GerardMcLean.com

This was originally written as a comment to Karina Stenquist’s post on her blog. The issue of respecting the intelligence of young readers came up again today and I thought I would post this here as well. While specific to NIE, this comment could — and should — apply to anyone creating marketing and reading material for young readers, especially those who think it clever to turn the “N” and “R” backwards on a chalkboard. Read the original post from Karina first.

I was at the Newspapers in Education department at a daily newspaper from 1998-2002. Anyone who has worked in NIE knows that on paper, the department was set up to “promote literacy, cultivate young readers, blah, blah” The real world was, “We’ve got a captive audience where we can dump newspapers on Tuesdays and make our 5-day ABC numbers look better.”

Before I got there, the NIE page was kids mazes and puzzles, word games, etc. the typical crap you see on kids stuff. Part of my gig was that if we were going to really increase literacy and make the newspaper a teaching tool, let’s really do it. Let’s write articles that teachers could use as lesson plans. What did we have to lose? We had a captive audience where we were dumping papers anyway.

So, we wrote serious articles about wildlife, conservation, the science of the Olympics, nutrition using a pizza analysis, the physics of snowboarding. And we used smart words; we spoke to the kids (3rd-6 grade) like we respected their intelligence. We reduced the font size from 14pt goofy to 11pt real newspaper. We wrote in AP Style. We went out and got our own photos and wrote real captions. But for the KidsINK logo on the page and the small line of “editorial disclaimer” on the page, it was indistinguishable from the rest of the editorial.

And our sales went through the damn roof! Teachers couldn’t wait for every other Tuesday. When we visited classes on NIE day, kids would have the newspapers sprawled open and they were reading the articles aloud and talking about the things they were reading about. Discussions got lively! When kids got to a word they did not know, it become an ad hoc vocab lesson. And if you watched closely, they got that momentary flash of “smart” when the eyes get slightly brighter, the lips smile gently, the face flushes and the head bobs when the word is filed in the brain. And teachers had that almost giddy look of excitement on their faces. This was “real world learning” for them and anyone who knows a good teacher, you know they ache for this kind of stuff.

There is nothing like that feeling you get when you watch your work being consumed by a room full of eager 4th graders. Nothing. It made all the dirty, messy bits of pulling together a page worth going through the next week and more.

But then, the marketing people at the newspaper saw resource consolidation and figured our little 3-person rag-tag band of talent could also be used to do in-house promotions and “merged” the departments. I left then. The mission was over, the magic was gone. And NIE sales declined as more puzzles were added as filler when nobody had enough time to “write an article.”

People rise to challenges. People ache for challenge. Using simpler words is not the answer; it is the cause of the decline of readership. Newspapers and media in general have abdicated their public trust. Everything now is entertainment, but those who lead this charge are forgetting that learning and reaching are also entertainment.

I dunno.. sad that dumb is the new black.

I have an iPhone and I frequently tweet from it. When I’m at @target or @oinkadoodlemoo or when I am drinking a @jonessodaco green apple soda, I’ll tweet using their twitter accounts because I know them. But when I am at #kroger or #acehardware, I am not really sure what their twitter accounts are, so I just hashtag them and move on. There is no elegant way to look up companies or brands using mobile apps, especially with the pokey AT&T 3G. So, I just don’t bother.

I saw this tweet from @alotofnothing come across in my twitter stream tonight:*

and it occurred to me that the test of true brand loyalty and awareness was if a user was able to type in the twitter account of a business or brand flawlessly on a mobile device as part of a natural conversation in twitter. (I would have struggled with @TijuanaFlats and even had I looked it up, they have a Flash site, so iPhone would not have been able to see it. Besides, they only show a Facebook Fan Page.)

Think about that for a moment and realize what awesome power that means for your company or brand, good and bad. Then think about how much you need to brand your twitter account.

*Used with permission.. Thank you Angie!

I had been eye-balling An Event Apart in Minneapolis for a few months as a cool conference to go to. It finally sold out, saving me from actually having to make a decision. But I still looked over the agenda.

And it suddenly occurred to me what really kept me from pulling the trigger. It wasn’t the price (over $1,000) or the travel costs, but the long speeches and the thought of sitting through Powerpoint presentations, knowing I would probably not learn anything new. No offense to Zeldman, he is one of my heros.

I think it may be time to start re-thinking conferences. Think about how we work every day. Most of us do in short bursts; twitter, email, multiple projects going on, snippets of information coming in through cable news. We can Google solutions to design or software problems on the fly from our desks. So, why are conferences structured as long keynote speeches and presentations? Why are they not bursty?

