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01/12/201201/12/2012

What the Hell Do I Do Now With Stry? (Part I)

This is Part I of II. Skip ahead to Part II if you’d like using this very link.

18 months ago, I was working at a TV station in San Antonio. I saw that journalism was changing, and I knew I wasn’t a part of the conversation. Every time I saw an interview with a news CEO who said, “There’s a 25 year old out there with the answers for our industry,” I wanted to pull my hair out.

Because I was only 22.

I knew I wanted to be a part of these conversations about the future of journalism, and I sensed that the only way to get there was by doing something big.

So I started Stry.

Above everything else, that’s why I started Stry: To be a part of the conversation about the future of journalism. In the 18 months since, I’ve gotten into those discussions. I’ve been invited to conferences. I’ve spoken at an event where my lead-in was the managing editor of the Washington Post. I’ve talked with people who have more zeros in their bank accounts than I have letters in my last name, and they’ve given me the time to discuss Stry and my ambitions.

Am I a big name in the room? No. But I’ve taken some huge steps from San Antonio to get myself into the conversation.

I’m proud of that. And if that’s all Stry did for me — get me a foot in the door — it would be enough.

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But Stry’s done more for me than just that. It’s also given me amazing opportunities to prove myself.

For one, I wanted to prove myself as a reporter. 18 months ago, I asked myself: If I showed up in a place where nobody knew my name, and nobody knew who I worked for, could I still tell great stories?

Biloxi answered that question for me.

Hell yes, I can.

I also didn’t know jack about business 18 months ago. I’m not sure that I could’ve told you the difference between profits and revenues. I thought QuickBooks was something you could read on your Kindle. I didn’t have the skills, let alone the vocabulary, to work in this world. I didn’t really understand the business behind journalism.

Today, I’m miles ahead of 2010 me. I actually understand this stuff. I’m not an MBA or anything, but the basic underpinnings of business are no longer a total mystery to me.

And biggest yet, as far as I’m concerned:

I learned how to take on risk. I mean, actually shoulder risk. I learned how to take responsibility for my actions, and I learned that I don’t really care if something I do doesn’t work out. Just the simple action of doing — of coming up with an idea, of putting it into motion, of sending it out into the world — is an amazing thing.

Take BooksAround. For that project to get off the ground, I had learn to code. I had to build a website. I had to attempt a Kickstarter campaign, and fail. I had to get back up off the mat, find some money, find some books, buy some books, create a system to document and process all the relevant data, find the people to read the books, and ship off the books. The day that the first books went out was a proud, proud day for me.

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Okay, so a question that’s worth asking:

18 months ago, Dan, you promised to deliver Stry, a nimble news syndicate. You promise to build an editorial team, outfit them with the right tools, send them out on the road, syndicate that content to news organizations, and get those news organizations to pay you for that content.

Did you actually think you could pull that off then? And can you pull it off now?

The answers, one at a time:

Yes.

And maybe.

When I left Texas, I really did think I could pull this off. I saw an industry crumbling. I saw publishers who were angry about how much they were paying the Associated Press for the same content that everybody else has. I thought I could do it better.

I still do.

But everything I was doing was kind of rooted in this one core belief: I really thought I could save news publishers.

I’ve stopped thinking that. Publishers were handed the Internet, the greatest distribution channel in human history, and that hasn’t saved them. They were handed social media, and new ways to engage audiences, and that hasn’t saved them. They were handed the most advanced technology we’ve ever created — DSLR cameras and smartphones and iPads and Final Cut — and that hasn’t saved them.

Point is, me and my merry band of reporters weren’t going to save journalism.

Really, the idea of “saving” this industry is wildly misguided. The deeper I get into this world, the more I see two big conversations happening about journalism.

The first is the big conversation. They’re the 90-whatever percent of journalists who are kind of love with their own demise. They’re the ones who can’t stop talking about how screwed they are. I used to be one of these people.

I’ve realized that I can’t help them. Or more specifically: I can’t fix them.

