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Shawn Blanc writes one of the best review pieces I’ve had the pleasure to read in a long time:
For the past several weeks as I’ve been writing this article I have used nothing but Coda for web designing, and it has broken my age-old habits of CMD TABbing between multiple apps.
It’s an absolute epic. It will take you some time to read through the entire article — indeed i read it thrice — but the result is an intimate understanding of why Coda is stealing hearts everywhere. And yet to call it a review somehow still lands short of the mark.
The best insight into Coda you will read, ever.
My partner on the vagaries of speculative fiction:
“Yes, it’s hard to guess by looking at a person whether they’re in the speculative fiction section for sci-fi or fantasy. Seriously, though, it’s like expecting all black people to be gangsta rappers, all Asians to be grocers, or all Arabs to be terrorists.”
She has a wonderful way of viewing the world and it’s fundamental truths.
Seth Godin has an interesting take on Google and Adwords marketing:
“Every day, hundreds of millions of people do hundreds of millions of searches on Google. Each search is its own “channel.” Each search represents a distinct marketing vehicle, a chance for an individual to directly connect with a marketer.”
Remember the pages-and-pages of classified advertising in your local rag? At a fundamental level, it’s very much the same thing.
Most folks are selective readers by default. We seldom read every single word of every single page in a magazine or paper. Rather, we’ll skim over less self-relevant information and focus on that which actually interests us. One wouldn’t necessarily read all job placements if one is after a motor vehicle, for example.
Google has simply added contextual search to help facilitate and speed the ’selective read’ tendency. Multiply that over millions of searches a day and you have a wining formula that pits one advertiser against the next for front-page billing.
Michael Lopp has written one of the single most quotable articles I’ve read in recent times, entitled The Nerd Handbook:
“Your nerd spent a lot of his younger life being an outcast because of his strange affinity with the computer. This created a basic bitterness in his psyche that is the foundation for his humor.”
“Now, combine this basic distrust of everything with your nerd’s other natural talents and you’ll realize that he sees humor is another game.”
It’s frightening just how ‘close’ many observations are and how many I can put my hand up to — truly required reading for anyone that works with, lives with, or simply wishes to better understand the nerd.
I’ve read a great deal of advice related content lately. To be honest I’ve started to really dislike the first scan of topics in Google Reader each morning. Because a great many seem to be telling me how to talk, how not to talk, how to write, how not to write and how I should think or feel and most popular of all how I should actually communicate.
Indeed Shawn notes:
“This is a plea to those of you who already feel the tension of poor content and the desire to abandon what the blogosphere has taught is right and wrong in writing for the web. This is a plea to instead create something great. Something that is — ultimately — worth reading.”
It’s time writers starting spending less time telling me how to think and more time giving me something to think about. It’s that or I silently slip away, lost, yet another reader jumping overboard. If you think I am alone you are sadly mistaken:
“Why? Because I want to read what you have to say. And if I were a betting man, I would wager than many others do too.”
I’ll take that wager as I am, on occasion, a betting man.
Hello.
Who are you? Why are you here? What do have to offer me content wise today? Is your content uniquely you?
So often I find that the things I desperately want to read are hidden amongst the things that I desperately do not want to know. Now that’s hardly a revelation to anyone as we can all attest to being frustrated by having to separate the wheat from the chaff, to distil generic background noise into that singular clear voice.
Why is it? Why is there a belief that the world or rather that I, your humble reader, need to be told how to write? Is it because you think I am uneducated? Or that I am confused? Or that I just don’t understand despite being told every single day?
The answer is so simple yet is universally ignored. You’re not sure of your readers’ position so you dictate the terms and thought process as one single entity in order to feel comfortable in that situation. You construct a world which the reader must inhabit so that you can tell me how to view and experience that very construct.
It’s a fake world full of meaningless content and you expect me to love it. And the response to that? Get fucked.
So why aren’t you telling me your story? Or your thoughts? Or expressing your personal view of the world? Why regurgitate the thoughts of others? I speak not of short links, those little gems of discovery that fire off further thought or exploration but of cookie-cutter articles reiterating the same how-to mantras over and over again.
Introductions.