Here would be a cool thing. What if each presenter was tasked with giving a ten minute sales pitch for his/her content for the first half of the day. Then, they would retire into a group room where they could conduct a workshop Socrates style with more of a one-on-one with the attendees who were intrigued enough by the pitch to participate? Then, instead of giving a canned presentation, the “expert” could drop anything the ad hoc audience already knows and explore that which they don’t.

It would take more of an effort by speakers to be involved in the conference and some traditionalists may not want to participate to this level of personal engagement. For me, it would make that conference worthwhile.

Just thinking out loud.

PS I think I’ll go to 140conf in Detroit Oct 20, 2010. It appears this format is about as close as any get to different.

Soccer is the only sport where the only thing that is required for success is a ball and humanity. It has been that way since the birth of soccer in 1863 and will likely continue for a very long time.

Humanity is contained in both the athletes and the referees. Humanity is so integral to the sport that any technology assistance during play screws up the human experience. Right or wrong, humans make mistakes but every human being who steps onto the pitch — player or referee — accepts the ball and the others’ humanity as the only limitation to success. Mistakes are part of the human experience.

When technology is allowed to determine a goal, an offsides or a foul, it is no longer a human game. The machines will be in charge.

As simple as that.

Seth Godin wrote a blog post today about being slick. He claims the way people judged high quality was the degree of “slickness” that was put into a piece, like a business card, website, brochure, etc. I think he is wrong.

I think it is and always will be about craftsmanship, i.e., how “tight” the piece is. Was the logo crafted or was it grabbed from a clip art book and had some extrusion slapped on it? Does the brochure tell a story or is it merely a collection of color photos with a bunch of words wrapped up in a glossy cover? Are the lyrics tight (American Pie) or are they sloppy and lazy (Tik Tok)? Do the blog posts contain typos, split infinitives, jargon, tense shifts, subject-verb disagreements, unnecessary words and half-developed ideas or are they edited and tight? Is the CEO always on time for meetings, does he always knows the numbers and can he clearly articulate the vision?

A good plumber will be proud of his solder joints. Rarely will you see uneven globs of solder or drips on the pipes. A painter will practice for years to be able to cut in on a corner and make a straight freehand edge. Mike Holmes is very proud of his ability to caulk even as he runs a contracting empire because he knows that a straight, even caulk line is the crafted touch that points to everything else he does as solid. I’m certain you can find all sorts of “caulk lines” in companies you’ve done business with. Most were probably uneven. Most were abutted to expensive slick tile or trim.

We’re not now seeking “transparency and reputation and guts” as a replacement cue for slick as we have always been seeking craftsmanship. Poor craftsmen will always wrap bad work up in slick packaging just as they will attempt to pervert and subvert “transparency, reputation and guts.”

But you can’t fake craftsmanship.

Dear Apple,

Congratulations on selling over 600,000 new iPhone4s! As an avid supporter and customer of Apple since 1984, I was always confident that I backed a winner and am happy that you are enjoying such prosperous returns on a vision so many predicted would have died off a long time ago.

Yesterday, in my exuberance, I attempted to upgrade my iPhone many times throughout the day. I was unsuccessful and notice now that you have suspended all pre-orders. This was probably a prudent thing to do given the volume of traffic that was hitting your servers.

In 1984, I found myself needing a personal computer. I was looking hard at the IBM PC-AT and was in the process of securing enough cash to buy one when I passed by a Macintosh running a demo program at the University of Minnesota. From that chance meeting, I realized I was seeing something special and several days later, I visited a store in the mall selling Macs and bought one. When you came out with the Macintosh Plus in 1986, I upgraded for $2,600.00. Shortly afterward, I upgraded to 1meg of RAM and a 20Meg external hard drive.

In the ensuring 24 years, I have purchased a Mac II, Mac IIvx, (2) Quadra 900s, (2) G3 towers, (3) iMacs in bondi blue, tangerine and grape, a Mac Mini and the latest iMac for the desktop. In addition, I have purchased a Powerbook 170 and 165c, Powerbook G3 (Pismo and Lombard) (4) Powerbook 15″, (2) Powerbook 17″, (2) MacBookPro 13″ and a MacBookPro 17″. I have also purchased (8) iPods, an iPad and (3) iPhones. I even bought a Newton and several Imagewriters.

On top of that, I have spent hundreds in the iTunes store and thousands in software and peripherals to support the Apple hardware, mostly at a premium. On top of the personal purchases I have made above, I was also a champion for outfitting my various departments with Mac video editing and desktop publishing equipment, mostly by convincing my superiors and the IT departments that the PC world had no such capability. I probably lied more than I should have, but you were the superior platform and I need to attract the best people. The best people at that time worked on Macs.

