Moving to cubicles is the latest sign that traditional publishing is ass backward

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picard-face-palmBusinesses have a bad habit of backing themselves into corners. For example, the way traditional publishers backed away from their promotional responsibilities, pressuring all but a tiny bestselling minority of authors to run themselves ragged promoting their own books.1

Build a platform! Engage your audience! Brand your work! Do a marketer’s tasks instead of writing!

As it turned out, promotion was one of only a few contributions traditional publishers made to an author’s career. Once online resources (including networking between writers, editors, and cover artists) eliminated the other “middle man” contributions of publishers, there really wasn’t much of a role for traditional publishers among authors who, driven by marketing neglect, had already trained themselves to be self-promoters.

And now one of those traditional publishers, the bumbling and stumbling Hachette, is backing itself into a physical corner by adopting the cheapskate “open office plan” architecture (read: low-walled cube farm) despite the massive flaws researchers have discovered about this set-up. Continue reading

Apathy awakens toward new Star Wars title

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The title for Star Wars episode VII has been released to mixed reviews. Some initially wondered if The Force Awakens was a prank or an Onion article.

What exactly does J. J. Abrams mean? Has the Force been sleeping?

I’m beginning to wonder if my own joke title (playing on the Abrams Star Trek reboot, Into Darkness) wouldn’t have been better.

Click to read a parody plot summary!

Click to read a parody plot summary!

Category: My Two Cents, News

Fantasy fiction ideas – An Oceanic Epic

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auckland-canoeI have always been fascinated by the sea (ironic, since I grew up in a landlocked state) and became obsessed with seafaring cultures as an adult. So, when I heard that Disney was planning an animated adventure set in ancient Polynesia, Moana, I knew it was time to talk about the ocean as a fantasy setting.

Of course, we have Le Guin’s amazing EarthSea series, and every pirate tale could technically be considered oceanic fantasy, but I am more concerned with the same vast and largely untapped storehouse that Disney is drawing on: the Polynesian cultures of the Pacific.

Polynesia covers about 16 million square miles. Even though this is mostly ocean between the various islands, this is larger than the landmass of Asia. Nevertheless, the peoples of Polynesia are very closely related, their various “languages” separated by sound differences no greater than those that separate what we call “dialects” in spoken Arabic. The neighboring peoples of Melanesia and Micronesia speak languages that are related to Polynesian about as closely as French, Spanish, and Italian. It’s a remarkably vast area with remarkably similar cultures.

pacific-culturesWith Disney opening the door on the idea of oceanic fantasy—and researchers uncovering evidence of a vast Polynesian empire, lost to history and centered on the islands of Tonga—the possibilities for epic fantasy set in a quasi-Polynesian setting are before us. And, if you’re unfamiliar with the cultures and mythologies of these islands, you might be surprised to find that the opportunities they present are as rich and varied as any fantasy set in a quasi-European setting.

So here are few cool things you might not have known about Polynesian cultures. Continue reading

Phaticized work : Gladhanding

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAPhaticized work is defined as a covert and often unconscious form of corruption in which organizational resources are diverted to personal ends by way of social instincts.

Phatic is a term borrowed from linguistics, where it refers to speech that serves a social function rather than conveying information. For our purposes, phatic refers to any workplace activity that perhaps appears to serve the organization’s mission, but actually serves a social function that either does not genuinely support the mission or undermines it.

Today’s example of phaticized work is gladhanding.

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Odd Thought on pronunciation

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Reading-Jester-OddThoughts“I got a lot of thanking to do.” – grateful person or pensive hillbilly

Category: Odd Thoughts

My Two Cents on Disruptive Creativity

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mytwocentsHere’s a thought about harnessing “disruptive ideas.”

If you create a process to absorb and benefit from disruptive ideas, the truly disruptive ideas are not the ones you absorb, but the ones that disrupt your absorption process.

It’s like how “think outside the box” has become the new box. Creativity/disruptiveness are either there or not. You can’t institutionalize spontaneity.

Category: My Two Cents

More proof of the corruptive effects of phatic elements in the workplace

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transverse-selectionUniversity of Pennsylvania social network researcher Lynn Wu recently discovered a perfect example of transverse selection.

After analyzing several years of anonymized electronic communications from 8000+ employees of a tech firm, she found that while instrumental communications about practical matters drove productivity, social communications about sports and primate food-sharing rituals—like lunches and coffee breaks—drove retention during lay-offs.

More importantly, she found that these two types of communication were substitutes for each other, meaning that they can’t occupy the same network space at the same time.

In simpler terms: practical thinkers did the mission, but social thinkers kept their jobs when push came to shove.

Continue reading

Visual Poetry – John Wilkes Booth

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A brief commentary on human nature.
JohnWilkesBooth

Category: Poetry

Odd Thought on Television Dramas

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Reading-Jester-OddThoughtsAmbidexterous – “I can’t figure out if this guy is a serial killer or not.”

Category: Odd Thoughts

Visual Poetry – i broke a fence

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ibrokeafence

Category: Poetry