Words Written Down Book

Yep, I wrote a book.



It can be found via both the Amazon & Scribd links below... with Scribd providing the ability to download a PDF version containing all the links referenced in the book (yea, I know the huge royalties don't come to me if the book simply downloaded).

Amazon Words Written Down page

Scribd Words Written Down page - and Scibd file also at bottom of this post

Intent of writing the book was to take much of the blog content I've written over the past few years, compile and edit it down a touch, group it into the categories noted below and... call it it a book (many more details on my blog post Words Written Down Book Process) and myself an author (with "self-published" in tiny little font).

-----

Below taken from the book front and back covers as well as content section of introduction...


Back cover / Overview

Words Written Down is a compilation book project that came out of the blog www.wordswrittendown.com and an appreciation of words put down on a page in a meaningful order.

The blog itself was begun some 3 ½ years ago and contains the following top of page description: Blog is all about words because... they matter, they influence, they entertain and when you take 'em and put them down on a page in a meaningful order, they acquire permanence. Contained here are a bunch of written words in the form of book reviews, magazine and web article links & summaries and other stuff I like to write about.

Links noted throughout the book can be found at the referenced blog post and criterion for inclusion of each revolves around the concept of Interesting. If writing was deemed interesting, it‘s noted along with my ruminations on the topic and view of what makes that particular set of words grouped together into a book or story be so good that they acquire permanence.

The goal of Words Written Down is to highlight and pay homage to this permanence of words. Why? Cause I like words.


Content areas

- Writing – includes content from others on writing, my ruminations on it and a soliloquy post on the topic of Social Media.

- Work – posts on both links to career related content and my writing around work.

- Sports – lots of extremely entertaining content linked to and written about in this category… love me some great sports writing. Also, it’s a bit of an obvious statement but excellent sports writing is about more than just sports. Pieces referenced came from Sports Illustrated more than any other source.

- Business – includes companies, profiles and lots of other business related content written on and linked to. Some of the specific areas of business covered (and noted in the blog tag cloud) include customer service, social media and cloud computing. Content referenced as interesting came from a variety of sources, with Businessweek and Fast Company fairly heavily represented.

- Everything else – perhaps could have been named better, but really is… everything else (life, current events, history, politics, money, profiles, etc) in terms of non-book content written on and linked to. A fair amount of the content noted came from both writing in and writers for Time or Esquire.

- Book reviews – Not all the books were great, but definitely quite a few excellent ones I’ve read and posted reviews on here.


Scribd book page - can either view book online or download as a PDF file (from both the Scribd site hyperlinked and below)

Words Written Down Book

Career change pieces: on writers James Erwin & Kevin Van Valkenburg / football coach Joe Moglia

I've come across a number of pieces over the last few weeks with each interesting and all involving career changes.

Longest of the pieces was "How One Response to a Reddit Query Became a Big-Budget Flick" for Wired by Jason Fagone. I first heard of Fagone from an excellent Esquire profile on iconoclastic video-game programmer Jason Rohrer and he tells in the Wired piece quite a career change tale. Reddit is website community where people can link to or post original content they find interesting and Fagone details how Reddit resulted in Des Moines, IA based James Erwin going from being a technical writer to signed by Warner Brothers studio screenwriter.

It's a somewhat amazing path, but which actually makes sense after reading some of Erwin's content reprinted in the Wired piece. The trigger for his writing came from a Reddit discussion thread about modern day armed forces battling in ancient Rome to which Erwin posted fictional vignettes about a US Marine Expeditionary Unit dropped into that setting. It was compelling writing which then (a) acquired a subreddit heading of RomeSweetRome, (b) was found by a Hollywood talent agent and (c) led to the Warner Brothers deal to write a full screenplay and Erwin's leave of absence from his technical writing gig. It was a well written piece by Fagone that details a very cool tale of a guy who did some extremely creative work.

-----

Related to the same writing career change subject (though, not as large a change as Erwin's), I enjoyed quite a bit the commentary "Kevin Van Valkenburg: A fond farewell to The Sun and its readers." It was written upon Van Valkenburg's leaving (of his own volition) the Baltimore Sun to write for ESPN and has some profound content on writing, working and taking chances.

-----

Finally, it doesn't have the same writing career element, but another piece of note lately very much had the same career change theme... and follows up on a story seen previously. In September 2010, I did the (long-titled) post "Ex-CEO as Nebraska Volunteer Coach / Not too Late for Career Changes" that linked to a story on Joe Moglia.

I hadn't heard anything new on the former Ameritrade executive who wanted to be a college football coach until seeing the piece "Former CEO taking over at Coastal Carolina." Written by Reid Forgrave for the site Fox Sports Carolinas, the piece details Moglia's background and move from the Cornhuskers to head of a United Football League team and now... head coach for football at Coastal Carolina University. One could take the cynical view and say that Moglia's money helped him get the gig, but it seems more accurate to say his money helped him have the time to work really hard to reach this career goal. Would certainly have been easy to just be content with what he'd accomplished previously, but it was cool reading about Moglia going after something he wanted to do.

Writing of Niceness - by & about Marilyn Hagerty

There was an interesting piece published earlier this month in a North Dakota newspaper earlier this month that had an absolutely fascinating reaction to it... with that reaction yielding some other interesting writing.

The piece itself was "Long-awaited Olive Garden Receives Warm Welcome" and the restaurant review from 85 year-old Grand Forks Herald columnist Marilyn Hagerty went viral on the Internet due to its earnest and seemingly small town take on the new Olive Garden. The review was humorous for this reason, but what really struck me was this concept of earnest and what a few other writers had to say about it in relation to Hagerty.

