Um, hi. It’s been a little while since I’ve been here, so, er, I won’t be surprised if you don’t recognize me. That’s okay. The more I keep writing, maybe we’ll both figure out what these blog things are about. (How do you use Movable Type again?)

I think my lack of blogging has been a bit due to some limitations of this redesign (the loss of one of my favorite writers from the blog scene hasn’t helped, either). Splitting the blog content into a few functional columns–like product reviews or links–was helpful from an architectural perspective on the back-end, but I think I can count this front-end as a failure. The fact is, I’ve been avidly blogging in the strictest sense of the word (you know, linking to interesting stuff), but it’s unlikely you’ve noticed because our Link section is “under the fold” of the homepage–or, maybe, if you’ve subscribed to the Atom feed. But, seriously, RSS is just not that accessible to Joe Internet, yet.

By the way, is it me, or are these paragraphs too narrow?

I’m totally digging how Matt has his blog set up such that new links and blog entries float to the top. He put it best, The format of a weblog dictates its writing. I’ve been considering whether to undertake modifying the site to do something similar so all the content of the site floats to the top: photos, links, blogs, products (which needs to be done differently, anyway)–the total deal. Of course, undertaking that much work has got me thinking if I really want to be using Movable Type to do it. I love MT. It’s been fantastic for me, but a lot of what I accomplish with it is really an ugly hack as far as content management is concerned. Even the multi-blog thing I mentioned above; it’s really just a work around for the fact that MT 2.x doesn’t support hierarchical categories. What would I migrate to? Likely fully open source projects like WordPress or Drupal. I’m not completely sold on WP because its still more of a blogging tool than a CMS just yet, but v1.3 promises to address some of that. Either way, it would definitely eat up a ton of free time.

Speaking of web-based projects that eat up a ton of free time, did you notice the new Village Church site? What do you think? The final product was the result of about six months’ worth of work, mostly from scratch. There was a site previous to this, and the elder who administers the box converted the hacky HTML to something that will validate, so I had usable content. However, everything from the URLs to the design to the navigation was built from the ground up. I could go on, but you can read about all the good stuff in the Colophon there.

The project taught me a lot. I got to learn CVS, which is a nice addition to the résumé. By the way, if you ever have to use CVS on Windows, I highly recommend picking up a copy of Tortoise CVS, a project that does a fantastic job of abstracting the CVS geek-fu into a user-friendly GUI. You’d think that plugging HTML into a CVS tree is a little übernerdy for web design folks, but there’s a ton of benefit to be had in the small overhead cost. For example, in September when I was ramping up to work on the project after our move, it was good to look at the history of index.html to see what work I’d already completed. This wasn’t only just encouraging, but accelerated my time trying to triage what still needed to get done in the context of work completed.

At around the same time, I also set up a free version of Basecamp to help manage the project. If I was doing this web design stuff as a full-time gig, I would throw down for a monthly subscripton to this service in a heartbeat. Basecamp’s main strength lies in its user-friendly approach to project management: estimate and set milestones, then assign to-do lists to them. This is drop-dead simple to anyone who has been involved in enterprise-wide projects, but intentionally so. Not all projects need to have painfully detailed project plans and delivery estimates. Gantt charts are great, but they’re just one way to tell the story of a project path.

Another less obvious, but, I think, more powerful advantage of Basecamp is that it is a tool to facilitate conversation. Projects, says Hal Macomber are conversations (PDF). Rather than a heirarchical set of clearly articulated, fully known dependant tasks which was born out of the wishful thinking of modernity, real projects are frought with uncertainty and networks of commitments. If an on-time measurement of your initial estimate is your only measure of project success, your success rate will likely be very low (if not, please tell me why!). Projects in information technology (and probably construction) have to be measured by more than “did I bring it in by the first guessed date.” They need to be measured by quality, customer satisifaction, completion of a set of criteria, the feeling of success by the project team, and probably even more variables. These variables are measured by conversation—engaged interaction of all parties involved for the success of the project. Basecamp, essentially, functions like a blog, letting you build a project community through online communication. Each person can choose their level of involvement, but by the simple act of my posting a message every week or two inviting feedback and ideas, Basecamp creates buzz—another way of saying conversation outside of the project stakeholders.

Perhaps even more importantly, I’ve been learning that projects are journeys with starting points and destinations. Systems design is both passive and active; it’s simultaneously something that you do and that happens to you. The unfolding of the project reveals unexpected constraints which challenges your creative resonse to them–a response that is wrought out of your experiences, ideas, and interests. Add to your own experience the diversity of your team and pressures from your stakeholders, and project management looks a lot more like orchastrating a symphony than it does building a parking deck. But, the journey isn’t just measured by the output of the project. It’s also measured in terms of your professional development: what skills you’ve learned, secrets discovered about the organization, newfound interests and dislikes. For this reason, choose carefully where you put your time in and what you attach your name to–it may define your professional skillsets and your reputation in the organization for years. Projects are journeys. Where do you want to go?

I’ve also been doing a lot of thinking about project management (in case you couldn’t tell) and leadership. Even writing that I’ve been thinking about leadership makes me want to gag, but I have to admit that I’ve been getting hooked on books about organizations since D&B gave out copies of Good to Great earlier this year. People in organizations is quickly becoming a new interest for me, and hopefully I can make it interesting for you as well. If not, hey, there’s a whole lotta’ internet out there—go find something else to do.