New, News, and Nonsense

Ahh, how the months have flown. I won't bore you with personal updates, however.

I attended a Mediabistro.com's All-Media Party a few nights ago and had a smashing time. I'd almost forgotten how much I like to go out and meet people, and in an environment specifically created for networking within (literally) all media-related professions in Boston, I felt at home and comfortable in my own shoes.

The whole thing got me thinking about developing my professional contacts more and really using the resources I have. First of all, I'm on quite a few social networking sites, but I have very few professional contacts on them outside of my colleagues. I've been doing better on LinkedIn than anywhere else, but Facebook, del.icio.us, and even StumbleUpon are great ways to connect and share information. I leave MySpace out simply because I feel like its interface and its members are not focused on actual networking in a profesisonal sense, and from the reactions of friends and coworkers, other people feel the same way.

Another great resource I have is the city in which I work. No more am I professionally land-locked by the tourism-driven, materially-obsessed Floridian culture. I'm in the middle of a publishing center populated by highly educated, techonologically-forward professionals. Conferences come here, positions at companies are highly competitive, and there are networking events like the one I went to often enough that I'd have quite the social life if I went to all of them (compared to the social life I have now, at least). So I've started doing my homework and have started to gather a list of conferences and local networking events on del.icio.us and have posted a permanent widget on Blue-Stockings so you, too, can become a Bostonian social (networking) butterfly.

And finally, there is my phone. My beautiful, commuter-friendly Samsung i760. As an assistant, I'm not allowed to have company business cards. As an assistant, I'm not paid quite enough to spend tons of money (or time) making my own on sites like Zazzle or VistaPrint. But, an assistant or not, you can't network without some form of easily-to-distribute information about yourself. Enter smart phone (or iPhone or BlackBerry, if you prefer). If you want to be snazzy and tres-technical, you can sign up for a service like DropCard to send your info to your new contact. But with a smart phone/iPhone/BlackBerry, you can just shoot a quick e-mail in person. Either way, paper-free is a great way to go.

As for news, I feel I can't go without giving you a few tidbits of publishing to-do. First of all, the Huffington Post's Lissa Warren just wrote an interesting critique of book blogs and the future of the book review. In light of our previous conversation on the subject, I thought it would be an interesting addition. I have to agree that the format of the blog as-is is an insufficient forum for the high-quality reviews that we've come to love in print. The solution: good reviewers need to start using their clout and highly intelligent prose to win over the blog field so people like yours truly aren't filling the review world with "what their father and their girlfriend -- or their father's girlfriend -- thought of the book" and a "slew" of personal pronouns that Warren feels degrades the quality of the review itself. Newsweek recently posted an Anna Quindlen article questioning John McCain's ability to connect with a technologically advanced nation after he "described himself earlier this year as a computer illiterate who had never gone online." If the Kennedy-Nixon debates in 1960 were won with Kennedy's suave television presence, then can Obama trounce a luddite candidate using the web? One can only hope...

And finally, a bit of fun nonsense for you book lovers. I had no idea that Goodreads has a "First Reads" section where they list book giveaways. I think I've signed up for every single one (shameless, I know). So if I win any, you might find a few reviews posted on the blog. (Personal pronouns and my father's opinions will be avoided if at all possible, I promise!)