Editor’s Note
Back in the old days — that’s less than a decade and before there were such things as blogs and interactive conversations with readers — editors used to respond to their newspaper readers with an “editor’s note.” Sometimes it clarified a point made in a letter to the editor. Sometimes it offered a correction. Sometimes it was just a simple explanation. An editor’s note was a handful of sentences; maybe a four or five paragraphs. It was always a personal link between the editor and the reader. Only difference between it and today’s blog is the immediacy and the platform. Welcome to Editor’s Note.

Archive for April 22nd, 2009

FBing, Tweeting, Spacing: R they WRK

Add comment April 22nd, 2009

I spend a lot of time online. I love wandering through the Web universe and have been an early adopter of technology ever since cold type replaced hot type. I had a Twitter account in 2007; thought then I was late to the game. Turns out, not so much. The Register Star had an online news site back in 1996-97. We thought we were behind the times. Again, not so much.

Today, if you are not wired (or better still, wire-less), you might as well be the last dude riding a horse. You can lament the passing of the old days, whine about the seemingly purpose-absent technology of social networking. Help yourself, old brain. But, if you have no clue what that headline means up there, you’re cluelessly out of step.

The topic-of-the-day is whether social networking at work is work. Hard-line camps on both sides. Even employers banning social networking access, or promising grave harm to those who Tweet on the clock.

Let’s get one thing absolutely clear: If I am paying you to get jobs done, get ‘em done, done well, done on time, and ask for more. Do that and I don’t care how many Tweets you Twitter. Don’t care how many status updates you share. Waste company time by replacing your job with a Tweet? Bye-bye; hello unemployment line.

In the newsroom right now, I’m pushing everyone to the Web world of social networking. Not so much because I think we need more friends or can’t find enough ways to fritter (not Twitter) away our time, but because it IS work. Every time I post a status update or explore a new technology and how people are using it, I learn more about how best to do my job.

Two things today: Months of Tweets and FBing are leading to the creation of RockfordWoman.com. The new one launches June 19. Awesome.  Second, the governor comes to editorial board Thursday. We’ll Twitter it and live stream video it. Way cool.

None of that would be happening if the newsroom weren’t Twitpixing with their mothers.