As a polyamorous person, I was rather tickled that this topic got such prominent play. I figured: Cool! There goes a chunk of the vocabulary gap!

If you haven’t heard the term, polyamory means being open to having more than one intimate relationship at a time, with the full knowledge and consent of everyone involved.

Yes, I realize any new term sounds awkward until you get used to it. So: Get used to it. Because here’s what the vocabulary gap looks like to a poly person…

WHEN WORDS FAIL

Whenever the subject of relationships comes up, if I mention something that indicates I’m not monogamous, usually I see raised eyebrows. If I clarify that I’m poly, usually I get blank stares. Most people haven’t heard that word.

…Yes, moving to the Bay Area has helped ease that social awkwardness — but it’s still surprisingly common, even here.

Usually when people first hear the word polyamory, they immediately conflate it with infidelity, patriarchal polygamy, sex-focused swinging, or dysfunction. Occasionally they may already have some grasp of some aspects of polyamory — but rarely do they possess a vocabulary for it that’s not either exclusionary (“non-monogamous”), derisive (“promiscuous,” “cheating with permission,” or “can’t really commit”), or deliberately vague (“open”).

That’s not their fault. I don’t feel personally insulted by this vocabulary gap. But it is a problem.

Imagine if our language had no word for “female.” What if our only words for someone with a vagina were (at best) “not male” — or (at worst) “bitch,” “whore,” and “second-class citizen.”

That’s kinda what many poly people deal with. Prejudicial semi-invisibility gets old fast.

So whenever polyamory gets significant mainstream media coverage (such as this July 2009 Newsweek feature), I think it’s a good thing. Even if the coverage is poorly done, or flat-out negative.

Whenever the mainstream media mention polyamory, the vocabulary gap shrinks a little. That makes it just a bit easier for poly folk to participate in conversations that monogamous folk take for granted.

THE P-WORD AND THE EVIL EYE

There’s something else I’ve noticed when polyamory gets mentioned in conversations or publications: the immediate, reflexive, superstitious “evil-eye” reaction it commonly evokes.

Here’s what I mean. Often, when the P-word gets mentioned and explained — and even when people understand that it’s a valid and not inherently unstable or inferior option — it’s typical for them to immediately distance themselves verbally from polyamory.

It’s as if the very concept of polyamory has cooties. “It’s not something I would ever do!” and “Well, I guess that might work for some people, but not me!” are the most common evil-eye lines I hear.

And in writing, the P-word typically gets packaged in quotation marks, as if to insulate acceptable language from its contagion.

Then there are more blatant mock-shock evil eye reactions that blend panic and prurience, like this from today’s Toledo Blade’s Thin Slices blog:

“This week from the Boston Globe, a look at something called polyamory, which we find incredibly confusing and scary in the category of ‘That might be OK for other people, but not us.’ Interesting, though.”

This puzzles me. When you meet or hear about someone who’s gay, do you feel any pressing need to distance yourself from the concept? Must you reflexively blurt, “Well I’d certainly never be attracted to someone of the same sex, but…”

Or when Jews meet (or discuss) Christians, must they promptly declare, “Well, worshiping Jesus isn’t something I’d ever do, but…”

Seriously: Wouldn’t you consider that rude?

I’m just barely old enough to recall hearing some men say, “Well, having a career may be fine for some women, but my wife doesn’t need to work.” I’m also old enough to recall when such remarks became embarrassing, and stopped.

Generally I just chalk the evil eye reaction up to normal human instincts: fear of the unfamiliar, and fear of ostracism (via guilt-by-association). And I can understand that revealing and questioning any societal assumption is disorienting. You just want to get your feet back under you.

Adopting this mindset helps me to not snark back: “What, YOU can only have ONE intimate relationship at a time? Well, I guess that might work for SOME people… Sounds terribly limited and unrealistic to me, though. But to each their own, I guess…”

I hope the P-word evil eye is just a temporary linguistic quirk. Because it’s hard to talk with people who keep throwing up verbal fences.

…In the meantime, this old Jerry Seinfeld bit, “Not that there’s anything wrong with it,” helps me keep my sense of humor about the poly evil eye:

It makes my brain hurt.

This video from EpipheoStudios.com nails exactly why I hate e-mail, and how Google Wave is trying to solve the problems of e-mail.

YouTube – What is Google Wave?.

