Brad Marley

You might want to dust off that blog obituary. I have just been notified that blogging’s condition is (again) dire, according to the New York Times.

The culprit? Those damned teenagers.

Let’s examine the evidence: Justin Bieber brought the Web to its knees when he chopped his brunette locks and auctioned them off to charity, while the Oscars tried to bring in a younger audience for this year’s show with two millennial actors. (Somebody even dropped an F bomb! How hip is that!?)

I guess it was only a matter of time until the media hopped on that train.

And the spokesperson for this mass exodus? A teen who ignores blogs.

“I don’t use the blog anymore,” said the aspiring filmmaker interviewed for the article. “I’d rather shove my content down my friends’ throats than see if I can build a real following.” (Whoops. I made up that second part.)

According to the article, The Internet and American Life Project at the Pew Research Center said that from 2006 to 2009, blogging among children ages 12 to 17 dropped by half. A valid point.

But in 2010, blogging from the 18-to-33-year-old set dropped by two percentage points. Another valid…wait a sec. Two points?

So because blogging dropped so severely in a demographic that is known for shifting its focus by the minute, we’re saying blogging is on the wane?

I disagree. Like, a lot.

It’s true: Twitter and Facebook have eliminated the need for short-burst blogs that pump out information at a rapid pace. It’s much easier to share our thoughts on a micro basis.

But they cannot (and won’t) replace more though-provoking writing that the good blogs share. There will always be a place for good writing; a venue where writers can seek solace, no matter how many times the medium is declared dead.

Image courtesy of Dahlstroms.

I’m going to start off this post by telling you something: I secretly want to be a journalist.

When I was a senior in high school, I wrote an article for the school paper on why our school didn’t have a hockey team. With a perfectly serviceable ice rink right next door to the school and hockey popularity in Michigan booming,  it seemed like a no-brainer. But our athletic director, who I interviewed for the piece, insisted we didn’t have the money to undertake a new team. So I filed my story and thought nothing else of it until I learned the following year that my high school now had a hockey team.

I will never know if my sorry excuse for a hard-hitting investigate piece changed any minds. But I had an inkling that my words incited some sort of re-thinking. And that’s a pretty powerful feeling.

In what was to become a recurring theme in my life, I never pursued this career avenue, mainly because the naysayers (those who moan the lack of income) won.

So when the opportunity arose late last year to do some freelance journalism on the side for the local Trenton page on Patch.com, you can bet your sweet caboose I jumped at the chance.

And ever since I started writing for this publication, it has changed my entire perspective of how I go about my day job in public relations. So, rather than keep these nuggets of advice to myself, I want to share four reasons why other PR pros should consider freelance writing.

1. Improve Your Writing – Let’s just get this one out of the way. The more writing you do, the better you will be. And writing different forms — feature stories vs. press releases — will exercise your writing muscle.

2. Think Like a Journalist – It’s funny. When I conduct interviews with my story subjects, I am doing the complete opposite work that I do when I host interviews with reporters. But by doing so, I’m learning to think more like a journalist by identifying the questions that will get to the heart of the story.

3. Get Better at Multitasking – I think it goes without saying that my day job takes precedence over my freelance writing. But I still need to coordinate and conduct interviews on my own time. I also have two little kids. Day job + kids + freelance writing commitments = learning to prioritize. I’ve found I am starting to get more out of my time, if that makes sense.

4. If You Got It, Flaunt It – Don’t let your talents go to waste. I know I’m not a terrible writer. And I like to do it. You would be surprised how many people hate the process. So I vowed to myself late last year that I would put my talent to good use for myself and my family. Otherwise, what’s the point of having a talent?

Are you a PR person and a freelance writer? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

Image borrowed from noodlepie’s Flickr.

Take a quick survey of the PR blog landscape, and one idea seems to be set in stone : the press release is dead.

Yes. Noted.

But just like climate change won’t mean humans give up their gas guzzlers overnight, PR pros won’t wake up tomorrow morning and discard this ubiquitous tool made famous by Ivy Lee.

Press releases do have value.

