Consultant rates in the communication / technical writing field

Getting in the right ballpark in terms of cost is critical to survival as a freelancer. The pitch, proposal and negotiation process is complex, and it's more an art than science. It helps to know the general boundaries, though, and in an effort to continue sharing those, here are some tips I picked up recently from Karen A. Shriver, author of "Dynamics in Document Design: Creating Texts for Readers" and a successful consultant on major national projects but also regional and local ones as well.

She recently spoke at Texas Tech about consulting and efficiently described the job as selling either A) Production skills (redesigning, reevaluating, etc.), B) Advice or strategy (assessing and evaluating options) and/or C) Training (teaching people how to ...).

In the communication field, she said the rate range right now is roughly $50 to $125 an hour for those with master's degrees and $100 to $500 an hour for those with Phds. Those are broad numbers, of course, and many factors shape a bid and job. Yet those looking for starting points on bids might find that scale helpful.

Sample query letter for a magazine submission

Another common question, what does a query letter look like, when trying to pitch a magazine story?

The first step is to check the submission guidelines of the publication and determine who exactly will be receiving your query. Also make sure to read the publication beforehand, to determine the tone and style and audience. It helps to look at fixtures in the magazine (recurring features) that might need filling.

Most queries are fairly straightforward, a couple of lines about the angle and idea, followed by the broader approach and potential sources. Only a little biography is needed, since it's really mostly about the idea. Sometimes it is fun to try to add a little spunk. Here is an example of that approach:

Editorial Submissions
XXX The Magazine
EDITOR'S NAME, editor
123 W. 1st St.
Washington, DC 20049

Put date here


Dear Ms. EDITOR'S NAME:

A robber near my home recently ran out of a Kentucky Fried Chicken with his loot and encountered an emerging form of crime fighter: the vigilante granny.
This 66-year-old woman followed the fleeing man in her car, on a hunch. She confronted him, then took chase when he started running. Eventually, she trapped him in a corner, pinned him against a fence, grabbed him in a headlock and waited for the police to catch up.
Forget the cultural stereotype of a little old woman clutching her purse as she shuffles down the sidewalk. A generation of empowered women now has grown older but not necessarily weaker. Some of them aren't standing around anymore while crime or injustice just happens in their neighborhoods.
There was a 75-year-old furious recently with the customer service at Comcast, who brought a hammer into the cable company's office and smashed a computer to make a statement. There was an 80-year-old who tracked down the con artist who bilked her, demanding her money back while wielding a knife. There is a group of elderly women, dubbed the Granny Squad, that patrols the Texas border trying to stop illegal immigration. But none of those stories can match, I think, the bravery and righteousness of what the granny did here in this area. And the danger. The robber was carrying a knife.
This incident could make an interesting short feature or it could be a larger trend piece about these types of Grambo cases appearing throughout the country. I would like to use a narrative approach on the story, either putting readers into the action throughout the work or using those techniques to bookend a bigger trend idea. I see this fitting well in either the general interest section of the magazine or the profiles portion.
As for my background, I worked in daily newspaper journalism for more than 15 years before becoming a freelance writer. I have won many national, regional and state awards for my work. I will send a few clips, and you can see more at www.brettoppegaard.com. I was chosen to be one of the first arts critics in the country to be a National Endowment for the Arts fellow, and I teach journalism and writing at Washington State University as well as other colleges in this area.
I would enjoy talking to you more about this idea and its possibilities. Thank you for the consideration!

Sincerely,


Brett Oppegaard
360-521-8150 (c)
brett@brettoppegaard.com
www.brettoppegaard.com

Web designer - What is the going rate?

This is a question that comes up often, so I'll address it here.

Every job is different, of course, and there are many factors to consider before making a web design bid, like any freelance bid. But there are standard considerations and rates that can help you in the process of projecting costs.

Those include recognizing and accounting for the five-step process involved in creating a web page:

* Concept (determining who the users are, what they use the site for and how they use the site, layered with aesthetic, navigational and maintenance plans)
* Design (thematically, how the pages and sub-pages are going to be designed for maximum efficiency, effectiveness and coherence, including plans for visual elements and page framework)
* Coding (creating the page in the most appropriate computer language)
* Copy writing (content design, from headers to body text to rhetoric and reputation management)
* And coordination (through an iterative process, putting it together and making sure it all works as intended for 100 percent customer satisfaction)

It is difficult to generalize about this sort of work hourly, because of the wide variety of factors involved in the creation process, but the standard professional rate for such service is roughly $500 a page, or $100 for each of the five steps of the process per page.

Again, that rate will vary depending on experience, expertise and skills. This is probably not the level for student web designers to work at, but it's an appropriate starting point for most competitive professional bids.

- Brett

Wrapping up a couple of projects

Tonight I put the final polish on two projects, my new brettoppegaard.com home page, and the blog for Camas School District Superintendent Mike Nerland.
The home page, I suppose, will never be done. But I want to launch it now with the capabilities I have in Flash and then work on refining this idea as I learn new techniques in the program. Flash is a very picky critter, very picky. I originally created a couple of buttons for this oPhone concept a few weeks ago. I came back to it, after my Lynda.com trial period had expired, and I could not remember every little minute switch that needed to be switched to get a darn button to work. So I spent a couple of hours banging my head against my desk, and then I signed back up for Lynda.com ($25 a month). It was money well spent, I guess, because after another hour or two, I was able to figure out the tiny little step I had passed over. Can you tell I was frustrated? Anyway, I finally was able to get the button to work, and, like anything I have done in Flash so far, everything looks so much easier in hindsight. Creating a button, adding sound, etc., have all been a snap once I spent hours and hours going over and over the simple 48-step process. Can someone please explain to me why Adobe can't turn a symbol into a button, then make the button follow one of several commons scripts (such as hyperlinking to another page) or keep the option for a custom script, so all the code monkeys of the world could get their kicks.
I really don't dislike programming. I started writing code in the mid-1980s. I basically get the ideas. But it's so very boring to do, and I'd much rather focus on the bigger picture of realizing my vision. That said, I really like the flexibility of Flash. If I can think of it, I pretty much can do it in this program. That's power!
The second project is the blog for the Camas School District's superintendent Mike Nerland. The last few steps were to snap an interesting photo of him and turn that into a banner, which I did tonight. Nerland and public information officer Doreen McKercher were very appreciate of this effort, and they seemed to learn a lot, which made the whole process worthwhile for me.
Now, I just need to turn all of this experience into a huge academic paper. Better spend my energy on that.

- Brett

Harvest of human feelings

Ran across this harvester of human feelings, called:

We Feel Fine

Not sure what to make of it yet, but it's interesting to explore.

- Brett

A new form of book,The Vook

I've had an idea in my mind for the past few months, about how the future of writing will be a new form of multimedia art that will have to be established and judged on a new scale. This will include technology we know about today, such as hyperlinking and podcasting and video and images. But I suspect it also will incorporate capabilities that haven't even been invented yet, too.

One group that already gets this is the Electronic Literature Organization. There are a variety of other academics and professionals that see the light.

But I haven't found any mainstream business application attempted until I ran across this piece in the New York Times about a Vook. A Vook is essentially a book with video and other digital attachments woven into it.