Two pieces that came from writers I follow were "In Web world, can we be sincere and cool, too?" by Tommy Tomlinson for the Charlotte Observer and "The Olive Garden" on the personal log of Joe Posnanski. The pieces were each written out of an Olive Garden meal the two friends shared and both expressed well an admiration for writing by Hagerty that was plain-spoken, but more to the point... devoid of sarcasm, biting irony or other vehicles of excessive critique. Posnanski's blog post was the longer of the two pieces and included a great vignette about him spending time with his daughters at Disney World and how it is that age tends to bring out the cynical in people. Really cool content that reminded me of a different Joe Posnanski blog post "Katie The Prefect" on an experience his daughter had at Harry Potter World and how great it is to still be young and excited by things.

A third recent and related piece was from her son, James Hagerty, a Wall Street Journal writer. "When Mom Goes Viral" provided more detail around someone writing what they felt and having that authenticity be the driver of their work. While on the path of "writing this story brought to mind", I also thought of an excellent interview with Dave Eggers where the author wrote about the import of doing things of interest without getting caught up in worrying about how outsiders will react to or judge your efforts.

Time Magazine Pieces: Journalists Escaping Syria / Climate Change & Bill McKibben

There were a few excellent pieces of writing from the past couple issues of Time Magazine, starting with the most recent Mar 19 edition.



Cover story was "Escape from Syria" by Vivienne Walt and tells the story of journalists being targeted for death by and attempting to escape the Syrian Armed Forces of President Bashar al-Assad. It's extremely harrowing content taken from journalists William Daniels and Edith Bouvier who were able to get out of the country (with Bouvier badly injured) after surviving the rocket attack that killed journalist colleagues Marie Colvin and Remi Ochlik. Extremely important writing in this piece that's prefaced in the beginning of the issue by "The Need to Bear Witness in Syria" from Time Managing Editor Richard Stengel.

-----

Two additional Time pieces of import were from the Mar 12 edition and dealt with the subject of climate change and efforts to mitigate our impact on the environment. Both pieces by Bryan Walsh, "Cold Warrior" profiled environmental writer Bill McKibben and "Nature Is Over" overviewed (as part of the issue's "Ten Ideas Changing Your Life" section) changes to the earth and environment in what's now being termed the Anthropocene epoch: the age of man.

Businessweek Pieces: Twitter / Coursera / Andrew Stanton / Pulse App / Nextdoor / Olympic Ambush Marketing / Pico Iyer

As often seems to be the case, there were quite a few interesting pieces from Businessweek lately.

Cover story of the March 5-11 issue was "Twitter, the Startup That Wouldn't Die" by Brad Stone. Written on one of my favorite companies, it's a solid look at company providing a remarkable global communication platform for causes, businesses and individuals. Also, the topic gives me reason to reference again an excellent Clay Travis piece on Twitter from a few months back and for the first time "Fast Company: The Women of Twitter" by Jacob Weisberg for Vogue.

A couple of smaller pieces of interest from this issue were the following...

- "Top Secret: Durex's Olympic Condoms" on efforts by the London Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games to prevent ambush marketing by companies who aren't official Olympic sponsors.

- "Daphne Koller Brings the World Into Stanford Classes" about free online education offerings from major universities and delivered through Koller's company, Coursera.

- "Can a Pixar Whiz Conquer Live Action?" about the upcoming Disney live action movie, John Carter. I ordinarily wouldn't be that interested in the movie (or how successful it is), but hope to see it do well after viewing an interesting TED talk on storytelling with Andrew Stanton, writer and director of John Carter (as well as Wall-E and Finding Nemo).

The March 12-18 issue also had a few pieces of note with the largest being another example of a Businessweek story from a well-known writer who typically writes on non-business topics. "Ballad of the Road Warrior" was from Pico Iyer, author of a book I read back in 2008, The Open Road: The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama. Solid piece from Iyer for this BW that features his really lyrical writing style.

Two other pieces that stood out from the Mar 12-18 issue were both about companies with offerings around local news and connections. "Nirav Tolia: Hyperlocal Boy Makes Good" is about Nextdoor... branded on its site as The private social network for your neighborhood. Second piece was "The Pulse App Goes Local" on the extremely popular (and Flipboard competing) news app from Alphonso Labs.

Sports Illustrated Pieces on Rhiannon Hull / Jack Jablonski

There were two Sports Illustrated features from the past few weeks that stood out for their impact.

From the Feb 27 issue was "The Way We Play The Game" around the paralyzing injury suffered by Minnesota high school hockey player Jack Jablonski. The story was written by Karen Schneider, the mom of a fellow player, and is a profound tale that's also solid writing. I've previously noted writing on high school football injuries with this post including a Patrick Hruby written piece and this post a story by San Jose Mercury News writer Mark Purdy and (while I feel it much safer than football), hockey a sport with the potential for life altering injuries.

From the Mar 12 issue of SI David Epstein and L. Jon Wertheim wrote "Distance Runner Rhiannon Hull was always eager to push the limits of her endurance, then the pacific ocean put her to the ultimate test." The piece fairly early on includes the sentence "Rhiannon Hull was in the homestretch of the most important race she would ever win. And lose." Probably quite a few different emotions that could be evoked from reading the story, but the overriding thing is it's powerful writing on love, life and death.