While it has probably seen better days, chances are you still use it. So instead of complaining about how you’re too hip to write a press release, why not make the most of it?

Here are five ways writing press releases can improve your writing.

1. Get to the point. Journalists are taught to never bury the lead. In other words, they should not hide the main point three paragraphs into the story. Neither should you. A good press release should alert the reader of its intentions immediately. If you don’t, you risk losing your reader.

2. Remove erroneous words. A short press release does not equal a worthless press release, so don’t add words for the sake of adding them. If you said what you wanted to say, you’re done. Stop writing. Right now.

3. Focus on restrained creativity. We can’t all be this guy. But nobody said a press releases has to be cut and dry. There is room to expand your creativity chops. But do it in a way that doesn’t take away from the key message. If you can do both, you’ll improve your writing.

4. Write for your audience. Usually you know who is going to read the press release as you’re writing it. For instance, if you’re writing a release announcing the latest installment of World of Warcraft, there’s no need to explain what an avatar is. If you’re not interested in the game, you’re probably not reading the release. Don’t waste your reader’s time.

5. Embrace edits. Nothing written is ever perfect after the first draft. Same goes for press releases. Pump out the first draft and let somebody take a look at what you’ve written. Chances are they will have edits you never saw because we are all in love with our own writing. But if you accept edits as a constructive review, it will help your writing.

That’s all I got. Can you think of any other ways a press release improves writing?

During my junior year of college, way back in 2000, I wrote an article for a short-lived e-mag named ReWired. It was our English program's take on the more-popular magazine, Wired. For one of my submissions, I interviewed my friend's roommate to illustrate the pull of online chat rooms, which were probably at the height of their popularity. 

This is one of the better things I've written in my lifetime, so I wanted to share. I won't be offended if you stop halfway through.

It is funny, though, how our view of technology — and what is now commonplace — can change so drastically in a decade.

(If you get to the end and wonder where I am going with the quote from Thomas Laudal…yeah, I don't know, either.)

***

Pimpin: Hey, a/s/l check.

stargirl111: Yeah, I got a pic to trade. And I'm a hottie.

bowl_4_u: This room is whack. I'm outtie 5000.

cute_and_single: hi pimpin

jocksport456: u e-mail it first

pimpin394: Hi

In a typical chat room, like the one shown above, there are numerous conversations going on at once. People throw caution to the wind and take on personalities that sometimes are the complete opposite of their real life personas. For example, "stargirl111" is quite possibly not a "hottie" as she claims to be, but will say she is because she yearns to find that special someone in this virtual world. If the guy, or so he says, doesn't find her attractive, he will most likely ignore her the rest of the time or leave the chat room. "Stargirl111" will move on. And so the cycle begins for the upteenth time and certainly not the last time.

In a personal conversation, the body acts as a barometer for what the person really feels. The shuffling of feet could mean nervousness, shyness, or it could mean the person wants to get the hell out of that conversation. It would be considered rude to just walk away, especially if you know the person and will likely see them again. In a chat room, the body is taken out of the conversation.

The disappearance of the body is part of a new school of thought called "Virtual Reality Theory." Professors at colleges around the country are starting to believe in chat rooms as a new tool of teaching while some of us still see it as a way of flirting with the opposite sex. Either way we look at it, the two sides converge at one crucial point: The Body. After looking at the the issue from two different angles, we begin to see how.

What About Bob?

Bob is a twenty-year old Sales and Marketing Director for a manufacturing company in Michigan. Bob has some college education since he was going to school to study mechanical engineering before taking this job. He is single and shares a condominium with a friend he used to work with. Bob spends a lot of his free time in chat room.

Since discovering America Online, Bob is somewhat addicted to these rooms. As he logs on, I notice that his Buddy List contains over 80 "friends," ninety-five percent of whom he has never met. "I basically see the Internet as a way to meet new people," Bob says. As he sits down, a friend from the "real world" sends him an instant message (IM). "THis is my friend Frank from Germany. I communicate with him on-line because I'm too cheap to call him," Bob explains.

