Writing

My friends at Rally Software have started a corporate blog called On Be(come)ing Agile. Ryan Martens – the founder of Rally – introduces the blog and explains the zen-like journey to Agile that inspired the name for the blog. Rally’s On Demand Agile Software Lifecycle Management solution is being enthusiastically embraced by a wide variety of ISVs and corporate IT shops that are either using or considering Agile software development methods. If you want to be known by your friends as a Scrum Master , have run out of white papers about Agile Software Development to read in the bathroom, or just want to build better software systems, wander over and take a look.

The meme of “Corporate Web Site As A Blog” is going around – and I like it. While this has been popular for individuals for a while (e.g. www.feld.com ) – it’s starting to happen with companies. Fred Wilson and Brad Burnham did this recently with their site at Union Square Ventures and Matt Blumberg just launched a new Return Path web site organized around a blog – launched with a post on Matt’s blog about why Return Path did this. ...

One of my all time favorite New Yorker cartoons is the one with two dogs sitting in front of a computer where one says to the other “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.” Seth just posted a new one that’s right up there – “I had my own blog for while, but I decided to go back to just pointless, incessant barking .”

I’ve always loved numbers (especially primes and multiples of 3) – that partially explains my interest in web analytics and my fascination with looking at data trends. Over the past year, I’ve created my own little data laboratory – my blog. When I started blogging on 5/4/04, I obviously had 0 subscribers via RSS (by 5/8/04 I had 4, by 5/31/04 I had 60, today I have 3500 according to FeedBurner ). Thanks for contributing to my laboratory (hopefully you are getting some benefits from it also!) ...

I’ve been trying to figure out how to invest in Podcasting. I have a bunch of exposure to it via my investments in FeedBurner and NewsGator (hint – coming soon – maybe even this week). However, I don’t listen to Podcasts much because I’m a reader, I’ve never been a talk radio guy, and I couldn’t figure out when to listen to them. Until recently, I was a running purist – no music on my runs (I found my iPod too bulky and I thought I should just enjoy nature.) Well – on a long run – after about an hour – I’ve had enough of nature, all the random thoughts have cycled through my brain, and I’m ready for some music (or talk radio). So – I’ve started running with my iPod Shuffle recently (quickly becoming an indispensable running tool). I started with music, but figured I’d try listening to Podcasts to try to understand both the phenomenon and the dynamic. ...

Jeff Jarvis has a comprehensive summary of Rupert Murdoch’s recent speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors. I don’t follow all the media titans, but Murdoch coming out and talking clearly about how print media needs to change – especially in the face of blogging and the way that the next generation of digital natives (“young people” – according to Murdoch) deal with news and information – is an important acknowledgment of the changing zeitgeist in mainstream media.

Nike – as usual – is trying a bunch of marketing and branding things in and around blogs. I got a note from Josh Spear who runs a blog he refers to as “the pulse of cool ” who was chosen by Nike to participate in their online / blogger shoe design contest. Josh put up a white and yellow design which you should go vote for. His is the white and yellow sneaker called “The Spear.” Josh is in second place, no doubt helped by his own use of his blog to get the word out.

Dave Taylor – a Boulder-based entrepreneur and blogger – has created a half day workshop for business executives and entrepreneurs who want to learn how to use blogging in their business. New West Network – in which I’m an angel investor – is a sponsor and the agenda looks interesting and relevant. If you want to get up to speed on business blogging, this looks like a content rich and reasonably priced ($175) event that’s being held at the Boulder Outlook Hotel on 5/5/05 (ah – fun with numbers) from 9am – 12n.

I’ve recently become obsessed with the notion that all my data should be integrated in one place and be able to be entered from one place. Of course, this isn’t true, but as my compute infrastructure gets smarter, this will become a lot easier. I’ve got three types of data: (1) the stuff I want the world to see, (2) the stuff I want certain people to see, and (3) the stuff that is just for me. Logically, my blog (or “my website” – doh) should be the entry point for everything that I create that fits in category #1. ...

I’m playing around with some of the characteristics of my Feedburner feed so I apologize in advance (and ask for your indulgence) if you get multiple copies of posts. Things should settle down in a couple of days.