Normalcy often signifies conforming to societal standards, but doing so can lead to unhealthy living patterns and mediocrity. This blog explores why it’s crucial to embrace unique, health-focused lifestyles despite potential social isolation or judgment. The journey against normalcy involves making intentional life choices that balance personal growth with the need for connection and occasional indulgence.
Against Normalcy: Why Being Normal Can Be Dangerous
The article discusses how conforming to societal norms, or being ‘normal,’ often leads to unhealthy habits and mediocrity. The author emphasizes the value of adopting healthier, more mindful living practices, albeit with the social consequence of feeling isolated or judged as ‘different’ by peers. The battle against normalcy involves making intentional choices about personal development while balancing the need for social connection and occasional indulgence.
Key Points
- Being ‘normal’ often aligns with unhealthy or irresponsible habits, like smoking, drinking, financial debt, or mindless consumption.
- Choosing to live differently by prioritizing health and personal development may lead to social isolation and judgment from peers.
- Balancing normalcy with uniqueness can result in a fulfilling life, by not entirely shunning society’s norms while maintaining personal values.
Action Items
- Identify and replace habits that do not contribute to your well-being with healthier alternatives.
- Develop emotional resilience to handle the loneliness or negativity that may come with choosing a different lifestyle from the norm.
- Occasionally indulge in socially ‘normal’ activities to balance your lifestyle and maintain social connections.
How Are Journalism Schools Teaching Newsletter Skills?
The article discusses how journalism schools are incorporating newsletter skills into their curricula as newsletters become increasingly central to modern journalism. It explores how educators use newsletters as teaching tools to convey various journalism skills, both traditional and novel, such as editorial bias management, digital engagement, and revenue strategies. The piece emphasizes the evolving landscape of journalism, where newsletters serve as a direct bridge between journalists and audiences, highlighting the need for diverse skills from both editorial and marketing domains.
Key Points
- Newsletters are becoming a crucial tool for content distribution and revenue generation in modern journalism, prompting newsrooms to adopt them extensively.
- Journalism schools are adapting their curricula to include newsletter skills as a practical part of journalism education, teaching students to manage editorial, marketing, and engagement strategies.
- Traditional journalism skills like quality reporting, clear writing, and proofreading remain vital even in the newsletter format, but students must also learn new skills like crafting compelling subject lines and understanding digital metrics.
Action Items
- Consider starting a personal or professional newsletter to enhance direct communication with your audience and explore potential revenue streams.
- Focus on developing a consistent and clear writing style for your communications, making sure to attract and maintain audience interest.
- Invest time in understanding digital engagement metrics and how to leverage them to improve your content strategy and audience engagement.
The Pragmatic Open Source Contributor
The Pragmatic Open Source Contributor guide outlines a comprehensive approach to contributing to open-source projects effectively. It emphasizes understanding the open-source environment, securing legal permissions, communicating efficiently with maintainers, and focusing on meticulous coding and documentation. Its primary aim is to overcome common barriers programmers face when contributing to open source, such as perceived irrelevance to their job, legal challenges, past frustrations, or time commitment fears. By fostering a shared knowledge ecosystem and providing a structured plan for open source contributions, this guide empowers developers to enhance and refine essential software tools they rely on.
Key Points
- The importance of contributions to open-source projects in improving tools a business relies on.
- A structured playbook exists for contributing, which involves understanding the legal landscape, maintaining communication, and focusing on quality coding and documentation.
- The process emphasizes non-coding elements as crucial, such as legal clearance and building maintainer relationships.
Action Items
- Ensure all legal aspects are addressed before contributing to any open-source project when representing a company.
- Prioritize effective communication and relationship-building with project maintainers to facilitate smoother contributions.
- Adopt a systematic approach for contributions, including thorough research, documentation, and respectful feedback loops with maintainers.
How Dotdash Meredith enlisted OpenAI to boost its contextual ad product, with Lindsay Van Kirk
Dotdash Meredith has collaborated with OpenAI to enhance its contextual ad product, D/Cipher. By integrating OpenAI’s large language model, Dotdash Meredith aims to improve the ability to make connections between pieces of content by understanding language and sentiment beyond keywords. This technology enhancement has resulted in a 30% increase in identifying connections across content. The company uses first-party data and human oversight to ensure the quality and relevance of these connections.
Key Points
- Dotdash Meredith uses OpenAI’s large language model to improve contextual advertising by understanding language at a granular level.
- The collaboration has led to a 30% improvement in connecting related pieces of content by considering context beyond mere keywords.
- Human oversight remains pivotal to ensure that AI-generated connections are contextually and brand-appropriate.
Action Items
- Explore integrating AI to enhance content recommendations by leveraging language understanding beyond keyword matching.
- Utilize first-party data in marketing strategies to better understand customer behavior and preferences.
- Maintain a balance of AI innovation with human intervention to ensure quality and relevance in automated processes.
Immediate Media: rethinking the publishing process to maximise ROI
The article discusses Immediate Media’s strategic approach to maximizing return on investment (ROI) in content creation by innovating across the publishing process. Immediate Media, organized around three key verticals: Entertainment, Food, and Knowledge, uses a customer-led strategy and emphasizes the importance of repurposing content to best serve various consumer needs. They focus on knowledge sharing and innovation, allowing them to test formats and technologies across different brands, such as BBC Gardeners’ World’s multiplatform initiatives. This approach includes the development of digital assets, like podcasts and apps, to expand market reach and adapt to evolving consumer expectations.
Key Points
- Immediate Media maximizes ROI by focusing on content repurposing and innovation across its Entertainment, Food, and Knowledge verticals.
- The company uses a customer-led strategy to address audience needs and stretch brands beyond traditional consumer bases.
- Knowledge sharing and testing new formats across brands facilitate faster innovation and help leverage successful practices across the media group.
Action Items
- Consider how you can repurpose existing content for different formats or platforms to increase its reach and impact.
- Adopt a customer-led approach in both personal and professional settings to ensure you are meeting the needs and expectations of your audience or clients.
- Facilitate a culture of knowledge sharing within teams or organizations to encourage innovation and implement successful practices across different projects or areas.