Goodbye, and Thanks

1. In your final post discuss what you accomplished, whether you plan to continue your efforts or start over, and what you learned and maybe wish you had learned.

When I was first told over the summer that I needed to take a content writing class, I immediately thought: “What could I possibly learn from this class that I haven’t already learned in the many years of working as a reporter and editor?” (Plus, I was already blogging.)

Plenty, I would soon discover!

I begin with Twitter. Even though I finally opened a personal account under my real name a few months ago, I rarely tweeted. Admittedly, I didn’t feel comfortable using this platform, because I didn’t fully understand how it worked. I don’t profess to know it all today, but I am feeling far more at ease about tweeting and I am starting to understand Twitter’s potential power in promoting my voice. You can reach certain audiences by using the right hashtags — and get people to follow you, which was the case when I tweeted about the Ironman one day. Someone who competes in these races began to follow me! (If I could make that happen with just one random tweet, think of the followers I could amass by tweeting regularly; and that could translate into more attention being paid to my blog or book, etc.) Twitter teaches (forces!) you to be concise and to choose your words wisely to ensure maximum impact. It is a powerful form of social media, and I plan on using it more in the future. 

Now on to LinkedIn, where I have been fairly active and on which I do have many connections. I realized through this course that I have much work to do on this platform, too. Having to post my resume on my blog and knowing that it would be critiqued forced me to take a closer look at my professional profile. My original summary was far too verbose, as Bob pointed out. I have since rewritten and shortened it, and I plan on making additional changes to my LinkedIn profile as I bring my online persona into better focus.

As my voice becomes clearer and likely shifts, I could eventually create a Facebook fan page or establish a YouTube channel, particularly for my sports injury blog, which I really enjoy writing, though I’d like to make some changes to this site before doing so.   

What I liked best about this class was that it forced me to take a closer look at my overall future, in addition to my online presence. As I said in an earlier blog post, “There are pieces of me scattered all over the Internet.” Being scattered is not necessarily good. I need to connect all the dots and somehow use my connection with my newspaper to garner interest for my other enterprises. (Bob offered some good suggestions for doing this.)

I still love the idea of writing a fitness book — perhaps one on older athletes — and just the other day I sat down with a colleague who is about to begin a book leave. She provided some good suggestions and direction for getting literary agents interested in my ideas. “Start by publishing a feature story about the subject,” she said, “and then prepared to spend a lot of time on the proposal.”

Thanks again, to Bob and Drake and Amie!   

More Social Media Ideas

2. Part B: Discuss your social media ideas for your online voice. Will you concentrate on Twitter or YouTube or other social media apps? How and why will you execute your voice with these tools?

  

As I noted in a previous post, I already have a professional online presence, but I would like to expand my voice (maybe even shift it) to “blogger about sports injuries” and “blogger about hip impingement,” a condition from which I suffered. And if my book proposal, about older athletes, comes to fruition, maybe I could add “author of  health and fitness books” as well. (If it’s published, that’s a whole other strategy.)

Last summer I created from scratch a blog that focuses largely on my own personal journey to recover from a hip injury – and so I would like to start there. That site admittedly needs some work, but it could eventually evolve into a go-to resource/forum for athletic injuries, particularly among older age-group (amateur) athletes, like active baby boomers and Gen Xers whose aging bodies sustain plenty of injuries. I will need to add more information and pages, along with extra features like video interviews or exercise demonstrations. Those videos could be connected to a YouTube channel.

To promote my blogger persona and blog, I would want to concentrate on Facebook and Twitter. 


I would set up a separate Facebook fan page and Twitter account, both of which could include information from my blog posts. (Facebook fans would be directed to follow me on Twitter and Twitter followers would be asked to "like" my Facebook page.)


Of the two, I actually see Twitter as the more useful resource. If I use the right hash tags, post enough interesting tweets, and try to connect with my targeted audience -- age-group athletes who get injured -- I could increase traffic to my blog and promote myself as the expert I someday home to become. 

"Let's Move!" Campaign: Critique

2. Part A: Pick a current social media campaign and critique it with an eye on your niche goals. Examine how the growing conversation is affecting our world.

The “Let’s Move!” federal initiative, organized by the first lady Michelle Obama and backed by the White House, officially began last winter. Its objective: to help prevent childhood obesity by promoting physical activity and healthy eating among children. Seventeen percent of all children and adolescents in the United States are considered obese – triple the rate from just one generation ago, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Reducing those numbers can not only help children to grow up to be healthier adults but also reduce health care costs down the line. (Obese people in general spend about 40 percent more on health care than average-weight people, government data shows.)

In a statement on its Web site, Mrs. Obama, a mother of two young daughters, said she was “determined to work with folks across this country to change the way a generation of kids thinks about food, nutrition and physical activity." Last month, she appointed Dr. Judith S. Palfrey, the former president of the American Academy of Pediatrics and director of the Children's Hospital of Boston's global health efforts, to oversee the initiative as its executive director.

