When I went to work for my current employer I knew they had extreme views on brand protection. There was a line, fuzzy as it was. I thought I could still post about technology without crossing that line. As my job changed this became increasingly more difficult, and about four years ago my already anemic posts dropped to next to nothing.

Earlier this year I began writing and posting again. Even the long gap through Spring into Fall was because I was working on some longer projects. The issue is that none of it has anything to do with my professional life. That has always been the purpose of this site. While I’ve mixed creative and professional, the main thread was always related to my career in technology.

This has all lead me to re-evaluate my personal/professional brand, or lack there of. While I’m still struggling with whether to mix my creative efforts with professional, it’s time to get back to basics. I’m still at the same company, but my work has evolved over time, and I feel I can once again negotiate that fuzzy line.

The Beginning

When I started this site it incubated from some writing I had been doing condemning the superhero culture I saw circa 2005. We celebrated the heroic win when all was lost, when we should have praised those who delivered without issue time and again. It was about the rise of “the villain” as an agent of change. You can see that sentiment reflected in this site, “Malignant Genius: When you think like a genius, think malignant thoughts.”

Fast forward, and some of those old concerns still exist. My company refers to it as the diving catch. Pitching a no hitter is lauded, but forgotten. The diving catch makes the highlight reel. However; we’ve also seen movements such as DevOps, and agile methodologies adapted from manufacturing that focus on fewer defects and better quality. Times have changed and so have I. So where’s a villain to turn?

Moving Forward

There’s a lot of talk about the disruption of technology to move industries forward. This is where I’ll be spending most of my time professionally in the future. While I can’t discuss the tangible work I’ll be doing, I’ll also be helping to define what this means for my team and how we approach the work. It’s this, “disrupt to advance” space that I’m planning on addressing here. Not what the disruptions are, but how do you approach disruption.

I hope folks will find the ideas and topics in this space interesting. Who knows, maybe it’ll lead to a new tag line, “Be the change, think malignant thoughts.”