Death of a hired man

Being in such esteemed company, I sometimes feel I need to keep up with the quality of the tech blogs around me. But I started this blog because I wanted to put down my thoughts on business, strategy, leadership and all good things that make tech teams successful beyond the technology. Most of my legacy I left behind was not a portfolio of patents or a cutting edge code, but it was a group of people under my guidance as their CTO/VP, these folks went on to greater things hopefully in part because of what I managed to impart upon them during our journey together. I didn't teach them to code in Java, I taught them to lead, to challenge, to be fearless (even when they were fearful). So perhaps an occasional diversion will show the other side of TheIdeaDude. We are, after all, multi-faceted beings.

I love to learn even from my 14 old son. This weekend, while helping him out with his home work, we came across a poem by Robert Frost, called the Death of a Hired Man. It's a sad poem but the title spoke to me. I started TheGoodBlogs after turning down some great offers partly because I didn't want to be just a hired hand (even if it was at an executive level). It was time to see if I could steer my own destiny despite how frightening it was. Part of the poem I loved was "I'll sit and see if that small sailing cloud, will hit or miss the moon" I guess our small sailing cloud is TheGoodBlogs.

Another profound but unrelated part of the poem was I know just how it feels to think of the right thing to say too late. It is amazing how someone can express something so simply and yet create such resonance within the reader. Perhaps blogging means being able to say the right thing even if it seems too late.