One of the hallmarks of good writing is it conveys a story outside the life experience of the reader and there's been a number of pieces I've come across lately that fit this bill. Subjects of the various works cross a wide spectrum of the population and how they became story subjects varies from decisions made, life circumstance or simple chance.
Two of the pieces stood out in detailing people whose lives are so far outside of my own to have them almost seem from a different species. The Ballad of Johnny France is a Richard Ben Cramer story from a 1985 issue of Esquire and reprinted with author permission on the blog Alex Belth's Bronx Banter. It's the ridiculously fascinating story of Montana Sheriff Johnny France and fugitive mountain-men Don and Don Nichols. After kidnapping (apparently in a twisted bid for female companionship) biathlete Kari Swenson, the elder of the father-son duo wound up shooting and killing a would-be rescuer and then they disappeared into the wilderness. Cramer's is a long and multi-faceted feature which not only portrays people living far outside the norm, but which utilizes language in the story as a way to drive home the difference.
Other piece in this different life than mine category was much shorter and remarkable not as much for the writing, but for the choice made by the subject of the story. Gang tattoo leads to a murder conviction is by Robert Faturechi for the L.A. Times and introduces gangmember Paco Rivera, who tattooed on his chest details of the unsolved murder he committed.
Lest this post descend into a quagmire of the twisted and bizarre, two other stories I've seen lately cover people who faced (or continue to face) great hardship and show how to carry through it. Strength From Weakness is an ESPN E:60 feature on former MLB player Ben Petrick and his battles with young-onset Parkinson's. Written by Steve Wulf, the piece reveals how someone cheated of his potential athletic greatness seems to have created a form of greatness with the life circumstances he now has.
Additional piece of feel-good inspirational value is Cary Williams overcame abuse and anguish on way to NFL by Kevin Van Valkenburg. Written for the Baltimore Sun, the profile on Williams details his hardscrabble early childhood, abuse suffered at the hands of his single dad and then being taken in and lovingly raised by extended family. Out of this, Williams then followed a fairly rocky path to his current position as a starting cornerback for the Ravens.
Friday, January 13, 2012
The Best American Sports Writing 2011
Recently finished reading The Best American Sports Writing 2011 and found it had a ton of great writing.
It's probably a strange critique, but it seemed a bit like cheating to have the type of great stories I like discovering all compiled for me by Glenn Stout (series editor) and Jane Leavy (2011 edition editor). That said, the point of a compilation like this is to pull in a number of excellent pieces and it was accomplished well by Stout and Leavy.
There's 29 stories reprinted in the book and of those I had only previously seen four (all in Sports Illustrated)... High School Dissonance by Selena Roberts, Eight Seconds by Michael Farber, Pride of a Nation by S.L. Price and The Courage of Jill Costello by Chris Ballard. Of the remaining 25, five were from ESPN (one ESPN The Magazine and four the website), two each from The New Yorker, GQ and the L.A. Times and the rest from sources with one piece each featured.
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There was a lot of excellent stories in the book with below being those that stood out the most...
- Sally Jenkins for the Washington Post with Culture of Silence Gives Free Reign to Male Athletes - very short and exceptionally well written missive on incidences of assault (including murder) tied to male athletes and the warning signs oft ignored.
- Paul Solotaroff for Rolling Stone with The Surfing Savant - written about Clay Marzo and his experience growing up to become a professional surfer who also has Asperger's syndrome. Compelling writing about someone pulled in different directions by (often times well intentioned) people.
- Bret Anthony Johnston for Men's Journal with Danny Way and the Gift of Fear - super interesting piece that similar to the one of Marzo, features an extreme sport (skateboarding) phenom who went through a number of challenges growing up.
- Chris Ballard for Sports Illustrated with The Courage of Jill Costello - piece was previously included in my listing of Best 2010 Writing Linked To (not sure why it's included in a 2011 anthology, but no matter). Written about the Cal-Berkeley crew member and her final days fighting cancer while continuing to complete with her teammates. Solid writing about a remarkable person.
A lot of great pieces featured in the book and it was overall an excellent read.
It's probably a strange critique, but it seemed a bit like cheating to have the type of great stories I like discovering all compiled for me by Glenn Stout (series editor) and Jane Leavy (2011 edition editor). That said, the point of a compilation like this is to pull in a number of excellent pieces and it was accomplished well by Stout and Leavy.
There's 29 stories reprinted in the book and of those I had only previously seen four (all in Sports Illustrated)... High School Dissonance by Selena Roberts, Eight Seconds by Michael Farber, Pride of a Nation by S.L. Price and The Courage of Jill Costello by Chris Ballard. Of the remaining 25, five were from ESPN (one ESPN The Magazine and four the website), two each from The New Yorker, GQ and the L.A. Times and the rest from sources with one piece each featured.
-----
There was a lot of excellent stories in the book with below being those that stood out the most...
- Sally Jenkins for the Washington Post with Culture of Silence Gives Free Reign to Male Athletes - very short and exceptionally well written missive on incidences of assault (including murder) tied to male athletes and the warning signs oft ignored.
- Paul Solotaroff for Rolling Stone with The Surfing Savant - written about Clay Marzo and his experience growing up to become a professional surfer who also has Asperger's syndrome. Compelling writing about someone pulled in different directions by (often times well intentioned) people.
- Bret Anthony Johnston for Men's Journal with Danny Way and the Gift of Fear - super interesting piece that similar to the one of Marzo, features an extreme sport (skateboarding) phenom who went through a number of challenges growing up.
- Chris Ballard for Sports Illustrated with The Courage of Jill Costello - piece was previously included in my listing of Best 2010 Writing Linked To (not sure why it's included in a 2011 anthology, but no matter). Written about the Cal-Berkeley crew member and her final days fighting cancer while continuing to complete with her teammates. Solid writing about a remarkable person.
A lot of great pieces featured in the book and it was overall an excellent read.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Business Pieces: Larry Scott & the Pac-12 Conference, Nick D'Aloisio & Summly, other stuff...
A bevy of interesting people and companies featured in Businesweek over the past few weeks... and one guy and his startup not from BW, but which bears noting here.
Only feature to mention from Businessweek was Head of the Pac by the excellent Karl Taro Greenfeld. About the Pac-12 Conference and it's Commissioner Larry Scott, it shows how much TV money rules the day in college sports, with college football leading the charge.
Other pieces that stood out as interesting...
- Charlie Rose Talks to Salesforce.com's Marc Benioff on efforts at the cloud-based CRM company.
- Alain Rossmann's Klip, a Twitter for Videos on one of the early Macintosh team and his startup aimed at amateur video on the web.
- Keeping the Sea Safe from Plastic on a new biogradable in water material called PHA from Archer Daniels Midland and the startup company Metabolix.
Finally, the technology blog GigaOM last month featured 16-year-old Nick D’Aloisio and his startup company Summly. The product offering is a phone app that provides a quick web page summary, but what stands out in the piece is the description of D'Aloisio from GigaOM founder Om Malik. Title of Meet the Internet’s newest boy genius indicates what's to follow and below is a pretty remarkable statement from Malik:
"In my life I have met many smart people — Jeff Bezos, Andy Bechtolsheim, Larry Page, Andy Grove, Sergey Brin, Vinod Khosla and Bret Taylor. D’Aloisio belongs with them, I am convinced. Not because he has started the next hot company — who can predict what will be hot? But instead, he is a self-taught polymath, who is so adept at learning from reading, listening and observing. He is an old-fashioned technologist who was born this way."
Only feature to mention from Businessweek was Head of the Pac by the excellent Karl Taro Greenfeld. About the Pac-12 Conference and it's Commissioner Larry Scott, it shows how much TV money rules the day in college sports, with college football leading the charge.
Other pieces that stood out as interesting...
- Charlie Rose Talks to Salesforce.com's Marc Benioff on efforts at the cloud-based CRM company.
- Alain Rossmann's Klip, a Twitter for Videos on one of the early Macintosh team and his startup aimed at amateur video on the web.
- Keeping the Sea Safe from Plastic on a new biogradable in water material called PHA from Archer Daniels Midland and the startup company Metabolix.
Finally, the technology blog GigaOM last month featured 16-year-old Nick D’Aloisio and his startup company Summly. The product offering is a phone app that provides a quick web page summary, but what stands out in the piece is the description of D'Aloisio from GigaOM founder Om Malik. Title of Meet the Internet’s newest boy genius indicates what's to follow and below is a pretty remarkable statement from Malik:
"In my life I have met many smart people — Jeff Bezos, Andy Bechtolsheim, Larry Page, Andy Grove, Sergey Brin, Vinod Khosla and Bret Taylor. D’Aloisio belongs with them, I am convinced. Not because he has started the next hot company — who can predict what will be hot? But instead, he is a self-taught polymath, who is so adept at learning from reading, listening and observing. He is an old-fashioned technologist who was born this way."
Friday, January 06, 2012
Sports Illustrated Writing: from Chris Ballard & Michael Rosenberg
Two excellent feature stories from the last two issues of Sports Illustrated.
From the Jan 6 edition was Tom Brady As You Forgot Him by Michael Rosenberg. It's been widely reported that Brady was a 6th round NFL draft pick out of Michigan, but Rosenberg provides a lot of interesting back story to his time there. Conventional wisdom seems to be that he was always great and nobody noticed, but Rosenberg does a really good job detailing Brady's college experience and how that helped shaped him. Additionally, Rosenberg writes some pretty interesting content on fellow Michigan QB Drew Henson, his career and relationship with Brady.
In the Dec 26 Pictures of the Year issue Chris Ballard wrote The Kiss on the Vancouver riots after the Canucks Game 7 defeat. His story really stood out as solid writing that examined multiple characters associated with the riots (a policeman, a rioter, the couple photographed kissing on the street, person who took the picture) and walked though their experiences chronologically. Was a compelling read that felt like it had been reported on very well.
From the Jan 6 edition was Tom Brady As You Forgot Him by Michael Rosenberg. It's been widely reported that Brady was a 6th round NFL draft pick out of Michigan, but Rosenberg provides a lot of interesting back story to his time there. Conventional wisdom seems to be that he was always great and nobody noticed, but Rosenberg does a really good job detailing Brady's college experience and how that helped shaped him. Additionally, Rosenberg writes some pretty interesting content on fellow Michigan QB Drew Henson, his career and relationship with Brady.
In the Dec 26 Pictures of the Year issue Chris Ballard wrote The Kiss on the Vancouver riots after the Canucks Game 7 defeat. His story really stood out as solid writing that examined multiple characters associated with the riots (a policeman, a rioter, the couple photographed kissing on the street, person who took the picture) and walked though their experiences chronologically. Was a compelling read that felt like it had been reported on very well.
Thursday, January 05, 2012
Politics & Individual Welfare Writing
Have come across some really good writing lately on the all too frequently not related subjects of politics and how people are fairing financially (with one of the pieces being about this very disconnect).
An overview of how individual people and families are doing came from two Charlie Pierce pieces in America's Muddling Purpose, Circa Christmas 2011 and then America Will Only Get Better When It Is Ours Again on the Esquire website. Excellent writing in both and to grossly generalize, the shared message is people are struggling to make it through and just how important that goal is.