The Vook company recently put a call out in the area I live, Portland, Ore., to encourage people to try it:

"Social media/Web Producer
Reply to: job-bqcwf-1111576049@craigslist.org [Errors when replying to ads?]
Date: 2009-04-07, 12:03PM PDT

Calling on Portland's creative class. Book junkies, social media mavens we're looking for you too.

This is an opportunity to flex your creative muscles and build your own epic vision of a classic tale.

You may have already read about us in the Times on Sunday (http://www.bit.ly/vooktv) -- Vook weaves together text, videos, photography and social networking to create a brand new way to experience and interact with books.

We're looking for a handful of tech-savvy, local book lovers who can help us realize this vision. We want you to take your favorite classic book and "Vook" it.

Successful candidates will use our platform and should have:

* A love of fiction, non-fiction, long form and short stories.
* A passion for the web -- natch.
* Familiarity with Wordpress -- a must.
* A clear understanding of social media (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) and how to source copyright-free content on the Internet -- required.
* An arts, design, video production background -- bonus.
* Literary roots -- over the top.

This is a short-term, contract creative position. Work from home, work from Stumptown. Applicants should submit a resume and links to any on-line portfolio(s). Compensation to be on a completed, per-"Vook" basis."

This is somewhat of the Hundredth Monkey Metaphor, in which enough people start thinking about certain new things in new ways that similar technological eruptions happen in different unrelated places (or at least that's how I would describe the condition).

The distinct art forms now -- theater, dance, music, literature, architecture, poetry, opera, painting, sculpture, etc. -- can all blend together in the digital world, through holograms, computer generated imagery, animation, sound, video and words. That doesn't diminish the original form, just changes it. People who don't like change might as well move to a Pacific Island right now, because we've only begun to see the radical changes that we will experience in the next 50 years.

Art, though, is a product of its time. The context, the innovation, the foresight, that is all part of what makes art so interesting and, in some cases, timeless. Could you imagine some nation today deciding to create the Sphinx? Would anyone stop to look at a Jackson Pollock-styled painting hung in a gallery this month? If "Citizen Kane" was released this week as a modern movie, would anyone consider it great? Would anyone even go? It's ridiculous to take these art innovations out of their time, and it's naive to think that every great art form already exists.

Video games to me are the best current example. Two decades ago, it would have been laughable to suggest that the video game could become an art form. Today, I think it's ridiculous not to consider the video game edging toward that type of credibility. In many ways, the video game has gobbled up other art forms, such as photography, cinema and music, and added the interactivity not technologically possible before to grow into a blended form that could surpass them all in terms of impact on society when hundreds of years have passed.

With the Kindle, and other portable and flexible and durable screens being released already, including ones that can be written on by hand (and translated into typed and searchable text), it's only a matter of time before the printed page will be replaced ... just like film in a camera passed its era of relevance. Will the written word ever disappear? I highly doubt it. It's still (and always will be) a powerful and extremely efficient way to communicate. But could the day come when plain old written words on their own are considered antiquated, like cuneiform?

One comment in this New York Times' Vook article that I thought missed the point was:

"Would we have classics like “The Great Gatsby” if F. Scott Fitzgerald was distracted by the need to give Gatsby a Twitter account?"

The fact is that we will never have another "Great Gatsby" or Sphinx or "Citizen Kane." We will have something else, that could very well be equally great in terms of quality, or even better, but only of this time period, under these conditions. We should appreciate that, instead of always lamenting how wonderful things used to be.

- Brett

Single sourcing and technology

After reading Ann Rockley's piece "The Impact of Single Sourcing and Technology," I was struck by the idea that everyone is dealing with this sort of issue on some level, not just the media and technical writers.

As a print journalist, I have experienced the drastic increase in demands on media folks. It started so simply in the mid-1990s, when some of us in the newspaper business began posting additional context or photos on the Web. By the time I left my staff writing job in 2007, a single newspaper story could easily be transformed and remediated a half dozen times or more in a day. What in the past could have been a two or three hour job instead turned into a full day's work of shifting and updating. That is not necessarily a positive development in an industry that's radically cutting costs and staff. It takes a lot of time to do this sort of remediation and transforming and continual updating, sucking the energy out of the will to produce new stories. In many cases, it creates a paralysis based on the immediacy of the story, a loop of constant checks to see what has changed since the last call, five minutes before. The problem is, things change constantly on any piece, and there's only so much of this polishing that any sane person can do. Even on breaking stories, which generally deserve this sort of attentiveness, I sense that journalists often have become slaves to the story, rather than insightful messengers of what the narrative really means to the world.

Another issue that arose was the default of: Did you create a photo slideshow for that? Did you create a podcast? Did you create a video? Some stories, frankly, don't work well in those media. Some work wonderfully.

Karen Peterson, Executive Editor at The News Tribune in Tacoma, shared a mantra with me once, "pick the right tool for the right job," and maybe that's a nod to Roy Peter Clark's toolbox metaphor, but I think it rings true regardless of the field in which the remediation effort takes place.

If you are creating a piece about something inherently nonvisual, either find the visual angle on it, or don't try to force it into a video or photoslideshow. Same with a podcast. Don't drone on about something that people don't want to hear. My fallback is a dinner party metaphor, would you want to be stuck in a corner with this piece of media? If not, it's not in the right form, or maybe it shouldn't be created at all.

That last point is a critical one. Just because you or I might have an idea, doesn't mean it's a good one. Just because you can make a podcast on constructing a bicycle, doesn't mean you should. The right tool for the right job.

Before remediating any single source material into a dozen forms, it first might be a good idea to ask why? Does the world really need any more static, or noise? Instead of remediating into a dozen forms, would it be more effective to look closely at what you are creating, and choose the best form for it, and really emphasize quality on that form, playing to its strengths? Unless you are running a highly funded marketing or advertising campaign, I doubt that saturation really is the goal. It's probably to make connections with the people who matter in your business. And that isn't a haphazard task. It probably requires a scalpel, not a chainsaw.

I think all of us are getting better and better at tuning out the noise in our lives. Single sourcing, to me, seems like the foundation of propaganda, the spread of a message rather than information. While in some cases it is convenient to just upload the manual to the web, and it might be better than nothing. But in that same amount of time, could something greater have been created?

Pythagorean podcast

A section of a Pierre Schaeffer article I read recently on acousmatics has inspired me to create a podcast about Pythagoras. That philosopher lectured to his students from behind a curtain, so they would focus only on the words he spoke, not the person making the words.

My effort to retell that anecdote is posted here


In essence, the podcast is about the undervalued strengths of sound as a medium.

I originally intended to do more of a standard lecture about podcasts and their places in the new world media. But I wanted to push my abilities as a podcast creator, and fiction producer, and I wanted to try to create something using sound effects and an original script and something that was written in present tense. This all led to Pythagoras, who just happen to be featured in an article I was reading at the time about this topic. It was a spur of the moment decision, that led me down a lot of interesting paths.

The script is based on history but obviously embellished and in some ways campy yeah, that's intentional, uh-huh ,really).

I created the piece on Audacity
, which only crashed a few times during the process (save often!).

The sound effects primarily are from FreeSound.org, my favorite Foley source. But I also took some from Creative Commons and a little snippet of a fanfare from Stefan Hagel's fascinating site on ancient Greek music and instruments.

