The Ongoing Resolution

January 2nd, 2013 · Zach · Living No comments - Tags: decluttering, minimalism

That’s the stereo I bought when I moved to California for college. Now, a decade and change later, I’m getting rid of it. The CD player recently stopped working, the tape decks burned out long ago, and the radio signal was never that great. Yet, I’ve kept it all along.

I’ve never been big on resolutions around January 1, but last year I did one. It was to declutter the physical part of my life. Living here since 1999 means I’ve collected quite the collection of stuff: giveaways, business cards, odd pieces of furniture, great books, horrible books, random pieces of paper, CDs, computer equipment. The list goes on.

Why Headlines Should be Different Online and in Print

July 29th, 2012 · Zach · Journalism No comments

If you know me, you know I emphasize the importance of headlines in web publishing. Today, while reading the Los Angeles Times, I came upon a good visual to quickly explain this:

The headline combined with the photo tells me exactly what this article is about in less than a second. But on its own and without context, it would not make sense. When reading a paper or magazine or book or even a mobile app, I like to say that you’re a captive reader — even if there wasn’t a photo, you’d likely at least read the deck (the short summary before the article starts) before deciding to scan other pages.

But online, only some of your readers are captive, coming to your site and browsing around. These days, many, if not most of your readers find you via search engines and social media — places where you do not have control over the context surrounding a link. So in a world of search engines surfacing headlines and readers using share buttons on social media, the headline, ”Popularity contest? He wins” is likely to mean nothing, meaning very few readers visiting (there’s no guarantee that deck will surface properly or that a thumbnail will help tell the headline’s story). So instead, the same article online has this headline:

Zen Quotes

June 3rd, 2012 · Zach · Living No comments

Living in California since 1999 means I’ve built up quite a collection of stuff. For the past several months I’ve been trying to purge myself of a lot of it in an effort to let go. Funny enough, one thing I’m saying goodbye to is a bulletin board, which over a yearlong period during college I added my favorite quotes from a daily zen calendar. Talk about letting go. Without being too superstitious, I’m going to purge them along with the bulletin board. At the very least, I’ll keep a digital record of those quotes, which I realize is not fully letting go, but I like these teachings as they are good reminders. Here’s what I saved.

“What’s let go of provides space for what’s to become”- Anonymous

“A flower falls even though we love it. A weed grows even though we don’t love it.” – Dogen

“Atop a hundred-foot pole, how do you step forward?” – Shishuang

“Zen teaches nothing; it merely enables us to wake up and become aware. It does not teach, it points.” – D.T. Suzuki

“Blow and you can extinguish a fire. Blow and you cam make a fire.” – Zen Koan

“After the game, the king and pawn go into the same box? – Italian Proverb

“The wise man sets no high value on a thing simply because it is hard to get.” – Tao Te Ching

On Eating Less Sugar

June 27th, 2011 · Zach · Food, Health No comments - Tags: studio city

This gargantuan photo is of a deep-fried fluffernutter sandwich with bananas that I ate the other night at the just-opened Black Market Liquor Bar in Studio City. When the waiter put it down on the table, I was a bit overwhelmed by its obnoxious size, but went ahead anyway and took a bite.

My eyes list up and church choir music began to ring in my head. (my roommate had a similar reaction, though, I’m sure it was of a Judaic nature.) I’ve had my share of deep-fried county fair fare, but this topped my list by far. Needless to say, I killed the sandwich.

Excited to share the new neighborhood haunt, we went back the next night with a friend of my roommate, in which the fluffernutter made a comeback. This time, however, I did not participate.

For the past two months, I’ve been cutting down on sugar. When I started my job last November, it was the first time I had worked in an office since 2005. And what comes with most office environs? Snacks. Lots of them. And usually sugary. This is not to say that I hadn’t eaten copious amounts of sweets from the kitchen when I worked at home, but the generosity of my co-workers put me over the tipping point. Enough that they uncovered my alter ego, the slyly-named Snack Behrens.

So I made a fast break and cut it out. The first thing I noticed was that my sleep improved dramatically. I would fall asleep more easily and wake up feel much more rested. I’ve also lost some weight with ease and I’m sure my blood tests results will be improved as well, which is not a bad thing.