I don’t know whether Google Wave will actually solve these problems. But dammit, at least they’re trying to tackle the problem. And they have the development power and user base to stand a chance of pulling it off.

A friend has sent me an invite. I haven’t received it yet. But when I do, I’ll give it a try. UPDATE: I just got my Google Wave invitation today! I’ll get a chance to play with it over the weekend. I expect it to be rough. (OK, everyone who’s whining about it: rough is what “alpha testing” is all about!) And hopefully I’ll start to glimpse an end to the e-mail madness.

Hierarchy of Digital Distractions: Top of a brilliant, too-accurate pyramid infographic by InformationIsBeautiful.net

Productivity and task management seem like strictly practical issues, but in fact they’re deeply emotional. That’s what David Allen describes at in the first chapter of Getting Things Done, when he talks about the sense of calmness instilled by having a mind like water.

It seems to me that tuning into and recognizing your own feelings (especially hope, shame, relief, and fear) is THE crucial first step for figuring out what to do, getting stuff done, and letting stuff go. That’s what I’ve been working on today. Here is a little background, and some thoughts and lessons on this theme…

In the last eight months I made several major changes in my life: I ended my marriage (on the best of terms), sold my house, moved to a new state, eliminated my debt, stopped working on some projects I’d outgrown, began some intriguing new projects, had a brief painful relationship with a thoroughly incompatible partner, began a rewarding intimate relationship with a wonderful friend, and downsized my possessions to fit in a room plus small storage area. Plus, I got knee surgery to fix a torn ACL. Plus, a fair amount of business travel thrown in.

Yeah, it’s been a lot to manage — with a lot of mixed, deep feelings involved in every step. And a lot of stuff that needed to get done: projects, tasks, and priorities. Everything from figuring out where stuff goes in the kitchen to selling a house.

Through this process of major life-surgery I’ve had to face something I’ve avoided: I’ve spent most of my life in a near-constant sense of dread. I was scared that my life and work were spinning out of control, and that all sorts of disasters were waiting to pounce due to my inattention or ineptitude. I coped with it by keeping busy. If I just kept doing enough, surely I’d get ahead. Then I’d wake up in the middle of the night in a flat-out panic. And I’d work all day and feel like I’d accomplished nothing by evening, and feel terribly guilty and ashamed. I felt like I was failing at nearly everything.

In fact, I wasn’t failing — at least, not most of the time. Not any more than most people do. In fact, in a lot of ways I’m doing pretty damn well with my life. But because I was certain I was failing, and constantly braced for the next crash, I avoided looking too closely at what was happening, at what I needed to be doing.

It’s kind of like how you shut your eyes and cover your face before a car crash. It’s a reflex. You don’t really want to watch.

But when that kind of mental flinching becomes a permanent way of life, bad stuff happens. Namely, disorganization and procrastination — with all the bad stuff (tax penalties, pissed-off partners, missed opportunities, poor health) that go along with it.

It’s important to recognize that for all the pain that disorganization and procrastination cause, they do offer immediate, addictive emotional relief.

When you deliberately blur your mental vision and don’t look very far around you or ahead, and when you don’t habitually keep close track of information you need, then for short stretches of time you create the illusion that nothing needs to be done or figured out right now. It’s a false sense of security, but it does provide a sense of rest and it’s easy to do. Also, it works about as well as drinking salt water when you’re thirsty.

Since I’ve downsized and simplified my life and commitments, I’ve realized that I don’t want to keep living with that daily dread. I could keep it up — because I’ve done it my whole life. But at this point I’m making a conscious choice to change. Dread eats up too much of my energy. I’m 43 years old, and I’d like to use my remaining time and energy in ways that please me.

So I’ve been focusing on organizing my life, especially projects, tasks and priorities. Here’s what I’ve done so far, and what I’ve learned:

1. I CAN’T THINK AMIDST CLUTTER. Clutter distracts me, and provides a ceaseless nagging of all the things I might have forgotten. I cannot focus on a task when I’m around clutter — unless that task is decluttering.

So I’ve put a lot of effort into organizing my new room so that everything I need has an intuitive place, and that things I don’t need on a daily basis get stored or filed, and things I don’t ever need get tossed. This includes eliminating as much paper as possible from my life: I scan every paper I’ll need, shred most of them, file only a few original copies. I have redundant electronic backups (external hard drives AND offsite backup) for all my data.

