Sales and Marketing

I have friends whose career it is to get people to buy things, entice people into liking something, or make something look its best. I respect and love these people. I don't their trades, though.

I've never been one to tell people about something they didn't ask for unless it comes up as directly relate-able to the conversation, and I'm certainly not going to weave a conversation just so we can talk about something (as a recent employer had goaded us again and again to do). I really dislike that.

Yes, life is easier without having to barter. This obsession that especially this country has with amassing material wealth is insane, though. It's not this country though. You have Malawi, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe that have these witch doctors who entice people to believe other human beings' body parts will get them the wealth they seek.

They've conned people into believing bald men's heads have a trove of gold within them. And people are killing for that "gold".

People think that because I want to hear people's stories that I want to use that information to sell them something because I "know them". No! I want to know people's stories because they're unique and because it's the story itself that's valuable.

I can't buy a meal or pay rent with those stories, though there probably are illicit or illegal markets for certain stories, but they're valuable to me.

I just wish people did things because it's nice rather than because you might make money off it.

Flyover News

Sometimes I've wondered why I have a fascination with news from relatively strange places (i.e. places to where people generally pay little attention). The answer dawned on me pretty quickly: I like novel things and the fact the news media in general repeats things ad infinitum instead of trying to get to the nitty gritty of more things, I seek out these other places' stories.

Some of these places have some odd stories they seem to esteem and put in repeat play themselves. Just this week, Monday through early Thursday Utah couldn't really talk about more than the $125,000 Joseph Smith/Brigham Young statue theft. Montana, like the rest of the nation, focused quite a bit on Greg Gionforte's (admitted, though in not so many words, but about which he'd apologized) manhandling a reporter.

I don't like repeating myself, but I have told my co-workers fairly repeatedly I love stories. So, I'd created a smart magazine just for the "flyover states". I don't mean it pejoratively, but it's at least a blanket term.

So, bring me stories, Flipboard. Bring me stories.