"Write now is good."

Print-your-own warning labels for bad journalism

These journalism warning labels created by self-described "geek comedian" Tom Scott resonated across the Web. I saw them at popular design blogs like Swissmiss and NOTCOT, which have massive audiences and tend to propel their finds to Blogville's collective focus.

What other products in our lives have warning labels? Cigarettes. Alcohol. Toxic substances. High doses of radiation. Medication.

It is telling that labeling media with similar warnings seem to ring true with so many, and that is hopeful because it means that people recognize the compromising influences on journalism.

Bonus question: The primary function of journalism is _____________________?

If you'd like to print these labels, there are PDF versions for the UK and the US; volunteer translators have also created them in nine additional languages — check them out here. (The original Illustrator file is available for additional translations.)

Tweets on paper

Hilarious. A few questions:
° How do you get your paper tweet to your followers? Some tweeters have hundreds of thousands, even millions. Mailing them would certainly help the U.S. Postal Service cover its budget shortfalls, though regular paper-tweeting would bankrupt the average tweeter.
° How would paper tweets go viral? Would followers then have to get out their tweet pads and then mail tweets to all of their followers to pass on the info in the first tweet? And so on...
° How would tweeters — both private citizens and news outlets — share breaking news? Paper tweets would certainly slow down that process, moving it back to the age of paper newspaper domination, which was not so long ago. (This makes me view tweets as more akin to radio and TV announcements than paper papers.)
° How do you retweet a paper tweet? I'm assuming a photocopier would be involved.

Thinking about the humor of this actually brings up many differences between print and digital communication methods and how moving from print to digital has affected society.

Paper email "nifty notes" are also available. (This elicits both LOLs and YIKES!)

Found at KnockKnock

Keeping up with Twitter

While I haven't blogged in awhile, I have been busy writing and reading (some online, most brick-and-mortar). One example: I'm closely following news about Twitter and mobile phones because I think they have incredibly potential for communication and creativity.

To keep track of this information for myself and to share with anyone else who is interested, I have started a Twitter articles page. It features links to noteworthy Twitter articles. From the page's intro:

Twitter, the free microblogging service started in 2006, has been used to influence elections in the United States and Iran, break news about natural disasters and political happenings, and gather donations to assist Haitians after the devastating January 2010 earthquake.

While critics deride Twitter, I continually find merit in it. It is powerful in a ground-level way, giving private citizens, companies, organizations and thought leaders (potentially influential) voice on any subject (significant and trivial) they desire. I look forward to seeing how it evolves.

So, will Twitter disappear, as other social networks have? In my opinion, no. It has substantial market share, and while anyone can create their own 140-character microblogging network, terms like "tweet", "tweeting", "followers", "Twitterville", etc. will most likely be synonymous for describing microblogging — referencing the only substantial, well-populated microblogging community existing today.

I read anything I can find about Twitter. Below is my list of noteworthy Twitter articles, including news on new developments, trends and uses of Twitter. It has been sifted to remove much of the fluff: while it's a noteworthy trend that many celebrities have found a comfortable, digital way to constantly communicate with tweet-reading fans, I won't report on it — they are easy enough to find on their own, and are often only "ego-casting" or "life-casting" (brief missives on what they ate for breakfast, what they're wearing, who they're hanging out with, etc.). 

I'll add to this as I find more articles. Questions and comments are always welcome.

(If you want to follow me on Twitter, click here. I don't life-cast, instead focusing on providing useful tech- and creativity-inspired tweets.

I'll announce new articles added in quick posts on this blog.

Regarding life-casting, I found a gem: the Museum of Modern Celebrity Tweets, which shows celebrity life-casting in a humorous light. Above is an illustration of a recent tweet by musician Nick Jonas. Odessa Begay is its illustrator and, I suppose, head curator. Found via Holy Kaw! at Alltop

FYI: My mobile phone articles page is in the works.

How data flows, Peeps secrets revealed, and "The Addictionary"

Photo: "binary easter egg" by Rakka

A few sites of note I recently found while surfing:

1. FlowingData is a well-designed and -organized online locale which helps readers

...explore how designers, statisticians, and computer scientists are using data to understand ourselves better—mainly through data visualization. Money spent, reps at the gym, time you waste, and personal information you enter online are all forms of data. How can we understand these data flows? Data visualization lets non-experts make sense of it all.

A few entries I like:

-- "Little Red Riding Hood, the Animated Infographic Story"
-- "Visual Guide to the Financial Crisis"
-- "17 Ways to Visualize the Twitter Universe"

2. The Addictionary is a social word site. Users make up words, create definitions for made-up words, vote on other users' humorous wordy concoctions, and connect to others who enjoy doing the same. From their "About Us" page:

The Addictionary is a site for word lovers and those who like to see our beloved English language grow in serious or humorous ways. We built the Addictionary to empower word-play and to help lovers of word-play showcase and market their cleverness and creativity to the world...

If you add a word or definition to the site, drop a comment here. I'll post a link to it so other readers can check it out.

Members of the Twitterati may follow The Addictionary on Twitter. The site's "snowflakes" have a new book out, too—Addictionary: Brave New Words.

3. A view into the secret life of Peeps. Because I always wondered how marshmallow peeps were made, and this photo set answers it for me*:

"How Peeps are made" from The Chicago Tribune (via Chris Glass)

* A video of the entire factory process would be even more enlightening!

Tweets throughout the ages

Today, I learned something surprising. Twitter, the purportedly new microblogging service, has been around for thousands of years. The digital archeologists behind Historical Tweets are slowly unearthing relevant 140-character messages from the past and revealing them via their blog for posterity. (See above tweet from Abraham Lincoln.)

