New York Times

The Difference Between a Journalist and a Blogger

January 4, 2013

What’s the difference between a journalist and a blogger? I see this from both sides because I was mainstream journalist for 10 years in the 1970s, then entrepreneur and consultant, software guy, and lately I blog a lot.  A real journalist tries to tell the objective truth, reports facts fairly, strives for balance, and discloses bias. [...]

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Do You Like Working Alone, in Teams, or Both?

January 25, 2012

Did you perhaps catch The Rise of the New Groupthink on the NYtimes.com last week? Here’s author Susan Cain’s interesting lead … SOLITUDE is out of fashion. Our companies, our schools and our culture are in thrall to an idea I call the New Groupthink, which holds that creativity and achievement come from an oddly gregarious [...]

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Disturbing Look at Search Engine Innards

February 15, 2011

I was browsing the NYTimes online yesterday when I discovered Search Optimization and Its Dirty Little Secrets. I couldn’t stop reading. Author David Segal investigates the dark side of search engine optimization in a story that blends mystery and suspense while it gives good background of something that affects most everyone who owns a business. [...]

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Twitter is the Brush, Not the Painting

December 10, 2010

On one hand, twitter offers a positive change in business landscape, a brave new world of business possibilities, and you’re crazy to ignore it. On the other, it’s just a distraction, a shiny new thing, that gets in the way of the real business. Can both hands be right? Yes. The one hand: I spend [...]

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Your Brain on Drugs? No, Your Brain on Computers.

August 26, 2010

Remember the “your brain on drugs” commercials? You’d see the egg frying in the pan, and then the announcer’s voice would say “this is your brain on drugs.” What do you think of the Your Brain on Computers take on this?  It makes it sound almost as bad as your brain on drugs. That brain [...]

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With or Without Paper, the News Lives On. I hope.

July 16, 2010

As the newspaper business seems to die slowly, I console myself with the idea that journalism isn’t dying with it. The Huffington Post is booming. The New York Times will bring in about $350 million this year. The new iPad shows us how we can spread the paper in front of us with coffee and [...]

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It's Not the Technology That Makes You Dumb. It's What You Do With Your Time and Attention.

June 9, 2010

Yesterday I posted WSJ vs. NYTimes on How Dumb You Are or Aren’t on Huffington Post, tracking conflicting opinions on whether technology makes us all smarter or dumber. Smarter because it’s a lot of print, creativity, and intellectual work; dumber because of multitasking, distractions, shorter attention spans. I find the debate interesting, but I go [...]

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Business Plan Contests Grow Up and Mean Business

April 22, 2010

It’s time to note a major change. Just a few years ago business plan contests were an academic oddity, a dress-up exercise at a few business grad schools. Suddenly, or so it seems, they’re pretty much for real. Some very powerful new businesses are appearing at business plan contests, winning significant money, attracting investors, getting [...]

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Is It Hooray for Social Media or Goodbye to Privacy or Both?

February 11, 2010

Speaking of paradox and contradictions (as I did with my post here last month), how about the good news/bad news mess of mixed-up emotions with the increasing personalization of advertising. The good news (well, sort of) is less of the traditional shouting and interrupting types of advertising we all grew up with. Nobody really likes [...]

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Gee, You Had to Pay $2, Once, to Get News?

October 8, 2009

Interesting juxtaposition: while much of the world worries about where we get real news, and particularly investigative reporting, iPhone users are up in arms about CNN charging less than $2, once, for an iPhone app that includes ads. Megan Berry posted Do You Get What You Pay For? yesterday on the Huffington Post: CNN’s new [...]

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