Endemic

Where would the world be without chunky tomato sauce?

Watch this TED Talk about not trying to create the perfect product and how we should instead try to create the perfect products to target distinct groups. Apply this logic to journalism. What do you come up with?

So why are news orgs trying to create the perfect product? Shouldn’t they be trying to create the perfect products?

“You no longer control the message. And that’s OK.”

If you want to succeed on social media (and the Web in general) you have to be willing to lose control. This fantastic TED Talk should be a must watch for anyone engaged in social media and for marketing departments around the world.

Be yourself. Be passionate.

Social media is nothing like the tightly controlled, sterile communication messages of the past. Want to get good at social media? Be passionate about something and let that passion show through.

It’s really that simple.

You know that day that you never thought would come?

Well it came. And I’m no longer a full-time journalist.

There are a lot of reasons that I’m no longer a full-time journalist. The main reason is that I don’t want to be. These are incredibly difficult times in journalism, and it was sapping my energy away.

I had increasingly become a bitter, angry person. Angry at the established media outlets who were pissing it all away. Angry at all the editors and publishers who couldn’t see that big, radical change was necessary.

I started as a professional journalist in 2006. I’ve never known prosperity in journalism. I’ve known layoffs, furloughs, paper closures, infighting and inaction.

And that made me an angry person. But that’s not who I am. That’s not who I want to be.

There were so many days when it felt like I was running to stand still.

I want to keep moving forward. I want to help make this world a better place. It became clear to be me that journalism was not going to be the best way for me to accomplish that.

Most of the work I’ve done in journalism has been with newspapers. I’ve worked for them and most of the people I chronicled at BeatBlogging.Org worked for newspapers.

Loss and destruction have been almost all that I’ve ever known in journalism. Sure, there has been great work along the way, almost always at the individual level. But many of those innovators that I chronicled at BeatBlogging.Org moved on to other jobs and other fields.

And that was depressing. These were our beacons of light, and they couldn’t make it. The journalism industry has lost a lot of journalists and many of those that it lost were the best, brightest and most innovative.

But the real problem isn’t a journalism problem. Journalism is moving forward. It’s a business model problem, and that’s something I can’t help that much with.

But enough on newspapers. There isn’t much more to say about them. And soon most of what will be said about them will be said in history books.

Journalism will live on. It will one day thrive again. The people that will be producing it and how they will produce will be foreign to us. We’ll know the light at the end of the tunnel when we see it.

For now, journalism is just beginning its trek underground, searching for a ray of light and fresh air. I needed a break from that long, dark trek.

Will I ever return? I don’t know. I’ve stopped worrying about what the future will hold for me.

I will be continuing my work at BeatBlogging.Org because I believe it is important work. If I’m going to be involved with journalism, it will be focused on the future of journalism, not on what journalism was. BeatBlogging.Org doesn’t have anywhere near full-time funding, and I don’t know how much longer we’ll have money for.

But we’ll find a way to tell the stories that need to be told.

I’ve moved on to a different full-time job in a different field. I’m now the community and social media manager for RarePlanet.org, a social network for Rare, a conservation organization. And I’m happy.

I’m not sure if anything made me more aware of my own mortality than working in journalism while newspapers are dying. I’m a third of the way through my life, it’s time for me to start moving forward.

I don’t regret anything. But it is time for something new.

Last week my Web site was hacked. That may seem like bad news, but it provided a moment of clarity.

It was time for a change.

The Journalism Iconoclast is no more. That’s not who I am anymore. More on that later.

My new blog is Endemic. It’s a blog on being. On being a member of this world. On being of a generation that grew up with the Internet.

That’s the lens that frames my world view. And my world view is no longer just on journalism. This is a blog about being a human being.

It’s going to break all the rules of blogging that I have exposed. Whereas The Journalism Iconoclast was laser focused on journalism and new media, this blog will be about anything that strikes or moves me.

I won’t care about SEO or catering to a narrow niche. I don’t have to. So I won’t.

I still have BeatBlogging.Org. That has tons of SEO and a tight niche. That’s where you’ll find my journalism thoughts and work.

But I’ve always been more than just a journalist. I’ve always cared about more than just journalism. I want a personal Web site that reflects that reality.

Here, you’ll find me and only me. One day it might be my thoughts on education, while another is about media. And another day you might find some pictures that I took while walking in nature.

I am who I am. And I don’t care about SEO or page views. I just want to write what I want to write when I want to write it. So I will.

The Journalism Iconoclast was a moment in time. That time has passed.