Unfortunately, politics and the political process oft times seems to be removed from peoples daily lives as detailed well in The SportsCenter-ization of Political Journalism for The Atlantic by Patrick Hruby. One of those pieces that you hope and wish weren't true, but the arguments (which quote the aforementioned Charlie Pierce) valid.
People can still accomplish things (and we still have feel good stories like The Bank Around the Corner by Alan Feuer in The New York Times), but has definitely been some solid writing (including by James Altucher) which argues that political results and scoreboards oft don't matter for individual people.
An overview of how individual people and families are doing came from two Charlie Pierce pieces in America's Muddling Purpose, Circa Christmas 2011 and then America Will Only Get Better When It Is Ours Again on the Esquire website. Excellent writing in both and to grossly generalize, the shared message is people are struggling to make it through and just how important that goal is.
Unfortunately, politics and the political process oft times seems to be removed from peoples daily lives as detailed well in The SportsCenter-ization of Political Journalism for The Atlantic by Patrick Hruby. One of those pieces that you hope and wish weren't true, but the arguments (which quote the aforementioned Charlie Pierce) valid.
People can still accomplish things (and we still have feel good stories like The Bank Around the Corner by Alan Feuer in The New York Times), but has definitely been some solid writing (including by James Altucher) which argues that political results and scoreboards oft don't matter for individual people.
Monday, January 02, 2012
A Whole New World Out There - Writing on Opportunities & Education
The James Altucher book I Was Blind But Now I See that I reviewed yesterday was timely as I've seen a raft of pieces lately on Altucher's topics of education and opportunity.
A pretty firmly held idea from the book was traditional higher education being overvalued and in the past two weeks I've seen M.I.T. Game-Changer: Free Online Education For All from Forbes and mention of the organization Code Year and it's push to have people learn the skill.
Additionally, there's been a number of other pieces recently that at least in part echo the the Altucher refrain of there being opportunities out there for those willing to pursue them.
Seth Godin wrote in his The chance of a lifetime blog post of how it may be a rough time for traditional business as usual, but the conditions are there for innovation and entrepreneurship. This concept reminded me a blog post from Clay Travis titled 2011 Belonged To Twitter, So Does the Future of Sports Media. The piece from Travis is about Twitter, but beyond that, there's the theme touched on by Godin and hammered at by Altucher (easier of course to go deep in a book) of technology and how it's created, enabled and changed communication and business.
Also interesting from Travis was his mention of things to come in the form of Twitter monetization... which brings to mind Altucher's encouragement to think of and write lists of ways to utilize existing technologies. On this subject, I recently came across the blog post bitly in 2011 from the URL shortening company heavily utilized on Twitter.
Lot of opportunities and ways to move towards them being written about out there.
A pretty firmly held idea from the book was traditional higher education being overvalued and in the past two weeks I've seen M.I.T. Game-Changer: Free Online Education For All from Forbes and mention of the organization Code Year and it's push to have people learn the skill.
Additionally, there's been a number of other pieces recently that at least in part echo the the Altucher refrain of there being opportunities out there for those willing to pursue them.
Seth Godin wrote in his The chance of a lifetime blog post of how it may be a rough time for traditional business as usual, but the conditions are there for innovation and entrepreneurship. This concept reminded me a blog post from Clay Travis titled 2011 Belonged To Twitter, So Does the Future of Sports Media. The piece from Travis is about Twitter, but beyond that, there's the theme touched on by Godin and hammered at by Altucher (easier of course to go deep in a book) of technology and how it's created, enabled and changed communication and business.
Also interesting from Travis was his mention of things to come in the form of Twitter monetization... which brings to mind Altucher's encouragement to think of and write lists of ways to utilize existing technologies. On this subject, I recently came across the blog post bitly in 2011 from the URL shortening company heavily utilized on Twitter.
Lot of opportunities and ways to move towards them being written about out there.
Sunday, January 01, 2012
"I Was Blind But Now I See" by James Altucher
Recently finished an interesting book in I Was Blind But Now I See by James Altucher.
Altucher is a former finance guy who was at times fabulously wealthy and completely broke and his current writing (including a frequently posted to blog) leans towards the self-help variety with this book describing what makes him (and may help make others) happy.
It was self-published using CreateSpace from Amazon and doesn’t seem to have been closely edited, but if a reader would dismiss the book due to typographical and grammatical errors, they’d miss out on some excellent points and ideas.
Starting point from Altucher is that happiness is something different for each person and a big first step towards reaching it is to drop any ingrained notions or definitions of happiness that may not personally apply. He then goes on to write of the financial value of this happiness goal as there's enough opportunities out there that people should be able to combine together being happy both outside and inside of a career. Towards this end, Altucher's stated personal goals are the following:
1. Be happy
2. Eradicate unhappiness in his life
3. Have each day be as smooth as possible with no hassles
These concepts can certainly be easier said than done, but Altucher provides some solid suggestions towards reaching them with one being to have a daily practice of actions taken in each of the following areas:
• Physical – Advice includes sleeping enough and not drinking to excess (ideally, not at all).
• Mental – Idea is to challenge your mind continuously and steps to take include engaging with others and assuming they have wisdom to pass on and simply writing down lists of ideas.
• Spiritual – Even if someone not religious, daily work in this area could be as simple as taking time to be grateful.
• Emotional – This is the area that Altucher spends the most time on and simplest manifestation of action to take would be people should do (and think about) things that make them happy and not do (or think about) things that make them unhappy.
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Another framework from Altucher that seems to make a lot of sense is to assign a designation of useful or non-useful to things, people and situations. The useful is then embraced and the non-useful avoided or walked away from… with some of what Altucher characterizes as non-useful noted below:
• College as the path to learning – He writes of people spending 4 or more years in a higher education system that leaves them in debt and still not knowing what they want to do for a vocation. Alternative would be to try to simply start doing things of interest to see if they’re still interesting after having been experienced.
• Home ownership as an important goal – Idea here is that the purchase of a house both ties up capital that could be used elsewhere and can hold someone back from opportunities elsewhere with the financial obligation to a bank.
• Being caught up in the daily news cycle – Point made is that news organizations often-times get caught up selling fear and sensationalism. As few of the things (including politics) reported on actually impact someone’s life, reading about or watching reporting on events can often just be avoided.
• Spending time on bad thoughts and situations – This relates very closely to the emotional category that would be worked on via a daily practice. Altucher writes of a number of different applications of this concept with things to avoid including: resentments, dwelling on problems, anger, attempted revenge, gossip & spending time with or thinking about people that bring you down. He details how the best thing to do with people who are not being useful is to just write them off and get on with life.
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Really, there's a ton of content in the Altucher book and (like any book) its up to the reader to make of it what they will, but his basic concept of "spend time on things that bring happiness, avoid things that bring unhappiness" is both profound and seems very actionable.
Good book.
Altucher is a former finance guy who was at times fabulously wealthy and completely broke and his current writing (including a frequently posted to blog) leans towards the self-help variety with this book describing what makes him (and may help make others) happy.
It was self-published using CreateSpace from Amazon and doesn’t seem to have been closely edited, but if a reader would dismiss the book due to typographical and grammatical errors, they’d miss out on some excellent points and ideas.
Starting point from Altucher is that happiness is something different for each person and a big first step towards reaching it is to drop any ingrained notions or definitions of happiness that may not personally apply. He then goes on to write of the financial value of this happiness goal as there's enough opportunities out there that people should be able to combine together being happy both outside and inside of a career. Towards this end, Altucher's stated personal goals are the following:
1. Be happy
2. Eradicate unhappiness in his life
3. Have each day be as smooth as possible with no hassles
These concepts can certainly be easier said than done, but Altucher provides some solid suggestions towards reaching them with one being to have a daily practice of actions taken in each of the following areas:
• Physical – Advice includes sleeping enough and not drinking to excess (ideally, not at all).
• Mental – Idea is to challenge your mind continuously and steps to take include engaging with others and assuming they have wisdom to pass on and simply writing down lists of ideas.
• Spiritual – Even if someone not religious, daily work in this area could be as simple as taking time to be grateful.
• Emotional – This is the area that Altucher spends the most time on and simplest manifestation of action to take would be people should do (and think about) things that make them happy and not do (or think about) things that make them unhappy.
-----
Another framework from Altucher that seems to make a lot of sense is to assign a designation of useful or non-useful to things, people and situations. The useful is then embraced and the non-useful avoided or walked away from… with some of what Altucher characterizes as non-useful noted below:
• College as the path to learning – He writes of people spending 4 or more years in a higher education system that leaves them in debt and still not knowing what they want to do for a vocation. Alternative would be to try to simply start doing things of interest to see if they’re still interesting after having been experienced.
• Home ownership as an important goal – Idea here is that the purchase of a house both ties up capital that could be used elsewhere and can hold someone back from opportunities elsewhere with the financial obligation to a bank.
• Being caught up in the daily news cycle – Point made is that news organizations often-times get caught up selling fear and sensationalism. As few of the things (including politics) reported on actually impact someone’s life, reading about or watching reporting on events can often just be avoided.
• Spending time on bad thoughts and situations – This relates very closely to the emotional category that would be worked on via a daily practice. Altucher writes of a number of different applications of this concept with things to avoid including: resentments, dwelling on problems, anger, attempted revenge, gossip & spending time with or thinking about people that bring you down. He details how the best thing to do with people who are not being useful is to just write them off and get on with life.
-----
Really, there's a ton of content in the Altucher book and (like any book) its up to the reader to make of it what they will, but his basic concept of "spend time on things that bring happiness, avoid things that bring unhappiness" is both profound and seems very actionable.
Good book.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
Recently finished reading Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson and found it to be a fascinating study of the man, his life and career.
Isaacson is an accomplished biography writer and the start of this book includes mention of how Jobs didn’t ask for any editorial control and convinced Issacson to write it so there would be an account of him done by someone trusted. The trade off for that which Jobs acknowledged was there would be some stories and details showing him in a negative light.
All in all, though, he comes across as a remarkable individual and some of the things noted by Isaacson that stood out as particularly interesting are noted below:
Differences between Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak - The two met while in high school and were draw to one another by shared interest in electronics as well high intellects. Where they diverged was both socially and in terms of motivations. Wozniak was a brilliant programmer while Jobs wasn't nearly as technical, but could both conceptualize and sell very well. Early on, the two developed technology that Wozniak would have given it away, but Jobs pushed for selling something he knew people would want. This initial successful partnership eventually led to the creation of Apple.
Non-traditional lifestyle choices and views of the world - Jobs at an early age because interested in LSD, fad diets and Eastern Spirituality and Zen Buddhism... to the point of leaving his job at Atari to go to India searching for enlightenment and a guru.
Almost immediate judgements made - Other people & their ideas would oft be decided by Jobs to be either great or horrible. This same hair-trigger determination could then be reversed at a moment's notice, at times with Jobs proposing as his own an idea previously rejected.
Favoring of open rather than closed systems - Jobs early on decided to not license the Macintosh operating system (different than Microsoft and their approach with Windows) and instead had hardware and software bundled together. This same closed system approach came out later on with development of the iTunes store, apps and Apple stores.