Only 10-15 "friends" on his Buddy List are guys. The majority are girls that he has met on-line. They are mostly local girls since he considers talking to non-locals a waste of time. "I don't like talking to people from, say, Utah. And, I'm not very fond of Mormons." As we are talking and chatting, one of his "friends" comes on-line. "Oh look, it's Dana!" Bob has never met Dana in real life even though they have been chatting for nearly two years now. "She's fun to talk to and her birthday is October 31st and I thought that was interesting," he says. "Besides, she has had a boyfriend the whole time."

Out of all the girls that Bob has met online, he has only met five of them in real life. He even dated one of them (Sarah) for six months, and he had the pictures to prove it. He told me that all five acted the same way in real life than they did in the chat rooms. I was curious about this, so I asked Bob if we would have gone up and started talking to Sarah if she just happened to be walking by. "I would want to," said Bob. "But would you?" I asked. "No."

Bob has been on-line 20 minutes and he already has six conversations going at one time. He has spoken with a few of these before but most of them he just met. "Gotta find a common link to start a conversation," Bob explains as he IMs a girl asking where she is from. Once he finds out she went to high school fifteen minutes away, the conversation begins. As they chat, I pursue the issue further about the difference between chat room conversations and a real life conversation. "The bluntness is beautiful because you can be (blunt)," he says. "You don't have to worry about being smacked." I think it is safe to say that there is a different persona on-line than there is off-line. To back his statement up, Bob says: "I would never approach a girl in real life because out of pure shyness. It is more difficult to approach a girl in person. The Internet is easier. If I don't like the conversation, I can click 'Cancel'."

Bob goes into a Detroit chat room to try and meet some more girls. After only a few minutes of trying, he meets a girl named "Sunnflower." She has a picture to send but only if Bob sends his first. They swap photos, and Bob likes what he sees. He tels her that she is "a definite cutie." "I like to see if there is a picture before I waste my time talking to them," he says. While he is talking to "Sunnflower", Bob starts looking through profiles of other users who are online. Thanks to the freedom of chat rooms, Bob doesn't have to talk to anyone he doesn't want to. Hiding behind the veil of a computer screen in the comfort of his own home, Bob is able to pick and choose the ones he shall talk to. If he doesn't want to talk to them, they won't know the difference. It's not like they see him staring at them from across the room, either.

He reads the profile of "JodyGirl0213" and it says that she is an administrative assistant. "That means she is boring," he says, referring to her job, "but let's see if she's hot."

Chat Rooms in the Classroom

At the University of Detroit-Mercy, Sister Christian Koontz is taking a giant step in making these chat rooms, once thought of as strictly a recreational tool, a part of Academia. She teaches a class in English called "The Journal." Her class can meet her in a chat room and discuss or ask her questions. The chat rooms are provided by a listserv service called Egroups. Although hesitant to talk about the advantages and disadvantages of chat rooms, due to the fact that she herself is still learning, Sister Koontz thinks that there is a gigantic upside to this idea. "I do think chat rooms have significant, and as far as I am aware, largely untapped, value to academic discourse," she explained through an e-mail. "I see the chat room as a fertile intermediary space, bridging personal journaling and formal academic writing, a space where students can write, to a certain extent, out of an atmosphere, attitudes, and orientation similar to that[sic] I believe to be the most conducive to effective journal work and begin to give rhetorical form to their writing, almost without realizing it because audience presence is real to them yet not so intimidating as a physically present audience is," Koontz added.

The last part of her statement can be directly connected to what our friend Bob said about talking on-line. Sister Koontz's students find it easier to talk when they can't see anyone or don't know who they are talking to, and there is no body to deal with in these conversations.

Toward the end of the e-mail message, Sister Koontz said that she advocates a "considerable application" of Harrison Owen's theories on "Open Space Technology." Open Space Technology is one way to enable all kinds of people, in any kind of organization, to create inspired meetings and events. Over the last 15 years, it has also become clear that opening space, as an intentional leadership practice, can create inspired organizations, where ordinary people work together to create extraordinary results with regularity. Sister Koonts is trying to get her students to reach this goal through the power of virtual reality.

