The Rogers News

Author: Chris

  • Friending vs Following

    Facebook and Twitter have received a lot of online and offline press in the past two weeks.

    Twitter is blowing up. It’s more pervasive than a Top 20 pop song. Local news papers, churches, late-night TV, law firms, your neighbor, my imaginary friend – nearly everyone is twittering, whether they want to or not. The concept of posting a public text message about what you are doing is about as narcissistic an activity as you can find. But it’s the new new thing and is tremendously informative in ways I never would have expected. I’m mentioned, before, the prospective value of Twitter as a search engine.

    With that said, can you blame Facebook for recently redesigning their homepage to look and act more like Twitter? The new homepage features a more “status” oriented appearance with live streaming updates.

    Even with Facebook’s recent repositioning of a key area of their website to better compete with Twitter, I don’t believe the two sites are perfect substitutes for one another. This is less obvious than it first appears, and it’s not necessarily because Facebook has more features. Instead, where I see the fundamental divide between the two services is in how you connect with people on the websites.

    Facebook has two primary methods of connecting. One way is to friend people and wait for them to accept you as a friend. If they choose to ignore you, then you’re out of luck and cannot gain full access to their information. Another way is to become a fan of a page. This is more of a unilateral process, depending on the page settings.

    Twitter has one method of connecting. You follow people, yet they don’t have to follow you back. They don’t even have to approve your access to their tweets, unless, of course, they protect their tweets.

    Each service has its own strengths and weaknesses, and most who want to be connected would claim to need both. But if it came down to it, I could more easily do without Twitter. After all, if Twitter didn’t exist, Facebook would take up the space.

  • Late Night with Jimmy Fallon

    I like the new Late Night with Jimmy Fallon show. As with anything, I was wary of the switch from Conan to Jimmy, but from what I’ve seen from the first eight episode, I think I’m going to like Fallon even better. There is more variety to the show than I’ve seen in other shows of this type. It’s rough around edges, and I hope it stays that way. I especially like that many of the interviews are not stationary/static. Fallon has had a dance-off with Cameron Diaz, done a green screen with Amanda Peet and hosted a mock episode of Diggnation with Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht. It’s all fun stuff that gets more from the feature guest than the usual stories about their (often) lackluster lives. Plus he’s made a point to incorporate technology and interview more tech geek type guests.

    Here’s the late night show switch schedule:

    • Late Night with Conan O’Brien went off the air February 20, 2009.
    • Late Night with Jimmy Fallon come on air March 2nd, 2009.

    ——

    • The Tonight Show with Jay Leno will go off the air on May 29, 2009.
    • The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien will come on the air on June 1, 2009.

    ——

    • The Jay Leno Show will premier in September 2009.

  • Catching On

    In looking at the PGA Tour website and familiarizing myself with the field, tee times and television broadcast times of the tournament that started yesterday it occurred to me that golf is boring to a non-golf fan because they haven’t caught on yet. They don’t have a favorite player. They don’t know whether the tournament is stroke play or match play. They may not even know if the tournament is a Major, one of the four most important tournaments to occur each year.

    Almost anything can be interesting if you know the subtext and are aware of the details. You’re enthusiasm can lack, but an intriguing side-story about golfers can be as exciting as one about basketball players, space, or whatever you are interested in. Further, taking the time to become aware of such a side-story is the critical thing I’m driving at. It’s only then, when you become aware enough of the universe surrounding the thing on which you are currently focusing, that you have a chance at overcoming your bias / lack of interest.

    You can write off golf as being boring or say that you can’t learn how to do math, but it’s not your interest or ability that is lacking. It’s your willingness to catch on.

  • High Pointe Is Closing

    Geoff Shackelford alerted me to this Traverse City Record-Eagle story about one of my favorite Traverse City-area golf courses, High Pointe Golf Club, is closing due to the poor economy. I grew up on that course playing tournaments while participating in the Traverse City Junior Golf Association. I had high school tryouts and tournaments there, and I played my first round of 2008 there with my dad.

    Big bummer to hear about.

  • Getting into Character

    I just read an interesting post on Kottke.org titled, “Getting into Character.” It talks about how actors, athletes, and business people wear two different hats – a private one and a job one.

    Many of us see our parents do this to a degree when we are growing up. There is an added awareness, more than anything, of where they are and what has to be done.

    I think back to my time at Ruckus and K12 knowing that I could have cultivated and displayed a more consistent work persona. I worked hard and was attentive, creative and efficient, but these things varied from week to week. (This ties in with the concept of having a defined approach to work.) What I’m trying to say is that I was not always able to get into character and stay there all day.

    As a lawyer-to-be, I’ve been thinking about interacting with clients. Regardless of what area of law I end up practicing, one of the most important aspects of both being successful (garnering clients) and being effective (doing good word for my clients) will be getting into a consistently professional, knowledgeable, and compassionate character while working.

