The timing of Ben’s thoughts and Chris’ response have me wondering how many others are dealing with a similar issue of how to control – and express publicly – their social media consumption. I have been contemplating both my usage and the perception of my usage in this arena for some time now.
Where I Network
I make no bones about not being on Facebook. I’ve spouted a number of reasons over the years but most of it boils down to about three things:
1. I don’t trust them – the shady nature of their data-practices is too hard for me to overlook.
2. I don’t dig the forced, two-way communication it is formed around.
3. If we didn’t get along in high school, what makes you think we should buddy up at this point in life?
I’ve heard everything from “you just don’t get it,” to “you’re failing your clients by not being a part of it,” and a few other things in between. None of which I’ve bought into yet.
The concept I understand, and the draw of connecting with others, I empathize, but they’ve hardly done enough to get me to open up my personal digital-trail for the long haul. (You do realize once you’ve signed up you can’t ever actually delete your profile/info, right? It’s in the Terms of Service you didn’t read.) (more…)
I’ve mentioned the Read & Trust Newsletter before but hopefully a little reminder doesn’t hurt since my first contribution hit email inboxes this morning.
My thoughts are on Creativity, and while I struggled to pull them all together, I feel like they turned into a least a coherent stream that makes a bit of sense. If nothing else, it’s 1600 words that can help you pass the time while using the facilities.
Once again, if you’re a fan of high-quality, long-form reading, I encourage you to sign up for our weekly articles. Five bucks a month gets you exclusive material from some great writers – present company excluded – and actually provides you a way to give a little back to those you enjoy reading work from. Win-Win-Win.
Sorry, a quick little something on my mind that I couldn’t quite fit into 140 characters…
You know those times you need to send that email knowing what the future outcome is most likely to be? Especially knowing that the potential for the outcome to be positive is relatively low? Yeah? Send it.
Example: Today I sent an email finalizing some work done in January that didn’t get paid until late April letting the client know that it was a great opportunity to work with them and to let them know if they needed any help in the future to keep me in mind. After a number of missteps on both of our ends, I’m fairly certain that the client will be deleting my contact info in short order. Do I enjoy knowing this fact? Not really. Was sending the email the right thing to do knowing that neither I or the client probably care too much about giving it another go? I think so.
There’s enough burned bridges in my past to afford me some amount of experience in the fact that in most cases, it’s your turn to call. So whether you’re hovering over the send button, staring at the phone in your hand or sitting in a parked car down the street, the shortest route to closure is to take the first step.
Yes, it’s a post about more illustration-type stuff. No, that’s not the sole focus of this online journal but one more consecutive post might push us over the edge.
An Illustrated Guide is a fun little single-serving blog I’ve been following for a bit that serves as a mini book-review of illustrated childrens’ books. Both the concept and execution are simple and well done. It’s definitely one of those, ‘why didn’t I think of that?’ type ideas.
Each book is categorized any number of ways: digital, junior, wordy, etc and shortly described to give you just enough to consider picking up a copy for your little ones. My favorite part is the recommendation they provide at the end of each review, things like:
The perfect book for the royalist.
The perfect book for the hipster child within.
The perfect book for a pint-sized Sherlock.
The nerd in me also digs the fact that they used a little -webkit-transform coding magic as you rollover the book covers as well. In most browsers you’ll probably see the image rotate a bit but if you’ll pull it up in Safari or Chrome you get the full effect. Nerd dads unite.
Definitely an easy (and resourceful) tool to throw in your RSS feeds for those of you with little ones.
PS. While your kid will probably enjoy any of the books you get them from a site like this, their enjoyment of them would be one-hundred fold if you decided to sit down and actually read it with them. Just FYI.
Cleaning out my ShoveBox last week I stumbled across a link1 I had thrown in there a while back for Lotta Nieminen. Originally from Helsinki, Finland and now residing in the greatest city on earth, Lotta’s skills are impressive across the board but her illustration style is what caught my eye. Some of my favorites below:
