Jobs...

There are a bunch of jobs going at Triangle Direct Media, a successful ten-year operation that provides marketing online. Hopefully one of these jobs will update its website, something that is long overdue. The site is very slow, and you have to use several mouse clicks to do some processes.
Still, I can't complain. TDM has provided me with some modest income for quite a long time. In fact, I may have been writing for them for almost as long as they've been going!

Absurdity

I came across this wonderful extract this morning...delights my heart!

Usually I spare myself from the news, because if it’s not propaganda, then it’s one threat or another exaggerated to the point of absurdity, or it’s the tragedy of storm-quake-tsunami, of bigotry and oppression misnamed justice, of hatred passed off as righteousness and honor called dishonorable, all jammed in around advertisements in which a gecko sells insurance, a bear sells toilet tissue, a dog sells cars, a gorilla sells investment advisers, a tiger sells cereal, and an elephant sells a drug that will improve your lung capacity, as if no human being in America any longer believes any other human being, but trusts only the recommendations of animals.

Odd Thomas

in Dean Koontz' Deeply Odd

Writers, illustrators, and photographers

I received this as an email this morning. There may be others who'd be interested who haven't received a copy. 

 

An invitation to an information evening for writers, illustrators, and photographers

Where: Vodafone conference centre, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, 55 Cable Street, Wellington 6011

When: Monday evening, March 3, 6.00–9.00 pm

Do you contribute to the Ministry of Education’s teaching and learning resources? Are you interested in doing so? The Ministry of Education publishes an extensive range of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, short plays, teacher support material, illustrations, and photographs within the Instructional Series (Ready to Read, the Junior Journal, the School Journal, the School Journal Story Library, and Connected).

This is an opportunity to find out more about content needs, the Ministry of Education’s preferred suppliers for resource development and design services, and the commissioning of content.

With the closing of Learning Media Limited as a Government-owned educational publishing company in 2013, the Ministry of Education welcomes this opportunity to provide writers, illustrators, and photographers – and the agents and organisations that represent them – with up-to-date information about contributing to the Ministry’s Instructional Series publishing programme.

Virtual attendance through a live webcast will be available to anyone who cannot attend in person. Wellington-based writers, illustrators, photographers, course tutors, agents, and organisations are encouraged to attend in person.

By attending the presentation in person, you accept the possibility you may be filmed, with the understanding that this will be used in the live and recorded webcast and may be used for further Ministry of Education informational purposes at a later date.

Parking is available at Te Papa in the evening from 5.00 pm for $6.00.

Handouts will be provided on March 3 and will be downloadable from the Ministry of Education’s website (http://www.minedu.govt.nz/) afterwards. The event will be recorded for edited playback afterwards.

RSVP: By February 15 to Peggy Nesbitt (peggy@lifteducation.com). Please let Peggy know whether you would like to attend in person or virtually. If you are only able to attend virtually, you will be sent a weblink and a password when you RSVP.

Questions: Participants attending in person are encouraged to submit questions by February 15 but may also ask questions on the night. People attending virtually must ask questions by email by February 15 to ensure that they are addressed on March 3. 

Forward this invitation: The Ministry wishes to encourage new contributors – including Māori and Pasifika contributors – to become involved in its publications and online resources and would like to broaden its contributor base. Please forward this invitation to other writers, illustrators, and photographers that you are in touch with.

For further information: Contact Peggy Nesbitt (peggy@lifteducation.com, phone 04 381 2251)

A surfeit of news

I just came across a line in a quote I'd kept which reads: institutions of fear that promise safety by the destruction of others.

This is a wonderful line that epitomizes what's happening in much of the Western world at the moment: we are being led increasingly to believe that we're in great danger from some (unknown) source and therefore the 'institutions of fear' need to look out for us, and in so doing, will destroy others. Hasn't this been exactly what's happened since 9/11?  But it goes back much further than that: the McCarthy era was one particular and horrendous example of it; Hitler persuaded an entire country - or so it seemed - that one racial group needed to be destroyed in order that Germany would be safe. And there are innumerable examples of it throughout history. The worst facet of the contemporary version is that the media picks up on this fear and safety issue very quickly, and very quickly makes an enormous big deal out of the words of men (and some women) who ought to have been ignored for their foolishness. 