The downside: Organizing feels so rewarding to me that sometimes I dive into that for emotional relief as a form of procrastination. I’m working on that.

2. MULTITASKING IS A MYTH. This was truly a devastating thing to admit to myself, since I always thought I was a consummate multitasker. But in fact, tons of scientific research and an honest look at my own experience indicates that human brains really can only do one conscious thing at a time. I cannot listen to two simultaneous voices and understand well what both are saying. I cannot run a quick Google search and track what a client is saying on a conference call. I cannot Twitter or instant message while trying to do another kind of writing. I cannot read an incoming text message while paying enough attention to driving.

Of course, I can TRY to do any combination of these things, or more. And I usually succeed to some level with all of them. But usually not as well as if I’d consciously taken a moment to set a priority and then waited to do tasks in priority order.

Focus is important to getting stuff done. But for me, focus can be another kind of trap. I can get so into doing something that I get obsessive or perfectionist about it, and and up spending way too much time on it. It becomes another type of procrastination.

I’m finding that for me, the skills I need to improve are time management and setting priorities. Not just “what are the things I need to do” but “what are the goals I wish to achieve?” Once I have in mind all my goals, I can set priorities among them, and then decide how much is really enough in terms of moving toward a particular goal for that day.

I’m realizing that my tendency to attempt multitasking often stems from a wish to distract myself (and thus procrastinate), or a wish to please (assuming that people expect me to do everything at once), or boredom.

3. ORGANIZE AT AN APPROPRIATE LEVEL OF DETAIL. I was discussing productivity systems today with a friend. She prefers to list out her to-dos in minute detail, including items such as “find Mr. X’s phone number” and “call Mr. X” in the overall task of “Ask Mr. X. to write me a letter of reference.” That works very well for her because it relieves her of the necessity to figure out the next step to take.

I’ve tried that approach, and I’ve found it does not work for me. The labor involved in listing and checking off so many minute steps feels overwhelming to me, and takes considerable time. In my task-management software OmniFocus I tend to list action items like “Ask Mr. X. to write me a letter of reference” unless I’m noticing that I’m procrastinating on a task. In that case, I may list sub-tasks in more minute detail.

I’m still working with this to try to figure out the best balance for me. But anyone else attempting to use a task management system should tune in to how they feel about using the system. If the system ends up feeling like a chore or a burden, if it scares you, you won’t use it and you’ll feel frustrated or ashamed. Recognize all your emotions involved, and name them. They’re important indicators of what you really need.

4. MOST LIFE-MONSTERS CAN WAIT (AT LEAST A BIT) TO BE SLAIN. For the parts of my life that had become dangerously disorganized, I’ve found I couldn’t just sit down and said “I’m going to face Monster Z right now, and parse out how to vanquish it, and get started.” I tried. I really did. Every time, this effort turned into an emotional wreck, unable to sort out which part of the monster to strike first. I’d make lists of tasks and goals, but be unable to sort them into a doable sequence. I’d feel ashamed, frustrated, and like an even bigger failure than before.

I realized that, with most of these life-monsters, I needed to first build up my strength and skills prior to the attack. I needed to attain more of a sense of my life generally gaining order and purpose on a daily basis. After all, I’d put off wrestling the life-monsters so long that I could put it off a while longer.  In the meantime, I set up doable systems to capture enough incoming monster-related  information to spot flags that would require me to speed up my timeline.

So even though organizing my space or developing a new exercise routine may not objectively be a higher priority than, say, developing a retirement plan — giving myself faster, easier “wins” that directly support my ability to tackle longer-term, bigger goals is what allows me to move forward. Right now, if I try too hard to stare down monsters that loom ever-larger due to neglect, I freeze.

Right now I’m only tackling one life-monster at a time. I’ve learned from the last eight months that trying to do them all at once, or in too close sequence, leaves me overwhelmed, exhausted, depressed, and unproductive on other fronts. Getting through knee surgery and recovery (and dealing with insurance bureaucracy and medical bills) is my current life-monster battle. That’s enough.

Down the road, I’m considering working with a financial planner and maybe a life/career coach to figure out some longer-term monster-slaying strategy. I think getting that kind of support might help, when I’m ready for it. But I’m not ready for that now, so please don’t bombard me with pitches for these professionals just yet. When I’m ready, I’ll ask for it.

