For the second year in a row I tracked my reading on Goodreads, and challenged myself to read more than I had in 2010 (20 books), initially setting the bar at 36 books before raising it mid-year to 50. Including a mix of graphic novels, novellas and short-story collections, I beat that goal by two books as of today, and am halfway through Eduardo Galleano’s Genesis, quite a book to end the year on!

Here are my five favorites (plus one honorable mention), in order of combined awesomeness and emotional impact, in what has arguably been one of the best years of reading in a long time, not just in quantity, but quality, too:

Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Most books you read and review, but some just cut too close, so you simply demand that everyone read them because a review would be too reductive.

Mockingbird is an absolutely wonderful must-read, skillfully combining Asperger’s, To Kill a Mockingbird and the ripple effects of a tragedy on a small community; it had me in full-on tears by the end.

Go read it now! I insist.

Nine Lives by Dan Baum
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book has all the rave reviews it needs, so let me not belabor the point. Nine Lives is an important book, a necessary book, a simultaneously heart-breaking and heart-warming, frustrating and inspiring book. Read it.

Now.

I expected the Katrina section to have the most impact, but Dan Baum does an excellent job of putting it in perspective by focusing on what really makes New Orleans special: its people. By starting with Hurricane Betsy and deliberately following these nine lives over the following 30+ years, he paints an insightful mosaic with poignant vignettes that alternately left me laughing, smiling, shaking my head, and choking back tears, all before he even gets to August 2005.

When it comes to that proverbial fantasy dinner party meme, I have a new answer: Timothy Bruneau, Belinda Carr, Billy Grace, JoAnn Guidos, Ronald W. Lewis, Frank Minyard, Joyce Montana, Wilbert Rawlins Jr., and Anthony Wells.

Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War by Karl Marlantes
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

“There it is.”

Karl Marlantes juggles a large, diverse cast of complex characters (that sadly narrows over time), while deftly exploring one of America’s darkest periods from the proverbial fog of war with as close to a matter-of-fact, non-judgmental, nuanced hand as might be expected from an actual veteran. It’s a relentlessly gut-wrenching read that absolutely broke my heart on numerous occasions.

Read it.

The Influencing Machine by Brooke Gladstone
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

“We get the media we deserve,” declares NPR’s Brooke Gladstone in her excellent The Influencing Machine, an insightful graphic manifesto that sits comfortably alongside Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business and Jaron Lanier’s You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto, both of whom make cameo appearances.

Gladstone, aided by Josh Neufeld’s seamless visuals, makes a compelling case that the ills that plague media today — mass and social — are nothing new, that “we’ve been here before: the incivility, the inanities, the obsessions, the broken business models. In fact, it’s been far worse and the Republic survives.”

What follows is a broad, contextual overview of the history of media, recounted with a healthy sense of humor, and a refreshing undertone of optimism. eg: Near the end of the book, in two pages, she covers Ray Kurzweil and the Singularity, Lanier’s skepticism, Planet of the Apes and Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs… and it all makes sense!

“Graphic non-fiction” is a tricky format to pull off and not to everyone’s taste, but Neufeld does a great job complementing Gladstone without letting the medium overshadow her message, and any student of media, formally or arm-chair, should read The Influencing Machine without hesitation.

Kudos to W.W. Norton for taking a chance on such an innovative book, though it’s rather disappointing that the publisher of Frank Rose’s excellent The Art of Immersion has zero online presence for it. A missed opportunity, but one that should be easily (and quickly) rectified.

This Book Is Overdue! How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us a by Marilyn Johnson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Love, love, LOVE this book! Johnson’s clear-eyed look at one of our most devalued resources, the librarian, is part love letter, part wake-up call. In the digital age, libraries and librarians are more important than ever, and Overdue presents a variety of examples that not only make that case, but illustrate how, in many ways, librarians are WAY AHEAD of the digital curve.

READ THIS BOOK! NOW!

HONORABLE MENTION – SELF-PUBLISHED

Make a Move by Steven Gaskin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Perhaps the European definition of “slacker” is different from my American interpretation, but categorizing Make a Move as a “slacker-thriller” feels unnecessarily narrow and reductive; like referring to Lawrence Block’s Matt Scudder novels as “recovering alcoholic crime fiction.”

