Who, What, Where, When, and How?

Prompted by a question from Shibel early this morning wondering how I determine where to publish a given article, to my site or my new newsletter, I decide what content goes where and when to release it based on a relatively simple heuristic: when I write for my website I strive to do so in service of furthering the overarching narrative with regards to topics I currently have some degree of interest in. Pursuant of this goal, I write long form articles and link to others’ work who have varying viewpoints and provide commentary I feel my readers will value but may not otherwise see elsewhere. I started The Neat and Out of Scope Newsletter to have a place in which I could write without those restrictions, somewhere that I could publish my thoughts on any given topic not beholden to a desire to advance its associated conversation. This will manifest itself in new genres I have previously only covered on occasion or not at all.

Take my brief digress in to the second season of House of Cards in the latest issue, for example: I would not have written anything about it otherwise, yet this medium provided me with a platform through which I could share my thoughts on the matter. Similarly, with the exception of Castro I rarely write about new apps, instead choosing to leave that to the likes of Federico Viticci who I know will do a much better job than I ever could. However, the first installment of what will hopefully become many newsletters in the future features two mini reviews of Network and Command-C. Albeit only a paragraph or two in length, these opinions would have never seen the light of day had I not put them into this newsletter.

This is how I will designate articles and topics to one venue or the other. Think of The Neat and Out of Scope Newsletter as an extension of my website governed by fewer rules and policed with less severity, a backstage pass of sorts giving you added insight into any and all subjects on my mind. I will still devote most of my time to writing original articles and collecting interesting pieces from around the internet, but now I have an outlet for everything that does not make it through the stringent editing process.