Championing of Design over Engineering - Jobs would seek for and identify great design and push for that in the products sold, oftentimes to the chagrin of engineers who would have to figure out how to make work the design. This was a topic throughout Jobs career and he talked about Apple products being "at the intersection of humanities and technology."
A respect for the creative - This manifested itself both in the appreciation of great design, focus on stellar advertising and actions taken while running Pixar. Jobs had respect for people who he viewed as truly creative and that led to him following the lead of John Lasseter and other Pixar creatives requesting money to make animated shorts. This work that was outside of Pixar's initial core hardware business eventually led to Toy Story being made... and started the company on the path to taking over leadership of Disney Animation.
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All this said, Isaacson wrote an excellent biography of Steve Jobs and as previously stated, the book wasn't designed by Jobs to be his legacy, but perhaps he would want the famous June 2005 Stanford commencement speech to serve as such...
Isaacson is an accomplished biography writer and the start of this book includes mention of how Jobs didn’t ask for any editorial control and convinced Issacson to write it so there would be an account of him done by someone trusted. The trade off for that which Jobs acknowledged was there would be some stories and details showing him in a negative light.
All in all, though, he comes across as a remarkable individual and some of the things noted by Isaacson that stood out as particularly interesting are noted below:
Differences between Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak - The two met while in high school and were draw to one another by shared interest in electronics as well high intellects. Where they diverged was both socially and in terms of motivations. Wozniak was a brilliant programmer while Jobs wasn't nearly as technical, but could both conceptualize and sell very well. Early on, the two developed technology that Wozniak would have given it away, but Jobs pushed for selling something he knew people would want. This initial successful partnership eventually led to the creation of Apple.
Non-traditional lifestyle choices and views of the world - Jobs at an early age because interested in LSD, fad diets and Eastern Spirituality and Zen Buddhism... to the point of leaving his job at Atari to go to India searching for enlightenment and a guru.
Almost immediate judgements made - Other people & their ideas would oft be decided by Jobs to be either great or horrible. This same hair-trigger determination could then be reversed at a moment's notice, at times with Jobs proposing as his own an idea previously rejected.
Favoring of open rather than closed systems - Jobs early on decided to not license the Macintosh operating system (different than Microsoft and their approach with Windows) and instead had hardware and software bundled together. This same closed system approach came out later on with development of the iTunes store, apps and Apple stores.
Championing of Design over Engineering - Jobs would seek for and identify great design and push for that in the products sold, oftentimes to the chagrin of engineers who would have to figure out how to make work the design. This was a topic throughout Jobs career and he talked about Apple products being "at the intersection of humanities and technology."
A respect for the creative - This manifested itself both in the appreciation of great design, focus on stellar advertising and actions taken while running Pixar. Jobs had respect for people who he viewed as truly creative and that led to him following the lead of John Lasseter and other Pixar creatives requesting money to make animated shorts. This work that was outside of Pixar's initial core hardware business eventually led to Toy Story being made... and started the company on the path to taking over leadership of Disney Animation.
-----
All this said, Isaacson wrote an excellent biography of Steve Jobs and as previously stated, the book wasn't designed by Jobs to be his legacy, but perhaps he would want the famous June 2005 Stanford commencement speech to serve as such...
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Fast Company Dec/Jan Issue: Toms Shoes, Louis C.K., General Assembly, Bluefin Labs, Nest
Several short pieces of interest from the Dec '11 / Jan '12 issue of Fast Company magazine.
In the Now section of the magazine was Toms Founder Blake Mycoskie's Fashion-Forward Childhood. Nothing terribly new in the short piece, but Toms Shoes an interesting company given it's practice of giving away a pair of shoes for each sold.
Also notable for the subject was Louis C.K.: The Next Steve Jobs Will Be A Chick. As this CNN story details, C.K. has been selling online for $5 a self-produced standup special and after a few weeks is now at $1M in revenue. Very interesting approach taken by C.K. and also cool given the $280K+ in charitable donations he's already dispersed from the proceeds.
Two longer, but not feature length pieces from this issue were on augmented education and utilization of Twitter for business intelligence...
Anya Kamenetz penned General Assembly Provides Entrepreneurial Skills To A Chosen Few about the New York-based startup which offers classes and education programs in the fields of "technology, design, and entrepreneurship". Seems a solid concept for a business as education certainly can't stop with the traditional receipt of a college diploma.
On a company working to aggregate and make accessible some heavily fragmented information, Rachel Arndt wrote Bluefin Mines Social Media To Improve TV Analytics. Selling services to "brands, agencies and TV Networks", Bluefin Labs works in an interesting area.
Finally, this issue of Fast Company had a short piece on the company Nest and it's smart thermostat. Fascinating product designed with user experience in mind from former Apple exec Tony Faddell.
In the Now section of the magazine was Toms Founder Blake Mycoskie's Fashion-Forward Childhood. Nothing terribly new in the short piece, but Toms Shoes an interesting company given it's practice of giving away a pair of shoes for each sold.
Also notable for the subject was Louis C.K.: The Next Steve Jobs Will Be A Chick. As this CNN story details, C.K. has been selling online for $5 a self-produced standup special and after a few weeks is now at $1M in revenue. Very interesting approach taken by C.K. and also cool given the $280K+ in charitable donations he's already dispersed from the proceeds.
Two longer, but not feature length pieces from this issue were on augmented education and utilization of Twitter for business intelligence...
Anya Kamenetz penned General Assembly Provides Entrepreneurial Skills To A Chosen Few about the New York-based startup which offers classes and education programs in the fields of "technology, design, and entrepreneurship". Seems a solid concept for a business as education certainly can't stop with the traditional receipt of a college diploma.
On a company working to aggregate and make accessible some heavily fragmented information, Rachel Arndt wrote Bluefin Mines Social Media To Improve TV Analytics. Selling services to "brands, agencies and TV Networks", Bluefin Labs works in an interesting area.
Finally, this issue of Fast Company had a short piece on the company Nest and it's smart thermostat. Fascinating product designed with user experience in mind from former Apple exec Tony Faddell.
Friday, December 23, 2011
Businessweek Dec 12 Issue: Vegas Real Estate Fraud, OnLive Video Games, TV Remotes, Tableau Data Analysis
Quite a few interesting pieces from the Dec 12 issue of Businessweek.
Cover story by Felix Gillette was The King of All Vegas Real Estate Scams on fraud run amok in the area of faulty condo construction. It's a fascinating look at the illegal practice of taking over homeowner association boards and then funneling damages and repair contracts to businesses tied to colluding board members. Not surprising to read of something like this given legal Vegas real estate practices like buying larger and walking away from old property, but the scam described by Gillette shows a remarkable amount of fraud and deception.
Also from this issue were three smaller pieces that each dealt with interesting companies and topics previously noted on this blog...
- OnLive Mobile Helps Gamers on the Go is on the cloud gaming service from startup veteran Steve Perlman and stood out both with Perlman being someone I've linked to previous BW features on and with the described OnLive efforts around online tablet and smartphone gaming.
- Voice Control, the End of the TV Remote? covers innovation already occurred and especially to come in the future around the home television. Topic is especially interesting given rampant speculation about what Apple may eventually bring (in conjunction with the iPhone and iPad) to the TV market.
- Pat Hanrahan's Tableau Analytics Software provides a brief look at data analysis tools way beyond simple Excel in terms of both user interface and display of information. It's an interesting subject area and Hanrahan as a guy (and his Tableau Software by extension) is interesting with his time spent as an early stage Pixar engineer and two Oscars awarded for animation work.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Kevin Van Valkenburg Q&A on Blog TVFury
It's been a few months since I've posted on any writing from Kevin Van Valkenburg and, fortuitously enough, came across recently a ridiculously good Q&A with him about his career and other topics around writing.
Interview was done by and posted on the blog TVFury ("Sports, writing and life through the eyes of Terry Vandrovec and Shawn Fury") and the final words of the Q&A intro are pretty much catnip to someone like myself with a bent towards great narrative sports writing...
"Here, Kevin talks about growing up with an editor mom, life as a college football player, literary heroes, leaving Montana and living in Baltimore, his story that made it into the Best American Sportswriting book, The Wire, David Stern’s ego, the writing life and much more."
Couple of things that stood out in the (long at 10,000+ words) interview were how different journalism was when Van Valkenburg graduated college and (towards the end of the piece) his listing of favorite long-form pieces, books and authors. Quite a few of the writers noted were ones I follow and of particular interest was a quote from sportswriter S.L. Price in his excellent memoir Far Afield.
Very well done interview with interesting answers provided. Not a surprise, though, as Van Valkenburg is a really good writer who (as noted in the piece) does a number of different types of writing.
He references in the Q&A his most rewarding work being this five-part serial narrative about a football team in West Baltimore and my favorite piece of his I haven't already linked to was Sense of loss drives Ngata on Baltimore Ravens (and former Oregon Ducks) lineman Haloti Ngata. Additionally, Van Valkenburg is known for his interesting Five Things We Learned Baltimore Sun column following Ravens games.
Interview was done by and posted on the blog TVFury ("Sports, writing and life through the eyes of Terry Vandrovec and Shawn Fury") and the final words of the Q&A intro are pretty much catnip to someone like myself with a bent towards great narrative sports writing...
"Here, Kevin talks about growing up with an editor mom, life as a college football player, literary heroes, leaving Montana and living in Baltimore, his story that made it into the Best American Sportswriting book, The Wire, David Stern’s ego, the writing life and much more."
Couple of things that stood out in the (long at 10,000+ words) interview were how different journalism was when Van Valkenburg graduated college and (towards the end of the piece) his listing of favorite long-form pieces, books and authors. Quite a few of the writers noted were ones I follow and of particular interest was a quote from sportswriter S.L. Price in his excellent memoir Far Afield.
Very well done interview with interesting answers provided. Not a surprise, though, as Van Valkenburg is a really good writer who (as noted in the piece) does a number of different types of writing.
He references in the Q&A his most rewarding work being this five-part serial narrative about a football team in West Baltimore and my favorite piece of his I haven't already linked to was Sense of loss drives Ngata on Baltimore Ravens (and former Oregon Ducks) lineman Haloti Ngata. Additionally, Van Valkenburg is known for his interesting Five Things We Learned Baltimore Sun column following Ravens games.
Friday, December 16, 2011
John Branch on Derek Boogaard / Sports Journalism Today
Remarkable profile of former NHL player Derek Boogaard earlier this month in The New York Times. Written by John Branch, the three-part series is titled Punched Out: The Life and Death of a Hockey Enforcer with first Learning To Brawl about his early years and then Blood on the Ice about his National Hockey League career. Finally, A Brain 'Going Bad' covers both his accidental overdose (from painkillers and alcohol) death last summer and then damage found upon study of his brain.
It's captivating reading about first the idea of sixteen and seventeen year-old hockey players seeking to make a career with their ability to fight during games and then those same players having severe neurological trauma later in life... in Boogaard's case, a life of just 28 years.
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Branch's piece is an extremely thorough profile that's sports journalism by virtue of it's athlete subject, but does more than hold it's own in the broader category of journalism. To this point, there's been several interesting stories come across lately about sports journalism and the great work being done in the field.
