I've been running some veggies through a juicer and commenting to myself on the early morning's blog. (Likely being my only reader, I owe it to myself.)
"So, if you're so smart, how come you're not running some huge, profitable, forward-thinking blogging organization yourself instead of making yourself a green lemonade and thinking about what to stock up on at Costco?" I scribbled on my left hemisphere.
Good question. Being way ahead of your time in seeing something developing is often worse than being far behind, actually, at least in terms of cashing in your chips. All good marketers know this. Remember Gablinger's beer? Low calories?
But I really don't claim to be a visionary. After all, the videotex experiment I worked for in 1982 that opened my eyes was a joint venture of CBS, IBM and, I think, some other corporate behemoth I've forgotten about. Oh, yes! Sears!
It must have taken yeoman effort by some prescient middle-level managers to push the idea of a collaborative skunkworks through those bureaucracies. I wonder where those people are today.
And in the end, though I had a taste of what it was like to run a far-flung staff and rip up front pages on deadline and get invited to things like Malcolm Forbes' Moroccan birthday bash (I declined), I'm really a journeyman like many journeymen before me. I don't have sufficient raw talent to overcome my quirky work ethic and lack of ambition, and shall not rise to the top ranks of my profession. That's fine. Who needs it?
Once upon a time, the top of the profession was Herbert Bayard Swope or Richard Harding Davis swarming all over a story and making it his, or James Reston using his impeccable sources to tell us what was going down in D.C. Now, it's a steady gig screaming at each other on McLaughlin or some cable knockoff. I always wonder what drives those people to don a tie or dress early on a Sunday morning and head to the studio, or hang around (sober, no less) until 8:30 p.m. to utter a few bon mots to Keith Olberman.
So I have no problems being a journeyman. I read that to mean I've had a life. Others may see it differently. But still and all, if a journeyman knew that the future was online 26 years ago, why does it seem to be catching so many people by surprise today?
I feel an further elaboration of my 1990 unpublished essay for NewsInc girding in my loins, but I will let it gird for a while and post this while it's still of manageable length.