But then there’s this second conversation. It’s just a little undercurrent. But it’s a room full of people looking at all the amazing tools we have at our disposal, and we’re asking: How can we make journalism more awesome? How can we tell great stories? Let’s shut up for a second about the state of journalism and talk instead about the state of storytelling, because there’s never been a better time to tell stories. So let’s do it!

The secret among this second group is that we know if we do an amazing job telling stories now, in the long run, we’ll be able to build successful businesses around that reporting. So let’s tell some great stories right now, and remind the public of why they love and need what we do.

We have to do that now so that in 10, 20, 50 years, we can have a healthy industry. It’ll take time, but we’ll get there. I really believe that. We’re a society built on narrative. At the root of everything we do, we have stories — stories about who we are, and why we do what we do, and where we’re going. Great storytelling isn’t going away.

So the question for me now is, With all the things I’ve learned, and all that I’m seeing, what the hell do I really want to do about Stry? Those answers in Part II of “What the Hell Do I Do Now With Stry?”

01/10/201201/10/2012

The Puta Grande Story, Told Live.

Back in December, I went out to Phoenix for NewsFoo, a conference for 150 of the brightest minds in news. I’m not sure why I was invited; my guess is that I was there to keep the group’s average IQ from skewing too high.

Regardless: I was there, and at the conference, I got to give a five-minute Ignite talk. The gist of Ignite: Presenters get five minutes and 20 slides. The slides automatically rotate every 15 seconds. So it’s a whole song and dance type of presentation.

My talk was on sources. Screw ups.

And, of course: My mother.

Enjoy.

01/08/201201/12/2012

Introducing Smartphoneless (a Dan Oshinsky blog venture).

Back in July, I decided to defend my choice of telephonic device with a blog post, titled, “Why I Do Not Have a Smartphone.” Many people read this post, said they appreciated my opinion and then told me that I was a moron.

The questions about my phone persist. Every week, a handful of people offer to buy me a nicer phone. Many still ask me how I can live without a phone that checks email. The very sight of me flipping open my phone to take a call gets chuckles.

So I’ve decided to take a formal stand. This week, I launched Smartphoneless.com, a destination for me to post thoughts about and defense of my very phone. There are others like me out there, bravely venturing into a world where needing directions requires asking a live human for help, where taking a picture requires an independent photographic device, where playing Words With Friends is limited to the other fifteen Internet-connected devices we carry around in our bags. Smartphoneless is for the rest of us, the quasi-untethered who walk among the masses.

I may be an idiot by birth, but I use a flip phone by choice.

Follow along with my smartphoneless life, if you wish.

01/07/201210/23/2012

That Time I Decided to Ride Amtrak.

It is 72 degrees in St. Louis today, and it is January. This, by itself, would be considered unusual, except that today, something even more unusual is happening:

I am traveling on Amtrak.

When I was a kid, living just outside Washington, D.C., I used to love traveling by train. I loved riding D.C.’s subway, the Metro. I knew every stop on the Red Line. I knew every transfer point. I used to love traveling down to D.C.’s Union Station, and on the rare occasion in which we got to hop on a train and head to New York, I was always terribly excited. Such an elegant, simple form of transportation, I thought; a big coal engine powering towards the big city.[1. Of course, I didn’t grow up in the 1820s, but I was riding in coach. You can’t really see much from way back there. Also: When you’re a kid, you believe what you want to believe. So… yeah. Coal engine it was.]

Still, when I got older, riding trains lost its luster. I remember when I was a kid, I saw an episode of “Reading Rainbow.” LeVar Burton rode along the American Southwest by train, sleeping in a private sleeping car, the cities rolling by as he dreamt.[2. I just Googled “LeVar Burton Amtrak” and the VERY episode I was thinking of is available for streaming, in full. Internet, you amaze me sometimes.] No billboards, no roadside chains. Just a railroad cutting a wide swatch through open countryside.

When I went to school out in Missouri, I told my friends that I wanted to go home for winter break once by Amtrak. Just a short train from St. Louis to Chicago, then an overnight home to D.C. My friends looked at me like I was suggesting Spring Break: Darfur.