Businessweek Pieces: Starbucks, HARP 2.0, Mitt Romney, Stripe and Car Engines

There was a bevy of interesting content out of two recent Businessweek issues... the Feb 13 and Feb 27 editions.

From the further back Feb 13 issue with Vladimir Putin on the cover came an interesting feature story as well as shorter vignette of note. The feature was written by Stefan Faris and titled "Grounds Zero: A Starbucks-Free Italy" on the Seattle-based retailer not currently having any locations in the country that inspired its offering. I imagine Starbucks head Howard Schultz has his reasons to not be there (and may well have plans and timelines to enter the market), but it's pretty remarkable from a symbolic perspective that it hasn't happened yet. From this same issue came the fairly short piece "A Solution to the Housing Crisis Could Be at Hand" that details the government Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP 2.0) aimed at helping people current on their payments, but still underwater refinance.

The Feb 27 issue was similar to that from the 13th in that it had a feature story of note along with smaller piece of interest (in this case, two pieces). Cover article was "Mitt Romney's Box of Kryptonite" by Paul Barrett and the piece stood out not really as being a hatchet job on Romney, but rather one than that seems to point out Romney taking credit for something not warranted. As I wrote about in a June 2010 blog post, companies are primarily designed to be profit-making enterprises (with publicly traded ones by law having mandates around trying to increase shareholder value) so Romney's time pursuing profits as the CEO of private equity firm Bain Capital shouldn't be a black mark on him. However, Romney's attempts to paint himself as a job creator from that time should be examined as there's examples like from the Barrett piece where increased profit often came at the expense of worker's jobs. Romney as a candidate can't have it both ways... to have done well at Bain is well and good, but to run on a platform of job creation while stating no involvement in job loss comes across as a bit selective.

From this same Feb 27 issue was also two smaller pieces of note: "Stripe Aims to Reinvent E-Payments" is on the competing with PayPal (and Square) credit card processing company and "Hybrids' Unlikely Rival: Plain Old Cars" details the fuel efficiency improvements seen in the standard internal combustion engines for many new cars.

"The Bullpen Gospels" by Dirk Hayhurst

Recently finished reading The Bullpen Gospels by Dirk Hayhurst and found it to be an entertaining read from the former minor (and briefly major) league relief pitcher.



I heard about the book from a New York Times piece by Tyler Kepner titled "Far From a Storybook Ending, a So-So Pitcher Turns the Page" and felt that the book content could be divided into (A) that on the hijinks in and around a minor league clubhouse and (B) that on Hayhurst's life with both his family and around the experiences that mean something to him.

The stuff around baseball itself was somewhat interesting and entertaining to me, but really just solidified something I had already thought was the case... it's a hard road being a minor league athlete. Unless it came as a signing bonus, you're not making much money, but have tremendous pressure on you... both to succeed and advance to "become a real major league player" and to fulfill fan expectations of you (love how minor league players get in trouble for giving away baseballs).

The interesting part of the book to me came from the content about Hayhurst's family with the alcoholic brother, father who suffered a debilitating injury and mother who was just tired of iut all. This twisted background mixed into the story of Hayhurst's stories of extreme kindness with giving away his boots to a homeless guy and bringing the three year old cancer kid into the bullpen to demonstrate that the actual wins and losses in baseball just not that important.

To this point, the intro quote to the book (which was later echoed in a conversation with allstar Padres closer Trevor Hoffman) seemed to encapsulate his view with the quote "for all the great things baseball is, there are some things it is absolutely not. And that is what this story is about."

Overall, it was a nice read... and is followed up by the just recently released Out of My League from Hayhurst.

Writing from ESPN The Magazine - on Ricky Williams, Stan Conte & Brandon McCarthy

There were three excellent pieces from the Mar 5 issue of ESPN The Magazine.

Shortest of them was the Chris Jones back-page commentary "Peace out" on my favorite NFL player, Ricky Williams, announcing his retirement. The writing is solid to be sure, but the subject in Ricky is so captivating to me with a guy who has taken his own path through life and (as posts to his Twitter account seem to indicate) really seems to love what he's doing. Additionally, the commentary by Jones on going to Australia to write a 2004 Esquire profile on Williams is just riveting stuff.

The two other pieces stood out not so much for their Point Break-esque "finding you on a beach in Australia" imagery, but for simply being on really interesting subjects. "Saviormetrics" was written by Eddie Katz and details the advanced statistics (yes, Moneyball type statistics) tracked and strived towards excellence in by Oakland A's pitcher Brandon McCarthy.

Also about baseball and tending towards the detailed (it was the Analytics Issue of the magazine, after all) was "The Hurt Talker" on LA Dodgers Director of Medical Services Stan Conte. It was a fascinating piece by Bryce Duffy that overviews Conte's attempts to profile player acquisition candidates to predict whether they'll suffer injury. Concept could well be described as rigorously applying past data (both aggregate on injuries and specific on players) to make the completely unknown a little bit... well, known. An inexact science to be sure, but very interesting reading about someone approaching it as a science rather than just a guess and a prayer.

Writing on the Amazing - from Esquire, GQ, NYT & Smithsonian Magazine

This compilation post has been a while in coming (drat that cold), but there's been some excellent writing I've come across lately that falls under the shared umbrella of amazing stories (not the TV show kind).

