Seven Things the CIO Should Know About Telecommuting

Esther Schindler has a mega epic on telecommuting in CIO.com.
"Telecommuters also need to adopt techniques for working at home, both to keep their sanity and to move their career along."

True that. But I think I lost my sanity a couple of decades before I became a freelancer. Anyway...It's a pretty good read, though I ddn't make it past Step 1. Why people break up articles into multiple pages, I will never know. For one, you lose a lot of visitors ( like me ), who have no interest in further clicking. Second, you waste a heck of a lot of bandwidth, and time, reloading the subsequent pages ( seven in this case ). Why not just make it one big page. Scrolling down is easier than clicking and clicking and clicking..... How many people read all seven steps? I'm guessing very few. How many more would have scrolled down and read the entire article if it was one big page? Uh....Not many, I guess. Bulleting points and quotes and facts is all fine, but where's the humor? Without humor, a web page is a dead pond, just so much more junk. Note to Esther Schindler - Get a sense of humor. It's on sale for $9.95 on eBay. Discount sale!

In other news, The Palladium Times has an article advising telecommuters to get a postage meter??
Update : If the link doesn't work, it's probably cause they're hiding the page, being ashamed of peddling a postage meter. And here's the proof. Don't ask why I was searching for postage meters....

In other peddling, citizen journalism aggregator Groundreport.com is touting their $1000 contest for best freelance news report - which went to Desi Zavatta Musolino, from Italy, who posted a news story about a naked tourist who crawled into a fountain.

The How To Boomlet

How to write a how to about writing how to's? Don't ask. Cause I won't tell. cause I don't know. Either you got it or you don't. The reason I bring up this subject is because, as a freelance writer, I've been asked to write 'How To's' by multiple clients - Three of them, to be precise.

Goes without saying that to generate a decent amount of revenue, I'd need to write 3 how to's a day. Problem is, what the heck do I write about? I mean, there's only so much you're an expert on, and can tell other people how to do that. After that, it comes down to the fact that you learn on the job. I have, in the last couple of days, pontificated on how to toilet train your cat and how to build traffic to your website. I'm racking my brains to come up with more how to's every single day.

How To sites, like Koonji, HubPages and Spongefish ( coming soon ), are looking to cash in on the increased trend of searching online for a solution to every problem - Be it debt management, buying a house or finding the nearest and cheapest barbershop. There's only one small problem - There's an information overload, and most of it is crap. I mean, heck, I don't even have a cat, and I wrote a how to on how to toilet train my fictional cat. I say this with no shame, because I did my research, and what I wrote indeed works. But, how many others can say the same? I have no clue, and I figure that sooner or later, folks are going to realize that they're being taken for a how to ride. Meantime, though, I intend to make hay - And how.

Journalism Meltdown

Take a look at this. Journalists are twisting themselves into knots about whether or not it's acceptable to allow email interviews to replace the conventional face to face or telephone interviews.

Situation is so bad that they're doing email interviews about whether or not email interviews are acceptable. "But in the digital age, some executives and commentators are saying they will respond only by e-mail, which allows them to post the entire exchange if they feel they have been misrepresented, truncated or otherwise disrespected. And some go further, saying, You want to know what I think? Read my blog.....My interviews with Rosen, who writes the Pressthink blog, were conducted by e-mail." - Media Notes, Howard Kurtz

One thing they're missing. It's all navel gazing. It's journalists and bloggers, talking about journalists and bloggers. In short, it's all within the media. Who gives a rat's ass whether the media interview themselves by email, phone, in person or by pegion courier? If Tony Snow or Karl Rove refused to do an in person interview, asking instead for an email interview, that would be news. Note to the MSM - Please stop, before you prove yourself to be the asses people think you are.