El Gaffney

Wieden Your Blog Reading

See what I did there?! I could have said “expand” or “add to” but then you wouldn’t have started off your week with that nasty double entendre. Oh yeah, I’m on fire this Monday morning. Literally. I’m still sweating from the walk into work.

To the point. In the now half-year I’ve been working at W+K NY, I’ve met some amazing people (cue violins) and some of those people have blogs. Sure, amazing people does not always mean amazing blogs, but these two are top-notch on and off line. Thus, I’d highly recommend anyone interested in the Internet/Digital Life/Social Media check out:

The Gist of March: Greg March is media guru here with an uncommon understanding of the digital space. I use “uncommon” purposefully as he recently offered some insight into McCain and Obama’s friend situations on Facebook and Myspace. One of my favorite posts of his has to be What Wu-Tang Taught Me About Social Marketing.

Geeky is a way of life: Melissa Sconyers is a search guru here and digital native, passionate and expert. I, of course, have to give her some love for her term-coining abilities based on her Befoogled post (Befoogled = “Not having time to Google somebody before you meet them in real life.”) I was hooked from the first post that I ever read of hers about the work-life balance giving way to the work-life blend (cite: Adrian Ho).

So they’re both worth reading and meeting.

P.S. I am now realizing there’s very little chance that “Wieden” is a double entendre given it’s not a verb in the English dictionary. Racecar. That’s better. Palindromes usually do the trick.

P.P.S. Given I hit up the Tumblr party last night I thought I’d also give a shout-out to three things friends put me onto this morning. I “reblogged” cool things from Chet, Katie and Amit this morning.

Tags: blogging, friends, tumblr

I Found the Interestingness

Any non-RSS-readers may have noticed the comments in response to my “Where Has All The Interestingness Gone?” post last week. A few expressed how they’re tired with, uninspired by, and feel a bit slave to blogging. They echoed my praise of Tumblr. A revolution was suggested (is that even possible?) to desert our blizzies (what the cool people are calling blogs lately…or not), and I was almost a willing and able recruit. Almost.

Last night I hit up the pre-PSFK-conference drinks thought-up by Noah and Faris. I got to meet F-bomb for the first time (which was a treat), shoot the shit with Jason (which was a treat), chill with some other acquainfriences (I know I’m off my term-coining game) living here, and meet a handful of others. And lots of those introductions and friendships were made and over the past year and a half or so have been developed because of this site right here.

So it’s fair to say, last night I got a reminder that this blog is still a great catalyst for meaningful interactions. For me, the snippets of interestingness may happen over on Tumblr (for now), but the most interesting conversations are still happening in person and good, old-fashion blogging still works wonders for making those connections. Maybe it’s that the blog (unlike Tumblr) allows comments—even if not used, it says I’m open to hearing what you think. Or maybe it’s that bloggers share a mutual respect for the process (the ups and downs, freedom and captivity) that we all go through when writing a post, deciding to post…even deciding to keep posting somewhat regularly. I, for one, don’t necessarily apply “are you just creating more noise?” filter to my Tumbles (or Tweets) like I do here. (Sure, that’s debatable.) And though it may sound weird, I like that this platform is not as easy as it could be and not as conducive to my on-the-move lifestyle. That becomes the proof that I’m committed to it.

Wow, that last part felt like I was on a “Does Blogging Matter?” panel. Jealous that-I’m-not-over-at-the-conference much! Let’s go New York.

Tags: blogging, friends, interesting, tumblr

Where Has All the Interestingness Gone?

A post by Michael K. yesterday questioned what happened to all of the planners blogging. I’ve noticed the same thing in my netvibes feed, especially recently. Now it’s possible SXSW is one reason for last couple of week’s declines, but I’m pretty sure it started before that. (And it would seem if planners attended they’d be coming back strong with the recap posts.) I can speak for myself and fill in “too busy” as my multiple choice answer. (Yes, fill in—not check mark or ‘x’ or half fill in because I want it to go through on the Scan-Tron.) However, it’s hard to believe that the decrease in planner posts generally is merely a coincidence. Mike provocatively asks if blogging is dying. I hope not.

But it does seem it may be being squeezed by Twitter and Tumblr on one end and papers, articles, manifestos, books on the other (including The Age of Conversation: Part Deux, to which I will be contributing).

I, for one, have been far better at updating my Tumblr than my blog, and a look at the first page of each will show how much more interesting I’ve been over there. I almost wrote that I’ve “been spending more time on Tumblr,” but that would be false. In fact, I have come to my blog to start posting a few times and realized I didn’t have the inspiration, the words, or the time. Tumblr currently seems to fit into my life better at this point, and I realize I may be over-extending myself keeping both and perhaps even duplicating efforts. If anyone has figured out a plan for managing the blog + Tumblr efficiently or has a strong perspective I’d love to hear it. Frankly I’m jealous of Chet on a regular basis that he’s firmly set and singularly on the the Tumblr platform.

Oh yeah, and of course there’s also the upwards of a billion dollars being lost in productivity starting this week due to March Madness. I’d factor last week’s Big East Tournament into my own productivity levels, but I’m certain many more people are likely impacted by the NCAA Tournament (which I’ve noticed many girls like to call “the Final Four” all the way through - as in: “Are you going to watch the Final Four on Thursday?” or “Are you filling out your Final Four bracket?”). Anyway, back to a crazy week of work, basketball, plays (yes, tonight I’m performing - I’ll let you all know about the next shows on Saturday and Tuesday of the following week), and Tumbling.

Tags: interesting, tumblr, twitter