For New York Magazine, Gabriel Sherman wrote Blitz!: How sports journalists learned to go for the hard tackle which uses the Branch series as an example of the deep investigative reports being done into sports topics in recent years.
A second piece lately on sports journalism is The Sporting Scene column for the New Yorker by Reeves Wiedeman. It's an interesting short missive about the volume of solid beyond the boxscore sportswriting being generated online.
It's captivating reading about first the idea of sixteen and seventeen year-old hockey players seeking to make a career with their ability to fight during games and then those same players having severe neurological trauma later in life... in Boogaard's case, a life of just 28 years.
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Branch's piece is an extremely thorough profile that's sports journalism by virtue of it's athlete subject, but does more than hold it's own in the broader category of journalism. To this point, there's been several interesting stories come across lately about sports journalism and the great work being done in the field.
For New York Magazine, Gabriel Sherman wrote Blitz!: How sports journalists learned to go for the hard tackle which uses the Branch series as an example of the deep investigative reports being done into sports topics in recent years.
A second piece lately on sports journalism is The Sporting Scene column for the New Yorker by Reeves Wiedeman. It's an interesting short missive about the volume of solid beyond the boxscore sportswriting being generated online.
Monday, December 12, 2011
Sports Illustrated Writing: from Alexander Wolff, Charles P. Pierce & Jim Gorant
Some great writing from the recent Sports Illustrated double issue that features Pat Summitt and Mike Krzyzewski as the SI Sportswoman & Sportman of the Year for 2011.
Longtime SI writer Alexander Wolff did the cover profile on the coaching icons and paints a revealing portrait of two driven individuals who appear focused on winning the right way. It's solid writing made the more so given that Summitt no longer does one-on-one interviews with her diagnosis of having early-onset dementia, Alzheimer's type.
If Wolff's piece was a well-written profile of exceptional public figures, two other features from this issue of Sports Illustrated stood out as really good writing on subjects known in much smaller universes.
Centered in the town of Magazine, Arkansas, How To Become An American is on the children of Hmong immigrants (with the Hmong portrayed by Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino) playing high school football. Written by Charles Pierce, it combines an almost lyrical beginning with an in-depth description of the athletes and their assimilation into the community and impact on the team. I see Pierce stories most frequently in Esquire and expected and then found a great piece after noting his name in this SI story byline.
A feature that actually turned out to be much more than I expected was According To Alex Kline... on the 17 year old college hoops recruiting guru. Written by Jim Gorant, the two things that stand out in the piece are Kline for creating a thriving avocation out of his interest and Gorant for the style of the piece. After the introduction, the writing flows backwards with sections on various ages of Kline's life to trace what led him to today. This approach helps take something that if done superficially could be little more than a puff isn't that cute? type of piece and makes it a revealing and interesting profile.
Friday, December 09, 2011
Entrepreneurial Journalism Education / Difficulty in Sports Reporting Today
Expanding a bit on my post from yesterday about the Nieman Foundation (and Nieman Storyboard), I've come across some interesting Journalism education content lately including a webinar attended earlier this week.
As could be expected, the online session was the most engaging of the various sources of wisdom and class itself the Knight Center webinar to teach journalists how to start a successful entrepreneurial project taught by journalist and City University of New York J-School professor Jeremy Caplan.
I wouldn't say I was disappointed with my time spent, but it did leave me feeling it tough to get a tremendous amount from an online learning environment. There was the opportunity to post questions to a chat board that were then answered, but not much interactive learning (which isn't a terribly damning statement as you likely shouldn't expect much more from a two hour online session).
As to the content itself, material was posted to both Scribd and Google Docs and the high-level 7 Steps to a successful entrepreneurial Journalism startup are below...
1. Market research
2. Competitive analysis
3. Content & structure development
4. Building community
5. Cultivating sustainability
6. Leading on the path
7. Adjusting on the way
Important points to be sure, but my thoughts on the content were that it was pretty basic business school type stuff (but, again... maybe that's not being critical as it could be new learning for some in the session) and that the actual application of the steps seemed to be described as most frequently towards building hyper-local community news websites.
All in all, Journalism and the business around writing (which obviously could cast a pretty wide net) is definitely of interest and attending the session was a good step in learning more.
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On this subject of new opportunities in Journalism, the aforementioned Nieman Foundation had on it's Nieman Lab site recently a Justin Ellis piece How Time Inc. is preparing for a future in digital news with a j-school of its own. Interesting concept with the old media giant offering in-house education (heavily leaning towards digital new media topics) to employees.
Finally (and also related to the idea of changes in Journalism), excellent piece titled Death of the interview posted to ESPN earlier this week. Written by Tim Keown, it delves into how sports reporting (both by the press and athletes) has changed in today's environment of short attention, tight news cycles and need for the sensational. Very solid piece that's both entertaining and thought-provoking.
As could be expected, the online session was the most engaging of the various sources of wisdom and class itself the Knight Center webinar to teach journalists how to start a successful entrepreneurial project taught by journalist and City University of New York J-School professor Jeremy Caplan.
I wouldn't say I was disappointed with my time spent, but it did leave me feeling it tough to get a tremendous amount from an online learning environment. There was the opportunity to post questions to a chat board that were then answered, but not much interactive learning (which isn't a terribly damning statement as you likely shouldn't expect much more from a two hour online session).
As to the content itself, material was posted to both Scribd and Google Docs and the high-level 7 Steps to a successful entrepreneurial Journalism startup are below...
1. Market research
2. Competitive analysis
3. Content & structure development
4. Building community
5. Cultivating sustainability
6. Leading on the path
7. Adjusting on the way
Important points to be sure, but my thoughts on the content were that it was pretty basic business school type stuff (but, again... maybe that's not being critical as it could be new learning for some in the session) and that the actual application of the steps seemed to be described as most frequently towards building hyper-local community news websites.
All in all, Journalism and the business around writing (which obviously could cast a pretty wide net) is definitely of interest and attending the session was a good step in learning more.
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On this subject of new opportunities in Journalism, the aforementioned Nieman Foundation had on it's Nieman Lab site recently a Justin Ellis piece How Time Inc. is preparing for a future in digital news with a j-school of its own. Interesting concept with the old media giant offering in-house education (heavily leaning towards digital new media topics) to employees.
Finally (and also related to the idea of changes in Journalism), excellent piece titled Death of the interview posted to ESPN earlier this week. Written by Tim Keown, it delves into how sports reporting (both by the press and athletes) has changed in today's environment of short attention, tight news cycles and need for the sensational. Very solid piece that's both entertaining and thought-provoking.
Thursday, December 08, 2011
Writing & Work from the Nieman Foundation for Journalism
Having not heard of it until fairly recently, I've found online some really cool work and resources from the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard. As is detailed on the about page of the site, the foundation administers a yearlong fellowship program for journalists, but where I heard about them was through the Nieman Storyboard website. Taken directly from the Storyboard about page...
"Nieman Storyboard looks at how storytelling works in every medium. In addition to highlighting outstanding print narratives, we seek to feature the best examples of visual, audio and multimedia narrative reporting. As a bonus, we’ll also give you occasional updates on conferences, awards, and other narrative news."
Given my interest in learning more about and love of interesting narrative stories written down (and to fall a bit into a cliche)... that's right in my wheelhouse!
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First time I came across Nieman (Foundation or the Storyboard website) was with mention of venerable narrative journalist Gay Talese doing a lecture with two-time National Magazine Award winning Esquire writer Chris Jones. While it would have been great to actually attend the talk, Nieman Storyboard provided this transcript of the session as well as the notes from an equally interesting Jones Q&A with Narrative Writing Instructor Paige Williams.
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Looking further into the Storyboard site, I found noted as contributors a number of the writers whose stuff I admire and look for. From 2009 there was Tommy Tomlinson: making words work for a living and more recently a Storyboard series titled why's this so good? with analysis of classic narrative nonfiction writing. Concept held a lot of sway with me as it's the intent of this blog... but, with stuff by accomplished writers rather than just my ramblings.
There's so far been 23 different pieces in the series with those below representing ones either about or by authors I'm familiar with and enjoy...
- “Why’s this so good?” No. 4: W.C. Heinz on Air Lift, son of Bold Venture by Chris Jones
- “Why’s this so good?” No. 11: Tom Junod on Mister Rogers and grace by Susannah Breslin
- “Why’s This So Good?” No. 15: Michael Lewis’ Greek odyssey by David Dobbs
- “Why’s this so good?” No. 18: Brady Dennis goes short by Ben Montgomery
- “Why’s this so good?” No. 22: Hank Stuever on 9-ish by Michael Kruse
- “Why’s this so good?” No. 23: William Langewiesche’s voice of experience by Thomas Lake
Very cool writing series and lot of other interesting things being done by Nieman.
"Nieman Storyboard looks at how storytelling works in every medium. In addition to highlighting outstanding print narratives, we seek to feature the best examples of visual, audio and multimedia narrative reporting. As a bonus, we’ll also give you occasional updates on conferences, awards, and other narrative news."
Given my interest in learning more about and love of interesting narrative stories written down (and to fall a bit into a cliche)... that's right in my wheelhouse!
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First time I came across Nieman (Foundation or the Storyboard website) was with mention of venerable narrative journalist Gay Talese doing a lecture with two-time National Magazine Award winning Esquire writer Chris Jones. While it would have been great to actually attend the talk, Nieman Storyboard provided this transcript of the session as well as the notes from an equally interesting Jones Q&A with Narrative Writing Instructor Paige Williams.
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Looking further into the Storyboard site, I found noted as contributors a number of the writers whose stuff I admire and look for. From 2009 there was Tommy Tomlinson: making words work for a living and more recently a Storyboard series titled why's this so good? with analysis of classic narrative nonfiction writing. Concept held a lot of sway with me as it's the intent of this blog... but, with stuff by accomplished writers rather than just my ramblings.
There's so far been 23 different pieces in the series with those below representing ones either about or by authors I'm familiar with and enjoy...
- “Why’s this so good?” No. 4: W.C. Heinz on Air Lift, son of Bold Venture by Chris Jones
- “Why’s this so good?” No. 11: Tom Junod on Mister Rogers and grace by Susannah Breslin
- “Why’s This So Good?” No. 15: Michael Lewis’ Greek odyssey by David Dobbs
- “Why’s this so good?” No. 18: Brady Dennis goes short by Ben Montgomery
- “Why’s this so good?” No. 22: Hank Stuever on 9-ish by Michael Kruse
- “Why’s this so good?” No. 23: William Langewiesche’s voice of experience by Thomas Lake
Very cool writing series and lot of other interesting things being done by Nieman.
Tuesday, December 06, 2011
Time Magazine Pieces - Familial DNA testing / Rhode Island Pension Reform / Jon Huntsman / Nest Thermostat
Quite a few interesting stories from the December 5 issue of Time Magazine.
All pieces require a magazine subscription to read online and first of note was The Case of the Grim Sleeper by Terry McCarthy. Pretty fascinating content on familial DNA testing and how it was used to locate a suspected serial killer in Los Angeles.
