humbling

Pepys

Since then traffic has settled down to around 13,500 page views per day (more on weekdays, less at weekends).

Pepys’ 300+ year old diary entries draw almost 200 times the traffic of my weblog. I may make this my start page so I can follow his travels and travails while I endure mine.

new Apple Store location?

new_location.png


I was looking at the job listings and when I pulled the location menu to Seattle, Seattle-University Village popped up. That’s a large open-air retail center, near the U, in an affluent, well-educated area: I can’t imagine a better place for an Apple Store.

weblog as a project management tool

a klog apart

PM as journalism.

[ . . . ]

Project journalism.

PMs cover a beat.

As journalists, PMs interview and research. Their sources are project members and external resources and stakeholders.

PMs verify information, find trends and patterns, dig up urgent and important news.

Reporters use notebooks and tape recorders. Use blogs to organize your notes and sources.

You write status reports, exception reports, issue reports.

You get to the heart of the story, wading through mundane, picking through the information overload.

You communicate clearly. Terse, unbiased, using your voice.

You tailor and route messages to each audience, frugal with their time.

You write headlines with impact, that drive decisions.

You tell stories that create project cohesion, that explain the visions, the plot twists. The truth.

If that’s not journalism…

Yet another reason to lament the limitations of this gig . . . . . I had convinced myself that going from an ASCII newsletter to a weblog would be a slamdunk. I still believe it but is it worth fighting for?

where do you stand?

Political Compass

[My] political compass
Economic Left/Right: -4.38
Authoritarian/Libertarian: -5.85

I expected to be more left than right, and I suppose I’d rather be anywhere but authoritarian, though I think most hardline libertarians are kooks. Being in the same quadrant as Gandhi is OK with me.

surrender

Well, today I came the realization that this job is more purely a secretarial job than I had realized. So I have officially given up. Only 4 weeks into it and I have determined that the best thing I can do for my sanity and my continued employment is to think inside the box at all times. No snazzy web applications, no interesting use of technology to further the mission. No streaming video of speakers and presentations. Instead, lots of MS Office docs and administrative tedium.

I heard griping and moaning about how my predecessor was unable to get the big picture and was holding everything back. I’m not so sure she was the problem after all.

Perhaps we’ll swap stories over coffee since she transferred to another gig at the U.
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