The only constant is change

You have probably noticed I don’t blog as much as I used to (although even that is relative). I have been incredibly busy the last month or two and I am probably only going to be busier next month and the next and the next. I have also been giving some thought to the direction my work has been taking and the projects I am involved in and have decided to shift my focus.

I thought I’d give you a snapshot of what I am working on at the moment before I launch into all the changes I am making and where my focus areas are:

I have already closed down the Biztips blog and have moved its content here (although Riaan told me a few posts are missing so apologies for that). I have also decided to place a few projects on hold/the backburner/the shelf for the time being and these include my fledgling companion podcast to this blog, GeckoVox, and my micropublishing business, 3puppies media. 3puppies will continue to aggregate my feeds for those of you who still receive the combined feed. I just won’t be pursuing that business avenue for now.

There are also a couple newish projects which I have been contemplating/working on which I am going to open up completely and let you and the rest of the community drive, if you want to. The first two are the SA Rocks wiki Nic and I launched recently and the SA WiFi wiki that went up the other day.

I have another project I have been keeping in the wings which I’d like to set loose and this is the SA Publishers Association (temporary name!!). The wiki is here and is pretty self-explanatory. Basically, the idea is to create a representative body for all of us bloggers and podcasters (and any other independent content creators/publishers). After the SA Blog Awards controversy it really hit me how important it is for us to be credible in the eyes of the general public. Consider how often bloggers are maligned in the media (the most recent example is the De Lille story). It just seems to me that we, as a community, could be better served by a community driven body that represents us all (a bit like the Online Publishers Association) that could help present a better image of the community. Take a look at the wiki if you are interested in getting involved and let’s change the perception of bloggers and podcasters.

I thought that if I scale back in some areas this picture would look a little better. Alas, it is still a bit crazy. As you can see my two primary focus areas now are law and policy (this includes my law firm, Jacobson Attorneys, the Legally Content podcast and my new work with iCommons / Creative Commons South Africa) and chilibean. I also write for The Times and there is this humble blog.

Although my life is still pretty crazy at the moment, it made a lot of sense to me to refocus my efforts and group my activities into focus areas. I am also a lot more comfortable with my chosen profession because I will be spending more time on new media law (at least the law pertaining to new media) and less time on the drudge work that makes me want to flee anything resembling the law (on that note, keep an eye on the Jacobson Attorneys blog in the coming weeks for a few changes).

Another decision I have made is to blog to promote my work interests and politics/beliefs rather than to build traffic and make money from blogging itself. That decision take the pressure off me to post every day so you may see fewer posts on my blogs than in the past. I like to think that when I do post to my blogs, I will post something worth reading and not just to keep the hits up.

I also find I am using my tumblelog a bit more often to publish smaller posts. I also post a bit on Twitter and all of my feeds run into my Jaiku stream (which is probably the single best feed to subscribe to if you want to track what I am doing on the Web).

So I am basically still around (in case you were wondering). A lot.

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busy, consolidation, jacobson attorneys, law and policy, chilibean, new media, jaiku, twitter, tumblelog, law, focus, let’s ride bikes