  • Spring Semester: Week 9

    I’m doing these “Spring Semester Reviews” more for me than you. Years from now, when I’ve long since outgrown my blogging britches, I hope to be able to revisit these autobiographical entries for a brief chuckle. “Oh, the glory days of FPLC,” I’ll say to anyone who will listen. “Those were the days.”

    Classes: Classes are going well, although for the first time I’m finding myself envious, from time to time, of my classmates who have externships. Maybe it’s the “gotta get a job” cloud that’s suddenly set in fast and low. Or maybe it’s the fact that the word “externship” does not exist in most dictionaries. Either way, I’m looking forward to working when the day comes.

    • Business Entities Taxation: Going well, but slow. We started with partnership taxation and are still in the “middle” of the life of partnerships. Our midterm will fall in early April, unusually late. As with most code classes, the weekly struggle here has been to learn how to best navigate the code and recognize when exceptions apply. Once I get a semi-working knowledge of a topic, it’s far more enjoyable.
    • Environmental Law: I don’t know what to think of this class. The material is very dry, and I didn’t see that coming when I registered. We deal mostly with massive federal statutory schemes – National Environmental Police Act, Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act. What I enjoy most about the class are the historical, geographic, and scientific aspects of the cases.
    • Copyright Licensing: This class is nuanced and very hands on. I like it. We are given a hypo going into each class, must review select clauses from a license, and then negotiate with the opposite party (licensor and licensee). I will leave a more capable contract drafter and a more skilled negotiator.
    • Estate Planning: This class was largely review up until last week. We’re finally getting further into taxation issues and more detained trusts. I like this area of law, so I look forward to the three-hour Estate Planing-a-thons.
    • Judicial Opinion Drafting: Drafting orders is a unique writing experience. I’ve quickly learned to be very careful in how I frame the arguments. I’m liking legal writing more and more with each passing day.

    Getting to Done: Week nine is coming to a close. Spring Break (week seven) felt like every other week of this semester, except I attended fewer classes. My grand plans – I always have grand plans via lists, emails, and other web applications – were not fulfilled. I failed to apply to hundreds of jobs, read weeks ahead, and start a new business as a side project. The result of this was that I sought and found a more structured way to accomplish tasks. I found a very simple solution: at the beginning of the week, make a list of three things to accomplish each day. This has gone pretty well with one blaring exception – applying to jobs daily. Here’s a sample-list for one day:

    Monday P G
    1) Read Environmental Law
    2) Work on JOD Order
    3) Apply to 3 jobs

    P = newspaper and G = gym. The three tasks vary daily. I’ve found this is a good way to keep things in check. The downside is that the system is meant for someone who works and has eight solid hours to accomplish their tasks. I’ve excused my failures in accomplishing all three daily tasks each day, yet hope to be more successful in the future.

    Donating Blood: I donated blood today at school. The beds were set up in the Jury Box (cafeteria), which seems like an odd place to be performing medical procedures. The woman assured me that lunch was loud and hectic and people were not deterred from eating.

    Sleep: I got two hours of sleep on Monday night and it has messed up my entire week. I’ve had to nap, I’ve overslept, and I’ve been living in a fog. This never happened in college, or I didn’t care. I could play poker all night, go to an 8:30am class, sleep during the afternoon and start over without the next four days being a disaster. Now, and this aligns with my “Getting to Done” above, I’m finding consistent sleep invaluable.

  • The Core Remains

    I’ve been reading the Concord Monitor recently. Much of the local news coverage has been about education budget cuts around the state. It’s common knowledge that the arts – art, music, etc. – are often the first classes to be eliminated. But once those are gone, what classes come next? Which teachers, subjects and skills are considered to be the next-most expendable?

    I have not hard data, nor do I claim to be an expert. But today I’m reading about foreign language classes being dropped and the blocking of programs for troubled teens. Both of these cuts, however locally limited, trouble me.

    It seems that we know now more than ever how to better address learning difficulties. Whether this means specific attention in the form of additional programs or different curriculum in the same classroom, it seems that such a careful approach requires greater resources and more teachers.

    Cutting foreign language classes is a slippery slope for a country already of limited international exposure. My impression of aliens is that they are far more likely to be multilingual than a fellow American. Go to France, Mexico, or even China and most likely they’ll say hello before you can say bon jour, buenos dias, or ni hao.

    I realize I’m highlighting, not solving, problems here. It’s just disappointing to see the core remains so nakedly exposed as the more expendable classes are dropped left and right. Of course reading, writing, and arithmetic are critical to a well rounded education. And perhaps there are enough artistic stimuli available to students of all ages beyond the walls of their elementary, junior high, or high school. But, I don’t think so.

    I just can’t help thinking about how fortunate I was to be afforded the opportunity to learn my numbers and fruits in French from first grade on, to play the recorder in third grade and to mold clay as a ten-year old. Like compound interest that is more beneficial the earlier you start investing, early exposure to the arts, a foreign language or additional help at an early age can significantly realign a student’s life for the better from an early age onward.