I Resolve
To do what I want,
and to make a living,
To enjoy myself
for a long time.
To have priorities,
and to stay on task,
To keep in touch
with friends and colleagues.
To learn my craft,
and to teach what I know,
To help when available,
and reach those I can.
To be safe and secure,
and to remain aware,
To have clean surroundings
for a simpler life.
To take care of myself,
and to watch over my family,
To find the energy and integrity
to be true to me.
Prolific Development Through Isolation
Over the past several weeks, I have been working very hard on a number of exciting new projects, all of which are making great progress. In the process, though, I have managed to neglect and get a couple of weeks behind on my email, while essentially ignoring all other forms of inbound communication.
The result is that my productivity has increased greatly, while only missing one important piece of information. Therefore, I have decided to make these changes to my workload permanent. As of today:
I can feel my productivity on the rise already!
Separating business matters from personal issues
Recently, I received the first newsletter of the year from (friend and former colleague) Steve Pavlina. For those of you who do not already know about Steve Pavlina, he founded Dexterity Games (now defunct) and published Dweep, an award-winning puzzle game. He was also the President of the Association of Shareware Professionals and was inducted into the ASP Hall of Fame in 2005. After this success, he left the game industry to pursue a career in motivational speaking and personal development, writing the book, Personal Development for Smart People.
Anyway, the meat of the newsletter, nestled in between the various sales pitches and recommendations from which he earns his living, was a section entitled, “Living by Your Own Rules“. This intrigued me, as it seemed to correspond nicely with my personal plans for 2010, so I read on. However, I quickly discovered that his ideas did not mesh with my own in this case. It had little to do with the actual content of his writings, but his radical ideas of sharing his personal life (specifically, his sexual preferences and desires) in the place in which he does his business.
Specifically, Steve made a blog post with his 2010 goals in which he reveals his personal goal of pursuing “Alternative Relationship Styles” and goes into detail (for which you will need to read his post). I have no problem whatsoever with his choice to pursue this lifestyle, but I do question the wisdom of presenting this in a forum in which he currently (by his own numbers) sells six figures a month; it seems risky to the point of potential self-destruction. More to the point, I wonder what benefit to his business (not to mention personal reputation) he seeks to gain from this pursuit. (I do see a great benefit in finding compatible sexual partners, though.)
Steve is good at taking things to the extreme, completing college in only three semesters, ramping up his healthy eating through vegetarianism to a vegan diet and finally raw foods, and now personal openness to a radical degree. He calls this last part “courage”, which it certainly takes, but I am not sure that courage is always the best choice. Aristotle’s Doctrine of the Mean suggests that the opposite of cowardice is rashness, and this might apply here. The more common idiom is, “All things in moderation, and moderation in all things.”
Personally, I think that it is still wise to compartmentalize to some degree, especially keeping business issues separate from (potentially) controversial personal issues, such as politics, religion, and sexuality. Discussing the particulars of these in a business context has the potential of alienating people with little chance of significant gain. I do not have a problem seasoning my business posts with personal items, and I definitely have business friends with whom I share more, but any proclivities I may (or may not :)) have should remain discrete.
Ultimately, I guess that I am intrigued at Steve’s attempt to alter societal norms, and I wish him the best of luck, but I am also glad that it is he, rather than I, who is taking the risk of falling flat on his face. (Ridicule I could handle; starvation, not so much.)
What do you think?
Here is what I did while I was not posting during August and September:
I broke my leg.
During a soccer game, I made an aggressive move toward a 50/50 ball at the edge of the box, looking to score. Unfortunately, it turned out to be more like 49/51, and I lost, getting kicked solidly in the right shinguard as the ball was cleared. I pulled myself out of the game and tried to walk it off, and though the pain did not subside, I went back in and finished the game despite my “nasty bruise”. However, after a week of hobbling around with little improvement (and funny discoloration), I went to get an x-ray and found that my leg was actually broken.
We lost the game by a couple of goals but still finished the season in 3rd place (out of 7 teams) with a 7-5 record and a +27 goal differential. Thanks for asking.
