We are all on a journey or likely a number of journeys!  As I write this, the new Agility Street website is nearly done, and this will be the first “new” post on the blog.  One part of the update is to (more) clearly represent what we do.  A second part is to have a better home for discussions, updates, and writing.

Writing has always been a challenge for me.  While part of the challenge is in getting the words down in a concise way to make your point, another seemingly larger part is more about being bold enough to throw out your thoughts and ideas.   This is not a problem when working with people – just when I go to write it all down. I have a number of new posts and some new ideas coming.  A few are certainly on the edge – so I expect to get some dings – but of course, if you are not getting comments, you may not be saying anything interesting!  While I hope to see some discussion (my high dream), I also considered how to handle trolls aiming to start a flame war.  [If this last sentence makes sense to you without reading more – I’d love to hear what you recall!]

Do Not Feed the Trolls!

Using the way-back-machine, looking back many years ago, as we were “chatting” via netnews (I think it was on an IBM 9020 – but not sure my memory is that good!) there were often trolls out there.  I don’t hear that word much these days – but make no mistake, the trolls are there.  A troll is someone who just seems intent on flaming or bashing everything.  So you would have people start a flamewar, basically just intent on wreaking havoc on the conversation and aggravating everyone.

It’s one thing to get emotional and disagree, but of course once respect is gone, there is really no value to the conversation!

So in relation to getting flamed… Many of us used to sign posts with “flame away, I’m wearing asbestos underwear” as a way to say bring it on – your negativity will not stop me.

A few of the areas I’ll be looking at: organizational systems, coaching and facilitation, lean product management, agile business vs. agile software, the AgileSafari – the journey of people and teams, and some other assorted topics.  A broad list of topics in one sense – but it all ties back to helping people learn and improve… (and that includes me).

I really don’t want to feed the trolls (well, maybe a little), but hope I can inspire some emotion and feed some discussions to create some learning for myself and others. So, here I am at the beginning again, although it’s all just part of the longer journey!  Looking forward to it!