I read a lot about Pythagoras in preparation for creating this script. Not much was really known about him, though, since he didn't write anything down and made his followers vow to never do that either. Nevertheless, I tried to jam in as many of the quirky historical references as I could (hence the camp), just to give the content some of the texture of the research. Listening to it critically afterward, I hear influences ranging from Donny Osmond in "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" to Harold Hill in "The Music Man" to the owl in "Bambi" to the Geoffrey Chaucer character in "The Knights Tale," a modern Hollywood version of ""The Canterbury Tales."

This has been a relatively quick project, so please forgive any historical goofs. And the voice talent, or lack of talent, is all me. So you will really need to be kind about that part of the performance. It's bad enough to listen to yourself on a recording, but imagine trying to generate more than a half dozen distinct characters with an untrained voice. Trust me, as an arts critic for more than a decade, it's more painful for me to listen to this than you.

That said, I'm content with many aspects of the final product. I think much of the sound mixing turned out pretty much how I imagined it. The script has some strong sections (and some weak ones, too). The historical anecdote is abstract enough to be interesting from a lot of different angles. I hope I conveyed that. This is the longest fiction piece I've created to date, and with the most sound layers. So I'm stretching my skills. Fiction is so much more difficult than nonfiction for me, with my training as a journalist. I've learned over many years what to listen for from a source, and to get that into my story. I can detach from the foibles of the speaker, because that is what makes the voice feel authentic.

The freedom of fiction also is a burden in the sense that all flaws lead directly back to me, as the author, and if they aren't intentional ... Oy! Anyway, I hope you find something interesting in this production. It was fun to create, and I'm definitely going to be working on more material like this in the future. Please give me feedback, and I'll try my best to get better and better at it.

- Brett

Looking at homepages

My class at Texas Tech right now, Online Publishing, has been studying the art of homepages, particularly focused on portfolios and academic needs. We've been asked to give a couple of comments on each. So here they are:

Chris Andrews
An opportunity for improvement: The thematic colors feel drab to me. Maybe it's the grainy post-industrial feel desired, and it certainly is different than most sites, but it also tires my eyes fairly quickly.
My favorite aspect so far: There are many parts of this page and site that I think are engaging. Definitely feels experimentational and edgy, with the unusual color choices and abstract entry point. I don't know why, maybe because it was something that caught me by surprise, but I spent way too much time trying to figure out how the arm worked on the "current research and projects" page.

Jessica Badger
An opportunity for improvement: A "before" and "after" flash animation would be an interesting way to hook people on the site.
My favorite aspect so far: The personal story, yet universal story, told clearly, is fantastic asset.

Sharba Chowdhury
An opportunity for improvement: When reading about Calcutta, and India, it would be helpful to see some of the places being described. This area is so far removed from my experiences that I really need help imagining it.
My favorite aspect so far: The site design is efficient and straightforward. Easy to navigate and explore.

Dominic Evans
An opportunity for improvement: Some movement, animation or video, could bring even more life to this site. How about a mouseover that opens the front door?
My favorite aspect so far: The colors on that opening page just grabbed me, like a vibrantly decorated sandwich board, and made me want to go inside the site. Thematically, once in there, it did feel like a cool clubhouse.

Shawna Hayden
An opportunity for improvement: Who is the intended audience for this page? Is it simply informational? Or, if the goal is to get potential clients to make contact, could some of the text snippets be written more with that in mind?
My favorite aspect so far: The falling colorful blocks that serve as portal entries are very cheerful and inviting. Easy to navigate.

Adrian Jackson
An opportunity for improvement: Site consistency. For example, not sure why different sets of buttons are in separate places.
My favorite aspect so far: The fly-in text and pulsating flower give a touch of action. The animation of the buttons, too, makes the page lively.

Carie Lambert
An opportunity for improvement: Color theme is virtually monochromatic. Without action or much contrast, either, this makes the site flat visually.
My favorite aspect so far: Easy to navigate and get to the information promised, which is delivered.

Ashley Owen
An opportunity for improvement: More pizazz could help, to separate this page from the pack. Maybe something that personalizes it.
My favorite aspect so far: Clean layout, with well-defined portals into the content.

Melody Wainscott
An opportunity for improvement: More content would give visitors additional reasons to stay longer and look around.
My favorite aspect so far: The mouseover-and-click option on a part of a photo (in this case a person) is really effective at getting a visitor to explore an image.

Rebecca Widder
An opportunity for improvement: Wallpaper overwhelms the rest of the content.
My favorite aspect so far: A professional window into a person's career and life but with some personal touches.

Monica Wesley
An opportunity for improvement: The original artwork seems underplayed. This kind of illustrative talent should be center stage, not buried in a button, creating entry points for the rest of the unique skills.
My favorite aspect so far: Elegant and nuanced in color and style combined with easy navigation.

And here is the work I've done in redesigning my homepage, which primarily has just been focused so far on the opening interface. I have a plan now that I think will carry through to all of the pages and any expansion I want for the foreseeable future. So look for more changes in the next few weeks and months, especially on the portfolio pages. Let me know what you think of my efforts, or if you visit any of the other pages in the class mentioned here, I'm sure they would all appreciate the feedback as well. Any tips from you out there?

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

A blog (and essentially a podcast, too) I want to make sure to highlight as well is Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog by the Whedon clan, including Joss Whedon, creator of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and other shows.

This is a short musical, about 40 minutes, originally created for Web distribution during the Hollywood writers strike. It's built upon a love triangle among Dr. Horrible, an aspiring supervillain, Capt. Hammer, the good guy, and the girl they both love, Penny. Very ambitious, funny and worth a look.

The value of podcasts

Podcasts at this point in their development are most often radio-like segments that feature either a single voice, or a voice over music, or maybe, a couple of people talking to each other. The value in that, I suppose, is hearing those voices gives additional context (through inflection and tone and emphasis) beyond the transcript. But I think the potential for podcasts is much higher, particularly in relation to interactive digital storytelling. When working in conjunction with other modern means, such as hypertext and digital video and clickable photos, these little seeds of audio could be a powerful narrative engine to add to the mix. Like the package/briefcase/note in every mystery story that just begs to be opened.
A few have seen the value in digital audio production that virtually brings us back to the heyday of radio, when The Mercury Theatre ruled the airwaves with its presentations of fascinating and provocative stories, including its infamous "War of the Worlds" broadcast. What has been lost in the rise of television and movies is the pure energy that sound on its own provides, and the side effect has been a video-induced laziness that has lured our culture into predominately using only one of our senses, funneling every experience through the lens of sight.
Podcasts can do virtually anything radio can do, except reach people unexpectedly. Like the best of the modern media, they can relate news, opinion, guides, journals, features, sports, statistics, reviews, etc.
National Public Radio right now, and The BBC have taken radio empires and adjusted them to this new delivery system. But the world is so much richer by not relying only on the companies that can afford large towers and FCC licenses. Try out any of the podcatchers around, such as MediaFly (others include iTunes, Juice, Nimiq and FeedDemon), and you'll begin to see the creativity and individuality that podcasting allows.
That said, the best of the work, at least in terms of production value, still comes from the usual suspects. Here are just a few examples:
* NPR's piece about bar-code hopping in SanFrancisco
* A KCRW tourism show, including a visit to Austin, Texas, for SXSW
* Or how about a vacation ... to Antarctica, by NPR
There are so many fantastic podcasts like that by radio veterans -- NPR, KCRW, BBC and the like -- at least in terms of the nonfiction content available, that competing voices will have to become quite sophisticated to compete. Or they will have to take a different tact, maybe a direction that didn't make sense before the dynamics of podcasting came into play. Fortunately, the costs of setting up a podcasting studio are minimal, at least compared to the historical costs of creating a competing radio station. A quiet place, with good acoustics (a small bathroom, or large closet, perhaps), a high quality microphone, and, at least in the beginning, a low-cost or free sound editing software, such as GarageBand (Mac) or Audacity (PC).
Intriguing to me are the ways in which podcasts can be used that radio isn't. Once again Web 2.0 interactivity should be considered. Can small-scale controllable bits of audio generate an interactive forum? I think so, but I haven't found any high quality examples. Can podcasts provoke action in superior ways to the generally passive radio audiences? I think so, but again, I'm not seeing that yet. Time shifting is important in the value of podcasts. So is the niche market. With commercial radio stations becoming less and less personal, and less and less local, can podcasts be the new voice in the air that talks directly to its listener? Can a new wave of unique and unusual voices reclaim the power of one of our lost senses? I'll be listening.