Another feature was by the excellent David Von Drehle titled The Little State That Could about the recent Rhode Island pension reforms enacted by State Treasurer Gina Raimondo. Her efforts might run counter to those from AFL-CIO labor leader Richard Trumka (profiled well in this Esquire piece), but Raimondo comes across in the story as someone extremely intelligent driving necessary change.
With the subject being in the same adult voice in the room category, Joe Klein's column was Jon Huntsman's Big Idea. As Klein writes, the top six banks hold assets of almost 65% of U.S. GDP and Huntsman's idea is to reduce their power (via a targeted fee) and hold on the economy.
Final thing of note from this issue of Time was the short Reinventing the Wheel on the new high-tech home thermostat from Nest. Very interesting product designed to foster energy conservation through both it's technology and stellar user interface (with the company founded and led by Apple iPod creator Tony Fadell.)
Monday, December 05, 2011
Profiles from December 2011 Esquire
Some excellent feature profiles in the December 2011 issue of Esquire Magazine.
Americans of the Year on the cover refers to an entire section of profile pieces within and not to make short shrift of seventeen of these remarkable individuals, but three stood out as particularly interesting.
Cover story itself is Mark Kelly, American by Chris Jones and portrays someone who appears to exemplify the best of people can offer of themselves. I find Jones to be an excellent writer and it seems some of his best pieces are on the subject of space and the people who explore it.
The other two profiles to highlight aren't on people in roles necessarily as glamorous as astronaut, but are on individuals doing things both interesting and impactful to many.
Richard Trumka, American is written by John H. Richardson and profiles the head of the AFL-CIO. As Richarson details, the union is made up of "twelve million firefighters, teachers, nurses, miners, electricians, and entertainers" and Trumka's efforts have a large impact in the role of labor in America. Additionally, the statements made and advocacy described by Trumka in this piece seem to ring true and be very timely in what could be described as a rich getting richer economic climate.
Another of the people profiled is similar to Trumka in the leading of a large organization many have strongly held views on. Craig Fugate, American is about the head of FEMA and, as chronicled by Tom Chiarella, seems to be doing an exemplary job (much better than "a heck of a job") running the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Structure put around the agency and it's role by Fugate appears to be extremely solid and is described well by Chiarella.
Americans of the Year on the cover refers to an entire section of profile pieces within and not to make short shrift of seventeen of these remarkable individuals, but three stood out as particularly interesting.
Cover story itself is Mark Kelly, American by Chris Jones and portrays someone who appears to exemplify the best of people can offer of themselves. I find Jones to be an excellent writer and it seems some of his best pieces are on the subject of space and the people who explore it.
The other two profiles to highlight aren't on people in roles necessarily as glamorous as astronaut, but are on individuals doing things both interesting and impactful to many.
Richard Trumka, American is written by John H. Richardson and profiles the head of the AFL-CIO. As Richarson details, the union is made up of "twelve million firefighters, teachers, nurses, miners, electricians, and entertainers" and Trumka's efforts have a large impact in the role of labor in America. Additionally, the statements made and advocacy described by Trumka in this piece seem to ring true and be very timely in what could be described as a rich getting richer economic climate.
Another of the people profiled is similar to Trumka in the leading of a large organization many have strongly held views on. Craig Fugate, American is about the head of FEMA and, as chronicled by Tom Chiarella, seems to be doing an exemplary job (much better than "a heck of a job") running the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Structure put around the agency and it's role by Fugate appears to be extremely solid and is described well by Chiarella.
Saturday, December 03, 2011
Sport In America from Sports Illustrated... and role of Sports Journalism
Very interesting cover story in the November 28 issue of Sports Illustrated.
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The entire text of the piece by Time Inc Sports editor Terry McDonell doesn't appear to be online now (just silly, me thinks), but Sport In America is posted as an abridged version. The story introduces a future HBO series of the same name that Sports Illustrated will be co-producing.
Overall concept of the series and introductory story is described on this Inside Sports Illustrated blog post and around the question of what sport means to individual people... with this question still quite relevant in today's environment of large money and high level cynicism around sport.
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The piece by McDonell was interesting (if only the whole text could be provided here) and got me thinking more about sports journalism and what it does. There's certainly recapping of with scores and game summaries, but also much more. The narrative recreation of fan memories is a huge offering that sports journalism can provide and another aspect of journalism around sports is the revealing of information.
This can be around things like player profiles a well as supremely important topics like Jerry Sandusky and the Penn State child sex abuse case (with my blog post last month on writing about the scandal). This case provided another example of how sports journalism can play a much more important than score and game notes role with this NBC interview with Sandusky where noted sports journalist Bob Costas let Sandusky eviscerate himself in relation to the accusations made and charges filed.
Very important stuff to be sure... and this revealing, recreating and recapping that can be provided by sports journalism doesn't even fully cover the entertainment value that solid media coverage can add to the (financially very valuable) total fan experience.
Thursday, December 01, 2011
Writing on Unstructured Data Analysis - Palantir / Hewlett-Packard
Very interesting cover story in the latest Businessweek that got me thinking about the concepts of structured and unstructured data analysis.
The feature is Palantir, the War on Terror's Secret Weapon and looks at the Palo Alto, CA company whose data mining software is used by a number of government agencies to flag and compile information on potential threats. The aforementioned unstructured data refers to information held not in database (structured) form, but rather in bank transactions, purchases made, videos recorded and social media postings.
What Palantir does is take in and sift through all these disparate data sets to try to provide a clear picture of what's going on... with this offering being valuable for private industry (example being banks fighting fraud) as well as government. The BW story detailing all this is an interesting piece from Ashlee Vance and Brad Stone on a fascinating topic.
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This idea of unstructured data analysis is coming to the forefront in Business today with both the amount of loose data multiplying and newer and better product offerings trying to tame and make sense of said data.
Written a few days ago by Brandon Bailey for the San Jose Mercury News was HP unveils new products for sorting 'unstructured data'. The piece is around the first publicized results of HP's Autonomy acquisition and published yesterday on ZDNet UK was HP mates Autonomy with Vertica that brings in the early 2011 HP acquisition of Vertica.
The feature is Palantir, the War on Terror's Secret Weapon and looks at the Palo Alto, CA company whose data mining software is used by a number of government agencies to flag and compile information on potential threats. The aforementioned unstructured data refers to information held not in database (structured) form, but rather in bank transactions, purchases made, videos recorded and social media postings.
What Palantir does is take in and sift through all these disparate data sets to try to provide a clear picture of what's going on... with this offering being valuable for private industry (example being banks fighting fraud) as well as government. The BW story detailing all this is an interesting piece from Ashlee Vance and Brad Stone on a fascinating topic.
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This idea of unstructured data analysis is coming to the forefront in Business today with both the amount of loose data multiplying and newer and better product offerings trying to tame and make sense of said data.
Written a few days ago by Brandon Bailey for the San Jose Mercury News was HP unveils new products for sorting 'unstructured data'. The piece is around the first publicized results of HP's Autonomy acquisition and published yesterday on ZDNet UK was HP mates Autonomy with Vertica that brings in the early 2011 HP acquisition of Vertica.
Money Writing from Businessweek, Bloomberg & Time
Several piece of writing on money I've come across lately that were interesting by themselves... with two downright fascinating when viewed in relation to one another.
From the Nov 28 issue of Time Magazine came the feature Below The Line on living in poverty. Written by Barbara Kiviat, it's a solid piece that looks at the 46 million Americans living on less than an annual income of $22,314 for a family of four. A lot of interesting content there... including how different external events (sickness, injury, car breakdown) can be cataclysmic financially for those barely making ends meet.
A different story on what feels like the opposite end of the financial spectrum was Secret Fed Loans Gave Banks $13 Billion Undisclosed to Congress from Bloomberg. Very much made me think of my blog post from a month ago on Boomerang by Michael Lewis as well as Wall Street Isn't Winning – It's Cheating by Matt Taibbi for Rolling Stone.
Also on money, but not in the same curl your stomach vein were two short pieces from the Nov 21 issue of Businessweek. All Those Stock Buybacks: A Bullish Sign? is on the trend of companies feeling valuations low and buying their own stock and James Altucher, Wall Street's Keeper of the Pain on the venture capitalist and author (of both books and his self-titled blog).
From the Nov 28 issue of Time Magazine came the feature Below The Line on living in poverty. Written by Barbara Kiviat, it's a solid piece that looks at the 46 million Americans living on less than an annual income of $22,314 for a family of four. A lot of interesting content there... including how different external events (sickness, injury, car breakdown) can be cataclysmic financially for those barely making ends meet.
A different story on what feels like the opposite end of the financial spectrum was Secret Fed Loans Gave Banks $13 Billion Undisclosed to Congress from Bloomberg. Very much made me think of my blog post from a month ago on Boomerang by Michael Lewis as well as Wall Street Isn't Winning – It's Cheating by Matt Taibbi for Rolling Stone.
Also on money, but not in the same curl your stomach vein were two short pieces from the Nov 21 issue of Businessweek. All Those Stock Buybacks: A Bullish Sign? is on the trend of companies feeling valuations low and buying their own stock and James Altucher, Wall Street's Keeper of the Pain on the venture capitalist and author (of both books and his self-titled blog).
"The Postmortal" by Drew Magary
Just finished reading The Postmortal by Drew Magary and found it to be pretty enjoyable.
I'm not a huge reader of fiction, but I heard about the book from the Chris Jones Son of a Bold Venture blog with a Five for Writing Q&A with Magary and have since seen his work for the sports websites Deadspin and Kissing Suzy Kolber.
The Postmortal is set in the future where a cure for aging has been discovered and follows one particular character through this landscape. It's an interesting premise leading to negative enough outcomes that the book could probably be included in the genre of apocalyptic fiction. Additionally, Magary is an engaging and entertaining writer which prevents the read from devolving into pathos as the inevitable bad things occur.
I wouldn't say I loved the book, but thought it to be a pretty good read and developed from it an appreciation for Magary as a writer.
I'm not a huge reader of fiction, but I heard about the book from the Chris Jones Son of a Bold Venture blog with a Five for Writing Q&A with Magary and have since seen his work for the sports websites Deadspin and Kissing Suzy Kolber.
The Postmortal is set in the future where a cure for aging has been discovered and follows one particular character through this landscape. It's an interesting premise leading to negative enough outcomes that the book could probably be included in the genre of apocalyptic fiction. Additionally, Magary is an engaging and entertaining writer which prevents the read from devolving into pathos as the inevitable bad things occur.
I wouldn't say I loved the book, but thought it to be a pretty good read and developed from it an appreciation for Magary as a writer.
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Sports Illustrated Writing: from Alan Shipnuck, Chris Ballard, Tim Layden
There's been a few excellent pieces from Sports Illustrated in recent weeks that stood out as solid.
From the October 17 issue came The Invisible Fastball by Chris Ballard and Owen Good. The piece chronicles the life and 1950s era career renaissance of minor league pitcher (Kelly) Jack Swift in rural North Carolina. It's a solid read on baseball as I wrote about it here and reminds me again of how hockey is my favorite sport, football the one I'm most easily entertained by and baseball the one I find to be the best.