5. RECOGNIZE & APPRECIATE WHAT YOU CAN DO OR HAVE DONE. Many people love crossing items off their to-do lists. That gives them a sense of accomplishment. That visual symbol has never worked for me, however. It just feels negative, the act of crossing-off. Not creative, not productive.

I’ve realized that when I’ve been getting depressed because I think I’ve been unproductive, it helps to reality-check myself by taking a day to make a list of all the stuff I actually do in a given day. For this list, anything that takes my time/effort counts. It includes things like:

• Making my bed
• Doing my leg exercises (5X/day, to stick with my physical therapy program)
• Taking my vitamins
• Making breakfast
• Corresponding with clients
• Doing actual billable work
• Arranging to get a transit pass
• Hanging a few pictures
• Vacuuming
• Scanning, shredding, and filing
• Sorting out which jewelry needs repairs
• Reading a chapter of a book

…Most of this stuff would never make my to-do list or get crossed off. I don’t need to track that level of detail day to day. But each of these tasks, and many others, need to get done and take my time and effort. I should at least recognize them. They are not wasted time. So if once in a while I make a “done” list of all this stuff, that reassures me emotionally. In turn, that reduces my tendency to beat up on myself, and gives me more energy to get stuff done.

Those are my thoughts on emotions and productivity for now. I’ll be writing more about this, I’m sure. But what are your thoughts on this topic? How do your feelings — and your awareness of them — affect how you get accomplished in life and work? Please comment below.

Recently I wrote about how a Los Angeles Police Dept. geocoding data glitch yielded inaccurate crime maps at LAPDcrimemaps.org and the database-powered network of hyperlocal sites, Everyblock.

On Apr. 8, Everyblock founder Adrian Holovaty blogged about the two ways his company is addressing the problem of inaccurate geodata.

1. Latitude/longitude crosschecking. “From now on, rather than relying blindly on our data sources’ longitude/latitude points, we cross-check those points with our own geocoding of the address provided. If the LAPD’s geocoding for a particular crime is significantly off from our own geocoder’s results, then we won’t geocode that crime at all, and we publish a note on the crime page that explains why a map isn’t available. (If you’re curious, we’re using 375 meters as our threshold. That is, if our own geocoder comes up with a point more than 375 meters away from the point that LAPD provides, then we won’t place the crime on a map, or on block/neighborhood pages.)
2. Surfacing ungeocoded data. “Starting today, wherever we have aggregate charts by neighborhood, ZIP or other boundary, we include the number, and percentage, of records that couldn’t be geocoded. Each location chart has a new “Unknown” row that provides these figures. Note that technically this figure includes more than nongeocodable records — it also includes any records that were successfully geocoded but don’t lie in any neighborhood. For example, in our Philadelphia crime section, you can see that one percent of crime reports in the last 30 days are in an ‘unknown’ neighborhood; this means those 35 records either couldn’t be geocoded or lie outside any of the Philadelphia neighborhood boundaries that we’ve compiled.”

These strategies could — and probably should — be employed by any organization publishing online maps that rely on government or third-party geodata.

Holovaty’s post also includes a great plain-language explanation of what geodata really is and how it works in practical terms. This is the kind of information that constitutes journalism 101 in the online age.

(NOTE: I originally published this post in Poynter’s E-Media Tidbits.)

Now that I own (and use daily) a laptop, iPhone, and Kindle, I’m developing a new relationship to text content. I realize that I shouldn’t have to care about the device. The news and other content I choose to read should just be there — available on whichever of my devices I prefer at the moment, in a format friendly to that device.

This is especially true for anything longer than about 750 words. I’ve found that’s my personal limit for reading through a Web browser, either on my laptop or iPhone. Yes, I can and do occasionally slog through longer Web-based content on those devices. But honestly, after about 750 words I tend to stop truly reading and instead scan quickly through the rest to gauge whether it’s worth further reading.

So I was pleased to recently discover an online service called Instapaper, which makes it easier to read electronic long-format content and to share that content across multiple devices.

Here’s how it works…

How Instapaper works: After you set up a free account, install Instapaper’s “read later” bookmarklet in the Web browser toolbar on your computer.

Next, install the free Instapaper iPhone application on your iPhone or iPod Touch. Launch it and enter your account information. Then click “settings” and click the “install ‘read later’ in Safari” button there. Follow the instructions for installing that bookmarklet in mobile Safari.