Looking back, I’m not all that suprised by their reaction. I’d like to think my friends feel the way most Americans feel about Amtrak: As though it’s slightly less desirable than traveling via oxen-led wagon. Travel to Europe, and the trains there are new, fast, clean. Barcelona to Madrid in 2.5 hours! Wide seats! Quiet cars!

By comparison, Amtrak feels like riding in a Yugo. Right now, I am sitting in an Amtrak car, traveling north to Chicago. To travel the distance via Megabus — the low-fare coach famous for $1 seats — would’ve cost me $66 each way. On Amtrak? $28.80.

Megabus comes with 120 volt electrical ports at every seat, and WiFi throughout.

This Amtrak train, by comparison, lacks air conditioning. It’s 72 degrees outside, and pushing 80 inside the car.

I am sweating and sweating, and I have already stripped off two layers of outerwear, and I am starting to understand why Americans look at the Amtrak experience the way it very well may be intended:

As a form of punishment.

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Flying kind of feels like that too, these days. It didn’t use to. I remember this airline that used to fly out of D.C.’s National Airport, called Business Express. They served me biscotti cookies, and it’s likely that no one in recorded human history has reacted to biscotti cookies with quite as much excitement as I did that day. Flights meant meals, and airplane wings to pin to your coat, and sometimes even in-flight movies. I reminded my mom the other day of the flight we took out to Salt Lake City when I was in first grade. I told her that they showed “Mrs. Doubtfire” on the flight.

She wanted to know how I could remember such a thing, but really, how could I ever forget?

I was 6.

They showed a funny movie on an airplane.

At that point in my life, it was probably the single funniest movie I’d ever seen.

I was in the sky, watching a funny movie.

How could I ever forget that?

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I’m actually not moving from this very Amtrak car, even as the temperatures rise. The motor for the A/C whirs and whirs, but nothing cool seems to blow out of the vents. The car up ahead is cooler, maybe even in the 70s. But it’s also packed with teenagers, and loud. My car, for all the heat, is at least quiet. People keep standing up from my car and moving elsewhere. The car keeps getting less and less crowded. And somehow, the thought of five hours in a quiet sauna seems to beat five hours of noisy chill.

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We stop in Alton, Illinois. There is a sign on the platform, white text on blue background, that says so. It is about the size of a piece of loose leaf paper.[3. The sign, that is, not Alton, though it’s possible the latter is true as well.]

This is somewhere, I guess.

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There are a lot of kids on this train, and I think I’m starting to understand why parents — especially the single parents who seem abundant on this train — would prefer Amtrak to other forms of transport: It’s easy to be a kid on a train. There’s lots of space to move, and there’s no real understanding among the passengers about how to behave on these things. The couple behind me is gossiping and eating Triscuits. In the car behind me, a group of teenage girls moves in pack, squealing each time the train takes a bump and throws them off their stride. Two girls in black, kind of in goth dress but without any of the hallmark makeup, appear to be power walking up and down the train, though I’d expect to see a pedometer or two soon if they’re to keep up this pace. The kids, meanwhile, almost skip-walk through the train, alternately noisy and silent.

We’re traveling through strange, unidentifiable land, and as long as people keep their hands and feet inside the vehicle, nobody seems to even notice — or at least, mind — what anyone else is up to.

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I suppose I’m building to a point here, which is that travel has this strange, wondrous quality when you’re a child. It’s magic, really: The Journey! To unknown lands! The airplane stewardness hands you a pair of pin-on wings, and suddenly you feel like an explorer of the skies, venturing into the unknown. Or you’re on the road, and the miles roll by in your mom’s stationwagon. You’re playing the license plate game, and every state feels like a new discovery. It is new, and it is strange, and it is wonderful, so much so that you hardly even notice how uncomfortable travel is.

Or maybe uncomfortable is the wrong word. Unremarkable is more like it. The thrill of travel wears off. It becomes common, and then dull, and then a nuisance. This trip to Chicago? Five hours, and even though I don’t have to do anything other than sit here, it’s almost annoyingly plain. A big part of these trips — or layover-induced waiting, for that matter — is just finding a way to endure the boredom.

