Eric D. Brown » Writing

A milestone – 3 years old (not 4 like I thought!)

Eric D. Brown — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 13:00:05 +0000

Update – My original post was titled “A milestone – 4 years old”. Apparently I can’t count I started the blog in 2006 so it’s my blog’s THIRD birthday!

I started this blog on July 14, 2006 with a blog post titled “The Strategic Use of Human Resources“. My first post was an excerpt from a paper I wrote for my MBA program of the same title….not exactly the most exciting stuff in the world but it wasn’t bad.

When I started this blog, I didn’t have a plan. I still really don’t. Many people tell me to pick a topic and focus…perhaps they are right. But that isn’t me. Sure, I can focus….but why should I be forced to do so on my own blog? I see this blog as a place to share my thoughts and help people understand who I am. I write about what I want but try to remain within the Technology, Strategy, People & Projects arena.

I have found a few topics that are of great interest to me. Specifically the intersection of marketing & technology and how enterprise 2.0 (and 3.0) is changing and will change business in the future. I’ve also started off The New CIO series where I’m planning on taking a look at the role of the IT group and CIO from a different perspective. So far, I’ve written 3 The New CIO articles and have plans to write one article per week (released every Thursday). The published articles so far are:

So I’ve finished up 3 years and I’m entering the fourth year and I’m going strong. I passed the 400 posts mark in June (~2 posts per week) and 1000 comments that same month. I also bumped over 1000 RSS subscribers sometime in 2009…but never really saw when it happened. Twitter and friendfeed have helped grow traffic but at the end of the day, this blog isn’t about traffic…its about delivering good content to those that like to read it.

Top 5 Commented Posts

My Top 5 visited posts

Would you be surprised if I told you that the top 5 keywords from Google had to do with the these top posts? Probably wouldn’t be. What are the top keywords?

linear thinking
factors affecting productivity
bludomain
blu domain
sitecore review

So…those are the most visited and commented posts on my blog after 3 years…but what about my favorite posts? Here’s a few (in no particular order):

Hope you’ve enjoyed the time like I have. And I hope to be on here for much more time to come.

Time for a Mid Year Review

Eric D. Brown — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 13:00:19 +0000

2009 is half over and its been a pretty good year so far.

What’s transpired this year?

In February, I put my consulting practice on hold to join the Boy Scouts of America full time after working with them for 1.5 years as a consultant. Previous to starting full-time, I’d been leading the Sitecore Content Management System implementation and since going full-time have been involved in some major technology and marketing initiatives. It’s been fun and an education in how non-profits are run.

I’ve just finished year #2 in the Doctoral program. Only X number of years left (i have no idea what X actually is…probably 3 to 4 more years).

I’ve held up my resolutions for the year fairly nicely. I used the ‘three words’ approach (I learned this from Chris Brogan). My words were: Create, Think & Lead. I’ve written more important stuff (at least to me) on this blog than I used to and I kicked off another blog focused on my photography.

My wife’s photography business is starting to see a bit more life. The economy has taken its toll but we are starting to see a bit more traffic and interest from potential clients.

I’ve disconnected from a lot of things that were taking up way too much of my time. While this has been hard to do, it’s been necessary to allow me to focus on those things that will bring the most benefit & value to me in the future.

What does the rest of 2009 hold? I’m not sure…but I’m positive it will be a good 6 months.

I’m anxious to kick off a few projects that I’ve been thinking about and can’t wait to see the results.

I’ve got a couple interesting side projects that have been brewing for a while…they are looking like they might show some signs of life later this year.

I’ve submitted a few articles & papers to academic journals & trade publications…hopefully I’ll hear back on whether they are accepted for publishing.

How has the first half of 2009 been for you?

Seth Godin – You're Boring

Eric D. Brown — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 02:16:03 +0000

I read Seth Godin’s post titled “You’re Boring” the other day and shrugged my shoulders. OK Seth…most companies and products ARE boring…what’s new? Products have always been boring. So have companies.

I found myself bored with Seth after reading his “You’re Boring” post. In the post, he writes:

You don’t get unboring for free. Remarkable costs time and money and effort, but most of all, remarkable costs a willingness to be wrong

Well Seth..I agree with you but haven’t you been saying this for years? Where’s the new stuff. Have you become boring?

