Archive for the 'Blogging' Category

Defending Social Media

Published by Taylor on February 2, 2009 in Blogging, Computing, Culture, Facebook, Lifestyle, Privacy, Social Networks and Web 2.0. Comments

Reader Jared (not Jarred) left a lengthy comment on my post about what I feel is our growing need and ability to create and share content.  In short: our attraction to social media.  I want to pull out what I think is the essence of Jared’s concern, because it merits a more complete response:

Dig[ital] interconnectedness, to me, connotes an element of dystopic irony, a warning that we might not end up getting what we want out of this, and someday find that while social media was created and driven by a fundamental desire and longing for connection…it left that behind at some point in the past. [...]

The more data and content we create, the more noise. We keep finding more noise, more noise, more noise everywhere. White noise. [...]

It’s good stuff, this Internet….as long as we know what we’re getting ourselves into.

The issue of useless “white noise” comes up a lot.  The fact that the web is for all purposes infinite, and the information online limitless, makes the idea of constant content creation by an ever-expanding group of people seem completely overwhelming.  “I can’t even find time to read all the online articles in the NY Times every day” we think to ourselves; “My Google Reader is up to 4,000 unread items!  I don’t need MORE content–I’m barely keeping up with what I’ve already chosen to follow!”

Questioning whether the social media we use and follow will allow us to connect and grow in meaningful ways is almost completely tied to the issue of noise.  After all, absent the noisy distractions that Jared describes, the Internet would be an incredibly useful place.  Anyone who skims through the comments section of any popular YouTube video (a phenomenon captured brilliantly by XKCD) understands the limits of the current social web: when everyone speaks with equal weight and access, a lot of useless and ignorant crap is published online.

But let me argue that the proliferation and widespread adoption of social media–even in the midst of more noise–will be a good thing for a few reasons:

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How Blogging Changed Me (For the Better)

Published by Taylor on December 12, 2008 in Blogging. Comments

Andrew Sullivan wrote a terrific essay on blogging in which he said:

For bloggers, the deadline is always now. Blogging is therefore to writing what extreme sports are to athletics: more free-form, more accident-prone, less formal, more alive. It is, in many ways, writing out loud. [...]

To blog is therefore to let go of your writing in a way, to hold it at arm’s length, open it to scrutiny, allow it to float in the ether for a while, and to let others [...] pivot you toward relative truth. A blogger [...] can provoke discussion or take a position, even passionately, but he also must create an atmosphere in which others want to participate.

That sentiment is in many ways how blogging has changed my life and perspective.  To blog–in the purest and most engaging sense– is to be vulnerable.  Blogging means pressing forward with sometimes whimsical or under-developed ideas; it means relying on often-times sharp-tounged commentors who will tell you that you’re wrong/stupid/crazy in no uncertain terms…but who will also introduce new ideas and perspectives to what would otherwise be an internal thought process.

That’s how I’ve changed through blogging.  I’m less likely to deliberate quietly on an issue and instead more likely to provoke debate.   I’m quicker to throw my thoughts or beliefs into the (modest) spotlight and more likely to change my mind.  I’m thicker skinned and more aware of what I don’t know as well as those beliefs that I consider core to my being.  I’ve opened up, to a potentially limitless audience, and I’m stronger for it.

But blogging is about more than vulnerability.  It’s about finding new and creative ways to parse our inner struggles–be those issue debates, political choices, career decisions, or relationship woes–in the public square, engaging an audience and finding what I think of as the generalizable lessons or questions in the personal detail.  This is, by itself, stepping out on a limb but it’s also a healthy way of maintaining perspective.  A readable blog can’t be overly self-pitying or boastful, and in that sense blogging forces me to consider a larger picture and an audience that cares not about me but about the topics of my post.

Blogging is sometimes stressful.  When I neglect the blog for days at a time (as I have all too frequently in the past few months) I feel the same guilt that I felt when I procrastinated on final papers in college.  The web never sleeps, and blog posts don’t write themselves, but that too has been a lesson.  We’re fortunate enough to live in a world with endless information, issues and questions worthy of our attention, and smart people to learn from.  But we can’t cover it all.  Blogging has forced me to focus, to recognize that sometimes being connected to the latest information must be secondary to offline or unplugged reflection.  When I neglect the blog I feel as though I’m neglecting my audience to be sure, but more importantly and more deeply I feel that I’m missing an important part of my growth as an individual.  

I have a few modest examples of how writing a blog has opened doors for me in my career and life, but the most signficant way that blogging has changed my life is by habitualizing my thinking and reflection in a way that exposes me to more ideas and viewpoints than I could ever hope to consider through my own (previously) silent intake of information.