Oldest piece was "Burning Man" by Jay Kirk from the Feb issue issue of GQ Magazine. The story of US combat vet Sam Brown and his experience dealing with pain after suffering severe burns on much of his body. Its remarkable stuff that utilizes immersive Virtual Reality technology (in Brown's case a program called SnowWorld developed at the University of Washington) to distract users away from thinking about their pain.

Also from GQ, but the March issue was "51 Dead in Ohio" by Chris Heath on the Zaneszille, OH release and subsequent hunting down of exotic animals. In an excellent example of journalistic striving, Esquire in its March issue had the Chris Jones story "Animals" about the same horrible events. Its understandable that what went down in Zanesville would draw such feature story interest so since they were both written - I may as well compare the two.

I've certainly seen a lot more work by Jones than Heath and so I expected to like his Zanesville story more (and did), but I also liked some of the areas that Heath went to in his story that Jones decided to stay away from in the interest of focus. To that point, the piece by Jones deals almost 100% with that evening and in an almost clinical fashion takes the reader through the discovery of the animals being loose and then their being hunted by police. Jones talked about it in an interview with fellow Journalist Brandon Sneed, but he both wanted the piece to read like a police report and give the message, but not in a commentary form, that actions taken by the Sheriff and his men were absolutely necessary. It was an incredibly compelling read that led from one "what's next?" moment to another. Back to the GQ feature from Heath... his approach to the story differed in that he split it up into three parts- one on the events of the night (focus from Jones), one on people owning and keeping exotic animals and one on the man with the 50 exotic animals he let loose on his property prior to taking his own life. This third portion on Terry Thompson was tremendously interesting writing that gave a view into someone who would make such an incredibly reckless and selfish decision.

-----

Getting completely away from rampaging lions and tigers (no, not gonna complete that phrase), there were two other pieces to include here that dealt with people reminiscent of the Dos Equis Most Interesting Man in the World. From Mike Dash for the Smithsonian Magazine came The Mysterious Mr. Zedzed: The Wickedest Man in the World (yeah, same alliteration as the Dos Equis guy, but also quite a dude) on turn of the 20th Century arms merchant Basil Zaharoff. Many steps back on the wicked scale, but appearing just as remarkable as Zaharoff was the subject of a New York Times obit written by Margalit Fox. John Fairfax, Who Rowed Across Oceans, Dies at 74 includes the following "At 9, he settled a dispute with a pistol. At 13, he lit out for the Amazon jungle. At 20, he attempted suicide-by-jaguar. Afterward he was apprenticed to a pirate." I mean, enough said!

"Public Parts" by Jeff Jarvis

Took me a while to make it through it, but I a few days ago finished Public Parts by Jeff Jarvis.



I enjoyed quite a bit the prior Jarvis book What Would Google Do? and while I didn't get quite as much out of Public Parts, found it still to be an interesting read. Book carries the subtitle How Sharing in the Digital Age Improves the Way We Work and Live and has some really solid content about how information is now exchanged. Jarvis writes about us living in the age of links and offers an examination and endorsement of Twitter that reminds me a great deal of the Clay Travis website post "2011 Belonged To Twitter, So Does the Future of Sports Media." Quite a few similarities in the extolling of Twitter's virtues, with the immediacy of news (such as on the Tahir Square events in Cairo, Egypt) being foremost.

Additionally, Jarvis examines the overarching question of public vs private and while it seemed to drag at times, did provide good historical context around things like the printing press as well as geographic context in looking at German push back against Google Street View mapping.

All in all, was a good book for those interested in public vs private as well as Information Technology (more to the point, Information Dissemination), where its at and where its headed.

Outside Magazine Pieces - by James Nestor & Brian Mockenhaupt

There were two stories that stood out as particularly interesting and well written from the March issue of Outside Magazine.



The first piece was "Open Your Mouth and You're Dead" by James Nestor and chronicles the 2011 Freediving World Championships held in Greece. It was an engaging piece on people pushing themselves to the limit (not just "giving 110% on the field", but at times almost dying limit) in a sport that doesn't really pay financially. I don't know that I've seen any of Nestor's work previously, but his writing really had an element of suspense to it and it made for a tremendously interesting story.

Also in this issue was "As Long As They Both Shall Live" by Brian Mockenhaupt, someone whose work I've seen previously (in Esquire). Its solid writing that features the subtitle "Professional daredevils Rex and Melissa Pemberton were drawn together by a mutual passion for risk and adrenaline. Now they have a marriage based on love, trust, and the strange, stoic acceptance that their life partner could die at any moment." The Pemberton's seem to do better financially than the Freediving athletes, but also appear to live and work with greater risk as evidenced by their friends who have died while in aeronautics (Melissa's specialty) or extreme sports pursuits.

Comparing this piece to the one by Nestor, his work perhaps has more of a building of tension throughout and Mockenhaupt does a great job of relating how the risk taken on both by Rex and Melissa becomes more profound given that one could die and leave the other behind.

Excellent Sports Writing - from Ballard, Lake, Bamberger & Hruby

There have been a number of sports pieces I've come across lately that featured really solid writing worth noting.

Personal favorite was "Man in Full" from Chris Ballard a week ago for Sports Illustrated. It was profound and thoroughly reported (as detailed in my blog post linking to a Ballard interview) writing on Chicago area high school wrestling coach Mike Powell. Stricken with the muscle wasting disease polymyositis, Powell is put in horrible personal circumstances and what makes the story so compelling is his continued relationship to the team of kids he leads. Really well done piece by Ballard which includes Powell's career path working with kids in need and imparting to his athletes a lesson of "manliness" different than is traditionally associated with the term. Its not to say one guy exactly the same as another, but the story of Powell reminded me of that I saw years ago on youth track coach John Baker (who had an elementary school named in his honor).

The most recent Feb 20 issue of SI also had two pieces that stood out with one being another profound high school athlete related story and one an insightful golf piece. The "writing with great meaning" was done by Thomas Lake and titled "The Legacy Of Wes Leonard". Subtitle to the piece is "You may have heard about the Michigan high schooler who made a game-winning basket and then died. Here's the rest of the story: a violent car crash, a bone-shaking tackle, a near-perfect season, a reluctant substitute and a search for the will to carry on" and what got me most from the story was the content about the automatic external defibrillator. Leonard suffered a sudden cardiac arrest of his heart and its definitely unknown whether a defibrillator would have saved him, but the potentially lifesaving machine at the high school had been neglected and found to have a dead battery when applied to Leonard's chest. Out of this sad situation has come some good, though, with mother Jocelyn Leonard creating the Wes Leonard Heart Team and spearheading efforts to have a working defibrillator available at youth sporting events with someone trained to use it. Additionally, of note on the Heart Team site is a link to an ESPN Outside the Lines 16 minute story "Wes Leonard: Never Forgotten".

From the same issue of Sports Illustrated came a piece that stood out to me in part because I didn't expect it to. "The Meaning Of Pebble Beach" by Michael Bamberger could have simply been a recap of the recent PGA Tour event, but instead wound up as an insightful look into Tiger Woods and where he is now in both life and his golf game. Its very cool to come across pieces like this that don't scream out "feature story on something of great meaning", but wind up as interesting and insightful.

Last piece to note here was written by Patrick Hruby in the Yahoo Sports ThePostGame section. "End Game: Brain Trauma And The Future Of Youth Football In America" details the head injury suffered by Sequim, WA high school QB Drew Rickerson and then gets wider on the danger of concussions and need for concussion education. It was sad, but not surprising to read of mother Jean Rickerson and her attempt to further awareness and training around concussions and getting ignored by some coaches and administrators. This difficulty in getting people to move past their preconceived notions of "toughness" and "playing through pain" reminded me of something from the excellent Thomas Lake SI story "The Boy Who Died of Football". Lake wrote the following towards the end of a piece on Max Gilpin, a 15 year old who suffered heatstroke during a practice and then passed away: "Later, when he looked back at his son's last practice, Jeff Gilpin was filled with pride and wonder. "I underestimated this kid, big-time," he said. "His heart. Can you imagine the fortitude it took to keep running out there?"

Back to Hruby and his piece on concussions, his commentary at the end of the piece is me thinks spot on with "Protect our national pastime. Protect our children's brains. The hope is that we can do both. Biology and physics suggest otherwise. Safer does not mean safe. In locker rooms and school board meetings, quiet funerals and noisy grandstands, the future of youth football may not be matter of risk management. It may be a matter of risk acceptance. Roll the dice."

Writers on Writing - by Ballard, Jones & Sullivan

There's been a few great interviews I've come across lately featuring top level writers dishing on the process of writing.

Its probably fitting that one interview was with Esquire writer Chris Jones as he's the guy whose writing helped spark my interest in great non-fiction prose, and then fed the flames of said interest with his Son of Bold Venture blog about "writing and words". Interview itself was done by Brandon Sneed on his website (which has also been a source of motivation about writing as a process). It was really interesting content under the title "Chris Jones of Esquire on His Zanesville Zoo Massacre Story 'Animals,' 'The Most Dramatic Story Of The Year'". I'm waiting for the hard copy Esquire to arrive before reading the piece, but there was excellent nuggets of wisdom from Jones (prompted by Sneed questions) around writing. My take aways (which may well be different than other people's) from the piece are as follows: Heavy sense of content focus by Jones with it being centered around the police and the writing in it being something sparse, that "reads almost like a police report". Idea I took from this was the import of deciding on a particular approach to take and then following through (maybe that approach gets course corrected in the writing process, but hopefully doesn't come to that). Also interesting from Jones was his commentary about writing to music... which I've heard before and his doing so actually referenced in one of the other recent interviews I've seen).

Since I just brought it up... Sneed even more recently did for his website another great writing interview, this one with a writer answering questions about a piece I've actually already read! "Chris Ballard of Sports Illustrated on his Mike Powell Story "Man In Full"—And Way More" contains some excellent writing wisdom type content from Ballard (again, extracted by Sneed's questions), most notable to me being the following: Ballard started at Sports Illustrated as a fact-checker and built up to doing feature pieces (a completely different approach to getting an SI gig than Thomas Lake wrote of his path being). Interesting was how fact-checking hammered home the need to be thorough in reporting... a common theme from writer wisdom pieces (like this featuring Michael Kruse) is the importance of solid reporting rather than simply grabbing perfect words out of the air. Also tremendously insightful from Ballard was his comment about immediately writing down an insight or feeling that strikes him. I've noticed in my own writing that I'll have a visceral reaction towards something I read, but if I don't note it immediately, I may have a hard time remembering what it was (this has led with the reading of books to needing to decide whether to take notes whilst reading as opposed to just finishing the thing and then going back through to capture the high points). Ballard also writes in this interview some excellent structure content with the Powell story (which was great, and I will post on before long) as containing multiple acts and a specific focus (reminiscent of Jones and his decisions made prior to writing). From a where and how to write perspective, there was interesting content about writing with friends in a bar as well as the idea of (poached from Jones) of writing to one song on repeat). Additionally, there was good content on the outline, structure and lede of this particular piece written about Mike Powell and Ballard provided recommendations to other great writing, including The Imaginary Girlfriend, a sort of autobiography by prolific writer John Irving.

After I've rambled on about the great content from Jones and Ballard, will be somewhat more brief about the third writer piece I've seen lately. Bookforum did an interview with John Jeremiah Sullivan which included content both on his book of essays, Pulphead (which I enjoyed tremendously) and areas of interest as a writer. Specifically, Sullivan wrote "I’m working on a book now about a German lawyer, an obscure jurist from Upper Saxony who came to the New World, to South Carolina, in the 1730s. He tried to establish an enlightened republic among Cherokee Indians beyond the frontier, and he wrote a book, a kind of utopian manifesto that, based on what we know about it, was a century or more ahead of its time philosophically. It was destroyed when the English arrested him in the 1740s and it became a sort of a famous lost book. In my book, I’m making the case that I’ve identified it, that it exists. I’m very curious about what happens to the Enlightenment when it arrives in the South." Sounds to me like it would be a terribly interesting read and brings to mind someone like Erik Larson who writes history, but seems to do so with an excellent narrative bent.

Time Magazine Pieces: Facebook timeline / JC Penny pricing / GOP Presidential Race / Mediterranean diet

There's been some excellent writing from the past few issues of Time Magazine. In the Feb 6 edition, the excellent David Von Drehle wrote "Who will be the GOP Candidate?" on the current slate of Presidential nominees.

More recently, the Feb 13 issue had two interesting business related pieces with "This Is Your Life (According to Your New Timeline)" by Allie Townsend on Facebook and "The Price Is Righter" by Brad Tuttle about pricing strategies at J.C. Penney under new CEO Ron Johnson, former head of Apple retail stores.

Finally, the latest issue of Time contained "Eat like an Italian" on the health benefits of the Mediterranean diet. It was an excellent piece by Stephan Faris that really hammered home how good it is to eat fruits, vegetables, nuts and bean.

Businessweek Pieces: on Amazon / Zappos / United Airlines & Hearsay Social

There was some interesting content from the last few issues of Businessweek starting off with the Jan 30-Feb 5 cover story.



Written by Brad Stone, "Amazon's Hit Man" details the new in-house publishing imprint at the web retail giant. Concept is for Amazon to hold tighter control over book pricing and distribution by cutting out traditional publishing houses and signing agreements with the authors themselves. Its an interesting approach led within Amazon by Larry Kirshbaum, the former head of Time Warner Book Group and has already resulted in agreements with Tim Ferriss, James Franco and Penny Marshall.

The Feb 6-12 issue as well featured an interesting cover story along with a few other pieces of note.



"Making the World's Largest Airline Fly" was a solid look at integration work out of the United-Continental merger. The piece was written by Drake Bennett and details the thousands of needed decisions around areas such as customer care systems and coffee to provide. Additionally, "Las Vegas: Startup City" is on Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh and his backing of development efforts in the area around headquarters for the Amazon division. Its an interesting look from Brad Stone at personal for-profit efforts that also have an altruistic bent. Also of note from this issue was the short piece "Clara Shih's Hearsay Social" on the writer behind The Facebook Era: Tapping Online Social Networks to Market, Sell, and Innovate. Shih was working at Salesforce.com is 2007, then built herself into a Social Media expert and in 2009, wrote her book and started the consulting company Hearsay Social... and more recently was named to the Starbucks board of directors.

"Pulphead" by John Jeremiah Sullivan

Recently finished reading Pulphead by John Jeremiah Sullivan: a book of largely first person essays done really well.

Sullivan's writing reminded me of that from Wright Thompson with his story subjects tending towards his southern home area and reading his essays inspired a jealously due to the things experienced. The most memorable story from Pulphead was "Violence of the Lambs", a story that... well, I don't know how to describe it other than to echo the words of accomplished Tampa Times writer Ben Montgomery and say its the strangest magazine story I've ever read.

Other essays from the book that struck me were the following: "Upon this Rock" - on Sullivan's time at the Creation Christian rock festival, "Feet in Smoke" - on his brother electrocuting himself and almost dying, "Mr. Lytle: an Essay" - on time spent living and working on his writing with an aging professor, "At a Shelter (After Katrina)" - about his experiences along the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina and which featured a fascinating reference to end of the world type experiences, "Michael" - on the amazing talent and completely different than all other people Michael Jackson, "The Final Comeback of Axl Rose" - about time spent looking into how the lead singer of the seminal rock band grew up" and "Unnamed Caves" - covers time Sullivan spent with some of the leading archaeologists and cave explorers of caverns in the south.

Again, amazing experiences that Sullivan has had and the writing is of such quality to make me interested in going back once more to read his book Blood Horses, a sort-of memoir, sort of history of horses and horse racing. I'm not interested at all in the horse part, but very much curious to read more about the life experiences of Sullivan.

Excellent Sports Writing - from Reilly, Wetzel, Lake, Segura, Phillips & Wertheim

Have seen a host of interesting pieces of sports writing lately from a few different sources.

The recent Feb 6, 2012 issue of Sports Illustrated had two of them in Game, Set, Matchless by Jon Wertheim and Under Siege by Thomas Lake and Melissa Segura.

The Wertheim story was on the just under six hours epic Australian Open Final between Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal. Solid writing on a domination of men's tennis with Wertheim noting that 24 of the last 28 Grand Slam semifinal spots have been claimed by one of Djokovic, Nadal, Roger Federer and Andy Murray (with the four in that order as of late). Its a pretty remarkable level of competition right now and brings to mind Wertheim's chronicling of what at the time was more just a Federer-Nadal rivalry in his 2009 book Strokes of Genius.

On the same just completed Australian Open Final, Brian Phillips penned the exceedingly well written Nadal vs. Djokovic: Here We Are Again, My Friend for Grantland. Piece covers the same four-headed domination of the men's tour, but differs from that by Wertheim in that Phillips gets further into Nadal and his drive, brilliant play... and still coming up short. Definitely writing on athletic struggle that traffics in the profound.

The Lake and Segura story in this same issue of Sport Illustrated was on the three months ago kidnapping of Washington Nationals catcher Wilson Ramos in his native Venezuela. Lake's writing carries an air of thorough reporting and this piece no exception as he and Segura delve into the particulars of the case and what may or may not have been the reality of his capture by Venezuelan government agents.

Another Jon Wertheim piece that stood out recently was Driving for Home from the Jan 23 issue of SI. About Delaware college hoops star Elena Della Donne, it brings to mind the 2009 Selena Roberts commentary "Burning To Play Again" on the at Deleware, but not yet returned to the game of basketball Della Donne.

Finally, two excellent pieces recently on New England Patriots QB Tom Brady. Shortly after his Super Bowl loss to the Giants, Dan Wetzel wrote Tom Brady in postgame daze of disappointment for Yahoo Sports and Rick Reilly did Tom Brady is as advertised for ESPN. Wetzel's story takes a more conventionally reporting approach than Reilly's (makes sense as Reilly tends towards commentary with his writing) and each shows Brady as someone who has both stayed a good guy and continued to try really really hard despite being at the top of his profession.

Writing on Joe Paterno and his passing

Perhaps not the most timely of blog posts given the short news cycle that rules the day, but there was some exceptional writing over the past few weeks on former Penn State coach Joe Paterno.

Shortly after his January 22 passing from lung cancer were two pieces from esteemed journalists, one of whom had conducted the last ever interview with Paterno just a week prior. Sally Jenkins wrote Joe Paterno dies, leaving a record for others to debate for the Washington Post and for Sports Illustrated, Jack McCallum penned Joe Paterno wasn't perfect, but legacy more than final chapter.

Over the next week there were two stories on Paterno that stood out for their depth in reporting on the man. Joe Posnanski (currently writing a book on Paterno scheduled for release this fall) did Paterno's final days: no bitterness, just marveling at his fortunate life for Sports Illustrated and Wright Thompson wrote for ESPN the ridiculously lyrical Bringing home Joe on son Jay Paterno and reaction of Penn State faithful to his father's passing.

Writing on Writing - from Kruse, Lake, Altucher and Pearlman

Have come across a number of interesting pieces lately on the why and how of writing that bear noting.

Two different writer interviews were The Fury Files: Michael Kruse for the blog TVFury and Thomas Lake on Pop Herring, How to Make It as a Journalist, Coffee, and Why You "Have To Get Yourself Good" by Brandon Sneed for his website.

From the Kruse interview I was struck by his statements on the absolute importance of solid reporting to the nonfiction writing process and the very methodical outlining he does prior to and as part of the actual writing. Super detailed work that's a long ways from just sitting down and letting nonfiction magic flow to the page.

The interview with Thomas Lake also featured the same idea of reporting leading to the story and an at times absolute dogged pursuit of access and information. Additionally, Lake spoke of his career path and the six years, four newspaper jobs and over a thousand stories written until he reached out to someone who opened the door for him to land at Sports Illustrated. Very cool content about putting in the work.

Still on writing, but on a specific output of writing were two additional blog mentions of interest. James Altucher wrote Self-Publishing Your Own Book is the New Business Card which echoed and expanded on sentiments expressed in his book I Was Blind But Now I See and Jeff Pearlman wrote on his blog Chris Dessi comes of age about his former classmates self-published book on Social Media Your World is Exploding.

"Man Seeks God" by Eric Weiner

Having previously enjoyed immensely The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner I looked forward for some time to his recently published Man Seeks God: My Flirtations with the Divine.



The book came out of a health scare that included him in the hospital being asked "have you found your God yet?" Weiner comes from a Jewish background, but his not terribly devout path led to the idea of him trying out various religions to see how they fit him and figure out what he truly believes.

It's obviously a very personal construct for a book and the best parts of it were those where Weiner gets colloquial and personal about his experiences and thoughts on them. To this end, he reveals in the book nagging bouts of depression and self-doubt. Particularly interesting was his self-description of the pain that comes from doing things "7/8 assed... neither all the way nor not caring."

For the purpose of the religious exploration (and book about it) Weiner chose eight different religions (or slivers of faith like Kabbalah as part of Judaism and Sufism as part of Islam) and went and lived with each. Some of the faiths didn't have much in their feature chapter that resonated as a reader (or appear to resonate for Weiner as the person experiencing it), but some did have very interesting nuggets related on them.

About Buddhism, Weiner wrote on the idea of the pause between a given experience and then how that experience affects us. It was a fascinating concept that actually made me think of the James Altucher book I Was Blind But Now I See and it's idea (or at least the idea I ascribe to Altucher) of not letting ones thoughts get dragged somewhere not beneficial to go.

About the Franciscans Weiner spent time with, he wrote of both the idea of actions not needing to wait for full belief if the action a positive one and the concept of good work for others. Specifically noted around this idea of giving was there not needing to be returned gratitude in exchange for good works done.

The book isn't written as a math problem that began with a question and finished with a solved proof, but rather an examination on a topic with entirely personal answers. At an overall level, Weiner writes of connection with something greater as well as the all important idea of how someones truth makes them feel (and that truth is what works for someone). Especially in conjunction with Weiner giving of himself to the reader and making the thing personal, it's a good read overall even if not on as entertaining a topic as The Geography of Bliss.

Writing from Feb '12 Esquire Magazine

Latest issue of Esquire had a number of pieces that didn't necessarily stand out for the flowery prose, but were well written and on interesting topics (or at least contained interesting tidbits).

Lengthiest feature was Counter-Terrorism Is Getting Complicated by Tom Junod on a Federal conspiracy to commit terrorism case against retired Navyman Fred Thomas and three other seventy-somethings in rural Georgia. Detailed what was either a proactive ferreting out of terrorist ambitions or a shady government informant leading disillusioned old people down the path of horrible crimes they would have never committed.

Two other interesting features from this issue involved the topic of information and how it's acquired, used and communicated. The Man Who Knows Everything was written by Ryan D'Agostino and profiles Tibco Software and it's CEO Vivek Ranadive. Tibco provides infrastructure software and goes beyond this to efforts like it's TopCom communications platform for use by world leaders. A second Esquire piece around information was If You Could Master All the Data in the World... penned by Chris Jones. Story is on Jeopardy winner Roger Craig and the work he did to identify knowledge needed to be successful on the show. Out of this, Craig is now attempting to take this idea of learning patterns and attempt to pass it along commercially.

Finally, this Esquire edition also contained two celebrity pieces that contained nuggets of interest. Ricky Gervais: The ESQ+A was done by Scott Raab and had some very cool content from Gervais about staying true to himself in his work. A cynic could say it's easy to do that when already successful, but there's probably also a lot to be said for the idea of this approach helping someone make it in the first place. Also interesting was Mike Sager's Who Doesn't Love Woody Harrelson? which included quite a bit on Harrelson's avoidance of chemicals and processed/artificial food.

Time Magazine Pieces: on Warren Buffett, Barack Obama & YouTube

Couple of excellent feature stories in the last two issues of Time Magazine.

Cover story from the Jan 23 edition was Warren Buffett Is on a Radical Track and it featured a look by Rana Foroohar at the business titan.

Some of the things detailed and touched on in the piece were Buffett's belief the economy will continue to improve, his views on taxes for the extremely wealthy and personal life. It's an extremely well written profile on an important and interesting guy. To this point, the piece made more appealing the idea of reading Alice Schroeder's biography The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life.

From the most recent Jan 30 issue were two excellent features... including the cover story on President Barack Obama and his foreign policy record thus far.

Written by Fardeed Zakaria, The Strategist is a nuanced and equitable piece on the foreign policy successes in addition to failures thus far Obama has had. Also from this issue was The Beast With A Billion Eyes on YouTube, it's place in American viewing habits and where it's trying to head. Solid writing as usual by Lev Grossman and a very interesting read.

Excellent pieces... its a shame Time puts online content behind a print subscriber paywall preventing new audiences from seeing the quality of work.

Fast Company Feb issue: Changing Business & Careers

Couple of really good features in the latest issue of Fast Company.




First two pieces that stood out both relate to the cover verbiage and and get into how business as well as career management differs from their past iterations. Starting things off, magazine editor Robert Safian wrote the long (and long titled) This Is Generation Flux: Meet The Pioneers Of The New (And Chaotic) Frontier Of Business. Really interesting content that looks at change in business and how people are navigating careers from the standpoint of a toolbox of skills to take anywhere rather than simply hitching early to a corporation and hanging on.

Closely related to this career management path was the companion piece of The Four-Year Career by Anya Kamenetz. Solid stuff about how jobs and people's employment in them is going to change over time and workers should expect, be ready for and use to their advantage this change.

Not really connected to the first two stories, but also interesting was MakerBot's 3-D Printers Let Consumers Dream Up Prototypes Of Pretty Much Anything. But Do We Need More Plastic? by Rob Walker. The creation of actual objects at home based on the specs... an entirely new concept that could well become common in the future.

Scott Raab on Writing / Dave Eggers on Creating (& not Dismissing)

Came across a few weeks ago a short and terribly insightful piece by Scott Raab (Esquire guy) on his website. The succinctly titled Writing has his advice for aspiring pen to page types and (to over simplify) boils down to if someone wants to be a writer, they write... and then they keep doing it.

Raab's advice reminded me of stuff I've linked to from James Altucher (who extols the virtues of writing fast and self-publishing) and Brandon Sneed (who did a few few posts on the writing process including an encouragement to write a book) and while not just on writing, seems in line with a Dave Eggers piece I recently found. Taken from a 2000 interview with The Harvard Advocate, his words on the dual subjects of creating / not dismissing create a mental visual of Eggers standing at a pulpit and railing away with his truth. What makes it all the much better is how much truth there seems to be in what Eggers so forcefully proclaims.

Very cool stuff that connects with messrs Raab, Sneed and Altucher is that each writes about the process of writing (heck, the process of anything if you want to expand the circle a bit) getting accomplished by just doing it and Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.

Writing On Lives Outside of Normal

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.

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.

-----

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

"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.

-----

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.