Maybe that’s why adults hardly ever seem to get excited about travel. I can remember only one exception: In seventh grade, my family flew to London, and we did so in British Airways’ business class. When we landed at Heathrow, my father and I were the last ones to disembark. Neither of us wanted to leave the plane. We’d never before been treated with such hospitality.

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I start looking for that old travel magic, and I find it in the seat pocket. Well, the lack of things in the seat pocket, at least. There’s no magazine on this train. Nothing but a safety guide. On airplanes, I love flipping open the in-pocket magazine to the back pages, and tracing my fingers over the route map. There’s no such map here, and no signage as to where we’re actually traveling. This train makes stops, but I don’t know where. I am somewhere in Illinois, and I am traveling at moderate speed in the general direction of Chicago. I have no real idea where I am. I do not know the route. Aside from a passing Wal-Mart, nothing much seems familiar.

I am headed towards Chicago, and I am confident that I will get there, though I do not exactly know how.

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We make a stop in Carlinville. The station is about the size of a Chevrolet Suburban. Maybe smaller. It’s not clear how the conductor even knows to stop there. I imagine some days, the train passes right on through Carlinville, only to realize at the next stop that they’ve left passengers behind.

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The air conditioning comes on. Well, maybe not A/C. But air that could definitely be described as “not hot.” This, as far as I am concerned, is major progress.

I’m upgrading my Amtrak experience from “travel-themed punishment” to “not entirely uncomfortable.”

I’m also beginning to notice — and I’m not sure if it was like this the whole time, or it’s just because the sun is down at about 10 o’clock on the horizon, and the light is just so — but the windows seem shaded in such a way that the world outside has this sepia glow. I feel like I’m traveling through a moving Instapaper portrait of America, and it’s actually rather soothing.

I’ve decided to re-upgrade my Amtrak experience to “not all that bad, now that I think about it.”

And other things, too: The seats are decently wide, and the leg room is considerably more generous than coach seats on planes. Parking at St. Louis was easy — even securely gated — and I didn’t have to put my bag through an x-ray machine or take my shoes off before getting on the train.

I decide to hold my Amtrak experience at “not all that bad, now that I think about it.” For now, at least.

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We coast into Springfield. That seems like the right verb here. Speeds into Springfield is certainly not right. It doesn’t seem like the conductor is trying to stop the train, either. Mostly, it seems like he’s taken his foot off the pedal, and we’re just hoping to lose inertia by the time the platform arrives.

We coast into Springfield.

On the left is a big domed building, that concrete-gray that all the government buildings back home have, and then a darker gray dome on top. I am not sure if it is gray, or cobalt, or maybe a charcoal offshoot of gray. I don’t know much about colors, but I do know enough about domes to guess that it’s the Capital building for this state. It is probably the last thing I will see before it gets dark.

And it is getting seriously dark now. The not-hot air continues to blow above me, and Chicago is up ahead, though I am not sure where. I am confident I will get there, but I do not now how.

The train starts to fill up. I’ve got an empty seat beside me for now, but I probably won’t by the next stop. There are four or five cars on this train, 19 rows in each car, four seats in each row. The ticket-taker tells me that by Chicago, they’ll all be full.

Who knew that this many people still traveled by train?

We coast into Springfield, and then we roll onward to Chicago, into the dark.

01/05/201201/05/2012

What Happens When You Call Three Airline 1-800 Numbers in One Night… And Then Zappos.

So this is the story of how I called three airline customer care numbers in one night — and then Zappos.

And then I understood.

Now, I don’t recommend calling multiple airline customer care hotlines within the span of an hour. They’ll make you mad. At the first airline, it took me 15 minutes to get on the line with someone — and that’s only after pressing every button on my phone five times just to figure out the secret code to get to an actual human. At the second, the customer care rep actually snarled at me over the phone. By the third call, I was numb.

Airlines have gotten pretty good at replicating the in-flight experience over the phone, it seems.

Then I called Zappos. And this is where all the happy-smiling-elves, over-the-rainbow stuff that I’d been hearing about Zappos comes into play.

Last month, I decided to buy two pairs of boots on their site. I found the ones I wanted. Clicked buy. Got the confirmation email that they’d been sent. And for three days, I checked each morning to see when my shoes would be arriving.

