By PAUL NATINSKY
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A few months ago I pushed back in my desk chair and had a long think about how much things had changed since I began my work life. The dawn of the digital age marked my emergence into the work world. Newspapers and magazines were the main conduits of information. Letter writing was still en vogue. Articles and op ed pieces were strong and authoritative sources of fact and seeds of influence. The written word had a heavy footprint and direct, in person communication skills were highly valued.
Writers back then saved their clippings, forming a sort of no frills portfolio of their careers. In fact, everyone saved reams of paper to ensure a permanent record of what they had done and where they had been. And, of course, to prove that their finances, taxes and other necessities of life were on the up and up.
For me, giving up the paper was difficult. About eight years ago I declared a personal policy titled the “Paperwork and Awful Jerk Reduction Act of 2014.”
The second part of the act was pretty simple and surprisingly easy to do. I just cut all of the lousy, difficult and unethical clients, service providers and subcontractors out of my life, regardless of the cost. There was a bit of initial pain, but the move started paying dividends almost right away in less wasted time, better projects and improved mental health.
The first part of the act, getting rid of all the paper proved much more difficult. I just couldn’t convince myself that that magazine article from eight years ago wasn’t going to be the clip that landed me a great gig. I just knew I would need that exhaustive backgrounder on Medicare for any number of future projects (though I hadn’t looked at it in half a decade). And, of course, I had to keep the tower of boxes housing copies of the newspaper I publish. Perish the thought of me not being able to prove I had worked all those years.
But then I thought, how much have I used any of these things for anything ever and how likely was I to even know what resources were in those boxes? There were so many resources online. My newspaper and just about every other modern publication I could think of was archived online. Statistics and backgrounders were a click away.
So I made the leap. I began tossing, burning and shredding everything—from clippings to bills to background materials. The liberation was, well, liberating. I began to form an uneasy trust with the digital world. My nascent relationship gained strength as I saw my personal finances and new work products born in the digital universe with nary a toe in the ink and paper world.
In the midst of my euphoric pride, I formed a grandiose tableau featuring experienced writers who had evolved to embrace current trends but retained their firm grounding in the tenets of traditional journalism and legacy publishing. I characterized us as speaking digital with an analogue accent, informed by a more rigorous and formal style of communication, while adapting to new technologies and evolving writing styles—blogs, website content, SEO, keywords, and so on. We were that handsome, debonair guy with the Spanish accent and worldly perspective.
We could write the SEO friendly blog post using proper grammar AND interview live sources with corroboration.
Imagine my despair when I read a spate of recent articles detailing how algorithms on sites receiving resumes are set to weed out applicants of a certain age. How companies are now looking for “digital natives.” One story reported that 78% of professionals in their 50s said they have experienced age discrimination. So much for the Latin legacy.
Those who take care of themselves, retain their skills into middle age and continue to develop their skill set can be highly valuable. They bring perspective and maturity to an industry badly in need of both. Any competent veteran writer has had to adjust to changing writing styles and fast-developing technologies their entire career. It’s the nature of communication.
Those with experience and agile minds could be among the best value propositions in the workforce. It’s time for a reevaluation of their worth as they embrace the digital age.