tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12430004468464237882024-03-13T04:35:21.820-04:00Richard PachterCreativity etc.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger343125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1243000446846423788.post-71725242522067438362022-10-09T18:10:00.009-04:002022-10-10T17:38:52.776-04:00NY-Style Offense<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvdsxHzLEZMN5JvblFKXj8aW-chZvSwhnSTLATc2dvATE0ZiWGnYG7oo1O9QsHRWwwgqE0gGGgN9ZhzFTcpHOmTBkbV-VgFtxG3SInXYzfmwemOGwSY-d2rXyefJ1LxlB_td8cmgyfZLnYwW9i3JEmJfBB3swHaX426gP89XCpa1_J045ONefjDkjrZw/s2016/160959413_10226967999086149_4233715576612254889_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2016" data-original-width="1512" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvdsxHzLEZMN5JvblFKXj8aW-chZvSwhnSTLATc2dvATE0ZiWGnYG7oo1O9QsHRWwwgqE0gGGgN9ZhzFTcpHOmTBkbV-VgFtxG3SInXYzfmwemOGwSY-d2rXyefJ1LxlB_td8cmgyfZLnYwW9i3JEmJfBB3swHaX426gP89XCpa1_J045ONefjDkjrZw/w480-h640/160959413_10226967999086149_4233715576612254889_n.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><span face="Calibri, sans-serif">I’m in a Facebook group where someone (an admin) <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/bestofdelraybeach/posts/1353913108473437/" target="_blank">posted</a> their disappointment with a slice of pizza and mentioned they’re from Brooklyn. That was basically it. No, “it wasn’t as good as a NY slice.” They merely referred to their Brooklyn origin and got torched by someone who took offense to an imagined (though unstated) comparison to something local. </span><p></p><p><span face="Calibri, sans-serif">Why would that be offensive? </span></p><p><span face="Calibri, sans-serif">When someone came to the OP’s defense, they got a similar — and ruder — response from the self-aggrieved person. The rude comment and subsequent thread were deleted after a few hours, presumably by an admin (but maybe the original commenter sobered up). </span></p><p><span face="Calibri, sans-serif">But if anyone watches TV, you'll see commercials for at least one national pizza chain touting its “NY-style” product. Yet saying pizza (or Chinese-American fare) is “NY-style” seems to offend some non-New Yorkers. </span></p><p><span face="Calibri, sans-serif">I’ve seen pizza called NY-style touted in California, for example, and I don’t know if Angelenos are as upset as some Floridians are by that reference. It’s really a selling point, a shorthand for the style of food.</span></p><p><span face="Calibri, sans-serif">I've seen <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/03/30/472147018/peking-ravioli-and-other-chinese-dishes-youll-only-find-in-boston" target="_blank">"Boston-style Chinese food"</a> and it evoked curiosity, not offense. Same with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal-style_bagel" target="_blank">"Montreal-style bagels</a><a href=" ">." </a></span></p><p><span face="Calibri, sans-serif">But there's clearly an anti-NY vibe in South Florida, probably because New Yorkers are rarely bashful. And the obnoxious ones are often <i>really</i> obnoxious. But that doesn't mean they <i>all</i> are or that anything "NY-style" isn't good — or better.</span></p><p><span face="Calibri, sans-serif">If any eatery thinks they’ll get extra customers by saying they sell “Lake Worth-style pizza,” “Tamarac-style Chinese food,” “Boca-Raton-style bagels,” etc., so be it. Not holding my breath, though.</span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p></o:p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1243000446846423788.post-30122643127956463972021-04-29T09:26:00.003-04:002021-04-29T10:03:15.678-04:00Interview with Legendary Superman artist, Wayne Boring<center><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: large;">A Rare Interview with Superman's Godfather, <br />The Man Who Took You to Krypton;</span></center><br /><center><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: xx-large;">WAYNE BORING</span></center><center><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrc8S_Spu7AHo2TYu3SYD9q-5s81SjLzGzJAn3UcZA3xmJb-lrl5KHzezjFfg8dODe5OOADXq0ggKecx-M-v2K_y_Dhfan8wgb4kFFQYh9GsdOZDEQ04HFjoR7NPB-F4cCPy5bmUXlvsW1/s1280/large-3324405.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="823" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrc8S_Spu7AHo2TYu3SYD9q-5s81SjLzGzJAn3UcZA3xmJb-lrl5KHzezjFfg8dODe5OOADXq0ggKecx-M-v2K_y_Dhfan8wgb4kFFQYh9GsdOZDEQ04HFjoR7NPB-F4cCPy5bmUXlvsW1/w413-h640/large-3324405.jpeg" width="413" /></a></div></center><p><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span><b>by Richard Pachter</b> </span></span></p><p></p><div style="text-align: right;"><i style="text-align: -webkit-center;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Interview first published in</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small; text-align: left;">Amazing Heroes 41 February 15, 1984</span></i></div><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><br /><span>Wayne Boring calls himself "the cat who started this whole mess with Jerry and Joe!" — with an exclamation mark at the end of the sentence — just like in a comic book word balloon. He's right, of course. After Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster created Superman and started the super hero genre, Boring's art gave the character power and grace and put him in a realistic-but-fantastic setting. His Superman is actually the definitive one. All other artists who've drawn the big guy from Al Plastino to Curt Swan to Dick Dillin to Joe Staton to Jose Garcia Lopez or </span><i>anybody</i><span> consciously or not follows Boring's example. </span><br /><br /><span>When artist Joe Shuster and writer Jerry Siegel, two teenagers from Cleveland, first put the strip together, it was intended as a newspaper feature. Comic books weren't even considered at first, since most were reprints of material originally prepared for the daily and Sunday press. After gettting rejected by the syndicates, who distributed the strips around the country, Jerry and Joe placed their Man of Steel with Irwin Donenfeld and Jack Liebowitz's Detective Comics, Inc. </span><br /><br /><span>When Superman first appeared in </span><i>Action Comics</i><span> #1 (June 1938), he was an immediate hit. The demand for original material by DC obliged Jerry Siegel to find an assistant for Joe Shuster. He placed an advertisement in </span><i>Writer's Digest</i><span>. </span><br /><br /><span>Wayne Boring recalls: "I carried the magazine in my back pocket for a couple of weeks until I dropped them a line. And I got an answer back. I sent some samples of my work." </span><br /><br /><span>At the time, Boring lived in Norfolk, Va. working as an artist advertising salesman at the </span><i>Virginia Pilot</i><span>. Born and raised in Minnesota and South Dakota, Boring attended the Minneapolis Institute of Art after high school and studied anatomy at the Chicago Art institute with J. Allen St. John, the illustrator of the original Tarzan stories. </span><br /><br /><span>Although Wayne made a decent living at the </span><i>Pilot</i><span>, he wanted to be a cartoonist like his idols Frank Godwin and James Montgomery Flagg. When jerry Siegel asked him to come to New York, he jumped at the chance, secured a leave of absence from the paper, took a train to the Big Apple, and met Jerry at Grand Central Station. Siegel met him there and they went to see Joe Shuster. </span><br /><br /><span>"Joe was living over on Third Avenue in a real rat-hole right on the elevated (subway)," Wayne laughed. "He had a room with a cot that you had to walk over to get to the other end! And there was the elevated right outside his window! Joe was a very timid little guy who wore elevator shoes. He got up and we shook hands on the bed." </span><br /><br /><span>Jerry and Joe asked Wayne to move back to Cleveland with them. They set up a shop and were joined by three other artists — Paul Cassidy, Leo Nowack and John Sikela. DC had sold a daily and Sunday newspaper strip to the Bell McClure Syndicate, which placed it with hundreds of papers around the country. Boring pencilled, inked and even lettered the strip, which, like virtually all the Superman material during the time, was written by Jerry Siegel. Wayne also worked on stories for Action and Superman comics. </span><br /><br /><span>I asked Wayne how they'd work. Did Jerry write the scripts and then have Joe lay them out? Boring replied, "At first, Joe would sketch it out pretty lightly and we'd work over it. Later, he developed something wrong with his hand and his eyes were very bad. He already wore very thick glasses. Now, he's almost blind. But he came in one day and started to delegate the work to someone else. He wore a gadget a doctor gave him -- a leather glove that completely immobilized his hand!" </span><br /><br /><span>Boring laughed as he talked about the studio. "We had an office about 12 by 12 with four drawing boards set up there. Jerry had a desk in the anteroom. But it was the smallest office in Cleveland. </span><br /><br /><span>"Once, some reporters came out to interview Jerry and Joe for an article for </span><i>the Saturday Evening Post</i><span>. they had photographers and everything. So they were photographing Joe and talking to him and here I was working with my back to the.em. One of the reporters came over and said, 'Would you please leave because we need the room!'" </span><br /><br /><span>I asked Wayne if, in the beginning, DC knew that </span><i>he</i><span> had been drawing Superman. </span><br /><br /><span>"No,," he replied. "They kept that pretty much in the dark, and I didn't sign it at that time." </span><br /><br /><span>In addition to Superman, Jerry Siegel wrote other features for DC, including </span><i>Slam Bradley</i><span> and </span><i>Spy</i><span>. But the company wanted him to spend all his time chronicling the adventures of The Man Of Steel. </span><br /><br /><span>"Donenfeld and Liebowitz came out to Cleveland and had a hell of an argument with Jerry," Wayne recalled. "They were paying him a fee for writing and they said 'Jerry, stop writing all this other crap! All we want you to do is write Superman' and Jerry had grown up poverty-stricken and said 'Look, I'm gonna write it all!' I think they paid him ten dollars a page for writing and they said they'd make up for it by paying him more to do Superman, but he said no. He was going to hang on to </span><i>Slam Bradley</i><span> and the others. Of course that didn't last." </span><br /><br /><span>In 1940, the Siegel and Shuster shop moved to New York City, at the urging of DC. Wayne, along with his bride Lois, made the trip to New York, too. </span><br /><br /><span>As Superman grew in popularity, a series of animated features were made by the Max Fleischer Studios for Paramount. A radio show also went on the air and was quite successful. </span><br /><br /><span>Siegel and Shuster and their team of artists continued to supply DC and Bell-McClure with hundreds of pages of material a year. Even after World War II broke out and Siegel went into the army, he continued to send in scripts to be drawn, although others started to contribute to the Superman legend around this time. </span><br /><br /><span>Despite the war, comics were booming. In addition to the usual pre-teen market, millions of servicemen now read comics, too. And after the war, the famous post-war baby boom continued the upward sales spiral. </span><br /><br /><span>Superman brought in millions of dollars for DC, but not nearly that much for its creators. Boring and the other artists were relatively well-paid by Siegel and Shuster, who in turn were paid by DC. But Dc owned Superman and didn't share the revenues generated by the outside merchandising, the cartoons, the radio shows, and (later) the movie serial and the television show. </span><br /><br /><span>Wayne Boring recalled the origin of the situation: "Donenfeld and Liebowitz knew that Superman was a hit, so they called these kids (Jerry and Joe) in and told 'em, 'Here, sign this' and they did and they signed away all their rights. Of course it was a swindle." </span><br /><br /><span>Why didn't Siegel and Shuster fight it? Boring's opinion is that the company "scared the hell out of these kids. DC had a whole pack of lawyers. These guys would come in with their briefcases and there would be these two kids from Cleveland...!" </span><br /><br /><span>Eventually, Siegel and Shuster brought suit against DC. But they sued Wayne Boring, too. </span><br /><br /><span>He recalls: "Jerry hired a lawyer, the lousiest lawyer I've ever seen. I was sued for abrogation of contract and told that I was fired. Why his attorney advised him to do that, I don't know, but he said, 'You're no longer drawing Superman!'" </span><br /><br /><span>How did he feel about being sued for no apparent reason by his employers? "I didn't care about it. Not really. I also worked for Johnstone & Cushing, an advertising agency. I got 600 bucks for a half-page, which Stan Kaye would ink for me. Remember </span><i>How to Fly a Piper Cub</i><span>? I did that. </span><br /><br /><span>"But I went to see Jack Liebowitz at DC and said, 'Look, what the hell is this thing?' And he said that they were being sued by Siegel and Shuster and that I should continue to work for them (DC) until it was straightened out." </span><br /><br /><span>So Wayne Boring worked directly for the company now, while Siegel and Shuster went ahead with their case. But their suit never got off the ground. Jerry Siegel wrote for several other comic companies until returning to Dc in 1959. He wrote many more Superman, Supergirl, and Superboy stories as well as The Legion of Super-Heroes. </span><br /><br /><span>Joe Shuster didn't fare as well. With his bad eyes, he was unable to draw or do any other graphic work. He left comics completely. In the late seventies, Neal Adams and other comic creators and fans crusaded for Jerry and Joe. Warner Communications, who owned DC by then, agreed to pay Siegel and Shuster a yearly pension. They also receive credit on every Superman splash page for creating The Man of Steel. </span><br /><br /><span>Wayne Boring continued drawing Superman for DC into the 1960s. Originally, he was able to ink his own pencils, but because of all the scheduling demands, he eventually had to give it up. The DC bullpen occasionally inked his work, but Wayne eventually took on Stan Kaye as his regular embellisher; working closely under Boring, Kaye's inks kept the art clean and sharp and beautifully enhanced the lucid layouts. </span><br /><br /><span>Wayne now worked with writers other than Siegel. Bill Finger, the original Batman scripter, wrote several Superman stories, as did Otto Binder, Edmond Hamilton, Leo Dorfman and a very young Jim Shooter, who sent in little self-drawn and scripted comics to DC. </span><br /><br /><span>Boring says that Edmond Hamilton was his favorite writer. "No doubt about it. He wrote good pictures. I could always visualize his descriptions. There was no effort to draw. Always smooth. His stories sang." </span><br /><br /><span>Boring's work continued to mature. Whether he depicted downtown Metropolis or uptown Krytonopolis, it was always realistic. Steranko, in his </span><i>History of Comics</i><span>, refers to Wayne's "towering cities." However, the realism he brought to this fantastic otherworldly feature made Superman visually compelling throughout the '50s and '60s. </span><br /><br /><span>Editorially, Wayne worked first with Whitney Ellsworth and Jack Schiff, but later (and finally) with the legendary Mort Weisinger. </span><br /><br /><span>Weisinger, originally a science fiction fan, agent and editor, came aboard as writer for the Sunday Superman strip, according to Boring. He eventually became editor of the line and stretched the Superman legend to include many more survivors of Krypton, as well as a host of Bizarros and other looney heroes and villains. </span><br /><br /><span>Boring recalls a stormy but productive relationship. Weisinger was somewhat difficult to work with and bullied artists and writers, he said. </span><br /><br /><span>One day in 1966, Weisinger told Boring he was fired. Wayne was astonished and asked, "You mean I'm not working for you anymore?" </span><br /><br /><span>Weisinger repeated: "You're fired!"</span></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: Verdana;">Boring persisted, "Fired? What do you mean? All you've got to do is stop sending me scripts!" <br /><br />Weisinger then said, "Do you need a kick in the stomach to know you're not wanted?" <br /><br />Weisinger said he'd call Stan Lee and try to find something for Boring at Marvel. Wayne said he liked what he called Marvel's "punchy style," but after doing some sample work for the company, didn't get any work just yet. <br /><br />The day after he was sacked by Weisinger, he contacted Hal Foster, and went to work for him as his assistant (and ghost) on <i>Prince Valiant</i>. Wayne later worked with Sam Leff on <i>Davy Jones</i>, another newspaper strip, and with John Prentice on <i>Rip Kirby</i>. <br /><br />But it must have been a shock to be fired from Superman. Wayne recalls, "I was kind of down after 30 years." <br /><br />As for Weisinger, "I was afraid I'd die and go to hell and he'd be in charge! That would have been the capper!" he laughed. Wayne eventually did do some work for Marvel Comics, including some Captain Marvel art, with a Roy Thomas-scripted issue of Thor a few years back. <br /><br />Now 66 and working as a part-time security guard, Boring draws a bit and started painting several years ago. He says, "Painting has improved my drawing 1000 percent. Now I'm cussing myself that I didn't start years ago. By God! I've still got some punch yet!" <br /><br />He frequently hears from fans and loves to talk about his work on Superman. The fans, of course, love to talk to <i>him</i>. Ultimate fan Fred Hembeck, in fact, met Wayne at a comic convention a few years back in Orlando and the two artists swapped sketches. <br /><br />Sitting on his patio, I told him that Carmine Infantino and Gil Kane returned to DC, once again drawing and entertaining a new generation of fans, and also about the company's new enlightened and benevolent management which seems to be far more considerate towards it artists than its predecessors. I wondered if Wayne would want to draw Superman comics again. <br /><br />He paused for a few seconds and said, "You know, I'm pretty well situated now. This is a mild job I've got, as a day security man. They're the nicest people I've ever met. They pay me well." He paused again and looked me in the eye and said softly, "Of course. Yeah, I'd like to get back to drawing, now that you mention it." <br /><br />Will the man who drew the classic "Superman's Return to Krypton" himself return to DC Comics and the Man of Steel? Stay tuned ...