Recently, I had a chance to speak with Clayton Morris, a co-host of Fox & Friends Weekend and a frequent contributor on all things technology-related to the Fox News Channel. Sometimes, he is able to toss some stories in there about another passion of his, the paranormal! He also is the co-creator of the speed-reading app Read Quick for the iOS, an app that allows users to quickly consume their daily reading list, getting all the information they need without wasting the entire day in the process. We discussed how he has built his brand and used it to influence the success of his app, what reading quickly means to those in news media, and how the technology works to allow any user to become a speed reader.
When asked what he would define to be his personal brand, Clayton paused, and remembered what Fox had told him when he was hired. “They told me to just be myself. I have a great job because I am able to play with technology on the air, or talk about the paranormal or a UFO sighting, which some people would think is crazy, but I love it.” The idea of being yourself I think is a key to having a happy and healthy career. It isn’t so much that you are always loving what you are doing, or are super-passionate about it. Of course, in this case he seems to be, and that is a plus. But if you can be the same person you are at work as you are at home, it takes away a lot of stress and anxiety that comes with “playing the part.” Clayton is able to fill a void for Fox by not pretending to be someone else, and that will resonate with viewers.
Aside from his on-air persona, Clayton is the co-creator of a very hot app for the iPhone and iPad called Read Quick, which gives users the ability to, well… read quickly. Clayton has admittedly been obsessed with the idea of speed-reading since he was very young, and becoming a broadcast journalist certainly exacerbated that passion. In my experience interviewing other reporters like Brian Kilmeade (Fox News) and Ali Velshi (CNN, now Al Jazeera US), one of the most interesting issues is how they are able to stay up to date on everything that is going on in the world. Usually, the answer has to do with having a great research team supporting them, and specific alerts set up catering to the topics they primarily focus on. However, in today’s world of hyper connectivity and innovation, especially in Clayton’s focus area of technology, it is literally impossible to keep up with everything that is going on. Which made the concept of Read Quick particularly appealing to him and his team. “The app allows you to read the news, one word at a time, blazing-fast. So an article that would take you an hour to read, you can get through in under 10 minutes. It is extremely useful for my job.”
The way the app works is as follows:
You can sign in with whatever news source you want, so you can go to Fox News for example (free plug for you there Clayton!)
Thanks to Clayton for taking the time to share it with me, and to share his own experiences. I look forward to watching his continued success from afar. You can get the Read Quick app on the iPhone and iPad for $4.99, which as Clayton points out, goes to support a team of developers that have created it and continue to improve its performance. and open a news story in Read Quick. The app will then present the article to you one word at a time at an extremely fast rate. It does this so that your brain can focus on the topic at hand, and not get sidetracked by all of the extra nonsense that comes when reading an article, such as banner ads, or images, or email, or other tabs you may have open. And there is a science to it. Research shows that your comprehension rate goes up significantly when consuming information in this way, because your brain sees the words as photographs, and the app is able to get rid of the clutter so you can focus. If you are someone who has a need to consume massive amounts of information quickly, which is pretty much all of us, this app is certainly worth checking out.
