Jeff Cutler – columns, essays and opinions

This post originally appeared in JeffsNotes.com…

Diane Darling is charming and upfront about her skillset and her mantras. She wants to see people succeed and has a vision in how that can happen. For even experienced networking and social media professionals, Darling’s tips and insight can be valuable.

For instance, in her most recent book…

DISCLAIMER, I CONTRIBUTED A SECTION TO THIS BOOK

…Diane gets down and dirty in how professionals at all levels leverage their skills and outgoing nature to make connections and ultimately make themselves more successful financially and emotionally.

Give it a read…even if you buy it just to see my section…it’s a nice primer for those who are a bit skeptical that traditional networking still can get the job done. I believe a mix of traditional and new media is the right route, but I’m a tech-head early adopter, what do I know?

ALSO, there’s an event coming up on May 18 where you can meet Diane in person and get your book signed. I expect that I’ll be there too and will sign anything you bring in – doesn’t have to be a book.

Here’s the info on that May 18 event.

If you’d like me to help with a book, or even contribute a complete section or be a co-author, I’m always willing to listen. Gimme a shout in the comments here.

Thanks for reading!

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Tags: author, book, book party, Boston, diane darling, Jeff Cutler, networking

For a couple years now I’ve been getting some of my freelance assignments through Freelance Daily. It’s a newsletter that comes out…wait for it…daily. It offers up a concise aggregate of freelance writing gigs. I love the newsletter and I love that Suzanne has put so much effort into a project that helps so many writers.

Now, Suzanne is offering a blog marketing course and also running a contest for writers. Here’s the link to her post on the subject and here’s the link to vote for her as a great blog marketing genius.

If she’s in any way as skilled at blog marketing techniques as she is at running Freelance Daily, it’s well worth the $300. Take a look.

As for my writing pursuits, I’m at 43,000+ words in NaNoWriMo and hope to wrap up the novel tomorrow, November 25. That’s only 7000 words in a day. Then I can start the fun of editing and making the bare bones have a lot of flesh on them.

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Tags: Freelance Daily, Jeff Cutler, nanowrimo, Suzanne Franco

You might be overly concerned that I’ve been neglecting this particular blog, and I don’t blame you. I’ve been busy.

With CES 2009 on the horizon and multiple assignments for Gatehouse Media on my plate, finding the time to blog has been tough.

Add to that my NaNoWriMo challenge (which stands now at 29,850 words on my way to 50,000) and you’ve got a recipe for blank electronic pages.

Stay tuned, though. there are a few story ideas in the pipeline that will figure into the upcoming editoral offerings here.

Need I say it?

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Tags: articles, CES 2009, columns, features, freelance writer

Not in the election, because by the time most of you read this you’ll have voted. No, words are piling up nicely in my quest to complete NaNoWriMo.

Look over in the right sidebar and see the wordcount widget. It shows you where I stand after four days of participating in the 2008 NaNoWriMo event.

Unfortunately, my novel writing is interfering significantly with my other writing. I’ve let this blog and the others languish a little in the name of creating my first novel.

Yes, I’m already a published non-fiction author, but fiction is different. I’ve create a universe in my head (like that’s any different from how I go through life) and I’m moving the characters around on digital paper.

Unlike reporting on events or interviewing people, fiction taxes your mind because you’re compelled to transport yourself into different shoes with each sentence and piece of dialogue. So far I’ve been a set of parents, an 11-year-old boy (not too hard for me), teenage women, an old lady with a found kitten and a number of other characters. And that’s just four days in. At this rate I’ll compile the experiences of the world by the time they’re done counting the votes in Ohio.

If you’ve got a novel-writing story to share…or a tip on keeping the motivation going for other writing projects while staring down the barrel of something as big as NaNoWriMo…please put it in the comments.

Chat to you sort of soon. Tonight I’m Twittering the election at WBUR Radio in Boston. It’s light writing, but I’m gonna count it as some type of participation.

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Tags: author, Boston, Fiction, Jeff Cutler, motivation, nanowrimo, novel, WBUR

Lately I’ve been building the calluses on my fingers as I prepare fro NaNoWriMo, which begins Saturday.

