Posts under ‘Writing’

Content Inbreeding: Why We Should Make New Connections

“I think I’ve had it.”
I said this to myself six months ago, as I was trimming my RSS subscriptions. Why do many blogs echo each other’s content? What is the difference between “5 Ways to Use Twitter for Business” and “How to Use Twitter to Promote Your Business”? More importantly, why do these two articles [...]

Exercises in Failure (Part 2): Let them trash your work

I had a professor in one of my painting classes who always gave everyone the highest mark possible. From the struggling students to the almost-pros, our grades were almost exactly the same - 100/100.
Of course, chronic absentees were another question - but the lowest they’d get was 80%. This made everyone happy as it made [...]

Exercises in Failure: Allow yourself to create crap

We’re all afraid of failing. We dread critics, seek the praise of our peers, and crave spotless records. We think that to be happy, productive citizens, we have to avoid failure as much as possible.
Who can blame us? In school we were taught to be ashamed if the teacher marks a giant red “X” on [...]