My Future of Unemployment

Okay, maybe not. Hopefully not. But as a person that always wanted to write for a living, I can't help but be a little concerned that I won't have a job when I graduate.

Print media is changing-- that's one thing we really can't deny. Pretty much all major newspapers and magazines have websites and blogs (even staff bloggers) to accompany their anorexic print editions. Actually, most of the non-major publications have these things too.

I don't think this is a bad thing, but it definitely means things are changing in the industry. Because of the multimedia nature of online content, recent grads looking for jobs in the field are going to have to know more than just writing. We need video, photo, and web skills, too.

Here's the other thing: right now, almost no one pays for online content. And why would you? I love the New York Times-- but I don't pay for a hard copy now that it's free online (I used to pay for an online subscription, but that's beside the point). The problem? You still have to pay people (like me) to produce this content to put on the web... even if no one pays to read it.

Publishing is a business. Businesses need to make a profit. So until we start making readers pay for digital content, my job prospects don't look so great.

My Latest Post on IT

Pre-Russia travel advice straight from me to you. Check it out here.

Requiem for the Post Office

As one of the last-standing senders of snail mail (that's me in the photo, feeding my post card addiction), I'd like to take a minute to remember the lost art of letter writing. While e-mail is amazing in so many ways, there's a little something that's been lost with the good old-fashioned letter.

Don't get me wrong: I like e-mail. I use it every day. Okay, yes, several times a day. I use it for work. I use it for school. Just yesterday I got an e-mail with a link to a Russian friend's photos from a recent trip, an order confirmation for a new CD, a digital copy of my syllabus, and a confirmation of a meeting this afternoon. With e-mail, I can stay in contact with people from around the world instantly-- even thousands of miles from my physical address.

Forget a birthday? No problem-- you can now send "cards" on the day of and be right on time. For a lot of professional contacts or even professors at school, e-mail is the BEST form of contact. How often to you check your actual mailbox? Compare that to how often you check your e-mail.

As a writer, I can file stories for multiple sources from across the country-- sometimes even from a different country. I can send pictures. I can send links to interesting articles or important research material to people at school. And now matter where they are or where I am, they get it almost instantly.

But here's the thing: we don't take the same kind of time to connect with each other over e-mail as we do with mail in the physical form. From Paris I sent my dad paragraphs and paragraphs about how much I loved the city, what I ate, where I went, and asked him how he was in return.

I got back maybe three lines: "Glad you're having fun. Everything's fine here. Keep in touch. Love, Dad."

When I send a letter, the few that actually write back are more engaged. I feel like they've read what I've written more thoroughly (rather than skimming through on their way to the next item in their inbox) and send me a thoughtful response.

E-mail is amazing, but it's rarely personal. It encourages us to be in a hurry. So maybe next time you really want to catch up with someone, you should sit down and write a letter.