My blog stats

I am pleased to see how my blog is being viewed. While I’m not in the same league as Dennis, Ray, Michael or Vinnie, I am more than happy to see the number of views I am getting on a regular basis.

Time for thinking

About a month ago I blogged about how I discovered the need for contemplative time. Where I am this weekend is very close to where I was a month ago, now at a different camp, but re-discovering the value of time to think.

After a busy week, I used to believe that the weekend was when I had time to relax. However, being at this camp made me realise that on many weekends I am still busy, although in a different way.

It has given me an understanding of those people who like to get away to the bush, for example, on a frequent basis because it helps them refresh and re-energise.

It has occcurred to me here that I find blogging to be stimulating and creative, and I hope informative, whereas using Twitter – which I do during the week - could almost be called shouting and noisy. During the week, Twitter is about all the time I can afford, and provides me with social network connections. The problem is that on many weekends I don’t have the quality time to blog, which gives me a deeper sense of making a contribution.

I am coming around to the idea that every so often I should try to get away and disconnect from the rush of life. How, when and where I haven’t yet figured out.

Time for blogging

I am continually amazed at the volume and quality of the blogs that come from some of my favourite bloggers (e.g., Dennis, Mike, Vinnie). But in the past few days I have realised what it takes for me to blog in the way that I would like.

Firstly, I read the other Dennis’s blog about inspiration time and perspiration time, and how it is so easy (and often, necessary) for us to follow the perspiration path which emphasises job output – instead of inspiration which is the contemplation side.

The realisation has come this weekend as I have been attending an Alpha course in the rural Magaliesberg hills north of Johannesburg. Here I have had time to contemplate – about my religion - and with that time I have also found the mental space to write.

It’s the first time in months that I have had such time, and I really appreciate it. Work has become increasingly hectic this year as more and more projects seem to have come along. I am truly grateful for the work that has come my way as a result of being at this company. But I reckon there must be some people like me who would occasionally like a short space of quieter time to get some thinking done.

On blogger’s block and managing projects

Writer’s block is a well-known issue for authors – an inability to write resulting in feelings of frustration, which seems to create a vicious cycle making it even harder to start writing.

I think I have been experiencing a blogger’s version of that? Is it also writer’s block, or should we create a sub-category for boggers?

I have been through a phase of nearly two months where I just didn’t have any interest in updating my blog. Partly I think it was due to a very intense project workload, but also I was also stressed waiting for my first performance review since I joined my company last year.

The stress is partly over as the performance review has been done and I did OK, but I am now waiting for a follow-up as my role is being changed to a more business development position.

I was criticised during my performance review for some actions I didn’t take as a project manager on a large project, and on another project I went ahead with an implementation that could have had a high risk for the company. The latter project I did get in on time, and its under budget, and no longer a risk, but the comment was I should have raised the flag early.

The experience has taught me some useful lessons, but it lowers my project management profile in the company, and I really want to grow my PM skills for my CV (that’s resumé for Americans).

I think I will have to be content with getting smaller projects, and in the meantime improve my SYSPRO knowledge so that I can be more valuable when discussing issues with clients.

Thanks WordPress

This is just me formally and publicly thanking WordPress for a great job facilitating my blog site, and for catching over 5000 items of spam on my blog.

Blogger confessions

I got this via Craig Cmehil’s blog, who got it via someone else …

1. Do you promote your blog?

No. I started blogging as a means of exploring my own creative writing capacity, and still do. Getting referenced occasionally by some of the big names in enterprise software blogging does help though, and I think that using trackbacks also helps.

2. How often do you check hits?

Not very often, because of #1.

3. Do you stick to one topic?

In general I try to, but if I feel something is worth blogging about I don’t restrict myself.

4. Who knows that you have a blog?

My employers, a director of our ERP vendor, some bloggers overseas.

5. How many blogs do you read?

I have 89 blogs in my Google Reader RSS reader, and try to read them all.

6. Are you a fast reader?

Yes, and Google Reader helps.

7. Do you customise your blog or do anything technical?

I have done some basic customisation of my blog, but I still feel like quite a novice when it comes to the technical stuff of WordPress blogsites.

8. Do you blog anonymously?

Yes, because when I started I wanted to be able to comment about things close to my business without being censored. I have revealed my first name, but I am still reluctant to divulge my full details. However, a couple of overseas bloggers have revealed my full name.

9. To what extent do you censor yourself?

I believe I have to be responsible in what I say, and I don’t like to be over-critical even when I feel highly emotional about something, so I reckon that means I do self-censor to an extent.

10. The best thing about blogging?

The bloggers I have encountered around the world as a result.

Oracle blogs need to be human

I was checking out the some of the Oracle blogs on their corporate blog site, but I have to say they are all technical, don’t appeal to me as a non-Oracle person, and don’t have anything that reflects what might be called ‘a human face at Oracle’. (But then again, is Larry Ellison human?)

Oracle PR – check out Thomas Otter’s site as an example of an SAP blogger whose contents are interesting and understandable to non-SAP people.

Are we taking Web 2.0 too seriously?

I recently emailed a former mentor of mine who is a senior marketing person in the UK for a US software vendor; I sent him the URL for the James Utzschneider blog on how to talk with marketers and referenced Dennis’ blog as well.

In his email reply he mentioned that he doesn’t have much time for reading blogs, and backed that up by saying that he was at a conference in Geneva which had a session on Web 2.0, and when the audience was asked who read blogs, only one person put their hand up. Tom Davenport has also said he doesn’t read blogs; although he does write one!

Therefore, I wonder, are we contributors to the blogosphere taking ourselves too seriously? There has been a lot of coverage recently about the Davenport-McAfee debate on Web 2.0, and from what I’ve read the consensus is that it is still in the very early stages of adoption.

Is my former mentor’s comment an indication that Europeans haven’t got onto the blog ‘band wagon’ yet, or that people in senior positions in large organisations just don’t have time for anything except the things Covey puts into Quadrant 1 – “important and urgent”? If that is the case, are the people who read blogs in less senior/influential positions, or in smaller organisations where email volumes, meetings and conference calls are not a consuming problem?

Following Seth’s advice

I am following advice Seth Godin has made recently about how smaller organisations can promote themselves – my infant Squidoo lens is at http://www.squidoo.com/manufacturingERP/

Shai Agassi is blogging

Shai Agassi, ex of SAP, has started his own blog. His comments are rather long, even when he wants to make them short, but now he is out I hope he will have interesting comments about the ERP industry.

Already he has taken a jab at Oracle – ‘I believe Oracle’s customers should hear the famous British Tube warning (that is their subway not their TV…) “mind…the gap” ‘, and raised the issue of best-of-breed vs. integrated (ie SAP).