Much Ado about Technology

There are a decent number of stories going around the Internet about how artists should push back on being asked to work for free. Let me state up front that I agree with this position to the tune of about 80%.

It happens every year about this time - the holiday slowdown. Lots of days off around holidays, people in the office taking time off meaning that projects seem to slide into January, comments like, "Yeah, let's just push that off until after the holidays..."

Same here, I suppose. I'm taking advantage of a lot of this time to catch up on loose ends, get a lot of reading done, and create planning specifications for things that, as I noted, won't really get started until after the holidays.

I hope you have a great holiday season and I look forward to more insightful (well, at least to me!) blog posts.

After the holidays ;)

My friend Rick shared a story with me this morning, about a seminar and a lesson. I quote it here:

Once a group of 500 people were attending a seminar. Suddenly the speaker stopped and decided to do a group activity. He started giving each person a balloon. Each person was then asked to write their name on it using a marker pen. Then all the balloons were collected and put in another room.

The people were then let into that room and asked to find the balloon which had their name written on it within 5 minutes. Everyone was frantically searching for their name, colliding with each other, pushing around others and there was utter chaos.

Dr. Gary Chapman’s book, “The Five Love Languages,” is a well-known tome on five ways that humans tend to express and experience love for one another. Of the five, one is “Acts of Service.” That is, doing things for other people. As it is in life and relationships, so it is in business. Often, helping others through actions can provide benefits not only for the recipient, but also for the helper.

I’m going to start off with a story, which, I promise, is relevant. I am a proponent of marriage equality. I can be flippant about it and note that I feel that everyone should get to experience the pain of marriage, but that’s not fair to my wife, who is one of the greatest people I know. I actually have my reasons for being in favor, which I will get to shortly. But first the story.