Steven Gaskin’s debut is a deliberate, methodical thriller which owes as much to its genre ancestors as it does the character-driven wave of indie movies from the 90s, and it’s no surprise that he notes Grosse Pointe Blank as an inspiration. Much like Block does with Scudder, Gaskin pays an atypical amount of attention to developing his engaging trio of lead characters — twenty-somethings at similar crossroads in their respective lives, but far from slackers — amplifying the story’s many thrills via empathy and smart dialogue instead of simply relying on well-worn genre tropes. Mind you, the tropes are all there: the violence, the double-crossing, the mysterious past, the bomb; but they never overshadow the characters, certain key events taking place completely off-page, experienced only in reflection or via their aftershocks.

Make a Move is a smartly paced, immensely enjoyable read that defies simple categorization. While there’s plenty enough genre elements to satisfy thriller fans, I think its appeal is far broader than that and highly recommend it.

*** Later this week, I’ll post my favorite movies and games, the two media that steal the most time from reading, but until then, let me know what some of your favorite reads were this year and why.

Still awake? I just did a stealth relaunch of The Digital Shift: http://t.co/uIiIhAkv (follow @ShiftTheDigital for more...)

September 27, 2011 12:34 am via HootSuiteReplyRetweetFavorite

@glecharles

Guy L. Gonzalez

My last post here was on August 7th, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t had anything to post about, I just haven’t had the time. At least not for anything in-depth.

I’ve actually been pretty active on Google+, using it as a micro-blog for a mix of what Facebook now refers to as “lightweight” updates (mostly related to beer and bourbon) and brief thoughts on topics that in the past might have been full posts here, including:

• The Netflix/Qwikster kerfuffle
• Facebook’s latest privacy shenanigans
• Rethinking social sharing in light of privacy concerns

Interestingly, after a brief dip in activity, I’m finding myself rejuvenated on Twitter, partly driven by my increased activity on Google+ where engagement is much higher and more substantial. Twitter surfaces the interesting content, while Google+ offers a platform to have real conversations. Facebook, meanwhile, is about 3-6 months from being completely dead to me, regardless of who continues to use it.

ITEM: DC COMICS – There’s been a lot of debate and discussion about DC’s latest relaunch, particularly around the recurring issue of their treatment of women, and while I have a number of thoughts about it, I’ve only flipped through a couple of issues because I truly couldn’t be less interested in this latest ill-conceived, desperate attempt to goose sales that doesn’t include outreach to new audiences. Instead, I recommend reading “Dear DC Comics,” a brief post that perfectly illustrates what’s wrong with superhero comics today.

ITEM: NEW ORLEANS - Last month, I was able to squeeze out a week’s vacation down in New Orleans, this time with the whole family, and we came back giving serious thought to the possibility of relocating next summer. Schools, of course, were the sticking point, and after some serious consideration of all of our options, it looks like we’ll be staying in Bloomfield until the kids are done with school. That’s eight more years! Being a responsible parent sucks! means making tough compromises.

In related news, I recently had the honor of being profiled at a great new parenting site called Parent du Jour: “I knew special could not contain you.” Check it out (there’s a poem!), and poke around the site, too, because I love the concept Lisa and Steve have going there. One of my favorite profiles was of Mary Champagne, who candidly shared her worst parenting moment and offered up this wise takeaway: “I realized I would never be the perfect parent, but with the willingness to use the support of others, I could still be a very good mother.” Amen to that!

ITEM: DAY JOB UPDATE - The day job continues to be awesome and time-consuming, and I have my hands in a number of exciting projects, most behind the scenes for now, but two you can and should check out are the new websites for The Horn Book and The Digital Shift. Let me know what you think!

Both sites are built on StudioPress’ Genesis framework, and if I didn’t already love WordPress, I’d totally be a fan now. In the process of developing those two sites, I’ve gone deeper into WordPress than I ever had before, leaving me thinking “If I knew then what I know now…,” though some of what I uncovered I’ve integrated into the backend of my blog, including the Twitter Blackbird Pie plugin that created the cool little Twitter excerpt above.

