It’s going to be ugly, and will surely take longer than I’d like, but it has to be done.

Soon after I launched the current version of the site I was ready to redo it again. But that obviously hasn’t happened. In those nearly three years a lot has changed, and some goals that I’d set out to achieve in the next iteration have become exponentially easier to accomplish.

1. Content silos
   I tried and failed in the previous version to break up the content into the types I intended to post (Entries, Links, Books, Quotes, Shirts) but never got it just right. Later I concluded that Tumblr’s execution of Entries, Quotes, Images, Links, etc. was ideal. And with the addition of Custom Posts to WordPress it’s become exponentially easier to mimic that organization.
2. Adaptive design 
   Not having a site that was optimized for mobile always seemed like a failure, but an easily repairable one. As browsers have improved it’s become even easier still. No more excuses.
3. Design
   I hated the old one. It shouldn’t be too hard to come up with something I can at least bare to look at.

And with that, I set off on an unknown journey for an unspecified amount of time with an unnamed destination. My plan is to first strip the site to it’s bones. Work out the WordPress templates first. Then I’ll build from the mobile up. All this to say that this site could get pretty weird for a while. But hopefully doing this publicly will be enough to shame me into giving it the time necessary to complete the project sooner rather than later.

I hope this doesn’t suck, but I know it will. Let’s go!

A lot has changed in the banking industry, and a lot more has remained the same. This quote might appear to be referring to the current economic situation, but in fact it’s decades old.

“There’s too much waste in banking. Getting rid of it takes tenacity, not brilliance.”
– Carl Reichardt, former President of Wells Fargo

I’ve heard plenty of arguments about all of the genius and intelligence and brilliance that exists in the banking industry these days. But not once have I heard anyone tout the tenacity of a financial institution or any of it’s leaders.

In the book I’m currently engulfed in, Good to Great, the author Jim Collins profiles Reichardt and talks about the changes he made in his company when he saw the writing on the wall.

Facing the ominous reality of the impending deregulation in the 1980’s, Reichardt made a habit out of making the tough choices. According to Good to Great he…

“froze executive salaries for two years (despite their current profitability). He shut the executive dining room and replaced it with a college dorm food-service caterer. He closed the executive elevator, sold the corporate jets, and banned green plants from the executive suite as too expensive to water. He removed free coffee from the executive suite. He eliminated Christmas trees for management. He threw reports back at people who’d submitted them in fancy binders. Reichardt would sit through meetings with fellow executives, in a beat-up old chair with the stuffing hanging out.”
– Good to Great, by Jim Collins [page 128]

I highly doubt there are any executives at the major banks that we could coax this attitude out of. What a shame. They just don’t make ’em like they used to.

Talent is the desire to practice.

– Malcolm Gladwell,  the author of the book Outliers

Andy Budd on Social Media Consultants and their effect [read: harm] on the realm of social media.

It reminds me of a guy I met while traveling many years ago. He was an ethnographic researcher employed by a big oil company to asses the impact oil pipelines would have on the indigenous population. He loved tribal culture so much he desperately wanted to work in the field, cure even if that meant being partly responsible for the destruction of the very thing he loved.

That may be the true measure of a professions success. Doing more good than harm.