Welcome to Vadimus Post
By Denis Campbell • Aug 8th, 2008 • Category: FeaturesWhat’s in this name? Everything. It took three months to find one not squatted upon by someone like the guy who sold Pizza.com for £1.3 million pounds, we wanted something that conveyed our desire to dig deeper into news, open a dialogue and epitomised moving forward together. When every Greek, Latin, Sanskrit or Taino (indigenous Caribbean language) quotable quote was taken (even this URL sans the word “Post”), it was time to resort to a favourite telly references. Too, Latin scholars will flame the name for its lack of grammatical correctness but please read on.
Vadimus Post was inspired by “Quo Vadimus,” the final episode of Aaron Sorkin’s 1st television series Sportsnight. This was the first of many fast-paced, behind-the-scenes telly series he produced. It examined a 24-hour sports network’s (NOT ESPN’s) evening news show (NOT SportsCenter – in the same way Studio 60 is NOT Saturday Night Live and The West Wing was NOT the Clinton White House).
In this episode, the network’s purchaser becomes known. The investor, who befriended Sportsnight’s producer, tells her to daily ask her people “Quo Vadimus,” Latin for “where are we headed?” He asks this of all of his teams to make sure everyone remains on course.
Since most news organisations have no clue which course they are taking and rather are driven along the tide, they simply try to keep up. This reminds one of the old pilot joke, “I’m not sure where we’re going, but we’re making great time.” Every news organisation has a website and multiple blogs. Blogs are so plentiful, they are becoming overweight dinosaurs awaiting the asteroid.
Conventional newspapers and 6:00 or 10:00 pm newscasts are now called appointment television and their average audience is 61 years old(!) These are the dinosaurs walking around after the asteroid hit or the chicken just after the head was severed and the body has not gotten the signal yet.
News today is instant, interactive or dead. We choose what we want to see when and certainly don’t want to view large advert spreads or get our fingers dirty on poor quality ink, so many go to the paper’s website and those are often the poor relation, absent photos or real interaction.
E-mails, RSS and XML feeds cross desktops around the globe so people can customise what news they get where and when. Most news organisations regurgitate items picked up on wire services.
We’re here bring different and deeper perspectives, ask questions and engage in dialogue. So relax, kick back, grab a cuppa and dig in.
Denis Campbell is a journalist, author and businessman.
From a farmhouse in South Wales overlooking the Irish Sea, he and his wife run Target Point Ltd, an EU-wide strategy firm working with global businesses across a dozen industries on clarifying and executing strategy and changing their culture and focus. As a businessman living in the EU for 10-years, writing was a passionate hobby. He began blogging in 2006 with a number of pieces examining the corrupt climate of deception in the billion dollar spiritual self-help industry and re-published collected business, political and lifestyle features published across the EU since 2001. It has since grown into The Vadimus Post, from the Latin Quo Vadimus – where are we headed? (…and do we know why?), a daily e-magazine for those wanting to dig deeper, learn more together and dialogue on the key issues of the day.
Thanks for visiting and feel free to let me know your thoughts and opinions.
Email this author | All posts by Denis Campbell