ITEM: ONE BOOK, ONE MOVIE

• Nine Lives by Dan Baum: LOVED IT! Read it now.
• Dolphin Tale: Sappy and manipulative as hell, but in an honest way. I really liked it.

That’s all (for now) folks!

rotary dial by lilszeto, via Flickr

I believe we’ll need a multitude of social services to satsify the needs and desires of all the users of the web. Google+ fills a void between public and private, it serves what is likely to be an older demo less interested in hooking up or hipstering out and more interested in the social utility it provides. That’s a good thing.

-Fred Wilson, A VC

So, Google+? I actually kind of like it.

[UPDATED BELOW WITH SOME SPECIFIC REASONS WHY.]

It’s an intriguing mash-up of Facebook and Twitter, but its use of “circles” does a better job of reflecting and managing the variety of solid and permeable walls that exist in real-life networks, and when it comes to privacy, I trust our robot overlords a slight bit more than the new kids on the virtual block. Among the early adopters in my initial circles are an interesting mix of people I connect with via different interests, including comics, gaming, libraries, marketing, publishing, technology and transmedia. I also have a circle for “creatives,” a fun mix of writers and other smart, talented folk.

Beyond Facebook and Twitter similarities, Google+ also integrates, or has the potential to integrate with a number of Google services I use regularly, including Gmail, Google Reader and my Android phone. And it’s already spurred me to make the switch from Flickr to Picasa, which is allegedly being rebranded as Google Photos.

The web interface includes a “+1″ tab that tracks everything I’ve, um, plussed (?) on the Internet, making it immediately more useful to me (as opposed to marketers) than Facebook’s similar “Like” button, while the mobile app includes a feature called Huddle that will become a great alternative to SMS once more of my network is plugged in. While it’s clearly still in Beta (what isn’t these days?), its potential is a lot clearer than the ill-conceived Buzz and Wave initiatives were, and there’s a huge gap between Facebook and Twitter that Google+ seems to fit in perfectly.

Andy Woodworth, one of the librarians I’m connected with, posted a solid overview last week that’s worth a read, but if you snag an invite before it goes fully public, it’s definitely worth checking out.

FACEBOOK IS SAFE… FOR NOW

While I don’t love Facebook, far too many of my family and close friends are active there for me to bail on it any time soon, but that was also the case a few years back when most of them were on MySpace. And before that, Friendster. Or AOL.

If anything, I can see my Facebook network narrowing even further than it did the last time my social media mix changed, so it will be interesting to see what happens over the next 6-12 months as Google+ goes mainstream. Or, like Friendfeed, doesn’t.

In the meantime, I’ll likely be cross-posting between them occasionally while I shift more of my attention to Google+, and have even downloaded all of my Facebook photos so I can upload them to Picasa.

TWITTER IS BEING MARGINALIZED

Ever since I left Digital Book World back in February, I’ve been significantly less active on Twitter, partly for lack of time, but mostly because I don’t feel the need to be knee-deep in real-time chatter any more. The publishing industry LOVES Twitter almost as much as it loves pundits and anecdata, but I’ve been thrilled to find in my new gig that librarians are a very diverse (and generally more level-headed) lot when it comes to social media, and there’s arguably a lot more interesting library blogs to follow than there were in the publishing world.

[Check out some good library blogs here and here.]

A couple of years back I had a few rules of thumb for Twitter, including a 60:30:10 — community:self-promo:conversation mix. I didn’t really participate in many chats back then and would quickly move 1:1 discussions to direct messages and/or email. Nowadays, I’m more likely to participate in a chat or get into prolonged conversations with a few people than I am to be posting 15-20 links/day.

That’s not to say Twitter isn’t a useful source of information, though. Paper.li’s ability to pull links from my News, Transmedia and Libraries lists on Twitter, categorize and present them for me as daily archives to consume at my leisure means Twitter still has a place in my personal social media mix, albeit very different from what it was at its peak.