</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Verdana;">(P.S. He did, but that's another story ... )</span><br /> </p><center><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></i></center><br /><br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1243000446846423788.post-38225824299118774492021-04-15T08:47:00.005-04:002021-04-15T14:00:17.889-04:00The No Asshole Rule<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0446698202/?tag=wordsonwords-20" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="The No Asshole Rule" border="0" data-original-height="1547" data-original-width="996" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht44O-mw10NOn3ufZmc6ELDEP5RlGmI6ENyTHnA1yj3Eb13eqbQ1Egx5ZkJEEmmrIZJPjc_Epm_2GELY3omiwfnAJJ8wByL_7nO6sCsgOGk_MTreK-dRZeXnI9Aq3o3Tl9cHIqqYfv8ssi/w258-h400/THE-NO-ASSHOLE-RULE.jpg" width="258" /></a></div><br /><b style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 13pt;">Book stresses curbing vile workplace behavior</span></b><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: left;"><i><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 13pt;">It may no longer be necessary to tolerate really bad behavior in the workplace, according to this new book, which also discusses how to modify the behavior of habitual offenders.</span></i><i><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 19.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: right;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 13pt;">BY RICHARD PACHTER<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 13pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-align: right;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 13pt;"><i>Originally published in The Miami Herald on 4/2/07</i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 13pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><b><i><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 13pt;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0446698202/?tag=wordsonwords-20" target="_blank">The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't. Robert I. Sutton. Warner Business Books. 210 Pages</a>.</span></i></b><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 13pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 13pt;">Are you an asshole?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 13pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 13pt;">Of course not.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 13pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 13pt;">But if you were, you probably would not admit it. After all, bad guys rarely consider themselves villains, and even the most misguided or murderous dictator usually claims a higher purpose. The people that author Robert Sutton writes about in this bracing new book are often oblivious to the unacceptability of their behavior.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 13pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 13pt;">Yet, almost every workplace seems to have several jerks who regularly run roughshod over others' rights and feelings. Most of us have toiled with weasels who blamed us for their own incompetence, laziness or malfeasance. Some may have even messed with us for the own amusement — or just because they could. I sure could tell you a few delightful stories, in fact, but as Don Corleone wisely declared, "This is business, not personal.''<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 13pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 13pt;"><b>SAY IT LIKE IT IS</b><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 13pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 13pt;">In recent years, a new term for this stuff has gained popularity, both in the workplace and in academic settings: bullying. That's what it is. Employees who abuse their authority are craven bullies. Just as principals and teachers have come to recognize the corrosive and dehumanizing effects of such behavior, so too, have a growing number of employers.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 13pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 13pt;">It's not just bosses abusing subordinates; hostile words and/or actions directed at co-workers are also counterproductive and a waste of time and money. Sutton tells of a company in the UK that itemized the costs of the aberrant and abhorrent behavior of one such scoundrel and presented him with a bill for the expenses the company incurred as a result of his antics. Though commendable, the author points out that it's still a half-measure and that the firm really should have just fired the bad bloke.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 13pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 13pt;">Sutton provides a very solid and honest examination of the phenomenon but is not above recounting his own behavior when it veered near the precipice of iniquity. And there's a large dose of good-natured humor throughout the text, as any genuine discussion of human behavior must include, but he's also pragmatic. Despite his solid academic credentials, he is well acquainted with the world beyond the ivy-covered walls.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 13pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 13pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 13pt;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0446698202/?tag=wordsonwords-20" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="1085" data-original-width="2048" height="312" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOKr_tM0QG7eOVfWJ87gp8XqIU8MdcXFsxMzYQmf8s_Jsh1pbq2p84FL5h-cPFzmcmOSM_asif_-eyrRst7XWK7xC5jXAYoo-tAfIcDIn3xvy4UYioaiXaLwKHCmupO2vmPV-ZbiSpEmfs/w640-h312/8CDCF9D2-3DBB-49A4-9998-9743D19E8507.JPG" width="640" /></a></span></div><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 13pt;"><br /></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 13pt;"><b>HUMOR AND SOLUTIONS</b><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 13pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 13pt;">While the diverse examples and knowing asides Sutton invokes are interesting and reveal the ubiquity and universality of purposefully intemperate conduct, he also discusses a number of possible reactions and remedies. There is a lot of humor in his anecdote about the put-upon office worker whose boss always ate the food on her desk. The disgruntled employee left some chocolate laxatives for the transgressor -- with the expected results -- but the ideal approach to handling such situations varies, Sutton explains. Too often, however, management can't or won't take matters seriously until a subpoena or lawsuit serves as a wake-up call.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 13pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 13pt;">Even more interesting to me is Sutton's informal survey of organizations that actually implement the dictum of this book's title. It's tough, for example, to toss out a top performer who is otherwise a total SOB, but companies that are truly serious about creating and maintaining a positive and non-threatening workplace are well worth exploring.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 13pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #1a1a1a; font-size: 13pt;">Don't you wonder if any of 'em are hiring?</span><o:p></o:p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1243000446846423788.post-13174736520282177732018-06-16T09:38:00.000-04:002020-02-21T08:18:12.714-05:00Comics, Seriously<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxL1a6KjxI1YW_lho8kJCfHhPjkcKz4Txy1x5LRQP62rc_9_um2gUeU2qLq75AIQZmjK9EzlaAiPBprxjFPKzFqMsAmC3U2WLmgzJma6cZtY-I1VFrhnUT1shI98NSaJC4RfAzC31p8eNu/s1600-h/adamsss.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5168032057286736466" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxL1a6KjxI1YW_lho8kJCfHhPjkcKz4Txy1x5LRQP62rc_9_um2gUeU2qLq75AIQZmjK9EzlaAiPBprxjFPKzFqMsAmC3U2WLmgzJma6cZtY-I1VFrhnUT1shI98NSaJC4RfAzC31p8eNu/s400/adamsss.jpg" style="cursor: pointer;" /></span></a><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><i>This was originally written in 2007 for Moli.com, a hybrid business-social site, now defunct, that published a substantial amount of original content. I was business editor. This was the first part of an abortive series on comics creators, never completed due to the site's demise.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">The makers of comic books are all powerful. With a flick of their wrists, they create and destroy universes, cheat death, shatter the time barrier, and imbue mere mortals with powers far beyond those of mortal men. But despite their heroic demeanor and soaring imaginations, many of these omnipotent, omniscient Masters of Reality have been broke, exploited, and demoralized victims of corporate oppression. Occasionally, some rise up to fight this injustice and subjugation.</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /><br />Our story begins many years ago ...</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /><br />As content, comics are now a primary source of material for blockbuster movies. But the business of comics is just that: a business, albeit a rapidly changing one. Once upon a time, there were many companies producing comics. But for the last 40 years or so, the best-known characters like Spider-Man, Superman, the Fantastic Four, Batman, the Hulk, and others, have come from two companies: Marvel and DC. Sales of traditional pamphlet-sized, individual "comic books" have dropped sharply over the last decade, while the sales — and mainstream cultural acceptance — of hard- and soft-cover compilations, as well as original "graphic novels," are ascendant.</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /><br />If you grew up reading comics in the '60s or '70s, you were regaled with tales of the Merry Marvel Bullpen, a wondrous place where all the artists drew their comics while laughing and kibitzing with writer/editor Smilin' Stan Lee. They had a grand time.</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /><br />Turns out the bullpen was essentially a myth. Few, if any, artists hung around the office, except to pick up a check and a new assignment. They toiled from home, or from their own rented studios. That's the way it's still done. Most of the creative work in comics is performed by freelance writers and artists on a <a class="external-link-new-window" href="http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ9.html" target="_blank">work-for-hire</a> basis, with the companies retaining ownership of the story, the characters (old and new), and any derivative works, like movies, TV shows, cartoons, lunch boxes, ring-tones — whatever. Creators are sometimes offered a slender sliver of the pie, but paying actual royalties to actual creators is a relatively recent innovation.</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /><br />Years after signing away his rights to the iconic character, Superman co-creator <a class="external-link-new-window" href="http://www.flixens.com/the_real_heroes_of_superman_part_1" target="_blank">Jerry Siegel</a> couldn't even get a writing assignment from DC or any publisher. His partner, <a class="external-link-new-window" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Shuster" target="_blank">Joe Shuster</a>, was legally blind and couldn't draw, so he toiled as a messenger in Manhattan and lived in semi-poverty. Marvel comics artist Jack "King" Kirby, at minimum responsible for the original design (if not the actual creation) of the Fantastic Four and nearly every other Marvel character, was <a class="external-link-new-window" href="http://www.tcj.com/aa02ss/n_marvel.html" target="_blank">forced</a> into pleading, threatening, and finally shaming Marvel into returning a fraction of his original drawings — those that hadn't already been lost, stolen, or destroyed.</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /><br />"All I know is that I own my drawings, but they've got them, and they know that I own them," he told <i>The Comics Journal </i>back in 1986. "They know, and they're holding them arbitrarily. They'll grab a copyright, they'll grab a drawing, they'll grab a script. They're grabbers — that's their policy. They can be as dignified as they like. They can talk in lofty language, although they don't usually ... not to me [laughter]. They can act like businessmen. But to me, they're acting like thugs."</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /><br />And this was Kirby, the <a class="external-link-new-window" href="http://www.povonline.com/Jack%20Kirby.htm" target="_blank">King of the Comics</a>! Mere mortals, and just plain journeyman artists and writers, have been treated far worse.</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /><br />While it's legal and practical for publishers to exploit (in the positive sense of the word) their intellectual property, until quite recently these companies have also exploited their freelance writers and artists, paying on a per-page basis with none of the benefits typically accorded salaried employees, such as health insurance, paid vacations, holidays, etc. When a group of veteran writers organized in the mid-1960s and asked for basic health insurance, DC's reaction was to abruptly cut off their work — in effect, firing them. That was the end of <i>that </i>little uprising.</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /><br />Modest improvements were made over time, including the advent of creator-owned properties and shared trademarks, royalties, and payment for reprints. Most of the advances were incremental and isolated until 1992.</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /><br />Before that important year, the hegemony of Marvel and DC had been challenged by a handful of smaller publishers: Dark Horse, First, Pacific, Eclipse, Malibu, Comico, Valiant, and others (all of which are now out of business except Dark Horse, whose close ties with film properties like <i>The Mask, Time Cop</i>, and other Hollywood productions augment and support their print ventures). Some of the indies produced books with production values equal to or better than the majors, though the quality of the stories and art varied greatly. Distribution was inconsistent, at best. They were less a threat to the Big Two and more of a farm system for new talent.</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /><br />But in 1992, seven of Marvel's hottest artists (Erik Larsen, Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld, Todd McFarlane, Whilce Portacio, Mark Silvestri, and Jim Valentino) met with the company's management and announced the formation of their own publishing entity, Image.</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /><br />Jim Lee told author George Khoury in <i>Image Comics: The Road to Independence</i>, "There was a wide, wide rift between how we perceived ourselves and our value to the company as creators, and [how] they valued us as creators, and I think they felt that they would survive without us. And they did, ultimately. They took a hit for ... several years because I think they underestimated what Image would become."</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /><br />Image began to publish books written and drawn by the rebel alliance. At first Malibu distributed the comics. After learning they were paying Malibu for services that they could handle themselves, like dealing with printers and other vendors, Image distributed the books themselves.</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /><br />But Image wasn't even a publisher in the traditional sense. It didn't own the copyrights, trademarks, or characters. It was (and is) more of a collective, with each of the then-six (Portacio dropped out) shareholders owning their own creative properties and calling the shots. The effect of Image's entry into the marketplace was immediate; initial sales of their books were quite high, even surpassing DC's volume, albeit briefly. Comics featuring their creations — <i>Spawn, The Savage Dragon, Wildcats,</i> and others — sold in the millions (!), and the Image founders became quite wealthy, especially for comic artists.</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /><br />It's worth pointing out that these Image founders were <i>all</i> artists, and not writers; none wrote their own tales, though some had already begun either scripting or "plotting" the stories they drew at Marvel in collaboration with an editor or a "scripter," who penned dialogue to match the action depicted in the drawings.</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /><br />In the wake of Image's success, several groups of writers and writer-artists also tried forming similar publishing collectives, but none gained traction and all were abandoned.</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /><br />Image itself didn't stay together. Jim Lee's Wildstorm imprint was wholly acquired by DC in 1998. Lee is still ostensibly in charge of the creative side, but DC manages the business, which frequently involves creative decisions, too.</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /><br />Marc Silvestri's Top Cow Productions left Image in 1996 but returned shortly after Image founder Rob Liefeld was voted out by the other partners over a variety of complaints and conflicts. Top Cow regularly works with Marvel. Lee and Liefeld have also drawn books for their old company, though since the DC acquisition, Lee's work has mostly appeared under that company's banner.