I’ve also been writing for JeffsNotes.com and have had a piece show up on StuffJournalistsLike.com.

While you haven’t seen me here over the past few days, I have been busy. And I’ll keep you up-to-date on the progress of the novel once I get head-down into it this weekend.

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Tags: columns, Jeff Cutler, journalism, nanowrimo.org, novel, opinion, writing

As if I didn’t have enough to do, I’ve started a daily review blog.

That’s right, I’ll be reviewing a variety of items for people who don’t have the time to check stuff out themselves.

Magazines, movies, restaurants, gadgets, Web sites, technology, consumer goods, travel destinations and more.

Url? Oh, sure. It’s JeffsNotes.com – like CliffsNotes.

If there’s something you haven’t had time to try and want me to put on the blog, just leave your comment here or better still, dash over there.

It’s a brand new site and a work in progress, so gimme your thoughts.

Thanks!

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Tags: consumer goods, daily, gadgets, Jeff Cutler, JeffsNotes.com, magazines, media, reviews, technology, travel, web

At my office away from the office (Panera), I tried to see how easy it would be to write 2000 words on a cohesive topic.

The exercise was part of the NaNoWriMo event coming up in less than 15 days. That’s right, National Novel-writing Month is November.

Part of my anxiety – aside from the actual word-count issue – is topic. I’m a font of silly ideas, smart commentary and unique introspective conversation starters. But that’s where it ends.

The stuff I usually write are concise and powerful 600-775 word diatribes. How can I hope to create characters, plot, description and wild action in chunks of 650 words? Further, how will I paste the whole thing together well enough to entice a major agent or publisher to take a flyer on my project?

It can’t be that hard, can it?

I mean, at every Tweet-up, cocktail party, family gathering and trip to the dentist, people bludgeon me with their ideas for books once they learn that I’m a professional writer.

Sure, I get paid to write and have done so since the days of green screens and mimeograph machines. But that doesn’t mean I’m a modern-day literary Midas.

Just look back over this rant and count the number of times I’ve used a hyphenated descriptor. That’s amateur hour, but you must concede me the errors in style as I’m trying to pound out the characters.

Nimble fingers are necessary. Just like a toy boat will tangle your tongue, you should try writing alliteration always. Or don’t.

How many words is that? 900? Not even?

C’mon. I’m going to have to do twice this amount AND make it tell a story. I think what I need is some acid. Or at least a lucid dream.

Thank god it’s Friday and I won’t have to think about this heinous challenge until Monday when I’ll be limbering up my fingers again.

What?

NaNoWriMo requires you to write EVERY day of the week? That means my trip to NYC mid-month will include some frantic banging of the keys.

And TurkeyDay will make me look like Mike Felger in a previous life. Anti-social wanker with his laptop at every family event. But it’s for the greater good.

And whatever I end up with next month better be good. And it better be greater than this collection of words.

Every day.

All month long.

Until I reach 50,000 words.

Yikes.

Keep reading…I’ll keep typing.

*Leave your thoughts on NaNoWriMo in the comments. And let me know if you’d like me to dump my daily words right here on the blog. It will give you a chance to see the novel as it travels along a path from concept to abysmal reality.

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Tags: Felger, Fiction, Jeff Cutler, nanowrimo, november, procrastinate, sham, writing contest

I’ll admit right at the outset that my attention span could use a gym membership, some spin classes and even some cross training. The cross-training comment was a joke, as my attention span flits from one item to the next without minimal urging or outside intervention.

Even as I compose this column, I’m frantically looking around the room at various objects that might easily take me away from the keyboard and into magical lands. Lands of television watching, Italian Ice snacking, scooter riding, magazine reading, and even furniture construction.

It’s not that I like all of those activities more than connecting with you readers, but I find my mind struggling to slow its pace and stroll along with my fingers. It’s not ADD (as I’ve ranted numerous times about how that’s a fantasy diagnosis created by antsy parents and accommodating physicians), but it is very real. And I’m not alone.

Just today, while cruising the Internet at 82MPH and jumping from Facebook to Twitter to CNN to the Sarah Palin Quotes page, I stopped to read a person’s profile. This guy regularly posts to Twitter as @technosailor and has his regular site here… TECHNOSAILOR.

