Archive for March 18th, 2010
Correction, Please
Posted by Bob in Coaching Session on 03/18/2010
I just wrote a piece about how one cannot plan for the new age of information if one does not REMEMBER how things were before it.
We at BUGS have discussed at some length how my sentence structure here is so different from the one officially demanded by texts on writing. I have adjusted to short sentences and ending one thought at a time because direct mailers have found that is the way to reach people in competition with others who have learned to do the same thing.
Oddly enough, Internet studies are finding the same thing. In a mass of information, internet readers will not give you much time to bore them or to sound smart. Like those selected for direct mail, the competition is FIERCE.
No one was more indoctrinated in the old paragraph structure than I was. I had to write for editors.
I also had to write for speeches, and the staccato I write now would not do for reading out in public by a congressman at a formal function.
BoardAd did a study of my old writing in Whitaker On Line and its evolution. How did he do this analysis? He looked in Google, of course. He found a means of MEASURING sentence structure. Try to find THAT in the old World Almanac or in less than several hours in the public library!
BoardAd found my sentence structure has evolved, and he can MEASURE it!
My life has been spent in communication, but a lot of people have far better credentials in their communications careers than I do. But we now have two special pieces of wisdom I can offer you that they can’t.
First, I REMEMBER. I do not selectively FORGET every time the other side was embarrassingly wrong. To get mainline credentials, you have to pass the acid tests of those who have a VETO on things that would embarrass them. They can’t tell you everything you CAN say, but they can certainly ruin you if you cross their line.
No one is allowed to REPEAT how all the talk about gun permits fifteen years ago was about how a BLOODBATH would happened if permits were handed out to people who didn’t wear police costumes. I have heard those screams mentioned a decade later, but never REPEATED.
Secondly, I remember how direct mail worked, and how direct mail, and ONLY direct mail, could statistically analyze the results of every change of wording and sentence length and hundreds of other variables. They wrote for “flyover country” in a competitive market, the way blogs must today.
Now for a third factor. I began the last discussion by talking about how hard it was to come by facts not so long ago, and how impossible it was to correct silly statements Edward R. Murrow or Walter Cronkite declared to be Gospel.
That was pre-Google. We have taken a GIANT step toward overcoming what I REMEMBER being the problem by the simple fact that your Google is as good as that of CBS. It is no longer Opinion versus what you looked up, It is CBS versus Google.
But all this brings up a fourth factor, which I call The Art of Being Wrong. My writings use a lot of factual information, but information is not my primary focus here. I am trying to change PERSPECTIVE. So if I am talking about the Alamo, and the best information is that there were three thousand Mexicans there instead of the five thousand I give, I consider it a waste of time to have a long discussion of it.
If I make a mistake that really alters the PERSPECTIVE, I will correct it. But most of my general points are simply so obvious once stated that the exact facts I cite are irrelevant.
The fact that immigration and assimilation are directed at ALL white countries and ONLY at white countries might be debatable if you looked at the lack of pressure on Andorra or Liechtenstein or Mount Athos or SMOM. But the desperation of someone doing that makes the point.
Or should I spend a lot of time talking about Mount Athos or SMOM being an exception?
So I SAY what I think. No one has to say “with all due respect” or “I hate to disagree.” That’s what sycophants told Cronkite and Company. I say it here, and you correct it HERE. I consider that a favor.
The Cronkites could never LEARN. Their days are gone. We have here a seminar, and a real seminar puts the professor and his grad students on an even keel. Which is why you won’t find a real seminar at any University today.
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