This week, the 60 seconds is from the as-yet-untitled speaking book. Enjoy! Listen here: The Transcript: I’m Johanna Rothman, and this is 60 Seconds of Johanna’s WIP for March 8, 2024, where I read an excerpt of just a minute of some writing in progress. This excerpt is from the speaking book. Is Your Content […]
Do you want to improve your nonfiction writing skills? I offer a 6-week writing workshop to do just that. You’ll learn how to write faster and better, all while educating, influencing, and entertaining your readers. (That’s a big part of how you sell your nonfiction ideas.) You write. I offer you specific feedback on your
This week, the 60 seconds is from the as-yet-untitled speaking book. Enjoy! Listen here: The transcript: I’m Johanna Rothman, and this is 60 Seconds of Johanna’s WIP for March 1, 2024, where I read an excerpt of just a minute of some writing in progress. This excerpt is from the speaking book. Identify Your Ideal
I’m continuing the experiment into 2024 for several reasons: If you want to write more, you don’t need to write a lot at one time. I discovered that even if I get to Thursday afternoon, I can always write 100 words. That helps me make progress on some item/work in progress. I started this experiment
Recently, a newish site asked me to become part of their “editorial board.” They didn’t say what the responsibilities were, so I asked. The reply: Spend five hours a month in meetings (roughly an hour each week). Write a new, unique column each month. I asked what I would get in return. Nothing. No payment
I’m finishing the Project Lifecycles book. Last week, I realized I made several mistakes: It was past time to ask for people to write praise quotes. I had only asked men to write praise quotes. Neither of these was a disaster, but they were embarrassing. Especially since Bob Sutton had posted this, and I replied
When I saw the McKinsey report on “developer productivity,” I shuddered. First, that makes no sense in a collaborative team. Second, there’s no way to measure such a thing as developer productivity, despite what McKinsey says. (I’m not linking to the report, because the advice is so bad.) Then I read Lorin Hochstein’s brilliant assessment
Much of my LinkedIn and Twitter feeds have questionnaires with two or three choices. One of those choices contains the One Right Answer. All the other answers are Wrong. Or, a person poses a question that’s supposed to show that they—and they alone—know the answer to the question. (I ranted about one of those on
Some facts that make me a little sad: Social media is more and more splintered. Sites that used to be enjoyable became tolerable. Then, they became intolerable. Worse, the algorithms decide whose posts I should see and whose I should not. If you have not read any of Cory Doctorow’s writing about enshittification, I strongly
Warning: Rant ahead. Today, I received several chirpy, happy, perky emails from either connections or LinkedIn’s email. They all said essentially the same thing: “Hello, friend. What’s making you happy or successful today?” I hate these emails. Just hate them. They feel fake to me and worse, they bring out the grumpy in me. And