I started out thinking that this newsletter would be technical, then realized that I am currently (maybe permanently) burned out on writing about my one great area of technical expertise, CD-R. So the thing took a travel-writing sort of turn, but then the events of and following Sept 11 made that seem trivial. My last edition got more serious, and one person wrote that I was “brave” to take on the topics that I did.
Honestly, I didn’t think of it as taking a big leap – I feel that I’m simply sharing thoughts with an extended circle of friends, and I hope that you perceive this as a conversation in which you are welcome to take part, even if (so far) I’m doing most of the talking. Calling this a “newsletter” doesn’t give me any particular authority, and I don’t claim to know all the answers or always to be sure of what I’m saying. One reader took issue with some of my comments in the last issue, but I think we’ve sorted that out – we’ve established that we both like a good argument. <grin>
This is different from what I was doing before for the company, and I’m still feeling my way into it. After years of technical and marketing writing, I’ve moved to the op-ed page. Here I don’t have the restrictions of representing a company, and can be candid about my own thoughts and opinions. Where there is opinion, there’s always room for dispute, so I don’t expect you always to agree with or like what I have to say. But I do hope you’ll always feel free to discuss it with me.