The actual injury was an anterior malleolus fracture to my right leg, which is a break to the tibia (the larger, weight-bearing bone). While it is technically a broken leg, the doctor said to think of it as a badly sprained ankle. Essentially, the ligaments in the inner ankle are so strong that instead of tearing, they actually pull a piece of the bone off. The cool bit is that x-rays are now digital, so I have a CD-R with images of the original break (but I’m not sharing).
I was initially on crutches, and then used a “rollabout” (which was an out-of-pocket expense because our insurance would not cover an “upgrade” from crutches, despite the prescription) for three weeks. It is amazing how quickly one loses muscle mass in an unused leg; my calf became the smallest it has been since I was in middle school. I spent three more weeks in a boot/cast, and at the end of that time was told that my break had healed “perfectly”, though I am still facing many more weeks of exercise to get “back to normal” (whatever that is).
Our web server was end-of-lifed.
We found out, in the most inconvenient way, that our Ubuntu (Linux) web server had been “end-of-lifed”, and was no longer viable. All support for that version was pulled, so a standard package reinstallation failed, leaving the whole system non-functional. I had to spend a couple of days rebuilding and reconfiguring the system with a newer version, and it was painful.
This episode is exactly why Linux will never be able to challenge Windows or Mac OS X for the general desktop market. Despite all of the amenities that make it more consumer-oriented, Ubuntu still requires an operator to be a fanboy to avoid such issues. Nothing ever told me that the OS would be orphaned/abandoned in 2009, and it took more than an hour doing web searches to even figure out what had happened, nevermind finding the solution. (In contrast, the NT server box OS has only been upgraded once in 13 years, from NT4 to Win2K, when the hardware failed.)
More succinctly, Linux could not survive without Google.
We reassessed our entire marketing plan.
Our marketing plan is defined very broadly, and it incorporates not only the standard concepts associated with the word, but also general business strategy. We reconsidered the balance of the various aspects of our development, the status and priority of current projects, and future opportunities. We evaluated and devised/updated plans for new technologies, platforms, and markets. This updated blog is just one tangible aspect of our far-reaching plans for success.
Two words: World Domination.
I worked (hard).
In the midst of everything else, I was doing loads of development work. I made a good breakthrough and huge progress on a major project. We are now in that “10% of the development takes 90% of the time” phase, though, so things are seeming to be (though not actually) slowing down a bit.
Now that Fall has well and truly arrived here in Michigan (although not before just one more trip to the beach, broken leg and all), and in spite of all that life is throwing at us now, it is the right time to really get things done. We have our plans, our goals, and our ambitions clear, so all that is left is to execute.
That should be the easy part… 😉
I think that this finally brings the 2009 New Year celebrations to an end.
It is time to really get 2009 started properly now. One way to help one focus on goals is to make those goals public, so here goes:
Yes, these five goals are quite ambitious but also realistically attainable. One major release every two months (on average) will keep us very busy, but the roadmap for these is already established. Our development projects are all very different and should be enlightening. The Goodsol projects are building on the technological improvements of last year. Finally, the marketing and business plans have internal support and should, ultimately, improve operational efficiency.
By the way, we could still use a few more beta testers for the upcoming version of Pretty Good Solitaire Mac Edition. Anyone interested can email me directly at beta@sophsoft.com, and I will forward your information.
On the personal side, I will keep my exact goals to myself, but I have been playing competitive soccer and am pleased to be back ice racing again this year. I am currently second in points (in class A1) after having a disappointing day in which I suffered not one, but two DNFs (Did Not Finish) due to peeling tires off of the wheels. It has been a nearly perfect year for ice, so I will be repaired and back up in Chippewa Lake this coming weekend for eight more exciting races.
More ice racing pictures should be forthcoming.
The theme of this Inauguration Day is change for the better.
At this moment, President Barack Obama has just taken the oath of office to become the 44th President of the United States. This historical moment really ushers in 2009, so it is an appropriate first post for this year.
Note that the new President now officially works from a home office (the most famous one in the world), as I and many independent software developers do.
For my part, I have worked to change my priorities and schedule to further reduce the number of distractions and focus primarily on actual development tasks. I am now setting aside two days per week during which I only do development, barring emergencies. Of course, through today, there have been more minor emergencies than not, but I will persist nevertheless.
I am looking forward and aspiring to great things in the coming months and years.