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January 2018

The Return

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It’s been almost a year since I last posted, which is a shame because I was going pretty hot and heavy for a while there.  So, what happened?

I got a job at Videology, running the User Experience & Design team, so I took some time off from blogging, and then a little time off turned into a year come and gone. It’s that simple and it’s not.

Anytime you start a new job there is a period of intense learning, where you’re trying to absorb as much as possible, about the business, about the people, your responsibilities, the process, the politics, and all the ins-and-outs.  I remember this feeling of utter confusion about not understanding how to schedule a conference room, staring at Outlook thinking, “this has to be easier than I’m making it out to be.” It wasn’t, it was obtuse.  And that’s part of being in a new job too, the little obtuse things that become second nature over time.

So, during that intense period I took an intentional break so I could focus on getting up to speed, and it rolled into, high intensity at work and leaving little room for wanting to do anything else other than relaxing for a bit before passing out.  And because I wasn’t blogging full force it dropped completely to zero instead of being okay with one good solid post per month.

So, after a year I’m back.  Why?

Well, quite frankly, blogging is something I’ve always had a passion for, I’ve been trying to do it for a long time and while the job hasn’t become any less time consuming, nor any of the other responsibilities in my life, I decided that it was something worth spending my time doing, even if it is less frequent.

My run at it a year ago was a mix of posts around product, user experience and then a few about me, my thoughts, my family, whatever.  Just my ramblings.  I got good feedback on both sides of the fence, for those focused around my work passions and my non-work passions and so I’ve decided to split my one blog into two.  From the onset it was always the intention, but I thought it would be easier to gain a large following with one blog than splitting focus to two or three.  I also read somewhere that you shouldn’t spread yourself over different topics and rather laser focus into one.  It’s probably good advice for someone whose ultimate goal is to monetize and create a business around their blog, but for me, now, it’s about giving myself two different outlets.

This blog, mikespotten.com will be the outlet for posts like this, spilling my thoughts out onto the page, the place where I’ll write up my opinions on movies, comics, games, and I’ll probably write random posts about my family or crazy thoughts that I just want to throw up somewhere.  I imagine I’ll be posting here more often and I also have no expectation for readership.

My new blog, which I’ll be launching next week will be over at productslice.com.  This blog will be focused on product, user experience and leadership.  I’m committing to one solid blog post a month in 2018 and all my business focus blog posts from this site will be moving over there.

I’m excited for this new direction and I have a lot of posts built up from slacking for almost a year. First up, 2017 year in review.  Then I plan on writing out some of the lessons learned from my first year at Videology, but am unsure whether it will be more stream of consciousy over here or more business speak as my first entry over on productslice.