WHAT ELSE?

I still find Goodreads to be a very a useful social network, if only for sharing reviews of books I’ve read, reading reviews of books I’m thinking about reading, and tracking my ever-growing to-read list. Beyond that… there’s not really any other social networks I’m using on a regular basis, at least for personal reasons.

Evaluating the various networks from a professional perspective, both as a marketer and as a writer, will likely lead to very different scenarios, at least in the short-term. That’s fodder for another post, though.

How has your personal social media mix changed over the past couple of years, and how do you manage the potential flood of information?

UPDATE: 7/11/11

Now that I’ve been on Google+ for a couple of weekends, a few interesting developments have shifted my thinking a bit, all for the better:

• The rate of adoption (or at least curiosity) among close friends and family has been far faster than I’ve seen with any previous social networking platform. It took about two years for that core group to move from MySpace to Facebook (or to jump on the social networking bandwagon at all), and the majority of those people are still not using Twitter.
• My current use of Twitter — a handful of links/day plus a conversation or two — fits much better on Google+ and I’m already discovering interesting new people via conversations on posts of people I’m already connected to. That’s always been one of the more appealing aspects of Twitter, and it’s happening without the crush of the real-time firehose; eg: next bullet.
• Circles, while extremely intuitive to me, seems to be tripping a lot of people up. Simply put, they’re an option not a requirement, and Salon‘s Karen Templar nails it.
• There’s a great article in Wired that really puts Google+ and the paradigm shift it potentially represents for social networking in perspective: ”Networks are for networking. Circles are for the right people.”

As I noted in the comments below, over the past week Google+ has sucked equal time and attention from Facebook and Twitter, but much more so from Facebook, if only because of my already declining usage of Twitter. If the migration rate of my core group of family and friends continues at the current pace, I could realistically be done with Facebook by the end of the summer!

And for Twitter power users who love to claim it’s all about engagement, I think Google+ is already a clearly superior platform with plenty of room to improve. Of course, that’s a personal perspective, not from a marketing angle, but that’s a whole ‘nother thesis for another time.

Balancing Sunlight by Pink Sherbet Photography / D. Sharon Pruitt

It’s been 8 weeks since I changed jobs, leaving Digital Book World to join Library Journals, LLC., and one of my primary goals during the transition was to carve out some time for a few personal projects before I got completely sucked into the new job. I have a habit of diving in deep to anything new and losing sight of anything unrelated, and often one of the first victims is my own writing.

Blogging has been my primary writing outlet since I left the poetry scene back in 2003, and I’ve been lucky enough to parlay it into a few interesting “side” projects, including a couple of years writing and editing for PopCultureShock, and most recently writing and editing for Digital Book World. The former was an unpaid gig (not counting the healthy discount on comics), and the latter didn’t actually have “editor” or “writer” anywhere in my title, despite it being ~50% of the job.

Now, with a new job serving a new community that doesn’t officially (or unoffically) require my writing skills, there’s an exciting light at the end of the tunnel and I’m seizing the opportunity while trying to find the right balance to ensure it’s all sustainable. *cough*Spindle*cough*

FREE VERSE MEDIA

[NOTE: FVM has been shuttered for now as too many other things are going right now. Sunlight, indeed!]

One of my latest projects is Free Verse Media, partly an extension of my interest in transmedia combined with my marketing background, and partly a response to a fair number of requests for consulting services, especially during my recent job search. While I have no interest in being a full-time consultant, ever (no offense to my consultant friends; it takes a certain personality and you’re the good ones!), I liked the idea of carving out a dedicated niche for the possibility that I can let evolve organically.

For now, it’s a foothold while I figure out exactly which angle I want to take with it, but my first focused initiative there is “Storytelling in the Real World,” a weekly recap of transmedia-related articles from a non-fiction perspective. I’ve become very interested in how transmedia principles can be applied to worthwhile causes, and have been fascinated by the success Waiting for Superman has had pushing a subversive message (privatization of public schools) by focusing on great transmedia storytelling, while teachers’ unions and advocates like Diane Ravitch play by old media rules.

