Meg Cox, the Wall Street Journal reported who interviewed me said that among all the people in the world involved in this new pastime, my name kept popping up. This person who went by the moniker, “Abraham Lincoln.” More curious than anything, she called and asked to speak to, you guessed it, “Abraham Lincoln.” My wife, Pat, replied, “May I ask who is calling?” “Meg Cox, from The Wall Street Journal,” she answered. Pat mouthed the words, ‘Wall Street Journal,’ and handed me the phone.

“Hello, this is Abraham Lincoln,” hesitantly. That began my only conversation with the reporter from that famous publication.

When the story appeared in print; the phone calls began, starting with the East Coast and working throughout the Time Zones to California. The problem was: We didn’t have a telephone number listed and my daughter, “A. Lincoln” did.

Jerry Leiber, the local postmaster, was stunned to see my name in The Wall Street Journal. When I walked into the post office he was all smiles and said nice things about me in front of customers. Among the comments I still remember is, “Abraham is the only businessman in this area to make the front page of The Wall Street Journal.”

I didn’t really consider myself a businessman since I had no store front and employed no people. My wife, Pat, worked with me in the business but I would not count her as an employee. She owned half of the stock in the company and was my equal in more ways than one—she ran it.

The article was on page 1 in the newspaper and was long enough to be continued on an inside page. My name wasn’t even in the first part, which is a good thing, but it was in the last couple of paragraphs. There it told about my new company, “Calligrafree,” and the supplies we sold, and my role in the promotion of scribes around the world.

That was about it. But the fact is that the last thing you read is really what you remember when you read a newspaper. And if the last paragraphs have unique information of some kind then it is sure to be remembered and the first parts are forgotten. Newspaper publishers and editors and journalism schools have yet to figure that out.

One of the things in that story is something I still remember—Hula Hoops and Pet Rocks. I am old enough to remember seeing Pet Rocks in the most exclusive department store we had—Rikes, at the then new, Salem Mall.

Rikes and everyone else sold those gaudy plastic hoops called, “hulu hoops.” People tried to look cool swiveling their hips to make the hoop go round but it was not to last very long. And like “A Lump of Coal” in a draw string sack lots of stores also sold at that time, the whole business went out of business, leaving people with lumps of coal, stones and plastic rings.

One of the persons interviewed for the article, besides me, was a man from Chicago who was then dabbling in writing with a quill feather, said something like – Calligraphy would last like Hula Hoops and Pet Rocks.

When I read that part, it jarred my brains because I was hoping this calligraphy business would put my kids through school; or, buy shoes, bread and butter and pay the school property tax.

I built a new office behind my house using proceeds from a couple of books I wrote for Grumbacher in England. That was in 1981 and I am sitting in it today (February 2011) typing this on an iMac computer.

But that wasn’t the end of it. Since people all over the world knew me, some business people wanted to cash in on it and asked me to do a television show for them. And I agreed to do that. I flew to West Palm Beach, Florida and in 7 days complete 13 television shows – each show lasted ½ hour.

But, in the end, my world of calligraphy came down like the other fads, hulu hoops and pet rocks, and is showing no signs of ever coming back. I lost my enthusiasm for calligraphy primarily because the people who did the TV series for 13 weeks bought my company. And I was not allowed to compete for 5 years. I got sick of it and had a garage sale to get rid of our inventory.

 

Disruptive Technology; Disruptive Telephony or Disruptive Innovation: Understand them ...

You might have noticed now-a-days these jugglery of words getting popular: disruptive technology; disruptive telephony; disruptive innovation or such ....

Are they only the 'fashion use' of English language by the clever Western writers or they have some sense behind too? Who coined them??

Well the answer is that yes, they are the words or set of words having some neat sense behind them and Harvard Business School professor Clayton M. Christensen has coined them!

Why Disruptive technology; disruptive telephony; disruptive innovation?

Clayton M. Christensen coined the term 'DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGY' to describe that ...

