August 2007 Archives

One of my coworkers, Doug
, passed me a link to an article by Jakob Nielsen titled "Write Article's, Not Blogs
." The basic suggestion of the article is summarized as "To demonstrate world-class expertise, avoid quickly written, shallow postings. Instead, invest your time in thorough, value-added content that attracts paying customers." On the face of it, this does seem like good advice, but it makes a basic assumption that is false: blogs and articles fill the same role in business.

Now, to be fair, Nielsen does point out that blogs have value in business and we may not be that far apart in our opinions. However, I still must disagree on his statement that a serious business person should "not [spend] the effort to post numerous short comments on ongoing blogosphere discussions." He suggests that such time would be better spent writing serious and well-researched articles rather than short blog-style posts on topics. He suggests that this will result in more revenue for the serious business person because it avoids "commodity status."

The main disagreement I have is that this sort of statement is like saying that newspapers shouldn't have editorials, but only serious articles. Newscasts should only provide commentary, and skip general reporting. Football quarterbacks should focus on passing and give up running plays. Limiting yourself to a single dimension in your writing can also tell your audience that you don't care about what anyone else is saying, that you are the expert unto yourself. I find myself unimpressed with the sort of expert that can't find value in or contrast himself with the opinions of someone else. The kind of expert that is only capable of writing articles and not able to make concise and witty remarks without the aid of research.

Therefore, I say write blogs when you that's the appropriate medium for the message you have to deliver. If you read an interesting article and want to commend or disagree with the author, this is a blog. If you have an interesting discussion with a client that reveals something about your company's core values, write a blog. If you want to talk about something you see on the horizon as becoming a serious topic of discussion in the next year or two, write an article. There's nothing lost in short blog posts when applied to the right content. However, I do agree with Nielsen that far, serious writing requires a good and well-researched article.

Cheers.

This is a personal blog post that's purely for my own therapy. If you find it interesting, great, if not, you've been warned. I've been considering where I want to be in 5 years. I wouldn't say I'm dissatisfied with my current work. In fact, I quite enjoy most of it. However, I'm not sure it's leading me in the direction I want to be in 5 years. Of course, I haven't the foggiest idea what I want to be doing 5 years from today. I was in much the same position 5 years ago while working toward my M.S. in Computer Science because I didn't really know what to look for in a job and a nearly free M.S. seemed like a good idea at the time (and was an excellent idea in hindsight).

So what do I want to do in 5 years? I have a few vague notions. I want to work at least 50% of the time on Open Source software, which I already do. That's important to me for a number of reasons that I won't go into here. I would like to be working using Perl as my primary language (being the language snob that I am---as Seth likes to point out). I'd say I'm almost there currently too. I would like to still be in Kansas, though I wouldn't mind being in Kansas City or out of Manhattan, though I do love Manhattan quite a bit.

I'd also like to work in an environment surrounded by at least a few of my peers, which is certainly not the case currently. OSCON was nice for the fact that I was surrounded by software developers like myself. I also find my current work environment to be very structured, which I knew I was getting into, but it still chafes. I don't like cubicles. I don't like regular hours. I don't like wearing slacks and a polo, particularly when I could be wearing shorts and a T-shirt. The level of meetings at work is a little higher than I'd consider ideal, but that's not too bad. I miss having a whiteboard, which is something sadly lacking in the office.

I miss having my own office, though that wouldn't be too bad if I could spend more time out of my cubicle... I mostly don't like the cubicle. I was very pleased when we rearranged cubicles, but now that I've had it for this amount of time it's not quite what I want. I miss having an office where I can close the door and work with the music loud enough to penetrate. Some of my best work has been done with the music at an almost unpleasant volume and headphones just don't quite add the same feel to the mood.

I would like to be able to take "time off" from work to focus on a toy project. If I could take 2 weeks off once or twice a year and separate myself from the office to focus on something, that would be great. I would also like to be involved in hackathons and even travel to participate in a few. I haven't had the privilege of being involved in enough of that sort of thing before.

I do miss teaching a bit, but I do not miss the grading. I wouldn't mind giving seminars and such more regularly. Yet, I despise grades and particularly despise giving grades. I always thought I hated school, but it turns out that I just hate the metrics that school performance is judged by. I'd rather be judged by accomplishments than whether the teacher thought I was paying attention. Whether that's really what grades are or not, that's how I've always felt about them. I feel similarly about training. I don't mind giving the lesson, but I don't like being responsible for making sure everyone understands. I'd rather just deliver the information and let everyone do whatever they want with it.

I want to work on building frameworks and applying those frameworks. I don't particularly care if my software is web software as it mostly is now. I don't mind GUI development and games are fun and I really like tool development. I'd really need to be involved in building a GUI library or a gaming toolkit or building a compiler while using each of those to an application, a game, or other programs at the same time. This is why I'm attempting to spend my time split between improving Jifty and writing applications in Jifty. The combination of theory and application is very appealing to me. I was equally attracted to Parrot when I could use it to develop materials for my Computer Architecture course.

For the past 3 years or so, I've had a sense of discontent with my current circumstances. It comes and goes, but tends to come more than goes. I've attempted to overcome this unease a number of times, but it's hard to shake that "It just doesn't feel right" feeling. And no, this doesn't have to do with working for consultants. ;)

Well, I can't really think of anything else to write, so I guess that's about it for today.

Cheers.