I’m old enough to remember the early days of the web. Back then (not too long ago, the 1990s), organizations didn’t take this online medium seriously. The web site paled in importance to the newsletter or magazine, at least according the leaders of the time. After all, who reads things on a computer? The Internet was a place for nerds and geeks, for them to discuss Star Trek trivia and learn arcane HTML codes.

If you ran a company or a nonprofit, you really didn’t need a web site, or so people believed. And if you wanted a web site, you could have your nephew build it. He could make something flashy and “cool” like MySpace.

I see the same attitude today toward social media. Why should an organization invest in Facebook or Twitter? Let the interns handle it…

But would you trust an intern to be the voice of your organization? That’s the point I made in a recent article in AOL Government. If you accept the fact that social media is important (and you should, because that’s where the audience is), then why would you hand over these communication efforts to those who know the least about your company? Do you trust college kids to spread your message, respond to questions and interact with potential customers? Do they know the hot-button issues within your company? The language that you use with customers? Your customer service standards and policies? The things that they’re *not* supposed to talk about?

And what happens when the interns leave? They take all that hard-won knowledge about your organization with them, as well as valuable expertise in social media. And they may take the Twitter account as well.

Social media is too important to be left to a transient workforce. Companies and organizations should take a deliberate approach to this dynamic new tool. The keys to the social media kingdom shouldn’t be in the hands of someone who just walked in the door.

Your voice online should be controlled by someone who both knows your company and is familiar with the culture of the web and social media. Look around – you probably have someone already with the requisite experience and interest. They’re probably doing something perceived as more important. But what’s more important than representing your brand in a medium that reaches millions?

On the streets of Washington, you will find two competing visions of America.

At the Apple Store in Georgetown, a tribute has been erected to Steve Jobs, artist and entrepreneur. Loyal fans have brought mementos celebrating his illustrious life. The things he created – the Mac, iPod, iPhone, iPad – brought joy to millions as they allowed ordinary people to creatively participate in the wider world.

Steve Jobs tribute

Jobs was an optimist and a revolutionary. This college dropout embraced the future and believed in technological progress. No longer would computers just be used by scientists – Apple created beautiful devices that were for the rest of us.

The process was messy. The iPod wrecked the music industry and ended in the demise of stores like Tower Records. The iPad and the Kindle are doing the same thing to the publishing business, with Borders already on the way out.

I don’t think Jobs fretted over this. The future was something to be welcomed.

Across the city, OccupyDC is offering a different vision of the future. Though they depend on Apple, ATT and other companies to organize their protest, they believe that corporations are the enemy. Big companies must be stopped, and bent to the will of the people. What this means, and how this is to be done, is unclear.

These occupiers no longer believe in the American dream, despite holding in their very hands the evidence that it still exists – the iPhone.

OccupyDC on Freedom Plaza

They’re against war but tried to force their way into the Air and Space Museum, to shut down an exhibit on military drones. They bragged about how they forced the museum to close, sending home thousands of unhappy tourists on one of the nicest days of the year.

OccupyDC wants to return America to a time when incomes were more equitable. They want a great leveling, taking from some and giving to others. With a belief in left-wing conspiracy theories, they reject our democratic institutions and call for direct action to achieve their aims.

Two Americas. One that celebrates individual rights and technological progress. The other that calls for redistribution by force.

Which one do you want to live in?

You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
- Steve Jobs

With the iPod, iPhone and iPad, Steve Jobs changed the way we lived, making computers accessible and personal. He transformed how we relate to electronic devices, putting a heretefor unseen premium on design and usability. Along the way, he upended entire industries, breaking the monopoly pricing enjoyed by greedy music conglomorates and forcing telephone companies to meet the needs of consumers.

Apple is one of the most successful companies in the world and proof of what this country can still accomplish. Only America offers the freedom, creativity and technical knowhow necessary to give rise to a media corporation like the Cupertino giant. Steve Jobs liked to say that he existed at the intersection of liberal arts and technology, a genius that would have been crushed among the slave laborers of China or the repressed salarymen of Tokyo.

