Blogging at work and at home...

I keep getting caught by the trap of thinking that I have to think and plan a really good blog entry and that I have to research all my points and "do them up right" and that I don't have time to do any of that and, hence, my blog doesn't get written to when really the whole point is to just write whatever, but to get in the habit of writing multiple times a week. I hate that it seems that every blog entry starts with a little self-chastizing on this same theme, but it's driving me nuts that I continue to fall for the same "trick" every week -- gotta stop that!

I think I'm going to see if I can set up a machine at work to serve up both a blog and a better wiki. We have a wiki at work, but I think its cumbersome and, hence, we aren't getting full value out of it.

If I do that, I wonder how it'll impact my "public" blogging. Hmmm, I wonder how much I'd be able to blog about things that happen in the company publicly. I have this general idea that I'd like to do some software-philosophy blogging (heh, me and every other programmer with an opinion...) so, I suppose to the extent that my blogs are abstract, I can make them public, then perhaps reference them from the work-blog, perhaps adding "for example, in this situation..." type stuff.

So that could be pretty cool...

I can't believe that there are software shops in companies that depend on software development for their core livelihood (as opposed to just whatever company that happens to do some internal software, too) where there isn't a developer blog.

For that matter, I'm amazed at how hard it has been at my last two jobs to get a group together for weekly lunches out! When I suggest that it's a key communications tool, I often hear "hey, we communicate! Why, just last week, I was over asking Bob a question, and he gave me the answer!"

Folks, that is NOT communicating! I mean, yes, of course it's communicating, but it's not how one stays sharp, how one pushes computer science forward, how one drives one's company to huge successes which will be massively rewarded to those who were instrumental in catalyzing the changes!

Oh, sorry -- I got a little carried away, there.

But still! Don't people get excited about the idea of developing some new idea, new concept, new procedure or innovation that maybe -- just maybe -- no one's ever done before, and makes you and your team "smarter than everyone else"?! Surely I'm not the only developer on the planet who's that egotistical! Yet everywhere I turn I see/hear people who are "just trying to get through this latest fire drill" without any thought to, for example, how they might avoid having more fire drills just like this one in the future.

I suppose a lot of it comes from a sense of hopelessness, that there's nothing us grunts can do to make significant change. Come to think of it, that was the main reason for my leaving my previous company -- while my boss & boss's boss seemed pretty happy that I was making the right kinds of changes, it seemed to me that the big things, the important things, never really changed. It's a little like finally getting the correct measurements of flour and sugar into your bread recipe, but not being able to get anyone with budget-authority to allow correction of the fact that the mixing bowl is chipping lead-paint into every loaf. "Wow, kudos, Ted -- that's some of the best bread we've seen around here in years!" "Yeah, thanks. Uh... don't eat it, it'll kill you." And then I feel guilty for seeming ungrateful for my accolades... <sigh>

Ah well, I'm at a smaller company, now, and slightly higher on the food chain -- a slightly bigger fish in a substantially smaller pond, as it were -- so maybe I'll be able to effect "more important" changes, and feel a deeper sense of satisfaction around that. I certainly hope so -- I'd hate to go through the rest of my career being grumpy all the time...

(That's funnier if you know me; I have a tendency to enjoy pretending to be grumpy and/or bitching about things. I never quite grokked how some people don't understand that imagining how things could be better doesn't mean you're unhappy...)

So, I guess I'll work on starting a company blog. And I'll make sure to make the time to not ignore THIS blog. Maybe combining the two. But not next week -- my daughter's visiting from college, so I'm going to be goofing off with her.

But AFTER that!

[Edit July 25, 2009]

Now I work at home, so at least the conflict part is gone. Yet working at home leaves even LESS time for things like blogs. Maybe I'll get inspired and have something worthwhile to say. In the mean time, I'm growing a business for iPhone development, and have created a wiki to hep new clients through the process of getting their apps developed. It's at http://www.manyfriends.com/wiki/iphone/