About the Author
My name is Brook Ellingwood and I’ve been a media creator my entire life. I began working with Internet-based media in 1994 and since 1996 it has been my primary work focus. I’ve worked for startups, a huge entertainment conglomerate, the largest consumer cooperative in the United States, highly-respected interactive agencies, and public media.
See also:
The Name
The name “Blue Collar Rocket Science” for this blog came about due to my thinking about why so many businesses struggle with digital media. It occurred to me that when managers are trying to manage things that they have no personal experience with, they can completely misread the type of work that needs to be done. And sometimes, the people they manage deliberately mislead them for their own purposes.
To use digital media effectively in business, you do need some rocket science informing your strategy. Businesses that just launch into digital media without careful thought and consideration invariably crash and burn on the launching pad. Putting something on the web is easy. Putting something on the web that matters takes expertise and focus.
But most of what goes into creating digital media is just work. It’s a blue collar task, turning out content and code that is of the quality necessary to get the rocket into orbit.
To manage digital media effectively, it’s important to understand the difference between the rocket science work and the blue collar work, and to allocate resources effectively. This is probably the hardest thing for managers without a strong background in digital media to get right.
Types of Posts
Since launching the blog, I’ve found it a good place to archive much of the writing of done for the Master of Communication, Digital Media program at the University of Washington. These posts are categorized, naturally enough, as “Master of Communication.” I’ve also written a couple of posts expressing thoughts I have about management and organization. I put these into the category “Punk Rock Guide to Business” which is another thought framework based on my own experiences. At some point, perhaps when I’m done with my Masters, I’d like to expand on these ideas, but for now I’m using the category as a catchall for anything related to “business not as usual.”