The Lean Write-Up?

Well, I’m planning to start using this blog again…I hate to make yet another “I’m doing this again” metapost only to follow it with silence, so here’s the rundown on what’s different this time:

1. I actually do write quite a bit, it’s just a question of where, but deciding where to write something often stalls me on writing it at all, so a default, catch-all bucket will likely boost output (I switched to one “omninotebook” a couple years back rather than topical notebooks and that has definitely helped—I see this as the shared edition). A corollary is that I’ll be thinking less about the appropriate audience for my posts and leaving that to self-selection.
2. I’m interested in becoming less selfish with my ideas. I tend to want to keep them to myself for competitive advantage but I suspect the value of the connections I’d make by sharing is higher than the value of secrecy.
3. I need a persistent, temporal scratchpad because organization is too hard. “Persistent”—I form a lot of ideas partially and connect or complete them later; I need a place to keep these as they grow. An idea nursery. “Temporal”—when I don’t yet know what something is (often the point of writing) I don’t know how to categorize it thematically; what file does that go it? What blog does that belong on? in those cases the best context I have for making sense of it is what I was thinking about before (and later, after) it. “Scratchpad”—fully formed, polished ideas ready for presentation often have a place elsewhere, but I don’t have enough time to get everything to that level. Ship it, iterate.

In summary, lower production value, higher output. Code with bugs, arguments with logical errors, unapologetic leaps in topic—should be fun. Besides, I’ll be opening the kimono—and who doesn’t love a sexy metaphor?