Reflections on reflecting - Changing blog times

Friends of Mambo Jambo –

It’s only been a couple of months but I am absolutely hooked … to writing, that is. I had never written this regularly or seriously before, and as I am discovering, it’s the best medium to deepen reflection and transform it into expression. It really provides space and time to think, collect and structure. It’s beautiful. Writing (and reading – without which there would be no writing) ought to be done a lot.

But times are changing. I have started a serious business school bid, which will keep me very busy for the next 4 months or so. Also, between work, extra work and expanding non-work activities, I no longer have the luxury to write 3,000 word posts which usually take up half a day of my time. I need to change. To induce and sustain change, I shall hold myself to the following – with you as my witnesses.

From now on all my posts will be 1,000 words or less – some will be very pithy and concise. I will cut down the frequency to once a week, or once every two weeks, depending on how big my backlog of ideas is, and how badly I need my fix to put them out there.

Also, I will not spend more than 1 hour on each post. They will still contain original content and ideas, just fewer stories and shenanigans – getting somewhat less personal in the process. The topics will continue to be eclectic – a reflection of the rich and diverse times we live in. I realize I lose a lot of followers because I do not follow a “theme”. More so than not having a theme, my topics tend to hit very random, diverse and sometimes deep niches, across geography, history, politics, business, economics, culture, travels and life, so they cannot be consistently interesting to everyone – even anyone.

But one of the things I enjoy most about writing is being able to cover such wide ground, without tripping up too much. Indeed, it is often not easy, loaded with pitfalls and leaving me extremely stretched, even vulnerable. But it’s a great way to force myself to conquer the topics. Now that I have written on topics such as the Army, Religious Extremism or Microfinance, I am so much more confident in my knowledge and perspectives – and able to talk to anyone on them. And the backlog of ideas for topics is huge. Here are the one’s sitting in my blog folder right now:

I)                    Arranged marriage – Culture, family politics or pragmatism?

II)                  Islamic Finance – Letter or spirit?

III)                The emerging service class drought – Is entrepreneurship the way-out?

IV)               Hostage to a minority – What the tea party and the radical extremists have in common

V)                 Cuisine innovation – How unprecedented cross-cultural access is shaking things up

VI)               Social Enterprise – Balancing profit with purpose

VII)             What exactly I do for a living? Perspectives on general management

VIII)           The end of the sovereign state – Eliminating borders in today’s world

IX)                Paternalism & individualism in morality – Reflections on waving children in Uganda

Stay tuned … and please send across any special requests from this list.