Blogpost 2000: Some questions

To celebrate my 2000th blogpost, I asked Twitter what I should write about. This series of posts are inspired by those requests.

Peter O’Rourke asked me these questions:

The one blog your proudest of, and why?

There are two, one sensible, one silly. Plus a short series of four posts that are really one long post split into four. So that’s three or six, depending on how generous you are being.

The sensible one is a post that I originally wrote for CIO magazine, Of Clocks and Clouds. I’ve been very inspired by the Sociotechnical movement of the 1960s and 70s which explored the reasons why technology implementation often fails. Surprise, surprise it’s because of people, and that we still haven’t learned this I find a subject of variously bemusement, amusement and complete frustration.

The original texts are really hard going, but I hope in that post I was able to break things down in a way that made sense. I referred back to it only last week.

The short series of four are the posts that are pinned to the blog’s homepage and describe the four models that I have built up to describe innovation over the past few years. They are still being refined, but the last one is the basis for the book I continue to write.

The silly one is the write up of the only moment of viral fame I have had, and which still appears in half-life waves every so often. Yes, I’m proud of that silly flowchart. Don’t judge me.

The blog you wrote, but didn’t publish, and why?

At the moment there are 41 sitting in the Drafts folder on WordPress. Why didn’t I publish them? Usually because I couldn’t get to finish them in a way that made any sense. That, however, doesn’t always stop me publishing…

The blog which in hindsight you think may have been better left unpublished, and why?

There’s none that I wouldn’t have unpublished. Blogging isn’t like book writing or journalism. For me it’s about working out what I’m doing and talking about it as I go along, I think I’ve got the balance right with client or employer confidentiality and not being a dick about things, but there’s always the chance I’ll louse that up in the future.

There was one post that I published when I was working at the Government Digital Service that I was asked to edit because it was thought too political. I was just impressed that anyone there read it, took it down, and then republished it when I left. I could never become a full-time civil servant because the roles determine that you must give up the right to be political.

What will the topic of your 3,000th blog be? 

Almost certainly it will be about the fact that it is the 3,000th post. What the 2,999th post will be about is probably the more interesting question. I’ll probably be in my early sixties by then so it will probably be about failing eyesight, hearing and joints.