Blog Archives

Seven Years Later & I’m Still Looking to the Storytelling Horizon

After logging into WordPress this morning, I had a new — yet expected — notification:

Happy Anniversary with WordPress.com!
You registered on WordPress.com 7 years ago.
Thanks for flying with us. Keep up the good blogging.

Seven years ago today, I attended a WordPress conference here in Columbus, OH inside the Ohio Union on the campus of THE Ohio State University. My interest in blogging, which I had dabbled with a bit in the past, took on a whole new dimension and meaning by discovering the online publishing platform WordPress. After listening to a few panel discussions, I immediately went up to the open-aired, impromptu customer service lounge on the third floor of the Ohio Union and sat next to an expert (I knew this person wasn’t a genius because I wasn’t in an Apple store) and asked him to help me set up my blog that would be called Jimmy’s Daily Planet.

One of my first blog posts published here — of which there were two I wrote on July 13, 2012 — was titled ‘Eight Years Later & We Look to the Horizon’ that focused on what would be the next societal game-changer. Hence part of the inspiration for today’s title. The other half of the title will be revealed in the second half of this blog post.

FYI – I explained the name of my blog in a post four years ago today. Here’s that summary.

Paying homage to the greatest (albeit fictional) newspaper of all-time, The Daily Planet, this blog was founded on my love of my favorite superhero and disguised human of all-time: Superman and Clark Kent. The scene from Richard Donner’s 1978 classic ‘Superman’ that showed us Christopher Reeve as Clark Kent walk through the bullpen of The Daily Planet for the first time was the moment I knew I wanted to be a journalist. The chaos, palpable energy, and big city, skyscraper setting flew from the screen and landed directly into my impressionable imagination.

These few minutes showing reporters preparing to get the scoop, watching exciting individual and group dynamics (papers scattered, people typing, talking and moving) and hearing creative storytelling pitches is arguably my favorite journalistic hook.

Plus, my name is Jimmy.

And here’s that aforementioned scene.

This ‘Superman’ clip resonates as much today as it did when I saw it for the first time as a kid.

Breaking News: I’m going to step away from publishing new blog posts on Jimmy’s Daily Planet. While Jimmy’s Daily Planet and all of the blog posts — written about a wide range of topics and current events — will remain available online in its exact current form with this same web address, there are other pressing writing projects that I am excited about that I need to commit more time and energy towards. As a matter of fact, it’s been my self-imposed Monday-Friday schedule of having to come up with and write new content on this blog for so many years that has given me the time management skills and confidence to now apply to new storytelling projects.

I wish I had the time to keep writing my daily blog — I really do — but the inspiration for my future projects will be rooted in and connected, in some way, to my writing style, experience, and association with my favorite headline/title I’ve ever come up with: Jimmy’s Daily Planet.

Here’s TV producer, writer, and storyteller extraordinaire Chuck Lorre with the right words at the right time.

I’ve loved writing Jimmy’s Daily Planet. I’ve had so much fun. And now everything that’s been put into this creative storytelling venture throughout the past seven years will be used to tell new, exciting stories that I hope people will connect with and like as much as I do.

Dr. Ian Malcolm, the fictional chaos theorist in ‘Jurassic Park,’ famously said that perfect turn of phrase — by way of the late author Michael Crichton — “life finds a way.”

I’m hoping that brilliant literary and cinematic adage can be amended to “writing finds a way.”

Thank you to everyone who read Jimmy’s Daily Planet and supported me along the way! 

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Happy Monday!

In this crazy journey called life, we discover things about ourselves. We learn about love, we learn about heartache, we learn about success and defeat, and we learn about people. And really, is there a better person to learn about the greatest gift in life than Larry David?

What’s that old adage? Oh yes, truth in comedy.

Have a Better Week Than Last Week. 

Happy Monday

Spring is known as the season of rebirth. Monday, therefore, could be defined as the day of the week for rebirth.

In other words, Mondays seem like a perfect occurrence to hit an internal reset button from the now past week and weekend. To put a finer tip on it, each Monday provides us the unique opportunity to be something we weren’t during the prior days that we wish we were…that we wish we could be.

However, before we make any drastic changes to our lives, it’s important to rediscover our origin story, of sorts. What is our true character? Purpose? Drive? This way, we may better understand the place(s) we really want to go, literally and metaphorically.

Here’s an origin story for the ages that should inspire grand adventures as large as a house perfectly located on the banks of West Egg.

The source of J. Gatsby’s money aside (we all know that side of the story), the relentless ambition of one of the most famous literary characters is undeniable.

And admirable.

Perhaps, admirable extraordinary…?

(Bonus points for those who remember that 2013 cinematic reference)

Have a Better Week Than Last Week.

iPad Before iPhone Except After (Fore)seeing the Future

Wednesday is the perfect day for wisdom.

And random wisdom is the best.

The serendipitous moments that have generated inspirational ideas are some of my favorites. So much of life is unknown day-to-day and these instances of fortuity are proof of the boundless world we live in that can change for the better in a heartbeat. The trajectory of planned events can suddenly (and so frequently) take an amazing detour without warning. Without diving too deep into the psychological dynamic of unforeseen tangents, please click on the video below that features the late Steve Jobs revealing a secret of his initial business plan for a revolutionary product (for another revolutionary product, mind you) because of his gut decision to follow an inspirational moment during a developmental cycle that took him off his predetermined innovative path.

Embracing an inspirational aha moment (however small) can change your life, your business and, in some cases, possibly even the world.

While we may never definitively know if the chicken or the egg came first, we do know why the iPhone came before the iPad. And the answer is insanely great.