</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /><br />The comics industry is subject to the same competitive forces faced by most businesses, including consolidation. Image, though originally formed as a means to empower and enrich its creators, found that they still had bills to pay, payrolls to make, and profits to turn. Business is business; it's revealing that nearly all of Image's current books are written and drawn by non-partners.</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /><br />But creators <a class="external-link-new-window" href="http://www.hollywoodcomics.com/optionagr.html" target="_blank">still seek</a> to create businesses to serve their needs — and not the other way around.</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /><br />The latest, artist Steve Rude, is a journeyman "artist's artist." In an upcoming post, we'll explore the secret origins of his new company, Rude Dude Productions, which one skeptical veteran editor termed "a suicide mission." We'll see.</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"><br /><br /><em>© 2007, 2008 The Pachter Family Trust. Originally appeared on www.Moli.com.</em></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1243000446846423788.post-14583608309735473102018-01-26T10:31:00.002-05:002018-02-02T10:03:30.244-05:00Tiffany Haddish Super Bowl Spot: Groupon's Wasted Opportunity<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="text-align: left;">I was super-happy to learn that <a href="http://www.vulture.com/2018/01/tiffany-haddish-on-her-groupon-super-bowl-ad-beyonce.html">Groupon hired Tiffany Hadish</a> for its 2018 Super Bowl spot. Her </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2PneBztZ3g" style="text-align: left;">hilarious anecdote on Jimmy Kimmel</a><span style="text-align: left;"> about using a Groupon to take out Will and Jada Smith is hilarious and her </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPWg-A9tiRI" style="text-align: left;">recent guest stint on Drunk History</a><span style="text-align: left;"> was amazing. (Heard she </span><a href="http://ew.com/movies/2017/07/22/girls-trip-tiffany-haddish-grapefruit-technique/" style="text-align: left;">steals a movie</a><span style="text-align: left;">, too.)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">So when I saw the Groupon spot, I couldn't believe it. Take a look yourself:</span></div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" src="//players.brightcove.net/377748811/BkeObTWBe_default/index.html?videoId=5719379305001" style="text-align: center;"></iframe></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">What a missed opportunity — on several levels.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">First of all, you could literally (yes, LITERALLY) substitute any actor, actress, spokesmodel or shlep off the street to do the spot. There's nothing Tiffany Haddish-ish about it. Generic Spokesmodel could've delivered those lines.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Second, does Groupon understand its own product? Sure, it's great to support local business (duh!) but is that Groupon's <a href="https://blog.kissmetrics.com/unique-selling-proposition/">USP</a>? Has ANYONE ever said, "Uh, yeah, I wanna support local business, so I'll buy a Groupon."? (Spoiler: NO!)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It's to save money; try a restaurant or service at a reduced cost. Period. Full stop.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The spot itself is unfunny and dumb. Wow, a rich guy gets hit with a football. Hardee har har.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">No lie: I could write a better spot. Hell, almost anyone could.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Glad Tiffany Haddish got a big check, but this is a Super Bowl spot, Groupon. You blew it.</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1243000446846423788.post-70758823612396572932016-09-03T23:15:00.002-04:002016-09-03T23:15:21.774-04:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000KA7292/?tag=wordsonwords-20" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6KAVvuXCo36DYAcFQY2F3VaC6wUW_4n7b3eBdOvT1hQYYccbgVfOy2yl3V6uOSQYzNnj4MnDCF-yvQ4plLLkCNp3K1LFqueMujDOBE2sfjFHxw2wD4eyf-G8Zl55nP1CQTYB9TSS4nmo_/s1600/had.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000KA7292/?tag=wordsonwords-20" target="_blank">HADRIAN'S WALLS. Robert Draper. Knopf. 326 pp.</a></span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Review by By RICHARD PACHTER</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Special to the Sun-Sentinel</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The best thing a novel can do is to reveal a heretofore-undiscovered world. Former Texas Monthly editor Robert Draper's first novel, Hadrian's Walls, does all this and more, presenting a tiny universe that crackles with conflict, contradiction and energy. It is an impressive work of entertainment and literature; with its page-turning plot and vibrant characters, it's perhaps the perfect book for summer reading.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Draper's revelatory universe is a Texas prison town; truly a microcosm of humanity. With layers of politics, personalities and perversion, the heroes and villains live on, long after the story concludes.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The tale is related as a first-person narrative by Hadrian Coleman, convicted of murder at 15, now returning to his hometown of Shepherdsville, Texas, the prison town run by his boyhood pal, Sonny Hope. From this logical point of attack, the story unfolds, with well-timed flashbacks revealing and amplifying the plot.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Texas, with its singular history and culture, is a great setting for any novel. Its larger-than-life legends illustrate, amplify and extend human foibles and heroics. But Draper wisely keeps things at the human level, allowing the action and its implications to assume their natural, albeit Texas-sized, proportions.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">As the story unfolds, the author's intelligence and energy keep things moving at a remarkably steady pace. His craft and poise also serve to smooth over any soft spots in the plot, rendering them barely noticeable. For a novice novelist, this is a considerable feat, resulting in a story within which the reader becomes happily absorbed and remaining so well after its completion.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Hadrian Coleman is an Everyman; a Prodigal Son, to be sure, but also a figure of great gravity and tragedy. The childhood murder was, of course, the singular event in his life, but his existence before and after is even more defining -- and filled with archetypal characters and situations. Hadrian's father is the country veteran who can do no wrong; his best friend is the town's ne'er do well, the woman whom they both love is the unattainable goddess, and so on. Draper not only breathes life into these hoary, would-be stereotypes, but imbues them with such vibrancy and vitality that they're born again as fresh characters.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Hadrian's Wall's would make a terrific movie (Matthew McConaughey: call your agent!) or -- better yet -- a miniseries, but don't hold your breath. Instead, read this book, and just try to wait patiently for the author's next one. I certainly will.</span><br />
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<a href="http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1999-08-01/entertainment/9907300857_1_hadrian-coleman-prison-town-hadrian-s-walls" target="_blank"><i><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">Originally published in The Sun Sentinel</span></i></a></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1243000446846423788.post-39280795301106105942016-07-06T14:32:00.002-04:002016-07-06T14:37:14.467-04:00Worse to Worst<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<img alt="" border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGcGUkQ4Yih5hQllmLIlp_WO9vo40jULr57E2iQcctWiqJq8uGUBlIEsjoImU1zGadv4tibM2e8fc1CyVP8l6B-z2jPFGEyQ6x5XPuG-DJK5cCXzG2i-cnbGqwtTFQIHXf7F56iUqV_pqR/s400/wc.jpg" title="Worst-Case Scenario Business Survival Guide" width="400" /></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Serious effort in the humorous series is a good effort but hardly revelatory</span></i></h4>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">BY RICHARD PACHTER</span></b><br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DU77WE2/?tag=wordsonwords-20" target="_blank"><b>The Worst-Case Scenario Business Survival Guide: How to Survive the Recession, Handle Layoffs, Raise Emergency Cash, Thwart an Employee Coup, and Avoid Other Potential Disasters. David Borgenicht, Mark Joyner. Wiley. 208 pages</b></a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">How about starting a new job and on the third day, you arrive at work to discover that the building is surrounded by police cars? Shocked, you wonder if the joint was robbed but soon learn from a stern cop that the company is accused of criminal activities. Or another gig where the owner ushers you into his office and asks you to accompany him to a business meeting with a competitor. On the car ride to their site, he announces that he’s going to pitch them on acquiring his company! Those are two screwy situations that yours truly encountered that may not be “worst-case” scenarios, but neither are most of the relatively typical business problems depicted in this short and amusing little book.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Previously, books in the “Worst-Case” series offered humorous and straight-faced advice for dealing with obviously over-the-top situations — how to jump from a bridge or a cliff into a river; how to survive if trapped in a lion’s cage; how to escape from a giant octopus — accompanied by retro-ish illustrations that evoked hokey how-to manuals from eras past.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It was a winning formula, apparently, as a stream of follow-ups and brand extensions appeared, including a TV special. I haven’t read every volume, but my sense is that each took a similarly light and frivolous approach to the issues, even if some weren’t very serious themselves, like surviving a zombie attack.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This new volume is VERY SERIOUS, however, and emphatically states so in both forwards by each of the authors of record. With no less than 25 “experts” weighing in with their advice, the pair, I’d guess, probably did the book’s outline and final rewrites. But this veritable Justice League Unlimited of kibitzers must’ve come up with a lot of stuff that was sliced, diced and concentrated to fit snugly into a book of just under 200 pages of text. But that’s still a lot of serious!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Regardless, the book is divided into five chapters of “emergencies”: Financial, HR, Productivity, Sales and Marketing, and Executive, with a “Basic Training” summation at the end of each chapter. The presentation is pleasant enough and the intermittent appearance of Colin Hayes’ beautifully deadpan line art will elicit a chuckle or two. The advice is solid, simple and un-surprising. If you possess a minimal amount of common sense, you’ll know this stuff cold. If you’re just starting out in the world, this might be a useful book to study or one to bequeath upon a clueless co-worker who aspires toward management. Please be careful; if you hand it to an actual manager they may be insulted — and you could be mortally wounded — or your career will be. But it’s immeasurably more constructive than any cheesy, rodent-infested pop parable or other well meaning but quintessentially vapid folderol. And if you need a stocking stuffer or a present for a holiday office gift exchange, you can pick <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DU77WE2/?tag=wordsonwords-20" target="_blank">up a copy for under 12 bucks on Amazon.com</a>, which will undoubtedly aid in surviving, at the very least, that potential disaster.</span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1243000446846423788.post-9736114442653369932016-05-04T11:30:00.001-04:002016-05-04T11:31:28.649-04:00Janis Joplin's Spirit Eludes Detailed Biography<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<img alt="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BY5XRHS/?tag=wordsonwords-20" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUmAP5EAYZfgzykdjIFSLJxKHFCD3CqcJVqfFeSfjb2jY7nyxs3uQlsnSGCrMOYqulHSjuEnZJpO12xm9gWCiWPobHairEoIjTZ9terbbF3uvlldvI_hPrNh7YQdYQfnuKPCPhPsvyzTWA/s1600/51SQIjwMrTL._SY344_BO1%252C204%252C203%252C200_.jpg" title="Janis Joplin" /><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BY5XRHS/?tag=wordsonwords-20" style="font-family: inherit;" target="_blank">SCARS OF SWEET PARADISE: The Life and Times of Janis Joplin. Alice Echols. Metropolitan Books.</a></span>
</b><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><br />
<b style="font-family: inherit;">By RICHARD PACHTER</b><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The only Janis Joplin songs on the radio these days are Me and Bobby McGee, and maybe Piece Of My Heart. But her image — larger than life — endures. Alice Echols' new biography of Joplin thoroughly examines her life and image, but the result is wholly unsatisfying.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Born in 1943 and raised in claustrophobic Port Arthur, Texas, Joplin grew into an "ugly duckling" teen. A vivacious, outgoing child ostracized by her classmates, who cruelly voted her "Ugliest Man On Campus," the preternaturally bright young woman became a social outcast. Purposely cultivating an unsavory reputation, she pushed the limits of propriety and parental authority by hanging with the town's lowlifes and beatniks until she escaped to college.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">A self-professed folkie who gravitated to the music of Odetta and Leadbelly, Joplin barely attended classes, devoting all of her time to nearly nonstop partying and sexual explorations. She began singing at clubs and coffeehouses and nurtured her growing talent, which was sometimes fueled by copious amounts of legal and illegal substances.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">She dropped in and out of school, and attempted to live the conventional lifestyle of her parents a final time before abandoning any pretense of conformity. She explored Greenwich Village, but eventually settled in San Francisco just in time for the emergence of the hippies of Haight Ashbury.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In San Francisco, Joplin found a community that welcomed her as a kindred spirit. The burgeoning music scene was a hotbed of experimentation, socially, sexually and sometimes even musically. Bands like the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Country Joe and the Fish, and the Charlatans recognized Joplin's talent and outrageous character. She hung out — and coupled — with many of those involved. Country Joe McDonald had a relatively long-term relationship with her, and memorialized the singer in his song Janis, on his 1967 album Feel Like I'm Fixin' To Die.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The Bay Area's "anything goes" attitude gave Joplin license to party even more. When she joined Big Brother and The Holding Company, a ragged hippie rock band, Joplin's astounding voice became its immediate focal point. Hailed as the Caucasian reincarnation of Bessie Smith and other black blues singers, Joplin and the band inked a typically exploitative contract with a smallish record label, quickly producing a low-fi album that was ignored by radio.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">At the first (and only) Monterey International Pop Festival in 1967, a now-legendary appearance by the group and its fiery vocalist attracted rabid attention from the music business. Bob Dylan's manager quickly displaced Big Brother's home-grown handler, and the rest of the band faded into the background, forever relegated to the role of Janis Joplin's first backup band. Columbia Records bought out their recording contract, and Big Brother made its real debut album under the tutelage of producer John Simon and engineer Elliot Mazer.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Though the album, dubbed Cheap Thrills, seemed like a live recording, all but one track — Ball and Chain — were cut in the studio. Simon and Mazer figured that the band's ragged playing would be more palatable if presented in a concert context, so they added fake audience tape-loops and canned applause, crafting a simulated live album.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Though the LP sold a million copies in its first month of release, Joplin was urged to abandon Big Brother by her manager, her record company and others. Subsequent musical accompaniment inarguably served her prodigious talents better. Big Brother recorded one album following her departure, before becoming a music history footnote.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Joplin's newfound celebrity and fortune enabled the acceleration of a Sybaritic lifestyle, as she made up for lost time. Her casual pansexual couplings, drug addictions, alcoholism and other passions undercut potential artistic and career growth. Echols lists many of Joplin's lovers, including Jets quarterback Joe Namath and musician Kris Kristofferson, who composed her posthumous hit, Me and Bobby McGee. But Janis felt lonely and unloved, despite the seemingly endless parade of short-term companions.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In October 1970, at the age of 27, she was found dead after an overdose of heroin, forming an immortal triumvirate of prematurely departed rock icons. Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix — Echols says Joplin had brief affairs with both — were dead within months of her.