron, Editor of “Talk of the Nation,” noted in the program’s blog that someone in his building “has been known to sit in one of the stalls in the men’s room and click-click-click on his Blackberry while – er – doing his business.”

Why did Cameron bring this up? Because according to a new Sheraton hotels survey of 6,500 traveling executives, 35 percent of them say they would choose their Blackberry (or similar PDA) over their spouses. Another 87 percent said they bring their devices into the bedroom, 84 percent check their emails before going to sleep and 80 percent check their emails as soon as they get up, “before their first cup of coffee.”

Weirder still — 85% peek at their e-mail in the middle of the night. I thought I was bad.

On the flip side, say the Sheraton folks, 84 percent of these professionals said the technology allows them to spend more time out of the office and enjoy more quality time and flexibility with their family and friends.

Mom — I don’t even own a Blackberry. Not yet.

But, as NPR’s Cameron points out, “this is so much bigger than the Blackberry…laptops, PSPs, cell phone, portable DVD players, iPods, all tend to make their way into the covers” (or under the sheets).

Just check out this New York Times story, “Laptop Slides Into Bed in Love Triangle,” as proof. And note that it was published in August 2006.

Send me your comments — do you spend more time with your technology than with your loved ones? Would love to hear your stories.



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Ambient Intimacy? Guilty as Charged

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I was fascinated by Sunday’s New York Times article, “Brave New World of Digital Intimacy,” in which writer Clive Thompson examines the increasing use of social media like Facebook and Twitter. Guilty as charged — it seems the more I use them, the more I rely on them.

The piece looks back at Facebook’s decision to introduce the “News Feed” tool, which initially created a firestorm from users who felt that constant updates about their activities on Facebook was an intrusion. But then, just as suddenly, the tide turned.

In essence, Facebook users didn’t think they wanted constant, up-to-the-minute updates on what other people are doing. Yet when they experienced this sort of omnipresent knowledge, they found it intriguing and addictive. Why?

Thompson’s piece notes that scientists have a name for this kind of nonstop online contact: “ambient awareness.”

It is, they say, very much like being physically near someone and picking up on his mood through the little things he does — body language, sighs, stray comments — out of the corner of your eye. Facebook is no longer alone in offering this sort of interaction online. In the last year, there has been a boom in tools for “microblogging”: posting frequent tiny updates on what you’re doing.

Twitter, of course, is the premiere site for microblogging, where more than 2 million users provide brief updates about themselves, their work, their daily lives, sometimes on a minute-by-minute basis.

The Times article also notes that in 1998, the anthropologist Robin Dunbar argued that every human being has a limit on the number of people he or she can personally know at any one time.  Dunbar estimated that our maximum number of connections would average 150, which is now known as the “Dunbar number.”

So, Thompson asks, are people who use Facebook and Twitter increasing their Dunbar number, because they can keep track of more people? Try adding the number of contacts you have on Facebook and Twitter, as Thompson did for his article. He had 301 contacts on both sites, more than double the Dunbar number.

Check out the Times piece and think about your expanding world for a few minutes.


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The Skinny About Online Press Release Services

Some of you have emailed me asking about online press releases and the companies out there that provide this service. I have done some research, but let me preface this by explaining that many of these companies primarily serve corporations, tech companies and agencies. While I have seen some online press releases created by non-profits, they are in the minority. And these companies tend to be on the expensive side — fair warning.

An alternative to spending big bucks for the services of some of these companies is to simply create your own online press releases, placing them on your web site (if you have a site with a content management system), inserting some social media code that permits readers to give your release more visibility, adding links to any other relevant sites for research purposes, and emailing the local media with links to your releases.

I have just begun doing that, and urge you to see one small example here. This particular example includes related links and I have added a sharethis button for promoting the release on social bookmarking sites. Sharethis is easy to obtain by simply going onto their website and saving the code for their button.

Now, let’s talk about online press release services and the companies that provide them. If I don’t provide a price, it’s because I couldn’t find a price on their website — a sure sign that you might be spending serious bucks:

1. PRNewswire — one of the big players in the online press release business, PRNewswire is used by large companies around the world.  Although I understand their prices are pretty steep, PRNewswire provides a “Nonprofit Toolkit” that you can purchase.

