the professional and the personal

Exactly three months ago tonight I made a pretty big change here at powazek.com. I went from posting almost daily on what was basically a weblog to posting infrequently on what was basically a portal. This wasn't an accident.

There were two main reasons for the change – one personal and one professional. On the professional side, I was (and am) shaping up my life as an author and consultant. I wanted to be free to write what I wanted (I always said the site was a webcam for my brain), and yet, if I was going to have potential clients coming here to scope me out (hi clients!), I didn't want them to catch me babbling about listening to NPR in my bathrobe.

On the personal side, I realized there had always been a tension between the professional promotional stuff ("new in {fray}!") and the personal revelatory stuff ("you don't know my uncle Charlie"). I suspected that some of the harsh criticism I got was from visitors who came expecting a professional and just got a person (or vice versa).

So I tore it all down and put up a new site. Something slick. Something that basically made fun of itself for being so promotional. Something cool. I walked away from it feeling very pleased with myself. I'd identified a problem and fixed it. That's what I do.

Then something funny happened. I missed it. I missed the outlet. I missed the ease of it. I missed the connections. (I did not miss the criticisms, the back-biting, or the A-list popularity contest nonsense, but let's just ignore that for now, shall we? I'm trying to stay positive here.)

But the truly funny thing is that I started hearing from people in my real, offline life who missed it, too. My sister, my mom, my dad all mentioned it to me. My friends said they missed it. Even Heather, who sees me every day, said she missed reading what I had to say. They'd all grown accustomed to hearing a little bit about my life every day. (And to think I was never even sure they were reading!)

"I never understand what you're talking about with all that web stuff," my mom said. "But it's nice to know you're there."

So I decided to come out of retirement, so to speak. I've added this "personal log" to the new powazek.com, but removed from the front page. The personal stuff will be here in the main area, and the professional stuff will stay over there on the right for anyone who wants to know. I'm hoping that separating the two visually will help solve the tension I was feeling before. We'll see.

I'm using Noah Grey's fantastic Greymatter to do all the heavy lifting, so posting is easy and comments are built right in. Please, no Blogger defector conspiracy theories, okay? It's nothing like that. Blogger and Greymatter are different tools, each good for different things. I just wanted to play with a new tool, and so far I'm very impressed.

So bookmark away, if you'd like to keep in touch with me. And thanks for coming along for the ride. There's no telling what I'll wind up babbling about here – probably a little bit of everything. But this time, at least I'll know who it's for.

– Derek

{ 9:38pm }

» yeah!

– heather  { 3.5.01 @ 10:50pm }

» Although I don't think you'll ever escape the criticism that you don't like (come on, you have to learn to swim in it, do the freestroke!), it's good to see that you're taking the more rewarding of the two options (for us at least). Welcome back.

– erik  { 3.6.01 @ 12:57am }

» Bla bla bla.....A-list!
Bla bla bla.....Blogger defector!

Nah, really, welcome back, Derek. And although I didn't tell you, I missed ya too! :-)

– Tom Cosgrave  { 3.6.01 @ 2:27am }

» I was one of those who missed hearing what you had to say.

I know I'll enjoy the ride.

– Rachel  { 3.6.01 @ 3:07am }

» I'm so glad you are posting again. I missed knowing what was going on in your life. Welcome back, brother. I love you and miss you lots!

– Jenn, your sister  { 3.6.01 @ 6:28am }

» Thanks!

Now get back to work.

– V  { 3.6.01 @ 6:28am }

» This is exactly what I've been waiting for! Woo hoo, welcome back. :)

– anathea  { 3.6.01 @ 8:02am }

» Welcome back indeed! *hugz*

– Yardsale  { 3.6.01 @ 8:23am }

» Wonderful! I do admit I came to this site everyday in hopes of culling a personal tidbit out of the little newsbar. Yay!

– Stef Noble  { 3.6.01 @ 10:37am }

» Yay! I missed the Derek journal. I'm glad it's coming back. :)

– me.  { 3.6.01 @ 10:54am }

» I'm with Stef -- I've been checking every day too. It's nice to have you back...

– Carol  { 3.6.01 @ 6:13pm }

» I, too was waiting for something like this to return. makes me quite happy that there's abit of both worlds now [web and personal].

– Amber  { 3.6.01 @ 6:52pm }

» Ahh, feels like home again...

– Angela  { 3.6.01 @ 7:23pm }

» i'm very glad that you're back, derek *smile*

– amy  { 3.6.01 @ 8:21pm }

» yay! :-)

– prol  { 3.7.01 @ 12:26am }

» glad you're back!

– lia  { 3.7.01 @ 1:45am }

» Happy to see you back Derek.

