My week Monday 15 to Sunday 21 July 2013 is not being recorded here. In any event, no media objects were produced, so there’s nothing of importance to link to.
Weekly Wrap 162: A dog, a pause, and an invisible cat
My week Monday 8 to Sunday 14 July 2013 was a continuation of my distinct slow-down, for reasons explained previously.
I still haven’t decided whether I’ll write about that any further. For now, I’ll just say that there’s been suitable initial progress on that front. Many thanks to the people — friends, colleagues and strangers alike — who’ve been in touch.
Meanwhile, as usual, here’s the media-related things I’ve done this week. Not that there were many.
Podcasts
None.
Articles
- Microsoft sucked into ever-growing NSA vortex: who’s next?, ZDNet Australia, 13 July 2013.
Media Appearances
- On Monday, I spoke about NSA and spying on Channel TEN’s The Project.
Corporate Largesse
None. Well, there was some on offer, but I declined. I have heard rumour which suggest that I made the wrong decision.
The Week Ahead
The theme for the coming week is “assessment”. I’ll be be running through the various areas of my life to see where I’m up to, what issues I should perhaps address, and what the possibilities for the future might be. Personal stuff, including my health. Work, both media-related and otherwise. All sorts of stuff. I haven’t done that for a while. I’ve just been cruising along.
In between, I’ll be writing for Technology Spectator and ZDNet Australia, and perhaps some others. I’ll also post another episode of the Corrupted Nerds podcast, fix some problems with the website, and sketch out my ideas for making that a sustainable project.
On Thursday I’ll be down in Sydney for a medical appointment and lunch with a friend. Whether I’ll be staying in Sydney longer than that remains to be decided.
[Photo: Sunday night in the village, being the near-deserted Station Street, Wentworth Falls, earlier this evening.]
Weekly Wrap 161: The black dog and the prodigal umbrella
My week Monday 1 to Sunday 7 July 2013 was another complicated one, as already explained. That’s why this post is very late, of course.
Once I’d gotten the bigger chunks of work out of the way, I pulled the pace back a bit — which I think you’ll agree was sensible.
I was also pleased to see the return of the prodigal umbrella. The excellent umbrella I was given by Verizon Business in Singapore had been left at a noodle bar months ago — but the owners remembered it and me. We were reunited last Wednesday. Also, pho was served.
Podcasts
None.
Articles
- UNSW helps close cloud computing’s can of (legal) worms, CSO Online, 3 July 2013.
- The 10 Commandments of Data Sovereignty, CSO Online, 3 July 2013.
- ATO’s clunky E-tax for Mac highlights cultural problems, ZDNet Australia, 5 July 2013.
Media Appearances
- On Friday, I was interviewed for a segment on Channel TEN’s The Project. However it didn’t air until Monday 8 July, so it’ll get its own blog post shortly, and be included in next week’s wrap.
- On Sunday I was a guest on Reckoner episode three, as already explained.
Corporate Largesse
- On Tuesday I attended the launch of the University of New South Wales’ report Data Sovereignty and the Cloud — A Board and Executive Officers’ Guide at the Sydney offices of law firm Baker & McKenzie. Refreshments were served.
The Week Ahead
It’s almost over, so I’ll just mention that I’ll be writing for ZDNet Australia tomorrow, Friday, and I’ll be returning to the Blue Mountains on Sunday, probably.
[Photo: Sydney Harbour, viewed through a dirty window in the AMP Tower, photographed on 2 July 2013.]
My fish are dead: the black dog ate them (an explanation?)
[This blog post ended up being too long and way too pointless. It was meant to be a simple statement that I’ve just been diagnosed with a depression disorder again — the black dog being a familiar visitor, of course, but recently more seriously, so I wanted to tell friends and colleagues why things might have seemed a bit erratic — but it took on a bizarre 1000-word life of its own. So that’s the main facts dealt with, right here in the preface. But do feel free to read the post — provided you’ve got nothing better to do with your time. Or you like cartoon fish.]
Depression is such an ankle of a thing, and it’s a thing that I’ve got. “Ankle”, you ask? Yeah, it’s an old Australian expression, one that has even been discussed in the NSW Supreme Court. Yes, Depression is an ankle of a thing. It’s three feet lower than a cunt.