To help get its messages across, Let’s Move uses social media extensively, with a blog connected to its very detailed Web site, a Facebook fan page, Twitter account and a YouTube channel. The target audience includes parents, educators, health care providers and the food industry.

The Let’s Move blog offers frequent posts from different writers, including Dr. Palfrey, on subjects ranging from healthy recipes to “success stories,” but it doesn’t allow comments from readers, which can be considered a flaw.

But reader interaction is permitted – and encouraged – on its Facebook page, which had 75,291 “likes” as of Oct. 6. You don’t have to “like” the page, either, to comment, which is a good idea to keep the conversation going.

Its Twitter account, with 14,130 followers, also encourages conversation through feedback. In fact, on Oct. 5, the group held its first “tweetup day,” which basically invited anyone to tweet questions or ideas about the campaign and/or improving lifestyle habits of youngsters. There was a moderate response.

The Let’s Move channel on YouTube – which has dozens of public service announcements, including several with Mrs. Obama featured – had 121,085 views and 458,312 upload views as of Oct. 6. That’s not enough to generate buzz, especially when you look at viral campaigns like the Old Spice man. The problem can lie with some of the videos, which are not terribly engaging.

The fact that Mrs. Obama initiated this campaign might prompt many individuals and groups to support it, but in this heavily bipartisan climate, it may be turning others off. Others, too, might be turned off by the fact that it's run by the federal government and feel less inclined to participate in the discussion. Still, the campaign, with a clever short name, does make an effort to focus on the big picture and a universal cause of obesity, which, hopefully, can garner more widespread support for this important cause.

We won't really know until another 20 years or so, when the kids are grown into adults, however, if this campaign actually helped to fight obesity. 

And here it is embedded

Book Proposal (Another Try)

Well, I FINALLY got my presentation to sync, though the audio isn't the best.

To view and hear my presentation please go to this site.

Screenplay Scene

Write a multimedia script. You can try anything from a screenplay scene to a short video script to an all audio script to a storyboard.

A scene adapted from “Big Man,” by Clarence Clemons

Chapter: “The Legend from Under the Boardwalk, Early ’70s”

FADE IN

EXT. UNDER A BOARDWALK AT THE JERSEY SHORE – DUSK

A warm summer evening minutes before nightfall. The light over the ocean is fading into a blue/gray hue. CRASHING waves are heard nearby.

The beach is nearly empty of the day’s visitors. CLARENCE and BRUCE are hidden away under the boardwalk, crouching on the lumps of cooling sand. Above them, through the weathered wooden planks, the  MUDDLED CONVERSATIONS and LAUGHTER from passersby. Tinny carnival music PLAYS in the background.

Both men are dressed in shorts, T-shirts and are barefoot, their flip-flops tossed off, allowing them to wiggle their toes in the sand. 

Beer cans are CRACKING.

BRUCE

(guzzling a beer)

Do you remember their names?

CLARENCE

Um, one of them’s Ann. And I think the blonde is Janie. Yeah, Ann and Janie.

BRUCE

What time did you tell them we’d meet them there?

CLARENCE

I didn’t. But I figured we’d head on over to the Pony around 9.

Bruce CRUMBLES a beer can with one hand, tosses it into the paper bag containing a six pack, pulls out another can, then CRACKS it open.

BRUCE

I think it hit 90 today. God I love this weather!

CLARENCE

Me too, man.

BRUCE

If you could have any car in the world, what would it be?

CLARENCE

Hmm, a Vette. Yeah, a yellow Corvette.

BRUCE

(sighing)

Ahhh someday… But make mine black. (laughing)

The sky has now darkened. The only visible light from across the ocean comes from the blinking offshore boats about a mile or so away.

BRUCE

I wonder who’s on those boats.

CLARENCE

That’s funny! I was just thinking the same thing!

BRUCE

Yeah, probably some fat-cat lawyer from the city out all day on his fancy cabin cruiser with his buxom blond secretary – except the engine blows and now he has to call the Coast Guard. But his wife’s brother is in the Coast Guard, and then she finds out and he loses the boat and everything else in the divorce. Then the secretary splits and his kids stop talking  …

Clarence breaks in.

CLARENCE

Man you’re a good storyteller!

BRUCE

Nah, I’m just a good bullshitter.

Clarence pulls out another beer from the bag and CRACKS it open.

CLARENCE

I really want to make a living with the horn, y’know. Couldn’t deal with another straight job.

BRUCE

Me too, man. Pulling up them weeds and mowing lawns took time away from practicing. Hey, maybe whoever’s at the Pony -- I think it's Billy and Vini -- will let us sit in for a little bit tonight again. That’ll impress Ann and what’s her name.

