I have tried and dismissed a number of personal organizational systems over time, but none of them has lasted as long or served me as well as my current system: my life and all of its to-do lists are managed on the back of used envelopes.
Before I tell you more about how it works, let me first assure you that I've tried the alternatives: Continue reading "My Envelope Organizational System"
Like many people of diverse political affiliations, I bristled during the Republican National Convention when various speakers including VP candidate Sarah Palin made fun of "community organizer" as a worthwhile way of spending time.
It wasn't problematic for me because the attack was being used against candidate Barack Obama, although I didn't find it to be an effective or useful expression of concern about his qualifications. Instead, I think that it was just plain insulting to the many people in communities across the world who devote their time and energy to making their local communities better places to live. Further, I think it was a hypocritical and problematic assertion given some of the other selling points being used to present Palin and McCain to voters. Here's why: Continue reading "Making fun of Community Organizers"
This is my inventory of the false or misleading choices presented to us in the mainstream narrative of how we select the President of the United States. They're presented by our culture, our media, our parents, our friends. They're presented as "the way things have always been" and "get on board with this or you'll be left behind" and "don't be an idealistic fool by believing anything else" They're presented with confidence and vigor, and they're spread far and wide: Continue reading "False choices in selecting the American President"
I attend a variety of public lectures at Earlham College here in Richmond, and while the speakers are usually quite satisfactory in both content and style, I find myself repeatedly shocked at how poorly some of the students conduct themselves in the Question and Answer segment of the programs. Self-absorbed, oft-incoherent, rambling diatribes are unfortunately a recurring experience, and even just a few minutes of this can completely change the sense of how the event went overall - and perhaps determine what impression the guest speaker takes out into the world about our community. (Surely neither I nor my peers were like that when I was a student there, right?)
I always make a mental note to write down some suggestions for improving this situation, and now that the academic year is ramping up again with plenty of lectures and convocations on the schedule, I thought I'd hold forth. So, here are my 5 tips for how to get the most out of Q & A time at public lectures: Continue reading "5 ways to maximize Q&A time at public lectures"
It's been a while since I posted one of these, here are a few highlights from my Delicious link feed:
This past weekend I attended Blog Indiana 2008, a conference by and for bloggers in the region, which I mentioned here a few months ago. Overall, I would call the event quite a success. For $50, participants had access to a weekend packed full of rich and informative sessions, great networking opportunities with friendly and good-natured people, good food, and a lot of fun - a pretty excellent deal by most measures, especially in the world of tech conferences.
I really appreciated that it was a "grassroots" conference, organized by Noah Coffey and Shawn Plew of Indianapolis, and not a big corporate conference organized by people trying to sell us stuff. Sure, there were corporate sponsors (Summersault was one of them), and there were some grumblings about session leaders spending too much time promoting their own products/services. But on the whole, this was a group of people who are passionate about new media and wanted to get together to see what else was out there, talk about some of the issues that come up, and just get to know each other better. Oh, and we also totally geeked out on Twitter.
Continue reading "Blog Indiana 2008 Reflections"
This is a republishing of a series of blog posts looking at the pal-item.com Terms of Service, discussing what they actually mean and how they might impact your use of the Palladium-Item website. (The Palladium-Item is Richmond, Indiana's daily newspaper.) You can view the original posts where they appeared on the Pal-Item site: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.
The pal-item.com Terms of Service (TOS) are the policies and terms that the Palladium-Item and its parent corporation, Gannett, have set forth for the use of their website at pal-item.com. When you visit the site in your web browser, you are subject to those terms. Opinions vary about whether the TOS can be considered a legal contract between you and the Palladium-Item, and how enforceable the terms might be. But one thing is clear: as websites like pal-item.com become more interactive and encourage more user submission of content, it’s in your best interest to understand these terms and how they affect you. Continue reading "Discussion of Pal-Item.com Terms of Service"
Earlier this year, I kind of made fun of Twitter. And people who use Twitter. I kind of called them things like "insane" and "isolated" and "distracted." I would like to officially apologize to anyone who felt offended by those statements.
Completely unrelated, I'm now trying out Twitter myself. I could tell you that I'm not doing it for the fame or the money or the inevitable product endorsement requests I'll get. I could tell you that it's purely a professional endeavor as I continue to try to keep my finger on the pulse of Internet culture. I could tell you about how I'm trying out different Twitter interfaces, APIs, applications, and related tools as a part of research for various projects.
All of these things might be true to some degree, but really, at some base level, I don't know why I'm doing it, and I reserve the right to pull the eject handle at any time. But for now - cringe - I'm there.
In a few weeks, I'm presenting at the Blog Indiana 2008 conference, and my first session is on "blogging basics." My hope is that anyone with any comfort level around blogs and website tools will be able to leave the session with what they need to know to start blogging that day.
I'm putting together my own notes and tools for bloggers just starting out, but I thought I would also put the question out to you, constant readers, about what tips, tools and conventions you would have found useful or even essential when you first entered the world of blogging? Even if you're not an active blogger, I'd still enjoy hearing your thoughts on how you think blogs (especially newly formed ones) can be made more useful, engaging, exciting, etc.
What advice would you give to a blogger just starting out?
John McCain's presidential campaign is making a big mistake with its television ads that continue to portray Barack Obama as, essentially, too much of a good thing. They reinforce the framing that Obama is a rock star, a mega celebrity, a dignitary on the world stage, and then expect that simply by calling our attention to the contrast between that persona and the image of a stodgy and reserved President who sits in the Oval Office making important decisions all day, they can sway the voters toward McCain.
Huh?
Continue reading "Negative ads, fatal errors from the McCain campaign"
