Archive for May, 2007

• 5.9.07 "Good, Sharp People and Making a Difference" is posted in Reflections, Work & Career

In light of the conversation surrounding the last post, I think I can sum up what makes me happy in two thoughts: good, sharp people and making a difference.  That’s really it–in both my career and my relationships. It’s about playing a noticeable role in good, sharp people’s lives or working with good, sharp people to make a difference.

So this doesn’t sound particularly revealing–don’t we all want these things to some degree?  I think by getting a little more specific I can make more sense of this…maybe even learn something from using these two ideas as guides.

Let’s start with business. (more…)

• 5.5.07 "Ambition Creep" is posted in Best Of, Reflections, Work & Career

In the software world they talk about too many features making it into a product thereby diluting its core functionality. This makes the software experience confusing and less valuable to its users. The term for this is feature creep. The same can be said of ambition–there are so many things to do with our lives and we can’t possibly do all of them well. We may try though, and at a certain point we can lose focus and stray from both what we’re good at and what we really enjoy. Then, looking back, we might wonder whether it was worth it to start down so many paths rather than traveling far on one of them. I feel like I’m constantly subjected to this ambition creep.

Last year I redid this blog and started technotheory, hired two new people, refocused the business on Office design as much as Office training. And personally I joined two new book clubs and resolved to hold some sort of party once per month. Here I am in May of 2007 with all these new things to maintain that I still believe in, and I want to do so much more. I want to start a social group in DC that’s passionate about technology more in the way people are in the Bay Area. Next month I start a series of business-oriented classes with the Board of Trade. I want to hire more people. Oh, and I want to take guitar lessons, dance lessons, and an extended vacation. By the way, there’s that new Murakami book, The Four Hour Work Week, the new CS3 suite to play with, and… (more…)