– dave  { 3.7.01 @ 2:13am }

» Ahhhh, I'm so glad to hear your voice again. Thanks for whispering asides to us again. ;)

– Dinah (MetaGrrrl, she says parenthetically as though there were a lot of Dinah's who need to be distinguished between)  { 3.7.01 @ 9:18am }

» Rockin' good news. :) Having taken breaks from this whole spiel before, I know what you mean about missing it. It gets under your skin. Let it out, daaaahling!

– Jason  { 3.7.01 @ 9:18am }

» well, now i'll have to cross someone off my morning reading list to add you back in. welcome back.

– Mike M  { 3.7.01 @ 9:21am }

» halleluja!

i really missed you while you were writing the book

posting something worthwile every now and then is much better than "pressure posting" every day - imho

enjoy sxsw - i'll be missing it (again) this year, but i'll check back here once in a while to see wassup

– timmee  { 3.7.01 @ 9:52am }

» :)

– kylie gusset  { 3.7.01 @ 10:16am }

» Thanks, everyone! And fwiw, Timmee, I'm still writing the book. Or it's writing me. I'm still not sure....

– Derek  { 3.7.01 @ 10:26am }

» Glad to see that when it looked like so many of the (careful here!) uh, classic bloggers bailing out or getting cynical, you're coming back.

– james  { 3.7.01 @ 2:18pm }

» i must say, i'd been checking almost daily, too and i'm real glad you're back. thanks for providing a ride on which we can come along.

– karen  { 3.7.01 @ 4:19pm }

» me too. i've been hanging out on a pretty regular basis because good stuff seems to happen here as predictably as the tides. i don't want to miss any of it.

– christopher naze  { 3.7.01 @ 4:20pm }

» terrific!

derek, your pages convinced me that the web was capable of creating beauty in the first place. if it weren't for you, i wouldn't know HTML. i've always been a fan, and i'm glad to see your braincam back in a place that my DHTML-challenged-Opera can view it.

thank you for sharing with us!

– adam apparatus  { 3.7.01 @ 8:19pm }

» Your blog was the first one I ever read (turned me on to the whole phenom), and even though I have quite a few in daily rotation now, I REALLY missed your daily "words of wisdom".

Welcome back and THANKS!

– jim wegman  { 3.8.01 @ 7:47am }

» I lose faith in the web sometimes, and sometimes I fall behind and have to catch up. But this is why you're around, to offer us things like fray and kvetch, both of which I've been enjoying for a number of years. So even though I missed the fact that you stopped posting for a bit - it's good you started again. Good luck with the book

– Joanne  { 3.8.01 @ 2:54pm }

» thank god. zeldman's been acting really grim lately. :)

it's good to read your words again, derek. you matter, and you've been missed.

– A  { 3.8.01 @ 3:41pm }

» Just when I thought news from powazek land came only in the form of fray's newsletters and had abandoned visiting, you strike again.
I can brush off the nostalgia then.

Thanks

– pecus  { 3.9.01 @ 5:41am }

» Good to see you back Derek. Though I haven't emailed in years, powazek.com was a near daily visit for me and I was sad to see the blog go away (though it was fun to deconstruct your dhtml.... NOT! :-)). Looking forward to the book...

– Mark  { 3.10.01 @ 10:52pm }

» I'm glad your back.. Any chance you'll bring back the SF ghost cam?

– teri  { 3.11.01 @ 5:06am }

» Hurray..! I missed your logging, I'm glad you're back. Good luck with the rest of the book, too.

– sammy  { 3.11.01 @ 5:40pm }

» ...errr... what they said.

....Are you hiring?

– KJB  { 3.12.01 @ 6:00am }

» Hey Derek-

The beauty of this, I think, is in one's ability to make fun of oneself. I know we talked a bit about this sort of thing when we met this past summer, and it's good to see you putting theory into practice, so to speak.

Crunch time with the project presentation is nearing (this Wednesday at 7pm!), so wish me luck!!

– Alyssa  { 3.17.01 @ 4:34pm }

» I didn't realize I would miss your site so much when you stopped telling me where to go and what to look at - it left a big hole in my day - I am very glad you are back amusing us, teaching us, and I do hope you can keep it all going.

– jogi  { 3.17.01 @ 10:55pm }

» Just goes to show. We're all stuck here. We have no choice. We are logging automata - forced by the web to prostitute our writing skills day in and day out until we die. We shall write until we drop. Then we shall be boiled down into a black unctious liquid and people will use us for ink.

– Tom Coates  { 3.19.01 @ 8:47am }

» You can probably tell I didn't know about this while I was at SXSW. You're a natural at *logging; it's nice to see this again.

– Nikolai  { 3.20.01 @ 6:57pm }