Some people would claim that it's our own fault that the media is the way it is. The interesting thing is, however, that if you go without a newspaper, or without television or radio, even for a few days, you quickly realise how unimportant a great deal of the so-called news is.  The news world is a fantasy, for the most part. For thousands of years human beings have got on without the wealth of news that we're subject to, and survived. Only really important things got through (or sometimes didn't), and these things were important to the particular people involved rather than their neighbours in the next city or country. News today involves us even when we have no need to be involved, and makes us feel guilty when we have no need to be guilty.  So in many ways, the media is an institution of fear, like those in the first paragraph.

There are no safety equipment suppliers to overcome the problems of this kind of perpetual interruption of news from the outside as we receive it in this century. Some people, a very few, will not only ignore the news but will hide themselves away from society, as though this somehow helped. It helps them, perhaps; it doesn't get rid of the main issue, which is a superabundance of so-called news. How in the world can it be that we need 24 hour news channels?  Who can absorb so much news?  Who would want to? 

Certainly there are advantages in having access to news as you need it, but it's the 'as you need it' factor that's important.  And we don't actually need it as much as we think. We've just survived a week in Auckland with very little news: I gave the newspaper a cursory glance some days and spent more time on the CodeCracker or the Cryptic Crossword, or the Sudoku than I did on the news. We didn't watch the TV news the entire time, nor did we hear the news on the radio.  Presumably it went on its blathering way, day in and out, and yet we survived with no problem whatsoever. 

I don't want to go to the extreme of never hearing any news at all. I think that's foolish. But neither do I feel we need anything like the amount of news we get, and we certainly don't need it played up to the hilt as it's so often done. News needs to be kept in its place, or it becomes a fearsome monster that eats your life away.

Misreporting

The media [in New Zealand] has largely failed the public interest – again with just a few notable exceptions - over the whole theory of man-made global warming. The mainstream media almost never reports on the alternative view to the government’s line that global warming is caused by man, even though there is a widespread understanding that the planet warms and cools as a result of natural cycles. It is largely because of this lack of proper scrutiny, that the National party has been able to implement the harshest emissions trading scheme (ETS) in the world, in spite of promising that they would not make New Zealand a world leader in climate change.

Muriel Newman in An Exercise in Futility

Getting fame in perspective

Unless you're running for something that requires a unanimous vote, it's a mistake to focus on the frowning guy in the back of the room or the dolt who doesn't get your subtle references or the miser who isn't going to buy from you regardless...

You're on the hunt for sneezers, for fans, for people willing to cross the street to work with you. Everyone else can pound sand, that's okay. Being remarkable also means being ignored or actively disliked.

From Seth Godin: Lady Gaga and me

Incidentally, I had no idea what a 'sneezer' was in the context, so it was helpful to find this definition: Sneezer: An online marketing slang term coined by Charles Nicholls, founder of SeeWhy, to describe any customer that spreads your offers and promotions through social networks. Social networking sites make it incredibly easy for your "sneezer" customer to share promotions and positive word-of-mouth marketing about your business in a single click with his or her network of friends.

Jargon

The use of jargon can be very off-putting for someone who isn't in the know. Sometimes it seems that it's used just to keep people at a distance, those who aren't in the 'club' as it were. Scientists are very strong on jargon, though I suspect it's often because they forget that while they understand the stuff, many people don't. Hence the frequent confusion that arises when scientists present something in a paper and a media person tries to interpret it. 'Research studies show....' pronounces the media person, and proceeds to present an entirely garbled version of what the studies actually did show.

All this by way of a long introduction to seeing a website in which I barely understood what was being offered at all. I came to it via this link 'sell merchant account' and when I checked the page out was greeted with the following piece of in-house jargon: .... pays 30% of ongoing recurring revenue from all sources of income from credit and debit card processing, and Authorize.Net gateway fees, including revenue from chargebacks, returns and monthly fees! This is the most rewarding reseller program available.

I've read this a few times now, and obviously it means something, but for the life of me I'm not sure what. The next paragraph isn't much help: ...has the flexibility to offer both "Interchange-Plus" pricing for your established high margin merchants, and "Two Tier Billing" for your new clients, thereby increasing retention and profitability. Strengthen your relationships with your clients with our outstanding customer support.

Plainly I need to check Wikipedia out to discover what 'chargebacks', 'gateway fees', 'interchange-plus' and the like all mean. Because there's so much jargon in these paragraphs, there's nothing left to allow you to figure out the meaning unaided.

As a child I would skip over words I didn't understand, because frequently you'd get the general drift if you kept reading. Consequently there are still some words that mean nothing to me: pejorative is one particular example. Even though it was explained to me recently, in context, it still hasn't stuck! I'm going to have to make some real effort with it, obviously.