I guess I should admit that I occasionally recycle points and lines in my blog and in speeches and workshops. I don’t think I do this in the way that Jonah Lehrer did in his New Yorker blog. I think Lehrer crossed a noteworthy line and I don’t think I have. But I do recycle.
I’ll discuss all that shortly, but here are some points I believe I have repeated in some fashion (and I’m pretty sure this list is incomplete):
- Don’t turn obstacles into excuses; make them the war stories of your innovation success.
- Newspapers are experiencing a time similar to the pre-Gutenberg monks who handmade artistically inscribed Bibles.
- Several points about why paywalls on newspaper websites are a bad idea.
- Tips on using Twitter.
- Criticism of newsrooms with restrictive, fear-based social media policies.
- Tips on maintaining your digital profile and finding jobs in digital journalism.
- Blogging tips.
- Never say no for someone else.
- Newspapers need to develop more diverse digital revenue streams. (OK, I’m going to stop coming back here and adding bullets; I think you get the point and I already said this list was incomplete.)
Some people have used the term “self-plagiarize” to describe what Lehrer did. I don’t consider that phrase accurate. Plagiarism is theft of words and you can’t steal from yourself. Recycling, remixing or repurposing seem to better describe what he did (I just changed that sentence to take out the word “offense” because I don’t think recycling, remixing and repurposing are offenses in themselves. They are honorable and common writing practices). (more…)
The Buttry Diary 