I was weirdly excited for these shoes. I’ve never owned a pair of decent boots before. The thought of looking all professional was… kinda cool, actually.

Anyway, it’s Thursday, and I check the UPS site. The package had been delivered, it said. I walked home, walked to my mailbox… and nothing.

I went to my apartment. Nothing sitting on my door.

I took a loop around the apartment building. Then outside.

Nothing.

I call the landlord. Anyplace else I should be checking?

Nothing.

So I call Zappos. And they tell me: Yeah, it’s not all that uncommon that around Christmas that people steal packages. But that’s alright. UPS insures everything we send. When we get your shoes back in stock, we’ll just send you a new pair.

Sweet!

Two weeks pass, and I check the Zappos website. One pair of my shoes is in stock. I give Zappos a call.

Just as before, a human picks up quickly. She’s cheery, pleasant. Even makes small talk about state abbreviations.[1. “MO! I’d never heard someone pronounce your state’s abbreviation as a word before!”] I tell her about my issue. She looks through it, tells me not to worry about the stolen shoes. Tells me she’s happy to refund the money for the pair of boots that isn’t in stock, and she’ll send me the other boots right away.

And, just for being patient with us: We’re upgrading you to VIP status, so you can get way faster shipping.

Sweet!

I get the confirmation email from Zappos this morning. The boots will be here this very afternoon.

Really sweet!

And this time — I’m not taking any chances. I’m having them shipped to work.

01/04/2012

Buy Into Your Own Demise, or Make Things More Awesome. (Your Choice.)

Forbes ran a story on their website this week about Best Buy. The lead paragraph read:

“Electronics retailer Best Buy is headed for the exits. I can’t say when exactly, but my guess is that it’s only a matter of time, maybe a few more years.”

Then it went on to detail numerous problems with Best Buy’s supply chain.

Now, I have a friend who’s about to start a new job this year with Best Buy. She’ll be working with their supply chain. So I sent her the link.

Naturally, she was bummed. She started saying that, well, at least she’d get a nice line on her résumé out of the job. At least she wasn’t really planning on staying there all that long.

And that crushed me. Because it wasn’t too long ago that I was reading headlines like this about my own industry:

“Sometime soon, millions of people may find themselves unwittingly involved in a test that could profoundly change their daily routines, local economies and civic lives.

“They’ll have to figure out how to keep up with City Hall, their neighborhoods and their kids’ schools — as well as store openings, new products and sales — without a 170-year-old staple of daily life: a local newspaper.”

Newspapers and big-box stores: we’re not all that different. So I sent my soon-to-be-working-at-Best-Buy friend back an email. It read:

Hey, I work in journalism. My senior year, I every morning, I went to a site called Paper Cuts to see which newspapers were slashing newsroom jobs that day. I say this all the time: Journalism companies are in love with their own demise. Back then, I was too.

And looking back, I’m horrified. Why glorify your own downfall? We journalists have infinite tools at our disposal. Why not spend more time focusing on making journalism more awesome?

Anyway, I suppose that’s the challenge before you: Either buy into Best Buy’s slow demise, or get working at making everything you touch more awesome.

Time to get into the latter category. I hope my friend at Best Buy will. I hope my friends in journalism will, too.

01/02/201202/09/2019

Things That Comfort Me When Every Fucking Thing Goes Wrong: Heartbroken Iowa Fans.

Things tend to go wrong. This is a series of blog posts about the things I think about during those moments when the wrong things happen.

Two years ago, I was pretty sure I’d just torn something in my knee. I’d gotten these new running shoes that were supposed to encourage me to run on the balls of my feet. They were supposed to change my running motion and turn me into some sort of super-runner. I was going to run like my name was Forrest Gump.

Except that I didn’t follow the instructions quite right. I was told to start slow. Run a half-mile at first. Then a mile. Then maybe 1.5, and keep at that pace for a few days. Add up the milage slowly.

But I got impatient. I only run two or three times a week, max, and it felt stupid to run for four minutes and then stop. And then come back the next day, run seven minutes, and stop.

