Print News Cedes to the Internet

There is no doubt that we are on fast-track change with the internet now. Especially with recent reports of newspapers limiting print product and going online only.

The latest change comes with the sale of the Seattle Post-Intellegencer - if it does not sell in 60 days it goes online only, and then it might fold anyway. Not sure what it means when we do not have major market thought leaders in print, this leaves broadcast and internet a job to fill.

A Pew Internet & American Life Project report recently says:

A survey of internet leaders, activists and analysts shows they expect major tech advances as the phone becomes a primary device for online access, voice-recognition improves, artificial and virtual reality become more embedded in everyday life, and the architecture of the internet itself improves. They disagree about whether this will lead to more social tolerance, more forgiving human relations, or better home lives.

Here are the key findings on the survey of experts by the Pew Internet & American Life Project that asked respondents to assess predictions about technology and its roles in the year 2020:

The mobile device will be the primary connection tool to the internet for most people in the world in 2020.

The transparency of people and organizations will increase, but that will not necessarily yield more personal integrity, social tolerance, or forgiveness.

Voice recognition and touch user-interfaces with the internet will be more prevalent and accepted by 2020.

Those working to enforce intellectual property law and copyright protection will remain in a continuing arms race, with the crackers who will find ways to copy and share content without payment.

The divisions between personal time and work time and between physical and virtual reality will be further erased for everyone who is connected, and the results will be mixed in their impact on basic social relations.

Next-generation engineering of the network to improve the current internet architecture is more likely than an effort to rebuild the architecture from scratch.

Moodstream - For the Creative Side

I read about an interesting creative tool posted by Conrad Lisco on thumbjockey.com today - called Moodstream, by Getty Images. Take a look and create your mood for music and images! This is a lot of fun, too!

Conrad says: Moodstream is an online tool that allows you to browse imagery and music based on keywords or moods. What you see and hear matches the particular mood and can be dialed up or down in a host of ways. Its a great way to find inspiration.

Getty Images has a customizable home page for you, too, where it aggregates latest tools, galleries, and ideas based on your selection of featured content on its site.

I've used an image from Virtual Tourist for this blog today.

Start Now: a Procrastination Primer

I thought this article on procrastination on Scientific American online covered important points for workers, so I am including the topic in my blog today!

SciAm says, "A penchant for postponement carries a financial penalty, endangers health, harms relationships and ends careers. And yet perpetual foot-draggers sometimes benefit emotionally from their tactics, which support the human inclination to avoid the disagreeable. Research into the reasons people put off projects has led to strategies for helping all of us get and stay on task.

"Almost everyone occasionally procrastinates, but a worrisome 15 to 20 percent of adults routinely put off activities that would be better accomplished right away.

"A penchant for postponement carries a financial penalty, endangers health, harms relationships and ends careers. And yet perpetual foot-draggers sometimes benefit emotionally from their tactics, which support the human inclination to avoid the disagreeable.

"Research into the reasons people put off projects has led to strategies for helping all of us get and stay on task. Almost everyone occasionally procrastinates, but a worrisome 15 to 20 percent of adults routinely put off activities that would be better accomplished right away."

Can Blogging be Objective?

PRSA shared an article about Editor & Publisher' questions about "the decrease in objectivity among journalists" on Nov.14. It goes on to say, "In the face of new media developments, journalists are becoming less objective, which may or may not be a good thing, says an article in Editor & Publisher yesterday... According the article, the line becomes blurred even more as print journalists are being asked to write news stories, blog, do analysis, create new media content and provide commentary for radio, TV and online outlets. As a result, newspaper Web sites are blending in more with blogs and altering their principles regarding objectivity and balance."

I do not necessarily agree with this concern, although I know many opinions are expressed in blogs, but on traditional news sites it makes it clear when the content is strictly news and when it is opinion, especially if the information is aggrated onto the site from outside bloggers.

It is interesting during these turbulent times as newspaperts develop their online presence, and it is lively and keeps readers on the pages to find news!

Thank you to Pop + Politics for the image!

How Does an Iconoclast Think?

I am interested in innovation in the workplace, so I pulled this from an Emory University press release we learn about a new book: Iconoclast: A Neuroscientist Reveals How to Think Differently (Harvard Business Press, 2008) - Gregory Berns, MD, PhD, shows us how the world's most successful innovators think and what we can learn from them.

Berns is distinguished chair of neuroeconomics, professor of economics at Emory University, and professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, Emory University School of Medicine. He focuses his research on human motivation and decision-making through a blend of neuroscience, economics and psychology.

"Iconoclasts are individuals who do things that others say can't be done," explains Berns. "An iconoclast defies the rules, but given the opportunity, can be an asset to any organization because of the skill to be creative and innovative despite adversity."

The book examines the stories of famous and not-so-famous iconoclasts to learn something about creative decision-making, innovation and creativity and the ability to control fear, and to look at the neuroscience behind those processes. Berns profiles people such as Walt Disney, the iconoclast of animation; Natalie Maines, an accidental iconoclast; and Martin Luther King, who conquered fear.

Berns says that many successful iconoclasts are made not born. For various reasons, they simply see things differently than other people do.

"Certainly there are people who are born this way, but what I have been able to learn about these individuals is that most successful iconoclasts are people who are skilled at handling failure and particularly at handling fear - fear of failure, fear of the unknown," says Berns. He also discovered a trait that ultimately distinguishes the people who are really successful is social intelligence.

"A person can have the greatest idea in the world - completely different and novel - but if that person can't convince enough other people, it doesn't matter," says Berns.

Will the Managing Editor Go with the Times?

My local newspaper is The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and it has been re-orging a bunch over the past 18 months. Because I am a communicator who helps share important medical discoveries for my organization, an academic health system, I am concerned that there a fewer reporters with health and medical beats. When you are working in a place that has a reponsibility for sharing discoveries, especially with federal funding supporting a lot of this, the goal is to get the news out to the public about how they are benefitting from advances.

So, keeping up with trends, I read a recent column by Mark Fitzgerald, an Editor and Publisher editor-at-large. He says managing editors may be a middle management phenomenon that may eventually go away. Read an excerpt here and visit his column.

"What, M.E. Worry? Managing Editors May Be On The Way Out: In the rest of corporate America, the middle manager has been an endangered species for the better part of three decades. With so many papers losing them, will the managing editor position soon disappear?

"In some ways the wonder is that the M.E. position has hung around so long. In the rest of corporate America, the middle manager has been an endangered species for the better part of three decades."

PRWeek's Social - Blogging Competition

The blogging activity by PRWeek bloggers should have interesting results, but a lot to keep up with in the meantime. Check it out:

As part of its 10th anniversary celebration, PRWeek is honoring one of the most important technological advancements in content distribution of the past 10 years: the blog. The celebration comes by way of a competition. PRWeek personnel selected 16 of its favorite blogs, and ask each of those bloggers to select another blog to nominate for this competition. You will find the logos of all 32 blogs here and a bracket of the competition here. The competition will be a single elimination tournament, voted on by you, the reader. The tournament will take place over five weeks. For the first round, we will introduce eight new blogs every Monday and Wednesday. Polls will close on Tuesday at 11:59 pm EST, and on Friday at 5:30 pm EST. Bloggers have agreed to participate in the tournament, and were allowed to promote their participation on their blogs and elsewhere.