In a recent Ask Leo! on Business post I discussed several reasons that people avoid writing content for their websites. One of those reasons I’ll refer to here as the fear of not being able to please everyone.
The problem is simply failing to realize that everyone is not your customer.
This 2014 article from The Washington Post says it all: Americans read headlines. And not much else. This 2013 post on Slate is entertaining and informative, if you read it all the way through, which apparently you won’t: You Won’t Finish This Article.
As a writer who tries to inform and educate, it’s frustrating. As a reader, it’s completely understandable.
And as a man of a certain age, I’ll also claim that it’s nothing new.
I’ve often wanted to ask candidates for various representational positions in government a very simple question: “who do you represent?”
Or, perhaps more specifically, “how do you represent?”
There are several possible answers, and at least a couple of them are very valid. And yet the answer shines a very interesting light on exactly how government might work.
How do you know what is and is not true?
I mean, how do you know?
It’s always been a tough question, but it seems even more difficult of late because of the explosion of fake news and information sources. How does one separate the wheat from the chaff?
I’m not sure I have an answer to this critically important question.
Today’s post will appear elsewhere, on another day. 🙂
Technically I’m “retired”. I left Microsoft in 2001 at the age of 44, a few years after some numbers on a spreadsheet said I could afford to.
I’ve been working hard ever since.
It’s trendy to bad-mouth social media right now as the source for all things fake and misleading.
Social media is not the problem. It’s a problem, in a sense, but it is not the problem.
There’s an interesting fall-out to this year’s election season: an amazing amount of “Monday morning quarterbacking”.
With the election results being what they are, it’s difficult to read much media that doesn’t include someone’s attempt at explaining exactly why things turned out the way they have, as well as trying to understand exactly why it seemed such a big surprise.
I realized yesterday that the election results have impacted me at a deeper level than I originally anticipated it would. I posted on Facebook that I was still in the throes of “post-election depression”. My productivity and ability to focus has been impacted. I’ve had a difficult time actually sitting down to write content for Ask Leo! as I have in the past, for example.
One person mentioned the five stages of grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. It’s a model that seems to fit, and I’m currently, and solidly, at stage four.
Falling back to meditative practice and even some Buddhist philosophy, the key to moving on would appear to be gratitude. How timely, then, that tomorrow is Thanksgiving.
The solution to one problem is merely the creation of the next one. – Mark Manson(†)
Common thinking is that a life without problems would be idyllic. “Not a care in the world” is the operative phrase. Sitting on a beach, sipping Mai-Tai’s is another vision.
Even if it were possible, thanks, but no thanks.
I don’t consider myself a conservative. But then I also don’t consider myself a liberal. Rather than aligning myself with one set of policies or philosophies my approach is to take it all one issue, or one candidate, at a time. I’d probably call myself a “free thinker”, but I’m afraid that term has overly-liberal connotations to those on the right.
One of the things that this recent election cycle has made crystal clear is the existence of, and the dramatic impact, of what we’ve come to refer to as the “echo chamber”. By exposing ourselves to only those ideas and ideals with which we agree we deny ourselves the opportunity to objectively evaluate opposing views and values. If you lean liberal, for example, not only are you more attracted to like-thinking opinions and sources of information, but social media – specifically Facebook – reinforces that environment by showing primarily things that agree with its perception of what you “like”, and are thus more likely to interact with.
This isn’t good. This isn’t healthy. This isn’t how rational and reasonable discourse happens.
This is how polarization happens.
I mentioned in an earlier post that my “one word” was “learning”, or rather, my more comfortable version: “always learning”.
It’s more than just seeking out opportunities for more knowledge.
Being a “jack of all trades” gets a bad rap.
The traditional criticism is that instead of doing one thing very well, a jack of all trades does a number of things poorly. The full title in cases like this is “jack of all trades, master of none”.
I am unabashedly a jack of all trades. I’m quite proud of it, for that matter.
And I don’t think the whole “master of none” thing either applies or matters.
As part of a recent talk to a group of university students, I emphasized my biggest “if I had to do it over again” thought: I wished I’d spent more time in English class. The big lesson was that I’d undervalued writing and communication skills as I made my way through school. In hindsight that was a mistake.
It’s something I’ve written about before. I wished I’d done things a little differently and invested more time and energy on those skills.
I’m a lucky guy.
I’m truly grateful for the many moments, coincidences and random events that lead me to where I am today.
So, if I’m so lucky, why do I say there’s no such thing?
Having a discussion with someone and the concept of who (not what) I’m writing for came to mind.
This personal blog is easy: I’m writing purely for myself, and anyone that cares to pay attention is welcome to do so. Similarly, everyone else that cares to ignore it is also more than welcome to do that, too.
No, this is more about my professional writing efforts over at Ask Leo!.
It’d be easy to sit back after this election cycle and honestly wonder what happened to humanity.
I just signed up for a monthly cash donation to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), increasing my support of that organization.
I want to share a little about why.
I’m not expecting anyone who reads this to follow suit … though of course, it’d be great if you did. What am expecting is that if you’ve read this far you’re open to thinking about the issues at hand, and taking action that you feel is appropriate in the face of changes in the current political climate.
Our ideas are precious, especially to ourselves.
However it is that we arrive at them, we come to believe that they have immense value – so much so that we often consider them more than mere ideas or opinions, but elevate them to “The Truth”.
Our ideas make the leap from opinion to fact.
Yes, there is always hope. Hope is not a binary, yes/no condition. Hope is not absolute.
When we ask whether or not there is hope, what we’re really asking is “how much hope is there?”
When it comes to our new president-elect, many people seem to be reacting in binary fashion – all or nothing, joy or despair, parties or riots.
It’s not that clear. Not at all.
Even I have seen some glimmers of, dare I say it – hope – in recent days.