And all this was done by a man without a college degree. As noted in his widely-read commencement address, he was a person who followed is interests wherever they led. Not wanting to bankrupt his parents, he dropped out of Reed College – and then “dropped in” on whatever courses interested him. This meant studying calligraphy, perhaps one of the most impractical courses available. Picture a bearded and half-starved Steve Jobs hand-lettering posters as he followed his curiosity.

What would you call a person like that today? A flake. Can’t you be more practical? What’s calligraphy going to get you? Please, be realistic, there are no jobs for calligraphers…

Yet, as Jobs noted in the quote above, his journey makes sense only in retrospect. He was not on a career path, a linear ascension on a road that others had laid out for him. Instead, he surrendered to his interests. As he studied calligraphy, he had no way of knowing that it would lead to the beautiful typefaces found on the Mac.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.
- Steve Jobs

Can you imagine a world without the Mac? Computers would be ugly, utilitarian devices, with software to match. Jobs stressed the power of good design, whether it was the feel of an iPhone in your hand or the pleasant experience of dragging icons on a desktop.

This is a beauty that you will not find in any spreadsheet. Bill Gates said that what he most admired about Jobs was, “His taste.” His eye for quality and usability was something that Microsoft could never fully duplicate, no matter how hard they tried. It was embodied in a person, not a corporation. Like with iPad rivals, everything else feels like a cheap knock-off.

There’s an irony that America’s best company was lead by a man without business training. Steve Jobs did not have an MBA. An iconoclast, guided by hippie-era values of self-discovery, he followed his gut, and confidently let the market decide. Better to be a failure on his own terms than let his ideas get watered down by committees of number-crunchers.

This artist exposed the folly of an entire generation of MBAs, proving that you didn’t need an advanced degree from Harvard to build a wildly successful company. In fact, having such a degree may be a hindrance to revolutionary products, as evidenced by other great college drop-outs like Mark Zuckerberg.

Yet, as anyone who works in an office knows, America has been infected by the soul-crushing business terminology and theories of MBAs, from the meaningless “value-added” to the we-know-best attitude of “business process reengineering.” Rather than concentrating on building great products, busybody managers concentrate on vision statements, stultifying PowerPoint presentations and endless hours driven by utter disorganization.

It’s no wonder that people are drawn to the principles of REWORK, a brilliant book by a couple of other visionaries. They spell out a more humane and more productive way of working together.

This revolt is also seen in the agile software development, an iterative approach to software design that frees people from doomed-from-the-start “waterfall” models, like Microsoft Project.

In web content management (my field), this means moving away from complicated leviathans like Vignette in favor of nimble software designed around the user, such as my beloved WordPress.

American companies would be wise to ditch the MBAs. Instead, concentrate on building great products, stuff you actually want to use. And have the courage to hire creative iconoclasts like Steve Jobs, people at the intersection of liberal arts and technology. Painters, writers, photographers, designers – maybe even add a calligrapher to the staff. You never know where it might lead.

With this photo, I have inadvertently started a kerfuffle (love that word).

It was part of a series of photos I took of the Washington Monument inspection for earthquake damage.

I took the above photo because I thought it was kind of funny – a park ranger in his big hat on a bike. I submitted it to The Wash Cycle, a local blog on bike advocacy. They ran it with the cheeky title, Only You Can Prevent Bicycle Crashes.

Commenters on the site identified the ranger as Bill Line, spokesperson for the National Park Service. He’s infamous among local bike advocates for opposing the expansion of DC’s bikesharing service to the National Mall. And here he is riding a bike.

Not only that, he’s not wearing a helmet and talking on a cellphone. A bag swings from his handlebars, unsafely. Commenters on the site also critiqued his ancient flip-phone and ratty handlebar tape.

Without meaning to, I made news. This simple photo tells a story. Several of them actually, if you want to interpret the image that way. It reveals the hypocrisy of bike opponents riding bikes, as well as a cavalier attitude toward bike safety.

This blog kerfuffle also highlights the fact that public servants are public. What they do is out in the open and possibly recorded by accidental citizen journalists, like myself.

I was on a job interview recently and was asked to define “open government,” the movement to make government transparent and accountable to citizens. This photo is a perfect (though minor) illustration of open government in action, showing what happens when citizens get an unvarnished look at public servants at work.

update: this story was republished on e.politics, a blog that covers digital advocacy. And the photo appeared on Greater Greater Washington.