This is not to say I don’t eat sugar–ahem, the above photo?–but I only do it on special occasions like food I’ve never experienced before–once again, the photo–co-workers who baked a pie (Michael Pollan’s Rule 17: Eat food cooked by humans, not corporations) and moments of camaraderie such as ice cream Thursdays at the office. I’ll also eat food with natural sugar, such as the blueberries I ate every morning last week with my breakfast.

Being so cavalier with sweets feels good at the moment, but the decision to eat less has been good in the long run. I think I’ll stick with it–except for the next time I encounter some deep-fried dessert that raises Snack’s eyebrows.

Your Next Writing Gig: Determined by Klout?

June 16th, 2011 · Zach · Social Media One comment

I was speaking to a recent college graduate/aspiring full-time writer the other day, and she said something that was very curious to me: prospective employers of writers or editors who are hiring freelancers are using Klout scores as part of the process. As someone who hires writers, the thought of using the social media measurement tool–their slogan: “The Standard for Influence”– has never crossed my mind.

If you’re catching up, Klout approaches your online presence as something scalable and measurable. It “isn’t about figuring out who is on the ‘A-list,’ the say. “We believe that every person who creates content has influence. Our mission is to help every individual understand and leverage their influence.”

While using credit scores to determine a hire has been controversial in the past, I wasn’t sure how widespread Klout was in new hires, so I turned to the internet to find if others shared the experienced.

Over at ZDNet last month, Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols found himself in a similar situation:

Now you think “What nonsense! Who cares what your Klout score is!” I’d agree… until a few months ago when I was in the early stages of a book deal and the publisher insisted on knowing what my Klout score was.

And London-based blogger Antonia Harler back in December:

You know, it’s hard enough finding a job that you love without an additional number being used to compare you to the rest. And I so wish, companies would quit looking at Klout scores. I really do. It’s being used as a measure of success and that rubs me the completely wrong way. I was once told “This isn’t so good (referred to something I did), but you have a high Klout score, so you might be successful in the future after all.” If I hadn’t been so shocked about the ridicule of that statement by itself, I would have cracked up. I’m hardly ever speechless but that just left me staring at the person as though I’d just seen a ghost.

And Michelle Tripp at the BrandForward Blog:

At a recent Klout-Up in NYC, an HR recruiter was overheard talking about how they’re starting to use Klout to evaluate job applicants. When questioned by a Klout employee, the recruiter said they were using a score of “around 30″ as a gauge of minimum influence.

Yeah. Not only are they looking at your resume, Linkedin, Google footprint, Facebook activity, and Twitter feed… they’re also looking at where you stand in the social influence hierarchy.

There are plenty of more examples, and they and the above are not all writing gig-related, but you get the point.

From where I stand, as someone in public media who hires journalists, Klout has yet to play a factor. Maybe it will in the future, but right now it has zero influence on who I assign a story to.

I want solid writers and journalists. If they happen to have good influence, that’s great, but their craft and knowledge of a subject is of the utmost importance to me. I’m not going to give a bad writer a job just because their going to spike traffic for a day.

Don’t get me wrong, I do believe all writers need to work on social media and their personal brand, especially those who have yet to establish themselves–I have, after all, met writers through social media and later hired them–but it’s not the end-all-be-all. Social media is just one function of the bigger picture of marketing and relationships.

But back to Klout, or other measurement tools that come along in the future, as a determining factor in the hiring process for journalists. I personally still have a hard time thinking this is a tool I will use, but I’m sure I’ll come around, with a healthy balance, of course.

One part of me says, “You’re in public media, your goal is not just about pageviews, it’s about filling a void of news coverage that is in the public interest.” Another part says, “But someone with great Klout can help reach those communities seeking and in need of the important coverage we are providing.”

Are you an editor or writer who has some thoughts on Klout? Let me know in the comments.

Thanks for reading my post. Feel free to join me on Facebook and Twitter as well.

I love longreads: ‘How to Spot a Psychopath’ & ‘Why Isn’t Wall Street in Jail?’

June 2nd, 2011 · Zach · Longreads No comments - Tags: economy, health, reading

With extra time that bus/subway commuting has brought me, I’ve become addicted to longreads.com, a website by a fellow public transit user (in NYC) who curates some of the best in long-form journalism. “I love longreads” is a series that highlights my favorite pieces and why.

The Guardian last month ran an exclusive excerpt from Jon Ronson’s latest and ingeniously-titled book, “How to Spot a Psychopath.” Don’t judge this by its cover, though, as it is not a cheesy how-to. Rather, there’s story arc and all the good stuff that makes you want to turn the page (or scroll down on your iPad).

