Writing

Some of you may have figured out by now that I’m blogging over on Penn-Olson.com, an up-and-coming blog focused on technology in Asia. Think Mashable or Techcrunch but with an Asian focus. It means that I get to cover China again, something I haven’t done much of since moving leaving China for Japan back in 2008. But above all else it means that I get to experiment with new web publishing tools, something I seldom get to do when writing freelance for individual clients.

If you were following my Twitter stream recently, you may have seen some messages I sent out as I was covering some volleyball matches here in Tokyo. Reporting on International volleyball presented a couple of problems right off the bat for me:

Just so there's no confusion -- I'm not a trained journalist, nor have I ever worked inside a traditional newsroom. Having said that, I think that part of the reason that I manage to find some writing work these days is because I'm doing things a little differently.

A few of you may have noticed last week that my CNet blogging days have come to a end. This was a tough decision for me to make because CNet Asia has really been fun over the past few years, and I don't have anything but praise for my editor and the other CNet bloggers. When asked to recommend a replacement I couldn't think of anyone better than Hideki Francis Onda, and I was delighted that he was willing to take over in my place. Do check him out.

I don't do stuff like this very often, but last night I had a chance to spill my guts to about 30 or 40 people on a topic that I've kinda been obsessing over for quite a while. I've met a lot of people who write for a living over the past few months, and I always find myself recommending certain tools or a workflow tweak to help them do what they do a little bit better.

Maybe I gush about this stuff too much, who knows...