"Good Beats Innovative"

Dad used to say, "To guarantee success, you've got to be either first or best." This great article explores that same idea.

The nature of the long hiatus

It's been almost a year and a half since I posted. It seems tedious to explain why, but I suppose there are two arenas: personal and professional.

One, I began blogging more seriously at the office. I write a more-or-less daily blog on the intranet and an almost-monthly posting on the company social site; often writing begets more writing, but many details I can't post publicly so it was simpler to let this blog lie.

Two, I pursued some extra responsibilities at the office and, as a consequence, got a significant promotion, involving more responsibility again; more responsibility means less time, which means fewer words when it comes to personal blogging.

Three, a relationship in which I had invested some hopes ended suddenly in October 2008 and I was a bit preoccupied. I've written about it in some other venues and have no wish to recount it here; but for a long stretch afterward I wrote about this subject and no other, and became so sick of my own words that I cultivated silence for a few months -- no personal blog posts anywhere.

So, not much to this post other than that.