I have endured taunting and teasing from my peers in meetings for being a “Mac boy.” I have endured passive aggression from hotel meeting planner and engineers for having a Mac that needed “special plugs.” I have spent more money than I should have on peripherals that supported Macs. And since I live in Dayton, Ohio, I could not pop into the local Best Buy to purchase software or peripherals that worked with a Mac, though USB changed that.

And yesterday, I felt that I did not matter at all to you. Yesterday, I felt like just a battery to fuel your lust for profit. Yesterday, I did not feel at all like I was part of something special.

Perhaps I am just a bag of money to you after all. Perhaps I’m old enough to know that you are just a company looking to make a buck. Perhaps I should have been smarter all these years and realized that while I was taking part in a vision to change the world, you were just grifting on us poor, clueless bastards.

But your products worked well and they enriched the quality of my life by allowing me to create in ways that were not possible with a clunky PC.

If you could do one thing over again, I wish you would not have forgotten where you came from. I wish you would not have forgotten that each one of those iPhone sales yesterday was not only just a phone, but a piece of a vision that you begged us to trust so many years ago. I wish you would make us feel special once more.

Yours sincerely, though not as wholly as I once was,

G.

I’ve never had a formal mentor arrangement with anyone. It wasn’t for lack of trying, but perhaps I’ve always associated with folks who weren’t closers. And when feeling closed upon by my “mentors,” I backed away. Perhaps that is the way these things are supposed to work; a support system of bumper rails without risk of co-dependency.

Looking back, when asked to be someone’s mentor, my first question was always, “What do you want?” It was almost always met with indecision. “I just want some help. My career seems to be stalled, I’m feeling frustrated and taken for granted. I want to be more like you” was a common reply. Little did any of these poor, hapless, rudderless folks know that I was just as lost. I guess I just hid it better.

But without a direction, without knowing what they wanted, I could not help. But I tried anyway, helping perhaps to define the direction, the needs and wants and winding the charge own the path. But because the direction did not come from the fire in the gut, it usually burned quickly, smoldered and finally died. Most drifted off, afraid somehow to tell me they no longer wanted to be mentored.

For myself, I’ve always wanted a mentor and have attracted a few. But what started out as a mentor relationship slowly evolved into someone older guiding me into a career they wished they had, not what I wanted. We usually parted without a goodbye.

And now blogging has replaced the need to mentor for me. If any of my ramblings are helpful in any way, take them, use them and make them your own. But don’t ask me for more than I am willing to give here; both of us will be disappointed and part strangers.

This mentor round-table challenge was thrown out by Holly Hoffman of WorkLoveLife.com

UPDATE: @Neenz just published the Paralympics page at Alltop.com last night, Mar 5. If you know of or write a blog on the Paralympics, submit it here to be included.

I first got schooled in the Paralympic Games from Kim* during a telephone conversation my first week on the job back in 1996. For those who don’t know, I used to sell exercise bikes to paralyzed people. True.

“I am a tennis player,” she said.

“You mean you used to play tennis?” I asked.

“No, stupid. I play tennis. Wheelchair tennis. And I’m training for the 2000 Paralympics in Sydney.”

“The Special Olympics?” I said.

“No, I’m in a chair, not a f***ing r*tard!” she shot back angrily.

She was not one to mince words. She had also served four years in the US Navy and she swore like a sailor.

By the time I left the company several years later, we had gotten to be pretty good friends. I wish I had kept in touch, but that wasn’t what Kim was all about. She was one who lived in the moment, curious and anxious for the future with no regrets for the past. She never made it to Sydney, but it wasn’t for lack of trying.

That was my introduction to the Paralympic Games. They are held two weeks after the Olympic Games everyone knows about and gets broadcast on TV. Here is the Web site for the Games in Vancouver.

Eventually, I hope the Paralympic Games are played alongside the Olympic Games as paralympic athletes are every bit as tough as their able-boded counterparts. It seems to me that even when NBC doesn’t see the value in broadcasting the Paralympic Games, Social Media should be all over it. The Paralympics are like a really cool blog that you accidentally stumble into that you didn’t know existed, but changes your world view forever. If you want to see some real athletic ability, I encourage you to watch this year. And London. And Russia. And Rio.

Get involved on twitter. Encourage Guy and Neenz to establish a blog directory for the Paralympics on Alltop.com that doesn’t lead to disability. Write a blog article about how you feel about the Paralympics.

Do something inclusive. We’re all in this together.

*Withholding last name, but in case she ever reads this and I have permission to fill in the last name, I’d be happy to.
**Please don’t contact me about ELA being out of business. That happened way after I left.

I was researching on some history and came across an article that I had written for a paper version of NARMS Today back in 2005. I thought I would share. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed re-visiting it.

