Thursday, January 27, 2011

Funny thing about blogging...

Funny thing about blogging, at least from my own experience, is that when I'm neck deep in the most interesting work and I have the most to write about, I never manage to write the stuff down. It's only during periods of relative calm, when I can reflect and document, or that I'm just working on familiar stuff, that I actually get around to it. This past month has been so new and required so many cycles that I barely have time to think, let alone write. All of this is just a way of explaining why the blog entries have slowed down so much.

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Good luck to Borders

I'm a reader, and I always liked Borders bookstore. I was delighted when it opened a store in Bloomington, Ill., where I used to live and work. So I was dismayed to learn that it may soon close its doors. I used to drive past the local Barnes and Noble to go to Borders in Chapel Hill, but the CD selection was so ordinary I stopped going.

As the article in the Atlantic points out, the original owners sold the chain, and Borders has been owned by a series of companies with no particular interest in or skill selling books. Successful businesses have a tendency to attract business people who are interested in profit and who believe that good managers can manage anything. That's wrong - domain knowledge counts for a lot, and passion counts for more.