Travelling at the Speed of Thought

So, part of this job means you have to be pretty on your toes when it comes to a wide variety of diverse subjects, everything from sports, to politics, to entertainment, to sex – whatever people are talking about, its like you almost need to be an expert in it.

Almost – not totally.

Clearly, not everyone can be an expert, and not all experts can be experts all the time. Plus, you gotta remember that some people have particular strengths making them more adept at specific subjects. This, from what I’ve gathered, has been a tough hurdle in getting the network up and running – the managers of the TXT-TV moderators have to figure out where to schedule people, and from certain looks I’ve seen around the office, I think this has been a pretty big headache.  

And it’s so vital too – it’s not like people can be thrown anywhere, a balance has to be found. 

All I can say is big props to the people making this happen.

But on our side, we have to become as flexible as possible, to cover for one another, and also to try and get as many hours as possible. There’s the added advantage of being able to focus more on developing the moderator’s ‘character’ once the moderator has achieved a high level of general knowledge about current events and trends. Once that happens, and the focus turns towards character, the managers can determine what characters work best for different shows at different times. It’s not only complicated, but it requires a lot of unspoken cooperation. In sum, it’s a difficult balancing act.

Then there’s just trying to stay on top of what the current trend is.  

For instance, major entertainment news blogs and websites are updated usually about three-four times as often as a major news site. So figure that TMZ keeps their content 3-4 times fresher than CNN or CBC. Fortunately, the boss and the managers picked out some pretty clever and connected people to keep on top of the latest. It should be of no surprise we’re mostly students and under the age of thirty. Man, I grew up feeling like I was a part of Gen-X, but now I find myself on the other side of a technology gap from people in their late-30s! 

WTF? How did it happen? 

My Gen-X cousins showed me how to use a computer, and now I use it better than they can imagine! Now I feel more like my own generation, simply because I know what’s going on that much faster. 

Either way, knowledge is power, and I’m glad TXT-TV is traveling at the speed of thought.