So I did the mile run. Then the two. Then the next day, I ran like Jenny was yelling at me. Four, maybe five miles. I felt great.

The next day, I woke up, and I couldn’t move. I was a 22-year-old with a geriatric’s knees.

I went to yoga and talked to my teacher. She tried some stuff. I iced the knee. I heated the knee. I stretched the knee.

For four months.

It got a little better.

I’d long since put away the special shoes, so I’m not sure what made me do it. Maybe I was cocky. Maybe I was dumb.

But I decided to try out the shoes again. I liked them. Or, rather — I wanted to like them. I thought I was supposed to like them.

I went for a short run, maybe two miles. This was in June 2010. I felt alright.

I woke up in the morning, and my knee was worse than ever. And this time, no amount of ice, no amount of yoga could make it better.

I had to get it fixed immediately. I had just made a big decision: I was going to give this news syndicate, Stry, a chance. I was leaving for Biloxi, Miss., in two weeks. I was leaving my job, my paycheck — and my health care situation wasn’t exactly figured out.

I found the doctors in San Antonio who worked on the Spurs. If anybody could figure out my knees, it was going to be these guys.

They tested it out. The doc put some pressure on my knee. My eyes went screwy.

“Hurts, doesn’t it?” the doc said. “Probably a torn meniscus. Maybe an ACL. We’ll take an MRI.”

They did. I went home and tried to cry, but I was too busy worrying to even make that happen. I had torn up my knee, and I was moving away from my job, and a paycheck, and health care. I was going to Biloxi for three months, and I wasn’t sure I could walk.

The MRI took a few days to process. I worried constantly. What if it was a torn ACL? What if they had to operate? What if I had to walk around Biloxi on crutches? How the hell was I going to interview people on crutches?

I worried myself into that state where I could hardly move, save for going to work and ordering breakfast tacos through a drive-thru window. I waited for the call. I feared the call.

Then the call came, and it turned out I had massive swelling in the knee. No damage. No tear. Put it on ice, and it’ll be fine, son.

So, onto the happy thought for the moment: There’s this video I edited freshman year. It was the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament. My friend, Tyler, was shooting some video for a journalism class. He’d gone down to a local bar to get footage of fans watching the early games. The bar was full of Iowa fans, and that day, Iowa — the no. 3 seed — lost to Northwestern State on a buzzer beater.

And Tyler got the most amazing footage of a group of middle-aged white guys, their Hawkeye hearts absolutely breaking in real time.

I like to watch that clip, sometimes, and think about how easy it is to get caught up in the unimportant things. I think about how easy it is to take a tiny thing and magnify it beyond any sort of reasonable scale. I think about how I get mad over things I can’t control.

I did it with my knee, and I’ve done it since. But something about seeing what I actually look like in those lousy moments — and the guys in that YouTube video look exactly like I look when every fucking thing goes wrong — typically reminds me of how I need to get a grip and get over it.

Here’s to you, Hawkeye fans, for helping me get there.

12/20/201112/20/2011

(A Unified Vision Statement For All Current and Future Endeavours Into and) For the Creation of Awesomeness.

Not too long ago, I added a little note to the top of this very blog: “Dan is the creator of awesome stuff.” That’s not just some bro jargon I’m co-opting; I really mean that. I love creating stuff that’s both, A.) Cool, and B.) Useful, and when those two get together, the result is usually awesome. With everything I do, I’m shooting for awesome.

But I decided I needed a few more rules to help me in the creation process. I needed some rules to help me get from idea to awesome a little more quickly. And I needed rules to keep me from working on stuff that’s decidedly, you know… blah.

So I made a list. And here’s what’s on it for 2012:

1. Doing > trying.
2. So do shit.
3. Go fast.
4. Fail often.
5. Be curious.
6. Listen always.
7. Try impossible.
8. Build with love.
9. Serve people.
10. Don’t suck.

In 2012, that’s what I’ve got to live up to. 10 rules. Infinite challenges ahead.

Onto the next.

12/14/201112/27/2012

My List of Things for 2012. (Not a Bucket List, FWIW.)