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Her enduring image as a red-hot mama and rock archetype inspired Bette Midler's film The Rose, which was originally touted as a Joplin biopic. Another Joplinesque movie is said to be under consideration, this one supposedly starring Melissa Etheridge, who says she draws inspiration from the late singer's bold life. Other women artists similarly express solidarity with Joplin's sexuality and legacy .</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Echols' book is a sympathetic but nearly clinical exploration of Joplin's life. With ample research, including scores of interviews with friends, lovers and associates, it's clear that much earnest work went into this project, but the result is a scholarly tome, contrasting wildly with the subject's flamboyant life and work. The ferocious power of Janis Joplin hinted at here may be impossible to authentically convey in any non-aural medium.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Originally published on March 14, 1999 in</i> </span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1999-03-14/entertainment/9903121041_1_alice-echols-janis-joplin-band" target="_blank">the Sun-Sentinel</a></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1243000446846423788.post-72408241863470015842014-06-20T11:46:00.002-04:002014-06-20T14:07:36.967-04:00FAs without the Qs<span style="font-family: inherit;">Back when I reviewed biz books for the Miami Herald, I'd get — as you'd imagine — numerous inquiries from publishers, authors, publicists and others who wanted me to review their books.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Some were quite professional, generally because they <i>were from professionals,</i> but others were a bit ham-handed and many asked my help to "promote their book in the Miami Herald"(!)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Rather than respond to each entreaty, I put together a kind of boilerplate response, which I honed and revised many times, as needed.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I've never shared this online, but was thinking about it today and thought, why not?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">So, here it is.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>FAQ for Publicists, Publishers and Authors</b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Thanks for your e-mail about your book.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Here are a few things you might find helpful.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">First of all, I review business books usually intended for a general business audience. I avoid technical volumes, most business-to-business books, self-help, diets, pop psychology, inspirational, religious, spiritual, sports, celebrity bios, novels, fables, humor, parables and such. (There are exceptions, but not often!) CEO memoirs and the like are iffy, but not entirely out of the question.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">I love books and language, and am endlessly interested in all forms of business, as it's a vital aspect of human culture.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">That's why I review business books.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">If you want your book considered for review, you need not ask me before sending a copy. It's an extra and unnecessary step.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">I receive many books every day — more than I can possibly review — so if you think yours is a candidate, just send it. My address is below.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">If you are not sure if the book is right, please take a moment to scan my previous reviews. The links are below. The </span><span style="background-color: white;"><span class="il" style="color: #222222;">Miami</span><span style="color: #222222;"> </span><span class="il" style="color: #222222;">Herald</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> site requires registration. My own (admittedly incomplete) sites, </span><a href="http://www.wordsonwords.com/" style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">http://www.wordsonwords.com</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> and </span><a href="http://richardpachter.com/" style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">http://www.richardpachter.com</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> do not.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">I like books offering fresh ideas that can be applied to a variety of businesses and situations.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Your book must be new, and available in bookstores and from normal online merchants (Amazon.com, BN.com etc.) and not just through your own web site or 800 number. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">I'll sometimes review a book AND the CD audio version. Feel free to send both, if you like.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">I don't (can't) return phone calls. You may always follow up with me by e-mail. I try to respond promptly, but this is not my full-time gig, unfortunately, and my "real" job takes up the majority of my time and attention.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">I don't review unpublished manuscripts or provide my "professional opinion" about something I'm not reviewing, and can offer no advice on agents, publishers, editors etc.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">I rarely do author interviews unless there are strong local South Florida connections, and even that's no guarantee.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">I don't need any canned reviews, have no say about anything else in the paper and think that poetry is a huge scam, so don't send me any poems (pretty please!)</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">I also review graphic novels on a monthly basis for The </span><span class="il" style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Herald</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">. From time to time, I write about other stuff, but it's not worth pitching me on anything, since I have more ideas than time to execute them.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Thanks for reading. (Any implied grouchiness herein is certainly not directed at you! I promise.)</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">xxx</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">rap</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">Richard Pachter</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">----</span></span><br />
<b style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">This</b><b style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> <span class="il">FAQ</span> </b><b style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">is covered by a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">Creative Commons license</a>.</b>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1243000446846423788.post-87254789954260299382012-12-15T09:51:00.002-05:002012-12-15T09:58:21.132-05:00Fiona Apple’s original (and still-unreleased) "Extraordinary Machine”<i>Note: In 2005, I was intrigued by the <a href="http://www.freefiona.com/" target="_blank">Free Fiona fan campaign</a>, so I pitched and wrote this for The Miami Herald. It was picked up by a few other papers, running in a severely edited form. The version that the Herald published was also edited for space, so here's the full original piece I'd submitted. Also, a completely reworked version of Apple's album was <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000B0WOEO/?tag=wordsonwords-20" target="_blank">subsequently released</a> by the record company. A comparison of each version is <a href="http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/11639-extraordinary-machine-jon-brion-version-extraordinary-machine/" target="_blank">here</a>.</i><br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000B0WOEO/?tag=wordsonwords-20" target="_blank"><img alt="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000B0WOEO/?tag=wordsonwords-20" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_ijGIQCx66ElWUF0yVkRgfs4VMxP0EbEg3ATr4OJD4VVPMChjgUXUvTXPx5Spm4f78cKRRswFBl1bdORDgSKqIdWdoGnHftuxtXwquckSVNJy6W891PtJiNGrUqSXFR4iqbu8BuIaNQQ9/s1600/Fiona_Apple_poster.jpg" title="" /><span id="goog_1005297026"></span></a><span id="goog_1005297027"></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>The extraordinary release of Fiona Apple’s new album</b></span><br />
BY RICHARD PACHTER<br />
<i><br />Fiona Apple’s new album wasn’t released. It escaped.</i><br />
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The third collection of songs from the waifish looking but throaty-voiced singer/songwriter reportedly was handed into Sony/Epic, her label, in May 2003. Her previous album, the one with a 57 word title (popularly know as "When the Pawn … ") was released in 1999 and fans wondered what had become of Ms. Apple since then.<br />
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Sessions for the third collection began with <a href="http://www.jonbrion.net/" target="_blank">Jon Brion</a>, a quirky but meticulous musician who played guitar on the first album and produced the second one, at the helm and the results were eagerly awaited. But that’s where the story gets murky. It’s been speculated that Epic didn’t hear a single on the album and refused to release it.<br />
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That was nearly two years ago. Not a note was heard until last August, when the title song of the new set, “Extraordinary Machine,” appeared (where else?) on the Internet.<br />
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Like a modern rearrangement of a long-forgotten show tune, “Extraordinary Machine” seemed a bit out of context. Apple’s lyrics and singing were slightly mannered, but just as knowing and self-aware as her previous work, with an unexpected pinch of humor added to the mix. Brion’s production and (presumable) arrangement was jazzy, but also reminiscent of Beatlesque art rock, with strings and horns. (Paul McCartney ought to look him up.)<br />
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Shortly thereafter, producer Brion announced the track listing and expressed his confidence that the long-delayed album would soon be released, but that was it; nothing from Fiona: No tour. No statements. Few sightings and no other new music. <br />
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Until a few weeks ago.<br />
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The entire 11 song “Extraordinary Machine” album appeared on one fan site, then several, in nearly CD-quality .mp3 files for download. Which it promptly — and repeatedly — was.<br />
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This is not the first time an unreleased album by a successful artist reached the public before the record company intended. Bob Dylan’s “Basement Tapes” was bootlegged as “The Great White Wonder” in 1969. “Get Back” by The Beatles was widely available before a remixed and rearranged version by producer Phil Spector morphed into “Let It Be” a year later. In 2000, The Dave Matthews Band’s final sessions with incumbent producer Steve Lillywhite were rejected by Matthews and RCA, after which most tracks were leaked to the public. They were later re-recorded and “officially” issued. And Wilco’s “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” was rejected by Reprise, then streamed on the net from the band’s web site before its subsequent release by Nonesuch, a corporate sibling of original label Reprise. Other albums appear on peer-to-peer networks and fan sites prior to their official release (and until cease and desist notices arrive from the RIAA), despite (or possibly because of) the best efforts of their record companies and managers. Most recently, the current U2 album, “How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb” was in fans’ hands (and their ipods and hard drives) a week before it hit the stores.<br />
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Apple’s “Extraordinary Machine,” however, may mark the first time an album that was supposedly rejected by the label (and possibly approved by the artist) became available to the public in this manner.<br />
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Its release has not gone unnoticed. A “Free Fiona” web site organized an in-person (as opposed to online) demonstration, so fans picketed the record company’s offices and were encouraged to send apples to Sony Music president Andy Lack in protest. The company issued a terse statement: "We join music lovers everywhere in eagerly anticipating her next release," which said everything — and nothing.<br />
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The Herald reached one senior Epic executive by telephone who declined to discuss Fiona Apple on or off the record, refusing to even allow an attributed quote of “No comment.” Epic president Steve Barnett, when asked by a Herald writer about the status of the Fiona Apple album, affably responded with “That’s sensitive,“ and promptly transferred the telephone call to Epic Senior VP of Publicity Lois Najarian. She allowed that the company was working with the artist’s management to resolve various issues, and refused to provide substantive details of the negotiations, which she called “proprietary,” but added, “We want to continue to be in business with Fiona Apple.”<br />
<br />
A source familiar with the situation hinted strongly that Brion may have been behind much of the high-tech agitation. Rather than handing the album in to the label in 2003, the source suggested that Epic had received it piecemeal from Brion, with songs in various stages of completion, and not as a finished work. There may have been subsequent discussions of bringing in another producer to either rework some or all of the existing tracks, or record one or more new songs that were more likely, in Epic’s opinion, to receive commercial radio airplay. Whether or not Brion was the source of the leaked tracks (which he strongly denied in an interview with Newsweek’s Lorraine Ali), it put the company in an awkward position, especially since Apple remained mum and didn’t offer a public opinion either way. Some have speculated that she agrees with Epic and doesn’t like her new album or considers it to be unfinished. Her management may not be helping the press or Epic by maintaining its silence, but they undoubtedly know that the growing interest and mystique ensures increased attention when the finished product is ultimately and officially released.<br />
<br />
The tracks have been downloaded extensively and also are available on various peer-to-peer networks, but the excitement isn’t limited to fans. Highly favorable reviews were published and posted in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, MTV, Salon.com and Newsweek among other media. A Seattle radio station bravely aired several songs before Epic stepped in with its inevitable cease and desist order.<br />
<br />
In any case, the songs that have surfaced are compelling and quite entertaining, revealing a new maturity both in Apple’s lyrics and vocals. Brion’s clever and complex production and arrangements serve the mostly jazzy pop tunes quite well.<br />
<br />
The future of “Extraordinary Machine” may not be clear but one thing is. Accidentally or on purpose, whenever or whatever Fiona Apple does next — officially or not — people will be watching, listening and probably downloading. (Note: a rerecorded version of “Extraordinary Machine” was <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000B0WOEO/?tag=wordsonwords-20" target="_blank">subsequently released</a>. The "bootleg" has never been officially and legally available.)Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1243000446846423788.post-36941036018225592082012-08-31T19:20:00.001-04:002012-08-31T19:36:06.809-04:00Comic Wars<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0767908309/?tag=wordsonwords-20" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjag7DIZ82HvEnozInXAx4LEKZDkNG16T8CCTto07CYNUjjo0QyqQVcvg75dUgf0jGocBtKvt3Tx7Xl2fpbXhuwIIDuSwF55khhqixbd2_LfEZrDvxysQXEncgefuqquA669j7Dps_TRfk/s320/61VPC3VE70L._SS500_.jpg" width="202" /></a></span></div>
