Mathemagenic

My news aggregator slows down, showing that people are doing other things than blogging. I should be packing for my flight to Moscow, but I can't help my "almost end of the year" mood, so I'm writing.

For me 2003 was a year of learning to make choices for the things I'm passionate about. I always knew that dreams come true if you chase them, but knowing is not the same as doing.

A year ago I didn't believe that weblogs could become a part of my PhD and a part of work I do. It's happening. I couldn't imagine the power of professional and personal connections I've got now with people around the globe. Connections that are starting to turn into joint actions.

Last year made my implicit beliefs very obvious and more sharp. Now I not only know that life is too short to do things you don't enjoy, but I'm also learning not to be afraid of making choices and taking risks to follow my passions. Both professionally and personally.

As usual, I'm not alone thinking about it. And my weblog is reminding me about a post almost a year ago - Plan for 2003: follow your passion

OLDaily comments on How To Succeed in 2003:

Here's a better plan: find something you're really interested in, learn as much as you can about it, and start working on it. Don't worry about the money, the money will come. Invest your time and your energy in your passion, not your job - reinvent your job if you have to, or plan to leave it if you can't.

I guess the next year will be an actionable sense year. Learning how to act together with other passionate people :)

May be useful for someone else: I made a collection of links on weblogs for my colleagues.

This is the last working day this year and I guess it will never end :)))

This post also appears on channel weblog research

One more piece from e-mails of Martin Dugage:

I don't know you, nor do I know Sebastien Paquet, Martin Röll, Judith Meskill or other authors of the few weblogs I scan regularly, but after six months of blogging, I tend to prune my blogrolling list now, keep a shortlist of weblogs I like, and cast the fishing rod once more to find others. But I am not only doing this on the basis of the relevance of those weblogs for my own practice. There is also a personal desire to know more about their authors as people (Who's behind the weblog? Why is he or she doing this?), to try and figure out what it is they are really looking for, and, if possible, to do something for them. It's not completely rational, because what all of you are doing can be quite remotely connected to what I am doing, but still, I like your styles, I'd like to know what makes you tick, what it is you are really fighting for. When you are moving away from pure self-interest, there are human emotions involved. What makes blogging exciting is this desire for community. Fishing for friends, in a sense.

The long road to Longhorn [via Roland Tanglao]

It's hard to continue thinking of Microsoft as a monolithic Borg when you can follow the day-by-day jottings and musings of individual developers and Windows architects like Chris Anderson, Don Box, Chris Sells and many others.

From e-mail from Martin Dugage after we missed each other at KM Europe:

I think I saw you at Edna Pasher's presentation on Innovation Management. Were you the girl in the back who raised the issue about not knowing what we need to know? It appeared to me as a typical "Mathemagenic" question. Should it be the case, then my only comment is that your picture on the K-Board doesn't do you justice, and that you need to change it.

I was delighted to be recognised by the question I asked... I'm posting this because the example is so powerful as an illustration of effects of blogging on personal connections.

And - I have experiences myself of not recognising people from their online photos. So I'm going to post several photos and ask people who met me to vote :)