Cautionary Tales

Think Before You Send

President Donald Trump should serve as a cautionary tale about what we say and what we share online. His tweets have been introduced as his state mind evidence as his travel ban travels through the court. His posts are his own worst enemy.

He's not the only one self sabotaged by his social media posts. Ten potential Harvard students had their admissions denied because of their offensive posts.

But there's more...

About the same time I was considered the damage that could be done by ill-advised posts can an op-ed from Mark Oppenheimer in the LA Times about how Twitter is bad for him...because...well...it's a huge time suck. Just think about the time wasted over Trump's typo. As Oppenheimer puts it, "Life is short, summer’s here, and my dog deserves a long, leisurely walk. Halfway through, we’ll sit down for a spell. I’ll bring a book.

Real Life Survival Guide - Crowd Sourcing

Last Thursday I was given the privilege of sitting in with a taping of the Real Life Survival Guide. The Real Life Survival Guide is "a radio show (and web community) dedicated to answering questions through a series of conversations – with a diverse group of people across a variety of media channels: a blog, an online forum, a public radio show, and social networks like Facebook and Twitter." It's also the brainchild of Bruce Barber. I'm helping to produce the show.


Thursday's conversation was populated by a cross section of New Haven are intelligentsia.  The Gang of Provocateurs, as Bruce and co-host Duo Dickinson like to call them were Christine Ohlman, Mark Oppenheimer, Danielle Gianetti, and Matt Scott. The host and “Guest Provocateur”, Carey Savona of Heirloom at The Study Hotel.


Christine Ohlman is vocalist for the Saturday Night Live Band but, that really doesn't do justice to her resume. Her bio says she Teased her blonde hair into a beehive in honor of Ronnie Spector and never looked back, picking up a guitar and forging a career as a songwriter in the process. Mark Oppenheimer writes a bi-weekly column about religion for the New York Times and, "and I am a writer for The New York Times Magazine, Slate, Mother Jones, Tablet, The Forward, and many other publications. I also enjoy publishing personal essays and book reviews. I am an editor of The New Haven Review and an occasional commentator on NPR." Danielle Gianetti owns one of the best places for a cocktail in New Haven: 116 Crown with her husband John. Matt Scott is Meteorologist for WPLR he was the weekend weatherman until recently for WTNH. 


Eventually there will be about 20 Provocateurs posing and looking for answers to questions about everyday life. Where are they coming from? Connections. It's like networking which is something I've become very familiar with in the past two years since being laid-off by Connecticut Public Broadcasting. It's how I met Bruce. In public radio we like to call it Crowdsourcing. 


There's a more precise definition about what the Real Life Survival Guide is trying to do. According the the Website Crowdsourcing.org it is Collective Knowledge - Development of knowledge assets or information resources from a distributed pool of contributors. Crowdsourcing is used to develop, aggregate, and share knowledge and information through open Q&A, user-generated knowledge systems, news, citizen journalism, and forecasting.


The next installment is Sunday, July 3rd, at 4:30pm. on WNPR. It will be interesting to listen to the conversation and the stories presented evolve in the coming weeks.