Content in Context (audio)

reflecting on the recent events; rain, Memorial Day weekend, and Town Council budget process


For more about content in context follow this link
http://steves2cents.blogspot.com/2009/08/job-search-notes-feedback-letter.html

dogwood blooming in the backyard

Three C's

Content: a harvest festival, a gathering of vendors and businesses sharing information, crafts and all kinds of stuff.

Conversation: what happens when people meet. They stop and talk, about the weather (if the rain would stay away) and perhaps get into a more serious topic after catching up on the other's happenings.





Community: if the content that brought the group together and started the conversation, such that the conversation continued to build among the group, developing a respect and trust for those participating, then there is a possibility of that content and conversation creating a community!

There were seeds of such a community (or communities) planted on Sunday at the Harvest Festival in Franklin.

content and provenance

Two good articles on news, journalism, blogging and what it all means in today's world.

The war between journalists and bloggers at the Washington Post

from Scott Rosenberg's Wordyard by Scott Rosenberg

and

The importance of provenance

from BuzzMachine by Jeff Jarvis

The key takeaway from Jeff Jarvis as a content creator is:

In content, as creation becomes overabundant and as value shifts from creator to curator, it becomes all the more vital to properly cite and link to sources and even to add value to those links, explaining why the click is worth the time and encouraging people to take the trip. Good curation demands good provenance.

Job search notes: 3 word goals

Good ole' Punxsutawny Phil is reported to have seen his shadow on Feb 2, otherwise known as Groundhog Day. I saw mine while out for my morning run.

I realized while running that I needed to catch up on my three word goal for 2010. I had been busy with work, et al but now with that project complete, this is as good a time as any. I continued to draft this in my head as I finished my run through Franklin.

My three words for this year come from a discussion with a good friend as we re-work my resume. My prior versions as accurate as they are of my corporate and chronological work experience leave out the developments I have made outside the workplace all along the way. I felt that the community building work with the unconferences and Franklin Matters was not fairly represented. Over the course of several conversations, some themes revealed themselves and I'll use these are my 3 word goals for this year.

Conversation - continue to explore creative ways to engage folks in a conversation. I want to get to the heart of the matter for their point of view. Sometimes easier said than done. It will take time, patience, and good listening to 'read between the lines' as to what they really mean when they say what they say.

Content - the subject matter at hand. I have a few areas of content creation. I used to have more and skinned down to writing about Franklin, job searching and exploring the good experience. JJL has ended but the life long learning needed to do more than survive in this economic world will persist.

Community - My good PodCamp buddy Chris Brogan in his book Trust Agents (co-authored with Julien Smith) advocates building an army. In Franklin, I have grown my subscribers to over three hundred. With 19,000 registered voters, my BHAG is to get to 10,000! There is plenty of work to do.

How do the three words connect? I am looking to create good conversation around content that matters and build an engaged community.

What do you think of this? How am I doing?

What are your goals for this year?


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Last year's goals:
http://steves2cents.blogspot.com/2009/01/3-word-goals-for-2009.html



Mid-year status:
http://steves2cents.blogspot.com/2009/06/3-word-goal-status-check.html

What teachers make

Taylor Mali does a good job delivering his poem "What teachers make". This is a bit old coming from 2005 but still valid. There are other versions on YouTube that are not as edited for language.

This is using language judiciously and effectively. I approve of the content within this context.



Of note, Billy Collins (former poet laureate of the US) is also on the stage with Taylor when this was recorded.

Hat tip to RIFuture.org

job search notes - paradox of learning

There is a paradox in learning. It is the paradox of the two tents.

On one side are those who are content. On the other dwell those who live in discontent. It appears that both have something to teach us about learning.

Before you click through to read the full article here think about which tent you live in? and why?

Real actors, real sex - porn or art?

As reality continues to move to the mainstream, and no, I do not mean reality TV shows (IMHO, that is not reality). There is a trend in Hollywood movies to come closer to reality in their depiction of sex. Ty Burrs article in today's Boston Sunday Globe explores this trend and the recent move to the edge as seen in the film "9 Songs". Ty writes:

Since the breakdown of the old studio system in the late 1950s, commercial movies have danced closer and closer around representations of sexuality. Barriers to nudity and behavior have slowly fallen, but sexual activity has remained simulated, even if with increasing frankness. Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider weren't really making love in ''Last Tango in Paris," but the film was extreme enough for viewers to temporarily think so.

...

One reason for this state of affairs, obviously, is porn. The emergence of hard-core sex movies from the underground in the early 1970s, their explosion onto home video in the 1980s, and their metastasization onto the Internet in the late 1990s essentially gave Hollywood the escape clause it needed. Since the ''real thing" was readily available if you so chose -- and on increasingly private terms -- the pressure was off commercial movies to compete in prurience. In fact, the pressure was on for them not to. The dirty secret about dirty movies is that audiences feel uncomfortable watching them in a theater full of strangers (or worse, unexpected acquaintances). Home video and the Internet took porn back to the bedroom where it belonged.

...

Because it's product rather than storytelling and has to adhere to the demands of a paying audience, mass-market hard-core has a ritualistically defined beginning, middle, and end. Plus there's all that cheeseball music. Faithful only to baseline anatomy, porn is in many ways more repressive and repressed than mainstream culture.

So it makes sense that movies -- ''real" movies -- are beginning to experiment once more with real sex: If you can show it all and it still doesn't mean anything, what needs to be added for it to have any weight? Art? Plot? Theory? Believable characters? A personal perspective?

I think it needs to meet the appropriate "content in context" criteria. This draws from a story Tom Asacker told (and he references in his book A Cleareye for Branding). Tom, I am not sure if you ever considered this as a natural extension of the message you wanted to convey but here goes.

Tom's story starts with a picture. A hand written sign propped up along a country road. The sign reads: "Fresh fruit and vegetables". The country road, the hand written sign, the text about "fresh" is reinforced by the wholeness of the package. These are likely to be as fresh as they can be. The content in the context works. Second picture, similar setting, similar hand written sign along a country road. The text this time reads: "Free flying lessons". Now, is this something that would convey a warm and fuzzy feeling that this might be the best deal on flying lessons you can obtain? Or does this similar send off alarms as probably not a good thing to do? The content in the context does not work so well as the fresh vegetables.

If the content fits the context, adds to the story line, helps to deliver the message, then this is the kind of "reality" that movie directors should strive for. Otherwise, leave it well enough alone.

What are you thoughts?