Blogging: An Evolution Over 20 Years

"Words. Concepts. Strategies.," which was sometimes called the Copywrite, Ink. blog started in 2005, was the same year the first blogger received White House press credentials, The Huffington Post was founded, and YouTube was launched. It was nine years after the first blog was created by Justin Hal in 1994, which meant I was a latecomer to blogging but still an early adopter.I remember telling students about the blog...

Fact Checking: The End Of An Experiment

Some writers have the ability to put one word in front of another and make whatever they write about feel as real as if it happened. Great literary writers do it out of habit. The best copywriters, myself included, are trained to weave whatever differential facts they are given with fantasy to make a brand story come to life. And journalists, although the public likes to pretend otherwise, frequently chase down whatever...

Producing Video: A Shift In Content Creation

Last year, video accounted for over 82 percent of all web traffic, with TikTok boasting 1.04 billion active users and YouTube setting the high bar at 2.6 billion. Latecomer Facebook Reels is just under 620 million. These numbers represent a significant shift from when blogs were content drivers ten years ago. So, while blogs and articles still play an essential role in SEO and easily digested nonlinear content,...

Signing Books: Late Summer Book Tour

My daughter played her last travel softball game a few weeks ago. It's surreal to think, given I once wrote about her in the context of overcoming hurdles. Yet, here we are: Weeks away from taking a road trip to her college, where her next game will be at the collegiate level. Along the way, I'm hoping she learns a few things, too. Some of what I hope she learns comes full circle to that column I wrote ten years...

Pushing AI: A Reduction In Creativity

In his book The Creative Act: A Way of Being, Rick Rubin praises artificial intelligence (AI). But he doesn’t find its strength in being creative as much as in seeing problems with a fresh perspective. He highlights AlphaGo’s approach to the game Go as his example. AlphaGo, the first AI to defeat a Go grandmaster, applied a never-seen-before move that no human would have made. Indeed. Most humans saw the move as a mistake...

Writing Romance: What’s Love Got To Do With It?

I met my first girlfriend in the third grade. She thought I was a rebel of sorts — a transfer from the public school system, repeating third grade. I wasn’t a rebel. I still couldn’t read.We were “boyfriend and girlfriend” for three short months. I moved away after the school year ended. We might have been “together” longer, but she didn’t know I liked her. I always liked her. I finally worked up the courage...