Business Insight Zone

My friend Aaron Strout tagged me for this meme, and since I’ve put my personal blog on hiatus, I’ve been thinking about how I might apply the meme to my professional work, rather than just telling you my favorite flavor of ice cream (Rocky Road? Tough call), my favorite city to visit (Edinburgh), or that I’m an outstanding speller (true).

So I’ve tried to set out seven things that might help you better understand this blog, my career, and my outlook on business. You tell me whether I’ve succeeded at all.

1. When I came to Hoover’s in 2000, I had never worked as a business analyst. One of the strengths of our Editorial department, I’ve always thought, is that it’s stocked with writers, researchers, and editors from a rich variety of backgrounds — a mix that keeps us from getting set in our ways or always looking at things predictably. I had published lots of magazine stories and had done a lot of work online and with databases, but I had also studied the history of the European Reformation, answered phones for a credit-card company, and run an office in the School of Architecture at my alma mater. I think the mix helped me when I got here.
2. When I was applying to college nearly 20 years ago, UT was my backup choice. But I got into a great honors program and landed a scholarship, so I moved to Austin in the fall of 1990. With the exception of two school years (here and here) and one summer (here), I’ve lived in Austin ever since.
3. Charles Schulz said that the hardest question he usually had to answer from fans was, “Where do you get your ideas?” Harlan Ellison heard this question so much that he made up a spoof answer: “From a post office box in Schenectady.” Though I wouldn’t dare put myself in the same category with those prolific creators, I’m like them in that coming up with ideas has never been the problem. I have to force myself to weed down my ideas to find the best ones (good advice for any business, by the way), then write up just those. Otherwise, I get overwhelmed.
4. Now that I’m “older” (i.e. past 35) and, er, wiser, I’ve started making peace with a list of things I’d like to do but probably never will, including becoming an expert cook and earning a law degree. I still hold out hope for running a marathon, becoming fluent in German, and developing the ability to passably imitate Jack White on guitar. (I’m an optimist, in other words.)
5. I don’t believe in writer’s block. Or at least, I don’t believe in writer’s block as a condition separate from other hangups. People notice writer’s block because they know they have something to write and they feel pain about getting it started (or finished). But in fact it’s just a specific outgrowth of garden-variety fear, and it’s not fundamentally different than the fear that keeps us from starting our own business, training for a marathon (ahem), talking to the object of a crush, taking an around-the-world trip, et cetera.
6. I have a fundamental belief that many of the problems we face, both as individuals and in our companies, are fairly straightforward to diagnose. The hard part is often not technical, but psychological, because it’s emotionally difficult to get ourselves to confront our established habits and foibles. This is why I’m such a fan of naive questions, and why I’m constantly drawing parallels between problems that affect us at personal and corporate levels.
7. My greatest career ambition — so far unrealized — is to write compelling books. (I’m working on it.)

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Now, from whom would I like to read seven things about business and their own careers? (Yes, I just hijacked this meme for my own purposes.) I know that not everyone loves the improv spotlight like I do (that’s thing #8 for you), and not everybody likes playing along with memes, so I won’t “tag” anyone in the sense of applying pressure to them. (Aaron didn’t put any pressure on me, let me hasten to add.)

So here are seven friends I’d like to hear from — and should they choose to share their own list of seven things, I’d be grateful. And should they choose not to . . . well, please just consider this an advertisement for seven smart people whose words are worth your time to read.

• My current Hoover’s colleague Jeff Dorsch, who “knows where the bodies are buried” in Silicon Valley. (I’d love a whole carnival of responses from the other Bizmology bloggers, too, but [a] I don’t want to get greedy, and [b] Jeff and I share a special bond in that we are the current and former microchip writers for Hoover’s.)
• My former Hoover’s colleague Russ Somers, who has been kind enough to treat me to many a fascinating conversation over the cube wall.
• James Governor of the RedMonk/Greenmonk consultancy, knower of many Deep Things about IT infrastructure and green-business practices.
• Adele McAlear, a Canadian marketing maven who has proven to me beyond all doubt that it’s quite possible to make good friends primarily through Twitter.
• Mark McGuinness, whose posts at Wishful Thinking and Lateral Action became must-reads for me as soon as I discovered him.
• Dan Markovitz, the master of Lean who keeps me thinking about how I can work better and help others work better.
• Colleen Wainwright, a.k.a. the Communicatrix. I stumbled across her work only recently, and immediately (a) felt like I was reading notes from a long-lost sister, and (b) wished I had found her much sooner.

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These are the rules passed along from Aaron:

* Link to your original tagger(s) and list these rules in your post.
* Share seven facts about yourself in the post.
* Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
* Let them know they’ve been tagged

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Image source.