<b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0767908309/?tag=wordsonwords-20" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Comic Wars: How Two Tycoons Battled Over The Marvel Comics Empire — And Both Lost. Dan Raviv. Broadway Books. 320 pages. </span></a></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>By Richard Pachter</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The business of comic books is a fascinating one, in many ways a microcosm of American industry. It all began in the early part of the last century as a means of using otherwise idle color presses. Its original "content" was compilations of previously published newspaper cartoons. But when these compilations sold well, a new industry quickly formed, and original material was required.<br /><br />With the success of its first genuine star, Superman (whose strip was a cut-and-paste job originally intended for newspaper syndication), the need for new strips exploded. Scores of new publishers seemed to appear overnight. Assembly-line principles produced thousands of pages of comics by editors, writers, pencil artists, ink embellishers and colorists in "bullpens" based mainly in New York City, the center of the American publishing industry.<br /><br />Fast forward. By the late '40s and early '50s, this once-thriving business hit on hard times. The number of publishers were down to a handful, decimated by wartime paper shortages, then a politically motivated attempt to tie comics to a rising youth crime rate — as if "juvenile delinquents" were avid readers! The growing popularity of television didn't help sales either. By the 1960s, most of the survivors sold out to larger corporations. And as consolidation continued, one of the largest remaining comics companies, Marvel, was a ripe target.<br /><br />The scene is then set as Dan Raviv's book, due out next week (on the eve of the release of the Spider-Man movie), opens:<br /><br />"Ronald O. Perelman — America's richest short, bald, forty-six-year-old chain-cigar-chomper — seemed to have a delicious deal when he bought Marvel Entertainment Group in January 1989. This was not a hostile takeover. It was simply a matter of negotiating a fair price for a property that seemed to have untapped potential.<br /><br />The owner dumping Marvel was New World Entertainment, a Hollywood production company that garnered very limited payoffs from made-for-television movies featuring the Incredible Hulk and other Marvel comics superheroes. New World had gone flat and wanted to pump itself up with new genres of TV and movies. So Marvel was on the auction block, and when Perelman saw that half a dozen companies were making bids he hardly needed to check his credit line. He simply outbid the others at $82.5 million. The delicious part was what Wall Street calls leverage: He had to put up only a small percentage of the money. All the rest was somebody else's."<br /><br />It's an interesting account — up to a point. The problem is, the book is about deals. Raviv relishes the subject, but most of the, well, color of the comics business is essentially missing. The various wheelers and dealers (Ronald Perelman, Carl Icahn, Isaac Perlmutter and Avi Arad) are a bunch of rich guys playing with bonds, zero coupons and leverage: boring stuff irrespective of the specifics of the business.<br /><br />Raviv, a distinguished journalist whose distinctive — and breathless — reports for CBS Radio are always sharp, unfortunately fails to elicit much interest from the reader as he describes interminable exchanges of faxes, attorneys' letters, impromptu meetings and the like. Also absent is any real knowledge of comics on the part of the author. For example, not even journeyman artist Sal Buscema's mother would call him "one of the great Marvel artists" as Raviv apparently does.<br /><br />Similar errors appear throughout, but that's not the big problem with Comic Wars. Although a current Marvel exec recently confided that he's having a lot of fun with the book, the rest of us will have to look elsewhere for tales to astonish. </span><br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Originally published in The Miami Herald</i></span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1243000446846423788.post-56246629359584264552012-05-26T09:33:00.000-04:002012-05-26T09:33:55.219-04:00Guides for word nerds and language wranglers<div style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Words to live and write by</span></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
<b>BY RICHARD PACHTER</b> <br />
<br />
<span class="il">Word</span> <span class="il">nerds</span> (like me) usually look askance at most tomes on writing and language. After all, pedantic autodidacts and over-educated sesquipedalians already know how to wrangle language and massage messages. Oh, occasionally something like the bestselling <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1592402038/?tag=wordsonwords-20" target="_blank">Eats Shoots and Leaves</a> catches our collective fancy, but that was merely an amusement, a momentary distraction. Genuine lingo gringos unfailingly poo-poo prosaic <span class="il">word</span> books as beneath them (or us). Unless it's our Bible — not the Pentateuch, but the Associated Press Stylebook or The Chicago Manual of Style (according to your faith) — why bother?<br />
<br />
Here's a look at the latest edition of the holy <span class="il">word</span> and a recent would-be contender.</div><div style="font-family: inherit;"></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><b></b></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1725105172"><br />
</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0465021875/?tag=wordsonwords-20" target="_blank"><img alt="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0465021875/?tag=wordsonwords-20" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAw47YAcZ2gFshdEtacRVwRxHeoxQkbPBofU9Cy4ovl-RDCeFANX_mkB4-yAr1MZr_30xJ1E0y57H4oltPeU15RfUE8icoyHuBAjZ0SA1wxTfM730X5FHrlVriRGkS3cXwQzrZtxnJfuvL/s1600/ap.jpg" title="AP Style Guide" /></a></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0465021875/?tag=wordsonwords-20" target="_blank">Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law. Associated Press/BasicBooks. 465 pages.</a> (<a href="http://www.apstylebook.com/?ref=google&gclid=CNK0hpmFnrACFcSa7QodWi1JZQ" target="_blank">Also available by online subscription and as an app for mobile devices.</a>)</b> <br />
<br />
I've never heard it called by its proper name, but the "AP Style Guide'' is used by businesses and publications throughout the country. This new version caused a bit of a buzz when it was announced that "Website'' would no longer be capitalized. Trust me, this was a very big deal, though "Internet'' inexplicably remains capitalized. (Huh?) But a technical writer of my acquaintance was VERY excited about this quantum leap, as if her world was now a brighter and happier place. Such is the power of this humble volume! <br />
<br />
This resource is used in newspapers throughout the English-speaking world as an authority on usage, punctuation, abbreviation and more. It's also a fixture in the dens and cubicles of Anglophone business writers and other scribblers throughout the planet seeking authoritative guidance in their use of language for legal writing, ads and marketing communications material. <br />
<br />
This new edition of the Stylebook is also available online (by subscription, with site licenses and individual deals, too.) In addition, an app (a recent addition to the Stylebook, apparently) for iPhones, iPads and iPods is also offered. These electronic versions afford immediate access to updates, so if the AP ever decides to allow "Internet'' in lowercase, subscribers will be the first to know. </div><div style="font-family: inherit;"></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrMskyBCl7rIjJEJgQ0jdo_xgftmN9WeVxkyK1zv2_q0YEst3GgaFzmgaSH-j8keNmTu985Dq4lp3EGuozYxPJmruSDtmkGjoln86_qWVKuWwTQjppzh10MKSvWunQwgOS_sCG9G2Ib0ln/s1600/Yahoo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrMskyBCl7rIjJEJgQ0jdo_xgftmN9WeVxkyK1zv2_q0YEst3GgaFzmgaSH-j8keNmTu985Dq4lp3EGuozYxPJmruSDtmkGjoln86_qWVKuWwTQjppzh10MKSvWunQwgOS_sCG9G2Ib0ln/s320/Yahoo.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0230749607/?tag=wordsonwords-20" target="_blank"><b>The Yahoo! Style Guide: Writing and Editing for the Web. Chris Barr. St.Martin's Press. 528 pages.</b></a> <br />
<br />
Though Google rules search, Yahoo's strategy of providing actual content as part of their soufflé of search and aggregation is still in place. As such, they've become a bit of an authority on content creation, and their style guide is a very nice grab bag of tools, ideas and instructions. A lot of it is Copywriting 101-level fare; a far cry from AP's no-nonsense journalism, but even the most recalcitrant news-o will admit that writing for the Web requires a sharp, punchy prose style that's more tabloid than "Times,'' though accuracy and clarity still reign. It might be less hyperbolic than copywriting, but it still needs to sell — itself, at the very least. <br />
<br />
For many writers, this style guide won't be anything new and it's certainly no replacement for AP's collection of golden standards, but for neophytes and others, this is a fine course.</div><div style="font-family: inherit; text-align: right;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Originally published in </span></i><span style="font-size: x-small;">The Miami Herald</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1243000446846423788.post-37875521989112238502012-04-26T09:33:00.000-04:002012-04-26T09:52:11.110-04:00For Freelancers, One Simple, Powerful Question"What can I help you with RIGHT NOW?" <br />
<br />
"Is there a project that you're working on that I can help you complete? Something to write, proofread, edit, design (etc)?"<br />
<br />
Instead of waiting for an assignment, a creative brief, a return phone call, email or whatever after your meeting, ask and you'll increase your chances of going home with a gig immediately. No waiting!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1243000446846423788.post-89204034516735447902012-02-18T09:34:00.001-05:002012-02-18T09:36:46.410-05:00Avoid the Horrors of E-Mail Marketing<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0814471471?tag=wordsonwords-20" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikzi9bPKsxwkpI5mwRdOvU-QPpYuSAkUhPK_eszCR6A4O2_QsBWmIFcQczuNE8Dz09Nfzy_-8tgWd-CKd4m2ltlphy51K7ok5M3JeFB-zrizr6I522hY6nm_vnD31qKyCkYI1SgHZQ56BJ/s320/books_frontview_180.jpg" width="256" /></a></div><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0814471471?tag=wordsonwords-20" target="_blank"><b>E-Mail Marketing: The Complete Guide to Creating Successful Campaigns. Herschell Gordon Lewis. AMACOM. 304 pages. $24.95.</b></a><br />
<br />
Let's check our e-mail. Hmm. . . In addition to a few messages from clients, colleagues, managers and readers, there's a solicitation from an heir of an overthrown African politician offering a "business opportunity" (but he wants my bank account number to get started); a sale on toner cartridges from a company I've never heard of; several links to pornographic websites; an offer to purchase a condominium in Calgary; a number of cryptic messages with attached files (removed by my company's virus prevention software); poetry from a local writer; a newsletter; a few more commercial solicitations (some of which pretend to be responses to inquiries and requests I've never made), and a bunch of other things that were routed directly to the trash, since they contain certain keywords that flag them for that purpose by my e-mail program.<br />
<br />
So what's the deal with the unsolicited commercial e-mail — fondly known as "spam"?<br />
<br />
You and I may consider it spam, but e-mail as a marketing tool is a powerful new medium. Herschell Gordon Lewis is one of its biggest advocates, and that makes sense. Lewis, a Fort Lauderdale-based advertising veteran, has long been a creative guru in the direct marketing arena. To some, it's mere junk mail, but Lewis cast his sharp eye toward the creativity and effectiveness of the work, mostly stuff that appeared in his own mail box.<br />
<br />
His long running column in a trade publication wittily skewered a number of ill-advised campaigns and sales pieces — and complimented a few that worked, in his opinion. In this new book, he does the same with the sales pitches and special offers sent to the in-box of his e-maile account.<br />
<br />
If you're an average recipient of e-mail who's annoyed by the endless amount of unsolicited commercial messages, this is not the book for you. No way, because Lewis assumes that there is such a thing as good e-mail of the unsolicited commercial variety. And really, if you think of it as a digital cousin of the material that shows up in your home mailbox every day, this is not a difficult leap to make.<br />
<br />
But if your home is assaulted with dozens of daily come-ons for hot farm girls, Viagra and other unwelcome products and services, chances are you'd have negative feelings attached to these solicitations. Lewis apparently believes that since e-mail is, after all, in its infancy, the bad things will fade away as the medium matures. And, if these offers cease being effective (the marketing, not the products!), senders will stop flooding every e-mail address with it. The problem, of course, is that conducting e-mail marketing campaigns is cheaper than any other similar effort, so the bottom-feeders will probably be around forever.<br />
<br />
But that's not our problem, nor is it Lewis', other than factoring it in to the effectiveness of e-mail marketing as a whole. He's not an advocate of spam; he just thinks it is, for the most part, lame.<br />
<br />
Instead, he's a proponent of sending messages to prospects who are disposed toward particular products and services, have opted to receive e-mail, or are on lists supplied by companies gathering such information to sell them to companies in the same manner as traditional (postal) mailing lists.<br />
<br />
So Lewis devotes most of his book to discussing his general creative principles and showing how they apply to this unique medium, illustrated with plenty of real examples from the things he has received. If you are so inclined to conduct an e-mail marketing campaign, this book is invaluable. Writing may be deceptively simple, but crafting a message in a powerful and persuasive manner is extremely difficult. Herschell Gordon Lewis is a Jedi master of mail marketing -- snail or electronic -- so heeding his lessons all but guarantees success.<br />
<br />
But please, don't give into the dark — and spammy — side of The Force.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>originally published in The Miami Herald </i></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1243000446846423788.post-85140411163936217972011-08-21T16:46:00.000-04:002011-08-21T16:46:25.226-04:00"Smart retirement" is not an oxymoronAuthor Dan Solin explains how to get the most for your money for retirement.<br />
<br />
<b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Smartest-Retirement-Book-Youll-ebook/dp/B002DW92UM?ie=UTF8&tag=wordsonwords-20&link_code=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969" imageanchor="1" target="_blank"><img alt="The Smartest Retirement Book You'll Ever Read" src="http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&ID=AsinImage&WS=1&Format=_SL160_&ASIN=B002DW92UM&tag=wordsonwords-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wordsonwords-20&l=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B002DW92UM" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;" width="1" /> </b><br />
<b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Smartest-Retirement-Book-Youll-ebook/dp/B002DW92UM?ie=UTF8&tag=wordsonwords-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">The Smartest Retirement Book You'll Ever Read. Daniel R. Solin. Penguin Group. 272 pages</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wordsonwords-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B002DW92UM" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;" width="1" />.</b><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;"><b>by Richard Pachter</b></div><br />
I currently have no plans to retire. As long as I still have most of my marbles, I'll just keep working, though I may eventually be forced to stop. This is highly unlikely (yeah right), but to be prudent I ought to prepare for the possibility that my earning days could end. I'll need to look closely at what remains of my 401(k) and other savings so that the funds will last at least as long as I do. Reading this book is smart.<br />
<br />
Dan Solin's previous entries in this series, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Smartest-Retirement-Book-Youll-Ever/dp/0399535209?ie=UTF8&tag=wordsonwords-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">The Smartest Investment Book You'll Ever Read</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wordsonwords-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=0399535209" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;" width="1" /> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Smartest-Book-Youll-Ever-Savings/dp/B004WGK436?ie=UTF8&tag=wordsonwords-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">The Smartest 401(k) Book You'll Ever Read</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wordsonwords-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B004WGK436" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;" width="1" />, were clever, breezy guides to navigating through the financial morass without getting hurt. Really, the info contained therein would undoubtedly be sufficient for anyone seeking to manage their finances through post-employment life. Still, the publishing business being what it is, Solin was undoubtedly encouraged to continue. And that's fine. This new book gets into the basics of investment, stocks and bonds in context with the present economic scene, so reading the earlier volumes doesn't mean that you won't get anything out of this one.<br />
<br />
BEYOND SAVING<br />
<br />
In fact, in addition to advice on retirement accounts, Solin casts his wise eye and sharp pen on other important subjects like reverse mortgages, age of social security distribution, prenuptial agreements for seniors, options and implications of delaying retirement, and the locally ubiquitous phenomenon of "senior seminars'' involving a ``free'' meal at a ritzy restaurant accompanied by a steaming side dish of potentially costly advice.<br />
<br />
The best thing that Solin brings to the party is his shrewd and skeptical approach to the art and science of investing. Have an account with a brokerage? Close it, he instructs. Those guys are just trying to sell you stuff that you may or may not need in order to generate fees for themselves, not returns for you. And be sure to have a will that reflects your current wishes so your heirs, not the state, get whatever is left of your estate. You may not agree with everything Solin writes (especially if you're a professional whose livelihood depends on fees), but there's no question that his focus is on what's best for individuals, not institutions.<br />
<br />
USEFUL TOOLS<br />
<br />
Throughout, Solin writes clearly with style and humor but stays on topic and doesn't bloviate or pontificate excessively. He includes a number of charts and other tools to figure out what to do with your money so it grows into the amount you will need to live on for the rest of your days. He also includes a pretty clever bibliography that painlessly presents his sources and offers options for further reading and investigation.<br />
<br />
The only thing about this booked that bugged me was the brevity of each chapter -- some about a page and a half. Seemed to me that in most cases, several could have been neatly combined. This may seem like nitpicking, but the narrative would have flowed a bit better and maybe a couple of trees could have been spared in the process.<br />
