Happily Imperfect June 2008

Starting Backwards

The last week or so I’ve been pulling together a strategy presentation.

Backwards.

It all started when I realised that I need a place to dump some thoughts and concepts, things I knew were related but didn’t know how or why. Most of these were simple diagrams, or short sentences. I’m not sure why I choose powerpoint, I guess I knew that at some point I’d need to present these ideas as a cohesive whole.

So without planning it I soon had a batch of somewhat related slides, but which had no audience and certainly no idea of structure or story.

The slides include diagrams of how we are planning on storing our content once we have chunked it all into topics, quotes around the changing role information is playing in the workplace and as part of the product set, details of our current build system and how it needs to improve, lists of metadata, analyst suggestions with implementation ideas of how we can put them into action, thoughts on the change of writing style required to move to topic-based authoring, and so on and so forth.

It’s a big grab bag of everything and anything that we’ve thought about, or will need to consider as we change both how we work, and what we do for the company. I’m pretty confident it will be something we can re-use over and over again, shuffling the slides in and out depending on the audience, and I’m certain it will prove worthwhile both internally and externally.

Mind you I’ve just realised that there is one word that doesn’t feature as strongly as it should. Conversation. That will come as soon as I start to add in some thoughts around the developer community website I’m currently building (which in turn has reminded me to beef up the training material angle.. ack!).

What’s really encouraging is that, despite the unconventional approach it’s all starting to make some sense as a cohesive whole, and I think the range of information it covers will help us focus in on various things we’ve not fully considered (or considered at all) and once we’ve done that it will only take a bit of slimming down to be ideal for communicating our plans to the rest of the company.

Typically when thinking of planning I start to think in more traditional terms, breaking down the work needed into actionable chunks. However this time I let my mind race and wander across all the myriad of topics that it needed to consider, captured as much information as I could and it’s only now that I’m starting to step back and survey what I’ve created.

As a process it’s a bit ramshackle but sometimes it’s good to step off the well-worn path and try something new. So next time you are considering future plans and strategies, why not start them backwards?

June 5, 2008

Ohh it's just a phase…

I wasn’t planning on following up the previous post, but given the amount of time people have taken to respond, and how thought provoking those responses were/are I think I should take a moment to address a couple of things.

Like Pete, says:

I go through phases where I use the computer a lot, and then I go through phases where I avoid it as much as possible. I have phases where I watch films, and then I have phases where I don’t. Phases where I read books, phases where I don’t. Computer games, don’t. Watch TV, don’t.

So with that in mind I’m not overly concerned at my current computer apathy, and as usual simply expressing my thoughts here tends to alleviate the gravitas I’m (subconciously) placing on them. However there is probably something else that is hiding underneath all of this, something Louise spotted (apparently she has a good understanding of how I’m wired… who knew! 😉 ).

Basically whilst it is just a phase, it’s currently feeling more acute as I’m not just bored with the amount of time I spend on the computer, I’m also kinda bored of everything else that normally fills the gaps in my time. TV, boring. Movies, mostly boring. Books, boring, Wii, boring and so on and so on.

The common factor is that, typically, I’d do those activities in isolation, which makes it kinda obvious that what I’m really needing is to join a club or something, find some way of expanding my social horizons. I’m considering taking a course in digital photography or somesuch, but I’ve said as much before and it’s never happened.

Probably because, like I’ve said, this is just a phase.

Actually, thinking about it, aren’t “phases” something teenagers have … have I really not grown up yet?

On second thoughts, don’t answer that.

June 4, 2008

Once there was a man

The man was once a boy, and that boy remembers sitting in front of a large cream box which had a keyboard of mainly dark keys with a row of red ones at the top. He wasn’t sure why the television people had made such a thing but he enjoyed watching the items on screen move under his control.

A few years later that same boy was sat in front of a grey box which had a little smiley face on the screen when you turned it on. It made funny noises and took small rigid discs into a slot on the front just under the screen and had a keyboard and a mouse, all in the same colour. It had a little brightly coloured logo on the front and he remembers that the entire operating system fitted onto a floppy disc (an oddly named item that, by that time, was no longer floppy).

He used similar beige boxes for a few years and before he knew it he was working in an office and was using one all the time. It was grey and had was a little different to the ones the boy had used for all those years. He soon learned how to use it as it wasn’t that different from all the other ones he’d used before, although it was a little more confusing, even more so when a few months later he got a new thing for it which was even more different. But then it was 1995.

Since then the boy has finally realised he is a man, and until recently has stuck with those same kinds of computers, the one he uses at work was the same as the one at home and he learned many tricks to using it efficiently. He continues to use it at work and at home, but now he also has a different type of computer at home, one which reminds him of those early days and the smiley face and coloured logo. When he got the new computer he was quite excited, and spent a little too much time just faffing about with it but now he’s settled down and both the new computer and his old computer exist side-by-side happily.

However in the past few months the boy who is now a man has realised something. It’s not a new thought, and he’s pretty sure the purchase of the new computer put it to the back of his mind for a while, but he’s realising that these boxes, with all their wonderous capabilities, are starting to bore him. It may be what he is doing with them that is the problem, perhaps he is stuck in a rut and needs to reconsider how he spends his time but he now looks at his computers and sees what they really are, tools.

He wonders if he is bored of these things. Bored with staring at them all day, bored with how he uses them, and he wonders if he should put them away or embrace them fully and explore their hidden depths. He knows he will always come back to them regardless, but perhaps now is the time to refocus, rethinking and reconsider.

He wonders if he will ever return to the glee of seeing his first pixels dance across the screen, he wonders if this is a temporary lull like the ones before him, he wonders why he continues to return to this thread, suggesting there is something deeper, a fundamental realisation he has yet to grasp.

He decides to stop for now and wait and see what happens as, the boy now knows, time helps everything.

June 3, 2008

Caption required

June 2, 2008

A suburban weekend

Isn’t it amazing what a difference a little bit of sunshine can make, offering us a glimpse of another life, a different way of living. Memories of holidays rush to the fore, from the early morning birdsong to the dusky barbeques and glasses of cold wine, droplets of condensation glistening as they race each other down the stem.

Of course living in a suburban cul-de-sac there are certain things that need done on such a weekend and so the air is soon filled with the buzz of lawn mowers, the rip of hedge trimmers. People pottering around their gardens filling the air with the sounds of summer; a tranquil busy-ness fills the air.

Evening descends and the smells of summer build, the heady fragrance of a million blooms is joined by charred burgers and seared chicken. The clink of cutlery and laughter of friends join the throng, rendering past and future days invisible. The mood is light, playful and friendly, neighbours chat over fences, lowering their guard, everyone is smiling.

Such is the power of the sun.

We all know it will be gone by Monday, with tidy gardens, clean cars, and leftover food the only reminders. Watching the skies as the week progresses we hope for a repeat.

June 1, 2008