The week before the NARMS 2005 Conference, I visited my son at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. I am a bit of a newspaper buff, so I grabbed a copy of the Oxford Times at the local gas station and stuffed it in my briefcase, intending to read it on the plane ride to Tucson.

On the plane ride home, after several days of intense NARMSing, I remembered my copy of the Times and pulled it out to read. It was a typical neighborhood newspaper, full of local stories on garage sales, lost cats, high school sports and blurry photos contributed by local residents. It was printed with heavy black ink that smeared on my palms and probably eventually made its way to parts of my face.

But I didn’t care. I immersed myself in the banal stories and took in the heavy smell of ink and paper.
Something about holding a newspaper connects the reader with the stories and photos on a personal level. Then it occurred to me that NARMS.com is a lot like a local newspaper.

Both – local newspapers and NARMS.com – thrive because they are organic and specific. The web site is successful because it is organic. The parts of the website that are most useful are those that connect people to people. NARMS developed it because of core needs of those who were involved in the retail service industry.

NARMS did not set out to create a new product or service but simply to fulfill an existing need in a more efficient way. Many of you remember the dot-com frenzy of nearly a decade ago. Not many of those websites are in business because they sought to create a need instead of filling one that already existed.

NARMS.com is also successful because it is specific. The JobBank and the Recruiter, for example, don’t aspire to be the most searched or hold the greatest number of jobs andprofiles. It is there for one reason — to match retail service reps with retail services companies who need them. Like a local newspaper, NARMS.com has a specific focus and delivers only the tools and information that are most critical for its audience.

To some, it must feel strange for an article about technology to be looking back at what has been called a dead and dying industry; newspapers. But technology does not exist in a vacuum. It exits to serve human beings with organic and specific needs. Absorbing and applying lessons taught by feeling, watching and experiencing an industry that thrives in spite of the onslaught and seduction of “new media” and 24 hour news, helps provide a clear vision for our web-based services to the NARMS membership.

Gerard McLean, President, Rivershark, Inc.

I ran out of coffee filters the other day. Not a big deal, I’ll just hike to Kroger and get some more. When I got there, I saw the empty peghook that once held my filters. Moreover, there was a red tag on the hook informing me that this product would be discontinued.

Here’s why this is a big deal. A few years ago, the 53rd automatic drip coffee maker I have ever purchased in my life, died. Just quit. Arrgghh, there has to be a better way. And there was. Melitta makes this carafe and cone set that only requires hot water and gravity to make coffee. The only wrinkle is that it also requires a size 6 cone filter. But, since Kroger carried it, not a big deal. I adopted my new system. And it was great because it was so simple. It only really required gravity to work. And gravity was free.

Then someone at Kroger decided they were not selling enough #6 filters. And, without asking me, they just quit carrying them.

Amazon.com still sells the #6 and I just bought approximately 2.6 years worth of filters. Until my filters arrive, I am using paper towels to line the cone. In the event Melitta decides to quit selling the #6 cone filter altogether, I know I have 2.6 years to come up with an alternate solution to a perfectly good system. But, what I foolishly adopted outside of the normal 10-cup basket filter automatic drip coffee maker is now showing signs of that death-march to obsolescence. An inferior technology persists because it is ubiquitous.

We get change and new stuff. Really, we do. It excites us. It gets us out of bed every day. But we also have a library of 8mm reels our childhood is on that we can’t watch, a library of 8 track and cassettes our music is on that we can’t hear, a library of VHS tapes our children’s lives are on that we can’t relive and a mountain of Zip Drive cartridges our careers are on that we can’t share or pass on. We’ve seen the result of a system being brought to its knees when a tiny bit of the supply chain becomes obsolete right after we dedicate a large chunk of our lives to it.

We grew up in large families (which is why there are so many of us now clogging the ladder rungs to the top) where everything from dinner to clothes to mom’s attention was a competition with the people you lived with. Most of our families had one car and one income and choices were made based on the supply of resources. We got jobs that promised us work, retirement accounts and free benefits that seemed too good to be true. We took them and squirreled them away, believing that one day they would be gone (turns out we were right.) We’ve lived through and survived at least three recessions and a very large oil embargo. We’ve seen an explosive increase in the divorce rate. In short, we’ve been conditioned to know that free is never unlimited free. Free will run out. Free has a catch. The good times do not last. Commitments are broken every day without apology, remorse or obligation.

And now Twitter and Foursquare want to be the operations in our supply chains, somewhere between service delivery and invoicing. I can see the possibilities for several industries we do work for and it is very, very exciting. But Twitter is free, it has really no reason to be there tomorrow, no obligations, no contract with me.

As I reach for the coffee filters that are no longer there, between boiling the water and lining the cone with carefully folded paper towels, I pause and think, “What if Evan Williams decided to just quit doing Twitter?”