So, you might have noticed something different about the blog’s appearance in recent days.
Your eyes do not deceive you. That IS a new banner.
It’s the work of Eddie Mize, a security professional popularly known as EddieTheYeti. I’ve written a lot about his art and have done a lot of posts where I put words to his images. Think of the new banner as a continuation of that project.
Like the last banner, this one captures the light and dark sides of life that I try to capture in the blog daily. On the left is an angel carrying a cross. On the right is a demon. I’m in the middle, constantly being tugged from one side to the other, with the goal of being with the angel most of the time. The demon waits, knowing that sooner or later I’ll make a mistake. Eddie also gave me a pair of wings and a sickle, further illustrating the struggle.
I like it, because it really captures the point of this whole exercise.
Not everyone will like it. But then the same can be said about the posts I write.
I’ve been an obsessively prolific writer over the years, and, frankly, I’ve had to take stock in what I’m doing. Overkill is an art for those of us with OCD, and it’s hard to say no when someone asks me to do something new.
But I’m still going to force some discipline upon myself.
Mood music:
I already reined in the frequency for this blog a couple years ago. Many days early on I wrote two or three posts a day, then went and wrote another couple posts a day in Salted Hash, the security blog I was writing for CSOonline. I’ve settled into a more sensible rhythm of four OCD Diaries posts a week, with a ban on posts when I’m traveling.
On the work side, I write in a group setting with The Akamai Blog, and I promised the blog’s managers I’d keep it to one post a day.
I do the Akamai Security Podcast once a week and the new Security Kahuna Podcast I’ll be doing with Akamai colleagues Dave Lewis and Martin McKeay will be monthly to start.
That brings me to Liquidmatrix. Founder Dave Lewis gave me the keys to his blogging platform and told me to write whatever I want, whenever I want, as long as I don’t get him sued.
That’s dangerous for me.
There’s a strong urge to go in there and start pumping out multiple posts a day. In our industry, there’s never a shortage of things to write about.
The danger is that I’ll get so into it that I’ll self-destruct, blowing myself to bits in the struggle to maintain my prolific reputation.
But I’m not going to do that.
Instead, I’ll write a Liquidmatrix post once a week, on Fridays, and I’ll drop my Akamai blogging from five posts a week to four.
I’m a lucky guy, having all these opportunities to be a voice in my industry and fighting for what I believe in on the side. It’s a gift. But in undisciplined hands, it’s a ticking box that threatens to blow off my hands.