<div style="text-align: right;"><i>Originally published 8/24/09 in The Miami Herald</i></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1243000446846423788.post-26101081986599897552011-08-21T16:39:00.001-04:002011-08-21T16:39:12.758-04:00Two books outline preparation for retirementTwo authors examine the preparations that must be made before one retires. Or not.<br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<div style="text-align: right;"><b>BY RICHARD PACHTER</b></div><br />
<br />
Retire? For some it's not a viable option. For others, it's a possibility, but their financial well-being is the prime determinant of the timing. Two new books examine retirement from the perspective of the critical issue of investing self-directed retirement funds and the option of pursuing a different path that would offer an alternative to total withdrawal from the workforce.<br />
<br />
<b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Smartest-Book-Youll-Ever-Savings/dp/B004WGK436?ie=UTF8&tag=wordsonwords-20&link_code=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969" imageanchor="1" target="_blank"><img alt="Smartest 401(k) Book You'll Ever Read: Maximize Your Retirement Savings...the Smart Way! By Daniel R. Solin" src="http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&ID=AsinImage&WS=1&Format=_SL160_&ASIN=B004WGK436&tag=wordsonwords-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wordsonwords-20&l=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B004WGK436" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;" width="1" /> </b><br />
<b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Smartest-Book-Youll-Ever-Savings/dp/B0051BNVMM?ie=UTF8&tag=wordsonwords-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">The Smartest 401(K) Book You'll Ever Read. Daniel Solin. Perigee. 240 pages</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wordsonwords-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B0051BNVMM" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;" width="1" />.</b><br />
<br />
For poor slobs like me, 401(k) and 403(b) plans need to work very hard. Though a friend recently joked that she thinks that she can probably afford to retire in the year 2525, there's a chance that circumstances may prove otherwise. Another buddy told me that he has three retirement funds sitting with three ex-employers. Nice. Both of these comedians ought to pick up this useful new book by Daniel Solin, pronto!<br />
<br />
I <a href="http://www.richardpachter.com/2011/08/three-books-offer-fundamentals-of.html">reviewed</a> his previous tome, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Smartest-Investment-Book-Youll-Ever/dp/B002VL81PW?ie=UTF8&tag=wordsonwords-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">T<u>he Smartest Investment Book You'll Ever Read: The Simple, Stress-Free Way to Reach Your Investment Goals</u></a><u><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wordsonwords-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B002VL81PW" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;" width="1" /> </u>when it came out about a year and a half ago, and this one is a worthy successor. Instead of going on to other subjects or bigger things, Solin focuses on retirement savings plans. It's a fertile topic and his advice seems sensible enough, though it's touted on the jacket as being ''controversial'' and ''challenge(ing) some basic assumptions.'' Well, maybe I'm missing something, but Solin's admonitions to keep fees and expenses low, use index funds and diversify seem pretty solid.<br />
<br />
Solin also isn't afraid to be specific, which is very nice, too, so look for some very sharp criticism of several funds (including TIAA-CREF) and investment instruments such as annuities. He provides a few model portfolios, rails against professional investment advisors and politicians, and suggests ways to augment retirement plans with additional investments. This book also provides several work sheets and questionnaires, making matters a bit easier, so one's excuses for inaction becomes a bit weaker.<br />
<br />
If you're considering reading this book, I'd suggest doing so quickly, as things change, but much of what Solin writes is very solid and useful. If you haven't taken a recent look at what your own retirement investments are doing and -- perhaps even more important-- how they are put together, reading Solin's smart little book might provide the impetus for action.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Retire-Retirement-Career-Strategies-Generation/dp/1422120597?ie=UTF8&tag=wordsonwords-20&link_code=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969" imageanchor="1" target="_blank"><img alt="Retire Retirement: Career Strategies for the Boomer Generation" src="http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&ID=AsinImage&WS=1&Format=_SL160_&ASIN=1422120597&tag=wordsonwords-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wordsonwords-20&l=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=1422120597" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;" width="1" /><br />
<b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Retire-Retirement-Career-Strategies-Generation/dp/1422120597?ie=UTF8&tag=wordsonwords-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Retire Retirement: Career Strategies for the Boomer Generation. Tamara Erickson. Harvard Business Press. 192 pages.</a></b><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wordsonwords-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=1422120597" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;" width="1" /><br />
<br />
Erickson's premise is similar to my friend's who plans to work forever; those reaching the traditional age of retirement need necessarily not do so. The author proposes ways to adjust one's compensation and expenses to accommodate this. She also offers insights into strategies and options, such as location, transportation and lifestyle choices. Sure, they're all related (if not defined) by economic factors, but Erickson puts them all into a larger context, which is very useful, too.<br />
<br />
Though primarily aimed at boomers, I suspect that much of Erickson's advice can be adapted to others, too, as the ongoing changes in the economy and our culture continue to alter the nature of work and the relationship between employers and employees.<br />
<div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Originally published 6/23/08 in The Miami Herald</i></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1243000446846423788.post-46125015353579853832011-08-21T16:14:00.004-04:002011-08-21T16:38:08.451-04:00Three books offer fundamentals of investingThree books on the fundamentals of investing offer advice and wisdom from those experienced in the art of finance.<br />
<div style="text-align: right;"><b>BY RICHARD PACHTER</b></div><br />
Aside from professional traders, speculators and hobbyists, I think most people invest only when they have to. But for many of us with disappearing or nonexistent pensions, or ''self-directed'' retirement accounts, it has been necessary to take a more active role in saving and allocating funds to either supplement our current earnings or help us get through the days when we will be unable (or unwilling) to work.<br />
<br />
Here are three books that offer general investment advice.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Best-Investment-Advice-Ever-Received/dp/B001Q3M6PW?ie=UTF8&tag=wordsonwords-20&link_code=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969" imageanchor="1" target="_blank"><img alt="The Best Investment Advice I Ever Received: Priceless Wisdom from Warren Buffett, Jim Cramer, Suze Orman, Steve Forbes, and Dozens of Other Top Financial Experts" src="http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&ID=AsinImage&WS=1&Format=_SL160_&ASIN=B001Q3M6PW&tag=wordsonwords-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wordsonwords-20&l=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B001Q3M6PW" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;" width="1" /><br />
<b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Best-Investment-Advice-Ever-Received/dp/B001Q3M6PW?ie=UTF8&tag=wordsonwords-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">The Best Investment Advice I Ever Received: Priceless Wisdom from Warren Buffett, Jim Cramer, Suze Orman, Steve Forbes and Dozens of Other Top Financial Experts. Liz Claman. Warner Books. 240 pages.</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wordsonwords-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B001Q3M6PW" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;" width="1" /></b><br />
<br />
I must admit that I rarely watch CNBC, which the late Neil Rogers called ''The Gambling Channel.'' That wacky, noisy, wildly gesticulating Cramer fellow seems to be on the tube most times I cruise by, but without Jerry, George or Elaine, he's just not that entertaining. Author Liz Claman is a news anchor on that channel, but since I don't recall seeing her there, it's probably easier to judge this book on its content rather than on anything else.<br />
<br />
That said, it's pretty good. The contributors are either corporate executives or financial experts and managers. She might have had a bigger seller if she'd solicited input from Dancing with the Stars-type celebrities, but she opted instead to provide something of substance, which is commendable. Oh, she's got a few ringers in here, like oddly coiffed TV host Donald Trump and the aforementioned Crazy Cramer, but she also has AutoNation's Mike Jackson, Warren Buffett, Suze Orman, John C. Bogle, Alexandra Lebenthal and others who know what the heck they're talking about. You may not instantly become a smarter investor after reading this book, but you will certainly benefit from the bits and pieces of experience and knowledge offered in the aggregate.<br />
<br />
<img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wordsonwords-20&l=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=0399535209" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;" width="1" /><br />
<b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Smartest-Investment-Book-Youll-Ever/dp/0670066265?ie=UTF8&tag=wordsonwords-20&link_code=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969" imageanchor="1" target="_blank"><img alt="The Smartest Investment Book You'll Ever Read : The Simple, Stress-Free Way to Reach Your Investment Goals" src="http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&ID=AsinImage&WS=1&Format=_SL160_&ASIN=0670066265&tag=wordsonwords-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wordsonwords-20&l=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=0670066265" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;" width="1" /> </b><br />
<b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Smartest-Investment-Book-Youll-Ever/dp/0670066265?ie=UTF8&tag=wordsonwords-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">The Smartest Investment Book You'll Ever Read: The Simple, Stress-Free Way to Reach Your Investment Goals. Daniel R. Solin. Penguin. 179 pages.</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wordsonwords-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=0670066265" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;" width="1" /></b><br />
<br />
I really like <a href="http://www.richardpachter.com/2008/06/andy-tobias.html">Andrew Tobias</a>' book of a similar title, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Only-Investment-Guide-Youll-Ever/dp/0156011077?ie=UTF8&tag=wordsonwords-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need,</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wordsonwords-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=0156011077" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;" width="1" /> which takes a sober and comprehensive approach to the subject. Tobias updates it regularly, too, so it's usually as timely as it is timeless. You can also go to his very useful website: <a href="http://www.blogger.com/">www.andrewtobiascom/ </a>-- which is another way to share his wealth of information.<br />
<br />
Solin's book is more of a how-to investing book, covering stocks and bonds and such. His nuts and bolts approach to the subject is quite good, especially for those of us who have to manage our own 401(k) plans, savings and investments but have little enthusiasm and inborn abilities to do so. It's tightly written, always on-point and not weighed down with anecdotes and aphorisms, and could be just the instruction book that you were looking for, but never received with that thick pension package from your company's HR department.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Little-Value-Investing-Books-Profits/dp/0470055898?ie=UTF8&tag=wordsonwords-20&link_code=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969" imageanchor="1" target="_blank"><img alt="The Little Book of Value Investing (Little Books. Big Profits)" src="http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&ID=AsinImage&WS=1&Format=_SL160_&ASIN=0470055898&tag=wordsonwords-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wordsonwords-20&l=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=0470055898" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;" width="1" /><br />
<b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Little-Value-Investing-Books-Profits/dp/0470055898?ie=UTF8&tag=wordsonwords-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">The Little Book of Value Investing. Christopher H. Browne. Wiley, John & Son. 180 pages</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wordsonwords-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=0470055898" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;" width="1" />.</b><br />
<br />
I quite liked Browne's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Joel-Greenblatt-Little-Beats-Market/dp/B004S30HKI?ie=UTF8&tag=wordsonwords-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">The Little Book that Beats the Market</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wordsonwords-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B004S30HKI" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;" width="1" />, and this one is a worthy sequel, as he provides more information and support for his notion that investing in good, profitable companies can be more lucrative than going for the short money and the quick scores.<br />
<br />
There's a bit more fluff here, but Browne is an engaging and self-effacing writer, so it's not too painful and never boring. If you read his previous little book, this one is a worthy and useful companion.<br />
<div style="text-align: right;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>Originally published 11/27/06 in The Miami Herald</i></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1243000446846423788.post-64095571996457222472011-07-05T20:49:00.002-04:002011-07-05T20:52:39.219-04:00Guest Review: Bob Lefsetz on Derek Sivers' "Anything You Want"<i>The great Bob Lefsetz graciously alowed us to repost his review. For more Lefsetz, please visit his blog, <b><a href="http://www.blogger.com/">here</a></b>. To subscribe to the Lefsetz Letter by e-mail,<b> <a href="http://www.lefsetz.com/lists/?p=subscribe&id=1">click here</a></b>.</i><br />
<br />
<i><b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Anything-You-Want-Derek-Sivers/dp/1936719118?ie=UTF8&tag=wordsonwords-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"></a><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Anything-You-Want-Derek-Sivers/dp/1936719118?ie=UTF8&tag=wordsonwords-20&link_code=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969" imageanchor="1" target="_blank"><img alt="Anything You Want" src="http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&ID=AsinImage&WS=1&Format=_SL160_&ASIN=1936719118&tag=wordsonwords-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wordsonwords-20&l=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=1936719118" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;" width="1" /> </b></i><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><i><b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Anything-You-Want-Derek-Sivers/dp/1936719118?ie=UTF8&tag=wordsonwords-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Anything You Want. Derek Sivers. Domino Project. 88 pages.</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wordsonwords-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=1936719118" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" /></b></i></span><br />
<br />
This book is so good, so chock full of nuggets, that I had to stop reading it and e-mail you, even though Derek says it will only take an hour to finish.<br />
<br />
Derek is you. An outsider. Who’s not trying to be an insider, just looking to find a way to make his life work.<br />
<br />
In case you don’t know, Derek started CD Baby. And sold it ten years later for $22 million.<br />
<br />
Minus startup costs…<br />
<br />
THERE WERE NO STARTUP COSTS! CD BABY WAS STARTED BY ACCIDENT! IT WAS PROFITABLE FROM DAY ONE!<br />
<br />
You’re gonna like this book because it’s deals with something you’re familiar with, the music business. It’s not like buying a business book written by a corporate kingpin or an entrepreneur with a personality brighter than a 100-watt bulb who could sell ice to Inuits. This is a musician, telling his story.<br />
<br />
And his story is so different from the one being told by everybody else.<br />
<br />
First and foremost, he made money.<br />
<br />
And he did it by himself. His way.<br />
<br />
Let’s start with a few lessons…<br />
<br />
1. "Start Now. No funding needed<br />
<br />
Watch out when anyone (including you) says he wants to do something big, but can’t until he raises money.<br />
<br />
It usually means the person is more in love with the idea of being big big big than with actually doing something useful. For an idea to get big big big, it has to be useful. And being useful doesn’t need funding."<br />
<br />
In other words, START TODAY! NO WAITING NECESSARY!<br />
<br />
If you’ve got a good idea.<br />
<br />
Every day I get e-mail from people waiting to start, getting their ducks in order, bitching that they can’t get funded. All you’ve got to do is begin.<br />
