Chapter Sixteen: Business as Usual

Bad days happen, and so do bad weeks, bad months, even bad years. Things happen that can absolutely devastate us, whether on a personal level, within our financial situations, on our professional paths, or throughout our larger communities. Catastrophes happen and then we are expected to show up, do our work, and remain focused on the task at hand. We mourn on our own time.

However, …

How can we go about business as usual when we see tragedies play out in our 24-hour news cycle?

How can we go about business as usual when our most basic human rights are at stake?

How can we go about business as usual when the rug is pulled out from under our feet and our world is turned upside down?

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Have Grace

Human beings are not robots, and we cannot be expected to perform as such. When we are feeling drained or stretched to our limits, accomplishing the bare minimum can feel like we’re pushing maximum capacity. What we can normally get done in a couple of hours can drag on for days. Our usually sharp focus can go blurry and waning motivation can cause exhaustion to seep down into our very bones.

Rather than allowing ourselves to become numb or nihilistic, having grace with ourselves can get us through the rough patches, and allow us time to get back into fighting shape. Self-care doesn’t always look like a luxurious bubble bath and a facemask. Sometimes just acknowledging the struggle we’re in, that it’s not business as usual, is enough to make something seem less daunting.

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Recalibrate

With deadlines looming and responsibilities weighing heavily on our shoulders, slowing down for even a moment can seem laughably unattainable. However, by reprioritizing our commitments, we can trim the fat, and focus on what’s truly vital so we have time to recover. Sometimes we have to ask ourselves, what is the bare minimum we have to do to get through the day? We make that list, we do what we can, and then we rest. This is not slacking off, but rather, doing the best that we physically or mentally can manage at the time.

The Noteworthy Conversation itself is an example of a commitment that had to be reprioritized in a moment when overachieving was simply not an option. Noteworthy Communications has never missed a deadline for a client, but something had to give, and skipping a monthly blog post was something we were able to live with during a time that was not business as usual. Posting a month behind schedule seemed like a big sacrifice at the time, but now, a month and a day later, the conversation is back on track, and we even got a new blog post topic out of the experience.

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On the other hand, sometimes throwing ourselves into our work might be just the solution we need. We can harness our feelings and channel them into something productive and positive. When everything else seems to be falling apart around us, we hold tighter to what we feel we can control. Still, even that is not actually business as usual.

Feeling overwhelmed is a part of life, and it will happen time and time again. Coping with the unexpected and the devastating might look different day to day, but pretending everything is business as usual and forcing ourselves to power through is almost a guarantee of a burnout or a breakdown. It’s not business as usual, and that’s exactly the point.

Chapter Fifteen: Clickbait and Switch

It's the bane of every internet user's existence, but versions of clickbait have been around since the dawn of journalism and media. It's been called many names before clicking was even a thing, including yellow journalism, checkbook journalism, and tabloid journalism. These days, clickbait refers to a headline or image designed to intrigue audiences with sensationalized content so as to generate more clicks. When that headline or image fails to live up to its promise, we call it clickbait.

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Ethics Before Clicks Purposefully misleading audiences should generally make any content creator question the "Why?" of what they're doing. However, as clickbait continues to dominate all corners of the internet, we understand the "Why?" all comes back to money that can be earned off of such ill-advised clicks. Unfortunately, for many, that prospect outweighs any ethical dilemma they may be faced with as they hit the publish button. Clickbait is often used to drive visitors to certain websites because creators know this can lead to increasing revenue from advertisers who offer big bucks to appear on highly-visited sites, no matter the quality. With certain clickbait, the likelihood of predatory phishing schemes also increases. At best, clickbait serves as an unfulfilling experience for the clicker, but at worst, it can lead to malware and stolen personal information.

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Credibility Before Clicks The hyperbole of headlines and images that bait the reader and then fail to deliver may be good for clicks, at least initially, but it's terrible for a creator's credibility. Eventually, people wise up. They stop being chum and learn to recognize the creators, publishers, and websites that have misled them before. They begin to realize that the article behind the headline could never live up to the expectations being set in the first place. Losing credibility is arguably one of the worst scenarios that any entrepreneur can face. It becomes a domino effect, where first goes the trust, then goes the clients, then goes the flow of business. Purposeful misrepresentation is not a solid, long-term communications strategy for anyone with something of true value to offer, and, after all, isn't that what we should be striving for anyway? We all want to reach wider audiences. We wouldn't be posting on the internet if we didn't. However, resorting to exploitative or sensationalized headlines is a clear sign of giving up, of taking the easy, cheap path to publication and clicks. How much more satisfying would it be to watch our click numbers rise knowing we achieved those milestones with quality content, even if it did take more time? Noteworthy Communications always strives for quality first, in our own content and the content we produce on behalf of our clients. This is the only way to discover our voice, earn a positive reputation, and build a legitimate following. Flashy headlines are great, but delivering on superior content will always win out.

Chapter Fourteen: The Business of Reactionary Commentary

Events occur every day that grab the world's attention and refuse to let go, at least until the next phenomenon comes along. Whether it's a political movement, a celebrity scandal, an offhand comment, a fashion faux pas, nothing is too big or too small to spark a litany of unsolicited opinions and reactionary commentary. The kneejerk instinct to immediately form and share a response to these events has only been exacerbated by the technology we have at our fingertips. We have something to say, gosh darn it, and the world needs to know!

As with each piece of commentary, there are equal and opposite reactions to those reactions, thus creating an endless cycle of both thoughtful dialogue and faux outrage. This seemingly endless thread of reactionary commentary sometimes does contribute to wider and more important topics in our culture, but also tends to keep the conversation going on far longer than the original incident might have warranted, blowing everything out of perspective.

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The Pros

Reactionary commentary can be a useful tool, an avenue for sharing expertise as a writer, an educator, a medical specialist, a lawyer, a philosopher, or whatever pertinent specialty the event may call for, and sometimes even being compensated for that commentary. Thoughtful and timely perspectives can add value to the conversation at large and cement the commentator’s qualifications and relevance on the topic.

This can also be a prime time to show off one’s creativity. How we choose to respond to these local, national, or global events speaks to the kind of commentator we choose to be. Some may offer thoughtful debate while others can produce clever memes at lightning speed. Our responses put our personalities and our values on display in a way that other original content simply does not.

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The Cons

Having an opinion about absolutely everything can be exhausting, as is being bombarded by opinions about absolutely everything from others. A person runs the risk of fatiguing their audience when there is no screening process for what deserves thoughtful commentary and what can just fall by the wayside without additional comment. Everything becomes a judgment while maintaining no real substance.

Another pitfall of reactionary commentary is the tendency to turn everything and everyone into a joke, a target for ridicule because we would certainly never find ourselves in a situation like that person did. We would know better and therefore, let's all point and laugh. When we forget that these pop culture events affect the lives of real people, we chip away at our own humanity, all for a few extra likes and shares.

Reactionary commentary is not going away, nor should it. It can capture the public's imagination, make us think differently, and shows where our priorities lie. Timely and relevant commentary can serve as a record of the times, a mark of progress that we can reflect on as our worldview expands, even after the incidents that inspired them fade from memory.

Noteworthy Communications is not in the business of reactionary commentary, and we have no immediate plans to change that. However, observing how others use their voices is never a wasted exercise, and just because we don't share blatant opinions left, right, and center, does not mean we don't have them. Our opinions of course influence the content we produce and even the clients we choose to work with. Thoughtful commentary comes in many shapes and forms, and we strive every day to raise the conversation for those who have something to say.