HISS: Head In Sand Syndrome

I have a 4 children 12 and under so I am finely attuned to the pace of change in my world. Every day brings with it an opportunity, and yesterday as I was leaving for work, my 5 year old, youngest.. said

"have a good day Daddy, and try not to break anything"

That caused me to start thinking a bit about what I do to "not break" things and how I set a balance to ensure that I am safely planning for the future. My recent indepth study of SaaS and cloud computing models has introduced me to the idea of "speed of thought" execution coupled with "rate of obsolescence" for my decision analysis.

I am now constantly thinking about my delivery speed both as a technologist as well as a musician. I want to create and embrace culture and opportunity with its energy and excitement. I have hope for the future, but vigilance is required to avoid breaking things unnecessarily.

Perhaps, the bigger risk for all of us, is to try too hard to maintain the status quo. By sticking our proverbial "heads" in the sand we somehow pretend that the world isn't changing around us.

• Think often about what you think.
• Be sure you understand your risk exposure and your tolerance level for risk.
• Develop a disciplined plan for making decisions.
• Be bold, and creative, but embrace contingency planning as a critical step to counter.
• Keep your head up so you can see. Look up from the music and take stock of what the audience is doing.
• Take every day as it comes both opportunities and challenges.