"Action is the highest form of thought"

In terms of interactive narrative, that statement from Mark Stephen Meadows' "Pause & Effect" emphasizes to me the importance of plot development. If a story isn't moving, isn't revealing new pearls to follow, new doors to open, or isn't compelling the user to do anything, it's dead in the water. Plot development and character development are two essential features of story. More on character in a moment, but plot, or action, first, because of the two, I'd say action is more critical than even character.
By the way, stories typically need at least some exposition as well, but exposition is like listening to the voice from the loudspeaker. Just a little bit, just a few words or lines of it, goes a long way. Ideally, all orientation material and plot and character for that matter comes from within the action of the story, which leads back to the initial point.
I'm not sure, though, if action can function completely independent of character. I feel confident in saying that whatever character, however exquisite the rendering, will not hold an observer's interest if that character doesn't do something ... anything. Yet, I also think action without character can be just as pointless. For example, if I turn on a football game, and the blue team is playing the red, and I don't know any of the players on the field, or anything about the teams, why would I care what happens? Even if I watch closely, and one player seems to be doing extraordinary things, why would I care? Maybe that's what he is supposed to be doing. His story is obscured to me, without the context of a name, some details about him, about the team, expectations, etc. I think of the talking heads at sporting events as context creators. They tell me who the teams are, who the players are who typically do well, what the archetypal situation is (a la David vs. Goliath), etc. Only then do I begin to care that one of the players is exceeding expectations and having a great game to lead to an "upset." Or one of the players isn't having the effect on the game he should have. Or that the team is missing its star quarterback, which is why it can't pass the ball very well. Without that context, the action is meaningless. And any meaning I might make is meaningless to anyone else.
In terms of any other story, will I really care about anyone doing anything if I don't know who they are and what they are supposed to be doing and how that is turning out? That seems to be the essence of the magnetism of a narrative. We want to know what happens but also to whom. That little bit of mystery keeps us engaged. And if the mystery isn't there, we create the mystery. It's like when you see a car drive by and begin wondering: who is that person, why is that person here, where is that person going, why is it so important for that person to get there? And then, maybe, you begin to wonder: How does that person spend the rest of the day? That investment in character attaches a person to the action. If the same car zips by, and I don't look up or wonder, the action is happening, but I'm not engaged at all by the story.
Yet I can know as much as possible about a character, and be really interested in that person, but if the person isn't doing anything at that moment, isn't engaged in some activity, including thinking about doing something, then why would I want to experience that part of the story? A compelling narrative edits out the boring parts of life. The routine -- eating, chores, driving, sleeping, etc. -- as well as the mundane -- staff meetings, dinner party small talk, exercising -- takes up most of our lives. But it's the action in between that you want to tell your friends about. That's the exciting content people who encounter your stories want to experience as well.
Yet when creating a digital narrative, technical considerations also come into play. Meadows defines some of those choices as: Responsiveness versus resolution, or how well does something look on screen versus how well does it move; optimization versus ubiquity, again, how well does something look on screen but this time versus how many people have the technological tools to access it at that high of a level; and third, customization versus design, or how much the user controls the story versus the designer. Budget and intended audience also come into play on that, but tough decisions like those join the plot-versus-character debate for digital narratives. So while action might be the highest form of thought, and the engine of all stories, I don't think it can work entirely alone when creating a narrative.
My question, then, is about the base power of action. Why does it move us so? Why are we captivated by the slightest amount of movement? Think of a movie in which the actor is doing not much more than putting on a coat, or taking a bite to eat, that little bit of action makes a scene much more watchable than if the person was just staring into the camera and reciting the same exact line.

Children's book editor available

This former Scholastic editor, who came across as quite warm and considerate at a recent OR-SCBWI conference I attended, is available for editing help at what appears to be a quite reasonable rate.

This is the note I received recently from SCBWI:

"Erin Molta, who was a well-loved guest editor at our 2007 conference
(and who has published a few Oregon SCBWI members), was recently one
of the talented folks whose job was *deleted* at Scholastic. While
she is pursuing leads for a new job, I asked if she was willing to
take on a little freelance editing work. She thought about it and
decided, sure! So here is her blurb:

Do you have a manuscript with no zip? Is the ending escaping you? Has
an editor told you your characters need to be developed more? I have
twenty years experience editing children's books--from picture books,
easy readers, chapter books to middle grade and YA novels. I can help
you bring your language up or down to fit an easy reader level or
trim text in a beautiful but wordy picture book.

If you e-mail me, Erin Molta, your manuscript as an attachment to
emolta@optimum.net and specify what your concerns are, I will provide
a detailed editorial letter that addresses those issues and any
others that I think might help you in your pursuit of publication.

I charge $25.00 per hour, payable via PayPal, which includes the
reading of the manuscript and the editorial letter."

Just a thought about instructions, story

I was playing The Ladybug Game today with my children for the first time and was surprised to find that it didn't come with instructions. I told my kids that there must be something somewhere in the box or on the box or in the cards, because you can't make a game without providing instructions. My oldest daughter just started making up the rules, and we began manipulating the game pieces, and we came up with a format that worked for us. In fact, it was quite fun! And then, once we established the gameplay, we kept continually refining it. The game did provide a short story about what happened to the characters in the game, and the board was shaped in a particular way, which guided us in the development of our format. It also made me start thinking about how much more interaction and engagement was involved in playing the way we did. Maybe the best way to create interactive narratives is to start with nothing, except a few pieces and tools and an environment, and let the player broadly determine what comes next. It sure works in childplay, so does it lose its value later because many adults have atrophied imaginations? Or is it just that most adults have had the idea of complete freedom of choice hammered out of them?

