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Chasing my cheese
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Location: Blogs Now We're Talking |
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| Posted by: Joe Byrnes |
4/5/2007 7:34 AM |
I won't pretend I like the dumbed-down fads of corporate culture or that it was not at all degrading a few years ago to be told I'm a mouse chasing its cheese.
Like the good little mouse from "Who Moved My Cheese?" - I'm chasing it still, right across the page and on to the Internet.
But last week my editor had her managers do a little company exercise that I found - and I mean this sincerely - quite eye-opening. Unless you avert your eyes now, you're going to read about it, and that could ruin some future corporate retreat, compromise someone's PowerPoint presentation or undercut a highly paid consultant's "aha" moment.
You're still reading, and that says something about you.
At the meeting, before we watched a short video, our boss told us the exercise was about counting basketballs. She gave us strict instructions to count the basketballs passed from one white-shirted character to another.
Some people counted 14. I counted only nine and finished with the feeling I might be missing something. There was this fleeting image in my mind of something black and furry.
Then came the eye-opening moment. We watched the video clip again, and, lo and behold, many of us had missed the man in a gorilla suit who walked on to the scene, gave us the raspberry, did a jig and walked off.
We were so busy dutifully doing our jobs that we missed the gorilla in the room.
That's embarrassing. I wonder how many gorillas I've missed in 12 years as a journalist here and one as a columnist.
That's right. A little more than a year ago, I began this column - Now We're Talking - as a conversation with you about life and news in Marion County. And I hope to keep writing it for a long time.
During the year, we've met extraordinary people, like Jason Schappert, the 18-year-old West Port High graduate who rescued a stranger who had fallen through the ice on a Massachusetts lake, and the Hopper-Thornley family, who have risen above the tragedy of a murdered child.
We said goodbye to longtime Star-Banner writer Frances DeVore and to Annmarie Campbell, the young artist killed by an alligator in Juniper Creek. We remembered U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Chad Lake and Spc. Robert E. Blair, who gave their lives in service to our country, and witnessed the grief of Stretch Cummings, whose wife and daughter were killed by an apparently drunken driver.
I've shared my love for the natural beauty of Marion County, its wildlife and its waterways, my befuddlement over low voter turnout and my take on political shenanigans.
This work is very satisfying - I get a kick out of meeting new people and asking questions - and I especially enjoy hearing from readers about what you like and when you thought I was off base.
Months ago, I asked readers for a Marion County theme song, and I received a few submissions. A couple of readers told me we already have one - "The Kingdom of the Sun" - which was written in 1925 by Browne Greaton Cole. She was the Ocala High School band teacher and a Florida pioneer in music instruction.
Soon I hope to post another theme song submission on this blog.
And so we come around to the newspaper industry's gorilla in the room and the current location of my chunk of Gorgonzola. That's right. The Internet. My other duties at the newspaper - in addition to writing this column - have changed. I'm leaving my assistant city editor job to become the online news editor.
I'll be working my whiskers off - as part of the online team - to give you the latest local news on ocala.com.
Joe Byrnes may be reached at joe@ocala.com or (352) 867-4112.
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Re: Chasing my cheese |
By Stan on
4/4/2007 8:35 AM |
Joe,
Good luck! You are entering the future of news reporting. Good by to paper. |
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