A note from the bridge

Above, the scene here at crazy busy boj World HQ, with Gray Cat at the helm and yours truly in the XO chair plotting our course as we make our way through the world at default flank speed.

Constant readers may have noticed a few changes here the past few months and I thought I'd take a few minutes to outline them and their rationale (if any existed).

1. On September 27 I decided to drop my longtime (8+ years, since August 2004) schedule of 8 posts/day appearing one minute after each hour from 9:01 a.m. to 4:01 p.m. in favor of a scattershot approach: 8 posts/day, yes — but from now on they could appear anytime (still one minute after the hour).

Why did I drop the rigid time frame? Because it struck me as unnecessary and limiting and was starting to annoy me, keeping me up late some nights to make sure I had all the next morning's ducks in a row.

2. On October 17 I decreased the number of daily posts to 7. