This post is a book review for “Show your work” by Austin Kleon
This is the TVC that comes first to mind about “sharing”
Like the boy in ad, whatever our age, we do “sharing” for personal need/satisfaction/benefits , knowingly or not.
Austin talks about the value in sharing work online, establishment of personal brand, to associate with a specific like minded group to enhance total creativity for the larger public.
How much should be shared? What is there to hide in sharing ? What are the benefits ? and What sharing can get me? are some of the questions that find definite answers in this book.
This book iterates many things told, foretold and untold. And this time, it is not boring. Because, the coherency of writing and rigorous titling has made this book a simple to read, easy to understand and remind oneself of the important concepts of work.
I found only a few sections out of the rail. Especially what / what not to share. There is no hard and fast rule. If one can attain nirvana by posting dog pictures, and if dogs are your passion and work, why not!?
Key point the book discusses and worth remembering are easily codified into the chapter headings. This includes telling our work-stories in moderation for public consumption (sharing) for potential collaboration. Let the critics scrutinize, this is valuable addition beyond the personal-critic hat that we ought to wear. In this way, one work can lead to another and keep the work-life in tact, and let the cashflow sustain that interest. Any work involves creativity and art. There is value to be shared, useful for other, for copiers to copy, for innovators to improve and for collaborators to converge.
All these components lets the body in the state of motion, bringing new directions, perspectives, increases the social connection, building networks that increasing the gross creative output.
Art of writing and speaking was reserved for the very few who could take diplomatic stands on and off stage. Those were the talents of the bygone era. The era of the bombastic rhetoric. New age media of internet and social marketing has forced many activists to go online. This has gone to such realistic level that in UPBJP had reportedly wanted a minimum number of likes for potential candidates to get a ticket.
The game of social activism had taken a leap from there, at least for the many potential activists. This lone writing of blog in a non-main stream channel of networking. Yes, bloggers do network in a different way than social networking platforms like twitter. But the game again is to put your content in a static form, for memory and for easy retrieval compared to the real time dynamic nature of social media where the next second is not yours. Yes, with considerable number of friends and group to follow, it is not more than a second that captures the attention, if at all, of a casual reader, in social platform.And a lone writing in a blog may not garner quick, or long followers. But it is still there, as a personal satisfaction, for the keyboard samurai to look back and cite as achievement. There is no guarantee that the fighter gets the fame in his lifetime. And like the many real soldiers who stand for their homeland and defend it with pride and their life, the lone keyboard warrior cannot come anywhere near in even a passing reference for the real life defenders. The effort of a keyboard warrior may then be diverted to capture the moods and comments of his “friends” and “followers”. This is possible lest these women and men and others are a tad inclined to oblige themselves in the form of likes, follow and comments. The best of social media activity of a modern day couple is well written in the lyrics of “Selfie – Pulla” by Madhan Karky Vairamuthu
By this time you would have understood the feelings of a keyboard warrior who has nothing but the keyboard and Google search to help him locate the necessary raw materials. This is unlike the traditional activists who have torn their footwear for their passion for their activism. Technological advancement in the form of speech recognition and better keyboard do not let the keyboard warrior’s keyboard to look like that of a well seasoned politician or social worker. Blame it on technology, but one definite indication of the keyboard warrior is that his seat is always hot! Due to continuous sitting and typing. If the temperature is a good indicating parameter of a seasoned keyboard warrior, why not take it at face value. Yes, this is forced upon the reader and the unexpected reader. But that is a risk befitting a champion. There may be losses of “friends” and “followers”. But it is said by Facebook that “Followers are temporary, friends are forever” because the network is build on the basic habit of fellow humans, to know and comment, often bad comments, on what others did or what they ought to. It is the unforgiving human nature. This no one can control.
As an experiment , may be for real, facebook started the keyboard warrior program where people could change their images to support France. This was a technological jump for the usual keyboard warrior, often going by fake names to support his cause, because this just involves few clicks. This gave rise the Click-warriors, later extended to Touch-warriors and so on and so forth, based on the kind of sensing mechanism that they used their social networks with. Now there were new worlds created due to this. This included the first world of touch-warriors and touch-citizens, second-world of click-warriors and click citizen, third world of keyboard warriors and keyboard citizens and the dark fourth world were the net speed is less than 1Gbps, a fifth world that had bare minimum of what is called as civilization at 256Kbps and the dark unknown world without internet. This was another layer of abstract classification of human beings but not yet devastating enough to cause war and “peace”. Normalization in this internet hegemony is brought forth when one for real speaks to another human being. This maintains the delicate equilibrium between the different social strata. The movement of people from one-world citizenship to multi-world citizenship is made possible by the discontinuity in the physical telecommunication network that keeps the demographic incongruity to minimum.
A keyboard warrior is always restless. The slightest possiblity of activism awakens the champion. The latest was that a gorilla was killed and people shared their feelings. Some showed solidarity to human stupidity to laud the efforts to save a child , that saved humankind from wilderness (though captivated and endangered). Some loathed the efforts of the zookeeper and bickered about the human stupidity that led to a whole series of events, from endangering animals, imprisoning , removing the barrier between captivity and guests (for natural watching), bringing up and inviting a human who could not manage her own kids (let alone animals), who paid the zoo (in form of ticket), to let the kid fall and let the Mighty Gorilla “protect” and let the Gorilla (Harambe) be shot to save the kid. God knows why it did not fell on the kid and then it would have been another stupidity. Harambe and this stupidity will be one among the many in the annals of human history. The collection of achievements to save human species. But the keyboard warrior will not be silent. For there is a world to be saved. Remember, 8 years ago someone wrote Human Welfare with a Question mark?
“Once a warrior always a warrior” works for keyboard warriors too. The fingers twitch at a shared photo of man made disaster or incident , the keyboard warrior wakes up to action. Keyboard warriors strive to respond, react and show the world some virtual humanity. It may be a few words that can dwell in the heart of the casual reader that changes perspectives and support and actions and reactions. This is all the work of a genuine keyboard warrior whom we should acknowledge for the virile vigilant efforts of an undying unidentified (often fake id) heroes. It is this species that the God has send on earth Homo KeyWar (Keyboard Warriors) to maintain this world as a single piece woven in the intricate internetwork of things and stuff. Salute to them.
And Blogging 101 is all about bringing blogs, new and old, into action.
Blogging has its own values. What one writes is kept static, time does not erode it away. Especially, from wordpress , it is easily searchable and readable. It does not drown in the stream of real time show-offs in social networking.
Of course, somethings that makes the receiver somewhat lazy are
Old content
Uninteresting idea
Poorly conveyed information
Poor engagement (like turning off comments and commenting about comments)
Poor focus ( are you a photographer, poet or writer? Why should I follow the writer in you, when I am interested in photography). Tagging is important in this sense
Blog that is poorly publicized. (If I do not find a tweet button in your post, why would I go all the way to copy paste and enter. I am more busy than you is any reader’s attitude). A reader reads a blog to get some idea, to show off any information that comes in a blog to his peers ( sharing). To show his authority by commenting with information and idea. And to encourage a fellow blogger
Highly ambitious flashy selfish blogging. These are bloggers who want name, fame, stand and would comment, poke and follow just to get more traffic to there flashy site that is full of rhetoric on personal achievements and aims.
These, I call as the 7 bad-habits of bad blogging
A good blog needs to
capture attention
convey original idea
justify the idea with logic and facts
substantiate with references
encourage readers; get feedback
from feedbacks get new ideas
keep posting
These are known as 7 habits of good blogging. (Seriously joking, here!)
Mostly, people with easy net access and free time tend to blog. Also, having an idea or some organisation is also moderately necessary. Nevertheless, the importance of blog is not as much as we proclaim on publicising. It is on the lasting value of the content. Ultimately, blogger is recording some piece of data or thought process. This may be useful as a reference in future. And for blogging, tommorow never dies. And therefore is my blog.
It is with some surprise that I see the trophy of the 6th anniversary of this blog. The wordpress platform has that charm to engage the blogger. The captivating statistical tools push me, as any author of a blog, to further writing.I had posted on my 1st anniversary here
Here, I would like to rethink the origin and ideas to why blog.