For those whom think transmedia is only for fictional storyworlds, I’d suggest dreaming a little bigger.

HANDMADE MEMORIES

The publication of Handmade Memories was high on my to-do list because I knew there was a very limited window for getting it done before it fell back to the bottom of the list. I actually published it under the “Free Verse Media” umbrella, though what that means exactly is still up in the air.

Sadly, in the three weeks it’s been available, I’ve not become the next Amanda Hocking, with a total of 25 sales:

• Amazon.com: 19 copies
• Amazon.co.uk: 1 copy
• Amazon.de: 0 copies
• Barnes & Noble: 5 copies
• Goodreads: 0 copies

Of course, my “marketing campaign” for it has been less than exemplary, though I did do a couple of interviews, had a few great mentions, and got one amazing review on Goodreads. (I’m maintaining links to all of that good stuff on the books’ main page.) While it’s mainly intended to be a long tail product, the primary goal for which was to go through the digital self-publishing process and get some first-hand experience, it would be nice to see my “platform” have a slightly better conversion rate!

Where’s my 1,000 True Fans at?!?!

*hint*GO BUY IT!*hint*

GASLIGHT SALON

While Free Verse Media and Handmade Memories were already on the to-do list, Gaslight Salon kind of came out of left field, but it’s likely to become the new home plate very quickly; aka, Wednesdays are the new Mondays!

It’s a new weekly series that I’m co-organizing with my old partner-in-crime, Lynne Procope, in a spot co-owned by Thomas Sullivan, aka, the owner of Bar 13, Monday night’s home for a little bit louder / louderARTS. Our other co-organizers include the supremely talented Elon James, Tish Valles, and Syreeta McFadden, and it will feature artists from variety of disciplines, including poetry, storytelling, comedy, cabaret and music.

*ahem*transmedia, anyone?*ahem*

Syreeta and I will be spearheading the storytelling night, “What Had Happened Was…,” every first Wednesday, and I’ll be posting more about that soon. That, too, will fall under the Free Verse Media umbrella, though how it all fits together will evolve over time.

THE DAY JOB, aka LIBRARIANS ROCK!

One of the coolest aspects of these side initiatives is that none of them are an “escape” from the day job because, honestly, the day job is going swimmingly and I can’t think of a community I’d rather be helping to serve than librarians. (Teachers, maybe, but there’s a Free Verse angle there, I think.)

It’s like I’m getting to harness all of the energy and optimism I had for Digital Book World in the beginning, and directing it towards a community that does important, meaningful work and is facing serious real-world challenges. Not to spit on publishing, but seriously, what to do about ebooks and slim profit margins pales in comparison to the cultural impact libraries have and the financial challenges they’re currently facing.

Listening to myopic pundits predicting the death of libraries because ebooks are becoming a larger piece of the publishing pie is sillier than accepting a cable news pundits’ take on the latest political dustup.

Maybe it’s just the weather, but right now, the light at the end of the tunnel that often seemed to be an oncoming train over the past 18 months, now appears to be pure sunlight. The trick will be balancing all of this good stuff into something sustainable and personally rewarding.

Chaos By Dave Pearson

“Because we are all citizens of this democracy, because we will all be voters, we must all be educated for our responsibilities.”

–The Death and Life of the Great American School System, Diane Ravitch

A compelling theme or narrative can drive an idea deep into the cultural consciousness, even when conventional wisdom argues otherwise. From a little-known African-American Senator boldly declaring “Yes We Can!,” to the methodical decimation of public schools reframed as “choice,” people respond to the stories that tap into their hopes and dreams (and, yes, fears), and offer them a gateway to getting involved with minimal friction.

When I was helping launch Digital Book World in late-2009, I tapped into the underlying sense of optimism that drove the most passionate people I knew in the publishing industry, and built upon it to distinguish us from other conferences and communities that traveled the crowded fear-mongering, gloom-and-doom road. It’s always easier to go negative, but few people actually prefer to live or work in that kind of environment, and so many immediately responded to our sense of optimism that DBW grew exponentially over its first 18 months of existence.

