Entries Tagged 'Blogging' ↓

I had a great experience this week hearing two inspirational friends of mine read from their new books. They both dug into an area of personal interest and wound up illuminating a fascinating history that can teach us all something important.

Frances Dinkelspiel started looking into her family history, and found 50 boxes of papers at the California Historical Society. It turns out her great-great-grandfather — a Jewish immigrant — was a pivotal figure in building California’s economy, yet was so behind-the-scenes that he had been lost to history. She now has a great book out about him: “Towers of Gold: How One Jewish Immigrant Named Isaias Hellman Created California.” 
 
Her web site is www.francesdinkelspiel.com. (She also writes a great blog on the Bay Area book scene.)
 
She’s speaking Saturday in San Marino and Long Beach, and Dec. 2 in NY at Congregation Shearith Israel. then at numerous Bay Area events Dec. 2 and onward (including Temple Emanu-el Friday Dec. 5) and Dec. 11 and 12 at Metropolis Books and Congregation Kol Tikvah in LA. 
 
And Jonathan Curiel, a Chronicle reporter and former colleague, told the fascinating tale of how the Islamic world has influenced so many things in modern culture that so few people realize, from the Alamo to blues music to, ironically, the World Trade Center.

 Jonathan’s book, “Al’ America: Travels Through America’s Arab and Islamic Roots,” is a great read about an important but little-known topic. His Web site is www.jonathancuriel.com and he has readings coming up Dec. 7 and 8 in the Washington, DC area.

Way to go, Frances and Jonathan!

Everyone kept asking for a take on the Sarah Lacy-Mark Zuckerberg keynote interview run awry at South by Southwest in Austin last week. Having weighed in on the subject in Fortune.com, I might as well offer my thoughts.

 My main thought was: I felt sorry for Sarah Lacy. Sure, I thought she could have done things differently, and I generally prefer a much more subdued style of interviewing. But the criticism was over the top and out of proportion to what happened. In addition, she had a notoriously tough subject on stage, one who was heavily coached as well as not particularly forthcoming.

I do also think the interview raised some age-old questions about the journalist-source relationship. Lacy was apparently Zuckerberg’s hand-picked choice, and she has become something of his Boswell. They clearly had some rapport on stage. That’s great for her, as a lot of journalists would love to have that kind of access. But it also comes with a price, as it’s in her interest to maintain that relationship, which sometimes can affect the tone of the questioning.

The geeks in the audience thought this would de-rail Lacy’s career. I don’t see it. She’s immensely talented, and I anticipate that her book coming out on Web 2.0 figures will be a great read and will sell well. And hey: A little controversy never really hurts. No publicity is bad, right?

I’d like to join the chorus wishing for Om Malik’s speedy recovery. In today’s New York Times, I have a story about how Om suffered a heart attack just after Christmas — and how other A-list bloggers like Paul Kedrosky and Michael Arrington warn how stressful it is to have to constantly update a site.

Om was already wrestling with the issue. His chief operating officer Paul Walborsky told me that others, most notably Martha Stewart, have had to figure a way to extend their name across a media business in which others do most of the work. Martha’s staff was forced to work without her through one kind of hardship; Om’s staff is coping with another.

It can be done. Utne Reader survives without founder Eric Utne (although his wife Nina, who sold the magazine, is still an editor-at-large), and Collier’s survived its founder for nearly 50 years. (Others haven’t fared as well: Jane magazine didn’t last long without Jane Pratt, and let’s not even get into what happened to Rosie.)