For the November 7 edition of SI, Tim Layden wrote The Forgotten Hero on former Williams College football player Mike Reily and why his jersey has been retired since the 60s. Excellent piece that combines together a thorough reporting job with profound story.
Finally, the recent Nov 28 issue had Tim Tebow's Wild Ride by Alan Shipnuck. Tebow's story is fascinating given how polarizing he is to both the media and general public and Shipnuck uses the tactic of writing the piece through quotes in and by the media. It's the same approach as was taken in a recent book on the history of ESPN (which I reviewed here) and seems to perfectly fit the breathlessly reported on overall Tebow story.
From the October 17 issue came The Invisible Fastball by Chris Ballard and Owen Good. The piece chronicles the life and 1950s era career renaissance of minor league pitcher (Kelly) Jack Swift in rural North Carolina. It's a solid read on baseball as I wrote about it here and reminds me again of how hockey is my favorite sport, football the one I'm most easily entertained by and baseball the one I find to be the best.
For the November 7 edition of SI, Tim Layden wrote The Forgotten Hero on former Williams College football player Mike Reily and why his jersey has been retired since the 60s. Excellent piece that combines together a thorough reporting job with profound story.
Finally, the recent Nov 28 issue had Tim Tebow's Wild Ride by Alan Shipnuck. Tebow's story is fascinating given how polarizing he is to both the media and general public and Shipnuck uses the tactic of writing the piece through quotes in and by the media. It's the same approach as was taken in a recent book on the history of ESPN (which I reviewed here) and seems to perfectly fit the breathlessly reported on overall Tebow story.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Writing of Profundity - Posnanski, Kruse, Brooks and Simpson
While most of the individual posts on this blog have story links pulled from either one writer or website, lately there's been a few pieces I've come across from different writers and sources that both share a leaning towards the profound and are really darn good.
With this idea of profundity as the common thread (why the heck not?), the first piece to note here was the Joe Posnanski blog post I Hope You're Happy With Your Husband. Very cool and heart warming story about his youngest child... and which brought to mind this equally cool and heart warming piece about Posnanski's oldest.
Other three pieces pieces to link to here all have a retrospective on life slant to them... beginning with Born to race, Dan Wheldon found happiness in town's slower pace. Written by Michael Kruse for the St. Petersburg Times, it looks at the Indy car driver who died as a result of injuries suffered during a Las Vegas race. The story is well told here in part through vignettes and anecdotes of people who interacted with Wheldon (with this story approach being something I've previously seen employed successfully by Kruse).
Given that Kruse's subject in the link immediately above was Steve Jobs, it seems fitting to also highlight A Sister’s Eulogy for Steve Jobs by Mona Simpson. Extremely poignant and well written piece (Simpson is a novelist and English professor) for the New York Times on the brother she didn't meet until in her twenties.
Also in the New York Times, I also found noteworthy The Life Report by David Brooks. It was written about a month ago and asks readers over 70 to provide Brooks with written evaluation of their lives and what they've learned. It's an interesting request that Brooks wrote of making to then post some reader responses online. There may well be more coming, but as of today, Brooks has posted to his Times blog ten of these reader Life Reports.
With this idea of profundity as the common thread (why the heck not?), the first piece to note here was the Joe Posnanski blog post I Hope You're Happy With Your Husband. Very cool and heart warming story about his youngest child... and which brought to mind this equally cool and heart warming piece about Posnanski's oldest.
Other three pieces pieces to link to here all have a retrospective on life slant to them... beginning with Born to race, Dan Wheldon found happiness in town's slower pace. Written by Michael Kruse for the St. Petersburg Times, it looks at the Indy car driver who died as a result of injuries suffered during a Las Vegas race. The story is well told here in part through vignettes and anecdotes of people who interacted with Wheldon (with this story approach being something I've previously seen employed successfully by Kruse).
Given that Kruse's subject in the link immediately above was Steve Jobs, it seems fitting to also highlight A Sister’s Eulogy for Steve Jobs by Mona Simpson. Extremely poignant and well written piece (Simpson is a novelist and English professor) for the New York Times on the brother she didn't meet until in her twenties.
Also in the New York Times, I also found noteworthy The Life Report by David Brooks. It was written about a month ago and asks readers over 70 to provide Brooks with written evaluation of their lives and what they've learned. It's an interesting request that Brooks wrote of making to then post some reader responses online. There may well be more coming, but as of today, Brooks has posted to his Times blog ten of these reader Life Reports.
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Fast Company Pieces - 3M Design Chief / Serial Entrepreneurship / Ads on the Web
Three different stories from the past few months of Fast Company that stood out as being on interesting companies and/or business topics.
From the recent November 2011 issue came Bill Nguyen: The Boy In The Bubble on the founder (or co-founder) of at least four different startups, including Lala (sold to Apple) and now the much talked about, but uncertain as to it's eventual success or failure, Color.
The piece is written by Danielle Sacks and a pretty fascinating read not so much because of the verbiage about Nguyen himself, but the article's description of the ethos of Silicon Valley and the startup culture. Interesting content on seed and venture capital investors backing founders who have had multiple successes (defined by exit with money for investors) and a business idea in an area considered hot at the time. While both of these things do certainly carry an import to them, what's often not taken into effort account is the particulars of the idea itself.
Also interesting from the piece was the description of how investors don't necessarily put a mark against the company founder's track record if not all ventures succeeded. Concept being the business failure looked at as simply a shot that didn't work out and not a big deal as long as other efforts did succeed.
As to Nguyen himself, Sacks details his bona fides in the areas of wealth creation and deal-making (in both the initial cash raising and then end-game business selling phases) and how this past success led to such large amounts of money invested in Color as a business idea. This outlay by investors takes on greater import given the underwhelming launch of Color and subsequent repositiong (with that so called pivot being another acceptable and almost expected thing in startups). Whether the company eventually succeeds or not, Nguyen is wealthy from past successes... and likely would resurface with another business idea, and investors willing to back him.
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From the October 2011 issue of Fast Company was another solid feature... this one dealing not with a startup culture, but rather someone creating change in a large corporate environment. The Nine Passions Of 3M's Mauro Porcini is written by Chuck Salter and details the design chief at the Minnesota based conglomerate. Porcini is described as succeeding at 3M by trumpeting the process involved with outstanding design work as well as it's pure aesthetic value. Beyond this, he's developed credibility within the company by doing the all-important trick of being behind design work that's increased sales.
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Additionally, Adam Lisagor Is Advertising's Quietest Pitchman was an interesting short piece from the September FC issue. Written by Bill Barol, it's about Lisagor's small production company, Sandwich Video and the straight-forward and well received online product videos (web ads) produced for the likes of Groupon, Airbnb, and Flipboard (with the Airbnb spot below and four other videos linked from the Fast Company piece).
From the recent November 2011 issue came Bill Nguyen: The Boy In The Bubble on the founder (or co-founder) of at least four different startups, including Lala (sold to Apple) and now the much talked about, but uncertain as to it's eventual success or failure, Color.
The piece is written by Danielle Sacks and a pretty fascinating read not so much because of the verbiage about Nguyen himself, but the article's description of the ethos of Silicon Valley and the startup culture. Interesting content on seed and venture capital investors backing founders who have had multiple successes (defined by exit with money for investors) and a business idea in an area considered hot at the time. While both of these things do certainly carry an import to them, what's often not taken into effort account is the particulars of the idea itself.
Also interesting from the piece was the description of how investors don't necessarily put a mark against the company founder's track record if not all ventures succeeded. Concept being the business failure looked at as simply a shot that didn't work out and not a big deal as long as other efforts did succeed.
As to Nguyen himself, Sacks details his bona fides in the areas of wealth creation and deal-making (in both the initial cash raising and then end-game business selling phases) and how this past success led to such large amounts of money invested in Color as a business idea. This outlay by investors takes on greater import given the underwhelming launch of Color and subsequent repositiong (with that so called pivot being another acceptable and almost expected thing in startups). Whether the company eventually succeeds or not, Nguyen is wealthy from past successes... and likely would resurface with another business idea, and investors willing to back him.
-----
From the October 2011 issue of Fast Company was another solid feature... this one dealing not with a startup culture, but rather someone creating change in a large corporate environment. The Nine Passions Of 3M's Mauro Porcini is written by Chuck Salter and details the design chief at the Minnesota based conglomerate. Porcini is described as succeeding at 3M by trumpeting the process involved with outstanding design work as well as it's pure aesthetic value. Beyond this, he's developed credibility within the company by doing the all-important trick of being behind design work that's increased sales.
-----
Additionally, Adam Lisagor Is Advertising's Quietest Pitchman was an interesting short piece from the September FC issue. Written by Bill Barol, it's about Lisagor's small production company, Sandwich Video and the straight-forward and well received online product videos (web ads) produced for the likes of Groupon, Airbnb, and Flipboard (with the Airbnb spot below and four other videos linked from the Fast Company piece).
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Esquire Mental Health Writing - Chris Jones & Mike Sager
There were two excellent pieces of writing from the November 2011 issue of Esquire Magazine with Panic (posted online in 2014 after the suicide of Robin Williams) by Chris Jones and Depression by Mike Sager.
The Jones piece covers his own past suicidal thoughts to the point of first contemplating jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge and later superficially cutting himself with a knife. Each episode was described as something of a culmination of spiraling emotions involving excessive anger, stuck thoughts of problems not improving, or runaway thoughts of those same problems getting much worse.
It was remarkable reading because of the level to which the author gave himself up to readers and a positive conclusion of sorts to this story comes in the form of a post by Jones towards the bottom of this SportsJournalists comment thread.
It wouldn't be true to write that I understand how he felt because that’s just dumb and I've never been in the place he describes. That said, life can be a challenge at times and it's almost inspiring to read of how it's not easy for those that one might think live a charmed life (and I've had that view of Jones with his writing ability and career).
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The Mike Sager piece differs in that it's about someone who was not actually sick with depression, but very well could have been giving his life circumstances. Sager was going through a divorce and accompanying time apart from his teenage child and actually diagnosed with major depressive disorder. He fought the diagnosis which drove up insurance costs and was able to overturn it as incorrect. Sager’s writing certainly seems to indicate a lack of depression as he keeps his life moving forward and makes the all-important statement “how much can one man take? As much as need be."
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While the two pieces come from very different places, it seems the aforementioned Sager quote in line with how Jones closed his story by writing that he wished "we would always be terrified of death... and spend the rest of our lives running from it."
Other thing I keep thinking about in relation to both pieces is the distinction between two different ways of viewing situations… one being to imagine how much better things could be (bad view) and the other how much worse the possibilities (good view).
This relative ranking of viewpoints doesn't advocate for perpetual status quo, but rather for an appreciation of things good and/or really not that bad.
The Jones piece covers his own past suicidal thoughts to the point of first contemplating jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge and later superficially cutting himself with a knife. Each episode was described as something of a culmination of spiraling emotions involving excessive anger, stuck thoughts of problems not improving, or runaway thoughts of those same problems getting much worse.
It was remarkable reading because of the level to which the author gave himself up to readers and a positive conclusion of sorts to this story comes in the form of a post by Jones towards the bottom of this SportsJournalists comment thread.
