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The increasingly inaccurately-named blog of journalist and futurist Chris Taylor. Either the most sporadically brilliant amateur blog, the most brilliantly amateur sporadic blog, or the most amateur sporadic brilliance on the Web since 2001.
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Daily Blah FAQ
Who are you?
I'm the newly-appointed Future editor at Business 2.0 and the former San Francisco correspondent for Time Magazine.
Wow, so does this mean everything you write reflects Time Inc's opinion? Or do you perhaps have some sort of standard disclaimer to the effect that it doesn't?
Naturally, the opinions contained in this blog are not those of my employers. In fact, some opinions may be the polar opposite of my employers. Some may be the same, for all I know. Hey, it's not like I ask my employers their opinions about everything in the news, okay? Let's just say that if this were a Venn diagram with one circle marked "my opinions" and the other one marked "my employers' opinions", there would doubtless be some overlap. But neither I nor my employers are able to pinpoint exactly where that overlap is.
What is this Daily Blah thing?
An experiment for a column I wrote about blogging back in December 2001. All these years later, I haven't been able to kick the habit.
Do you write any other blogs, by chance? Could that have something to do with the fact that Daily Blah isn't always Daily?
Yes -- the Future Boy blog for Business 2.0. And yes. If you want true, editorially-mandated daily coverage from me, that's probably the best place to look.
Mister, you talk funny. Are you one of them furrners?
Why yes I am, as it happens. I was born, raised and educated in Great Britain. I've been living in the U.S. since 1996 and identify as British.
I say, old chap, you forgot the "u" in "colour."
No I didn't. I may identify as British, but I am also an American journalist writing for an American audience about mostly American issues. These two different sides of me are a constant source of tension. Nevertheless, Daily Blah will adhere to American English grammar and spelling.
Praise for Daily Blah:
"It is fun to watch the author's navel-gazing joy." - Sunday Times (UK)
"It's really funny and informative." - Dave Eggers, author
"The Blah is becoming a daily destination for me." - Richard Marsh, Playwright
"I like it, and I don't." - Fiona Hogg, Teacher
"Better than Xanax." - Lessley Andersen, journalist
"Dude, lay off the crack pipe." - Souris Hong-Porretta, gamesmith
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Daily Blah for... Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Future Boy on the Playa
It seemed only fitting that Future Boy became my playa name this year, the year of the future theme. And that Future Boy should have written this column in advance explaining why companies need to hire the kind of minds you'll find at Burning Man. It was published on Thursday, while I was happily bashing away on my non-Internet connected typewriter, and has done the email rounds so much that a friend of a friend just got sent it by a co-worker who was actually hired after meeting his new company at the Burn.
I'm sure a lot of Burners will think it perverse to even mention such an idea, fearing bastardization of the event and an invasion by an army of headhunters. But it would seem this sort of thing is going on anyway. Besides, at least the headhunters would get the event -- they're interested in people and their potential, after all, as opposed to the frat boy yahoos who invade at the end of the week in search of beer and titties.
Meanwhile, the Burning Man organization has announced its official theme for 2007: The Green Man. Nice and timely, of course, but I have to wonder how much the theme actually matters any more. Outside of a few rocket ship art cars and the Futuredome, very little was done with the future theme this year. (Okay, so I suppose the Waffle counts, but it was an extremely abstract message from the future). When participants did adhere to the official theme, they tended to go for its subhead -- hope and fear.
But for the most part, our 30,000 improv artists gleefully ignored the theme and did whatever they felt like doing. The last theme that had a playa-wide impact was Floating World in 2002, a very appropriate and non-abstract concept that brought us pirate ships and sea anenomes and schools of fish and a giant rubber ducky. What will Green Man inspire, apart from Christmas trees?
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