I was interested in this new thing called one button publishing, thanks to blogger.com, it was very easy to get going. But as I scoured the net, I found more people in support of wordpress. I was interested, and had a big time, copy pasting all original contents to here. Now, this blog contains all of those writing, making searching and tracking easier for me. That was the beginning with wordpress blogging.The post gives more on why I switched from blogger.com.
Further, the question of the content comes. This is any point or pointless thing that could be written down. Morality, ethics and unprecedented audience could mould the way and what is being written. This was a check on the words put out and the emotional content of the scribblings.
Recently, I find myself lost in what to write. Especially, with the growing concern on the carbon emissions. The usage of internet, email and blog add to carbon emissions. The amount of energy required to save the data, keep the server running and all that is a pull-back on the position to write. With the same thought I had written on why I quit watching the Formula 1 here . But what can an unknown blog by an unknown man do. After that post Formula 1 Grand Prix added the Buddha International Circuit at NOIDA, India as additional racecourse. This blog cannot claim any influence on people and their activities. I may not be doing a good promotional job for this blog. Even among my friend’s circle the number that reads this is negligible. My renewed interest in reducing carbon emissions has prevented me from any promoting other than by way of mouth.
But I see many literature on dump ideas. Some brand themselves as management experts and write anything that comes to them. There are news channels that carry “stories” than news of any value. With all this junk around, what and how can a reader do. It is difficult to keep track of what and where is the good. But that is exactly what a search engine promises to do. The job gets done. But not without effort.
Among my posts till date, there was a new gem. One post got maximum hits in minimum duration. Of course, I am not surprised because the title sounds like that of a “management-related” website. But , yes that was a really nice idea put as content and worth a read.
What is in for the coming year. Only the next anniversary will tell.
I had a very good idea one time. I was sitting lazily and I wanted to try out what people popularly call technology. Internet and computer fascination. I decided to try out blogger. Like many things that Google suggests to try out Blogger was one such beautiful “technology”. I went on to try a few tricks. Blogger allowed to change and customise many stuff. Easy to use and modify blogger was pretty till one day when a friend gave me his wordpress blog address. I checked it out found it very good. Especially at that there were no “pages” in blogger. I liked a three column blog while blogger allowed me to have only two. And I was rejected from using Google Adsense in my blog in blogger. All these situations led me to wordpress. And from some free software users I heard that wordpress supports Open source software. And an article ; an interview with Mullenweg was too beautiful to ignore. And thus https://ajeya.wordpress.com began. And I liked the address because blogger didn’t allow me to have “ajeya” as my address. My blogger blog address was http://www.thinkajeya.blogspot.com. It was somewhat famous with that catchy name. But to me it was long and strenuous to type out the full name. And with constant upgrades , features and new theme suggestions blogger was out of my head for sometime till I accidently found that blogger had all those funny buttons for digg, buzz,tweet, fb etc. I wanted to try that out. I gave it a try and it didn’t work out quite well. So I searched for some sharing tools that can be put on my blog and stumbled upon the Get Social live bar. But now there is a tweet button; and others are also coming in wordpress blog.
The human mind is complex variable ; When it halts to look at a beautiful flower it will go on searching for a better one; quite natural ; But the flower turning itself to whatever the human searches for is a wonder. I like WordPress.
There are many free sms providers online which include their advertisements in 80 letters and give us the other 80 letters for free transmission. Among the popular providers include 160by2.com ; indyarocks etc. There are many free sms packs to choose from the telecom operators but even that doesn’t provide the ease and flexibility of typing on full qwerty. Not many can afford a qwerty phone but the internet and computer access is cheaper. In many places in India we get Internet access for Rs 10/ hour.