His name is Aaron Brazell and he’s a self-proclaimed social media expert and backs up this bravado with some impressive writing on the subject and a long line of followers on Twitter. I poked around this follower list and added some of the smart ones to my Twitter feed, but then realized that maybe Twitter is starting to supplant longer forms of writing in the social-media space.

Brazell still keeps a blog going – and has a handful of contributors who blog nearly every day. People like Steve Garfield put videos up and are everpresent in the electronic space. And guys like Adam Gaffin are putting up news and other media by the barrelful.

But what has happened – or is happening – with the general audience in this space? I fear that it’s slowing and growing at the same time.

Last night my aunt asked me about blogging and ‘doing’ a Website. I told her I could get her up and running in 15 minutes, but I stopped short of asking her why she now wants to enter the digital age. I imagine that in the worlds of people 50 and up, digital is new and fresh and email is the wave of the future.

Look at the younger set, though, and you’ll see a move away from long-form blogs to quick-hit Tweets and Facebook status messages and FriendFeed aggregation of a person’s activity. In fact, I took a look at three people on Brazell’s following list and none of them had a blog post fresher than last June. While each had a Twitter post no older than two hours.

Have they run into the problem of having so much short stuff to share that there’s nothing left to build a bigger discussion around?

Are we facing the ultimate in OMG, L8TR conversations? And where does journalism and column writing fit into this new world?

Thankfully, the proportion of people currently mired in the new-media space is tiny. People are still wondering what a blog does. News organizations are just finding out that a shared Twitter post is called a Tweet. And our legislators don’t even use email yet.

So is the wave of the future ahead of us or crashing down upon us? It’s really up to the consumers to decide.

Ultimately, the delivery system isn’t the major factor to writers and other content producers. A good story, article, feature or column is the ultimate goal. I don’t care if you eat off a paper plate or the finest china, the meal of information should still be top-notch, accurate and compelling.

Let me know what you think and where you are in relation to the wave(s).

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Tags: aaron, adam gaffin, Boston, columns, editorial, elections, internet, Jeff Cutler, McCain, news, obama, opinions, palin, social media, steve garfield, twitter, video, web

It’s 8:15AM in Boston. Barbara drops her bag and strides to the thermostat. She reaches into the locked box with a nail file and flicks the plastic tab up. Barbara returns to her desk, hoping nobody saw her.

Sound familiar?

Of all the issues at the office, nothing is so divisive and secretive as control of the office thermostat.

A woman who works near Boston’s Financial District refused to share her industry and was uncertain if she should even reveal her office location.

This woman said she enjoys the large window near her desk because it keeps her warm. But when it comes to overcast days or bitterly cold periods in the winter, she finds herself in a battle between coworkers who bump the heat up and others who cry for cooler temps. The thermostat seems to do nothing.

This results in frequent calls to the HVAC crew who run around the office all year long adjusting thermostats. Ultimately, this woman has found other ways to stay warm.

“I find it easier, more conducive to my working relationships,” she said. “To keep sweaters and scarves within easy reach.”

She’s not alone. At one company in southern New Hampshire, the thermostats appear to be only decorative. Recently the thermometers on the wall read 81° while the thermostats were set at 68°.

Said one employee, “I don’t know enough about the heating system to know if the thermostats are inadequate, or if the heat doesn’t work properly, or if the thermostat and heat are ill-suited to one another, or ill-suited to this office. But it gets headache-inducing hot every afternoon, then mysteriously near-comfy at 3PM.”

What’s the big deal with controlling the office climate? We can agree that some people have their own internal furnace and others run reptilian and need to carry a space heater around with them to meetings. But in an age where robotic vacuums clean up our homes, shouldn’t it be easier to keep employees comfortable?

Apparently, it’s more difficult than you’d think. Raymond Falite is vice president Falite Brothers , an HVAC company that has served businesses, homes and schools in the Boston area for 32 years. He said that the real difficulty in maintaining comfort comes down to zones.

Most buildings have zones that vary between 500 and 2000 feet and depending on the size of the zone, you’re going to have people who are either too hot or too cold.

