15 (new) things I learned at WordCamp Reno-Tahoe 2011

Posted on June 4, 2011 by Roger Scimé

Roger Scime | ScribeSite.com | Words Music Pictures

My WordCamp Reno-Tahoe 2011 Badge

For months now, I’ve been stumbling around WordPress. Sure, I have a blog, post to it semi-regularly, and have installed enough plugins and widgets to make it somewhat functional.

But, I’ve always known there was more. As websites increasingly migrate toward the Web 2.0 engagement paradigm, it is apparent that WordPress has become the de facto platform-de-jure, for not only the blogs for which it was originally intended, but for entire websites.

During the 90s, I’d been a moderately successful website designer, but some time taken off had put me far behind the curve to the point where I either had to evolve my skills or throw in the towel. I chose the former.

Therefore, it was with no little satisfaction that I learned of WordCamp Reno-Tahoe 2011, a two-day series of workshops being held on the UNR campus, less than a mile from where I live. It was affordable, too!

I hastened to register.

And this morning I packed up my laptop, threw a notebook and some pencils into my backpack, and headed out for an entire day of WordPress instruction. Boy, was it ever worth it!

Not only was there swag (stickers and decals, pencils, buttons, and even a t-shirt), but evangelists as knowledgeable and enthusiastic as any fanboy in the earliest days of Apple Computers. I even learned (much to my chagrin) that there is an active WordPress community here in Reno, of which I’d been woefully unaware—even though I’ve lived here for the past 8 years.

There was even a Genius Bar (similar to Apple’s), where WordPress experts were on hand to help folks like—answering questions and offering solutions. WordPress, after all, is more than a blog, and—for all its ease of use—can be more than a little intimidating.

But, enough preamble. Here are just a few of the things I learned today that will, hopefully, a) make me a better blogger, and b) make ScribeSite.com a better blog Continue reading →

Off Point: Country Music, editing, and me

Posted on May 31, 2011 by Roger Scimé

As some of you may be aware, in addition to being a social media facilitator, search engine optimizer and manager, writer (with a Master’s in journalism), and any number of other things, I am and have been a professional musician for the better part of my life, sometimes full-time, sometimes part. But, always. I also write songs: nothing you’ve probably ever heard, but still . . .

So, this weekend I attended a songwriters’ workshop and evaluation at the Nugget, so that I might get some feedback from the professional evaluators who were judging.

As luck would have it, KTNV Channel 2 News was on the scene, taping a story for their evening news. They taped a snippet of my entry, and interviewed me afterward.

The question was, “Why are you here today?” and I think I answered it pretty well.

Some people are so familiar with their own works, that they are unable to see them. It’s not that they’re in denial, it’s just that they see what they expect to see. I actually wrote a blog post about this.
Editing yourself can be self-defeating and next to impossible. When I blue-pencil my prose or fiction (or lyrics, for that matter), I generally obsess about it, changing words here and there (wielding my thesaurus like a madman with a chainsaw) to the extent that I manage to leech all of the spontaneity and “juice out if it.

That’s why objective listeners, readers, observers can be invaluable.

What do you think? Are objective evaluations important?

Do your social profiles include any of these clichés? Part 2: “Content Creator” “Content Creation”

Posted on May 2, 2011 by Roger Scimé

Are you content with content?

In my previous post, I discussed the use (including overuse and misuse) of the word remarkable in social media profiles, and mentioned that I would get to its favorite sibling, content, in a subsequent post. Well, here it is, beginning with a question:

When did a story or a work of art or a musical composition or a photograph suddenly become content? It wasn’t me, that I can tell you. I would have stuck with a story or a work of art or a musical composition or a photograph. And, because so many people in social media use that term in their various profiles, it’s become a social media profile cliché.

The word content has also usurped several perfectly serviceable names for the makers, themselves:

writers
artists
musicians
photographers

These craftspeople have been transformed, in the language of social media, into: content creators.

I’ve encountered content and content creator in so many LinkedIn, Twitter, blog “About Me” pages, and résumés, that I herewith dub it—as well as its various iterations—an official social media profile cliché.

Here are some more statistics from another of my dubious, methodologically-challenged surveys (The columns represent Google | LinkedIn | Twitter SERPs):

too much content with too little

With all this content being created, I wonder if anybody has time to write a story, draw or paint a picture, sing or play a song, or take a picture?

I’ll say the same thing I said in my previous post on this subject: It is unlikely that any potential employer will search for the keyword content or the phrase content creator or creation when seeking to hire an artist, musician, photographer, etc.

A caveat, however: Unlike the previous post’s example, of a social media aware employer’s unlikely search for remarkable, it’s entirely possible that he or she might actually search a variation of content.

So, here’s my suggestion. If you feel you must, try something along the lines of:

online or offline content creator [then] expert in music, photography, art, etc.

Or, whatever else floats your boat.

Thus endeth the lesson.