Further back in time, when I founded the a little bit louder reading series back in March 1998, the Nuyorican Poets Café was pretty much the only game in town for slam poetry, and one of the few venues capable of drawing large audiences for any kind of poetry. It had a pugnacious vibe, the poetry was usually topical and political, and while theoretically open to all, there were a couple of tight communities of poets who really drove it. Most other reading series at the time were extremely cliquish, usually not very welcoming to poets who enjoyed both the craft and performance of poetry, and they had relatively small audiences predominantly made up of other poets. From its inception, louder was committed to the idea that poets come in all shapes and sizes, and that New York City needed a venue where all styles were welcomed and encouraged, and that said venue had to generate an audience that included more than just other poets.

Coming off our victory at the National Poetry Slam that August, representing the Nuyorican, I decided to add a semi-monthly slam to louder‘s schedule, a move that led to all kinds of drama, including my being banned from the Nuyorican for a couple of years. The drama sent ripples throughout the slam community and made for a tense week at the 1999 National Poetry Slam in Chicago, but by the following summer in Providence, RI, the NYC slam scene decided to put the community first, and was united again. One could even argue the community was made stronger because of the drama, as it led to expansion, and the establishment of three strong venues where formerly there was only one: the Nuyorican, louderARTS, and Urbana.

[Read Chapters 18-20 in Words in Your Face: A Guided Tour Through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam (Soft Skull, 2007) for the whole story.]

I often note that almost everything I’ve learned about community engagement, I learned during my first five years on the slam scene, and over the past year of learning about transmedia development and its potential applications beyond fiction, I had an “A-Ha!” moment.

Long before blogging and social networking, many thriving slam communities across the country developed around two central themes: everyone deserves a chance to tell their stories; and those stories, well-told, had the power to inspire change. Poetry slams were often started by a poet or groups of poets who were inspired by one or both of those themes, and there are currently more than 100 of them officially recognized by Poetry Slam, Inc., and countless other unofficial slams around the world.

More recently, I’ve been intrigued by the excellent (and controversial) documentary Waiting for Superman, and the success, for better or worse, it’s had in re-framing the debate about school reform by focusing on the stories of specific kids. Not content with the typically short life cycle and limited impact of documentaries (Fahrenheit 911, anyone?), Participant Media has built an impressive transmedia platform that’s reminiscent of Obama’s historic campaign for President. While I don’t personally agree with every argument the film makes, there’s no question it makes those arguments far more compellingly than those who champion public schools from a more theoretical, distanced approach.

By not just encouraging people inspired (and angered) by the film to take action, but also enabling them to do so in a variety of ways, they are building an engaged community that has the potential to effect genuine change.

Conversely, Diane Ravitch’s truly excellent book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education, takes the traditional approach, an expert voice armed with data, strong opinions and a call to action, all buried between the covers of a hardcover book that will be read by far too few people, and offers those who might be inspired to act… nothing.

Stories just as powerful and compelling as those Waiting for Superman put in the spotlight are confined to the printed page instead of being unleashed across multiple platforms for people to connect with, share with others, and inspire action. The rough road to the kind of national curriculum Ravitch argues is essential to genuine reform is made even rougher by not offering any tangible method for people to take action and get involved. Her vision, compelling as it is, is constrained, and the community that might have gathered around its narrative is left with no clear next steps, while the well-funded drumbeat of “reform” via privatization continues to gain traction and move ahead.

As an artistic endeavor, this shortcoming would simply be unfortunate; a missed opportunity to extract maximum value from an intellectual property. For an issue like educational reform, though, it’s negligent at best; surrender at worst.

The tools are there for everyone’s use, and the potential for transmedia creatives to engage in projects bigger than their own artistic and commercial interests is enormous.

The challenge is, how do we make those connections? And who is going to take a stand?

When it comes to the slam I maintain my integrity
’cause someone out there is listening closely.

“Why I Slam”

First off, “slam it” does not mean “shove it.” Quite the opposite, actually, and it was too provocative to not use it!

Second, I am totally burying the lede, but context is king, so read on. It’s kind of a fun story, complete with a happy ending.

