Writing

Drift

As I’ve written about before, Saturday morning is sacred. In weeks full of meetings, travel, people, and other productive distractions, having four consecutive hours to actually think is precious time – it’s time for writing. As a nerd afflicted with a decent case of NADD, this time can be problematic. It’s hard for me to… More

Six Years of Rands

I enabled Google Analytics on October 21, 2006, roughly a year after I started using Shaun Inman’s real-time (yet infrequently updated) Mint software. Both packages are part of my daily routine to see what is going on with the site, but I’ve rarely used them for more than understanding the basics: How is this article… More

The Elegant Email

For me, the amount of email that arrives is inversely proportionate to my amount of free time. This means the less time I have to read mail, the more mail that arrives. Greater minds than mine have attempted to tackle this unfortunate time management situation, so I’m going to keep it simple. You and I… More

2011 in Review

Over a half a million unique visitors stumbled on Rands this year and as the year winds down, I wanted to take a look back at the year in articles. These are articles that turned out to be popular or just pieces I loved to write: Bored People Quit. From a traffic perspective, the clear… More

The End

When I’m presenting to a large audience, I have three internal states: “I’m screwed.” I have not yet begun the presentation, but I’m imminently starting. This phase sucks. Every possible screw-up I’ve ever performed or could perform is running through my mind and my gut instinct is a sensible “just fucking run for it”. This… More