Of course this probably isn’t the most popular sentiment in the world. But…I’m willing to be wrong here.

Seems as if everyone is enthralled with Seth. His book “Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us” still gets a lot of play on the web. You know what? I thought Tribes was kind of boring and didn’t really say much that hadn’t been said before. The book actually felt very repetitious. I had a hard time turning each page. Dare I say I was bored reading the book?

Now…don’t get me wrong…I’m pretty boring myself. Have I said much on this blog that is unique? Not really. But I haven’t made my career telling others they’re boring…Seth has.

Seth – I love ya man but how about something new? Like you say in your post, “Remarkable is a choice”…make a choice please…start saying something remarkable. I don’t want to shrug my shoulders after reading your blog.

I wonder though…how many shrug their shoulders after reading my blog? I’ll be thinkin on that one.

Chris Brogan on Writing

Eric D. Brown — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 01:29:13 +0000

I’m a big fan of writing and I’m always working on improving my writing. I read everything I can find about writing and am always on the lookout for new thoughts on how to improve my writing.

I found an interesting take on the subject written by Chris Brogan titled “Cultivating a Writing Habit“. Great post…jump over and read…I’ll wait.

Chris’ approach is a fairly simple method: Read, Write, Write.

Read – Read more. Read everything you can. Read things that you wouldn’t normally read.
Write – Write all day regardless of whether you are in front of a computer or with paper…write in your head. Think about what you can write and/or how to reword something.
Write – Write daily. Write often. Write as much as you can.

Nothing earth shattering here but Chris does gives us a glimpse into his writing regime.

If you don’t know Chris, look him up…he’s quite well know in the Social Media world and is considered to be one of the SM experts. He’s a prolific writer and his blog posts are always well thought out and well developed…definitely someone to listen to on the subject of writing.

There are some excellent tips on Chris’ blog…great ideas for improving your writing (and mine!).

Resolutions for 2009

Eric D. Brown — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 02:11:51 +0000

My wife just asked me what my resolutions were for 2009. I normally don’t do ‘resolutions’ but the question, and the many blog posts about resolutions, started me thinking.

What is it about the changing of the ‘year’ that gets people into the mindset of making resolutions to do things differently in the ‘new year’?

Well…being the geek that I am, I had to look into it.

I read a few articles about the psychology of new year’s resolutions….two of the more interesting articles were:

The Psychology of New Year’s Resolutions lists some results from a 1998 survey that aren’t that surprising:

most people — 75 percent — who make a resolution fail on their first attempt and most people — 67 percent — make more than one resolution.

Not really that amazing if you think about it. The results from that survey also show:

people who believe that self-control is something dynamic, changing and unlimited (e.g., “I can stop smoking, all I have to do is put my mind to it. I can also change my eating and be a better person, it just takes willpower.”) tend to set more resolutions.

People who believe that we all are born with a limited, set amount of self-control that one cannot change (e.g., “I can’t help myself from eating all this chocolate — I inherited the ‘chocolate gene’ from my mom!”) and who also have little belief in their own capabilities to carry out their own goals (they have what psychologists refer to as “low self-efficacy”) naturally did worse on obtaining their New Year’s resolution goals.

Very interesting, don’t you think? In order to meet your resolutions or goals, you’ve got to believe that you can reach them.

The 2nd article (What is Really Behind New Year’s Resolutions) backs this up when they report:

The first step in making any permanent change is to become an observer of your life. This is simply becoming aware of your thoughts and actions. Your thoughts lead to emotional states which lead to your actions. Take responsibility for your thoughts, emotional states and actions

To meet your goals, you’ve got to think about them constantly, not just at the new year. You’ve got to continuously re-asses these goals and compare them with your life and see if the goals still make sense.

So…back to the original thought. Why is it that we wait until the New Year to make these resolutions. For most people, I think it’s because they get so wrapped in day-to-day life that they (me too?) lose focus on what they (I?) really want to do with their life.

So what are my resolutions?

Well…I’m going to try Chris Brogan’s appraoch to goals for the new year. Chris has used an interesting approach called “3 words” since 2006 and it looks like his approach has worked well for him.

Here’s my 3 words: Create, Think, Lead.

