'Wanna paint this fence?'

Excellent article on how we are all being suckered into creating value for others -- and jumping at the chance to do so.

Love the comparison to Tom Sawyer: "Just imagine if Tom had also schooled them in the networking opportunities of the user-generated endeavor: 'You’re not just painting a fence. You’re building an audience around your personal brand.'"

At Media Companies, a Nation of Serfs (NYT)

Thomas Goetz: It's time to redesign medical data | Video on TED.com

Thomas Goetz: It's time to redesign medical data | Video on TED.com

This is an excellent talk about how something so seemingly simple, a better-designed medical report, could be of huge consequence to the patient. Look at how the use of color and graphics eases a patient's understanding of these generally hard-to-understand reports.

I is a gradjut student

Well, why not? Directly across the hall from my PR office is the office and class space for the Master of Science in Publishing program at University of Houston-Victoria.

It's a forward-looking program, especially for a small university. They do a lot of publishing of experimental prose and have acquired a couple of small presses. I'm looking forward to learning more about the book biz, and seeing what's happening on the digital front.

I have ordered books for the two classes I'm taking -- Style & Editing and Advanced Publishing. We're using the Chicago Manual of Style in one class, and looking at InDesign Type, plus a wood type, fontsy book for the texts. We'll be working with InDesign CS5, for which I am SO GLAD, because I have only used Microsoft Word since September, and that'll drive a man nuts.

It'll take me a while to finish, but I could teach some classes once I have 18 hours under my belt. It's a growing university and an inventive (also growing) program, so there's no telling what I could end up doing. It's part of a cool, new journey and I'm excited about it.

Author interview - Jayne Anne Phillips

Jayne Anne Phillips
(Elena Seibert photo)

We have a prose heavy kicking off the UHV/American Book Review Spring Reading Series. Jayne Anne Phillips will read here Thursday, Jan. 27. She has won, or been nominated for, many major literary awards, and her prose is so real, the ties between her characters so palpable. She's also from a small town, so I feel a kinship there, though our rural upbringings don't mean we're all gifted with the pen.

Phillips told me she's looking forward to some Texas barbeque and warmer weather. She is in Newark (under a blanket of snow and ice) where she directs the MFA in Creating Writing at Rutgers-Newark. She is good friends with UHV's Dagoberto Gilb, so hopefully we'll get to hang for a while.

"Lark & Termite" is her latest. It's gotten rave reviews, as has all her work.

http://www.uhv.edu/car/newswire/release.asp?id=1039

Costly Mistakes | American Journalism Review

Costly Mistakes | American Journalism Review

In this AJR piece, John Morton's got some very good points. You can look at about any daily paper in the nation and it is a shadow of its 2003 self. Still a lot of quality work being done, but trimming of staffs was necessary considering the drop in revenues. We all, big and small papers alike, were giving it away for free.

Still, as a left-leaner, I wish all these corporations that own so many papers would be more realistic about a lower profit margin and stop trying to live up to the 30 percent they were making back in the 1970s and early 1980s. The bean counters have definitely affected the quality of newspapers.

You can almost trace the acceptance of newspaper site pay walls along generational lines. One young consultant I know sings "Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead" every time a site drops their pay wall. But others, mostly a little longer in the tooth, know that it costs money to produce, so why would you throw it out for free?

We put up a pay wall for our weekly newspaper and heard some griping, but we also more than doubled our electronic subscription count over a year.

I also watched a discussion with Hollywood "super agent" Ari Emmanuel and while it didn't deal with newspaper, it did deal with digital content. He says people in Silicon Valley are naive if they think movies and other created content should be free. He said it's simply theft to take it, even if it is easy to take.

The best thing I heard at the last newspaper convention I attended was that this transformation to digital is a 50-year process and we are still in the toddler years. It's best that newspapers: Stay on top of what is happening; try some things and stop others that aren't working; and, most importantly, realize that no matter what you do, it's going to change again, probably sooner than you would like.

Personally, I don't believe there is anything wrong with charging for the service you provide. No one, from publishers to producers to prostitutes, is going to stay in business long if they give it all away for free.

Author interview - E. Ethelbert Miller

I feel I have no business interviewing poets because the craft is lost on me. I am anxious that everything they say will be deep and I'll be unable to process or decipher what he or she means, thanks to my country bumpkin, community journalism background.

But E. Ethelbert Miller, whom I had a chance to interview last week, was very down to earth. Though still active in social justice issues for African-Americans, he doesn't have traditional Southern African-American roots. His roots are in Barbados and he was raised in the South Bronx before moving to Washington, D.C. for his college studies.

He is a very influential man in American Letters and I liked that he said he feels he should speak up "for people who are not in the room," whether that be an overlooked African-American artist or someone from Utah who is ignored by the New York publishing establishment.

I can't wait to hear his talk here at UHV. Though many give poets the back of their hand, this man's work and advocacy are important, especially in today's ideologue-dominated world.

http://www.uhv.edu/car/newswire/release.asp?id=1004

Aaaaand the other side of the advertising coin....

From the "What were they thinking" category....

Funny/disturbing advertisements.

http://www.businessblogshub.com/2010/11/are-these-the-worst-ads-ever-created/