<br />
<br />
2. "Success comes from persistently improving and inventing, not from persistently doing what’s not working.<br />
<br />
We all have lots of ideas, creations, and projects. When you present one to the world, and it’s not a hit, don’t keep pushing it as-is. Instead get back to improving and inventing."<br />
<br />
If no one reacts to your music, write new tunes. If you still don’t get traction, change styles.<br />
<br />
People hate to hear this. BUT WHAT ABOUT MY INVESTMENT!<br />
<br />
You never forget what you’ve learned. Yes, read "What Color Is Your Parachute?", you’re developing transferable skills. Don’t be married to failure. This doesn’t only apply to the music business. If you can’t make it as a lawyer or a doctor…change course! Doesn’t matter if someone else is successful, they’re not you.<br />
<br />
<br />
3. "A business plan should never take more than a few hours of work. Hopefully no more than a few minutes. The best plans start simple. A quick glance and common sense should tell you if the numbers will work. The rest are details."<br />
<br />
You can do the business plan in your head. It should be just that simple. If you’re paying an MBA to write it, you’re just justifying the price of his education. As for impressing investors, Derek didn’t take any money. He built upon his success. If you’ve got no success, stop.<br />
<br />
<br />
4. "Any time you think you know what your new business will be doing, remember this quote from Steve Blank: No plan survives first contact with customers."<br />
<br />
Voila!<br />
<br />
You’ve got no idea what’s gonna happen until you open your store, until the audience hears the first note. Turns out people like a different track than you do. Turns out that little thing you do that embarrasses you audiences love. Maybe your instrumental passage is the highlight of the show. Or vice versa, maybe it’s when you sing a cappella. You won’t know until you try.<br />
<br />
Last night Jim e-mailed me to ask if I too wouldn’t take the $1.3 million paid to Nathan Hubbard. If they offered me that gig.<br />
<br />
They’re never gonna offer me that gig. I’m not the right person. I don’t play well with others. You’ve got to kiss a lot of ass to succeed in the corporation. You’ve got to hold your tongue when the President acts like an idiot. It’s about being a member of the team, and you’re not the coach, you’re not even the star player.<br />
<br />
I don’t work that way. I’m in an endless pursuit of the truth. I can’t suffer incompetency. Even worse, I can’t handle when people don’t work. I’m paying you, PAY ATTENTION!<br />
<br />
But if you run your own business…<br />
<br />
I know Derek Sivers. He’s not like the people at Live Nation. He confided personal information to me right off the bat, unafraid I would use it against him, that I would hurt his career by revealing it to his superiors. When you run your own operation, you can be free!<br />
<br />
And Derek is nice. But he’s not Steve Jobs. He’s not so charismatic that you’d follow him anywhere, he’s not a super-salesman. He’s a musician who thinks. Who is willing to get his hands dirty. Who will try something new and make mistakes. We all hate making mistakes, but when we own the company we’re not worried about retribution, we’re not worried about losing our jobs. And we learn from our mistakes.<br />
<br />
5. "Five years after I started CD Baby, when it was a big success, the media said I had revolutionized the music business.<br />
<br />
But ‘revolution’ is a term that people use only when you’re successful. Before that, you’re just a quirky person who does things differently."<br />
<br />
And there’s no room for the quirky person who does it differently at the corporation. They call that person an artist. Maybe that’s why Derek could be so successful, at his heart he’s an artist, willing to take his own path, not susceptible to corporate reviews and not beholden to the HR department.<br />
<br />
AND FINALLY:<br />
<br />
6. "Business is not about money. It’s about making dreams come true for others and for yourself.<br />
<br />
Making a company is a great way to improve the world while improving yourself."<br />
<br />
That ain’t Wall Street. That ain’t Pandora or LinkedIn.<br />
<br />
Do you know how boring it is to work for Goldman Sachs? How unfulfilling? Working with numbers just so you can make enough coin to vacation in a first class way, buy tickets to the shows of people you wish you could be if you could only take a risk?<br />
<br />
Life isn’t about money. It’s about personal fulfillment.<br />
<br />
But you can’t do it without money. And Derek Sivers acknowledges this.<br />
<br />
Just like I could never be Nathan Hubbard, I could never be those people writing business books. Which is why I’ve completely given up on self-help tomes. They’re not me. Yeah, that guy could become rich, BUT ME?<br />
<br />
But reading Sivers’s book I feel like I’m listening to a soul brother. It gives me hope.<br />
<br />
Read it. It’ll inspire you too.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1243000446846423788.post-10764754947666495802011-07-04T09:12:00.003-04:002011-07-04T09:29:50.213-04:00Anything You Want<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Anything-You-Want-Derek-Sivers/dp/1936719118?ie=UTF8&tag=wordsonwords-20&link_code=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969" imageanchor="1" target="_blank"><img alt="Anything You Want" src="http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&ID=AsinImage&WS=1&Format=_SL160_&ASIN=1936719118&tag=wordsonwords-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wordsonwords-20&l=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=1936719118" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;" width="1" /><br />
<br />
I recently read <i><b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Anything-You-Want-Derek-Sivers/dp/1936719118?ie=UTF8&tag=wordsonwords-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">"Anything You Want" by Derek Sivers,</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wordsonwords-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=1936719118" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;" width="1" /></b></i> the founder of CD Baby.<br />
<br />
Terrific!<br />
<br />
Short but superb entrepreneurial memoir.<br />
<br />
Not everything he writes will apply to you, nor will you entirely agree with his approach, but it's an excellent catalyst for thought and — hopefully — action.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1243000446846423788.post-3302217279700361242011-06-25T21:34:00.005-04:002011-06-25T21:38:07.088-04:00Can your business benefit from blogging?<span style="font-size: large;">Web logs provide new ways to attract and interact with customers, according to two books.</span><br />
<br />
BY RICHARD PACHTER<br />
<br />
Blog is short for Web log. It's an Internet site or sub-site where a person or organization can post usually brief bits of text, along with relevant links to other sites with more text, photos, audio and/or video. There are blogs of all kind: political, cultural, academic, news, sports, hobbies -- you name it. There are also tons of personal blogs for people to inflict their opinions on the world. I may, in fact, be the only opinionated person who doesn't have a blog.<br />
<br />
Media companies have tried to capitalize on the phenomenon by either encouraging their own people to participate (The Miami Herald's Cindy Krischer Goodman, Ellie Brecher, Greg Cote, Dave Barry, Steve Rothaus and others have blogs) or by having existing bloggers join them (as Time magazine has done with Andrew Sullivan and former Wonkette Ana Marie Cox).<br />
<br />
We'll look at books covering the phenomenon of media blogs in the future, but for now, here are two books that discuss ways that businesses can benefit from blogging.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Blogwild-Guide-Small-Business-Blogging/dp/B000MR8THC?ie=UTF8&tag=wordsonwords-20&link_code=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969" imageanchor="1" target="_blank"><img alt="Blogwild!: A Guide for Small Business Blogging" src="http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&ID=AsinImage&WS=1&Format=_SL160_&ASIN=B000MR8THC&tag=wordsonwords-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wordsonwords-20&l=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000MR8THC" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;" width="1" /><br />
<br />
<i><b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Blogwild-Guide-Small-Business-Blogging/dp/B000MR8THC?ie=UTF8&tag=wordsonwords-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Blogwild! Andy Wibbels. Portfolio. 175 pages.</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wordsonwords-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000MR8THC" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;" width="1" /></b></i><br />
<br />
Andy Wibbels' book is a basic, ground-level primer on blogging. He patiently explains the jargon and landscape of the subject, and the value of embarking upon this thing as a way to build a business. He contends that blogging allows a company to have an informal yet personal relationship with customers.<br />
<br />
That's the interesting paradox of the Internet: that all the technology and equipment permit and facilitate human contact. It's an amazing and seductive thing. Actual conversations and discussions between and among companies, customers, vendors and other stakeholders can unfold as a result of a blog. The consequence is that information can be conveyed, new products introduced, customer feedback received and powerful connections created.<br />
<br />
Though the bulk of his book is basic and rudimentary, Wibbels has good insights and useful experiences, and is a pleasant and facile writer. He has his biases and idiosyncrasies, but if you are essentially clueless about blogs and how blogging can provide a great way to market yourself and/or your company for minimal cost and effort, this is a very good place to start.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Naked-Conversations-Changing-Businesses-Customers/dp/047174719X?ie=UTF8&tag=wordsonwords-20&link_code=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969" imageanchor="1" target="_blank"><img alt="Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers" src="http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&ID=AsinImage&WS=1&Format=_SL160_&ASIN=047174719X&tag=wordsonwords-20" /> </a><br />
<br />
<img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wordsonwords-20&l=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=047174719X" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important;" width="1" /><br />
<i><b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Naked-Conversations-Changing-Businesses-Customers/dp/047174719X?ie=UTF8&tag=wordsonwords-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Naked Conversations. Robert Scoble and Shel Israel. Wiley. 251 pages.</a></b></i><br />
<br />
After you read Andy Wibbels' little primer, you can move on to Robert Scoble's and Shel Israel's book — or just start with this one instead. They cover the basics, of course, but once they define terms and briefly explain the benefits of blogging, they're off. Their virtual trip around the business blogosphere provides excellent examples and powerful reasons for otherwise faceless and monolithic firms to blog. Even companies with decidedly mixed public personae like Scoble's employer, Microsoft, managed to humanize their image by engaging their customers through blogs, the most popular of which, Channel 9, is run by Scoble, not coincidentally, I'm sure.<br />
<br />
Some of the most enlightening and entertaining parts of this book are the examples of how not to blog. Companies that understand how to use the technology in principle but fail to comprehend the expectations of the audience, especially in areas such as honesty and authenticity, inevitably fail. Other bloggers are often quick to uncover and expose deceit and dishonesty -- as the Washington Post recently discovered when it hired a partisan operative and serial plagiarist as a blogger -- so transparency is especially important.<br />
<br />
Not every company will benefit from this new medium, but you won't know until you learn more, and reading Scoble and Israel's book is a smart way to find out.<br />
<div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>originally published in The Miami Herald in 2006 </i></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1243000446846423788.post-89911175151583856932011-03-18T23:17:00.004-04:002011-03-18T23:21:57.532-04:00Is getting an MBA a wise business decision?<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><i><b>Josh Kaufman explains the reasons he chose not to pursue his MBA, and why he finds the degree totally unnecessary.</b></i></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
<b>By Richard Pachter</b><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Personal-MBA-Master-Art-Business/dp/1591843529?ie=UTF8&tag=wordsonwords-20&link_code=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969" imageanchor="1" target="_blank"><img alt="The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business" src="http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&ID=AsinImage&WS=1&Format=_SL160_&ASIN=1591843529&tag=wordsonwords-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wordsonwords-20&l=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=1591843529" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" /> </div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><i><b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Personal-MBA-Master-Art-Business/dp/1591843529?ie=UTF8&tag=wordsonwords-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business. Josh Kaufman. Portfolio/Penguin. 416 pages</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wordsonwords-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=1591843529" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" />.</b></i><br />
<br />
No disrespect intended to any person or institution, but is an MBA really necessary? Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak never got theirs and many, many other successful business people (and book reviewers) lack that degree and seem none the worse for it.<br />
<br />
In his new book, author and consultant Josh Kaufman not only explains the reasons he chose not to pursue his MBA, but does a rather masterful job of eviscerating the program in general and, more specifically, the reasons people seek it and why they needn’t and shouldn’t; in his not-so-humble opinion: Money.<br />
<br />
Spending around $250,000 or more, says Kaufman, to get an MBA from a top business school is a lousy investment and completely unnecessary. In fact, the whole biz school deal is essentially a money-making enterprise for educational institutions who profit mightily from teaching mostly ancient, arcane, academic approaches to business that track very little with the actual world and the ways it really operates. Further, says Kaufman, there’s no assurance that the instructors are qualified beyond possessing the skills required to teach (if that) and are usually bereft of the experience and achievements that would confirm the efficacy of their instruction.<br />
<br />
Young Kaufman had an undergrad degree and a great job at Procter & Gamble when he was urged to continue his education, which meant going after the inevitable MBA. Instead, he did a quick cost-benefit analysis and decided to read and study on his own. He blogged about his decision and posted a preliminary reading list, which was subsequently picked up by inveterate anti-MBA advocate and über-blogger Seth Godin. From there, it spread. This book continues Kaufman’s mission.<br />
<br />
He’s canny enough to know that just reading this book in a linear fashion — one chapter after another — is not necessarily the best way to go, so he encourages browsing, skimming and skipping around. I’d add, in fact, that reading it sequentially is downright boring, so after about 125 pages, I abandoned the effort and skipped around, as suggested. Kaufman isn’t a horrible writer, so that wasn’t the problem. I’d decided that the abrupt shift after a couple of pages on each subject might have been intended to accommodate our increasingly short attention spans, but it wasn’t working for me. True, each little chapter had an online component, but when I’m reading a book I don’t necessarily want to bounce on and off the Net to enlarge the experience or whatever the intended effect was supposed to be. Sometimes, a little concentrated depth is where it’s at.<br />
<br />
Still, I think Kaufman is a very smart guy and maybe his collective nuggets would resonate more with other audiences though it didn’t quite make it with me. A few years back, I read and reviewed a thick tome called MBA In A Box and liked that quite a bit. Its more expansive approach worked for me. Still, in all fairness, I think I’ll hold onto Josh Kaufman’s book and keep it handy as a reference, since he really covers just about every aspect of business in an intelligent and no-nonsense way.</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>Originally published in The Miami Herald</i></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1243000446846423788.post-74294704236984787462011-03-04T21:10:00.003-05:002011-03-04T21:14:43.935-05:00Craig Ferguson's autobiography<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/American-Purpose-Improbable-Adventures-Unlikely/dp/0061998494?ie=UTF8&tag=wordsonwords-20&link_code=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969" imageanchor="1" target="_blank"><img alt="American on Purpose: The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot" src="http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&ID=AsinImage&WS=1&Format=_SL160_&ASIN=0061998494&tag=wordsonwords-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wordsonwords-20&l=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=0061998494" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" /><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wordsonwords-20&l=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=0061998494" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" /> </div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><i><b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/American-Purpose-Improbable-Adventures-Unlikely/dp/0061998494?ie=UTF8&tag=wordsonwords-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">American on Purpose: The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot. Craig Ferguson. HarperCollins. 268 pages.</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wordsonwords-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=0061998494" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" /></b></i><br />