Finally, connect your Instapaper account to your Kindle — which you can do under “account” when you’re logged in on the Instapaper site. Then, when you save items with Instapaper, the service will route them to Amazon for Kindle reformatting and wireless download to your Kindle.

…I know, it sounds like a lot of steps. Personally, I’d prefer it if this integration process was more streamlined. I suspect that, as mobile technology matures and devices become easier to integrate, this will happen. Still, you don’t have to be a tech wiz to get Instapaper to talk to all your devices. Integration setup is a little tedious, but not hard.

Once it’s all set up, here’s the result: When you find text content that is longer than you’d comfortably read through the Web browser on your computer or mobile phone, you can save it in a central online location that automatically distributes it to your other devices which offer more comfortable reading. So anytime, anywhere, you can have a comfortable reading experience of the content you choose with whatever device you have handy. You don’t need to remember to print anything, or to copy a file somewhere — it’s just there for you.

While the Kindle probably offers the most comfortable reading experience of all my devices, I especially notice the benefits of Instapaper on my iPhone. Mobile Safari is a pretty good mobile browser, but it’s a hassle for reading long text documents. Quite often I’ll follow a link on my phone to something I want to read. Once I realize that I want to read it — and that it’s more than about 750 words long — I immediately save it to Instapaper. Then I switch to the Instapaper iPhone app for a more comfortable, user-friendly mobile reading experience.

True, Instapaper works well with a combination of devices that I happen to own. But it’s an example of a general strategy I suspect will become increasingly popular — especially if e-readers like the Kindle drop in price. Content shouldn’t be pigeonholed by device.

This is a crucial step beyond offering printer- or mobile-friendly versions of your content — it gives users more control over how they experience your content. And as the rapid growth of online and mobile media shows, people like to be in control of their own media experience.

…If you’re skeptical whether more advanced mobile devices will catch on beyond the techno-elite, bear this in mind: Last week I was on a bus in Oakland, Calif. I overheard a guy sitting behind me, talking on a simple cell phone which would have seemed luxurious a decade earlier. He was saying, “OK, well I confirmed my appointment at the Social Security agency. I’m serious about getting off the streets…”

(NOTE: I originally published this article in Poynter’s E-Media Tidbits.)

Unfortunately I won’t be able to participate in the chat since I’ll be heading to the airport at that time. However, I have had a great deal to say about this topic earlier on Contentious. Here are my posts from last year:

• April 9, 2008: Journalism remains a smart career, despite shrinking newsrooms. This theme in my posts began in response to Elana Centor, who asked me: “Is journalism still a smart career path?” My answer began: “Personally, I think that developing journalism skills and experience is valuable for many career paths — but I think that betting that you’ll spend your career working for mainstream news orgs is a losing proposition in most cases. I think most j-schools are setting bright students up to fail, and that bugs me. A lot….”
• April 10, 2008: New J-Skills: What to Measure? This followup post is a reply to Mindy McAdams’ thoughtful response to my earlier post. She challenged me to translate my original quick list of what j-schools should be teaching into a something more testable and measurable that could be translated into a curriculum.
• April 16, 2008: Overhauling J-School Completely. This begins: “I’ve heard from some journalism educators that the kind of preparation I’ve proposed is far beyond what most existing j-schools could offer. I understand that. Really, I think what may be needed is to completely re-envision and rebuild j-school with today’s realities and tomorrow’s likelihoods in mind…” (This post also includes links to many other posts sparked by my previous posts on this topic.)

Again, I wish I could sit in on the Poynter chat. But hopefully this material might help inform the discussion. I look forward to reading the live blog and chat transcript after I land.

I’ve written before about how the culture of traditional journalism tends to be rather insular, self-referential and — increasingly — toxic. This is especially true of the events that journalists typically attend, and the communities with which they typically mix.

Journalists mainly go to conferences specifically about journalism or specifically for journalists. While they also attend other events, this is usually for research or reporting — not to be “part of the crowd.”

…And that, I think, is a huge missed opportunity. Increasingly, community building and team building are becoming core skills for a career in journalism. The fast-shifting news business requires that journalists personally know and be able to work well with technologies, business people, marketers, community organizers, financiers, nonprofits and advocates, and other people from complementary fields. Every profession has its own culture and its own events. Attending these events — not just for aloof observation, but in order to join those communities — can be a great way to expand your career options.