Content marketing is defined as:

the creation or sharing of content for the purpose of engaging current and potential consumer bases.

We’re all in the marketing biz now, defined by the content that’s available about us online. Whether it’s a post about World of Warcraft in a gaming forum, a Facebook complaint about teenagers at the mall, or a well-sourced article in a scholarly journal, our identities are a function of the web. We may be very different people in real life, but for potential employers, customers, friends or romantic partners, first impressions are formed by what pops up during a Google search.

Unless you’re living off the grid in some Nevada desert, this information, this shadow-version of your self exists in cyberspace. Details about your life are posted online (like that you finished in 122nd place in the local fun run), without you probably even being aware of it.

You could rage against this loss of identity or you could do something about it. Content marketing is doing something about it. Instead of just being a viewer of content, start actively creating it. Register a site in your own name. Create a blog. Tweet, comment on stories and contribute to online forums.

But do so consciously. Be aware that you’re shaping your personal brand online. Think about the searches that people will be doing in the future and how you want to appear in them. Don’t let other people define you – use content marketing to shape your image online.

Why do the great novels of our age emerge from New York and not DC? Washington is the capital of the country, except when it comes to fiction-writing.

I examine these questions in The Washington Literary Inferiority Complex, recently published by nthWORD Shorts. I think it’s time for the Great Washington Novel.

It was a small moment at the WordPress DC Meetup. One of the creators of WordPress, Matt Mullenweg, was in town. He had come to this monthly meeting at Fathom Creative to learn what the local community wanted in the next version of his web publishing software.

The media library in WordPress was discussed. Mullenweg admitted that it is confusing and gets difficult to manage once you have lots of images in the library. A man in the audience brought up a technical issue he had with the library. Mullenweg explained that you could actually do what the man wanted to in WordPress but stated:

The software is wrong, not the people.

This is a revolutionary statement. Mullenweg could have just told the man that “you’re doing it wrong” before telling him the “right” way to work with WordPress. Instead, the fact that users had problems with the media library told him that the software needed to be improved.

It’s a contrary notion. We all adapt to clunky and ever-changing software, relearning the basic tasks needed to accomplish our work – where’d they move the print button?

And we cope with this increasing complexity without complaint. Because no one wants to look stupid. You can’t figure out the ribbon in Microsoft Word? You must be the idiot, not the software.

This is especially true in the world of content management systems for web sites. I’ve worked on large-scale web sites for more than a dozen years as a web editor, producer and site manager. I remember when we did things in HTML. I have fond memories for Claris HomePage. Compared to the complexity of managing a large site in Dreamweaver, a CMS seemed like a brilliant idea.

Be careful what you wish for. Over time, I’ve had the fortune/misfortune to use nearly every major CMS out there.

The simple publishing tools that we used back in the 90s “evolved” into massively complex structures requiring expensive experts to install and administer. CMS like SharePoint, Vignette and Percussion are punishing experiences for the user, turning the joyous task of writing into a machine-led death march. You enter your content and then engage in a series of database programming tasks, with the hope that at the end of it, if everything goes well, your article will appear in the correct format on the web site at the next publishing cycle.

It’s no wonder that there’s so much bad writing online when the publishing tools are so lousy.

WordPress is different. Being open-source, and closely tied to the community (would Steve Ballmer listen to your feedback?), it has a different philosophy – “The software is wrong, not the people.”

Of course, it’s not perfect – the media library definitely needs some work – but it’s easy to use and adaptable. WordPress now powers more than 50 million web sites.

And, most importantly of all, it’s software that people want to use. No one feels passionate about SharePoint. But they do about WordPress. This enthusiasm will lead to its greater adoption. Over time, the users will prevail.

Everyone writes. In this digital age, we’re creating more words than ever. Whether it’s an email to a client, a persuasive blog post or the Great American E-Book, the ability to explain yourself in writing is the critical skill of the Internet era.

Despite this profusion of words, people often encounter writer’s block when attempting large or significant projects. They can fire off tweets and snarky Facebook comments all day long but their fingers stall when it comes to crafting something that really matters.

After I wrote my novel Murder in Ocean Hall, the question I got most was, “How?”

How did I muster up the patience to devote so much time to a single idea? How did I keep at it? How did I overcome the inertia of writer’s block to get started?