FADE OUT

The Gait Debate: My Recovery

Almost 12 weeks since my arthroscopic hip surgery, to repair a torn labrum caused by hip impingement syndrome, and there’s now so much that I can do physically.

I’m able to ride the stationary bike and elliptical machine for 40 brisk minutes at a time. I can use many of the weight-lifting machines at the gym (almost at presurgery levels) and perform numerous core-strengthening exercises with exercise balls, resistance bands and weights.

But I’m still not walking normally.

I barely feel any discomfort in the affected left hip joint (except sometimes when it’s about to rain) and I’ve had full range of motion there for some time – yet my gait remains slightly off.

Most people won’t notice that I’m still favoring my right leg over the left, but my physical therapist and I know, and the limp is even more discernable when I’m tired.

To help fix this problem, my therapist has incorporated walking on the treadmill for 5 to 10 minutes into my PT. The treadmill speed is set at 3.5 mph, which is equivalent to walking quickly.

Treadmill therapy is commonly used to improve gait patterns after orthopedic surgery as well as for people who have had strokes, only in those cases, harness support is also typically used, according to a recent study published in “Journal of the American Physical Therapy.” The Livestrong Web site also has more information about gait therapy here.

As for me, my therapist thinks I just need “a little jump-start.”

“The treadmill forces you to walk correctly,” he says.

And immediately off the treadmill, I do continue to walk correctly.

But it will also take a few more weeks of balancing exercises, combined with core strengthening – and of course, time – to do the trick.

Lecture Comment: Conversation

Good conversation requires listening. Next time you find yourself in conversation, pay attention to how often you listen to the other person. Much of the time we conversationalists are not listening; we are preparing for our turn to talk. We assume we know where the other person is going, stop listening and think of how we might respond long before they finish. We worry about what we just said or what they might say. Something they say reminds us of a story that we are suddenly dying to tell. You will be surprised at how often you cut the other person off, if not out loud, then in your head.

How very true! As a journalist, there’s probably nothing more enlightening — or humbling, for that matter — than having to listen to a recording of a conversation with an interview subject. I do this every week, actually, because one of my many duties at the news organization where I work is to produce a weekly interview column in question-and-answer format. (The material is edited and condensed by me.)

Besides loathing the sound of my own voice, I also cringe at the little faux pas I sometimes commit during these recorded conversations: cutting off someone in mid-sentence to inject a question I think is important; asking a question the interviewee might have already answered five minutes before; or not fully understanding the answer to a question and following up with a question that’s a bit off the mark.     

The problem is partly a listening one. Admittedly, I might be too concerned with the questions I want to ask or the direction where I want to take the interview that I sometimes lose sight of what was being said. I’m not fully hearing. But I don’t think I am the only person guilty of this, and, in my defense, I must deal with time constraints that preclude more leisurely conversations.

Still, by listening to these recordings, I find myself making a conscious effort to listen better — and not just during these interviews, but in normal conversations with friends or colleagues. I can always tell when people aren’t really listening to me: they don’t directly respond to what I have to say but immediately turn the conversation to themselves. It’s suddenly all about them, and it’s almost as if we’re engaging in separate, parallel conversations.

Another pet peeve is pomposity. Many years ago I attended a news conference given by the world’s central bankers. One of the journalists there asked a question filled with technical jargon and $10 words; it went on for several minutes. To which a more down-to-earth journalist sitting next to me whispered loudly: “Wouldn’t it be funny if they just answered, ‘yup’ or ‘nope!’ ” 

Book Proposal (without audio)

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Bookproposal

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My Book Proposal Presentation

To view my proposal please go to this link.

You will need to join slidshare (it's free!) in order to view it. (I tried numerous times to embed into the post, but for some reason that version would not sync properly.)

The copy:

Professional athletes typically reach peak performance in their mid- to late-20s, some into their 30s. Most are retired by the time they’re 40.  As for everybody else, most, people give up competitive sports after high school or college.  Some are content to just watch from the sidelines. They can grow older and more sedentary in the process. And then there are those who seem to defy the passages of time … They are sprinters, marathoners and ultramarathoners, ironmen and even iron nuns. They are in the water training to set new records, on the courts and the fields, and in the gyms. Bodies buffed, and flexed and pretty flexible. Some even get to live to be 105. This is a book about their inspiring journey – their physical struggles and amazing accomplishments. Some of these older athletes have always been active, while others waited until later in life. Each has a story to tell.  By staying active and competing in sports, they are keeping their bodies firm and fit, their minds sharp and lucid. And they’re collecting a few accolades along the way. All are waging a quiet revolution. And many more are expected to join in, as baby boomers – 76 million strong – challenge the concept of aging. We have so much to learn from them because they are staying in the game.

And here it is with syncing off:

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