Today and tomorrow I’m attending an event that represents a perfect opportunity to connect with geek culture. It’s She’s Geeky, a periodic “unconference” held at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA…

The She’s Geeky site defines the purpose of this event as:

“A neutral, face-to-face gathering space for women who like to geek out. Attendees include women involved in all aspects of technology, including those who like to use geeky tools, not just coders, programmers and engineers. You don’t even have to be from the computer industry. You just have to be a woman who identifies as a geek.

From the perspective of a journalist who wants to connect more with geeks and geek culture, in order to build bridges that can support your journalism and your career, an event like She’s Geeky is especially appealing:

• Accessible. It’s not all going to be about hardcore coding or gadgets. There should be ample discussion at a level that most non-geeks (including journalists) can follow reasonably well.
• Unconference format. Attendees gather at the start of the event to define the topics of the day’s sessions. Also, these sessions are mainly for discussion and sharing, not lectures. This means that if you get there early you can propose a session or play a role in refining a topic. That’s a great way not just to get your own informational needs met, but also to get noticed as someone who wants to actively work with the community.
• Female culture. Most tech conferences are a heavily male playground. This affects not only the topics covered and event structure, but the tone of interaction. In my experience, conferences that are primarily oriented toward women in a given field tend to be more welcoming and less cliquish or hierarchical than events where male culture predominates. This means that even male journalists who are newcomers to tech culture might get more out of an event like She’s Geeky than an uber-geekboy rave like Gnomedex (which is fun, but maybe not for your first stop).

I’ll be live-tweeting She’s Geeky today and tomorrow. Follow me on Twitter, as well as @shesgeeky for the updates. You can also follow the conference hashtag #shesgeeky.

A good resources to find all sorts of upcoming events for various fields is Upcoming. Also, as I wrote earlier, Meetup.com can be your gateway to many local communities that gather on a regular basis.

How are you connecting with other communities and professions — not just as an observer but as a participant? What strategies have you found useful? Please comment below.

(NOTE: I originally posted this article to Poynter’s

This is a better deal for me, since generally I don’t talk on the phone much — except last month. I was working on a magazine feature story that required many interviews. And also, since I got known as a source on the role of Twitter in covering the Mumbai terrorist attacks, I was called by several reporters (including ABCnews.com) to give interviews on that topic.

Last night I got my cell phone bill. It was about $70 more than I expected — because I’d exceeded my allotted minutes. Ouch.

That’s the trouble with being in the media business, and many other fields: You can’t always control how much time you’ll have to spend on the phone in a given month. Which means you can’t always control the number or timing of the minutes you’ll use. Which is why cell-only folks need other options for making and taking calls that allow you to control costs.

Enter Skype…

I’ve used the VOIP phone service Skype for a couple of years, but mainly for conversations with people who also are already comfortable with Skype. But most of the time, the people who want to call me and talk for a while, or who I need to call, either don’t use Skype or prefer to talk by phone. Which means all those calls count toward my cell phone bill. And when too many of them pile up in the same month — Ouch!$!

It seems to me that these days everyone with broadband access should get a free Skype account and learn how to use it to make and receive voice calls. All Skype-to-Skype calls are free on both ends. It costs you nothing to extend this money-saving courtesy to your cell-phone-only, Skype-using contacts.

Once you’re set with that option, then when you’re scheduling or starting a voice call that might last more than a couple of minutes, you can ask people whether they prefer to talk by phone or Skype. Why should they end up paying for you to call them?

You can use Skype on any computer with broadband access (as long as the service isn’t blocked, which I suppose could be the case from computers at some companies, libraries, net cafes, etc.). You’ll need either a built-in microphone, or a wired or Bluetooth headset connected to the computer.

So far Skype not really something that will work from a cell phone. Understandably, cell carriers are averse to supporting Skype calls, since they can’t charge for those minutes. Skype and other VOIP services are a huge, looming threat to cell carriers and landline providers.

Quality and reliability: The sound quality of Skype calls is often startlingly clear. In my experience, Skype calls overall have far superior sound quality to cell calls. As for reliability, the frequency of sporadic problems (weird echoes, brief delays or audio gaps, or dropped calls) seems no worse than that of cell phones. I’ve found if Skype starts getting flaky in the midst of a call, if both speakers pause for a few seconds, the trouble usually clears up.