2. eReleases — Another pretty extensive service, which can include writing your press releases, sending them out via database distribution to media outlets, and submitting them to social media. eReleases claims a national press release distribution list of 17,500 sources. The cost? A mere $399 for a press release of 500 words or less.

3. PRleap — A much less extravagant distribution site, which provides many of the services offered by the more well-known companies at an affordable cost — $49 per release.

4. i-Newswire – Finally, an actual free press release website. You can use their template to enter a press release, but understand that you cannot include links in the basic release. For $25 per release, you can upgrade to publish “featured” releases with all the bells and whistles.

5. PRBuzz — For $99 per release, you can easily get online press releases, complete with links, onto this site. PRBuzz also has subpages just for Education releases.

6. OpenPR — This is a fully free press release website that features an easy content tool to enter press release information. With 47,000 releases on the site, it’s one of the smaller players. But you’ll find some Education releases on the site, mostly from education service companies and some colleges.

Remember that some of these sites do offer regional press release distribution services, whihch will drastically reduce your price. If you’re strictly zoning your releases for local distribution, inquire about this option.

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Objections to Social Media at Your Job? Walk This Way…

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Although I’m just getting to this post at ReadWriteWeb, I think it’s so important to read it. Writer Marshall Kirkpatrick lists Ten Common Objections to Social Media Adoption and How You Can Respond. I hear these objections a lot — from colleagues still getting to know this stuff, from superintendents who don’t want to blog because of the reactions they might elicit, from adult students who say they just don’t have the time. But Kirkpatrick says that anyone using this media now should be ready to meet these recalcitrant objections with a handy list of responses. For example, when they groan that “our clients don’t use this stuff/it’s too geeky,” let them know nicely that:

Many of these tools provide value vastly disproportionate to the literal number of people they reach. These are like high-value focus groups where you’ll gather information and preparation to engage with the rest of the world.

Editor and Publisher also featured a story earlier this year that looked at how newspapers need to seriously consider making cultural changes, including more use of social media and the web. (I just heard recently from a handful former newspaper colleagues who’ve suddenly found themselves out of a job, and I’m personally losing money on my Gannett stock.)

For me, as a public relations professional with work in the public education sector, I find myself always urging people to get on board this online media train. I hope they begin to robustly use the tools the web offers them to communicate and to promote their fine schools.

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Lessons Learned: The Gustav Information Center

A lesson for your classes this week — the power of the Internet during a crisis or catastrophe.  The latest example of how the Web joins in to get vital information out is the Gustav Information Center, a wiki created on Ning by Andy Carvin. This wiki, which I joined (see my widget at the bottom of my sidebar), is providing news updates, weather maps, photos, forums and videos. Teams of people are working on getting the word out to families, pet owners and others on a minute-by-minute basis.

It would be a great class lesson to examine the online efforts of individuals and groups to get the message out instantaneously during events like hurricanes, tornados, natural disasters or large-scale violence.

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Help a Reporter — If He Helps You First

OK, so Peter Shankman is a handsome New Yorker with a pretty interesting blog. He writes a lot about keeping in shape, so that’s cool.

But wait — Shankman has a website, helpareporter.com. Not helpareportergethisfactsstraight.com, not helpareporterwriteasentence.com, not helpareporterwithgrammar.com, and not helpareporterfindajob.com. Now there’s an idea.

No, Shankman’s site permits PR folks (and the general public, I guess) to sign up as potential “sources” reporters can query. If you sign up, you get daily emails from Shankman, who does you the big favor of sending reporter queries your way, in case you can provide sources, names, phone numbers, ideas. I guess Shankman’s playing the buff middle man between the Great Fourth Estate and the unwashed masses of PR people. His website also warns us (because God knows we’re so out of control) not to spam reporters with unrelated, baseless attempts to get our “clients” some air time or two inches in the Business section.

Here’s my question — where’s helpaPRperson.com? I dunno, but it seems to me (I “represent” public school districts in New York) that PR people need a lot more help than journalists. I’m always wondering what’s happened to the press and where they’re all hiding. I’m always searching for a warm body with the least bit of interest in education stories. As a former journalist, I know a decent story idea when I see one or pitch one. But there’s never a reporter in sight, at least not in my neck of the woods. What’s a PR person to do? Start a blog? An ENewsletter? Use the Web to manage his own message? Now there’s an idea.

BTW — if you want to helpaPRperson, you know where to find me.

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