I remember times while growing up when I’d ask my Mom if I could get a certain hairstyle or buy a certain type of clothes so that I could be more like the other kids in my classes.
I also vividly remember my Mom’s response going something like this: “Why, do you want to look like everyone else?”
I also remember desperately wanting to reply, that: “Yes, I’d love to fit in and to look like everyone else.”
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At the recent Inbound Marketing Summit 2011 in Boston, I was impressed to hear the behind-the-scenes stories of author, Ben Mezrich, who is known for creating his own genre of nonfiction. (Sidebar: other highlights from #IMS2011 were recorded by the Pulse Network.)
As a quick background for anyone who may not know Ben Mezrich, he is known for writing the true-to-life stories behind the MIT blackjack team and the rise of Facebook, The Social Network, i.e., stories, which his website describes as “chronicling the amazing stories of young geniuses making tons of money on the edge of impossibility, ethics, and morality.” Read more »
Self expression isn’t always easy. Maybe that’s why I admire those who openly exhibit an apparently unshakable confidence to be themselves.
It’s easy not to realize that behind outwardly confident people there are probably many encounters with ignorant people than most people are even aware.
It seems that in life, it’s almost impossible to escape criticism entirely. The schoolyard “Sticks and Stones” saying and the online advice of “Don’t feed the trolls” is only a small part of the story. Read more »
As I work towards developing a more consistent writing habit, I absolutely agree with the reigning advice which is to always have a few ideas ”in the works” to keep the development process flowing and to avoid writer’s block, e.g., always have a couple of articles started; topics/keywords mapped out; titles/ideas scheduled; thought-starters handy, etc.
According to plan, I had a couple blog posts in the works, in draft, which I thought were ready to simply clean up and post.
As I was re-reading one of those posts, to make sure I was making a valid supported point, etc., etc., I realized I was violating one of the key points of advice I was trying to make in that post. Read more »
Dear Blog,
I want you to know that I’ve missed you so. I know you won’t write yourself, so I’m glad to be back to try and breathe some life back into you once again.
There’s a whole lot of life out there, so we can’t keep letting it slip by without us. Let’s capture those thoughts and feelings that we uniquely experience and put them down in black and white once and for all.
I hope there are no hard feelings between us. I want you to know that I didn’t plan on leaving you alone for so long. Life just got in the way. Or, I must admit, I let live get in the way. It was a mistake of me to let you slip off of my priority list. My relationship with you truly is important to me.
I’m surprised how quickly time has passed though. I didn’t expect to be away from you at all, and definitely not for this long. Read more »
From a Facebook group, and as a subscriber to its accompanying paid weekly newsletter (both of which I’ll tell you more about at the end of this post*), I recently came across two questions that might be helpful to other bloggers/writers, or anyone else, who is searching for their purpose. If this is you, consider these two questions:
- “What Magazine Would You Be?”
- “What if <Blank> Wasn’t an Issue?”
(i.e., where you fill in the blank with a constraint that is limiting you.)
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A recent #BlogChat on Twitter spurred me to contemplate the value of writing short pieces. During the Twitter Chat, I was challenged to write a Series of posts to break up my usual style of writing longer blog posts.
As an analyst, I naturally started weighing the pros and cons of writing short pieces. I even considered writing a Blog Series about that. That was until it later occurred to me that it didn’t really make sense to write a lot about writing a little.
So, I decided to condense my now defunct series on “Being Concise” into the following: Read more »
Doing things differently every once in a while is a good thing.
The more options you have for doing something, the more paths/choices you are aware you have when or if obstacles get in your way.
I’m not just stating these two points to philosophize to you, but more as a segue to sharing two things I unexpectedly learned about today.
Let me back up a bit. I’m taking a mini-MBA program in Digital Marketing at Rutgers Center for Management Development. While I probably should blog about the awesome instructors we have each week, or about the perfectly relevant topics we cover each week, I’m not going to do that because that’s not what this blog is about (though I couldn’t exactly define what I do write about either, but that’s beside the point for now.)
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Here’s an interesting approach to writing (as in this article: Why Albums Are Released on Tuesdays in the U.S.):
(1) You ask why something is the way it is.
(2) You list the possible reasons why.
(3) When you don’t find any conclusive proof on any one theory, you end your article by asking your readers if they have any theories of their own.
I guess that’s better than stating something as a fact when you know that is not the case.
There is no shortage of quotes posted on Twitter every minute of every day.
Many are the motivational kind. The kind of quote that is easy for Tweeters to find, post, and re-Tweet. The kind that people can instantly feel inspired by regardless of how helpful it actually is or isn’t.
[I don’t want to digress too much, but the following sidebar might be worth considering in this context. Consider this post that points out how overemphasizing motivation, and ignoring ability and triggers, is what makes Facebook Behavior Change Apps ineffective: “5 Reason Facebook Behavior Change Apps Aren’t Working”.]
But I digress a bit with that. Getting back to my point….
Sometimes I, too, enjoy the clever words in motivational quotes.
However, more often than not, these quotes also just make me want to point out the non-universality of their contrite claims. Read more »
I remember times while growing up when I’d ask my Mom if I could get a certain hairstyle or buy a certain type of clothes so that I could be more like the other kids in my classes. 