Here are some other ways you can use Skype to save money:

• SkypeOut. You can make calls from Skype to landline or cell numbers. This currently costs 2.1 cents/minute, with no limit on minutes. You can pay as you go by depositing money into a Skype Credit account (which you can set up for automatic recharge if you like). Or you can get a Skype subscription for no per-minute charges, which costs $3/month for US/Canada only ($6/month to include Mexico, $10/month to call landlines and cells around the world).
• SkypeIn gives your Skype account its own phone number which can be dialed from any landline or cell phone. This way, anyone can call you from any phone and you won’t have to worry about paying for cell phone minutes. It costs $18 for three months to get a SkypeIn number, or $60 for a year. You get free voice mail with this. UPDATE: It’s even cheaper than that. People who purchase Skype’s Unlimited U.S. and Canada subscription currently can save up to 50 percent on buying an online number (now called SkypeIn) for a year. Details.

Skype makes even more economic sense if you telecommute, travel to locations with broadband Internet access, talk a lot to friends or family who aren’t local, or are self-employed. Even if you want or need to keep your landline, no long distance or international calling fees apply to Skype calls (whether to other Skype users or regular numbers).

Skype also offers video calls, conference calls, and lots of other features — even with a free basic account.

You don’t need to use Skype for every call — just consider it an option to control your cell or long-distance bills, and to offer a courtesy to the people you call.

If you don’t like Skype, there are plenty of other voice-over-Internet (VOIP) services you can join. I’m sure some of those vendors will leave comments to this post promoting them. But Skype has a big advantage: the huge global popularity of free basic Skype accounts means you probably have more opportunities to make and take calls that are free on both ends (Skype-to-Skype) than with other services. Also, Skype is dead easy to install and use on any computer platform — so the setup and learning curve is minimal.

I can’t think of any reason not to at least get a free Skype account and learn it. Even if Skype someday dies or other free VOIP services become more popular, learning to use this kind of communication tool is as important as learning how to send and receive e-mail, or dial a phone number. Plus it won’t cost you anything — and it might help you control costs.

(NOTE: This is a rewrite of an article I originally published yesterday on Poynter’s E-Media Tidbits. That version was written specifically for journalists, and including information on recording calls via Skype.)

And look how easy they make contributing your letters! All you have to do is send an e-mail to openforum@dailycamera.com.

Well, almost…

Boulder Daily Camera

Yesterday, for the first time, I tried to post an item to this letters blog. I received this automated response:

Thank you for sending a letter to the editor of the Daily Camera.

To be considered for publication, all letters must include your name, address and daytime telephone number. If you have included this information, thank you. If you have not included this information, please resend the entire letter with all of the required information.

We prefer that you submit the text of your letter in the body of your email message. If you have submitted your letter as an attached file, please consider resubmitting it as plain text in the body of your email message.

Please also note that letters should be about 300 words in length. Those letters that adhere to this guideline are preferred, and those that exceed this benchmark are often not published.

Thank you for your help.

The editors of the editorial page.
[Note: This is an automated message. Please do not reply.]

…OK, those requirements are reasonable. But I wondered, did I miss something? I went back and looked on the Letters Blog, and on the main Letters Page (online repurposing of what they choose to run in the print edition). Where exactly were these requirements posted?

Nowhere. You only find out about these requirements when you get the autoreply.

Hmph. :-/

Generally I dislike online forms, but here’s a place where one would make a hell of a lot of sense — and also probably make life easier for Camera web staff as well as decrease frustration for contributors.

The Camera could post a submission form for the Letters blog that requires all of the information they need. And it could also limit the characters in each submission, and not let you submit your letter until it’s 300 characters or less. Online forms are really easy to set up. Especially if you’re just using them to shoot an e-mail with the form information to the person at the Camera who’s already getting these e-mail submissions.

I really keep trying to like the Camera, I really do. But I keep stumbling across D’oh! moments like this one, and I’m not surprised that the Camera just put its headquarters up for sale.

That announcement notes:

“If a sale were to occur, it is unclear where newspaper operations — including the editorial, advertising and finance departments — would move.”

Actually, I’m wondering whether they would even continue to exist. I suspect this will be a no-paper town pretty soon…

OK, I’m going to go re-submit my letter now…