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NORTHERN CALIFORNIA – The 100-year-old California Writers Club invites everyone to submit predictions on the future of print media, for inclusion in a time capsule to be opened in 2035 on the occasion of Mark Twain’s bicentennial.
What will we be reading in 2035? Will we still have conventional newspapers, magazines and books? Will we still have e-books, or will something have come along to replace them? What impact will state-of-the-art technology have on news reporting? On fiction and nonfiction? Short stories and poems? Reference works and other resources? Memoirs and love letters? What collateral effect will it have on the various aspects of daily life?
“It seems hard to believe, but that year will just about mark the mid-century point for the Internet,” said California Writers Club president Casey Wilson. “This isn’t a contest. We’re not holding our breath for deathless prose. We just want to collect people’s thoughts now and, in 2035, see how accurately they predicted what it would actually be like.”
The CWC will receive submissions through Aug. 25, 2010 (174th birthday of Bret Harte, one of California’s first great storytellers).
Anyone interested in participating should mail his or her essay to California Writers Club, P.O. Box 484, Ridgecrest, CA 93556, and include the author’s name, age, address, and permission to publish all or part of the essay when the capsule is opened.
California had only been a state for about 50 years when Jack London and some of his friends started their informal get-togethers. These gatherings became the California Writers Club, the oldest professional writing organization in the West. Today the CWC has more than 1200 members in 18 branches throughout the state.
The organization encourages everyone to check www.calwriters.org periodically for membership information and updates on branch and centennial activities.
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I recently had the opportunity to text-chat with graduate students in the PR course taught by Susanne LaFaver of Golden State University. She teaches grad students around the world regarding Public Relations. It was a wonderful experience for me just to be able to exchange insights with these young people regarding social media.
Those businesses who are really smart will take advantage of both. Because of the popularity of the Internet, prices for traditional advertising have had to drop just to stay competitive. Even so, we have seem some newspapers - the Rocky Mountain News, for example - disappear. At the same time, we have seen online publications, like this one and the San Francisco Examiner explode in popularity.
Think about it. Anybody anywhere in the world can subscribe to this publication absolutely free. I personally have friends outside California who have subscribed to the publication. Anybody anywhere in the world with a PayPal account can become an advertiser. What's more, anyone who is a subscriber can comment on an article here. This social media power levels the playing fiend in an amazing way. That's why people like it. That's why people use it.
The challenging economic climate has forced some small businesses to become very innovative. The Hidden Valley Food Mart, Ting's Thai Kitchen, Spirit Lake and Ocean Spirit Vacation Rental have actually begun to collaborate their advertising efforts. They not only purchase ad space as a group through CDMM - Synergistic Business Marketing, but PR optimize their display ad before it even shows up in the newspaper. What does that mean? That means they create a "PR buzz" for their display ad through social media tools on the Internet before their ad gets published. In effect, what they do is turn their one display ad collaboration effort into a mini marketing campaign.
The Hidden Valley Food Mart is even hosting a workshop to help teach people how to take better advantage of the opportunities provided by social media. For more information about that, visit http://budurl.com/LakeCountySMW.
Meanwhile, more mutual collaboration continues to impact Lake County. Sherry Simeos, a Canadian living in Toronto, recently sent me 100 hundred magnetic to-do-list boards to simply give out as gifts to people living in Lake County. You can get a free board for your refrigerator door at the Hidden Valley Food Mart in Hidden Valley Lake and the Dr. Doug Reams Dental Clinic in Lucerne, while supplies last. The hope is that small businesses in Lake County will come to realize there is real promotional power in collaboration. With the coming of the Christmas holidays right around the corner, more mutual collaboration help - wherever you can find it - needs to be done.
Lamar Morgan