Of interactive narratives and home pages

One of my primary web design goals recently has been to convert my static Web 1.0 homepage at www.brettoppegaard.com into a Web 2.0 portal of interactive excitement (or at least to take a few steps in that direction). It has become a significant journey of personal, professional and technical growth.
It felt right to start where I did, essentially a summary page of what I offer online. But as I look around the Web, and I think about why anyone would bother to come to my pages, I think the homepage should be more interesting and informative and even a little bit of fun for users. So my concept has been developing along with my increased interest in the rise of mobile technology. I'm not an avid cellular phone user, but it seems absolutely clear to me that as cell phones -- particularly those like the touch pad iPhones, which don't require typing or even reading -- give virtually everyone easy access to the power of the Internet, the Web will soon be making another major leap in the market and become as Mark Weiser, former Chief Technology Officer of Xerox-PARC, once predicted, "ubiquitous." To pay homage to the power of the phone in our lives today, and where I think it's going in the future, I've designed my page around the phone metaphor, letting it dial into my space in various ways. I also think this would translate well to people who access my site via phone. I will post that soon, I hope. I want to continue to develop it through various buttons and gizmos, of course. In addition, I want to incorporate my continuing interest in storytelling and narrative construction, particularly interactive narratives. But this is at least the first step.
For direction, I look to Mark Stephen Meadows again and his passage on Ralph Koster, who served as the lead designer of Ultima Online, and who early on identified two distinct paths of interactive narrative. The first he called "impositional," the style of story design in which the creators maintain most of the control, giving users limited choices in which to complete a few different branching narrative arcs. The other style he calls "expressive." That is more like architecture, designed for use but also exploration. In that, the story creator sets up a framework and the user does the rest, including reaching self-determined goals and following user-controlled direction and pace.
Just as my homepage had to go from static to the next phase, I think it's properly evolutionary for me to aim for gaining some impositional experience first before reaching for the brass ring of expressive. Also, I'm not sure the purpose of my site, at least as I'm envisioning it now, responds as well to the expressive style as it does to the impositional outlook of: I'm going to give you some freedom to move around here and see different things. But I'm not trying to create an environment like a weak facsimile of "The Sims," either.
Speaking of "The Sims," video games and movie/DVD web sites right now are so far ahead of everyone else, I often find myself in awe of what they are accomplishing, particularly in comparison to the baby steps being taken by the news media, which could have just as much to gain, if not more, by the increased interest people have in information.
When a company like IonStorm, for example, calls its game, "Deus Ex Machina," or "God From the Machine," I begin to feel that I'm taking part in an almost spiritual awakening of humanity in our potential for intelligence and connection and worldwide partnerships, only at the same time realizing that most of the best ideas seem to be coming from the entertainment industry and most energy funneled in that direction, creating just more and more distractions and ways for people to escape reality. In the meantime, "real" news is withering under the spotlight in which Paris Hilton's hijinks compete head to head with local city council agendas, bringing to mind Neil Postman's prophetic book "Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business." I'm quickly stepping off the soapbox, though, and getting back to the matter at hand, the homepage.
Another inspiration to me has been author Scott McCloud's, www.scottmccloud.com, use of the metaphor of a monitor as a window, into which we can see limitless possibilities, such as a comic on a rotating cube or covering a globe. I hope that before I'm done I can create something uniquely digital, not just something remediated, something that takes full advantage of these incredible tools we now have available in new and innovative ways.
During this redesign process, learning about the possibilities, I've also been immersed in the potential of the tools and how much work it can be to get oriented with those. I'll say, it's not like picking up a hammer and looking for something to strike. I recently bought Adobe's Creative Suite 4 (design edition), which includes Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks, Illustrator and InDesign. I also bought a copy of Adobe Premiere Elements. While I've dabbled in all of these before, or similar programs, the little quirks in each has taken a significant amount of time to learn, at least to use in the now more ambitious directions I'm taking. I began just by browsing the many, many free training videos on YouTube and around the web, and I have to say that I quickly learned you get what you pay for. Oy! Many of them are really terrible. Thankfully, though, Adobe gave me a 30-day membership to Lynda.com, and I've been impressed with the design and care and layout of that site. Extremely simple to navigate, and I have learned an incredible amount in a very short time period (although many of those hours have been stolen from my allotted few still assigned to sleep; I was up until 4 a.m. yesterday, paying for it today). My main emphasis recently has been on Flash and its ActionScript 3.0. I guess I naively thought that software today had become primarily point and click, but this one still needs a significant amount of coding. The possibilities, though, are amazing. I also have been delving into the world of public domain media -- images and sound and video -- to help supplement what I have, and I've been impressed with the growing amount of content available for such use. Which brings me to a couple of questions for you. What are your favorite places to get online software training (particularly if that can be had at no cost)? And where do you prowl around for public domain media? Please share any sites I should be visiting. Thanks!

Jakob Nielsen's column

Ran across this column today, and its backlog, which covers many interesting issues in web usability and design. It's put together by Dr. Jakob Nielsen, who calls it "Alertbox," and from what I've read so far, it appears to be aimed at a general audience, yet with enough detail to keep more techie readers engaged as well.

Searching for a metaphor

With my home page redesign due in less than a month, I seriously need to figure out how I'm going to reach my goal of making an interactive site out of what essentially is an online portfolio, blog and student hub for the classes I teach. How boring is that! ... So I'm turning again to Meadows in “Pause & Effect,” who describes the key stages of interaction: 1. Observation, 2. Exploration, 3. Modification and 4. Reciprocal change. He then later layers on the parallel storytelling stages of: 1. Fascination, 2. Captivation, 3. Investment and 4. Interest. With this site, I want visitors to get to know me (at least to a certain degree), and I want them to see what I've done and what I can do in this medium and others, including writing, publishing and teaching. For them to be even close to “fascinated,” though, I'm going to have to develop a much stronger entry point at www.brettoppegaard.com. Something abstract, yet something that sets an appropriate tone for what I'm going to deliver. Inspired by Meadows' look at perspective, I'm going to attempt to create an interactive portrait, so that the first thing someone sees at my home page is me looking right back at them. Only it won't really be me, exactly, more of a dynamic representation of me, or parts of me, that would encourage a visitor to explore and peer past this facade I've created and go inside my online space. While Meadows states most designers concern themselves only with outside-the-skull interactivity, (how long the page takes to load, etc.), I think my hesitation lies heavily on the inside-the-skull interaction, or what is this going to mean to the people who come to this site. If prospective employers look, what will they think? If my friends look, what reaction will they have? If strangers come by, how will they respond? It's almost a target audience issue, more than anything else. Since I'm asking this site to do a variety of things, and appeal to a variety of people, I'm having trouble visualizing an entry point that will satisfy (and intrigue) them all. I think it would be so much easier if I had a site set up just for prospective employers, and another one just for friends, and another just for my teaching, and another just for other interests I might have. Maybe that's my true solution, to turn brettoppegaard.com into nothing but a portal that sends people to different pages (while I can send them there directly, too, when I choose, and bypass the entry point), and then the work of consistency and focus can be left to those pages as they are designed for their uses. The input / output that Meadows describes, creating an interaction cycle, becomes difficult the more ways I'm pulling people, who probably won't be interested in more than one section of this site. I'm really struggling with that overlay, I suppose. Maybe it's the metaphor. Maybe it should be doors, like Meadows shows, and someone rings the doorbell of one door, and it opens to the portfolio. And maybe the next door opens to teaching. I'm starting to like that idea more and more. That would give me some input / output at the beginning, doors that people could open and shut or go into. I'll explore that idea as well in the next couple of weeks. And maybe think of similar metaphors. Like C.S. Lewis' wardrobe. Hmmm, I think I might be on to something. What else can be used as a portal? A pool of water, a hole, a cave, a closet, a phone line. How about a series of phones that are ringing, and the user can choose to answer one. Or just pick one up, like the Bat Phone, or the Red Phone, or whatever. With the way mobile computing is going, I think the phone will become even a stronger metaphor in years to come. There certainly are a lot of buttons on a phone, and these buttons could do a lot of things, input-output wise. Can I technically pull that off? That's a big question. And I'm not even in the ballpark yet of Meadows idea of an open system, versus a closed system, or, in other words, one that the user can change and improve. How about a ringing phone? The user clicks on the phone to answer it. That starts the adventure ... I'm going to work on that. Questions: To what degree does a person need to be a full-time web designer with years of programming experience to create a compelling and interactive page? Is it more about concept than coding, like someone shooting a fabulous movie entirely on a hand-held?