<br />
BY RICHARD PACHTER</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Acknowledged that this may seem to be a left-field choice for a biz book review but upon closer examination, maybe not. Two reasons: first, some of the best business advice comes from life itself, not just unambiguously mercantile situations. Second, in many ways, this really is a business book: Craig Fergusons' story is an archetypal tale of the pursuit of the American dream . . . and not just in terms of achieving success by owning a house with a wife and 2.6 kids.<br />
<br />
Unlike most memoirs of CEOs and other biz whizzes, Ferguson isn't quite the faultless hero of his own story. In fact, he lopsidedly portrays himself in a pretty poor light, mostly due to his alcoholism, which took hold at an early age. He's also currently on his third marriage, so he made a number of bad choices that may not have been solely attributable to substance abuse. Regardless, his bracing, self-effacing autobiography is replete with examples of product development, innovation, networking, human resources and other business practices.<br />
<br />
Ferguson grew up in Scotland and describes, with humor and love, his parents, their community, its poverty and their determination to improve themselves and support their children. His father started as the equivalent of a telegram delivery boy and steadily rose through the ranks to run the Glasgow city post office. Mother became a teacher and rode herd over two daughters and two sons.<br />
<br />
When young Craig and his father visited relatives in the U.S., he was smitten with our open society and boundless possibilities, vowing to return. And so he did, but first, he drummed for several punk bands in Scotland, dropped out of school, tried stand-up comedy and became a raging alcoholic. When he married, the young couple moved to America.<br />
<br />
In the early eighties, New York's burgeoning punk and alternative art scene captivated Ferguson, and he succumbed to many of its temptations while working construction by day and attempting a stint on the off-off-Broadway stage at night. Unsuccessful and broke, he returned to the U.K., the marriage failed, and he started a new career as a comedian with the unfortunate name, "Bing Hitler.''<br />
<br />
Despite his ferocious alcoholism, he enjoyed modest success but fell into debt and depression. In despair, he planned suicide, but was distracted by an offer of a glass of sherry — a very large glass of sherry. After finally committing to rehab and embracing recovery, he moved to Los Angeles on a whim, hooked up with an agent he'd met during the Bing Hitler days and wound up with a recurring role on The Drew Carey Show.<br />
<br />
Along the way, Ferguson honed his craft, wrote screenplays (and filmed a couple), became a novelist and replaced Craig Kilborn as host of The Late, Late Show on CBS following David Letterman, whom he may eventually succeed. He became a U.S. citizen last year.<br />
<br />
Craig Ferguson was attracted to this country's openness, which can still be a function of race, class and socioeconomic status. But it's far less stratified than where he came from, and it afforded him, as others, the opportunity to begin again, which is probably the real American Dream.</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">Originally published in The Miami Herald</i></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1243000446846423788.post-62877218702236721652011-02-26T16:14:00.002-05:002011-02-26T16:18:15.566-05:00A guide on conquering what work throws your way<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Workarounds-That-Work-Conquer-Anything/dp/007175203X?ie=UTF8&tag=wordsonwords-20&link_code=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969" imageanchor="1" target="_blank"><img alt="Workarounds That Work: How to Conquer Anything That Stands in Your Way at Work" src="http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&ID=AsinImage&WS=1&Format=_SL160_&ASIN=007175203X&tag=wordsonwords-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wordsonwords-20&l=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=007175203X" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" /> </div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Workarounds-That-Work-Conquer-Anything/dp/007175203X?ie=UTF8&tag=wordsonwords-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Workarounds That Work: How to Conquer Anything That Stands in Your Way at Work. Russell Bishop. McGraw-Hill. 256 pages.</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wordsonwords-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=007175203X" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" /></b></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><b>By RICHARD PACHTER </b></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br />
Most of us look for shortcuts, "macros" or workarounds as a matter of course. "Adaptive behaviors," as the psychologists call 'em, are natural human processes we develop due to physical, intellectual or emotional limitations. Shortcuts, "tricks," mnemonic devices and the rest are popular because they work.<br />
<br />
But the author here really isn't referring to those things. In fact, Bishop's rap is more along the lines of an analysis of systems to facilitate effective collaboration, then proposing ways to implement them. Yes, to some extent you could call them workarounds, but really, his methods involve the judicious use of logic, common sense, psychology and flattery, as needed.<br />
<br />
If you're working with another group that seems to ignore your deadlines and issues, for example, instead of confronting them and asking what the !@#$% the problem is, Bishop decrees that you proactively try to turn things around and ask how you and your group are screwing up their lives and not the opposite. Invariably, he writes, you will find plenty of things that you can either eliminate or modify on your end. Having done that, you and your group can then focus on those anomalies and attempt to solve some of the issues affecting their end of things. Other impediments to progress like culture clash, power plays, organizational stratification, rules and more are covered by Bishop. In turn, he provides anecdotes of - and antidotes to - the obstructions.<br />
<br />
I especially liked his bits on information overload, an affliction clogging the lines (and the productivity) of many organizations. It can take many forms but the most prevalent seems to be the unrelenting tidal waves of e-mail and carbon-copying so that every possible person will be included in the endless chain. It's not just a matter of openness, although that does occur from time to time. No, it's mostly used to cover your (anatomy) so that the sender can't be accused of not including the receiver in any and all communications - relevant or not - during a project. Bishop offers suggestions for dealing with several types of information overload, including this pandemic CC-itis.<br />
<br />
He also adds his voice to the growing chorus opposed to constant multitasking, though the practice of doing many things at once is so ingrained in our culture that it might be a futile cry.<br />
<br />
In addition to looking at sundry problems, Bishop also provides a number of interesting cases in which a "workaround" became a new business, such as a distributor of natural foods.<br />
<br />
Again, I'm not sure if I'd actually call the solution to almost every problem herein a "workaround," but nomenclature aside, Bishop is an engaging writer whose clean and very readable prose makes for a pleasant reading experience. Because his ideas are interestingly presented and the examples are reasonable and realistic, they go down quite easily.<br />
<br />
I'm also uncertain that every difficult situation has a solution; after all, some humans are far less rational than others. And other people just can't get out of their own way.</div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; text-align: right;"><i><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: x-small;">Originally published in </span></i><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: x-small;">The Miami Herald.</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1243000446846423788.post-40790744918055418222010-12-24T14:49:00.005-05:002017-11-10T11:34:49.734-05:00RIP Neil Rogers<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.neilrogers.com/" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkgFaavUBZU1LMzEIEFWITiEV3Ebj1qy9YSE0YPLYbRxsCTbXKK9htRSLYMVUKTkI4JIXW5JyCBaTI80TFpjHTx7sN0vqzWCPcjEMPpnh80QZ3mBLRqzzBh8-Q_voUUQPaJFfjZIk_GNeY/s1600/neilrogers.jpg" /></span></a></div>
<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I was a music promotion guy when I first encountered Neil, who was doing middays on WINZ in the early eighties. I’d been turned on to his show by my brother, Steve, who’d lived in Chicago and was a fan of the city’s free-form talker Steve Dahl. He’d send me cassettes of Dahl and his partner Garry Meier. Fun stuff!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">When my brother returned to South Florida, he started talking incessantly about Rogers, saying that I really ought to check him out. But I’d heard that the guy had an issues-related show and I had no interest in listening to some radio guy’s interminable pontifications on boring politics and “serious” issues. Besides, I’d rather listen to music. That was my business and my pleasure.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">But I finally tuned in just as Neil was making his incredible and unprecedented transition from issues to free-form rants and comedy. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I was hooked. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Here was a very smart, sharp guy who had strong opinions and a powerful personality. But most of all, he was endlessly entertaining and hilarious; cynical and compelling; an older guy from a generation before me; hip but not au courant — in some ways, even old-fashioned. So professional, he could break the rules and make his own. Eat on the air? Sure! Play bits and clips from other shows? Yup. Not take phone calls for weeks on end? Faxes only? He did it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I followed him from WINZ to Zeta to WIOD to WQAM, listening live when I could or taping the show for later playback. It was as engrossing as (and grosser than) any rococo novella, with melodrama, subtext, plot, characterization and daily themes.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Rogers, who’d started out as a Top-40 jock, was the undisputed King Of Talk Radio in South Florida. Or Queen, if you’d ask him. That he was an out-of-the closet gay man was interesting, perhaps, but just another facet of his on-air persona. His disdain for what he called “mincing queens” might’ve had something to do with his appeal to the mostly young male heterosexual audience that he amazingly carried with him from station to station and day-part to day-part, as they followed him up and down the radio dial — from AM to FM and back — an unprecedented and singular feat in the industry. But mostly, he was a real voice and pulse of South Florida — even when broadcasting from Toronto.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">His peak, in my opinion and others, was at WIOD when he was part of a lineup of Mike Renieri, Phil Hendrie, Rick & Suds, Randi Rhodes and others. But radio management, as Neil always said, had to mess with success. It was a short but amazing run.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Over the years, I called him a few times. Okay, A LOT of times, and because I was in the biz, I sent him a bunch of songs: Dennis Leary's "I'm An Asshole," Timbuk3, “Be True To Your Shul” and others. I even collaborated lyrically with his resident geniuses Boca Brian and Guitar Man on a few parodies and bits: “<a href="http://www.neilrogers.com/sounds/bonr1993/14.mp3">Walk Away Rene</a>,” “Ron and Ron,” “Jeff The Florist” and others.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Naturally, that didn’t stop the “Old Man” (as he was semi-affectionately known) from ripping me on the air after any <a href="http://wordsonwords.com/reviews/Drudge903.html">real or imagined transgressions</a> against him. One had to take it in stride, of course. After all, as Neil constantly said, “It’s only a radio show,” and it was … but so much more. </span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1243000446846423788.post-64612367135298829142010-12-19T12:19:00.000-05:002010-12-18T12:20:01.209-05:00Our future is shaping the way we live, work<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The future is what we make of it and what it makes of us.</span><br />
<b>BY RICHARD PACHTER</b><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Live-Future-Heres-How-Works/dp/0307591115?ie=UTF8&tag=wordsonwords-20&link_code=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969" imageanchor="1" target="_blank"><img alt="I Live in the Future & Here's How It Works: Why Your World, Work, and Brain Are Being Creatively Disrupted" src="http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&ID=AsinImage&WS=1&Format=_SL160_&ASIN=0307591115&tag=wordsonwords-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wordsonwords-20&l=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=0307591115" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" /> </div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><i><b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Live-Future-Heres-How-Works/dp/0307591115?ie=UTF8&tag=wordsonwords-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">I Live in the Future & Here's How It Works. Nick Bilton. Crown Business. 304 pages.</a></b></i><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wordsonwords-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=0307591115" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" /><br />
<br />
Toward the end of Nick Bilton's stimulating and provocative new book, he quotes the visionary science fiction author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Neuromancer-William-Gibson/dp/0441012035?ie=UTF8&tag=wordsonwords-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Neuromancer</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wordsonwords-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=0441012035" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" />, William Gibson: "The future is already here — it is just distributed unevenly,'' and that's about right. Some of us readily embrace new technology and are early adopters. Others move more cautiously, either clinging to whatever older technology they came up with, or treading carefully with the new stuff, though only when forced to do so by bosses and/or clients.<br />
<br />
It's pretty clear that we're still in the midst of a metamorphosis that's transforming the ways we live, play and work. Bilton, a talented journalist, is the lead writer for the New York Times "Bits'' blog, a cool position that barely existed a few years ago. He also toiled in the Times' R&D Lab, which sounds like a fun gig, testing different technologies as the Gray Lady tries to stave off its extinction.<br />
<br />
Bilton is a good writer and an inquisitive reporter. His book is sort of a quick survey of the changes in technology and its effects on the human interface. His palpable fascination with the digital landscape makes this an enjoyable and breezy read, despite the fact that some of the stops along the way are pretty serious indeed.<br />
<br />
But not all of them are. For example, he takes a look at the porn industry, long a leader in finding new ways to extract revenue from customers, and sees how they were hit (just like every other content provider) with unsanctioned downloading and ``free'' content, and how they adjusted.<br />
<br />
Unlike the doofusses who run the music business, some of the pornsters were smart and learned how to leverage this behavior rather than try to stifle innovation and sue their own customers. The music biz has yet to figure this out, though musicians, fortunately, seem to have done so and are in the process of finally freeing themselves from the onerous shackles of their evil record company overlords.<br />
<br />
In addition to porn, the author looks at the ways online communities form, how we communicate differently as media changes, how our brains change (and actually grow) as we use various technologies, and more. Bilton fearlessly jumps into the middle of the spate of arguments for and against the efficacy of multitasking, concluding that it may not be the best way to work for everyone, but for some (especially the young people who grew up doing it almost 24/7), it's no big deal.<br />
<br />
There are also little nuggets studded throughout the text; how you can identify a good surgeon by his affection for video games, Twitter in Iran, how the Web-fueled "me-centered'' business model will soon be the rule and not the exception, and more.<br />
<br />
Bilton doesn't know everything, nor does he know where everything is headed, but he boasts an excellent sense of culture, context and technology. We can cry about wanting things to be as they were, but we really need to use our heads and hearts to learn how to deal with what we have, and get ready for what comes next.<br />
<br />
Hasn't the future always been like that?</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0