What struck me the most was a quote from Bob Hare, famous criminal psychologist and father of the Psychopathy Checklist (and its revised version). “Serial killers ruin families,” he said. “Corporate and political and religious psychopaths ruin economies. They ruin societies.”

There I sat in the subway station feeling a bit stunned. This wasn’t surprising news to me, but I guess I never thought about it much lately. With the recession still having its effects, Hare’s words struck me with powerful relevance.

The recession has spawned movies and documentaries, books, radio show topics and endless headlines for the news business, yet it feels like the actual people behind the crash have stayed largely out of the picture. Albeit smaller scale, Enron, this has not been.

Nobody has gone to jail.

“This is the mantra of the financial-crisis era, one that saw virtually every major bank and financial company on Wall Street embroiled in obscene criminal scandals that impoverished millions and collectively destroyed hundreds of billions, in fact, trillions of dollars of the world’s wealth — and nobody went to jail,” explained Matt Taibbi in a February article in Rolling Stone. “Nobody, that is, except Bernie Madoff, a flamboyant and pathological celebrity con artist, whose victims happened to be other rich and famous people.”

Read Ronson’s and Taibbi’s pieces here:

No more superfluous 3D

May 31st, 2011 · Zach · Entertainment No comments - Tags: 3D, movies

I saw the fourth installment of “Pirates of the Caribbean” this weekend. While I thought it was weak, story-wise, my complaint is about the 3D. The movie, which was not shot for an eye-popping experience like “Avatar” was, just didn’t need it. Basically, The only value-added thing about it was the price of the ticket–and that had no benefit for me.

From now on, unless a movie is made specifically to be 3D, I’m going to actively search for it the old-fashioned way. Consider me as contributing to this Hollywood problem, described by the New York Times this weekend:

Ripples of fear spread across Hollywood last week after “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides,” which cost Walt Disney Studios an estimated $400 million to make and market, did poor 3-D business in North America. While event movies have typically done 60 percent of their business in 3-D, “Stranger Tides” sold just 47 percent in 3-D. “The American consumer is rejecting 3-D,” Richard Greenfield, an analyst at the financial services company BTIG, wrote of the “Stranger Tides” results.

Rejecting is what I witnessed when one 50-something couple exited the theatre Saturday night. They complained of “Pirates” being too dark–the glasses dim the picture, something you discover when you inevitably take a peek at the screen without them, just to see what it looks like.

“It’s supposed to be that way,” said an usher.

“No it isn’t,” the man replied, “‘Avatar’ wasn’t like this.”

She explained that the James Cameron epic was made for 3D and Pirates was converted to 3D.

“Ridiculous,” he said, walking away.

(h/t to my roommate for pointing out the NYT 3D article to me)

I love longreads: Outside Magazine on bicycle commuting

May 31st, 2011 · Zach · Longreads No comments - Tags: bicycling, reading

In the summer of 2007, I took to the bike for three months and went all out: bought a Metro monthly pass, a bicycle basket, a new helmet and lights. Over those 90 days, I learned a lot about the streets from an on-the-ground perspective.

The good: It’s liberating, beautiful, you learn a lot about the city, you meet more people, you get exercise, you’re always hungry and parking is a lot easier.

But the most obvious lesson was that it’s dangerous out there, though education has been improving over the years. Not only did I have to call the police twice on drivers who purposely tried to hit, or at least intimidate me, even city-hired workers like LADOT Dash drivers were not very careful around cyclists.

Secondly, many cyclists are drivers, including me. What those three months taught me was what it’s like to be on both sides of the road, so to speak. Yes, it’s frustrating for the few seconds you might be stuck behind a cyclist in a narrow lane, but you understand. You’ve been there before and now you’re patiently cruising without your foot on the pedal until there’s a safe moment to pass.

This is why I enjoyed Tom Vanderbilt’s “Rage Against Your Machine” in Outside Magazine. The deck:

What is it about cyclists that can turn sane, law-abiding drivers into shrieking maniacs? The author ponders the eternal conflict with help from bike supercommuter Joe Simonetti, who each week survives the hostile, traffic-clogged rat race between the New York exurbs and Midtown Manhattan.

Read the full article here.

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Zach Behrens