It wouldn't be true to write that I understand how he felt because that’s just dumb and I've never been in the place he describes. That said, life can be a challenge at times and it's almost inspiring to read of how it's not easy for those that one might think live a charmed life (and I've had that view of Jones with his writing ability and career).
-----
The Mike Sager piece differs in that it's about someone who was not actually sick with depression, but very well could have been giving his life circumstances. Sager was going through a divorce and accompanying time apart from his teenage child and actually diagnosed with major depressive disorder. He fought the diagnosis which drove up insurance costs and was able to overturn it as incorrect. Sager’s writing certainly seems to indicate a lack of depression as he keeps his life moving forward and makes the all-important statement “how much can one man take? As much as need be."
-----
While the two pieces come from very different places, it seems the aforementioned Sager quote in line with how Jones closed his story by writing that he wished "we would always be terrified of death... and spend the rest of our lives running from it."
Other thing I keep thinking about in relation to both pieces is the distinction between two different ways of viewing situations… one being to imagine how much better things could be (bad view) and the other how much worse the possibilities (good view).
This relative ranking of viewpoints doesn't advocate for perpetual status quo, but rather for an appreciation of things good and/or really not that bad.
Monday, November 14, 2011
Clay Travis Writing on College Football
As a college football fan and fan of good sports writing, I'm surprised I haven't heard of him until recently, but glad I've come across Clay Travis and his website Outkick the Coverage.
According to the Bio page on the site (which lists eight different writers), Travis is a Nashville afternoon radio show host in addition to writer and I first came across his stuff with the hilarious Les Miles and LSU Make Alabama Frat Boys Cry about the game in Tuscaloosa.
On the more serious (not you know... serious, serious, but more in-depth reporting serious) note, I last week saw the profile Kirk Herbstreit: The Face of College Football on the ESPN/ABC announcer and College Gameday host. I found both this and the LSU piece to be very well written and had planned on doing a post on College Football writing that doesn't make you ill, but then learn that lo and behold... both pieces from the same guy.
With the first two pieces of his I've seen being highly funny/entertaining and detailed/insightful respectively, the trifecta completed with now the third story of his I've seen (all on Outkick the Coverage) being reasoned/informative. Starting 11: If LSU Splits Arkansas, Georgia, it's in Title Game is on this year's BCS Title Game possibilities and includes the analysis from Travis that "there is a 95% chance -- potentially even greater than that -- that this title game will be LSU-Oklahoma State or LSU-Alabama."
According to the Bio page on the site (which lists eight different writers), Travis is a Nashville afternoon radio show host in addition to writer and I first came across his stuff with the hilarious Les Miles and LSU Make Alabama Frat Boys Cry about the game in Tuscaloosa.
On the more serious (not you know... serious, serious, but more in-depth reporting serious) note, I last week saw the profile Kirk Herbstreit: The Face of College Football on the ESPN/ABC announcer and College Gameday host. I found both this and the LSU piece to be very well written and had planned on doing a post on College Football writing that doesn't make you ill, but then learn that lo and behold... both pieces from the same guy.
With the first two pieces of his I've seen being highly funny/entertaining and detailed/insightful respectively, the trifecta completed with now the third story of his I've seen (all on Outkick the Coverage) being reasoned/informative. Starting 11: If LSU Splits Arkansas, Georgia, it's in Title Game is on this year's BCS Title Game possibilities and includes the analysis from Travis that "there is a 95% chance -- potentially even greater than that -- that this title game will be LSU-Oklahoma State or LSU-Alabama."
Businessweek Pieces: Workplace Productivity Software / Apple Supply Chain / Rare Earth Metal Mining
Several interesting pieces from Businessweek lately with the largest of which on a new productivity software startup. Asana: Dustin and Justin's Quest for Flow was written by Ashlee Vance and profiles the company started by two beginning stage ex-Facebook employees (with Dustin Moskovitz at eight days younger than Mark Zuckerberg being the world's youngest billionaire). As detailed by Vance, Asana is offering a free version for smaller groups (with the idea that even personal tasks will be managed via Asana) and then building larger demand.
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Other recent feature of note from BW recently was Alaska’s Billion Dollar Mountain on entrepreneur Jim McKenzie and his mining company, UCore. Focus is on Bokan Mountain near Ketchikan, Alaska and the large support of valuable rare earth metals held deep underground. It's an interesting story written for Businessweek by Daniel Grushkin in the efforts of McKenzie to gain mining access and in how the land reached it's current valuation.
Previous attempts to mine Bokan were unsuccessfully trying to find and extract uranium and this is exactly what McKenzie was initially interested in and hoping to convince the old prospector (Bob Dotson) who owned the mineral rights to allow him access to. Through spending time together, McKenzie learned of it's rare earth metal potential and then brokered a deal with Dotson and his estranged children (to whom who he had granted shared rights) to be able to mine Bokan.
In 2010, China as the world's largest producer of rare earth metals then made the decision to dramatically cut it's exports of these minerals (that go into complicated electronics, jet engines and missiles) and as a result made prices skyrocket and dramatically increased the value of Bokan. It still remains to be seen whether the cost of deep underground extraction will make the investment pay off, but the potential is very much there. Interesting story from a lot of different perspectives.
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Final Businessweek piece to mention is Apple's Supply-Chain Secret? Hoard Lasers. Apple combining great consumer experience with supply-chain competitive advantage... that's a pretty compelling proposition.
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Other recent feature of note from BW recently was Alaska’s Billion Dollar Mountain on entrepreneur Jim McKenzie and his mining company, UCore. Focus is on Bokan Mountain near Ketchikan, Alaska and the large support of valuable rare earth metals held deep underground. It's an interesting story written for Businessweek by Daniel Grushkin in the efforts of McKenzie to gain mining access and in how the land reached it's current valuation.
Previous attempts to mine Bokan were unsuccessfully trying to find and extract uranium and this is exactly what McKenzie was initially interested in and hoping to convince the old prospector (Bob Dotson) who owned the mineral rights to allow him access to. Through spending time together, McKenzie learned of it's rare earth metal potential and then brokered a deal with Dotson and his estranged children (to whom who he had granted shared rights) to be able to mine Bokan.
In 2010, China as the world's largest producer of rare earth metals then made the decision to dramatically cut it's exports of these minerals (that go into complicated electronics, jet engines and missiles) and as a result made prices skyrocket and dramatically increased the value of Bokan. It still remains to be seen whether the cost of deep underground extraction will make the investment pay off, but the potential is very much there. Interesting story from a lot of different perspectives.
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Final Businessweek piece to mention is Apple's Supply-Chain Secret? Hoard Lasers. Apple combining great consumer experience with supply-chain competitive advantage... that's a pretty compelling proposition.
Time Magazine - Troops Coming Home / Progessive Messaging / Virus Hunting
Several features of note from Time Magazine over the past few weeks including the Nov 21 issue cover story on US Servicemen and Women returning home from duty.
Written by Mark Thompson, The Other 1% examines the ever-widening disconnect between those in our Armed Forces and the rest of the population (including our elected representatives). The problem detailed by Thompson is an important one, but short of a there being mandatory service (which hardly anyone advocates), it's not really clear how to fix the problem and bring more in step the military and rest of US society. Also, it's neither a backing for Thompson's points nor a rebuttal, but another piece closely related (and referenced in the issue's Editor's Note by Richard Stengel) was The New Greatest Generation by Joe Klein on contributions made by returning veterans.
The other story from this issue that stood out was the Michael Scherer written profile on former Obama Administration staffer Van Jones. The Return of the Rabble Rouser looks at the efforts by Jones around messaging of progressive issues and features interesting content related to both the Occupy Wall Street movement and President Barack Obama. Extremely simplified point around Obama was any sort of effort has to be led by ideals rather than an individual. It certainly didn't seem to be a slam at the President, but rather a statement that the man is not the movement. Whether someone agrees with Jones political views or not, the concepts from him as laid out by Scherer are interesting ones.
Final recent Time piece to mention was Virus Hunter from the Nov 7 issue. The Bryan Walsh story looks at Nathan Wolfe and his work as founder and head of Global Viral Forecasting. Fascinating efforts from Wolfe in an effort to identify early on future infectious diseases so outbreaks can be prevented prior to the level of a full-blown pandemic.
Written by Mark Thompson, The Other 1% examines the ever-widening disconnect between those in our Armed Forces and the rest of the population (including our elected representatives). The problem detailed by Thompson is an important one, but short of a there being mandatory service (which hardly anyone advocates), it's not really clear how to fix the problem and bring more in step the military and rest of US society. Also, it's neither a backing for Thompson's points nor a rebuttal, but another piece closely related (and referenced in the issue's Editor's Note by Richard Stengel) was The New Greatest Generation by Joe Klein on contributions made by returning veterans.
The other story from this issue that stood out was the Michael Scherer written profile on former Obama Administration staffer Van Jones. The Return of the Rabble Rouser looks at the efforts by Jones around messaging of progressive issues and features interesting content related to both the Occupy Wall Street movement and President Barack Obama. Extremely simplified point around Obama was any sort of effort has to be led by ideals rather than an individual. It certainly didn't seem to be a slam at the President, but rather a statement that the man is not the movement. Whether someone agrees with Jones political views or not, the concepts from him as laid out by Scherer are interesting ones.
Final recent Time piece to mention was Virus Hunter from the Nov 7 issue. The Bryan Walsh story looks at Nathan Wolfe and his work as founder and head of Global Viral Forecasting. Fascinating efforts from Wolfe in an effort to identify early on future infectious diseases so outbreaks can be prevented prior to the level of a full-blown pandemic.
Wednesday, November 09, 2011
Penn State Crimes, Moral Failures & Journalism
While the typical path of this blog has been to link to and write about specific pieces or books that struck me as interesting, this post is about the Penn State scandal and it's mesmerizing (in mostly bad, but also some good) elements.
Details of the actual indictment and alleged crimes within are horrifying, but what's really captured attention has been the characters apart from the accused molester Jerry Sandusky, especially living legend and now ex Penn State coach Joe Paterno. In his case, you have someone who has done much good, but in this case (by all appearances) failed at the most important moment.
It's a fascinating subject, this concept of duality within an individual... his good deeds remain so, but one specific thing handled in entirely the wrong way impacted so much for the victims. Paterno is of course the most recognizable name involved that could have raised these allegations to police years ago, but there's also now ex Penn State President Graham Spanier and his head in the sand approach both years ago when Sandusky's crimes were raised and since the indictment came down over the weekend. If one can detach from the horrible nature of the crimes, it's a study in how people in power (now including the Penn State Board of Trustees that fired both Spanier and Paterno) react to events, create environments and set policy.
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So... the story itself has been riveting, but what's also held my attention over the past week has been the words from sports journalists reporting on the story. Some writers I respect a great deal have had fascinating observations to make and they've first appeared as real-time twitter musings and then as published columns.
