About
Words matter.
As I was putting this together, I was thinking about what I’d be writing about, and my first thought was “business and technology.” Immediately after the phrase “business of technology” jumped into my head. You see, that’s what I do, and that’s what I know.
Such little words, but they change the whole meaning.
I’ve been involved in selling technology my whole career, and if the meetings I’m in at Progress are any indicator, I’m quite an expert at the business of selling software.
Creative complexity.
It’s the tough stuff that turns me on. I’m not interested in the possible. In fact, it took me a while to realize that most teams got demotivated when they heard they were on an impossible project. For me, that’s where the fun begins.
Interestingly, when I’m in front of technology buyers, I have credibility because I’ve also been involved in implementing what I design. I’m aware of the pain and frustration that goes along with unwrapping some shiny new technology only to find it doesn’t quite work the way you thought. I’m also intolerant of hard to use technology, and am thoroughly amazed that non-technologists can keep their home computers working.
Personality.
I’ve been blogging for about 2 years over at Progress, and don’t intend to stop. My personal life has quite an edge, and I wanted a place where I could be a bit edgier than would be possible on the corporate blog. I also wanted to talk about things that don’t directly pertain to Progress. An example being a book review that I did for Todd Biske’s SOA Governance
I’m also likely to talk about my experiences with social computing, which I’ve been a leader here at Progress in adopting. In fact, I seem to be the person at parties who explains all this social stuff to newbies. So, I’ll weigh in on that here.
And, finally, I’ll probably talk about the arts of communicating and leadership. One of my top skills is memorably explaining difficult concepts, in easy to understand ways, in terms that matter to the audience. I am also a total ham in front of a crowd and I think my next career will leverage presentation and communication skills way more than technical. It might help me to talk about these skills that are so instinctive in me that I’ve never really examined them closely until I realized how poorly others are at communicating. After a presentation at a conference in South Africa a couple years back, someone in the audience actually came up and hugged me. I should have known then that I was onto something, and that it wasn’t my product. You see, I hadn’t mentioned my product once. Probably why I got the hug.
I hope to have fun writing, but more importantly, hope you have fun reading. And, if you learn something along the way, that’s a bonus.
Peace.
David
10 March, 2009