Blogging Your Passions (or, How I Got Into Google)

Published by Jarred on October 7, 2008 in Blogging and Careers. Comments

Robert Scoble, a famous tech personality in Silicon Valley, is hiring an assistant.  In a post expressing his frustrations with the résumés he’s received so far, he lets the candidates know the best way to stand out: blog.  Sure Scoble’s hiring for a “tech” position, but I am confident that blogging is going to play an increasingly prominent role as a qualification for all sorts of opportunities.  Unfortunately, this aspect of the Web’s impact is not getting as prominent a place as the warnings against expsoing too much about yourself on Facebook.  This tone damages the conversation, overemphasizing the paranoia and neglecting (if not rejecting) the positive possibilities.  I want to change that tone, and that’s what this post is all about.

Scare Tactics

Over the past few years, there’s been a lot of commotion about how companies, and even universities nowadays, are investigating the digital “breadcrumbs” left across the Internet by candidates for employment/admission.  Whether doing a simple Google search to see what appears in the top few results, or using dedicated tools to “check between the sofa cushions”, if you will: those whom we seek to impress are taking more and more seriously our online behavior.  (On an interesting side note, Spokeo — which I covered in one of my first posts on this blog — has begun advertising itself as a tool for HR professionals to do “deep social search” on job candidates).

I’ll never forget the story my friend Henry told me of his first day at the White House as an intern last year.  As they walked into one of their orientations, there was a projector and screen set up showing slideshow.  The images being projected were drawn from the public albums of the new interns’ Facebook profiles; you can imagine that a good number of those pictures were, well… not flattering.  When the nervous interns were settled uncomfortably in their seats, they had a nice little talking-to about how they were the face of the White House, how all these images could be accessed and republished by anyone, etc.  Luckily for Henry, he had previously (and famously) sanitized his profile to include only the following message: “I’d rather talk to you in person.”

“Be careful what you leave behind,” the experts and mainstream media tell us.  This is certainly fair advice.  What they fail to point out are the many positive ways in which we can embrace the idea of the “perpetual digital dossier”, and harness it to really take ourselves places.

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Making Twitter Work for the Masses

Published by Jarred on September 30, 2008 in Blogging, Business, Politics and Web 2.0. Comments

Back in February, I attempted to demystify Twitter for the non-tech oriented.  The service was (and still is) trying to find its place in the crowded marketplace of tech innovations.  It’s been plagued by serious downtime, and has even had to cut back on some of its features in order to provide more stability.  While it continues to slowly gain recognition outside the narrow audience of technophiles, it still suffers from a big problem: you can’t explain it to your grandmother in just a few sentences.

The easiest way I know how to explain Twitter is as a “microblogging system” or “a tricked out Facebook status update”.  In my blog post I called it a combination of text messaging, Facebook status, blogging, and instant messaging.  Little to none of that would make sense to someone who doesn’t own a computer.  Of course, it’s not like those people are the audience for Twitter.  But if you can’t quickly and easily explain your product to audiences that aren’t already embedded in these developments, how can you become relevant or attractive to them?

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Web Celebrations: The Return of Full RSS Feeds

Published by Taylor on July 29, 2008 in Blogging. Comments

Last week I griped about Mental Floss (one of my very favorite blogs) truncating their RSS feed.  At the time I wrote:

Enter the most recent source of my web-frustration: Mental Floss.  I’ve read the Mental Floss blog (which is absolutely terrific) for about a year and a half.  While catching up on their prolific feed after a week of travel, I discovered that in early July they switched from a glorious and full feed to a sloppy partial feed.  I’m pissed.

Maybe I’m an atypical feed reader, but I suspect not.  The truth is, a partial feed decreases the likelihood that I’ll read something by approximately 100%.  [...] When content providers refuse to provide a full feed, they disrupt [my] information flow.  As a result, I read less of their material.  In other words, don’t be surprised if fewer Mental Floss items end up in my Monday Links or anywhere else on this site.  I still receive the (partial) feed, but I’m. Not. Reading. It.

Harsh I know, but hey: that’s why I have a blog.  Well folks, it brings me great joy to share this *breaking* news:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE. Birmingham, ALA. Today, at 4:15pm EST, the editorial board of mental_floss magazine kept their promise to  readers and turned their blog’s RSS feed back to full blast. The feed had been temporarily disabled due to hacking issues. The gushing stream of full RSS stories hitting inboxes around the nation was quickly followed by cheers heard across America, and the popping of champagne corks distribution of celebratory juice boxes around the magazine’s headquarters.
“This is a great day for mental_floss and this is a great day for our readers!” exclaimed a triumphant Will Pearson, President of the company. “But mostly this is a great day for mental_floss.” The comment was nearly drowned out by the thunderous sounds of high-fiving and back patting taking place.

Well done, Floss Nation.  In honor of their editors seeing the light, I hereby shamelessly plug the geektacular shirts available in the Mental Floss store.

It’s a web celebration (a webebration?).  Ball’s in your court now, Freakonomics.

Image used under a Creative Commons license courtesy of Flickr user ~Twon~.