Happy Birthday, Mrs. Kirkistan.
brings light with her
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Image Credit: Kirk Livingston
This Weekend: Superb Owl
Will you be dancing to the rockabilly stylings of…
Oh. Wait. I misread my calendar.
Super Bowl.
Of course you’ll be there: Commercials!
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Image credit: via semilost
Kristina Halvorson & The Discipline of Making Stuff Up
Content Strategy and Brain Traffic
Someone asked a perfectly reasonable question:
What is content?
Our Social Media Marketing class is composed of collegiates with a passion for writing and communicating. Whether from the Journalism/Communication school or from the English department, we’ve come together around this notion of producing content in pursuit of a vision.
So we write.
While “content” seems a rude way to talk about the deep thinking that goes into a paper on, say, the merits of determinism, it’s a term that works pretty well for less lofty/more human conversation. The kinds of conversation suited to inviting in semi-interested onlookers.
Content is the stuff we use to describe our vision for…whatever. If we’re building a coalition to alleviate homelessness, the content we produce will point to the problem, tell stories about real people, show the inadequacy of current solutions and keep offering attitudes that illustrate the need and humanity of the man on the corner with the sign. If we work for a company that makes implantable deep brain stimulators, our content will highlight the current science behind Parkinson’s disease, show current (inadequate) ways of dealing with the disease, harp on the benefits of such stimulation without hiding the downsides.
Kristina Halvorson, founder and CEO of Brain Traffic and co-author of Content Strategy for the Web will join us today (provided she can plow through 4-6 inches of new snow) to talk about the disciplines involved with making stuff up. Because that’s what content is: making stuff up. For a purpose. Making stuff up in accordance with a discipline, toward a specific end, to meet a particular business or social objective. That’s why content and writing go so well together: there’s nothing a writer likes more than stepping into a big idea and exploring the main streets, side streets and alleys and foot paths with words and images and video. Sometimes we have a map to start with. Sometimes we make up the map as we go.
Mostly we do both.
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Image credits: Brain Traffic
Now #SOTU is a Spectator Sport
My Friend, With Whom I Disagree
Listening to Mr. Obama’s speech last night while following Twitter was a brand new thing for me—and much invigorating (so tweetful). To respond to phrases and gestures in real-time, and to see other responses, felt like I was hearing the speech in a room crowded with passionate and at times silly people.
GOP friends got all huffy and defensive and exercised:
While the other side went self-congratulatory:
What pleased me most was the rapid-fire dissenting opinions and funny stuff happening right before my eyes—in a way that actually helped me pay attention to the words. I like hearing both sides in real-time.
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Image credit: @nick_pants via latimes
Too cold for school. Just right for fishing.
What to do at -15 degrees F.
It’s not playing hooky if they call school off.
Lovely plywood.
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Image credit: Kirk Livingston
Listen. Just steer clear of Albert.
Which was the fun brother?
Minnesota Historical Society Exhibit
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Image Credit: Kirk Livingston
Hey: Where did that voice come from?
Don’t be stung by inauthenticity
Some in my class are English majors and don’t mind wading into the waters of how words work. So when Content Rules (Handley and Chapman) talked about voice, a close reading ensued. Handley and Chapman lobby for authenticity in voice: voice is your own way of corralling point of view and word choice and rhythm (meter?) and pressing it all into service. Voice is making language work to express your words in your way. Voice is what you sound like when you talk (and we’re aiming for conversational writing in this class, so writing and talking sort of blend).
But voice is also something that gets companies and organizations all hepped up. To give your brand a personality by adopting a particular point of view (which leads to word choices/meter and etc.) is what companies and organizations seek these days. Voice helps a brand stand out from the crowd.
And one must stand out.
But this:
How can you write with an authentic voice when you are adopting the voice of the brand?
Good question, English-major-friend. Two answers come to mind:
- Sometimes we use voice in the service of some larger purpose. So we might submit our voice to the larger brand purposes and adopt as best we can the machinations of the brand voice. Some people may naturally embody a brand voice. The rest of us have to work at it. This adding and adopting is part of serving the larger goal you believe in (at best. At worst: you adopt voice to make coin for rent). This is the collision of craft, faith and service.
- If you find yourself stinging with inauthenticity as you write for your brand—look for a different job.
I’ve maintained all along that when people add their voice to a project, new things happen. Sometimes a new voice provides new electricity and a new approach to a time-worn topic. Even old-timers can learn stuff from new voices.
Of course, people must voice up.
If you don’t say what you’re thinking, the new thing just around the corner will sit there in silence—just around the corner.
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Image credit: red-lipstick via 2headedsnake
First Boule
A conversation between flour, water, yeast and salt. At 450 degrees F.
I think I’m going to like Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day (Hertzberg & Francois)
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Image Credit: Kirk Livingston
Technology is remarkable when it leads us to people
We forget this.
There are irresistible bits all over the world wide web, naturally. We stumble on these irresistible bits and do what any human does: tell someone else. Our “Like” and “Forward to” capitalizes on this innate human desire to share. And, naturally, some have been able to monetize this compulsion.
I like how in Groundswell, Li and Bernoff put people ahead of technology. They like to ask, “Who do you want to make contact with and what do you want to accomplish with them?” as a starting point. Then sort out the technology later. That seems right.
One way that technology leads us to people is in microbursts of information—very specific and very narrow information—about each other. I just stumbled on From the desk of…, a project by Kate Donnelly that shows, well, people’s desks.
Grant Snider’s work I see all the time. His easily-accessible takes on say ambition, or escape from digital life or rules for freelancers (pasted below) are themselves irresistible thought-pieces. I hesitate to call them comics. Even more remarkable is to see how his imagination flowers in such a tight, confined space.
Seeing someone’s desk is a bit like opening the door of their medicine cabinet or searching through a found wallet. The stuff we surround ourselves with has a way of telling on us. And especially the place we work says something about how our minds work. I like how technology (in this case social media) lets us tell fuller stories about each other—for those who want to hear. I also notice that the work I do for clients—even very technology-focused clients—opens up when there is a people-story to tell.
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conversation is an engine 