Writing Boots

On communication, professional and otherwise.

I’ll give up my blog if you’ll give up yours (no I won’t)

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Back when my e-mail address was 210021@compuserve.com, I belonged to an online communicators' forum called, just as sexily, PRSIG. (That was somehow short for "PR + Markting Forum.")

As I remember it, PRSIG was created by a mild-mannered Internet geek named Ron something—I'll think of it—and its various chat areas were hosted by people called "sysops," which was short for "system operators," which really just meant that they guarded the forums against full-scale riots.

Solberg, that was it! Ron Solberg! Hell of a nice guy—unlike many of the rest of us, who were just discovering the joys of online truculence. (I'm not sure I've ever gotten over it.)

Mad debates took place—over everything from how employees prefer to get their corporate news, to whether Maya Angelou was or wasn't a proper choice to keynote the IABC conference—and many characters emerged. All the characters could be split into one of two basic groups, though: You were either a provocateur, or you were an ameliorator.

I still know some of these people today—Shel Holtz, Brian Kilgore, Sue Johnston, Craig Jolley, Charles Pizzo, Sheri Rosen come immediately to mind, but there are many other PRSIG alumni who are still in the business—and they still basically fit into their groups.

But now everything's different. The provocateurs all have their own goddamn blogs. In fact, so do many of the ameliorators. (The provocateurs' blogs are more fun IMNSHO—in my not-so-humble opinion, a phrase I believe we invented at PRSIG.) But the problem is, the people who spent huge chunks of their days debating communication issues at PRSIG (and their younger ilk) are still the handful of crackpots and cranks, thinkers and visionaries who you probably want debating the issues.

But speaking for myself: Every time I get caught up in a discussion on somebody else's blog these days, I soon have a better idea. If it's a good discussion, it ought to be taking place on my goddamn blog. So I write my own item linking to the other blog, and try to wave everybody over to my place, to talk over my point of view on the thing.

I waste too much time writing my blog to waste any time contributing to the discussion on your blog.

And vice versa, I've noticed.

So now, we have all the professional talkers talking to our own readers, but rarely debating with one another. Which is a shame, because those conversations were interesting. Often obnoxious, overwrought and silly—but interesting nevertheless.

Shel Holtz, I'd love to make a sincere offer to give up my blog and return, if you'll do the same, to those halcyon days of Ron Solberg's Communication Tavern.

But I'll never give up my blog, Shel. And either will you.

Will you?

‘Lazy’ is lazy

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We unconditional word lovers think all words are good, because they are not sticks and stones, and because each expansion of one's vocabulary makes one more articulate.

Right?

Usually.

There's one English word, however, that I wish did not exist, because it is, all by itself, a shallow analysis at best, a slanderous lie at worst, and usually both at the same time.

The word is "lazy."

"Lazy" takes inaction—the fellow is not doing what you think he ought to be doing, or the woman is not doing what she herself said two months ago she was going to do—and makes it into a fundamental, fatal character flaw.

Why doesn't the disgruntled employee just get a new job? Because he's lazy.

Why doesn't the high school student do her homework? She's lazy.

Why doesn't the reporter double-check his facts? He's lazy.

Why doesn't the PR woman bother to read the publication whose editor she's pitching? She's lazy.

Why don't inner-city kids all do what some of them have done—get into college and escape from the ghetto? They're lazy.

No, they're not.

Once they're fed and housed, the thing human beings need most is to belong somewhere (somehow). The best and most sustainable way to belong is to be useful. This is known by the very dimmest among us. So if a person—any person—can see a clear way to be useful and to belong, she'll take that path, every time, even if it's straight up a mountain.

Unless the person is: Doubtful of making the summit and terrified of being humiliated on the way up. Or resentful of the smug basecamp cheerleaders who condescend to us, "You can do it!" (We want to belong, but we have our pride—the other quality usually mislabeled as laziness.)

It's true: People often don't do what we want them to do, or what we think they ought to do.

And they very often don't even do what they want to do themselves.

But when we attribute their inaction to "laziness," it is we who are being lazy.

No, even we are not being lazy: We are afraid, actually, of acknowledging the real reason behind the inaction, which usually has much broader implications than a deep and inherent character flaw in one unlucky person or group.

There is no such thing as laziness. There are only fear and pride.

Eliminate the word "lazy" from your vocabulary—you shouldn't even use it on yourself—and you'll immediately become, not less articulate and thoughtful, but more.

Eliminate the idea from the world, and it's exciting to think what might happen.