I’m a geek. I live in Adelaide, Australia. I enjoy geeky things. I grew up on a farm but chose the city life and a technology based career because I wanted to do something with my life. To help others. I am a Systems Administrator, support numerous systems and take the time to assist others every single day.
I have a thirst for computer related knowledge, am infatuated with Macs and have an insatiable appetite for beautifully written articles and wish I could write even a quarter as well as others. I am not easily fooled yet gain vast amusement from the slightest joke.
I’m not an accomplished writer by any means and do try to not make a ham of things. I’m still learning and I crave guidance and inspiration. Now you know me.
You have no excuse.
Why aren’t you presenting your uniqueness? Why don’t I “feel” you expressed in your words. You’ve become this shapeless entity I can’t quite describe and that I cannot relate to any more. Empty content with empty prose.
Are you making assumptions? Are you still putting me in a box? Yes, I think you are.
Fascination.
There is something.. different about each of us. We all have that one unique feature that separates us as people. Yet the very thing that makes each person’s view point or thought process so special is a distinctiveness so often buried.
Do what you are told, embrace SEO, don’t think, don’t dream, do this, do that, don’t try something new.. Conform. I know so little about every author I read. What makes you tick? Why does event n annoy you, yet event y excite?
Stop telling me what to write, rather show me how it’s done. Use your uniqueness to differentiate and illustrate your thoughts. I want to read what you write and what you honestly think. That is the wheat. Why do you want me to read your thoughts? Show me.
The tips, the guides, the stuff I will learn by doing as I grow and improve is all just chaff and it has no place in my world.
Discovery.
My most favoured reads don’t dictate, don’t tell, don’t demand conformity — they encourage exploration, discovery and provoke thought. They don’t tell me what to feel or how to express.. they simply and elegantly expose me to a larger world. They don’t demand I comment or seek “acceptance” via washed out and sanitised type, they are a gift that hints at so much more.
My favoured writers gift me their world through their eyes as they see and feel it. I’m challenged and grow both as a writer and as a person. My experience and ability to communicate improves in proportion to the stimuli I receive.
I will always want more so don’t fear losing me as a reader — for the moment you being to concern yourself with what I might think or how I might react is the moment I begin to switch off.
Safety.
As a reader and fellow writer I won’t always agree with you or your content. That is not wrong. It is merely different. You don’t need to second guess my intentions or needs.
As I once said to my partner, who is sometimes so afraid of rejection she loses that spark of creativity — “Just write. People may reflect positively or not but either way it’s a reaction and that is better than no reaction at all.” She has a way of writing that elicits a guilty grin; she doesn’t clone content, it’s all fresh and new.
It’s very easy as a writer to sanitise output, to change a sentence or an expression to make it safe. Fly it under the radar so people won’t notice. But as a reader that is the worst kind of sin. I don’t like boring. I want your thoughts to resonate, to actually mean something be it good or bad.
Fin.
A good read to this author is text and imagery (literal or figurative) that is full of thought and meaning. Make me think, gift me your content without assumption and challenge me or educate without a patronising tone and I will love you for it.
Some writers are occasionally surprised that I still follow their thoughts even if months have passed in between. The above is why that happens — something you wrote was enthralling or challenging and it made me take notice. Years later I will likely still be reading even if you seldom write.
I can think of nothing better at all than to check my daily reads and have it full of unique content — your thoughts, your words, something about you, why you write or something that perhaps challenged you — with no chaff to winnow away. Only you can make that happen.
Please, make it happen.
You’re sitting there thinking “What will I write today?” only to realise you are
entirely devoid of inspiration.
Isn’t it a trivial process when there is something to be angry about, or sad, or overjoyed? Someone pisses you off, or you read an article that cripples with total joy, you discover a new resource, or some […]
Shawn’s recent update on comments has a
simple yet powerful message:
“.. on a site with comments disabled there is no pressure. Once you’ve read the article that’s all. The author requires nothing of the reader but to enjoy the content. There are no awkward expectations. The article is a gift.”
A thought that is, ultimately, reflected […]
"For me, it is more important that I read the websites I want to. The websites that I can connect to what’s being written and who’s writing it." — discovering great relational content has become pivotal for me, repetitive tech and gadgetry is falling by the wayside.
