So I’ve taken to actually reading business books. I’ve read management books before, but what I mostly took away from them were a validation of the leadership skills I already apply in managing geeks. Now, I’m reading to actually learn more about business. To help me along, I’m reading The Ten Day MBA, 3rd Ed., by Steven Silbiger. I’d bought this book a while back, but now I’m determined to actually read through the whole thing.
Apart from The Ten Day MBA, I’m also reading some marketing books as well, which I borrowed from my brother, who happens to be graphic artist with a BS-Marketing degree. I’ve started reading Selling The Wheel, by Jeff Cox and Howard Stevens. This dovetails nicely with the first chapter of The Ten Day MBA, since the book begins with Marketing as well.
Why the sudden interest in sales and marketing? I need to bone up on the topic to round out and complete my management skills. I can lead my devs through victory in war, but I need to have a firmer grasp of the psyche of the more non-tech management types. Plenty of leadership skills I already got — most of the devs I’ve actually managed will attest to that — but I need to be able to get inside the heads of business people as well. I guess you 
could say, my goals have finally and truly shifted from perfection of my technical skills to perfection of my management and business skills.
One thorny question I have is, is it acceptable to start selling something that doesn’t yet exist and pass it off as something that’s existed for years already? I mean, I’d always thought, perhaps naively, that lying was bad and that you’d go to hell for it after you’d died — but then again, I’m no business expert, so what do I know, right? Hopefully I’ll find answers to my questions in the course of my self-study in the coming days, weeks, and months.
Hey, checkit — I’m getting traffic from alphainventions.com. Before you go clicking over there, you should take a look at this first: http://safebrowsing.clients.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?client=Firefox&hl=en-US&site=http://alphainventions.com/
Yes, boys and girls — that there’s an attack site. It aggregates blog updates and consequently drives traffic towards those blogs it aggregates. Naturally, it attracts traffic to itself first. However, it also tries to make you download and install malware. To wit:
What happened when Google visited this site?
Of the 3 pages we tested on the site over the past 90 days, 2 page(s) resulted in malicious software being downloaded and installed without user consent. The last time Google visited this site was on 2009-07-30, and the last time suspicious content was found on this site was on 2009-07-30.
So if you’re one of those suckers hapless victims who browsed there, be sure to get your system checked for viruses and change all your passwords to all your accounts. Good luck!
Every so often, I go through one. Sometimes it creeps up on me, sometimes it’s suddenly there, and most times it lasts many days, or weeks, or even months. This time around, it built up over two months, and then suddenly came overwhelmingly to a head during the last week, threatening to drown me, to crush me. And everytime, I have an out-and-out, no-holds-barred, drag-out, no-rules, life-and-death fight with The Dweller on the Threshold — my Dweller on the Threshold. I get knocked down, ground down to dust, then I pick myself up, pull myself together, overcome the Dweller this time around, and I come out knowing something more about myself. And always, always, that Self-Knowledge gives me more Strength than before the Long Dark Night started.
There are no words to describe what I just went through. But then again, there never is. Even if you know me, or think you know the circumstances around this, the outer events are only ten percent of the total picture. Again, there simply are no words.
To Soulmate, my Twin Ray, my Best Friend, my Better Half, the Love of My Life, with whom I have shared The Path’s most difficult Initiations, and who has stood by me through the years, even when she had absolutely no reason to — to my Beloved, Beloved Treasa, a most Happy Birthday to you!
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