... how the modern age cutting edge new technologies are unexpectedly displacing an age old established or old or rather conservative technologies.

For Example: Now-a-days popular VoIP or voice over internet protocol (like Skype etc.) internet telephony is very fast replacing the old wired PSTN or land line phones (cell phones are also doing the same) ... thus VoIP could be said as disruptive telephony!

Sustaining technology versus disruptive technology

Actually in the year 1997 Clayton's best selling book, "The Innovator's Dilemma," divided the new technology into two separate categories, viz.: sustaining and disruptive.

Unlike the disruptive technology, the sustaining tech or innovation does not open the vistas for the new value networks or new markets, but it always tends to evolve along on the lines of existing ones with better values.

Image: http://rustudent.com/

1. A subject clause may be introduced by the conjunctions that, if, whether, because, either...or, etc. or the conjunctive words who, what, which, where, how, why, wherever, etc.. Complex sentences with subject clauses may be of two patterns:
a) When a subject clause precedes the predicate of the main clause: What I want is for you to build me a house.

b) When a subject clause is in final position, the usual place of the subject being occupied by the formal introductory it: It was lucky that she agreed to undertake the job.

2. A predicative clause may be introduced by the conjunctions that, whether, as, as if, as though, because, lest, etc. or the conjunctive words who, whoever, which, where, when, how, why, etc.:

It was as though our last meeting was forgotten.

A predicative clause has a fixed position in the sentence ― it always follows a link verb: to be, to seem, to appear, to feel, to look, to sound, etc., with which it forms a compound nominal predicate: It appears he hasn’t been there.
Note 1. Predicative clauses introduced by the conjunctions as, as if, as though should not be confused with adverbial clauses of comparison introduced by the same conjunctions. A predicative clause immediately follows the link verb. Compare the following sentences:

It seems that there is no cure (a predicative clause).
It seems evident that there is no cure (a subject clause).
Note 2. If both the subject and the predicative are expressed by clauses the principal clause consists only of a link verb: What he says is that he goes away.
3. An object clause may be introduced by the conjunctions that, if, whether, lest, etc. or the conjunctive words who, whoever, what, where, when, why, how, etc.He asked me if I wanted to stay.

An object clause may either follow or precede the main clause: What she thinks it would be impossible to say.

Object clauses may be used after adjectives expressing feeling, perception, desire, assurance: afraid, glad, happy, certain, sure, sorry, pleased, desirous, anxious, aware, etc.: He was glad that no one was at home.

Note: Like subject clauses, object clauses may be preceded by the formal it: I like it when people are nice to me.

An object clause may be joined to the main clause by the prepositions after, about, before, for, of, beyond, etc.: I want to be paid for what I do.

I am glad to tell that I am taking now also this course: http://waucondastore.com/category/text-linguistics/. Sounds like a lot of fun to me.

AtC serve as an attribute to a noun (pronoun) in the PC. The noun is called the antecedent of the clause. Attributive relative clauses qualify the antecedent, and attributive appositive clauses disclose its meaning. AR restrictive C restricts the meaning of the A, so it can't be removed without destroying the meaning of the sentence, not separated by a comma (All that I want from you…).

Introduced by: 1) The relative pronouns "who, whose, which, that, as"; 2) The relative adverbs "where, when"; 3) Asyndetically.

AR non-restrictive C gives some additional information about the A without restricting it, often separated by a comma (Mary, who is a friend of mine, is…). Introduced by: 1) The relative pronouns "who, which"; 2) The relative adverbs "where, when". The A of the continuative clause (which is a variant of ARNRC) is not one word but a whole clause (Her father was not at home, which was a relief to them).

AAC disclose the meaning of the A, which is expressed by an abstract noun; it's not separated from the PC by a comma (She had the idea that he's the one for her). Introduced chiefly by the conjunction "that", occasionally by the conjunction "whether" or by adverbs "how, why".