Having thought about this site and what I’d like to do with it for some time, I’ve concluded:

• It needs a purer focus and brand
• It should make a positive contribution to the world
• It needs a commitment of regular and worthwhile material
• It should be built using my company’s technology (not Wordpress)

I’ve tentatively chosen a new name (”Don’t Settle”, which pretty much says it all) and been drafting fresh content for a while.

It’ll always take a back seat to my work as Silktide, but I’d like to make this a worthier contribution to the web than it is now.

Today Silktide Studios launched it’s new brand, complete with funky website and a flurry of custom fortune cookies for our lucky customers (it’s the Chinese New Year, y’see).

And the best thing is I had nothing to do with it!

At some point during the past 7.5 years, a wonderful self-organising team of hard working individuals took over, bit-by-bit, my role there until I’m simply not needed anymore. And the company is better for it.

Somehow seeing all of this launch brought this all home. I’ve got new territories to conquer now, but it’s great to see the old ones so well taken care of.

It’s been 10 days of experimentation, and they have been good.

I’ve pretty much got into a self-sustaining routine now, exercising every day without strain, and getting more of everything done in less time.

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So my last comment was pretty damn stupid. What could go wrong in just 2 weeks?

• Caught fever, migraine, lost voice, failed to sleep for days, withered to a slobbering whiny slip of a man who spent most of his holiday in hotel room quivering.
• Emergency for FORTUNE 500 client on New Year weekend resulted in 3 more days of zero sleep, life-on-hold lunacy.
• Trapped in my flat by overzealous electronic gates for 3 days. Fought incompetent, slavering support-monkeys who insisted this “wasn’t a problem”.
• Numerous personal heartaches I don’t see fit to publish.

Which was nice. So what have we learned?

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I just read something crazy enough to intrigue me - an effort diet:

“If you somehow pulled this off, then six months from now, you would be the fittest, best rested, most intelligent, best funded and motivated person in your office or your field. You would know how to do things other people don’t, you’d have a wider network and you’d be more focused.”

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Personally, I think 2009 will be a great year.

I don’t believe in New Year’s Resolutions - resolutions are way too important to be making once a year (and abandoning about 2 weeks later). But I do have a few aims for 2009:

• Roughly double the size of Silktide: staff, turnover and profit.
• Move to the US (or prepare for it in early 2010).
• Run two extra marathons with improving times (under 4 hr).

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It’s a shame that some of life’s most profound lessons can be such a pain in the ass.

By nature, I’ve tended to be one of those crazed ‘try-anything-once’ types, forever throwing myself into uncharted waters like a hyper-caffeinated lemming on a rain-slick precipice. (This is more fun than it sounds).

It isn’t a great recipe for lasting success or happiness. The problem is our world and it’s our pesky free market is so damn well adapted at, well, everything. Odds are, whatever you’re doing has already been done, and a lot better, by a lot of other people.

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