Ash Wednesday
Today
marks the beginning of the season of Lent for 2012 and, in the spirit
of giving up something, I've decided to give up my apathy
regarding this blog.
What
happened to bring that about in the first place? To be honest, I set
unsustainable expectations for myself with respect to what I wrote
here. My original intention was for this place to be a commentary on
one's approach to their business and career; after I ran out of ideas
for that I pivoted on the concept and instead reported on what I thought
were relevant business topics; finally, the amount of effort required
to dig up interesting subject matter on a regular publishing schedule became more than I was able to dedicate. So I shut down the blog.
Why Now?
My
intention this time is to not have a purpose necessarily. Instead, I
will write about topics that I find interesting and trust that you will find them similarly interesting. If my
trust is well placed then you will continue to feel that this is a blog
worth reading, and you will return here regularly to be
enlightened or entertained at the very least.
I will not attempt to stick to a strict publishing schedule as I once did. That, I believe, added to the pressure that led to the discouragement that ultimately led to the previous death of this blog. If I allow publication to occur when I instead have something interesting to say then that should also help ensure relevance to what you are experiencing in your professional life.
Future Topics
In
the time that has elapsed since I was actively maintaining this blog,
certain business topics have found their way onto my radar. I will
apologize now if some of these seem like advertisements for my employer,
but I have never shied away from my belief that the portfolio of
solutions offered by CA Technologies is one of the strongest
available in several areas. Fortunately, I am not alone in this
thinking - Gartner has awarded CA Technologies as the leader in its
magic quadrant in several areas including identity and access governance; user administration and provisioning; and content aware data loss prevention.
The part about that last statement that scares me is that I have been told on more than one occasion by CxOs that they were unaware that CA had a security portfolio at all, much less one that had solutions that led in several areas of IT security.
Therefore, some of the topics will discuss particular IT initiatives and how gaps that typically exist can be addressed by specific solutions. Other topics will discuss general trends in IT, e.g. cloud (the 800 pound gorilla in everyone's room), software development, the "new normal" (you'll have to wait to find out what my application of this cliché means), etc. And, finally, some topics will be general commentary on observations I have made both at work and in the offices of the senior IT executives that I interact with on a regular basis.
I hope that you'll continue to return and not only read these upcoming entries but also contribute via comments (to foster community discussion) or directly via email.
Until next time,
Larry