Now, I’m starting a new chapter.

Slant Six as you’ve known it (if you’ve known it) is on hiatus. Why? Not for any kind of negative reason, thankfully. No tales of catastrophic failure to share. Rather, I’ve agreed to join the team at Orange Element as their new Communications Director, a position which will enable me to continue doing the kinds of things I’ve been doing here for the past few years, but do so as part of an amazing team of creative thinkers.

I am, needless to say, stoked as hell about this development. It’s a great chance to continue contributing to Baltimore’s creative community in even bigger and better ways. I hope you’ll look me up there, and here’s to maybe even working together soon.

On a personal level I’ll still have my hand in plenty of projects. I’ll continue with Ignite and Outlet, I’ll continue writing about sports at The Loss Column, and I’ll still be active on Twitter. I also have a few new nuggets in the works that will go public soon.

From now on you can also always find me at nealshaffer.com. There you can access the above mentioned outlets as well as my new personal blog, where I’ll be writing regularly about culture, design, tech, and the like.

If you appreciated what Slant Six Creative has been, you have my gratitude. Understand as well, though, that most of it was really just me and I’m damn sure not going anywhere.

See you soon.

ns

SLAPP lawsuits are in the news. In a way, this is a good thing. Call it a teaching moment.

First, Baltimore City Councilwoman Belinda Conaway filed a $21 million suit against local blogger Adam Meister, arguing “libel, defamation, and intentional infliction of emotional distress” in connection with columns Meister wrote questioning Conaway’s status as a city resident.

Then, last week, Andy Baio’s widely linked post, Kind of Screwed, detailed how Baio commissioned art that referenced a famous photograph, only to get sued when the copyright owner decided he didn’t like it.

Meister’s situation is ongoing. Baio ended up paying north of $30k to the aggressive party, combined with countless hours of mental and emotional stress. Both cases are instructive.

If you don’t know, SLAPP stands for “Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation”. People with money and resources use these suits as a way of intimidating and/or silencing those with whom they disagree. The particulars vary from case to case but the one constant is an aggressor who bets on a target not having the means to enter into costly litigation. Thus, the aggressor wins by default, leaving open the question of whether he or she is actually right (usually they aren’t).

I can relate to these situations in more than an abstract way. I won’t go into detail here, but early this year I created a work of parody that pissed someone off (which, to be fair, was kind of the point). My work generated the threat of a heavy lawsuit. I was actually lucky in that I was able to resolve it by making a few quick concessions, thus avoiding entry into the legal system. But during the two weeks or so where I was considering my options I’m not afraid to admit that I was scared as hell. I lost sleep. My mood was terrible. I felt on edge, angry.

Here’s what I learned: all it takes to generate a SLAPP is doing or saying something that someone with deep (or even deep-ish) pockets doesn’t like. Period. 

Sounds crazy, right? Free speech, first amendment, fair use, parody, etc — all would seem to shield random individuals from the weight of the legal system. In theory, yes. In practice not at all.

Anyone with a lawyer can threaten to sue you, and anyone with a decent lawyer and enough money can not only threaten to sue you but actually do it. Once that happens, you’re playing on their field. It doesn’t matter if you’re right unless you have the money to prove that you’re right. If you don’t, the system is set up to bend you over. 

“Bullshit” isn’t nearly a strong enough a word to describe this inequity, but that’s as good a word as I can find. 

“Reality” also works, because it’s not going to change. 

Thus, it’s important to keep this in mind if you communicate publicly via a blog, Twitter, Facebook, online forums, etc. because doing so means you’re at risk. That doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be sued and it definitely doesn’t mean you should become a shrinking violet. It does mean, however, that you should consider your words and your options. If the need arises, consult a professional. And if you’re a vocal critic — and we need vocal critics — you might want to think about retaining legal counsel in advance of the lawsuit (or threat of a lawsuit) that’s probably going to come eventually. There are a lot of assholes out there. A lot.

It shouldn’t be this way, no. But we deal with things as they are — not as they should be.

Because, let’s be real: it’s easy to slip into bad habits and let frustration, anger, and cynicism take over. That mentality creeps in with little resistance. It takes old-fashioned work to ward it off.

Such work becomes both easier and more effective with the right approach. I’ve got a post I’m working on that deals with the importance of having a “Way” and this is kind of a prelude to that. As part of the process of finding my own Way I worked up a ten-word summation of my ideal philosophy:

Deal with it when it comes up. Compartmentalize. Move on.

Deal with it when it comes up. Not before and not after. Forecasting is a waste of resources, but so is avoidance. Handle it either right now or as close to right now as feasible.

Compartmentalize. Put it in its proper place. Give it only as much weight as it truly deserves (which is often not very much at all).

Move on. You’re after something, aren’t you? Don’t give in to distractions and burdens. 

I can’t say I always do this. I can’t even say I’m always capable of doing this. But it’s what I’m after. Eventually I want this approach to be my default setting and I’m constantly reminding myself to take steps to get there.

What about you? If you had only ten words to define your ideal approach to handling bullshit (however you choose to define it), what would they be?

(Ed. note: this is cross-posted with my Charm City Current Blog, Gentlemanly Means Pursued)

Slant Six Creative and Orange Element present:

“For every person, a story.”

Join us on Thursday, Feb. 17 for an open-mic, freeform evening focused on stories and the people who tell them. The format is simple: arrive by 7 pm, sign up to grab 3-5 minutes of open mic time, and speak your mind. 

