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Archive for January 2nd, 2007

QOTD: Undertake something that is difficult…

Tuesday, January 2nd, 2007

“Undertake something that is difficult; it will do you good. Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.”
— Ronald Osborn

The anti-interactive columnist

Tuesday, January 2nd, 2007

Well, this is a unique approach to the recent shift toward more reader interaction. I saw this linked on Romenesko and couldn’t help but click to hear why a columnist would say:

…Here’s what my Internet-fearing editors have failed to understand: I don’t want to talk to you; I want to talk at you. A column is not my attempt to engage in a conversation with you. I have more than enough people to converse with. And I don’t listen to them either. That sound on the phone, Mom, is me typing…

It’s a decidedly different approach, I suppose. I can’t tell and don’t read the columnist enough (read: ever) to know just how tongue-in-cheek he’s actually being. (I’m assuming he’s being sarcastic, at least somewhat?) But, if that’s how he really feels, I guess it’s good for him to lay it out there so readers aren’t upset when they don’t hear back or when he offers only a flippant response. I’ve never been a columnist, but I’m thinking this isn’t the way to win over readers.

It’s a risk, and chances are, it’ll get him more e-mails than any other column he’s written. Maybe that was his point all along?