…this blog is on indefinite hiatus. It seems blogging filled a gap for me over the past few years, namely a way to be heard as a single voice within an ever growing and already massive company. In my new workplace, that need is filled by the day-to-day of a job that I love doing. Hence, little personal desire or perceived need to keep the blogging going.
That and I’m busier than ever, so an acute lack of time plays a role as well.
An upshot of this inadvertent blogging break is that I’ve done a lot of thinking about why I should blog (or even IF I should…I know, heresy!) and what I should blog about. There is a just a hint of clarity forming on that front, so I may start up again in the coming months. It will, however, be on a new domain as I think “seattleduck” has had its run as my personal online identity. Stay tuned.
In the meantime, I’m haunting Facebook like everyone else, so feel free to stop in and say hello there.
Kevin
Popularity: 27% [?]
I love this headline:
Guy live-Twitter’s wife’s childbirth, lives to tell about it
The man actually Twittered his child’s birth…live. I can see the value in dropping in a 140-character gem of an announcement after the fact, say in the waiting room in between phoning relatives. But LIVE?
The shock is somewhat tempered (or amplified?) by the news that he also streamed the birth live via Ustream, which is vastly stranger to my taste. Some things just need to stay private.
But hats off to Paul and his wife, both for bringing their beautiful baby into the world and also for giving all the rest of us geeks a bit more breathing room in the What’s Acceptable department.
Popularity: 27% [?]
Yesterday was my last day at Microsoft. Today, I’m having a beer…
This caps off 7+ years over a 9 year stretch that all started with the acquisition of a small company (Valence Research, Inc.) in Portland back in 1998. That led me to a product manager job on Windows Server and later roles in developer marketing working on community outreach (including helping launch INETA) and student programs. I finished up most recently working with the Online Services Group - MSN, Windows Live, and Live Search - PR team on blogger and community engagement.
Suffice it to say there were a lot of office moves, building changes, road trips, conferences, launches, morale events, and so on that I could try and recount, but I’ll save those details for nostalgia blog posts down the road. The best part for me is recalling all the amazing people I had the honor of working with and for across those jobs - some have moved on outside the company, many are still part of it, yet all of them made Microsoft a fascinating place to work. I would absolutely recommend it to anyone looking for a next big step in their career.
But enough with looking backwards!
What’s next for me?
- Head to Vegas with the wife for a few days of blistering hot weather and drinks by the pool.
- Take a week off for puttering about the house catching up on the vast array of neglected home improvement tasks and pet projects. Most likely leave most of them unfinished.
- Do something about this blog and my personal online brand.
- Update my employment history/status all over the Web (sigh…).
- Get pumped up for my new job!
Speaking of…
In mid-August I’ll be starting as Director of Marketing & Sales for WebJunction.org, a division of OCLC funded by grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. WebJunction recently secured a new grant in order to expand and develop their site and offerings and drive towards self-sustainability. My role will be a part of that effort.
What drew me to WebJunction? WebJunction is an organization focused on building a thriving online and local community in support of a cool social mission. It is also loaded with people who are both passionate about that mission as well as being serious experimenters with all the tools and technologies we’ve come to love under the Web 2.0 banner.
Beyond that: I was looking for a chance to work on a small team again; to find a role that encompasses all aspects of marketing from PR and MarCom to product marketing and sales; to put a lot of the community marketing skills I’ve gained to the test; and in general for a change of scenery. WebJunction fits all of that perfectly, so I am very excited (errr, “super excited” to use my Microsoft lingo!) to join the group.
You’ll still find me blogging, on email (kevinbriody AT gmail DOT com), and on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Feel free to add me as friend or contact on any of those if you want to keep in touch, or just watch this RSS feed for all my latest.
To everyone at Microsoft, I still have a tight family connection back to the company so you just might see me trolling the holiday parties down the road or wandering the halls with a visitors badge on. Keep in touch, I’m not going far! :)
Now…off to pack for Vegas.
Popularity: 34% [?]
I’m approaching one of those life “inflection points” this week (more on that in a later post) which is prompting me to take a hard look at my personal online brand. Right now, that consists largely of this blog, seattleduck.com. Seattleduck started out as my first real foray into serious blogging and has shifted and evolved over the past few years as my own interests and tastes have changed. Which is all well and good, except that the end result is a horribly unfocused mess.
I have a few high traffic posts, mostly related to work or marketing topics:
But the rest is mostly unsorted, and despite the above I don’t feel this blog is really considered a marketing or community-focused blog, the foci of my career and the logical goal for development of my personal online brand. At the same time I enjoy having an outlet for completely random personal thoughts that are not aimed at any specific audience - musings on family, MMO’s, photography, and the like.
On the URL - part of me likes the somewhat odd domain, as at least it’s reasonably memorable and invites people to ask “what’s the story?” Part of me dislikes it as its vague and limiting - a simple perhaps even petty example, but what if I move?
So what to do? I think it breaks down into a few choices:
1. Status Quo, with a touch of focus: Keep seattleduck.com, but set out to get it established as a marketing blog (Power 150 here I come!). Interject the occasional personal thoughts or ramblings for my own satisfaction.
2. Split my Focus: Keep seattleduck.com as a purely personal blog, and create a new marketing blog focused on social and community marketing. I’d have to keep a duck theme in there somewhere for kicks, so maybe socialmallard.com? :) I feel reasonable comfortable I could build up a readership on a new blog and establish that as part of my online brand, if I keep it focused. Lots of work, sure, but that process alone could be fun.
3. One-Stop-Domain: Following Brandon’s recent lead, and many other examples, should I go buy kevinbriody.net (.com being held by that other guy) and start from ground up there? With kevinbriody.net/personal and kevinbriody.net/marketing feeds, or just one blog that is basically option 1 above but under a simpler domain?
There are pros and cons to each - whatever I do I realize how painful it is to switch URLs given the impact on permalinks and so on (seattleduck.com wouldn’t be deleted, just a large “we’ve moved” note appended to each post). However I feel frustrated and reluctant to really dive back in to blogging until I get a clear plan laid out.
Any thoughts from my vast readership? :)
Popularity: 47% [?]
November 27, 2007 
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This blog is the creation of Kevin Briody, a thirtysomething Oregon Duck alumnus who lives in the Seattle area, which at least explains the blog name. For the rest, eh, I'll give you some links:
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