My Failure to Imagine Real Success:

I've blamed almost every software group I've ever worked with for a failure to anticipate true success. I usually work on projects that cost a great deal, but are justified by business plans to sell the software to enormous numbers of people. At least that's what everyone says, but during the projects, no one asks questions like this:

• How many dozens or hundreds of people will have to be trained to handle the help desk?
  
• Could we cut that number in half by making the product less confusing?
  

I hope you understand what I mean. It takes guts to imagine a HORDE of people using your work, and to understand every implication of what that might mean.

So I can only blame myself for the same failure of imagination, when I started looking at podcasts. I worried about wasting my time trying to find just one I'd like. I worried about how much time I might spend copying podcasts to my player to hear them. But I never asked myself, what if I find dozens of podcasts I want to hear regularly?

The hours of podcasts that I download to my player increase every night. I'm much better off trying to read too many blogs, than trying to keep up with too many podcasts! I can speed-read, but I can't speed-listen. Why didn't I see this coming???

By the way, I'll be travelling for a few days, possibly blogging irregularly.