My Managers Coerced Me

Finding a pure motive in blogging-- a motive which will stand the test of time--has been elusive for me, but Mike Doyle, my Manager of Analytics and Integration Services Development, convinced me that there might be a pure motive needle in the blogging haystack of otherwise. My Manager of Business and Administrative Information Systems Development, Regina (Reggie) Nowacki, backed him up, so I was cornered and out numbered.

I'm a philosophical believer in pure motives... more on that topic later, maybe... so this whole blogging thing is peculiar to me. On the surface, my cynical side believes that the majority of bloggers are motivated mostly by ego-- I can point to innumerable blogs, many health care CIOs actually, who use blogs as yet another platform to display their intelligence and "If you're smart, you must listen to me" insights. Having no interest in revealing the ignorance of my intelligence, I can't find a pure motive in merely blogging about my smarts, of which there are few. I also can't find any purity of motive in blogging as an on-line diary or journal. I and everyone else would prefer that I do that in private and, besides, diaries always end up as evidence in court or in the wrong hands anyway. I had a girlfiend for a short time in college-- she had a cool name--Russell. Being all hip and cool and openly schmarmy, I let her read my journal, which contained one small but fairly personal paragraph about her. One afternoon, she walked into the bathroom with my journal in-hand, while I was taking a hot bubble bath. (Mr. Bubble; it doesn't leave a ring) I smiled widely and asked her if she read it, knowing well that she was going to shower me with compliments about my creative and brilliant writing. She threw the diary into the bathtub and told me I was a %$!#*& + ing jerk. All the ink ran into the bathwater and stained me-- and the tub-- blue'ish black. As assigned, I turned it in for grading to my sophmore 231 literature class.

So, I am slogging into blogging for two motives: (1) Mike and Reggie say they were attracted to Northwestern because of the philosophies of work and life which I espouse through a self-acknowledged unorthodox style of leadership and management. They say I should blog to attract more Mike's and Reggie's, and the other great people who comprise our IS team at NMFF. Since I fully agree that I would be honored to attract and work with similar people, I am comfortable with that motive; (2) My Mom. Even though my Mom is creeping up on 84 years and all the wisdom that goes with those years, I'm pretty sure that she will think I'm really important if I have my own blog. And since I've always been about fooling my Mom, this blog is just a continuation of that trend. She has no interest in using or owning a computer, and the only webs she surfs are the many in her woodshed, so I doubt she'll ever read this thing, so that's a problem.