Your time can be used any way you see fit. Among the possibilities: 

• Show-and-tell
• Read from your novel, your screenplay, your poetry, your next blog post
• Talk about the interesting encounter you had last week at the grocery store
• Play a song
• Act a scene
• Go on record about your Big Plans
• Honor your parents or grandparents by retelling their favorite tales
• Share a recipe
• Share and overcome your small frustrations

Really, it’s whatever you want and need it to be. The goal is to provide a cordial environment where storytelling takes both literal and figurative center stage.

Everybody has a story to tell and something interesting to say. This is an event designed to provide a forum for doing just that.

Not interested in speaking? No problem. You’re still welcome — feel free to show up, have a beverage, and enjoy the scene.

Oh, yeah: no cover charge.

Where?

The Windup Space in Station North in Baltimore (map/info)

When?

Thursday, February 17. Signup for speakers begins at 7 pm. Showing and telling begin at 8.

***

If you have any questions just drop me a line. Hope to see you there!

Been awhile since I updated here, but there’s a good reason for that: staying busy. Along those lines I’m pleased to announce that I’m about a month into the relationship with my newest client, Bmore Media (a division of Issue Media Group), and things are going great.

Here’s the story so far:

Bmore is a weekly online magazine with a broad goal of telling alternative narratives about cities. Rather than dwelling on the negative, the idea is to use a combination of news reporting and more narrative-oriented features to help bring to light the stories of innovators, doers, and folks making a difference.

I hooked up with the IMG/Bmore team a little over a month ago as they were searching for someone new to handle the local duties of Managing Editor. Essentially what that entails is managing the publication’s content strategy, working with writers, doing some feature writing, editing, and generally overseeing the vision and brand.

That’s a lot of moving parts, yes, and it has been at various points quite challenging. But I’m very much enjoying the opportunity to shape a young brand and bring my vision for content and content strategy to fruition, one week at a time.

I hope you’ll check it out and give me your feedback. 

I got to thinking today about just how many channels of communication I enjoy and how often they connect with people I’ve mostly never met. There’s this site for my business. There’s Twitter for everything. There’s Facebook for a few things. There’s my sports site The Loss Column and there’s Gentlemanly Means Pursued for thoughts on culture, creativity, Americana, and etc. Through these and other efforts I have, over the years, gained an audience.

What if I picked one day and just went nuts? Indulged every crazy idea, got snarky and angry and gave in to every bad impulse? Said out loud all the things I’ve thought privately? Could I ruin everything I’ve built? Maybe. But maybe not.

It’s a question of attention. Whenever I post something I try to stay aware that it reflects on who I am and what I do, each piece playing a role in defining and cementing my identity. Many people “know” me only through these channels. And yet…

So much information gets traded in the ether that there’s no way the vast majority of it ever registers. We have large audiences in theory. So what? The question is, who is actually listening? Probably not as many people as we’d like to think.

The hard truth is that much of the audience just happens to be there. They like us well enough, probably. On the whole though, good or bad, they can likely take it or leave it. That’s the new reality and the quicker we come to terms with it the better.

The strategy, then, is to formulate the things we say with an eye to either the folks we know are listening or to folks we’d like to turn into listeners. One size should not fit all.

The whole audience is important to a point, but most of them won’t be there when it counts. Most of them aren’t actually “there” at all. 

If you head out and grab a copy of the latest (as of press time) copy of Wired Magazine you’ll find contained therein one of my latest projects: a collaboration with longtime partner in crime Daniel Krall to produce a comic book-style advertising piece on behalf of Yahoo! and their suite of mobile apps.

To see it you can download a pdf here or visit this site.

This was an awesome project to work on. The assignment went like this: come up with a modern superhero story that integrates Yahoo!’s products in a fun, interesting way. We had three pages to work with — one splash page for the front and two panel-based pages from there. 

I sat down with Daniel and we brainstormed for a couple of hours before settling on an approach. From there I wrote the script, which Daniel and I then discussed and revised. After that we submitted it to Wired, then we all collaborated with Yahoo! to make the pieces fit.

We had to act and think fast. Daniel, in particular, put in effort above and beyond anything that I thought a single man could accomplish. Lots of late-night emails and revisions and discussions and phone calls. Lots of strategic back-and-forth. Lots of balancing acts as we all worked toward the same goal. That’s how it goes.

Eventually, we got there. The finished piece both meets the client’s needs and speaks to the intended audience in a way that we believe to be both effective and interesting. Which is, after all, the whole point.

I could repeat this process again and again and be happy each time. There’s nothing better than collaborating with talented people and seeing it all come together. Awesome.

My wife and I brainstormed, debated, surfed the web, and here you go. Mystery solved.

Akzidenz-Grotesk (Bold Extended weight), a precursor to Helvetica. More info at Wikipedia and Typophile. 

(quote from Jerry Della Femina – source)

Gentlemanly Means Pursued is an attempt to curate modern life in service of those who seek to live it better. Among that which you’ll find here: substance, style, handmade and/or artisanal goods and services, thoughtful approaches to complex problems, an appreciation for fine artifacts, and worthwhile dispatches from culture both high and low.

I’d been looking for a place to do some more arts/culture writing but was wary of starting up another site. When Nancy from the Sun approached me about writing for Charm City Current, promising that it could be about “pretty much whatever you want,” the pieces all started to fit.

I’ll probably post links here to a lot of what I do there, but I’d also ask that you bookmark it and/or grab the RSS feed. If you do, you’ll always be one of the first to dig the new stuff. Such as today’s post, Writing Tips For Modern People. A sample:

Don’t get too cute.
Use exclamation points sparingly. Use emoticons very sparingly, if at all. If you’re older than 22, start to weed out phrases like LOL and OMG. Keep your sentences on the short side.

I’m planning on having some fun with it and I hope you’ll join me.

More announcements soon…