Years before I even knew about the Internet, I covered politics in my hometown, Milwaukee. Starting at my college paper, the UWM Post, and continuing through a series of local alternative weeklies. It’s been awhile since I’ve been on that beat, but a few weeks ago, I got the bug again.

Representative Robyn Vining, from her Wisconsin state assembly page.

 

 

When a hitherto-unknown politician (at least unknown to me) started running ads about her campaign for state assembly, I got curious. This week, I finally silenced the voices in my head by publishing “Who is Robyn Vining? Why is she running ads on TV?”

The story tells you a little bit about her, and some rampant speculation about her reasons for spending campaign money on TV ads, a medium where many more people will see her ads than can vote for her.

FYI: The story isn’t behind a paywall; anyone can read it.

Let me know what you think of this piece, either in the Comments below or on Medium itself. Should I do more of this? If you happen to be an editor and like it, drop me a line. We should probably talk about other things to write about. 😉

 

Last week, I had the pleasure of presenting “Unlocking LinkedIn: Finding Your Dream Job or Client” to my favorite technical writing community, the Wisconsin chapter of the Society for Technical Communication.

Dream Job
Dream Job (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Had to fight through Internet connection troubles, but it was a good conversation with the assembled technical writers.

Have a look at the slides, then use the comments to tell me your LinkedIn stories, or ask a question. I’m all ears.

Wisconsin Welcome Sign
Wisconsin Welcome Sign (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The August issue of the Midwest Book Review “Wisconsin Book Watch” said some really nice things in a brief review of Build Your Author Platform: The New Rules. Here’s the line that made me smile the broadest:

Replete with pragmatic and illustrative book marketing lessons, examples, success stories, and a wealth of tips and techniques, “Build Your Author Platform: The New Rules: A Literary Agent’s Guide to Growing Your Audience in 14 Steps” will prove to be an enduringly valuable addition to personal, professional, academic, and community library Writing/Publishing instructional reference collections. Very highly recommended to writers aspiring to become successful authors

Based just outside of Madison, Wisconsin, The MBR is oriented toward independent authors and small presses. Editor James A. Cox looks especially to help independent booksellers and librarians of all kinds find the best books that don’t always get the marketing push of the Big Five. Thanks!

Go read the whole review (and the whole August issue).