Category Archives: Doing

Readers Crave Destinations

Last Decem­ber I offered my two cents on what’s hap­pen­ing with blog­ging in response to Jere­mi­ah Owyang’s provoca­tive post that pro­nounced the gold­en era of tech blog­ging dead. Now, I’m not sure how peo­ple feel about that a few months on, but some­thing that’s stuck with me is how we gath­er infor­ma­tion online today. Sure, we’re hav­ing lots of “con­ver­sa­tions,” but read­ers still crave destinations.

Good writ­ers know that in order to get any­one to look at any­thing online, you need a hook. When we share links on Twit­ter and Face­book, they’re only inter­est­ing if you can tease peo­ple to click into the sto­ry. We’re all writ­ing head­lines for every­thing we share with the online com­mu­ni­ty. To me that means we still need blogs, websites…anywhere you can put lots of words and ideas next to each other.

We like info snack­ing, but we’re real­ly picky eaters. Giv­en the amount of infor­ma­tion that’s out there it’s only fair that read­ers only sam­ple what they like at the con­tent buf­fet. But make no mis­take, cura­tion takes more than the almighty “con­ver­sa­tion.” So, writ­ers, don’t despair: read­ers still crave the yum­my con­tent that’s always made the web great.

Remember Your Passions

Some­one con­tact­ed me recent­ly to do a sto­ry about Bring Your A’s Game, my quest to bring the Oak­land Ath­let­ics back to Philadel­phia, and it real­ly sparked my imag­i­na­tion about the cam­paign again. Last sum­mer was great: the A’s came back to town for inter­league; we had fun at Mem­phis Tap­room’s beer gar­den, and we even ral­lied for a Sat­ur­day night game at the ball­park. I had a great time meet­ing peo­ple, young and old, and talk­ing to them about the A’s and base­ball and Philadelphia.

Then things stalled a bit. What do you do next? Sure, these things are long, drawn out affairs, so how do you get peo­ple to pay atten­tion to your sto­ry? The answer, at least for me, is to remem­ber the pas­sion that drove me to it in the first place. I want to con­nect Philadel­phi­a’s rich base­ball his­to­ry to some­thing in the present. I want to get peo­ple excit­ed about a crosstown rival­ry that has­n’t exist­ed in near­ly 60 years. It’s not easy.

What awoke in me as I talked about what moti­vat­ed me to start Bring Your A’s Game was the fun of it. Most­ly when I talk about it, I expect­ed peo­ple to have the kind of reac­tion Gargano did when I talked to him in the sum­mer of ’10, which is to say, com­i­cal­ly neg­a­tive. I’m often stunned when peo­ple agree that Philadel­phia not only could sup­port two ball­clubs, but that it should. Maybe they don’t all like the Bring Your A’s Game page, but it’s a good feel­ing to not be laughed out of the court of pub­lic opin­ion. So I want to do more of it.

I men­tioned last week on the long neglect­ed Bring Your A’s Game blog and now I’m seri­ous. I’d love to find new ways to con­nect to new audi­ences, espe­cial­ly those that aren’t base­ball mad. I want to wage this con­ver­sa­tion with folks who don’t know any­thing about base­ball, but who like provoca­tive, dis­rup­tive ideas. If you know of such a forum, let me know and I’ll pre­pare accordingly.

The only way to tru­ly real­ize your pas­sions is to engage oth­ers who don’t share them and invite them to join you. It’s invig­o­rat­ing and a vital way to keep the cre­ative juices flow­ing. Try it. You’ll be glad you did.

How’s 2012 Treating You?

How’s 2012 treat­ing you so far? Things have been insane­ly busy here. I’ve been hack­ing my job like a boss so far and the out­come is just what I expect­ed: a heap­ing pile of excit­ing, engag­ing work on my plate. Feel real­ly lucky to be doing what I’m doing where I’m doing it. Can’t share too much, but I think many of you out there will be sur­prised by some of the things cook­ing at my day job.

Can’t stress enough to “cre­atives” that work is only as fun as you make it. Do good work and you’ll impress some­one. Phon­ing it in not only makes you mis­er­able, it also means you have noth­ing to show for your misery.

But enough about work. Con­tin­ue read­ing “How’s 2012 Treat­ing You?”

The Last Guy on Flickr

Did some­thing last week that I know most of you will think is crazy: I bought two more years on Flickr. Trust me, I think it’s pret­ty crazy, too. 

I used Insta­gram for a while, but I real­ized those pics are trapped in an ecosys­tem that’s just as com­pli­cat­ed as Flickr, but with­out sets and at much low­er resolution. 

Pri­va­cy is impor­tant, too. Flickr offers me options. I don’t need to broad­cast every­thing. If I want to share, I’ll twit­pic and be done with it. Fil­ters are nice, but a bit gim­micky and square pho­tos have meant that more than one great image of my son crops his head off when I try to print. Bum­mer, that.

To top it off, I have a ton of pho­tos host­ed on Flickr, going back six years. Do I wish I’d snagged my real name instead of my ’00s alias? Yes, but they’re mem­o­ries, no mat­ter how sil­ly the permalink.

Am I afraid of what might hap­pen in the near future at Flickr? Of course. The Deli­cious spin­off went about as bad­ly as pos­si­ble. But I have to believe that Flickr can be adapt­ed to a more social mobile expe­ri­ence that still deliv­ers what peo­ple loved about the ser­vice when they first bought a pro account. At least I hope so.

So ‘fess up: who still uses and enjoys Flickr? Let’s connect!

Unfollowing Is Hard

One of my dig­i­tal New Year’s Res­o­lu­tions was to “go pro” on Twit­ter. I’m near­ly there and I can tell you it’s not easy. For me it’s meant unfol­low­ing and plug­ging folks into lists or just dis­con­nect­ing alto­geth­er in order to pay atten­tion to things that are, you know, work-relat­ed. In some cas­es it means sev­er­ing ties with old co-work­ers, high school class­mates and vibrant locals in exchange for nation­al and region­al media, cur­rent co-work­ers and influ­encers. It’s a win­dow into their process, some­thing that would­n’t have been pos­si­ble a decade ago, and it’s more impor­tant to my work than ever. Thing is, has this trans­for­ma­tion sucked all the fun out of Twit­ter and Face­book?Con­tin­ue read­ing “Unfol­low­ing Is Hard”