Writer’s block happens to everyone. But it can be overcome.

Perfect is the Enemy of the Good

I’ve met a lot of creative folks with ideas for books or blogs or screenplays. Yet, many of them fail to ever put pen to paper. Why? Because the idea is perfect in their head; the reality of the thing is never going to match their vision. They do nothing, preferring to keep their fantasies pristine rather than sullying them with reality. But isn’t it better to have something that actually exists, no matter how flawed, to an ephemeral vision? To write means to express your ideas, imperfectly.

Steven Pressfield calls this reluctance to get started, “Resistance” in his book on creativity and courage, Do the Work.

outline for this blog post

Outline

Would you go out into the wilderness without a map? Yet, many people will just dive into a project without a clue where they’re going. Once the rush of enthusiasm ends, they get stuck. It’s better to take some time and create an outline. An outline can be really simple – a list of chapter titles, points you want to make, things you want to mention. It’s something that you can turn to when you run out of steam.

No Editing

Don’t edit as you go. That can be done later. The purpose of the first draft is merely to get your ideas down on paper. It’s about collecting all the disparate thoughts you have and recording them, without judgement. You can clean them up and make them coherent when you edit. The first draft is more about collection than craft.

Reward Yourself

You can’t boss your mind around. It’s really adept at avoiding commands. In fact, telling yourself that you “must” do this or that virtually guarantees procrastination.

A better strategy is to reward yourself when accomplishing important milestones. When writing Murder in Ocean Hall, I gave myself a small present (a bottle of gin, a Wii game) for every 10,000 words I wrote. We all respond better to carrots instead of sticks.

Find a Quiet Place

One of the worst developments of the 20th century is the open office. Noisy and filled with distractions, these low-walled spaces are terrible for any type of work that requires concentration. Find some place quiet to write, like your favorite coffee shop, the neighborhood library or an empty conference room. And turn off the Internet.

Simple Tools Work Best

I like Pages by Apple. It’s a simple word processor that gets out of the way. If you must use Microsoft Word, turn off all of its autosaving, autocorrecting gimmickry – “features” that are designed to interrupt your concentration.

First Things First

I am not a morning person. Despite this, I do most of my writing first thing in the AM. Why? Zenhabits had the excellent advice to do your most important work at the beginning of the day, lest it get lost in the press of other demands.

writer’s block vs Writer’s Block

I was on a panel on with Claudia Myers, a professor who teaches screenwriting at American University. She made a distinction between writer’s block and Writer’s Block. The lower-case variety can be cured by the methods listed above; it’s largely a matter of getting started and keeping the momentum going.

However, Writer’s Block (upper-case variety) indicates a structural problem – perhaps there’s something wrong with the way that your communicating your idea. For her screenwriting students, she recommends explaining their script out loud to a friend. Sometimes by talking things out, you can identify what’s wrong with your story. If your audience seems puzzled or confused, then you’ve gone astray.

So, what do you do with an idea that’s not working out? You have three choices:

1. Press on, because it’s your idea, dammit.
2. Figure out what’s not working and fix it.
3. Quit and start something new.

Not sure which option to take? See the excellent The Dip by Seth Godin, a book about knowing when to quit.

When writing, nothing is ever really wasted. At the very least, working on a failed project is good practice. And that effort may come in handy later on. For example, I tried writing a novel about gentrification in DC. I got about fifty pages into it and got hopelessly stuck. A few years later, the characters and the story I worked on were the basis for my award-winning screenplay, Mount Pleasant.

Summary

It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.
Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

Writing is making a dream come true. It’s about taking your idea and communicating it successfully. Writer’s block is an inevitable part of the process, a difficulty you encounter along the way. But it can be overcome.

I had a chance to speak at a DC Film Salon panel on screenwriting. It was a really interesting session, with lots of great questions from the audience. This is the advice I provided.

I won the Film DC Screenwriting Competition in 2006 for my feature-length screenplay, Mount Pleasant. Since then, people have asked me about screenwriting, what software I use, if I took classes, etc… How’d I do it?