Zinsser's Writing to Learn

Eric D. Brown — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 02:44:41 +0000

For those that caught my review of Zinsser’s On Writing Well, you may have noticed that I mentioned picking up Zinsser’s “Writing to Learn“.

This book is an easy read and is worth picking up if you’re interested in writing. The book is less of a discussion of ‘how’ to ‘write to learn’ and more of an overview of ‘why’ you should ‘write to learn’.

The book is full of examples of good writing in many different topics. The majority of the book is passages from authors in various fields surrounded by Zinsser’s commentary on why the passage is worth including.

I can’t wholeheartedly recommend this book like I did On Writing Well, but it is worth reading for those of you who are interested in the subject.

On Writing Well

Eric D. Brown — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 11:00:54 +0000

I just finished reading the 30th Anniversary Edition of On Writing Well by William K. Zinsser and I’m wiser for having read it.

I can sum this book up easily/quickly with this sentence:

If you want to improve your writing, buy this book…then write write write.

What a great book!

Up until this book I thought that writing ’serious’ non-fiction was something for other people to do…those people with a better command of the english language that I. I now realize that non-fiction doesn’t have to (and according to Zinsser shouldn’t be) a dry, boring tome. Non-fiction can be fun and take many forms and styles.

Another thing I learned: Writing is hard….and it should be! There are many times on this blog that I’ve done some ’stream of consciousness’ writing and hit the “Publish” button and then later realized that I could have done so much more with the post if I’d just thought and did some rewrites. According to Zinsser, if you find yourself struggling with a piece you are writing, that means you are doing it right.

In this classic, Zinsser destroys the notion that a writer is someone ’special’. Anyone can write and write well. But, it takes practice practice practice.

If you do any sort of writing or want to write, go buy this book immediately. It’s only $11 at amazon but will bring you a hundred times that in value and knowledge.

I enjoyed this book so much, I bought Zinsser’s “Writing to Learn“…look for a review of that book soon.

PMI IT Special Interest Group Newsletter

Eric D. Brown — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 19:00:41 +0000

I’ve had a book review published in the latest PMI Information Technology & Telecom Newsletter (download the PDF here). You’ll find my book review on page 16.

The newsletter is published quarterly and is described as:

Our newsletter is filled with activities that took place in the third quarter of 2008, including our visit to ProjectWorld Toronto 2008 and individual articles by George Siantonas and Timothy Bergmann. The newsletter also covers an update to the PMI Virtual Communities Project (VCP), the SIG / Scrum Alliance and much much more.

You can find more information about the PMI IT&T SIG here.

The power of mind-mapping

Eric D. Brown — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 20:06:40 +0000

In the past few weeks I’ve been reading about creative and critical thinking and the creative process. One of the things that many people recommend to help with the creative process if the act of mind-mapping and brainstorming.

I have experienced the technique of brainstorming and have used it quite often within my teams and projects but have never used a formal mind-mapping software product to capture the brainstorming session…until tonight.

I downloaded a copy of MindManager from MindJet to try out over the weekend and finally got around to trying it out this evening. I captured more information in this software product during 15 minutes of brainstorming this evening than I have captured in the last 15 days. Normally when I sit down to do a brainstorming session, I have a notepad or dry-erase board and write down a lot of ’stuff’ but never have I been able to capture information in such a manner as to immediately see the connections that exists between the ideas.

After using the MindManager trial product for less than an hour, I purchased a full copy and have been capturing ideas all evening. I have captured ideas for new blog posts, articles and even a few book ideas.

For anyone out there who needs (or wants) a better way to capture data and turn it into information that can be used, give MindManager from MindJet a try at http://www.mindjet.com. Another alternative would be the MindMapper product from MindMapper.com.

For more information about other mind mapping software, visit mind-mapping.org (http://www.mind-mapping.org/).

[tags] Mindmapping, brainstorming, MindManager, MindJet [/tags]

Case Study Assitance

Eric D. Brown — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 12:45:09 +0000

The recent IEEE Engineering Management newsletter had a link to an excellent Case Study reference guide…thought I’d post it here for everyone else:

http://college.hmco.com/business/resources/casestudies/students/

There is an interesting PDF file that describes the process of writing case studies that looks very interesting.

Technorati Tags: Case Study, Case Study development, Writing