Tag Archives: Quotable

Terry Heaton: Media Elitism

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Terry Heaton takes a thoughtful look at the charge the media has a liberal bias. I’ve pulled two paragraphs from his thoughtful essay:

“I believe the press is inherently biased towards a liberal perspective, because educated people, among other things, are generally more exposed to the value of tolerance than those who are not. Chesterton wrote that “Tolerance is the virtue of people who don’t believe anything,” and that is a core component of conservative thinking. It’s not that conservatives aren’t tolerant; it’s just that it isn’t elevated to the status of core value as it is with liberals.”

“One issue I do see is that because conservatives are predisposed to law-abiding and put faith in hierarchy, they are more open to direction from the top. In that sense, the qualities and character of the person at the top are critical.”

“Conservatives ride the wind of the esoteric when it comes to certain issues, but liberals have their feet firmly planted on the ground and in the middle of those issues. In this sense, the two never talk with each other, because they’re not even in the same space.”

Which reminds me why I decided to stop discussing politics. A vow I quickly broke but now renew. It’s like getting off crack.

Your personal brand

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“Let’s face it; the day is coming when independent journalists will offer their goods and services to media companies, instead of the companies actually employing them. This is already happening on a small scale, but I expect it will increase as fiscal pressures squeeze the life out of media companies. Hard-working independent contractors can make good money, and it will cost media companies less to purchase their work.”

— Terry Heaton

“web think”

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I don’t think I’ve come across the term “web think” before I saw it on a post by Terry Heaton. It describes a way of looking at information and media and, frankly, the world.

“Those who influence my thinking do not come from a media background, but are pioneers in “web think” and the running of web businesses. This puts me in almost constant conflict with the world I’m actually trying to serve and help and fuels the rolling of eyes I often witness in conference rooms or sense over the phone.”

My theory is “web think” is like learning a second language. You’re really “there” when you start thinking (dreaming?) in the new language. You internalize it.

Everything WILL be different

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You know that scene in the old horror movies where one of the female characters is hysterical and the female lead slaps her to snap her out of it?  That’s what came to mind reading this post by Dave Winer, explaining why Barack Obama does, in fact, represent change. The entire post is must-read for Obama supporters, but here’s my favorite idea:

“Think of it like this. One day you’re using Windows and wake up the next day and all your computers are running Mac OS X. It’s still a computer. It’s still fundamentally the same experience. But it works a bit more logically, and you don’t get in trouble as often. It’s not foolproof, but it’s a bit better.”

I’ve been put off by some of Obama’s recent moves, and people are lining up to tell me, “See!? See!? He’s no different! He’s just another politician! Don’t you feel like a chump now?”

Actually, I feel more like the father who’s son keeps getting the shit kicked out of him on the playground and finally gets up and kicks the bigger kid in the balls. Playing nice only works when everyone is doing it.

If the only change we get from Obama is he’s not Bush… that will be enough.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt

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Last week Google CEO Eric Schmidt was interviewed by CNBC’s Jim Cramer (Mad Money). Terry Heaton provides an insightful summary of special interest to local media companies:

“He said the company gives up billions in revenue by keeping ads off the home page. Why? Because it would upset users. “We prioritize the end user over the advertiser,” he told Cramer. This simple statement — if truly adopted by media companies — would revolutionize all of online media. We’d have a race to see who could better serve the wants and needs of the people formerly known as the audience, and that would be a refreshing change from words like capture, drive, and my favorite, monetize.

Google doesn’t provide any guidance whatsoever to stock analysts, and Schmidt’s answer, again, is profoundly simple when he says it would “get in the way” of running the business, adding, “If we started giving quarterly guidance, all of a sudden the whole company would start focusing on the quarter rather than trying to change the world.”

On the company’s heretofore unsuccessful attempts to make money from YouTube, Schmidt said it didn’t matter, at least not right now. He said they make plenty of money already, because YouTube places users in the stream of Google’s other businesses, and that cannot be overlooked. “I’d be worried if people weren’t using to YouTube,” he told Cramer. “Since it’s an enormous success globally, we know we will eventually benefit from it.”

A screen that ships without a mouse ships broken

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I am part of the first TV generation. Thousands of hours of my life were spent watching. Just watching. These days, like many others, I spend many of my hours online, creating, sharing and consuming media. Clay Shirky explains why this “social surplus” is a very big deal:

“Here’s something four-year-olds know: A screen that ships without a mouse ships broken. Here’s something four-year-olds know: Media that’s targeted at you but doesn’t include you may not be worth sitting still for. Those are things that make me believe that this is a one-way change. Because four year olds, the people who are soaking most deeply in the current environment, who won’t have to go through the trauma that I have to go through of trying to unlearn a childhood spent watching Gilligan’s Island, they just assume that media includes consuming, producing and sharing.”

If you are in any way connected to the business of “media,” you need to read –and understand– what Mr. Shirky has to say.

“Happiness Is A Choice”

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I’ve been thinking some about fear and happiness recently, so these excerpts from an article by Roger Fransecky (“Happiness Is A Choice”) caught my attention:

“Dan Baker’s book, What Happy People Know, confirms the wisdom of the research into what (Dr. Martin) Seligman calls “authentic happiness” and “learned optimism.” Baker notes that a major barrier to happiness is fear. He writes, “We all have a neurological fear system embedded deep within our brains, a neural network that once helped us survive as a species, but now limits our lives. The biological circuitry of fear is the greatest enemy of happiness.”

We’ve written about how fear binds us, edits our hopes and diminishes our potential for happiness. Baker reminds us that fear is the repository for our past traumas, our fear of the future and our archaic instinctual terrors. Fear can be a gift, our way of staying out of the darkness and moving into the light of awareness and new beginnings. But if our fears own us, we have to break free…by awareness of those fears, and through the courage to challenge our fears to see if they are still real.”

For additional information on “neurological fear systems embedded deep within our brains,” reference the work of Dr. Warren Chapin. Additional insights on Happiness.