We once thought of online classes as something that would happen in the future. Five years ago, we imagined a world where we could get out of bed, turn on the computer, and attend classes in our underwear. Well, now we can. Students don't have to be worried about making a dumb comment or walking into class late and being stared at; with on-line classes, we lose the human element that comes with "regular" classes. Chances are, no student knows what any of the other students look like, and therefore, that have no reservations about participating in class. The potential for embarrassment is just nonexistent.

The Fate of the "Real World"

In the real world, there is something us humans like to call "fate." We have no power over it and it controls every move we make. In a virtual world, would fate be a possibility? If we programmed these worlds, wouldn't we be playing God and thus, determining fate? To quote Thomas Laudal on this issue, he says: "People make VWs (virtual worlds) while God, or something/something quite different than people, created the real world. Does this distinguish the real world from the virtual worlds? Hardly. The truth is that we don't have a clue who — or what — created our real world. But even if we knew for a fact that people like ourselves did NOT create the real world, this would not be a significant difference between virtual and real worlds…"

The significant issue here is that most people in chat rooms, like Bob and Sister Koontz'[sic] students, view it as a "fake" world. Quite the opposite of the real world, they can do things in this "fake" world that they wouldn't normally do. The students, who would be terrified of public speaking in real life, can speak in front of a large number of people while sitting at home in a robe.

These chat rooms are, in a sense, small virtual worlds where the "citizens" leave their bodies at home and explore unknown territories. The "souls" come and go as they please and there are no repercussions. Anyone can get away with anything. At least anything they say can be dismissed since actions do not speak louder than words.

Photo courtesy of Jason Tang.

In March of 2002, my then-girlfriend — who was away at school while I was toiling away at my first entry-level job – used to send me links to songs by an unfamiliar British musician named David Gray during nightly marathon instant messenger sessions.

As a rule, I didn't own any albums by emotive singer-songwriters. But as we wore out the keys on our keyboards, I was inextricably drawn to the words this singer from Liverpool put to music, and I found myself nodding in understanding at the tinny music emanating from my crappy computer speakers. 

While my girlfriend and I talked about anything and everything under the sun (or, in this case, the moon) Gray's music found a frequent spot in my playlist and eventually became the soundtrack for our relationship.

We broke up three months later.

But like that glorious, heady high smokers get when they take that first drag in the morning, I had no plans to give up the feeling I got when I listened to his music, so I fed the addiction instead of dealing with nasty withdrawals.

Today, he is still one of the handful of musicians whose new albums I buy without hesitation. And, like his music, I like to think I have matured in the last seven years. Now I have a deeper admiration for his ability to say what he wants to say without purposely convoluting the meaning to sound smarter.

While listening to his new album a few nights ago, I realized his music exemplifies everything a writer should be. And since I struggle with my writing, I thought this could be beneficial to anyone who uses words to make a living or bare their soul.

1. Be passionate. Your audience can tell when you phone it in. If you're not writing about something that stirs your very soul, it's going to come out in your words. Unless you are paid well to write refrigerator manuals, find a topic that brings out your best and write like there's no tomorrow. Your audience will come back for more.

2. Don't be afraid. Take a chance. Take an idea that is so far out of left field you're sitting in the bleachers, and devote some time to it. You might be surprised with the outcome, and find a new perspective in the process.

3. Be emotional. My favorite aspect of David Gray's music is the amount of sheer emotion he puts out. You can tell the subject matter of his songs is personal, and it comes out when he's on stage screaming and sweating and putting his all into his performance. If you can draw the reader in to your experience, you've captured one mind.

4. Be personal. I would be shocked if there isn't something in David Gray's past that informs 90 percent of his tunes. Whether it be a lost love or a long goodbye, he's drawing on it when he sings. Your upbringing and life experiences will try to sneak into your writing. Let it. That's what makes us who we are, so why should your writing lack your personality?

5. Give it your all. I know you can say this relates to all four ideas, but it does stand alone. When you're writing something — whether it's a bylined article, blog post, or personal journal entry — don't hold anything back. Writing allows us to express ourselves; our very livelihood hinges on the written word. Why would you waste it?