Is Cursive Handwriting Dead? Yes, But Productivity and Scribble are Thriving
Lifehacker asks if Cursive Handwriting is Dead? Yes. But thanks to the reasons why, it’s not a sad death, but one of celebration.
You see, I was taught that cursive was important because it would help me take notes in class when I got to college, or to write things down quickly – like in my journal, or when I’m out and about. But that thinking is from an older, paper paradigm. I can just as easily use a voice recorder and software to transcribe a full lecture into text. Or more realistically, just type my notes – and far more cleanly (and searchable) than ever could be done on paper. Cursive 0. Technology 1.
But scribble is up, for when I do write quickly it’s definitely not cursive anymore! (:
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My Visit With Buzz Aldrin, Moonwalker
Yesterday evening, I spent some quality time with moonwalker, Buzz Aldrin, and 250 of his closest fans. We all met in the South Coast Plaza Borders Bookstore for a brief talk with Buzz and a book signing. Although I didn’t get my copy of 2010 signed (or, Buzz Aldrin’s recent nonfiction, Magnificent Desolation [a must read for space nerds!]), I did enjoy an inspirational question and answer with Buzz.
One note from Buzz was particularly memorable for me. Buzz addressing his alcoholism after returning from the moon landing [paraphrased] “All my life I was disciplined… going through my Ph.D. required discipline, and the Space Agency required the highest levels of discipline… after the moon landing, I had realized so many goals, and no longer stayed disciplined… so I slipped into bad alcoholism… but I was saved by the power of love [new marriage].”
Positive guy, moon walker, and concious rapper? Buzz Aldrin: Hero.
If you haven’t picked up the book yet, you may want to check it out at Amazon. Below are some photos of the lecture, and Buzz’ most recent work with Snoop Dogg and Talib Kweli.
Social Evolution – The Atomic Unit of Online Consumption
The atomic unit of online consumption has changed. People no longer want to download full albums, but prefer streaming songs. No longer are full newspapers the medium; headlines instead roll through RSS readers and news aggregators. We are watching more and more TV and movies when we choose – not at regularly scheduled times or in corporate theatres. And the power is shifting more and more in the direction of the consumer (from the content “owner” or “distributer”). It’s a beautiful time to join the content market!
The Atomic Unit of Online Consumption
There’s an intense debate in the US about the future of journalism. Some news organizations say that Google News and other news aggregators need to share revenue with publishers. While Google provides an easy way to opt-out from indexing, news sites need Google’s traffic to gain new visitors. “We don’t want to pull out of the digital ecosystem. We just simply want a fair compensation for the content that we publish,” says Jim Moroney, publisher and chief executive of “The Dallas Morning News”.
Newspapers can’t figure out how to adapt to the online environment and Google is an easy target. News aggregators and search engines are the new destination for news, since users can choose from a lot of different perspectives. Marissa Mayer, Vice President at Google, found an interesting correlation between news articles, songs and short-form videos in her testimony before the US Senate Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet:
The atomic unit of consumption for existing media is almost always disrupted by emerging media. For example, digital music caused consumers to think about their purchases as individual songs rather than as full albums. Digital and on-demand video has caused people to view variable-length clips when it is convenient for them, rather than fixed-length programs on a fixed broadcast schedule. Similarly, the structure of the Web has caused the atomic unit of consumption for news to migrate from the full newspaper to the individual article. As with music and video, many people still consume physical newspapers in their original full-length format. But with online news, a reader is much more likely to arrive at a single article. While these individual articles could be accessed from a newspaper’s homepage, readers often click directly to a particular article via a search engine or another Website.
Changing the basic unit of content consumption is a challenge, but also an opportunity. Treating the article as the atomic unit of consumption online has several powerful consequences. When producing an article for online news, the publisher must assume that a reader may be viewing this article on its own, independent of the rest of the publication. To make an article effective in a standalone setting requires providing sufficient context for first-time readers, while clearly calling out the latest information… Read More.
What do you think?
Becoming a Thought Leader by Creating Controversy with Quality
Becoming a Thought Leader Means Sharing Controversial, Quality Insights.
Thought Leadership is a relatively new term in marketing speak, but deeply relates to established techniques of branding and viral media.
First, the definition:
A thought leader describes a futurist who is recognized for innovative ideas and demonstrates the confidence to promote those ideas as actionable distilled insights (thinklets). [my own, refined from source]
So how do you stick out from the crowd? Being a thought leader requires having an impact on the thinking some set of the general population, after all, doesn’t it? How can you increase your impact and reach in the marketing of thought leadership?
Not so surprisingly, the same methods are used to increase the impact and reach of thought leaders as the methods used to increase the impact and reach of marketing professionals everywhere. Quality and Controversy.
Quality
By “quality”, I mean you have to state what you want to communicate so your reader understands the message. Substance over style. Just because you relay a message doesn’t mean your reader will understand what you’re trying to communicate. For instance, if you’re trying to encourage a group to plant trees on weekends, saying “plant trees on weekends” will probably be understood easier than “come out and join us every Saturday and Sunday for environmentalism at its best!” The latter loses the message of tree planting altogether, whereas the first directly and understandably communicates the message. Quality.
Controversy:
By “controversy” I mean that whatever it is you’re saying it has to be worth talking about. Or in the case of thought leadership, worth thinking about. What you say has to be a contribution to the field you’re discussing. Simply summarizing or rephrasing what your peers are discussing is not leadership at all. Further, controversy will get people talking about the topic you bring up. If the site where you’re publishing your thoughts is optimized, you’ll see an increase in traffic from the repurcussions of convtroversial topics. A percentage of your readers will discuss your controversial topic with others, and a percentage of those folks will Google the topic and a percentage of them will click through to your content. Controversy.
A few good examples of quality and controversy in thought leadership: Science Babble by Scott Adams and Hand Shaking is So Medieval. Let’s End It by Michael Arrington. My attempt at thought leadership with Quality and Controversy: Blog Your Company’s Strategies, Tactics, and Tasks. Remember, you don’t necessarily have to practice the controversial topics you’re encouraging as a thought leader, though I recommend practicing them. Get the wheels turning and eventually, maybe everyone will practice them. Be the catalyst.
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