Talk with Tom
Get the dispatches from the new world of work
Hands-on Blogging
I've been invited to blog at a site where they want me to "submit" stuff to them via email or attached documents and they will use the blogging software to post my thoughts.
I know it makes sense for them. And I know on this blog, at Tom Peters.com, some of our contributors prefer working that way. But as for me, it drives me crazy!
I've found every time I get ready to blog something for this new site I've been invited to join—and they are, btw, lovely folks pushing a cause near and dear to my heart and I WANT to blog for them—I can't stand NOT having access to the software myself.
I want to be "hands-on" with the tools—especially because they are so easy to use and because I've gotten in the habit of editing and shaping the text myself, looking at it in "preview" mode, playing with it, moving paragraphs around, actually using it to be creative.
The blogging tools themselves seem to me to be an integral part of the creative process of writing now. In fact, when I have to write in a word processing format, it feels dead to me—not alive like blogging software does. And in word processing I don't "speak" the same way. It makes me feel formal and stuffy, not fresh and quick.
Word processing sounds like a "memo" to me and feels as if it lives up on a dusty shelf. Blogging feels like it's part of a "turned on" network. Does the medium really shape all messages?
ARCHIVES
Before blogging became all the rage, Tom was posting book reviews and Observations (essentially early blog posts) to this site. You can find the archives below.
What Tom's Reading Archives
OBSERVATIONS ARCHIVES
right now
What we're talking about
on the front page.
Comments
Halley,
Can't you preview it in your blog, shape it however you'd like, then cut-paste and send to the third party? Or are their margins, formatting, and such that much different than yours?
Posted by Dustin at June 14, 2005 5:16 PM
Dustin = I'm just not in the habit of using any other tool, so it doesn't seem worth it. I want my hands on it and honestly, if I send it formatted the way I like it, I want their hands OFF it, but there's no guarantee of that.
Might be my own private weirdness, but I think there's an analogy to be made along the lines of the early days of email when CEO's asked their secretaries to print out their email on paper. Nobody does that anymore and I think that's the trend in blogging.
Posted by Halley at June 14, 2005 5:30 PM
If they use MT, it's quite possible that they have a limited license and can only have one author which is why they can't issue access to the other contributors.
Posted by femmebot at June 14, 2005 6:18 PM
I thought I was the only one! Recently I find that I am doing almost all of my initial writing in blogging tools. Word, for example, is turning into simply a final delivery tool. Much of it seems to be a function of the blogging tools letting me focus on content and organization more than on layout and formatting.
Posted by Jim McGee at June 14, 2005 7:39 PM
Good to know, but it's not Moveable Type actually on the site I was talking about. Thanks for the suggestion. I thought with MT even if you have one "author" you can have a separate admin person, am I wrong?
Posted by Halley at June 14, 2005 7:40 PM
Jim = I notice I'm not using WORD for writing, not using IE for a browser, switching all my tools away from the MS suite.
Even with writing notes on meetings to myself, I often put them in my Blogger software at Halley's Comment and just leave them in DRAFT mode, and never publish them, making my blog a public and private writing environment.
I'm also using a lot more TEXTing than EMAILing lately.
Posted by Halley at June 14, 2005 7:44 PM
'..pushing a cause near and dear to my hear'
what more? just email them.
Posted by Paradox Valley at June 14, 2005 10:29 PM
just say "blog off" (in a nice way) - nice people need to change too - so be a trend setter!
Posted by davidcoe... at June 15, 2005 2:53 AM
I can relate to that Halley - it is something about having control versus someone else doing it for you - it never feels the same does it?
I am really not a control freak - honest - but I like to know that 'my words' are totally 'my words' and no-one 'in the middle' adapts them
Maybe I am a control freak after all :-)
Greetings from a dull and rainy England Wednesday morning
Posted by Trevor Gay at June 15, 2005 4:45 AM
I can definitely see how it's more exciting and more convenient to use the blogging template. Any recommendations for what is the best blogging software?
Posted by Noel Guinane at June 15, 2005 6:24 AM
WordPress is a great, versatile program for the do-it-yourselfer. Moveable Type/Typepad seem to be the choice of professionals willing to go with a subscription-based model.
Posted by Dustin at June 15, 2005 9:15 AM
It appears the site in question wants to create a newspaper editorial style blog. Writers submit "articles" which are then approved and published. Sounds very quaint and old fashioned. Someone must have missed the revolution.
A "real" blogging environment insists on real-time, interactive submissions and active comments. Anything else is destined for mediocrity and failure.
Posted by Jack at June 15, 2005 9:47 AM
When you create the post in the blogging software the end product is more authentic...and it's more likely to be written in the "blogging style." As you suggested, posting directly to the blog feels more like real conversation.
Posted by Ed Deevy at June 15, 2005 10:36 AM
Yeah, that's the whole idea of blogging. The push-button publishing. The control of the creation process. Otherwise, it's pretty much old-fashion "writing an article" and sending it to someone for publishing.
Hmmm, now that you say it, I understand what prevents me from recording random thoughts and putting them on the blog. Not that happening!
Posted by Ramla A. at June 15, 2005 11:44 AM
*old-fashioned
--------------
BTW, I LOVE the excitement of blogger.com rotating that dial to show me the file publicaion progress. And the whole experience of clicking VIEW BLOG to see the fresh post. A bit like sculpting, ain't it?
Posted by Ramla A. at June 15, 2005 11:50 AM
Thanks Dustin. I really like the way this site is set up, the way the comments come up etc. Very easy to navigate and nicely laid out. Though it's just an interface thing, it's one of the reasons I keep coming back.
Posted by Noel Guinane at June 15, 2005 4:53 PM
Well in my opinion the medium shape the message, my language chance what ever I send a SMS or using Messenger or writing to my blog.
But if you compare the word processor and a blogging tool I think the big different is not the medium but the fact that as soon as it is posted there is a chance that it will be read by millions of readers that all are critical and have independent ideas on what ever subject it is.
So in the blogging case it is more the desire to be the best one can be that shapes the message.
Posted by Nicki Brøchner at June 15, 2005 4:58 PM
just have them enable SMS or multimedia messaging and do it from your phone... it's wonderful!
http://paisleyamoeba.blogspot.com
Posted by paisley amoeba at June 15, 2005 5:44 PM
Paisley, your site is a treasure-trove of information. Cheers!
Posted by Noel Guinane at June 16, 2005 3:55 PM