Volume One… Number Four
Contents:
Observation
Macky’s New York Photo Essay
Observation:
Maroons Online Ezine was begun with the best intentions. The goal is to help Ridgewood High School alumni stay informed and connected with one another. Also, to keep them interested in their alma mater during these stressful times. Very few people can imagine what it’s like to try to become better educated remotely. Let alone, how it must feel to try and teach students who are scattered around and quarantined in their homes. Yes, there are many among us who have taken an online course or two. There are also a lesser number who are at this moment attempting to teach others in a remote learning environment. Hats off to both cohorts of alumni. May you soon be back in a normal classroom setting that we all know so well.
As with any new venture there will hopefully be some lessons learned from the effort. In the case of Maroons Online I can offer three lessons to would-be online publishers:
Your subscribers may never see your work. Unless they specifically mark the Ezine sender as a known source of legitimate email, the missive will likely end up in their Spam folder, unread, and deleted after 30 days. I hope this Ezine grows in style and process so that subscribers will remind one another of this sad fact of life on the Internet. In the meantime, we’ll keep pluggin away and remind you in each communication to check your Spam folder.
The software used for publishing an Ezine, in this case Substack, is very sophisticated, even in the free version. I say sophisticated not in the Greek meaning of the word as one who possesses expertise, but in the sense that the software can potentially do much more than advertised. For one thing, as soon as it reaches your email account it sends a message back to the sender that says it has arrived. The software sends another message when it is opened. This isn’t expertise, it is simply standard operating procedure. The lesson learned is to delete your browser cookies, browser history, and understand that software can be used for a variety of purposes beyond sending out an Ezine.
The trust you build with your subscribers is as important as your message, maybe more so. All I can say is that you can trust that we won’t sell your email address or plan some sort of diabolical reconnaissance of your online activities. There are plenty of organizations and individuals doing this already. Just take our word for it and delete your online movements on a regular basis from your computer and your phone.
If you found this Public Service Announcement of some value please pass it along to a friend, hopefully to an RHS alum.
Macky’s New York
Your Macky for today:
March 21, 2017 - looking up at the "awning/marquee" of the H&M store with it's speakers and light bulbs on the south west corner of 34th and Broadway - they say there is a star for every light on Broadway...in this case...let's just agree we are on 34th street and not on Broadway
Time 230pmPeace