Ideally, he said, you would want to design a building so that the zones are only 500 feet. The smaller the zone, the more completely and accurately you can control the heat and cooling. When spaces get larger, that’s when you get thermostat wars.

“Over the years, we’ve put a lot of locking thermostats on,” said Falite.

But heat zones are where every builder wants to cheat. It saves you money if you put a 2000-foot zone in instead of a 500-foot zone. Less equipment. But that means less control.

“In a 2000-foot zone you’re going to have four to eight people,” he said. “And they all have a different temperature threshold.”

He explained that women are typically colder than men, but everyone’s body temperatures run differently.

“You’re always going to have people who feel uncomfortable,” said Falite.

Aaron Strout was willing to share his name as long as his company name stayed secret.

“During the summer, everyone on my side of the building got so cold, they literally needed space heaters to keep from becoming popsicles,” said Strout. “Some days, you could literally go from 90 degrees outside to 58 degrees in the office—in spite of regular complaining to our building manager.”

Is there a solution? Maybe if construction companies stop cutting corners and put more zones in new buildings we won’t have this problem in the future. But for now, a sweater, a fan and maybe a space heater are the best ways to survive at the office.

-30-

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Tags: aaron strout, argument, battles, Boston, climate, construction, contention, HVAC, Jeff Cutler, office, opinion, thermostat, wars

I could tell you until I’m blue in the face that the New England Patriots franchise has created a class of fans that are dark in both deed and spirit. But I don’t want to color your opinion without some perspective, so I’ll paint a picture for you.

Since 1972, I’ve gone to nearly every Miami Dolphins game played in Foxborough, MA. I’ve been a Dolphins fan since before people called them the fish. Since before Dan Marino. Since before Ricky Williams. And since before any Patriots Super Bowl wins.

This year I chose not to attend the game in Foxborough for two reasons. First, I was able to donate the seats I would have used to charity and raise money for Crohn’s Disease and cancer research. Second, the fans here in New England have become far more arrogant and annoying than any fans I’ve met in my 40+ years of attending professional sporting events.

Pats fans are now the Yankees fans of the NFL, but it wasn’t always this way.

I remember going to Foxborough dressed in my leather-sleeved, wool Dolphins jacket. I would wear my Bob Griese shirt and other Dolphins gear, too. And the reception I received – regardless of the game’s outcome – was respectful and polite.

In recent years I’ve been threatened by ignorant, short-bus candidates from Patriots’ nation. They seemingly attend the games only to get drunk and berate anyone within shouting distance. This frequently includes the referees and the players on the opposing team. But it often degenerates into belittling and insulting any fans around them who have come to Foxborough to see the Patriots lose.

There is certainly a degree of competitiveness that comes out when you’re rooting for your team, and I can see that in many cases the enthusiasm for the Patriots is harmless. But it only takes one idiot to put the blood-red stain of evil on the entire fan base.

Take for instance the hit and run killing in New Hampshire earlier this year. In that incident, the victim was allegedly run down because a Yankees/Red Sox discussion turned ugly. How long until a Patriots fan does the same thing to someone from out of town?

I’m not saying I’ve ever feared for my life, and the Patriots’ management has instituted far harsher rules for fan behavior than I’ve ever seen in other parks. But is that chicken or the egg activity? And is it driven by dollars and cents rather than compassion and sense? I can’t say.

Ultimately, I’m just happy that the Patriots lost badly this week and that the experience will play itself out repeatedly for the next two weeks (Pats have a bye this week) as they try to figure out what went wrong.

I hope the loss also gives Pats fans a touch of humility and the understanding that their team has some shortcomings. The last loss the Patriots suffered before today’s was more than a year ago to these very same Miami Dolphins.

That day, the uniforms on the backs of the Dolphins were bright orange. I’m sure it doesn’t matter to Belichick, the Patriots or their fans what color took them down a peg today. I’m just glad it was the Dolphins who were able to put another black mark on the Patriots’ record.

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Tags: arrogant, belichick, dolphins, football, foxborough, hateriots, humility, loss, new england, NFL, Patriots, red sox, Tom Brady, yankees