Organizations that thrive in a changing world all have one thing in common – a strong strategic focus. They know their objectives and strategy very well and communicate them effectively. What is less obvious is that a good strategic plan comes from individual people. It takes a lot of skill and a little planning to work it up into a real plan, but there is never any substitute for the old “walk and talk” – getting to know the clients, customers, employees, citizens, or any other way you want to define the people of an operation.
Home » Writing (Page 32)
Category Archives: Writing
The musings of someone who picked it up on the streets.
Authorscope – Know Where You Stand
You’ve finished your novel manuscript. It’s been months of work, sometimes in bursts of energy and sometimes a desperate obligation to the characters and the story to slog it through. Now what?
Most manuscripts are never actually read, which is a terrible shame. There are literally thousands of good novels which sit on computers and shelves as stories barely told despite the tremendous effort. Thousands more could be great with just a little bit of coaching and support. But once you’ve finished writing, your work has barely begun because the next thing you need to do is find a way to have it noticed among the incredible noise of the publishing world. That’s why we created Authorscope.
Act of Destruction
“Every act of creation is first an act of destruction.”
– Pablo Picasso
Long ago, artists were called on to, more or less, represent the world around them in some form that ennobled the subject at hand. In the Baroque Era, paintings usually depicted either the ruling class or the saints in ways that made mythologies of power real. Music was used to provide dignity to a setting or to magnify the glory of God himself to every heart that pounded along with the moment. Not today.
An artist today is supposed to be someone who pushes the boundaries of our world by creating a new understanding of what it means to be human. The mythology is something otherwise dormant within us. That makes the statement by Picasso, a creator and master practitioner of this view of art, even more troublesome.
The Great Vowel Shift
How did spelling in English get so messed up? If you have a child who is learning to spell, you may have taken the approach that I have – there’s no rhyme or reason to how it happened so you simply have to memorize it. It turns out that there is a reason, if a bit convoluted, that is often hidden in the rhyme. It’s a small comfort for the many people around the world, young and old alike, that have to learn how to write the most popular language, but it’s at least a great story.
Gung Ho!
The English language is as adaptable as our culture, which is not a surprise. Language is often little more than an expression of what people need to express. We’re a borrowing people who take ideas and products from just about anywhere – and bring the words along with them. That’s probably a good thing since sometimes English takes strange turns on its own.
Barataria - The work of Erik Hare 