That’s certainly set the tone, hasn’t it, boys and girls!
It’s been that kind of a week. Or two weeks. Or a month. Two months? Longer? Yes. Two and a half years, actually. Maybe even longer than that. I really don’t know.
So here’s the story…
Continue reading “My fish are dead: the black dog ate them (an explanation?)”
Busy week, much media, and some changes
What a week! I’ve written five articles. Another two are due for Monday. I’ve done my usual Patch Monday podcast. I’ve done five radio appearances on five different topics. I’ve been interviewed for Phil Dobbie’s BTalk podcast, and that’ll appear next week.
I’ve even been interviewed by an anthropologist for his PhD project. I’m talking to a new editor about more writing. And even — this is weird — to a television production company about a TV project.
That all comes after a month or, really, six weeks or more of travel, intense work, intense and deeply personal events and the tightly-tangled ball of stress, depression and anxiety that can trigger. Which it did.
I’m knackered.
And there’s still plenty of work to do and decisions to make over the next couple of weeks.
I mention all this for a variety of reasons…
- While I do have Weekly Wrap posts, I’ll also do individual posts linking to things like major articles and radio spots. This should make it easier for people to find things they’re interested in, and quite frankly it’s better Google juice. It also gives me more of an opportunity to reflect on each item — like adding a quick personal view to supplement a story that was a straight-news piece.
- There’s about to be a flurry of small posts as I process the week’s radio spots. Consider that a warning.
- I wanted to post at least part of the background before more reflective posts started appearing. I haven’t written much from a deeply personal perspective lately — certainly not like the essays that I was doing a couple years back. This is part of the head-clearing process before I return to that.
I write in so many places these days — ZDNet Australia, Crikey, Technology Spectator, ABC’s The Drum, even occasionally at places like CRN Australia. And, as I mentioned, there’s probably more to come. That’s all writing for other people.
This here is my place, and it’ll be about writing for me.
No, I’m not sure what form that’ll take.
I’m not sure what it even means.
Do those bullet points flow from the intro? No, not really. But that’s where my head is this morning. I’m sure things will become clearer as the day unfolds.
[Photo: That’s me (embiggen) photographed with my webcam just now at Rosella Cottage, the somewhat bigger house that’s the “family home” of the owners of Bunjaree Cottages. It isn’t normally rented out to punters. I’ve been here at the cottages alone for a week, and I haven’t bothered shaving. I’m staring to look like I did before ’Pong and I shot that short film The Shave back in 2008. It’s not a good look.]
“Urgency is poisonous”
Here’s one for a rainy Monday morning. 37signals’ experimental 4-day working week is going very well.
When I first compared this enlightened approach to people-management with the drive-them-harder style of Jason Calacanis, it triggered a massive debate, and I wrote a follow-up comparing the Calacanis approach to an evil cult. Last week 37signals reckoned that urgency is poisonous.
One thing I’ve come to realize is that urgency is overrated. In fact, I’ve come to believe urgency is poisonous. Urgency may get things done a few days sooner, but what does it cost in morale? Few things burn morale like urgency. Urgency is acidic.
Emergency is the only urgency. Almost anything else can wait a few days. It’s OK. There are exceptions (a trade show, a conference), but those are rare.
When a few days extra turns into a few weeks extra then there’s a problem, but what really has to be done by Friday that can’t wait for Monday or Tuesday? If your deliveries are that critical to the hour or day, maybe you’re setting up false priorities and dangerous expectations.
If you’re a just-in-time provider of industry parts then precise deadlines and deliveries may be required, but in the software industry urgency is self-imposed and morale-busting. If stress is a weed, urgency is the seed. Don’t plant it if you can help it.
I can’t agree more. A client phoned once, all a’fluster about an “emergency”. Before I could think, I blurted out the question, “Why? Whose life is in peril?”
Of course no-one was in danger. This client was operating in crisis mode, as usual: that anti-pattern also known as “firefighting mode”: “Dealing with things only when they become a crisis, with the result that everything becomes a crisis.” I’ve written about that before here and with my colleague Zern Liew.