The snippet and Wordle above are from an old (and mostly awful) poem called “Why I Slam,” which I wrote back in June/July of 1998, shortly after I made the Nuyorican Poetry Cafe’s National Poetry Slam Team,  and our victory that summer in Austin, TX led to Burning Down the House and subsequent adventures in poetry and publishing, some related, some not.

It’s an unapologetic and belligerent mash-up of my first year in the poetry slam scene, and while the writing is embarrassingly sophomoric, the underlying sentiment holds up: When I throw myself into something, I do so 110%. Also, I don’t suffer fools gladly or quietly.

That tendency towards full immersion is something I’ve always considered a strength — and for anyone in a community organizing/engagement role, an absolute necessity, IMO — though the downside is it can often leave little room for other interests, even directly tangential ones. In some cases, it can even cut into more important things like family time, though usually only for short stretches. (My wife and kids will surely argue that point!)

For the past 16+ months, I’ve been as fully immersed in all things Digital Book World as I’ve ever been in anything since the peak of my poetry slam days, back around 1999-2000 when I was still running a little bit louder, writing consistently, had been elected to the Executive Council of Poetry Slam, Inc., and occasionally even slipped in a short tour or two. As with DBW, I was  driven by the thrill of carving out a new niche from scratch, and engaging with a passionate community, and it was an all-consuming endeavor, fueled by a delicate balance of pugnaciousness and unabashed optimism.

Last week’s Digital Book World 2011 Conference, the ultimate measuring stick of everything I did under the DBW umbrella, was a resounding success by pretty much any measure, doubling paid attendance from 2010 and expanding the “conversation” to include bookstores and libraries, and exploring new areas like transmedia. From my perspective, it reached what I thought would be 2012′s goals one year early, and one of the most rewarding things I’ve seen is how often variations on the word “optimism” have appeared in press coverage the past several days, sometimes without even the slightest hint of irony or snark.

In slam lingo, and in my humble opinion, the Conference was a high-energy group piece that earned a perfect 30!

That doesn’t mean it was without fault, of course, but if you’ve ever been to a slam, you know a perfect 30 isn’t really about perfection, the poet, or even the specific poem itself. It’s really about a perfect moment in time: the poet(s), the words, the performance, the emotional connection with the audience… everything syncing at the right moment for an unforgettable communal experience.

The only perfect 30 I ever got in a slam was the night I proposed to my  girlfriend from the stage of the Nuyorican with a poem — March 20, 1998 — and it came with a bonus point because she said yes.

But I digress.

Forgive all that preamble and context as I confirm that I’ll be leaving Digital Book World at the end of February.

It’s a bittersweet departure as it’s been an exciting run, and I’ve had the pleasure of meeting and working with a variety of intelligent, creative people who gave my sense of optimism multiple points of reference, and reaffirmed my belief in publishing as a community service in an age where content is increasingly devalued, and made the work I was doing with DBW immensely rewarding and worthwhile.

Perhaps the most bittersweet aspect of it all is walking away from the new StoryWorld Conference, for which I’ve been laying the groundwork for months, but I am thrilled that it’s now in the hands of the wonderful Alison Norrington, someone I look to not only as a mentor and inspiration, but also a friend. If anyone can pull it off, it’s going to be her,  and she’ll have DBW’s excellent events team behind her and my DBW partner-in-crime, Matt Mullin, who is stepping up into the Nightwing role! And, of course, I look forward to supporting her in any way I can to ensure that it’s as amazing an event as possible.

But all good things do eventually come to an end, and for me, on the heels of an amazingly successful DBW11, I realized I was coming upon a crucial fork in the road, and while the DBW path will surely continue to be an exciting one for those continuing on, it’s one I realized would ultimately take me away from my true passion: Books, Authors, Readers and the myriad connections still to be made between them.

[B. A. R. Hmmm....]

The conversations currently being had and experiments being conducted across the industry are all great and necessary, and whatever role I may have played in helping shift the tone  away from the pointless gloom-and-doom, I am eternally grateful for having had the opportunity, but now I want to leave the talking to others and get back to the doing. (That doesn’t mean I’ll suddenly be quiet, of course!)

