Posted in Online Publishing Strategy	April 25, 2008

Straddling the Technical/Creative Line with The New York Sun's Rob Blatt

Rob Blatt from The New York Sun talked in this afternoon session at PodCamp NYC 2.0 about how you can keep up with your creative and editorial motivations and ideas while keeping in mind how you can accomplish it technically.

This session was focused on the “worker bees” who wear a lot of hats, and how they can manage their time accordingly when their creative and technical sides are out of proportion.

Blatt mentioned that the “worker bees” versus “the rest” have a different perspective on how things get done. The voice personality on a podcast might not understand the crucial elements that it will take to edit it, optimize its metadata, and put it on the web. Therefore, thirty minutes after they’ve recorded a podcast, they are asking why it’s not on the web, as if their beautiful voice magically optimized, edited and coded itself.

Blatt’s anecdote for these sorts of situations is not to take your colleagues ineptitudes under your wing, but to prepare them for the 21st century instead. After all, in order to manage someone who is doing something, a good manager should know how to do it themself.

Blatt recommended a blog called INDEXED where index cards are scanned into each entry. For Blatt, index cards work very well for organizing his tasks… he compared this idea to why people write down ideas on napkins and think of their best ideas in the shower. When you can’t grasp your technical side, you are in creative mode. In order to organize those thoughts, you need to put them down somewhere in order to empty your memory for more thoughts, like RAM.

“The best offense for your technical side is a good defense for your creative side, and the best defense for your creative side is a good offense for your technical side” Blatt notes.

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As far as technical programs, BaseCamp, MindMapper, and a plain old text editing program were recommended by Blatt and attendees, but he found that using these things (for some people) only divert you from the goal. An attendee called it a form of “sophisticated procrastination”. However, he also mentioned, that what works for you, works for you.

For Blatt, index cards and working on only one project at a time works for him. Blatt emphasized looking at what you “can do” rather than what you “want to do”. He also recommended making a list of your technical questions about a project and separate them from your creative questions.

An attendee recommended the book “Do it Wrong Quickly” for people who are still stuck in old-marketing ways where you still feel the need to do it right the first time. When you create an ad for a magazine or newsletter in print, it needs to be right the first time. When you are publishing something on the web, you can change it when you want. If something you want to do to “improve” the content is holding you back from accomplishing it, you should be OK with publishing it online. Time will be available later for improvements. “If you don’t do it now, you’ll never get around to it”, a wise attendee notes.

More PodCamp NYC 2.0 Coverage:

How to Build and Sustain a Social Community - with Alan Levy of BlogTalkRadio.com

Top Free New Media Tools You'll Need for Everything - with Ben Katzman of SpongeCell.com

Straddling the Technical/Creative Line - with Rob Blatt of The New York Sun

How To Promote and Make Money With Your Podcast in the Next 30 Days - with Michael Geoghegan of GigaVox Media and Tim Bourquin of PodcastBrothers.com

The "M" Word: Alternative Ways to Monetize - with Mark Tafoya & Jennifer Lannolo from CulinaryMediaNetwork.com, Cliff Ravencraft of GSPN.tv, and Rob Blatt of The New York Sun

Tactical Transparency (being naked on the web) - with PodCamp lead organizer John C. Havens, and author of an upcoming book called Tactical Transparency

SEO for Podcasting, Vodcasting & Social Media - an ad-hoc session with PodCamp attendees

The Economics of Aggregation - with Travell Perkins of RGBDaily.com