Make the coffee, check the RSS, groom the avatar, freshen the blog, make nice with the Twitter, now it's time to ... do the same thing again. Meanwhile your job/project/spouse/story sits there, staring at you with big cow eyes and wonders if you will ever leave the grid and do something real, something productive, something that will yield cash money and not just more followers on Twitter. Most of us work alone in a room, armed with a desktop that is more powerful -- and distracting -- than entire offices a decade ago, and yet the actual throughput of an average day can be negligible. Let's talk to some people who have actually done things -- written books, built businesses, created technology -- about their process. Do they have a clear, bright line between consuming media and producing it? Is it best to have multiple streams on one screen or toggle between to stay on task? Do they have a day part when they are off the grid? And why do great ideas come in the shower? Let's figure out whether the Web is the greatest productivity tool ever invented or a destroyer of initiative and long thoughts.
Anthony is a Proposition Leader at Reuters Media working on strategic partnerships in print, online and broadcast media. The Media Solutions Team at Reuters Media is developing the next generation of media publishing, aggregation and management tools.
The New York Times declared him "The undisputed King of Tumblr" based on soupsoup.tumblr.com which according to Compete is in the top 25 of over 2.3 million tumblogs and among the top 200 blogs in the world listed on Technorati. Mashable named it one of the best tumblrs of 2008. On Feb 23, 2010, it cracked the Technorati Top 100.
Anthony has contributed his writing to Reuters, Gawker, Mediaite, BrandChannel, IFC, and SB Nation.
Carr writes, tweets, blogs and vids about media and culture at the New York Times. In his spare time, he thinks about why he has no spare time. Carr is the author of "The Night of the Gun," a reported memoir, and one of the subjects of "Page One," a documentary directed by Andrew Rossi which will be screened at SxSW. Carr is active on Twitter, but is the mayor of taking a disco nap on foursquare.
Molly McAleer is a writer and Internet personality living in Los
Angeles. She has produced web series and videos for AOL/HBO's
ThisJustIn, Gawker, Defamer, Jezebel, Fleshbot, Idolator, Film.com and
Teen.com. Her writing has appeared on TV.com, EvilBeetGossip,
TheSmokingJacket, ScreenJunkies and The Awl, amongst others. She's also really beautiful and funny and has been told endlessly that whatever "it" is, she has it.
Ta-Nehisi Coates is a Senior Editor for The Atlantic. He blogs for the site and writes for the magazine. Coates has written for The New York Times, The Times Magazine, The Washington Monthly and The Atlantic.
