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Excess of success worse than failure?

Mar 14, 2009 in Strategy

One day, while out with my wife for our weekly coffee date, I read the quote on her grande white mocha two-bag refresh tea soy misto. I thought to myself, how poignant; it made so much sense. The next day, as I slowly enjoyed my triple-venti peppermint soy caramel drizzle latte macchiato, I was surprised to receive the same quote. That was simply too odd.

Still later, while out for lunch with my friend, a Starbucks shift supervisor, I told this story, and referred to the quote on the cup that I kept encountering. As if on cue, the sleeve from my grande sized beverage fell to the table, revealing the same quote on that cup as well.

I have since seen that quote several times in the past six months.

The way I see it #26: Failure’s hard, but success is far more dangerous. If you’re successful at the wrong thing, the mix of praise and money and opportunity can lock you in forever. ~ Po Bronson

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Toy designer for hire

Jan 13, 2009 in Creativity, Personality

My younger son doesn’t have as many Transformer toys as his older brother. Because of this, he felt inclined to create his own Transformer model. This toy is so colourful, so powerful, uses every weapon and can transform into any vehicle mode.

Note to Hasbro: I am negotiating contract offers for this five-year-old toy designer, and his seven-year-old technical communicator brother. My contact information is below. Child labour is legal where I come from. LOL!

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Best. Christmas. Present. Ever.

Dec 30, 2008 in Creativity, Technology

Wow. Just about all I could say was “Wow.” My seven-year-old son gave me an awesome Christmas present that he packaged himself. Not only did he give me my favourite Transformer, Sunstreaker, who looks a lot like a Lambourghini or Ferrari Testarossa (I don’t know the difference), but he drew packaging to replicate the same logos that store-bought toys have.

Readers of my RSS feed may want to visit my site to see the pictures.

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On Web Programming, SEO Consulting, and WHY

Dec 09, 2008 in Personality, Strategy, Technology

Last week I mentioned my foray into the world of creative communications consulting. Here’s a sampling of the kind of sideline projects I’ve been working on lately. Many of these are classified: top secret, for-your-eyes-only kind of stuff. By reading this post you agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement: Don’t tell a soul.

[Edit: Okay, the secret is out: the main intent of this post is to provide search engine links to my colleagues' sites in order to improve their SEO traffic... ooh how I hate spilling the beans!]

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WHY I haven’t blogged

Dec 02, 2008 in Personality, Productivity, Technology

So I says to my wife, “you know, I’d really like to work as an independent contractor for awhile and really get to see the world.” The following day, my manager told me that they’d lost my contract as a technical writer. I wanted to say, “Would you like me to help you find it?” Instead I played it cool. “Great! Lots of time for blogging.” As I wrote my last full post on November 6, obviously I didn’t spend as much time blogging as I thought. What did I do instead? It couldn’t have been because I ran out of things to say.

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Blogs suck, and absolute blogs suck absolutely

Nov 06, 2008 in Personality, Philosophy, Strategy

Now that I have your attention: A fellow Tech Writer (Tina—I mean Holly Harkness) turned me onto a Wired magazine article about how blogging has lost the spontaneous, personal feel, now that there are so many of them out there. According to the writer, Paul Boutin, one would have more success being heard by contributing to the Facebook-, Twitter-, Flickr-, or YouTube-ospheres, rather than the blogosphere.

From the beginning, blogs have always been about conversation and sharing. Yes, several have advertisements on them. Yes, several have hired pro writers (for instance, Duo Consulting hired me). And yes, many do read more like online magazines than personal observations from the field. But nobody’s forcing you to read them. You can select what you want to read.

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How you leave is how you will enter

Nov 01, 2008 in Personality, Philosophy

Leaving a job is hard, regardless of the one making the decision. Whether the choice was mine or the company’s didn’t stop me from the feelings of loss, and the ensuing depression that paralyzed me for a couple of days before I could move forward. Nobody prepared me to be released from a job when I was doing well, and this was the case.

It would have been easy to feel bitter at the apparent injustice of the situation, except that my faith in God, who provides every good and perfect gift, has already prepared me for my next assignment. And my next assignment for me. I know that I need to rely on His strength in my times of weakness. And there have been many times. Several times. Per day.

Continue reading: How you leave is how you will enter

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