Sheryl Sandberg sure knows how to make a headline. First, she wanted young women to “LEAN IN” and now she wants us to all stop using the word “Bossy” to describe the behavior of some young women because that word somehow destroys their inner need to tell people what to do.
Continue reading → Little Miss Bossy Pants and the Incongruity of Expectation
Robert Frost won four Pulitzer Prizes for his poetry. He was an earthy icon and, in some eyes, an American shame, for the man could love only himself and not his children or his wife. I’m not sure if that’s a crime against himself, or his promises, but there is no denying the man was an original and he knew how to write and he knew what he was.
Marred by the mistake of genius, Robert Frost cared only for his poetry, and his legacy, and that’s why the new fascination with protecting Frost’s legacy on the page is so intriguing.
I am often asked by friends and associates what they should write. They want to know how to get people to read their blog, buy their book, get more followers on Twitter or more Page LIKEs on Facebook or lots of plusses on Google+.
My answer to that inquiry is always the same: “Just Write Something!” — and everything else will eventually fall.
That advice jumps in the face of two common writing canards: “Write What You Know” and its doppelgänger, “Write What You Don’t Know.” The first school of thought allegedly makes you an expert on your own selfie life; the second avenue of percussion quickly resounds into a research project where the self often goes missing.
Continue reading → Weaving the Social Mesh: Write What You Want to Know
The bane of any hopeful professional author — one who writes for money to feed a family and a future fortunate — is the old “Work for Hire” kludge-as-cudgel and it is wielded against unwitting amateur authors, and even published, working, authors, by publishing houses as a “proper payment system” that is both fair to each side and an early warning windfall for the writer. Unfortunately, none of that is true.
Publishers love to force writers into Work for Hire contracts because the benefit is all on their side of the dyad, and while initial risks are shared, the goal of good fortune tomorrow is not.
I warned of this impending trend way back on September 7, 2007 in my article: “Work For Hire is a Bad Idea” —
If you get royalties you are in partnership with your publisher. If you are “Work For Hire” you’re used up when you’re done writing.
Publishers live to exploit that hungry author desire for fast money now — and in the process of the “Work For Hire” hiring — the author not only loses a potential profit bonanza, but also sells out their self-respect, self-worth, and fellow authors.
Continue reading → The New Writer’s Ruse: The Bemused Will Not Work for Hire
I have a terrible habit of dropping brand-new Apple products right after I get them — and yesterday morning was no exception. While I was at the Post Office in Queens, my less-than-two-week-old iPhone 5S slipped — “sleeked?” — from my hand and smashed on the floor breaking the screen.
Have you noticed the Post Office gives you really slick and teflon-like coated printed receipts that are, like, three feet long when you just buy one stamp? When I tried to put the receipt in the same hand as my iPhone, the receipt won, and my 5S got a whole new tutorial on the real meaning of “AirDrop.”
I was sickened. I dropped my iPhone 4S quite a few times in the past and the screen never spidered. Maybe the Post Office concrete floor was just too much for my new 5S beauty to handle.
I was immediately reminded of my previous, Best Apple Support Story Ever Told experience — when my brand-new iPad was knocked out of my hands — and knew I’d have to, once again, invoke my AppleCare+ status, cross my fingers, and hope for the best.
Quick end: Apple Gave me a new phone, as you can see in the iMessage confirmation below with my husband that he captured for this story.
Longer story: Keep reading!
Continue reading → The Second-Greatest Apple Store Genius Bar Story Ever Told
We live in a risky world where few things seem to matter. A handshake is no longer enough of a guarantee of friendship or a promise for a business deal. A country’s reputation in the world doesn’t matter if individual selfish interests are more important than a right example and proper behavior.
Where once we wanted to live the American Dream and to own the best and to be the brightest — we have now been beaten down by the ridicule of those elected to serve us, and by punishing economic times that sap our passions — we are now fine with just getting by, living paycheck to paycheck, and buying things are just “good enough” to get us by into the next reckoning moment of despair.
This steep decline in expectation and excellence is never grand or proper when it becomes the defining mantra of a country and its people. A return to excellence and moral leadership takes money, empathy, dedication, and education.
Continue reading → Why We Must Require a Return to the Moral Absolute
I relived my good old technocrat, Standing in Line at the Apple Store, identity this morning by awaking at 2:49am to place an online order for the new iPhone 5s at 3:01am Eastern. I was happy to stand in line in my underwear instead of beneath the naked glare of the 5th Avenue Apple store streetlights.
The online Apple store was still offline at 3:01am, but by 3:04am, I was able to quickly get into the system and order our iPhones!
I initially ordered the iPhone 5s for Janna and me, in a single order, but the Apple store told me I could only order one iPhone at a time! Ugh!
Continue reading → Two New iPhone 5s are On the Way from the Apple Store!
Having girded our stomachs with food and drink — well, ice cream and water — we set off in the general direction given to us by our very helpful gesticulating Italian Policeman.
Our route took us out of the heat and the seething masses of St Mark’s Square and into the shade of the maze of narrow backstreets that exist between and behind the main waterways. It takes some time for your eyes to get used to the lack of light.
Venice is similar to another famous canal city — Amsterdam — where the only way you can build is up! The backstreets are narrow — often one person wide — and I am sure some of them never see the light of day.
As you can see, we are walking in half light — at least on this street we could walk side by side.
One can only imagine the marketing strategies that you would have to employ if you had a business here to get people to your doorstep.
I have always been a big coffee drinker. I also enjoy a good cuppa green tea — even though I’m an infamous bagger and not a loose leaf sort of fellow. That all changed across the last week as I discovered Teavana — the Tea Heaven place now owned by Starbucks. Lately, Starbucks have been making a big tea push. They purchased Tazo tea and now Teavana are deep in the mermaid fold. Starbucks seems to know their future is read in tea leaves and not coffee beans.
The key to making a great cuppa loose leaf tea is in the tea maker and Teavana makes a perfect one. You just steep and let gravity do the rest. Cleaning up tea leaves is a much simpler and crisper job than having to clean up coffee grounds from a French press.
I have had my share of joys and troubles with Comcast as my “Triple Play” provider, but I’ve never before experienced a total failure to communicate with a company — as I have this week — in trying to get my voice and cable modem replaced.
When you used to call Comcast customer support, you dialed an 800 number and you were then connected to the regional office that served your area. Having that sort of local connection was important because, “Jersey Understands Jersey” and you could speak in cultural semaphores that clicked understanding that helped quicken resolutions to any technical or billing problem.
It now appears Comcast have outsourced all their technical support and billing to the Philippines, and that is causing a lot of widespread and furious grief for customers. There isn’t just a cultural separation between the Philippines and the USA, but, like it or not, there is a language difference that often bears down on not understanding each other because of natural accents.
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