So, this form of social media is actually a bit ancient. Since humans have been tweeting for generations, it makes sense that many 21st-century technologists have adopted the practice so readily.

I wonder what the first-ever tweet was. (If you have some inkling about the tweet which started it all, please leave a comment. I'll post the ideas and link to your blog if you do.)

Mined from a tweet by CrossTheBreeze.

UPDATE: Two bloggers so far have submitted possibilities for the "first-ever tweet." They are:

1. "Hello, world" — Leah
2. "Got fire?" — Tumblewords

Thesaurus-loving zoo keepers make signs like this

Behold: eighteen different words used to describe how visitors should not interact with a zoo's animals. The keepers, and their zoo-signage team, earn points in my book for:

1. shameless use of their zoo's thesaurus
2. a focused passion for synonyms
AND
3. creative design incorporating a misplaced punctuation mark (That bold, eye-catching exclamation point, standing alone, gives a shout even BEFORE the sentence starts.)

Bravo!

I would love to see the other signs in this zoo. Does anyone know where this is from? This image has been posted and emailed and re-emailed so many times, its original sourcing (if it ever existed) cannot be found.

Image from GreenUpgrader's post "Sunday Funnies: Signs That Remind Us To Respect Nature", found via NOTCOT

Be an AWESOME writer

Last month, I wrote a post about a very insightful and funny YouTube video called "Book Launch 2.0". It features Dennis Cass, an accomplished writer and the author of Head Case, conversing with a phone-friend about the pros and cons of using new and social media to launch books.

For those of you who enjoyed Cass's video also, I've got good news: he has created an online community. Its goal: to make creative people more effective and successful at their creative lives and careers. It is called, appropriately, "Dennis Cass Wants You To Be More Awesome."

DCWYTBMA is a site full of "advice, jokes and tough love for people who want to make a living making culture." Dennis regularly answers members' questions, providing sound advice on a variety of relevant topics. The community is active, full of creatives commenting with additional viewpoints and examples. Plus, he features an "Awesomizer" to help improve creative endeavors; it has made me look at some pop culture mainstays with a fresh perspective.

I strongly believe that participating in writing/creative groups (even online!) can help their participants grow in their work, get unstuck when creative blocks arise, and provide camaraderie and support when the creative road is nothing but potholes and speed traps. (If you have done anything creative ever in your life, then you know the ride can get bumpy...)

While reading Cass's articles and answers, I have laughed out loud many times. Knowledgeable creative-career guidance + original insights + active community + humor = WIN! And if you sign up, I'll see you there.

Book masterpieces, summarized in six words

Photo: "teeny tiny book i bound" by robayre

Quick link: "Six Word Cliffs Notes" from SMITH Magazine (via Salon's "Table Talk"). One example:

The times were good. Also bad.
A Tale of Two Cities

Anyone feeling brief today? Leave a comment with your tiny summations.

Ah, yes — it's "Book Launch 2.0"

Hilarious, frightening and true. Writer and author Dennis Cass captures so much about book promotion in the Internet age in his video "Book Launch 2.0". He skewers both the trials many authors must go through in doing full PR for their own books, and the abundant-yet-confusing social media tools out there to help in the process (supposedly).

Enjoy.

Thanks to Chris Glass for this gem.

Comedians do this

Photo: Comedy and tragedy by Mermaniac

After watching a stand-up comedy DVD (one I'd never heard of or seen before, and that was brought over by family) this weekend, I realized this about comedy:

Great comedians have the amazing ability to tell the truth — the most awkward, painful, hilarious, honest truths — to laughs and nods (or to head-shaking in embarrassment because, after all, what they are saying is often true).

Some comedians tell truths in palatable ways. They confirm what we people know or suspect about political leaders, fashion trends, famous folks, and characteristics of general society. While they can offend, and they always offend someone eventually, comedians push ahead in their quest to share observations and anecdotes; these stories, often about their personal lives or right-on observations from daily life, are brutally honest yet told with a "wink-wink", so they are heard.

If you want to know the truth within current events, an awkward political scandal, a corporate mishandling, or celebrity snafu, look to the comedians. Some days I think that a comedy monologue should accompany the nightly TV news, so that subtle aspects behind what is really going on could be spoken (by the media) and acknowledged (by the media and the rest of us).

If a society has no comedians, I would bet that truth-telling in the media is near zero. Comedy, particularly satire, provides an outlet for healthy release of societal tensions around awkward issues. Comedy brings up what we cannot say ourselves, and lets us look at it straight on, couched as pure entertainment.

Two of the best things to happen to American news media in the past few years are "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report." While mainstream news media has lost chance after chance to pursue real, worthwhile stories (like the Iraq war), comedians are the only ones who ask questions and propose scenarios for what could be happening. Perhaps a comedian should be hired as an assistant Press Secretary to the President of the United States. After the President's mouthpiece spins the latest propaganda and the White House Press Corps decide not to ask any questions or investigate further, the comedian/assistant Press Secretary will then stand up and bring real issues to the fore. We would then need jokesters/reporters to ask insightful, fearless questions to hold the comedian/assistant Press Secretary accountable.

Comedians cannot be funny unless a grain of truth underlies what they say. In fact, comedians may be the most publicly honest figures any society has.

These realizations have surprised me. I thought that comedians focused mainly on producing laughs with their material; deep down, they may be more concerned with telling a truth they way they see it.

Thoughts, anyone? Who is your favorite comedian and does he/she tell it like it is? What comedy do you like and why? Have comedians influenced the political process where you live? Comments, please!