Another comic site to try, Pixton.com

FYI, my last post, related to comic-producing web sites, such as ComicLife, generated this response from Clive, creator of Pixton.com:

"I stumbled across your blog today and thought you might be interested in hearing about an innovative Web 2.0 learning tool.

Pixton.com is a website where you create comics without having to draw. It is a global community where people of all ages share, remix, and publish their ideas, opinions and stories. Read comics in over 40 languages, with our automatic translation by Google.

You can design every aspect of your character, and move it into any pose you want. All you have to do is click-and-drag to change or reposition any part of it - the creative and artistic possibilities are endless. Our language filtering system helps make Pixton a fun and safe place for all - from 6 to 106! Sign-up is free.

We also have a version specifically for educators. Pixton for Schools is a private virtual classroom for teachers and students (30-day free trial).

We welcome you and your colleagues to try Pixton and tell us what you think."

So I'm going to check it out. If you do, too, let me know how it works (or doesn't) for you,

- Brett

Where my homepage is headed (hopefully)

I'm working on a redesign of my homepage, BrettOppegaard.com that I hope eventually will make this entire site more engaging and dynamic for users (is anyone really out there?). It all starts at the homepage, I think, and if I can create an exciting entry point, like a great lede on a story, then the rest will follow naturally.

To begin with, I want to remove the artifice of third person and gradually transform the site into first person. Yes, it's true. There really aren't hundreds of people on staff working on this site day and night. The team actually consists of just me and the two cats who come in and out of my office to eat, drink and add to the environment's aroma.

But I want to have a concept to build the site around, to help guide the artistic decisions (doesn't that sound lofty?). Since my specialty as a writer is nonfiction narrative, and I've become a disciple of Mark Stephen Meadows now, after reading his book "Pause & Effect," a narrative approach feels completely natural. Yet my purpose for this site primarily is as a portfolio and student hub for the classes I teach. Can I really create a narrative based on that? That's the sort of fuzzy goal on the horizon. But I'm flummoxed by that as an end goal. Where does the path begin?

How about looking at some artist (including musician) sites that I think are well constructed, or at least interesting. It seems like they would have a similar dilemma in building an audience (and having an online purpose).

I found a list of the "top" rock band web sites at Modernrock.com, and there are many, many fascinating ideas at work on these pages.

Meadows states that our eyes naturally gravitate first to movement, then light, then color, and I'm really engaged by sites that open with a bit of film or something that seems to turn the page alive. I'm assuming these are done in Flash, but I'll have to look closer to figure out the technical aspects.

Here are a few that made me think "Wow!"

* The stark style and simplicity of this one, from the Red Hot Chili Peppers feels similar in tone to what I want to accomplish. I'd like it even better if that home page had the negative strips scrolling through the images. I want to have just a few choices on the home page, to get people where they want to go, basically either to my portfolio, my blog or to my classroom hubs (and someday to my great American novel page; Ha!).

* I don't care at all for this band, White Stripes, but this site really grabbed my attention (after getting past the memorial intro). I'm starting to think, too, that some music would be cool to have. Note to self: What kind of "creative commons" music is out there that would be a suitable soundtrack for my site?

* The Killers, who I don't know anything about, show how effective just a little bit of movement can be on a home page.

* I've seen the floating category titles on a few sites, like this one from Audio Slave. In some ways, that's kind of annoying, to have to chase a link. I don't think I want to do that. Here's another site that does it, too, but better BlenderBox.

* I like the huge photographs on this site by System of a Down. But I don't have any photos of my content (or ideas of taking anything) that are anywhere near that dramatic.

* Check out U2's studio. Effective use of a great photo.

OK, I'm getting tired of looking at white text on black backgrounds now. So let's look at a few sites related to artists.

Found a list of the recent winners of the Webbys, which pick the best web sites of the year, and really became fascinated with the construction of these: Mi Fu makes calligraphy look exciting, Edward Hopper brings action to ordinary paintings and Richard Serra demonstrates how menus can be installed in unusual ways.

Here's a really high quality film intro type of site, from Coca-Cola.

This one by Checkland Kindleysidesis so clean and pure, with the most delicate of movement, I'm in awe.

This menu screen from The Sims made me think I better start checking out what the video game industry is producing. But that's for another blog post.

Movement, and sound, yes, I want those. I definitely prefer a very simple homepage, too. With just a few options to start. And then those can unfurl from there.

Maybe a comic is the answer? Meadows mentions how powerful the abstraction of a character in comic form can be, noting successful sites such as Banja and Comic Chat. I used ComicLife to create my family's annual Christmas card this year, and the response was as enthusiastic as I've ever received. But should I, would I, become a cartoon? I'm not sure I can see that perspective integrating with my information sharing goals.

Meadows also states that the face gives off more information than anything else, and indicates the greatest amount of response. I've thought a wild collage that incorporates a portrait of me with more interesting imagery could be cool. The different parts also could serve as the menu tabs. I like that idea. Still needs a narrative frame and point of view, but there's something to that one, I think. But, as Meadows emphasizes, I need the metaphor to build upon, "the consistent relationship of symbols." That's what's holding me back.

To take it to the next step, the ultimate step, interactivity, is beyond my cone of vision right now. Maybe next week.

- Brett

Seminar on selling

Took a little adventure today. Know those come-on letters you get in the mail every so often that say, "Hear our short seminar, and we'll give you lunch and a gift, etc., with no obligation"? Every time I had received anything like that before I had recycled those without even opening the letter, but recently a company called Stores Online Express sent me one that promised to teach me about making millions on the Internet while I sleep. Actually, it only promised to teach me how to sell things better on the Internet (and quit my day job and live out my dreams ...), which I interpreted more broadly as making millions, particularly while I'm napping. Since I'm taking a class on online publishing, I thought it might be interesting to attend this sort of thing, and I've always wanted to go through the selling gauntlet (yeah, right), to see out of curiosity how I respond to the really hard sale by seasoned pros. I figured with the class as my conscience, I'd keep my wallet in my pocket.

Anyway, the seminar was held at one of the Vancouver area's finest hotels and conference centers, The Heathman Lodge, and lunch was included. So I figured I really couldn't lose. The opening slideshow of the seminar displayed a variety of figures and stats that were fascinating, only the slides moved so fast, I couldn't write down all of the info, including sources, which were listed on most of them.

