Blogging

“Little by little, one travels far” J.R.R. Tolkien Theresa Shafer, one of my partners in SKMurphy, advised me recently that “most powerful insights are simple.”  It was by way of encouragement to simplify and focus my blog posts. She continued her critique:  “If you can’t get your point across in a hundred or two hundred words why do you think another thousand and a half dozen hyperlinks is going to make it any clearer?” You have to take your inspiration where you can find it. I plan to keep my blog posts more succinct in 2011 than years past.

We’re all born late. We’re born into history that is well under way. We’re born into cultures, nations and languages that we didn’t choose. Among all the things we don’t control, we do have some control over our stories. We do have a conscious say in selecting the narrative we will use to make sense of the world.

Mark Zimmerman’s Zhurnaly (“Russian for Journal”) ) is food for the soul. The wiki format allows him to blend a journal, a runner’s diary, a commonplace book, and short essays. I enjoy his insights and his exploration Zen and ongoing self-improvement. It’s worth reading whenever you want to renew your gumption. In “Welcome to 2009” I mentioned that I had read Zimmerman’s zhurnaly: “I recommend it wholeheartedly for entrepreneurs even though it’s written by a physicist with a Zen frame of mind who has taken up marathon running in his 50’s.

(Photo courtesy Ron Ploof)  I had the pleasure yesterday of interviewing Brian Bailey in the Synopsys Conversation Central Stage at DAC. We discussed his roots in verification working with the initial developers of digital simulation tools and his blogging experiences these past few years. There are, of course, even a few comments on the difference between journalists and bloggers You can listen to this half hour interview at the Synopsys Blog Talk Radio site. I’d be interested in your comments on the show and the format as well.