It’s simple, really. Just two steps:

1. Read
   
2. Write

1. Read

My screenwriting journey began when I friend of mine gave me a couple of scripts to read. We had been in a writers’ workshop together, discussing short stories in a basement conference room. She shared with me the classic of the genre which, believe it or not, is the script for Rocky. Yo! It is the archetypal hero’s journey.

Luckily these days, plenty of scripts are online at sites such as Simply Scripts. Find the scripts from your favorite films and read them. I read a bunch of them – On the Waterfront, Taxi Driver, Swingers, Raising Arizona, Fisher King.

Don’t read too many books about screenwriting. There are scores of books about how to market your script, how to beat the Hollywood reader, how to “save the cat”, to make your script as perfectly structured as a the Empire State Building. Avoid these prescriptive tomes, for they will lead to paralysis, as you try to follow someone else’s vision rather than your own.

There are couple of basic books to read on screenwriting that I can recommend: Elements of Screenwriting Style and Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting.

2. Write

Your job is to write. It’s a lonely calling, requiring you to spend hours in front of a computer. Find the method that works for you, whether it’s waking up early to craft that screenplay or escaping to some coffeeshop to do some work.

It’s astonishing to me the number of people who have ideas for screenplays but don’t actually write them. We could examine the reasons for that (see the excellent but oddly out of print On Writer’s Block for an examination of the psychological perils of creativity). Yes, your script will never be as good as the perfect vision in your head but isn’t it better to get it done?

Mount Pleasant began for me as a novel. I knew the story from my time in DC (racial conflict in a gentrifying neighborhood). I did further research, created descriptions of my characters and wrote a detailed outline. After fifty pages of writing, however, I ran out of steam.

A couple of years later, I met a couple of filmmakers who were looking for someone to edit their script. It was a romantic comedy set in DC. Prior to this, I had always been a bit puzzled by the screenplay format. However, after reading their script, which featured people and situations so familiar to me, it was like a lightbulb went on. I can do this, I thought.

I got to work in turning my novel into a script. I got to around page 30 and then got stuck again.

The F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Conference was coming up. There was a workshop on screenwriting and you only had to supply the first ten pages of your script for review. Perfect! That was about all I had.

During the workshop, the instructor brought up my screenplay first. She said, “Joe obviously knows a lot about screenwriting.” Which made me laugh but also convinced me that I better finish this script.

It was an on and off process that took about a year but I did eventually complete Mount Pleasant.

Random Bits of Advice

Software – Final Draft is a bloated beast created by a company that could give Microsoft a run for their money in terms of pure evil. Instead, check out Celtx or, if you’re a Mac user, the elegant Montage.

Classes – Is it worth taking a class on screenwriting? Yes. I like the Writers Center in Bethesda. Also, check out WIFV, which has a screenwriters’ group. Is it worth taking dozens of classes, year after year, and hardly writing anything? No. Your job is to write.

Community – The DC area is packed with filmmakers. You can learn a lot from watching how the sausage gets made. Take part in the madness that is the 48 Hour Film Project. Volunteer with DC Shorts to judge film or screenplay submissions. Come to the DC Film Salon and meet other creative artists.

Contests – Winning a contest confers credibility. But it doesn’t guarantee anything. I won the Film DC Competition and had an eye-opening visit to the set of the West Wing. It lead to my greater involvement with the local film community. But my script was never turned into a movie. My advice is to enter contests selectively. Enter the really big ones that will make a difference (Austin, Nicholls) and target smaller competitions that are well-suited for your script (like the Kairos Prize for religious stories or DC Shorts if you’re a local writer).

Conferences – Like with classes, you could spend your life going to writing conferences without ever actually writing anything. ScriptDC is a great local conference that is inexpensive and well-worth attending. I also enjoyed the Austin Film Festival, but I love everything in that city.

In conclusion, if you can tell a story with a beginning, middle and end, then you can write a screenplay. It’s a matter of learning the form and then actually doing it. Which is the hardest part of all.

Agnes in the structure

My good friend Philippa Hughes is hosting an artist in her home this week. It’s a project called Art is Fear.

Here’s the description:

This coming May 2011, for one week, the artist Agnes Bolt will move into the home of the very sociable and curious Philippa Hughes to playfully explore the dynamics between an artist and an art collector. With a naive optimism and subtle social critique the project will manifest itself with a large obtrusive structure situated within Philippa’s home in which the artist will live. The presence of the artist will be impossible to ignore. A series of rules, exercises, communication systems and bonding experiences will dictate the interactions between the two as will video cameras given to both parties. Both are required to follow the rules but mischief and expectations of an open spirited dynamic is highly encouraged.

