Writer, Agilist, Elder Geek
Elmore Leonard, famous crime novelist, passed away at 87. You can find out much more about him at his Wikipedia page. This is after all the guy who has had huge amount of Hollywood writings and adaptions to his name (Hey, Scott, you got more to do here).
He also left behind a lot of advice: that you’ll definitely want to check out.
– Steven Savage
So I’ve been looking for information on estimating methods for SCRUM. Yes, I’m sure that sounds unexciting to most people, but really this is something PM’s and SCRUM masters nearly get into fisticuff’s over. Oh, you think hours are going to work, don’t bet on it . . .
So anyway, I dug up a blog that shall remain nameless, and it was filled with great stuff – and hadn’t been updated in 2 years, it’s creator’s twitter feed had posts every few months. Yet it was filled with wisdom.
I guess I can consider it dead, but doesn’t that seem wrong? I mean it has active, vital, useful information in it?
Somehow I think we need to rethink blogs. Maybe they have to stop, and so be it, but is it really dead? Is it dead if the information is good? Is it dead if it has meaning?
Maybe we need to rethink blogs as part of something larger, of archiving, curating, creation.
Maybe we need to create metasites that archive old blog information for people.
Maybe we should “reincarnate content” as I mentioned earlier.
Blogs may be dead, but the information is alive.
Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach. He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.
On his own blog, Serdar noted that in a way books aren’t being written as books anymore, they’re parts of franchises and larger efforts. In turn, some books aren’t being thought of as books because of this – they’re franchises, or works that are made to transition over, or something else.
We discuss a lot of media transitions here, especially adaptions, which Scott has done a heroic job covering. Those are important in the Geekonomy as they drive efforts and affect geek culture. However one thing rarely discussed is that this is a comparatively new phenomena, and one we’re only now exploring as it’s new.
Right now things can go from book to TV, from video game to movie, from comic to game, from . . . well you get the idea. Merely looking at the ever-expanding media empire that is Star Wars, or the way “The Avengers” succeeded against all odds, gives you an idea of how far media translations and transformations can go. It’s almost normal now to discuss what actor will play who in a film or what anime would be great as an adaption.
It just hasn’t been normal for most of human history.
How many movie or television adaptions only became viable when computer technology and special effects reached enough of a pinnacle to actually make them believable.
How many adaptions only exist because of chance-taking like HBO’s Game of Thrones that wouldn’t have taken chances a decade ago?
How many television shows, books, or comic adaptions wouldn’t have existed just due to cultural issues in the past
For that matter, so much technology we take for granted didn’t exist decades or a century ago. I rather imagine radio adaptions seemed somehow radical at the time . . .
Then of course go back 200 years and 99% of what we discuss about adaptions is moot. Your biggest worry was probably how well the play went or getting a certain book. Hardly comparable to “Is Benedict Cumberbatch going to make a good Smaug?” being a big concern for people.
(The answer by the way, is yes).
So when we discuss adaptions, when we discuss what it means for culture or economics, we have to remember this really is new. We have to remember that this is new in human history, in a serious new way. We don’t have many models, we don’t have previous experiences, we don’t have a lot to extrapolate directly from.
We’re in new territory here, so when we discuss economics, careers, etc. there’s not a lot to go on. Accepting that is going to make dealing with these crazy times and options easier, as we don’t have to delude ourselves to our level of knowledge.
We don’t have much.
Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach. He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.