Then there came twitter. Its growing popularity and tweepulation (twitter population ; not in dictionary ; haven’t read the word anywhere before) explosion allows one to shout out 140 letters. People are generally well educated ; ok compromise; literate enough to type in 140 letters of emotion, frustration, sympathy, review, acknowledgement in general all communication. But, how many can venture out to go beyond the limit of 80 or 140 letters. The number of tweeple (twitter people) and the number of bloggers give a good idea on that. For many words aren’t enough. At many a time we don’t find right words. What education has provided is only literacy to masses. But how about expressing. Imagine a blogosphere (blogging atmosphere) where there are ideas everywhere with everyone; where every emotions can be written and understood. Those days aren’t near but aren’t far away either. And then artificial intelligence will reach its goal.
People who know how to read and write are literate, Those who do not know are illiterate. Everyone knows Kerala as a high literacy State. But the society suffers from growing number of aliterates. An aliterate person is one who can read but is disinclined to derive information from literary sources. There is a deficiency in reading. Leave those who take reading as a hobby. Reading should be more inclined towards acquisition of quality knowledge. People engross in many reality shows in television but the ground reality happening around us is very harsh. We live in a society were people with MBA , BTech etc enter lower end jobs in Government offices such as LDC,peon etc. One of the reasons behind this is lack of self confidence. Since they lack it and are lazy enough not to get it they remain under-employed. Situation worsens when this indolence becomes banal and continues endlessly.People generally have a feeling that getting a degree can keep them financially and socially secure. But the reality is just the opposite when one is devoid of knowledge. Self confidence is a reflection on one’s abilities. The basic life skills plus knowledge gives self confidence.
The educational system here is not empowering people. Where is the quality in education? Knowledge acquisition and development of life skills are not taught in schools. Students mug up things for the examination, download it on the paper and then forget about it. Information is merely memorised. Knowlege, however, is not generated. The ideas are not grasped. The educational system here , in Kerala, is not upto the standards in other parts of India. So, when a competition at national level comes the candidate from Kerala are not well equipped to compete. The required knowledge is not acquired because of laziness. Newspapers are not read as it should be. So the Newspaper publishers put up more masala and entertainment to maintain the so called “readers”. To increase one’s vocabulary one should gather news from good English newspapers, read classics and think about it. The thinking skills are also to be considered and developed. The whole brain thinking skills are available on the internet and people should be reading and using the net for such purposes. Girls and boys are insisted upon, to attend dance and music classes , by their parents. They drop everything after eighth standard. Students attend tuition classes 24×7 and they deprive themselves from becoming street smart. Being book-smart is well and good. But it should go with practical knowledge which should be given more emphasis. One should have an hobby. A hobby which can get you a career. Then success is certain.
To build on success never put negative thoughts of failure in mind. In Bhagavad Gita Lord Krsna says ” Fear of failure should not be a detterent to your success”. When thoughts of failure occurs one should ask the self ” So what?”. The self confidence is totally under the control of the self. Any pressure from anywhere, often from people around, may not hamper it if you are in your own control. People generally put their failures on the book of excuses which lists luck, fate etc. Success does not occur for one in thousand. Success can come to everyone. You do not need to be first in everything to be successful. For example, Albert Einstein was not a school topper, Abraham Lincoln failed many times before achieving success and Gandhiji and so many eminent persons.
One should find one’s own passion. Before believing that the passion is indeed your passion, think. Try to convince yourself of the passion. Achieve something and make sure that indeed its your passion. A passion will haunt you day and night. It can make you dream and sleepless.
Ignorance about ignorance gives only over confidence. People around may appreciate your skills for trivial matters and that may cause over confidence. Drugs, liquor etc suppress the left half of our brain which is self critic. So we feel a certain confidence after having drugs or drink. The right half of brain does not suppress or bring negative thoughts . But again one cannot be a poet or a genius when drunk. The abilities remain the same and success is determined by them only. So one who writes poem freely, after getting drunk , without any pessimism only if he has the knowledge and ability of writing poems. Yoga can increase one mental concentration and physical well being but self confidence is built on one’s ability only.
The best method to be self confident to the level you feel confident is to be confident in taking up and developing the required skills and acquiring right knowledge to follow one’s passion.
Reference: Phone-in program with Dr. Someone in DD Malayalam/Keralam
Ajeya: The Invincible's Crucible 