There's been so many good pieces written already, but what many sports journalists and fans of sports journalism are waiting to eventually read is the announced earlier this year book from Joe Posnanski on Paterno and this season (which of course nobody could have envisioned turning out like it has). Posnanski thus far has written two different blog posts on the scandal, first Darkness and then Curiously Short Posts and I doubt he knows what his eventual book on Paterno will contain, but I have to imagine it's going to be an enthralling read. Just a guess of course, but it may well be heavy on the aforementioned duality of how a good person (which Paterno certainly seems to be) can do a bad thing (specifically, the limits to his actions taken when allegations were brought to him).
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Back to the subject of reporting and sports journalism... reading the columns and musings from good writers as this story has unfolded has gotten me thinking more about journalism and writing. To this end there's been three different pieces I've come across lately about the profession that all stand out as interesting.
First was an address given by Nate Silver to the Columbia School of Journalism. Silver founded the political blog FiveThirtyEight and in his speech imparts both his background and valuable career lessons for someone about the enter the field of journalism.
Second was a series of tweets from Tommy Tomlinson about an Ira Glass speaking event. I've also been at a live event by the This American Life creator and concur that Glass is a definite master storyteller.
Third was a tumblr site We Are Journalists I just came across today. Very interesting vignettes from people in the profession working to chase down and report well on stories... including things like the horrible crimes and subsequent inaction (and now action) out of Penn State.
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Updated on 11/14 with additional pieces that struck me on the child sex abuse scandal (not a "scandal, not a "sex scandal")...
- Good Riddance, Joe Paterno by Buzz Bissinger for The Daily Beast
- Omelas State University by author John Scalzi on his website
- The End of Paterno by Joe Posnanski on his Sports Illustrated blog
A horrific and amazing ongoing story.
Details of the actual indictment and alleged crimes within are horrifying, but what's really captured attention has been the characters apart from the accused molester Jerry Sandusky, especially living legend and now ex Penn State coach Joe Paterno. In his case, you have someone who has done much good, but in this case (by all appearances) failed at the most important moment.
It's a fascinating subject, this concept of duality within an individual... his good deeds remain so, but one specific thing handled in entirely the wrong way impacted so much for the victims. Paterno is of course the most recognizable name involved that could have raised these allegations to police years ago, but there's also now ex Penn State President Graham Spanier and his head in the sand approach both years ago when Sandusky's crimes were raised and since the indictment came down over the weekend. If one can detach from the horrible nature of the crimes, it's a study in how people in power (now including the Penn State Board of Trustees that fired both Spanier and Paterno) react to events, create environments and set policy.
-----
So... the story itself has been riveting, but what's also held my attention over the past week has been the words from sports journalists reporting on the story. Some writers I respect a great deal have had fascinating observations to make and they've first appeared as real-time twitter musings and then as published columns.
There's been so many good pieces written already, but what many sports journalists and fans of sports journalism are waiting to eventually read is the announced earlier this year book from Joe Posnanski on Paterno and this season (which of course nobody could have envisioned turning out like it has). Posnanski thus far has written two different blog posts on the scandal, first Darkness and then Curiously Short Posts and I doubt he knows what his eventual book on Paterno will contain, but I have to imagine it's going to be an enthralling read. Just a guess of course, but it may well be heavy on the aforementioned duality of how a good person (which Paterno certainly seems to be) can do a bad thing (specifically, the limits to his actions taken when allegations were brought to him).
-----
Back to the subject of reporting and sports journalism... reading the columns and musings from good writers as this story has unfolded has gotten me thinking more about journalism and writing. To this end there's been three different pieces I've come across lately about the profession that all stand out as interesting.
First was an address given by Nate Silver to the Columbia School of Journalism. Silver founded the political blog FiveThirtyEight and in his speech imparts both his background and valuable career lessons for someone about the enter the field of journalism.
Second was a series of tweets from Tommy Tomlinson about an Ira Glass speaking event. I've also been at a live event by the This American Life creator and concur that Glass is a definite master storyteller.
Third was a tumblr site We Are Journalists I just came across today. Very interesting vignettes from people in the profession working to chase down and report well on stories... including things like the horrible crimes and subsequent inaction (and now action) out of Penn State.
-----
Updated on 11/14 with additional pieces that struck me on the child sex abuse scandal (not a "scandal, not a "sex scandal")...
- Good Riddance, Joe Paterno by Buzz Bissinger for The Daily Beast
- Omelas State University by author John Scalzi on his website
- The End of Paterno by Joe Posnanski on his Sports Illustrated blog
A horrific and amazing ongoing story.
Tuesday, November 08, 2011
Boomerang by Michael Lewis & Matt Taibbi on Occupy Wall Street
Have come across some excellent writing lately on money and markets. Form of the works have been in a quote, a magazine piece and the Michael Lewis book Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World.
If Lewis's 2010 book The Big Short (which I reviewed here) looked at the recent financial meltdown at a corporate level in relation to things like Credit Default Swaps and CDOs, this new effort looks at financial train wrecks with a much larger country level. It's a riveting and fast read and separated into five sections (with my thoughts on each)...
Iceland - "Hey, let's all become heavily leveraged investment bankers assuming the markets will rise forever. What could go wrong?"
Greece - "I want services provided by the government, but see no reason to do things like pay my taxes since the government doesn't seem to mind me not paying."
Ireland - A bit like Iceland, but financial insanity through real estate development.
Germany - The adult in the room... needing to decide how much pain to take on themselves to try to rescue the irresponsible kids (or PIGS).
United States - Perhaps the most interesting simply because it's local (including Lewis writing on Vallejo and San Jose here in the Bay Area). Covers the concept of country level financial problems (like underfunded pension obligations) simply getting pushed down to the cities. Ramifications of this... bad.
Lewis has quite the talent for creating easy reading on complex topics and with Boomerang, writes an excellent (and frightening) book on bad money decisions run amok.
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On the same subject of money, greed and decisions made at a high level impacting the common folk was a piece for Rolling Stone by Matt Taibbi. "Wall Street Isn't Winning – It's Cheating" is a look at Occupy Wall Street and offers a harsh indictment of the financial system and how it's structurally set up to reward the bankers who run it. Very well written and thoughtful story.
Finally, it's only a quote, but in the same vein as the Lewis book and Taibbi article was that below from Businessweek by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (author of The Black Swan about outside of normal financial events)...
"We're not living in capitalism. We're not living in Socialism. We're living in some wierd economic situation with the banks controlling more than their share. It's like we're serving them rather than them serving us."
Saturday, November 05, 2011
Wright Thompson on Good BBQ, Les Miles and Great Pizza
There's a few writers whose stuff I'm drawn to and Wright Thompson has definitely become one of them.
A few months ago I did a post linking to a number of his pieces and fairly recently I've come across some more of his writing from various sources. To this point, the story that stood out the most did so because it was published not by ESPN (or the ESPN property Grantland that Thompson also writes for), but in Garden & Gun Magazine.
The piece is titled Pork-a-Palooza and is about Thompson joining together / hanging on with a team of BBQ aficionados (like, they make their living doing it) competing in the World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest. It's really engaging writing that coupled together with the other Thompson stuff I linked to cements the concept of him as someone whose writing oft includes first person alcohol and food indulgences (sweet niche he's carved out).
In the same (completely fantastic) subject vein, another piece of his I came across earlier today was The Best Pizza in the South from Grantland. The story is about a hole in the wall joint in Baton Rouge and chowing down with LSU football coach Les Miles and the Miles family. Yep, as noted before... pretty sweet writing life he's got there.
Linked within the Grantland story was actually the point of Thompson's time in Baton Rouge... an ESPN Outside the Lines profile on Coach Miles. I suppose it's a bit of a cliche to say, but it's one of those profile pieces that stands out because the author goes deep and gives a nuanced look at the subject's personal as well as professional life. So, it's not all about the food and booze... it's also just solid research and excellent writing from Thompson.
A few months ago I did a post linking to a number of his pieces and fairly recently I've come across some more of his writing from various sources. To this point, the story that stood out the most did so because it was published not by ESPN (or the ESPN property Grantland that Thompson also writes for), but in Garden & Gun Magazine.
The piece is titled Pork-a-Palooza and is about Thompson joining together / hanging on with a team of BBQ aficionados (like, they make their living doing it) competing in the World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest. It's really engaging writing that coupled together with the other Thompson stuff I linked to cements the concept of him as someone whose writing oft includes first person alcohol and food indulgences (sweet niche he's carved out).
In the same (completely fantastic) subject vein, another piece of his I came across earlier today was The Best Pizza in the South from Grantland. The story is about a hole in the wall joint in Baton Rouge and chowing down with LSU football coach Les Miles and the Miles family. Yep, as noted before... pretty sweet writing life he's got there.
Linked within the Grantland story was actually the point of Thompson's time in Baton Rouge... an ESPN Outside the Lines profile on Coach Miles. I suppose it's a bit of a cliche to say, but it's one of those profile pieces that stands out because the author goes deep and gives a nuanced look at the subject's personal as well as professional life. So, it's not all about the food and booze... it's also just solid research and excellent writing from Thompson.
Friday, November 04, 2011
2011 World Series Writing
Following on the heels of an incredible final day of the regular season was an equally astounding (more so given the stage) World Series with the St. Louis Cardinals winning in 7 games.
There was great writing done on that Game 162 (with pieces by Messrs. Verducci, Posnanski and Kruse linked to here) and as could be expected, also some excellent pieces on the World Series and particularly the epic Game 6. Starting things off with the widest (post World Series) view was the excellent Go Crazy, Baseball, Go Crazy by Tom Verducci story for Sports Illustrated.
There was great writing done on that Game 162 (with pieces by Messrs. Verducci, Posnanski and Kruse linked to here) and as could be expected, also some excellent pieces on the World Series and particularly the epic Game 6. Starting things off with the widest (post World Series) view was the excellent Go Crazy, Baseball, Go Crazy by Tom Verducci story for Sports Illustrated.
It doesn't take anything away from the very solid Verducci piece, but the unbelievable if not real 6th game of the World Series provided the writing that stuck with me the most, with the three most memorable pieces below...
- 2011 World Series: David Freese caps Cardinals’ unbelievable comeback by Thomas Boswell for the Washington Post.
- David Freese, St. Louis force Game 7 by Jayson Stark for ESPN.
- Game Six by Joe Posnanski for his Sports Illustrated blog.
Wednesday, November 02, 2011
Michael McRae & Mark Jenkins in Outside Magazine
Having recently subscribed to Outside Magazine (after not getting it for the past few years), I found a couple of interesting features in the November issue.
Piece that stood out the most was How the Nomad Found Home on conservationist Mike Fay. Written by Michael McRae, it details Fay's work creating National Parks and championing conservation in Africa and more recently holing up in the Southeast Alaskan wilderness. It's an interesting portrait of a guy extremely dedicated to his causes... and who has been able to accomplish quite a bit in relation to them.
Other story from this issue of Outside that I noted was Amundsen Schlepped Here by Mark Jenkins. The piece is about Jenkins and his brother Steve skiing the path across the Hardangervidda Plateau taken 100 years ago by adventurer Roald Amundsen.
While the writing was solid and contents interesting, what got me was recalling my three years ago reading and then posting on The Hard Way by Jenkins. Seems a long time ago this blog was begun in earnest, but it's been enjoyable writing (and reading the stuff written on).
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