This is the time of the year when people start making bucket lists. You know what they are; I won’t ramble on here about mine.

But what I would like to discuss is a sort of corollary to the bucket list. See: We have the bucket list, which looks long term. We have the to-do list, which covers the immediate.

What we don’t have is that list for the in-betweens in our lives.

I had a conversation with a friend last week, and I brought up this mantra that I’ve been carrying around for a few years now: “In this life, you find things you love and people you love, and you make time for both.”

And she said the most wonderful thing: Well, I suppose I should start making a list of things.

I couldn’t agree more. Because, I suppose, that’s really what I did at about this time last year. It wasn’t a bucket list that I started thinking about; I wasn’t looking to compile things that I hadn’t yet done in my life. Really, I was looking at things that I just wasn’t making enough time for in my day-to-day life, and seeing which of them I’d like to find time for in the coming months.

I didn’t write that list down, sadly, but if I had, my 2011 List of Things I Love would’ve looked like:

See more live music
Join a sports team
Find more opportunities for spontaneity
Read more often
Launch a side project
Do more yoga
Write and code

I’m proud to say that I checked almost all of those off the list this year. I’ve seen 35 concerts this year, from local bands releasing their first album to U2. I joined a kickball team in DC. I made a few spur-of-the-moment decisions. (What? There’s a Groupon for skydiving? Yeah, I’m in!) I’ve read 12 books, and I’ll be through 13 by year’s end. I didn’t quite launch BooksAround, my social literacy experiment, but I can get that done in the next two weeks. I took weekly hot yoga classes. I’m blogging more than ever, and I worked my way through a CSS tutorial. All in all, I made a lot of time for a lot of things that had gotten lost since college.

And yes, being active with that list meant that I also got to cross stuff off the bucket list. (Skydiving? Check. Visiting Israel? Check. Going to a show at Red Rocks? Check.)

Now I’m thinking about next year’s List of Things. I’d like to keep all of the above in play, but I’d also like to add three things:

Travel more
Speak publicly
Ship things

The first is self-explanatory. I love to travel, and I’d love to make more time for it next year. I don’t have any specific places in mind; I’d just like to get up and go.

The second is something I’ve come around on this year. In 2011, I’ve twice gotten a chance to give speeches to 150+ person rooms, and I’ve learned that it’s a hell of a rush. I used to fear public speaking. Not anymore. I’m never going to be a stand-up comic, so getting 150 people to keel over in laughter during a PowerPoint is about as close as I’m going to get to that sensation. I really love getting up in front of a big room, and I want to find more opportunities to speak in public next year.

And as for the third thing, that’s a business term I’d never even heard until this year. But it means: Create a product and bring it to market. Make stuff and put it out in the world for people to use.

I’ve spent a hell of a long time with Stry — from concept to now, I’m well over 18 months into this company — and what I’ve got to show for it is some blogging from Biloxi, my current fellowship and a few public appearances. What I need to do in 2012 is get this thing out in the world. I need to ship, and ship more often. I love the feeling of satisfaction that comes from getting little items done on a project. I want to experience what it’s like to bring something big to market.

So that’s my 2012 List of Things. What’s yours?

12/12/201111/01/2012

What the Hell is the New York Times Doing Selling Subscriptions Inside the ‘Wal-Mart of New York City?’

I was in New York City last week, and I went shopping with a friend. Or, more accurately: She went shopping, and I came along to try on funny hats and annoy her.

Nevertheless: She took us to a store north of Columbus Circle. I’d never heard of the store before. It was called Century 21, which is apparently unrelated to the real estate seller of the same name. My friend referred to the store as the Wal-Mart of Manhattan.

But what made an impression on me wasn’t the store itself — though it did seem like a Wal-Mart that was trying extra hard to dress up appropriately for the city — but this display in the front of the store. It was a table near the entrance, and there was a rep from the New York Times sitting there, selling subscriptions to the paper. Buy a subscription, get a $50 gift card to shop at Century 21.

And this just started to bother the hell out of me.

