thinks!

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As a veteran writer, I’ve always pondered a medium that has me thinking about audience before content.  It took me quite a while to find my voice in the advertising/marketing industry for the same reason.  The filters of censorship one must consider before pressing “cook” on a message that goes out to the known world are myriad and stymieing.  So why am I drawn to such a giant of intrusiveness and exposure?  Why, as a business person and a writer and a human being with an honest-to-goodness, flesh-and-blood community, would I continue to embrace a tool where misstep can cause misery, and there are no undo, undo, undo buttons once you’ve pressed the “share” key.  (Well, there are, but it can be too late.)

I think my answer has much to do with Joan Didion’s oft-regurgitated aphorism about “writing so I know what I think.”  Making one’s thoughts public takes that a step further.  I post on Facebook so others know what I think.  As a business owner then, it’s not a stretch to call this a fundamental part of “brand building.”  Facebook, Twitter, blogging, these are our culture’s most contemporary methods for direct brand-building.  On the other hand, it’s also an interface for brand-bashing.  If you’ve followed some of the Facebook faux pas of late, you’ll realize that social media is a two-way street, and sometimes cars come at you on your side of the road!

Take the Nestle debacle, for instance.  Admonishing your customers publicly is the biggest type of public relations suicide an industry can demonstrate.  Then there was the Dominoes Pizza fiasco.  Companies that aren’t offering employees social media and Internet sharing guidelines are finding out the hard way that YouTube can be a disgruntled worker’s best revenge.

Folks, communication is just different now.  We’ve all got access to that little red button that can topple fortunes, kings and friendships.  If we’re going to have to “like” Facebook and its inevitable offspring, then we’re going to have to learn how, as writers and speakers, to measure twice and cut once.  Our busy team at BridgePoint Creative is working on learning how to do just that.

Smith (The Five Patterns of Extraordinary Careers) examines the commonalities among individuals who transcended their dull day jobs to launch truly extraordinary careers. He is most taken with identifying what precipitated their leap into authentic and meaningful work, interviewing hundreds of people to craft replicable steps that everyone can use to initiate a personal and professional evolution and achieve remarkable success without taking reckless and unnecessary risks. His examples of highly profitable leaps include Sara Blakely, who went from a fax machine sales person to the owner of SPANX, a highly successful women’s clothing line; Frances Hesselbein, who went from a stay-at-home mom to the executive director of Girl Scouts of America; and Brad Margus, who channeled his feelings of futility over the rare and terminal disease his two sons inherited to become a genetics expert on the National Advisory Neurological Disorders and Stroke Council. Smith’s book—a lively readable romp—motivates without preaching and gently coaxes readers to overcome innate fears and to use their greatest passions to bring about fulfillment.

Aria Wallace plays the character Mandy on iCarly, and stars in the Nickelodeon Roxy Hunter series.  Her public unplugging will include daily vlog entries on her blog where she’ll post insights and observations on her 40-day sojourn.

Books worth reading are ones readers can immerse themselves in, savor.  The box office bar should not be applied to the print medium, imho, and I wholeheartedly agree with this little piece of wisdom from Miriam’s entry: “What I really object to in today’s article (among other things better left for other blog posts) is the notion that books are like the latest Tom Cruise or Will Smith movie, that opening weekend grosses are more important than overall sales (and an author’s career), and that books are going to find themselves in the remainder bins as quickly as one of those films goes to DVD because they don’t sell out their entire print runs within the allotted 10 days of co-op placement.”

has a style I was immediately drawn to a few years back when I came across her “Begin to Hope ” album.

Now, with “far,” she continues to compose and sing hitting notes and flights of fancy so particular to her brand of lyric majesty, to listen to her is only outmatched by listening AND watching her.  She’s coming to P-Town on November 1st, where she’ll play at the always intimate and rocking Roseland.  Don’t miss it!

A month ago, I still had a third of the book to write, and lamented my inability to prioritize its finishing.  I made that complaint in front of various members of my writing group—all prolific and successful authors who were tired of my whining.  They challenged me to complete the novel by October 1, or deliver myself to the consequence.  And what was the consequence you ask? My hair would be clipped to Bob-length.  Now, that doesn’t sound terrible, right?  But the nature of my hair without the weight that length provides it, is to become a horizontal nightmare seeking eternal latitude. Think of a rust-colored dandelion gone to seed.  No thank you.

So, in a process inspired more by vanity than resolve, I finished the sucker an hour before deadline.  Whew.  And thank you, writing group, for whipping me with the threat of lost locks.