Here's a few that caught my attention:

Top online activities: 1. Email, 2. Obtaining news, 3. Making a purchase. I was encouraged to read that of all of the Internet activity, news consumption was that high on the list. Maybe there is a future for media after all.

How long did it take for each medium to reach its first 1 million users? Radio = 50 years, television and others were listed, too, and then the Internet = Four years. There probably has never been a medium more quickly spread and adopted in all of human history, although I need to get more confirmation on this than these shabby notes, including a source.

Internet users in the world: 578 million in Asia, 384 million in Europe and North America was third, with a number I didn't catch, somewhere in the 200 million range, I think. I thought America would be way ahead on that one.

Market share of search engines: Google = 50 percent, Yahoo = 24 percent, MSN was third down in the low teens, I think. On this one, I really thought Google would have more of a market share in the 70s or higher. It seems like Internet searching can be communicated as Googling, or as Google this or that. Who Yahoos anymore? Probably the same people who email through AOL.

In short, the bulk of the seminar related to marketing web sites. The No. 1 problem with any site, I was told, is that no one knows about it, or people can't find it, or it's buried on page 36 of a Google search. Search Engine Optimization was stressed over and over again, and I think that's an important area to emphasize. Of course, Stores Online Express will help you with that service, for only $24.95 a month. Ha!

One other idea that was mentioned briefly, but I would like to know more about, is the concept of geo-targeting, or focusing on your local market. Yes, we all know that the web can reach anyone in the world. But what if you really don't need it to do that? What if you just want to reach the people that you can serve within a 30-minute drive or so? That's a concept I haven't heard many people talking about before. I think as the web gets more and more full of material (like it's not big enough as it is) that people will need more guidance to explore the vastness of the information. This sort of approach could be fruitful. I'll look into it more soon and post if I find anything of interest.

One great quote I gleaned from that opening slideshow, too, with no source noted, "If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've got." This was something different for me, for sure. And that was a good thing.

- Brett

A look into the future (from the past)

This is surreal to watch in retrospect: Newspapers of the future

Superintendent's Blog in progress

I met recently with the Camas School District superintendent, Mike Nerland, and the district's public information officer, Doreen McKercher, to discuss how I could help them with their Web site needs. Nerland has been wanting to start "a superintendent's blog," as this idea is gaining traction in his field as an effective and efficient way to communicate with constituents.

McKercher has been reading about blogging in the public relations field as well, and the two of them have been talking about doing this sort of project for a few weeks. Both expressed during our discussion the desire to have a blog that was easy for them to use and maintain as well as one that is easy for patrons to navigate.

From that point of view, I suggested that instead of using a more complex content management system, such as Drupal or NVU, we would use a standard template system from one of the leaders in the blogging field, Google's Blogger or WordPress, and also look into a similar online system that I ran across called Edublogs.org, a blogging system designed specifically for educators. In turn, I offered to create a detailed instruction manual for operation and maintenance, whichever direction we go.

I also offered to create three prototypes, one from each system, under these domain names:

camas.edublogs.org
camasschools.blogspot.com
camasschools.wordpress.com

They asked for a clean, simple and professional look to the blog. So even though this is going to be the "superintendent's blog," the intent clearly is for a formal presentation, not a window into his personal whims and interests. The hope, too, they said, is to make this the portal for the rest of the school district, which maintains a variety of sites of differing styles and quality level. The hope is that this could become the front porch of the district.

There are 3,200 households within the district and about 18,000 residents in this town, a close suburb to Portland, Ore.

We had some initial discussions about Internet 1.0 content, versus Internet 2.0 and beyond, and the district officials expressed hope that the interactive outreach could be moderated to keep discussions at a high level and about related topics.

In short, Nerland and McKercher want the blog to at least do a couple of basic things: Allow Nerland to communicate to people in the district and give people an online way to connect with him. We also talked about ways in which he could make this portal more personal and help users feel more comfortable in engaging with him and his ideas.

Those are all things that need to be worked out, I suppose. At this point, though, I'd say they are comfortable with the 1.0 sharing of information, and we'll have to keep talking about more 2.0 concepts. I'll keep you updated on those developments.

To begin with, I plan to set up the pages with a few standard elements:

* Superintendent bio
* Blog
* Contact information
* Links to other Camas School District sites
* RSS feed
* Archives

From there, we have a variety of options to consider. They would like to try a podcast, incorporating it as a "storytelling" moment for the superintendent, about someone interesting he has met in the district, or some new program, or whatever. They would like to post documents, press releases and project information and budgets and the like. They would like to post slideshows of appearances Nerland makes at various school events. We'll see how much we can get done.

Question: Any of you out there have any opinions on which of the three systems (Blogger, WordPress and Edublogs) works best for this sort of thing? And why?

- Brett

Obama - Communication, Transparency and Participation

The George W. Bush debacle finally has ended (although we'll be feeling the hangover for years, I'm sure). President Obama already has taken many important symbolic steps to restoring the honor and integrity of our nation, including promising to close the Guantanamo Bay "detention center." One other announcement that should be celebrated is this blog posting by Macon Phillips, the Director of New Media for the White House:

Change has come to the White House

In that missive, Obama promises a government in the future that offers timely and in-depth information about legislation and administration of our country. Through modern technology, he also commits to creating a new level of participation through such devices and the most open and transparent administration in history. Hurray!

I also read recently Wired magazine's piece on Obama and the ways in which he embraces technology (Wired magazine's piece on Obama), which raised many insights into the challenges Obama faces in implementing this grand plan of openness.

That starts with the federal government's 24,000 independent web sites, many of which are out of date or abandoned, the do-nothing bureaucrats that generally inhabit many of our public institutions and the red tape (even if that initially was well-intentioned) that has become obsolete as the Internet has evolved and rules of public discourse have changed. In short, this is going to be as daunting of a task as turning around the economy, especially after eight years of driving hard the opposite direction. It's a bit like looking up at the peak of Mount Everest. But, especially from my perspective as a journalist, this is a critical and fundamental shift that will be difficult at first but pay massive dividends to democracy in the long run.

If the country's true goal was autocracy or disenchantment of everyone but the wealthy and elite, as it appeared to be the past eight years, this would not be a priority. If the goal is to become the world's beacon of democracy -- what we claim we want -- there is no higher calling than doing public business in the public's eye and letting the will of the people dictate our direction and let an open-source form of government blossom. It will be messy, of course, but fantastically worthwhile. Can you imagine this idea Obama has that the public could go online and comment on public legislation before it goes through the political pipeline? Wow!

That said, I'm not sure exactly how this Web. 2.0 approach will work with government. It's tedious enough with our representatives trying to get things done, let alone someone having to sift through in that process 14,000 variations of "ths law totlly suks!!!" It still will be just a slice of the population engaged. But that slice is bigger than what was involved before. Once the growing pains are overcome, I think we will be much better off with this approach.

One key statement I heard from Obama recently was that even though public disclosure of information may legally be withheld, by technicalities in the law, even under the Freedom of Information Act, he wants public servants to instead err on the side of disclosure and only keep things confidential that absolutely must be protected, say in the name of national security. This is a major mind shift for most of the public servants I have interacted with over the years, who seem to protect public information like it's a form of job security.

