Normally here at "Writing Boots" we steer clear of the useful in favor of the silly.
But Shel Holtz's video presentation on the case for using social media for employee communication is so useful it's silly.
On communication, professional and otherwise.
by David Murray // Leave a Comment
Normally here at "Writing Boots" we steer clear of the useful in favor of the silly.
But Shel Holtz's video presentation on the case for using social media for employee communication is so useful it's silly.
by David Murray // 2 Comments
Writers write.
We also bitch: Not enough pay, too much interference, disrespect from the "doers" of the world.
But there are compensations, as I was reminded this week.
For instance, the more painful the root canal, Cubs loss or professional humiliation, the better the material. (How do people bear up in such situations without the indulgent little thought, "Hey, I could get a great story out of this"?)
And in business: A writer's mediocre idea floats on sprightly prose, while the non-writer's mediocre idea sinks in leaden language.
And, when your favorite uncle dies and your grieving dad asks you to say something at the funeral, you can say yes.
(Here's part of what I said about Uncle David:
All that was fine and all, but …. well for Godsakes, I could see that traffic just over my shoulder, those car lights creeping into Riverfront Stadium as the sun started to go down.
You were watching me watch that traffic go into Riverfront Stadium. You knew I was polite to quite say: “Uncle David, I do not want to miss the first pitch.”
Suddenly I heard you ask for the check with a chuckle—you are one of the world’s greatest chucklers—and I realized that you knew I was coming out of my skin to get into that ballpark. And what’s more, you approved of my enthusiasm. You liked me because I was excited.
Unlike so many other grownups in my life—and this remains every bit as true today as it was then—you didn’t encourage me to play it cool.
You encouraged my love for whatever I loved.
And you loved what you loved.
I still see you reading the sports page in the kitchen of that glorious house, and remember the way you smoked your Pall Mall and drank your coffee and, with your giant pinky in the air, savored your last piece of toast.
And I always liked your stock answer when somebody made fun of you for eating too much of something that wasn’t good for you. You just grinned and said, “Well I kinda like that stuff!”
I think that kind of sums up your attitude toward your whole life, which hasn’t been entirely easy, hasn’t been anything like perfect. But you didn’t miss one last piece of toast.)
And then afterward at the reception, when a stranger comes up and says you did a good job with Uncle David's eulogy, you can say, "Well Uncle David made it kind of easy." And he laughs and nods in perfect agreement and the two of you head to the bar together, for another Bombay and tonic.
by David Murray // 19 Comments
I don't usually watch the convention coverage on PBS because Jim Lehrer could make a housefire boring. So I indulge in the cable news creeps, who sometimes entertain between the speeches.
Of course, I've long dismissed Fox News as comforter of morons—gee, I think it and so does a feller on TV, so it must be true!
And CNN is the Corporate News Network, so determinedly down the middle and robotically even-tempered that I always imagine Wolf Blitzer announcing that "the missiles [pause here for weirdly timed breath] will hit New York in three minutes. And you're [weirdly timed breath] in the Situation Room."
And now MSBNC, the channel I always turned to desperately during the primaries when my beloved Obama was losing on CNN—maybe he'd be winning on MSNBC!—now these goofs have gone completely off the rails.
MSNBC ranchorman (that's ranter/anchorman) Keith Olbermann has always been a lefty windbag, but he's awfully intelligent and some of his commentaries, humorless as they are, have carried valuable truth and rhetorical power, to my way of thinking.
As with all people who make their living on hyperbole and bombast, the danger is they lose their loose moorings and become caricatures of their own caricatures. Last night in "analyzing" Michelle Obama's speech, Olbermann lost me, and so did MSNBC.
Look, it was a fine speech. I think Michelle Obama's the bee's knees. I hope she and her husband rule the land for eight years. For Godsakes, I spent $300 and seven hours and on a train to catch a glimpse of Obama on Saturday. But even I could not have turned to my wife (who feels the same way about the Obamas) and said with a straight face what Olbermann said last night:
"That could not have done better for them. That could not have done
better for them. Right to the point of the little girls taking the
mikes away and suddenly turning out to be hams. It’s wonderful. It
really was terrific. And notice, did you notice throughout that,
especially as it built towards its conclusion, the woman in that
convention hall the ones we saw at leastwe can’t say every one but there
were tears throughout among the women. And it was not a maudlin
speech, it was not a salesmanship speech. There was just a—I know, I’m
beginning to sound borderline sycophantic on this. So I’ll stop. You
start."
And with that, he turned it over to Chris Matthews, who didn't do what he ought to have done, which was to throw a cold glass of water in Olbermann's face and slap his cheek.
Enough of this clowning around. Jim Lehrer it is.
Post script. 9/8: Now see this. Not discussed in the story is the impact this particular blog post had on the demotions of Olbermann and Matthews.