Probably to avoid the fear of shame associated with having someone really read this site and learn something embarrassing or criminal (muhahaha) about me, I have wholly embraced the use of personalbrain2.0 software.  This is awesome stuff.

And they were incredibly helpful when my computer crashed and my was open and it was corrupted.  Funny talking about having your brain corrupted.... But back to the point, I emailed thebrain's customer service folks and they used some cool software they have called BrainScan to repair it and then mailed it back (within a day or two as I recall).  It worked.  Now I am much more careful about backing up.

But my point it that you can catalog your thoughts and your web discoveries in links connected to the various "thoughts" in your brain.  I don't really like the gardening or pruning metaphor for brain work - it reminds me of something gangrenous or tumorous that needs to be cut out.  Any ideas for alternate ways of describing the process of collecting thoughts and then reorganizing them into sets of ideas that are more useful would be helpful.

Again the functions of the software are very different from the blog.  Much the way that IM is different from email and from bulletin board postings.  This is more like bulletin board postings but with essentially one primary poster.  Also the Chronological vs Thread-like posting style seems less useful - why not allow for both.  Of course categories help, but not really.

The chronological organizational style is one that feels more like a jounal. But see the privacy concerns below about why journal isn't quite right.  I do remember working for a boutique investment bank here in Cambridge, MA and they had a default chrono file system when something wasn't filed more explicity.  That way you could at least find it within the week or the month that you remember something about it - so letters and so forth that were not part of a client file or part of a more elaborate correspondence fell into this chrono file system.

Gotta go.

comment [] 48 6:26:15 PM .

Well, I've been generally posting items here that are not personal in nature.  In fact they're mostly focused on getting this site to function the way that I expected it to out of the proverbial box - Comments fields for replies, collapsible/outline style headings, categories, etc.  And I still don't have it the way that I'd like, but it feels functional.  But I have been afraid - YES AFRAID - to get into who I really am.  Man, what do I need to do to gain the courage to just be the unique and fantastically interesting self that I actually am (answer in some later post - I fear...).

After reading through the post below (particularly from Ray Ozzie's site) regarding the responsibilities of bloggers who are employees, I felt that they echoed some of the concerns I have for posting personal stuff.

paraphrasing from the post below "we ask that you observe the following guidelines:

·         Please make it clear to your readers that the views you express are yours alone and that they do not necessarily reflect the views of your employer, your family and friends, or of anyone who would be embarrassed to be associated with you once you had made such views public.  To help reduce the potential for confusion, we [your employer, or any of those listed above] would appreciate it if you put the following notice – or something similar – in a reasonably prominent place on your site (e.g., at the bottom of your “about me” page - assuming of course that you have an about me page):

The views expressed on this website/weblog are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer, my wife, my kids, my friends, my parents, or just about anyone else - unless of course I've wholly copied chunks of text from someone else - and then the views and ideas are ones that belong to the original author, who should be identified, but in some cases may not - since this is a weblog for my own personal use and if you are surfing it then the risk of you reading something that I plagarized for my own personal use is high.

If you do put a notice on your site, you needn’t put it on every page, but please use reasonable efforts to draw attention to it – if at all possible, from the home page of your site.

·         Take care not to disclose any information [to readers of this website] that is confidential or proprietary to the company [the employer] or to any third party that has disclosed information to us [to me/ to you].  Consult the company’s confidentiality policy for guidance about what constitutes confidential information. Or in the case of personal confidential information - such as opinions about geeky/wierd movies that you might like (e.g. Silent Running, or Free Enterprise).

·         Please remember that your employment documents give the company certain rights with respect to concepts and developments you produce that are related to the company’s business.  Please consult your manager if you have questions about the appropriateness of publishing such concepts or developments related to the company’s business on your site. [Read inappropriateness of publishing your good ideas since they could be taken by your employer as their ideas - best to keep these in a secure place for your own personal consumption or use outside of work later].

·         Since your site is a public space, we hope you will be as respectful to the company, our employees, our customers, our partners and affiliates, and others (including our competitors {love thy enemies}) as the company itself endeavors to be.  Now this is the sticky point - how do you let it rip on your blog when you are trying to be respectful and tasteful - it seems that this is part of the creative tension of the medium - finding that happy balance.

·         You may provide a link from your site to the company’s website, if you wish (Of course they can then track people that go from your site directly to theirs - do you really want them to know that people are reading your blog?  Maybe Maybe not).  The web design group has created a graphic for links to the company’s site, which you may use for this purpose during the term of your employment (subject to discontinuation in the company’s discretion).  Contact a member of the web design group for details.  Please do not use other company trademarks on your site or reproduce company material without first obtaining permission.

So, I guess that's it for now.  I just feel that if I want to write about something, I should not feel constrained, but I do. 

comment [] 47 6:08:59 PM .