If only the newspaper industry wasn't imploding right now, I'd forecast a renaissance of investigative journalism under such a mandate. As it is, I'm afraid this new window might just open (and maybe close) without people reaping the many benefits ... or even noticing. Certainly those with pet issues will take advantage of these opportunities, and if the government kept closing down its information pipelines, I fear that democracy in this country might exist only in name. But maybe with this new approach by the government, new media can take advantage and go beyond the current state of celebrity gossip and weather coverage and establish that watchdog journalism can live in the 21st century. For the sake of us all, I hope so.

Questions I have: Will this new push by Obama for transparency and an open government get support and be well-received? Or will this extremely important philosophical shift in our federal government get lost amid the bailouts and gas prices and wars and collapsing economy? Is transparency an attainable goal at the federal level? All it takes is one insecure bureaucrat somewhere in the line to shut things down. I'd make it a termination-level offense for failure to properly administer a FOIA request. That might get some attention.

"Pause and Effect" and Texas Tech

My doctoral studies at Texas Tech University officially have begun, and that's especially good news for the blog here at brettoppegaard.com. My first class is focused on online publishing, under the direction of Dr. Rich Rice, and one of my regular assignments is to make blog posts. So here they come.
We are reading “Pause and Effect” by Mark Stephen Meadows, and I have to say, once I started this book, I couldn't wait until the next chance I had to read more. The writing is clear and straightforward, and the design is fascinating. If I can use this word in an academic environment, I'd call it breezy. Yet full of interesting and complex ideas. Meadows maintains that in the context of storytelling, perspective is the only thing that exists. Which makes me think back to Tom Wolfe's four classic techniques of narrative writing: 1. Scene by scene construction. 2. Status life (details in the writing that serve as symbols of status) 3. Extended dialogue, and 4. Point of view.

Point of view is particularly difficult to use in nonfiction writing, I think, because of the inability to really get inside someone else's head, making the writer always wonder if truth really is being conveyed. It's also hard to stay focused on that point of view when telling a story, because there are so many other interesting perspectives pulling the writer in different directions as the action unfolds. Yet, I've found that switching point of view, or at least very much, can be extremely disorienting to readers and cause meaning and details to get lost in that haze. So a stable point of view, in my opinion, is important at least as a reference point.
Meadows makes the assertion that the development of the modern story-making technologies -- and the idea that all of us now have stories to tell and can freely tell them, at any moment, to everyone -- gives power to the concept of interactive narrative. And that style of storytelling gives power to the reader as much or more than the author, at least in the best case scenario. Instead of Wolfe's four building blocks, Meadows says the plot of interactive narrative gets constructed on foreground, background, context and decision. The reader decides what to do, and how to do it, in that setting, and the more freedom (combined with some sense of purpose, I would hope) that's left with the reader of an interactive narrative, the more engaged they feel. The more engaged and invested, the more attention will be paid to the narrative. The more attention, the higher the reputation is built. All of this building toward the ultimate satisfaction, whatever that is, in the minds of everyone involved. Whether that means selling more stories, or breaking free from a mundane life, or teaching and learning, the abstractness of this approach is a fabulous goal. But it also seems to me that an interactive narrative must have purpose, not a purpose, but purpose in general, or why bother? We tell stories for a reason. Or, better yet, for reasons. And maybe the reader makes up their own reasons, too, but something has to be gained from the endeavor. Meadows notes that there are no plots to a Microsoft Excel document, and that makes them a very weak form of narrative (company starts, company doesn't make money, company closes), or maybe not even a narrative at all (Wolfe, I suspect, would retch at the thought of such a thing being classified as narrative).
Which brings us back to Meadows contention that all storytelling is perspective. I recall the anecdote of a city editor who once took his cub reporter to a large window in their skyscraper office, which overlooked the cityscape. The editor waved his hand out over the scene and said, “There are a million stories out there ... and most of them are crap. Go out and find the great ones!” Or something like that. Interactive narrative, like any other kind of narrative, has to have something compelling about it to succeed, I believe. It can't be just hoop jumping, of course. But it also can't just be pretty. It can't just be expansive. Even "The Sims" and "EverQuest" have significant storyline moments that exist, and perspectives to follow, without which I doubt either would have been successful. The balance has to come from meshing the aspects of interactive narrative, providing the environment and context but also some story engine inside of it that makes the exploration worthwhile.

Questions this raises: What role, if any, does perspective and storytelling have on portfolio-like home pages or classroom blogs? Can these ideas, which I agree are at the highest level of storytelling techniques, be used in every case? I've had this argument many times about nonfiction journalism, and I think narrative techniques can be used in just about every situation. That makes me think this is the case here, too, but I just haven't been able to get my mind around that yet. Anyone found any examples of a professional home page that reads like a story? That's what I'd like to do.

Redesigns coming

Motivated by my online publishing class at Texas Tech, I'm planning to redesign at least one and maybe more of the pages here at brettoppegaard.com, starting with the home page. As the changes come, let me know what you think. And while you are at it, let me know what else is working or not working for you on this site.

- Brett, brett@brettoppegaard.com

History of the Internet

No Al Gore but a lot of interesting detail, shown in a simple graphic way, about what happened to get us this far. ...

History of the Internet

American Film Institute's Top 100

For about the past two years, I've been steadily watching films off the 2007 American Film Institute list of the Top 100 U.S. movies, and I've finally seen them all. The last one for me, by the way, was "Bringing Up Baby," a romantic comedy from the late 1930s starring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant. "Baby," it turns out, is a little leopard that distracts the audience while Hepburn desperately tries to woo Grant. Forgive the lame segue, but this film-watching process has felt a bit like birthing, at least in its duration. Most of the movies were at least worthwhile, though, and I highly recommend this sort of list approach to anyone, like me, who can't ever seem to find anything to watch at the video store. I discovered many fantastic films on the list that I probably never would have seen otherwise. Those include: "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre," "Raging Bull," "Network," "Some Like It Hot" and "Gone With the Wind."

My least favorites: "The Searchers," "High Noon," "Dr. Strangelove," "A Night at the Opera" and "Annie Hall."

On my list, the No. 1: "The Wizard of Oz."

Although I love many of the films on this list -- including "Citizen Kane," "The Godfather," "Star Wars," "The Sound of Music," "West Side Story," "Cabaret," "The Sixth Sense," "Pulp Fiction," "Toy Story" and the ones listed above -- "The Wizard of Oz" best captures in my mind the mysterious magic of film making, when the process of character and plot development perfectly complements the imagery and the journey of the viewer to a very special place.

Next, I'm going to look back at the original list, from 1997, and see what films were dropped off in 2007. I'll view those efforts, too, and consider what changes I would make to the overall list, then report back.

Tempted to write in dialect phonetically?

Read this piece by Roy Peter Clark of Poynter first:

http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=78&aid=144098

Tom Robbins at the Seattle PI

If you didn't catch the Seattle PI series involving collaboration with a dozen top Northwest writers, such as Robbins, here's a funny snippet from it:



And here's a link to the entire 2007 series:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/writers/

Discussion with Anne Lamott

Just read Anne Lamott's "Bird by Bird." Many inspiring passages. Also found this lengthy video discussion with her.