Like a quarterback for whom the comfortable confines of the pre-game studio never quite matches the thrill of being on the field, I want to get back in the game.

I’m not sure yet what my next step is going to be, but I knew I needed a clean break in order to take it most effectively, so during the transitional period of the next few weeks I’m looking forward to exploring every potential opportunity that presents itself.

Books? Magazines? Apps? Transmedia? Audience Development? Community Organizing?

Yes. Bring it all on! Give me the damn ball!

Seriously.

Contact me via email or LinkedIn and let’s talk. I’m all ears and ready for the next adventure!

[NOTE: If you're one of those deep-pocketed angel investor types interested in publishing, read this and call me!]

To everyone who has been part of the DBW Community over its first year, in any form or function, my sincerest thanks, not just for your support, but more importantly, for your passion and perseverance, and for enabling me to continue to believe that the future of publishing is bright not because of technology, but because of the people who are dedicated to doing it right, no matter what tools they have at their disposal.

I fully intend to remain a member of the DBW Community, though probably wielding a slightly sharper optimistick from now on.

This website, loudpoet.com, has existed across a variety of platforms over the years, first at Geocities as the home of the reading series I founded that inspired the loudpoet name, a little bit louder (now louderARTS), then later as my personal site (pictured, via the Wayback Machine) when I left the series behind in 2002.

A year later, I launched my first blog at the pre-Google Blogger under loudpoet.blogspot.com, and that site is still live, though all of its content has been imported here, a final post on January 1, 2008 noting that I had relaunched loudpoet.com to “once again be Command Central for all things Guy: Writer.”

Ah, so young and naive!

That was two employers, five job descriptions and what feels like ten lifetimes ago in digital years. In the real world, Barack Obama had won me over, his historic run for President just barely starting to look like he had a shot, and my blogging was at its political peak.

Over the years, this site has been part laboratory, part sounding board, with occasional flashes of intense focus, as in its Comic Book Commentary phase and, more recently, my focus on Marketing and Publishing. New platforms came and went (remember Vox? Storytlr?), and I tried out a bunch of them to varying degrees, but at the end of the day, this site has remained my hub, Command Central, if not specifically for the “Guy: Writer” I had in mind at the time.

A few weeks back, I randomly happened to check out Clay Shirky’s blog and website, and was impressed by its… um, let’s call it simplicity. Most blogging gurus would rip the basic design to shreds and scoff at his sporadic updating, yet few of them have the reach, presence, or credibility Shirky does. (And I say that as someone who’s neither a fan of Shirky nor “gurus” of any kind.)

I’ll never be a daily blogger, and have no interest in it, but it’s certainly not for lack of things to say, as my 13,000+ tweets and 40+ articles for Digital Book World would arguably prove. Twitter’s instability is legendary, though, not to mention its ephemerality, and Tumblr reminded everyone of the importance of owning their own platform earlier this week when it crashed hard and is still recovering as I write this.

Here, on my self-hosted WordPress blog. The site that has turned up as the number one search for “Guy LeCharles Gonzalez” for several years thanks to its 1690 posts and counting.

Earlier this year, I consolidated my old Vox blog into my rarely used Posterous blog, and today imported all 139 of those posts here under the Personal category. Those sites, and others along the way, including Tumblr, were always personal outposts for content that didn’t fit the focus du jour of loudpoet.com — Vox in the comics phase; Posterous most recently. They join many other short-lived Blogspot and WordPress experiments, returning to Command Central where they belong.

The plan for 2011, or at least part of it, will likely include continued defragging of my online presence and repositioning this site to once again be Command Central: All Things Guy — writer, poet, marketer, publisher, optimist, malcontent – no matter what new interests and passions the new year may bring my way. (Hello, transmedia!)

The first step is this new theme, The Erudite, from Soma Design, which I think puts the focus squarely on the content where it belongs, shifting the extraneous “marketing” stuff down into the footer.

So far, several people have said they liked it, while a few complained the serif font makes it difficult to read.

What say you?