Just Another Bloke

Today’s Daily Prompt: “Often, our blogs have taglines. But what if humans did, too? What would your tagline be?”

The tag for my blog is “Just another blog” and that goes with the self-deprecating humour typical in Australia. Of course I don’t really think this is just another blog, I hope that the writing you find here is better than average and that the content pleases and often makes you think.

So what would my personal tagline be? How about “Just Another Bloke”? No, I think not.

On my business card I have the title “The Macintosh Guy”. Over the years I’ve worked at large organisations where most of the computers run Windows and I’ve been supporting or administering a smaller Mac fleet so I’ve often been known as the Macintosh guy, the Mac expert. Seven or eight years ago when I was working support at Sydney University it was a compliment by my fellow workers and I grew to love it. When I was at Newcastle University most of the people I shared an office with tried to make it an insult (yes, they were those sort of people) but by then I owned it so strongly that it never worked.

So that might be a possible tagline. It doesn’t feel right for the Tony Williams that writes here on this blog though. As well as my passion for computers I also have a passion for reading and writing and that’s what this place is for.

Since I learnt to read while on a beach holiday when I was almost four I’ve loved books. My parents and older brother spent a lot of time on that holiday reading and my Mum bought my brother a great magazine called “Look & Learn” and me one called “Treasure” that was mostly pictures with captions. She insists that a the beginning of the fortnight I couldn’t read and at the end I was reading the magazine without help and the hard part was getting me to stop.

When I was at school I was always good at writing essays but I never owned my talent as a writer until I ran into Osmund Iversen.

He was editor of Australian Macworld. I ran into him when I helped him put out a small daily newspaper for Macworld Expo Singapore. I’d asked him if I could have press accreditation for the show and he agreed if I helped him with the page layout software. While there he asked me to write a couple of things as well.

I must have impressed as it was only three weeks after I arrived back in Sydney that he offered me a job as Associate Editor and within a couple of weeks I was just loving it. Writing was a joy and I was learning so much about writing and editing from him and two copy editors.

It was while working there I also learnt I was a good public speaker and practiced my skills. My first success as a public speaker was earlier at my wedding. The Groom’s speech went down incredibly well though at the time I put it down to a kind audience. At the annual Australian Macworld Expo I wrote and gave presentations to a couple of hundred people.

Since then I’ve presented at several conferences and they’ve all gone fairly well and been appreciated.

I’ve also gained appreciation from a number of people for my editing skills. After leaving Australian Macworld I edited three theses for my mother that flew through the supervisors. When I was at Uni as a mature age student several of my fellow students were using me to edit essays and give a little instruction on writing. I had one boss who had me edit her reports to the Board

So the common thread in all of that would have to be words. Reading, writing, editing, speaking – it’s all words. How about a tagline of “The right words in the right order”? No, that doesn’t seem active enough, it might be good tag for the blog but I need some verbs.

“Reader, Writer, Editor”

Still a bit soft. How would Papa Hemingway from our last Weekly Challenge change that? Give it some punch.

“Read. Write. Edit.”

There you go, that’s it.