A woman living in a bubble? I was intrigued.

I’m a huge fan of Philippa’s work with the Pink Line Project – with parties like Cherry Blast, she’s brought fun to a staid art world. I associate her with inventive and creative ways to engage people of all ages. From arm-wrestling with roller derby girls to scavenger hunts, her events are the very antithesis of serious Washington. In fact, I enjoyed them so much that I started writing for Pink Line.

I expected a similar light and fun touch to Art is Fear so I stopped by one afternoon to visit with Philippa and take some photos.

A clue to what was in store for me came from Agnes’s correction of photographer Matt Dunn, who took pictures of the bubble:

When I arrived, they were in the midst of an argument.  Philippa, smiling was explaining that the whole experiment was getting to her.  Agnes wanted to know exactly what was bothering her.  “This whole thing,” she said, indicating the structure, the imposition, the videographer who had also been staying with her the whole time, crashing on her couch.

crawling down the tunnel

They took a break from the “interesting discussion” as Philippa called it.  We had sorbet.  I crawled down a long blue tube (like something you’d see on a playground) and into the structure.

Inside the clear plastic bubble, it was stuffy and a bit claustrophobic but not necessarily uncomfortable. A couple of vents allowed in air. It was like a child’s play fort, where you could see the grown-ups but they couldn’t get at you. It was furnished with a little chair, a mat for Agnes to sleep on and other decorations. The videographer filmed things, looking down the length of the bubble

Agnes had a phone interview, taking the call through a tube in the structure. On the other side of the tube, Philippa held her phone so Agnes could hear the questions. They discussed the publicity the project had gotten, including the photos by Matt Dunn.

Philippa Hughes, outside the structure

We had an interesting talk about the perils of being well-known. Philippa gets energy from being with people, throwing events, but dislikes some aspects that the attention brings. If you’re going to do things in public, people are going to criticize you. They’re going to hate you.

Despite her public face, she doesn’t want to be “on” all the time, which is why Art is Fear has been uncomfortable for her at times. Like all of us, she likes her personal space.

Our conversation was interrupted by a visit from the ASPCA. Someone had reported Philippa, claiming that she was abusing an animal in her condo. The caller described hearing an animal being tortured, one that was “bigger than a dog.” They had provided her name and apartment number.

The man from the ASPCA came in. Philippa showed him that there was no animal here – just a woman living in a clear plastic structure. He was good-natured about it, saying that he sees all sorts of things in his visits to DC.

visit from the ASPCA

After he left, Philippa began to speculate on who might have made this false report. She thought it might be one of her neighbors, or people who dislike her. Or worse. As a public figure, and a woman, she’s had unwanted and threatening male attention.

“Bigger than a dog,” Agnes said, pleased with herself. She had made the call.

Philippa got it. She stood up, went to her bedroom, and closed the door.

At this point, a normal person would have empathy.

Agnes sat there. I told her that what she had done was wrong and that she should apologize to Philippa for frightening her.

The girl explained that this was “payback” for being “objectified”. The night before, Philippa had people over, to check out the installation. They took pictures and looked at the girl in the bubble. Of course, she had willingly put herself in there and could leave at any time. And performance art is necessarily public.  And she wanted and participated in the publicity. She even invited people into the bubble with her.

Agnes Bolt

Agnes thought that making the call to the ASPCA was part of a back and forth game that she and Philippa were having. She lapsed into artspeak, talking about conversations between collectors and artists and the difference between observing and participating.

I told her that it was one thing to have this little art game in the comfort and security of Philippa’s apartment but to drag the real world into it was immoral. And not just for scaring Philippa, the woman who was graciously hosting her for a week. She had wasted the time of the ASPCA, who had sent someone over to investigate a false report.

Agnes, however, was impressed by this turn in the game. There was in fact an animal trapped in a cage. Her.

There’s a fine line between a sociopath and an artist.

I crawled out of that rat’s nest of emotional dysfunction, on my hands and knees, glad to get out of this little art world.