So I’m writing this post now because I’d like some answers. I’m confused as to how the New York Times — the newspaper of record for the freaking universe — could end up in a business relationship with a store that sells designer gloves at 50% off retail. Such a partnership seems to violate even the most basic rules of branding.

Because if I’m in charge of the New York Times brand, I’m asking these questions before I enter into any business relationship:

-How does this extend the New York Times’ brand?
-Is this a positive extension of the Times’ brand?
-Is the Times reaching new clientele with this partnership? Could this clientele be reached otherwise?
-Does this make the New York Times money?
-Does it do enough of both — reach new clientele and make money — to justify the partnership?

In my estimation, I’m not sure what such a partnership with Century 21 does for the Times. There are an endless number of points where you can interact with the Times’ brand: In print, online, through advertising, through social media. If you pop into an Apple Store to test drive an iPad, and you see a New York Times app on the device, that’s an interaction with the brand. (And for the record, that’s a damn good interaction. Gold stars to the Times rep who pulled that one off.)

So I’m confused as to why the Times would want a “Please buy our product and we’ll give you a few bucks off shoes!” brand interaction at Century 21. If anything, it seems to cheapen the Times’ brand. It seems to scream, “We’ll sell papers anywhere they’ll let us. Even here!”

Here’s what the Times itself wrote about the store in an article just two months ago:

“Civilized it’s not.”

“The dramatic markdowns and bazaarlike atmosphere (nothing’s chained for security, yet) can encourage foolish fashion risks.”

“I descended to hell, a k a the fluorescent-lighted basement footwear department…”

“What the branch lacks in ambience (brace for cheap carpets, garish cylindrical light fixtures and droning soft rock)…”

You get the idea. Why’s the Times decided to associate itself with that?

To go question by question through the bullets I’ve listed above:

–How does this extend the New York Times’ brand? It gives the Times a direct presence in seven large department stores in and around the city.

–Is this a positive extension of the Times’ brand? Unlikely. Here’s how I’ve always determined a newspaper’s true audience: See who they’re writing about in the vows and the obituary sections. Those are the types of people they’re really writing for. I’m not sure that I see the Times’ vows/obit audience having much crossover with Century 21’s core of shoppers, most of whom seemed to be foreigners and out-of-towners. (The locals were all bargain hunters, and I’ll get to them in a second.)

–Is the Times reaching new clientele with this partnership? Could this clientele be reached otherwise? Maybe. There might be a non-New York crowd at Century 21 that might want to subscribe to the paper, I think. But it’s also worth asking: Are the kinds of people shopping for deep discounts the same people with disposable income to spend on a yearly subscription to a print newspaper?

And I do think much of this audience could be reached otherwise. Might some of this audience — especially the foreign shoppers — be more interested in a subscription to the Times online as opposed to a print subscription?

I’m told the Times also has a similar presence at the city’s many street fairs, but that’s a different story. In that case, the Times is also associating itself with a brand, but the brand is New York City itself. The Times wants to be the paper of record for the city. Nothing wrong with being visible within city limits, and I’d guess that the street fair audience isn’t all that different from the Century 21 audience. (In fact, it might be more domestic, and weed out the international shoppers who can’t buy a print subscription anyway.)

–Does this make the New York Times money? This is the big question, and I don’t have an answer to it. In most arrangements like this, it’s the Times that would be paying to get a spot inside the store. (It is also possible, though less likely, that it’s Century 21 that’s paying the Times, and Century 21 is hoping that the halo of “elite” status that the Times exudes will help increase sales of, I dunno, handbags.) I’d guess that the Times offers up a percentage of in-store subscription sales to Century 21, on top of a fixed payment to get into the store in the first place.

–Does it do enough of both — reach new clientele and make money — to justify the partnership? I just cannot imagine a situation in which it does much for the Times’ brand or bottom line. Who okayed this partnership? The whole thing confuses me, really.

Of course, I’d love to get a real answer on this from someone at either the Times or Century 21. Because the way I’m seeing it, this is the kind of partnership that reeks of desperation. This looks like a brand that’s going to any length just to make a sale — even if in the course making the sale, they’re actually hurting the overall reputation of the Times’ brand.

I just don’t understand it.

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