Making a Contribution

I had lunch today with Andy Sack, the CEO of Judys Book, and a longtime board member here at Zango. He keeps a regular blog, A Sack of Seattle, with a readership, shall we say, substantially larger than this one. He and I spent most of lunch talking about blogging, and I quickly realized just how disconnected I am from the blogosphere. I confess that I've spent much more time writing this blog over the last month or two than I've spent reading other people's -- just as I've spent more time writing poetry (when I write it) than reading it. Andy kept asking me, "So you read this blog right?" And I kept having to shake my head in shame. Most of them I hadn't even heard of. It's a lack that I will try to remedy. The issue is figuring out where to add in all that reading, what with work, church, my wife, an impending adoption (more on that later), trying to stay in reasonable shape, finally some sunshine here in Seattle, and already too many books to read.

Still, it made me think. One of the things that I haven't done very well as a CTO is reaching out beyond Zango's walls. A friend of mine, John Schneider, is the CTO of AgileDelta, a small but impressive company that has some very impressive technology. John seems to spend most of his time on W3C committees, working out XML standards, speaking at conferences, coordinating Efficient XML tests with NATO. It's a different sort of job than I've been doing so far: nearly everything I've worked on has been internally focused, just trying to get the next product release out the door. I think it's something that will need to change: hopefully we can get Zango to the point where the internal Dev organization doesn't require so much attention, and I can focus my efforts more externally. With any luck -- if I can get it past our omnipresent PR department (Hi Steve!) -- this blog may yet serve as a steppingstone along those lines.