In Part 3 of this series, I’ll deal with compelling, and why it’s not.

Are there any social media conventions or clichés that bother you? Please share your inner-peeves in the comments section, below:

The Carrion Eaters: Collection agencies in the 20th century

Posted on April 26, 2011 by Roger Scimé

“Finance company,” is an almost archaic term for a company that lends small amounts of money to sub-prime borrowers, short term and at high interest rates. Exorbitant fees and frequent rollovers were the goals.

Their 21st century equivalents are so-called payday loan companies. Unlike most payday loan companies, though, finance company loans were usually collateralized by cars, 2nd mortgages, and even household furniture.

As in today’s credit-heavy/income-lite [sic] society, debtors who fell behind were often harassed encouraged to pay by collectors, who specialized in harassing motivating past-due debtors to bring their accounts current.

I wrote the 1st draft of this song i n 1978 and have been updating it ever since—most recently yesterday afternoon. I could have told the story from the viewpoint of the debtor; instead I decided it would be more interesting to tell the tale from the collector’s point of view.

Since posting it on YouTube, comments have ranged from the sympathetic to the condemnatory. I fall into the first category; I’ll leave you to guess with whom.

And, if you, dear reader, have an opinion you’d like to share, well that’s what the little comment box below is for.

How to write good . . .

Posted on April 5, 2011 by Roger Scimé

Make sur u get the werds rite!

This list of “rules” has been floating around since the days when photocopiers and faxes provided the social connectedness of their day and is usually attributed to one Frank L. Visco, Vice-president and Senior Copywriter at USAdvertising.

Was there ever a name for jokes and such that were photocopied—ah, hell, I’ll just say, Xeroxed® with the little ® symbol—and passed around the office or plastered on bulletin boards in the break rooms (usually off-color, almost always funny or clever)? How about “copy network” or “faxi-media”?

Something like that.

Ideas, anybody?

For those who might have missed it the first, second, or third time around, I hereby offer it in all its splendor—for good or ill-literate:

My several years in the word game have learnt me several rules:

Avoid alliteration. Always.
Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
Avoid clichés like the plague. (They’re old hat.)
Employ the vernacular.
Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
Contractions aren’t necessary.
Foreign words and phrases are not apropos One should never generalize.
Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: “I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.”
Comparisons are as bad as clichés.
Don’t be redundant; don’t use more words than necessary; it’s highly superfluous.
Profanity sucks.
Be more or less specific.
Understatement is always best.
Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
One-word sentences? Eliminate.
Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
The passive voice is to be avoided.
Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
Who needs rhetorical questions?

If you’re reading the rules for the first time, enjoy! If you’ve chuckled over it in the past, I hope your remembrances are fond.

If you didn’t get the joke, well, there’s always MySpace.

Do you know of any similar rules that weren’t listed? If so, please take a minute and post ‘em in the little box below, where it say “Comments.”

A simple test

Posted on March 26, 2011 by Roger Scimé

A perfect score?

The following is a corollary to Following instructions: A (sort of) defense. I remember this particular test from my elementary school days, back in Long Beach, NY, and did some Googling until I found a copy. Many of you probably taking this test or a similar one, but I thought I’d include it here, anyway, just in case you knew somebody who hadn’t.

Anyway, here is that test—just as I remember it:

Instructions:
Use a blank sheet of paper. When everyone has finished, you may compare answers. Read everything before doing anything, but work as fast as you can.

Write your full name in the upper-right-hand corner.
Write the name of the place where you live.
Draw a circle around the answer to item 2.
Write the name of your birthplace
Write the name of your favorite superstar (sports, film, etc.).
Draw a triangle on the lower left hand corner.
Underline the answer to No. 5.
Write down your age in months.
State whether you are married or single.
Multiply your age in years by 8 and write down the product.
Draw an equilateral (equal-sided) triangle on the upper left hand corner.
Draw an X inside this equilateral triangle.
When you reach this point, shout, “I have!”
Whisper your first name aloud.
Put your hand on top of your head, close your eyes, and count out loud from 10 to 1.
Keep your hand on top of your head and write down your favorite number.
Complete only item No. 1. Put your pen or pencil down and if others are taking this test, wait for them to finish. Do not talk!

How old were you when you first came across this little bit of misdirection? So, how did you do? Comments (and answers) are always appreciated. Just remember to follow the instructions.

A scribe for the 21st century

Posted on March 26, 2011 by Roger Scimé

Changing the focus of this blog

Some of you might have noticed that the title of this blog has undergone a transformation: Whereas it was (until yesterday) “The Critical Journalism Blog,” today it has become “SCRIBE+SITE,” with the tagline, “Content creation for the 21st century.”

There are a couple of reasons for the change:

For one thing, it was becoming apparent the journalism community had little interest in the concept of applying informal logic techniques to journalistic research, analysis, writing and reporting.
For another, I often found myself writing on topics other than informal logic, critical thinking, or even journalism—a practice that made the blog a hodgepodge and unfocused.

As I tried, each week, to come up with topics that referenced the blog’s title, I became increasingly frustrated: even though it wasn’t all that difficult to find those topics, other subjects just kept on getting in the way, and I realized that all I really wanted to do was write—uninhibitedly, spontaneously, prolifically. Not with a great deal of erudition, nuance, and flair, perhaps; but at least a few paragraphs strung together with decent syntax, proper spelling and grammar, and an occasional soaring phrase that would make the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.

So, there it is. This blog will attempt to highlight my writing talents in as many areas that interest me, and perhaps, you, the reader. Plus, it seems that there’s a market for creating original content in these social media days.

I’ll still post on topics that deal with critical journalism (I’m enamored of the name), but that will no longer be the sole focus of the blog (as if it ever was). I promise to complete the series, “The 9-second election”; with the 2012 election cycle coming up, I should have no shortage of subject matter.

In the meantime, though—as they used to say—Watch this space.

The Daily Me, Revisited

Posted on March 3, 2011 by Roger Scimé

It's all about ME!!!

The late Sci-Fi writer Philip José Farmer famously defined a dullard as, “Someone who looks something up in an encyclopedia, reads the entry, then closes the book.” What he was describing was a person lacking in curiosity and an inquisitive nature. Too many times to count, when I’ve had to look up a fact in an encyclopedia or other type of reference book (or a dictionary, for that matter), my peripheral vision would almost always draw my attention to something above or below it: an illustration, a headline, a word I was unfamiliar with. And, almost always, the experience was rewarding, discovering something unexpected, something I wasn’t looking for and was unprepared for.

I like the old-fashioned, big, yellow phone books for the same reason: who knew there was a category called “Movers’ Resources & Servs” located on the same page as “Movie Theaters” and that the largest heading in that category would be “Adult Theater”? Who would have guessed?

Continue reading →

The 9-Second Election, Part 2

Posted on February 28, 2011 by Roger Scimé

The 9-seccond election, Part 2 | Roger Scime | Critical Journalism

Business Week, June 1994

I hope you all enjoyed the “Plato’s ‘Allegory of the Cave,’ video in my last post. It’s well worth a watch.

In Part 1 of this series, I pointed out that politicians’ platforms, positions, and queries are often reported via sound bites . . . which are becoming shorter every election cycle.

Here are a few examples of the average length of quotes by public officials as broadcast on television news, as reported by the New York Times in 1992.”

1968 – 43 seconds
1972 – 25.2 seconds
1976 – 18.2 seconds
1980 – 12.2 seconds
1984 – 9.9 seconds
1988 – 8.9 seconds

Recently, the Boston Globe published an article titled, “The incredible shrinking sound bite,” in which it cited a recently published study by David M. Ryfe (an Associate Professor here at the UNR Reynold’s School of Journalism, by the way. Ahem) and Markus Kemmelmeier on just this topic. The conclusion: the sound bite had made its way back to 9 seconds by 1992 (at least at CBS).

The author of the Globe piece, Craig Fehrman, stated that shorter sound bites weren’t necessarily a bad thing:

Letting politicians ramble doesn’t necessarily produce a better or more informative political discourse.

However, he notes some drawbacks:

First, and most obviously, [voters] miss out on the variety and authenticity of hearing people speak at length, and in their own words. Short snippets seem to encourage coverage that focuses on candidates’ gaffes and catch phrases. Sometimes, it feels like we get more of the journalists than of the politicians.

Media expert Neil Postman, however, would disagree strongly with this observation. In fact he he believes that shorter sound bites not only harm political discourse and are both a symptom and a cause of an epistemological shift that has dire consequences for our democracy, our nation, and–in fact!–everything else!

To learn how how, you’ll have to read Part 3 of this series.

Plato got it right

Posted on February 25, 2011 by Roger Scimé

Before we continue with part 2 of The 9-Second Election, how many of you remember Plato’s “Allegory of The Cave” from their “Introduction to Philosophy” class? Let me see a show of hands.

Hmm . . . that few, eh?

Well, here’s a refresher course for those who have with short memories. Take my word for it: Plato ties right in with what will be coming next.

Here’s what my friend, Jerry Voltura—who teaches online classes in Critical Thinking and Philosophy—has to say about The Cave:

What is the relevance of the “Allegory of the Cave” in relation to everyday life? For example, how might we relate the world of shadows noted in this allegory to advertising or perhaps to the misconcpetions people have about marriage? We often get involved in circumstances with an unrealistic view of them and then when reality hits, we have mixed reactions. Address this idea in your response noting the relation between Plato’s famous writing and its application to our modern world.

Did you all get that?

Now, I don’t know know many of you read ancient Greek (mine’s a little rusty), so I found this animated version on YouTube (NOTE: It might be a good idea to lower your computer’s volume before hitting “play.” Just a suggestion):

Got all that?

Keep the lessons of Plato’s Cave in mind as we continue on.

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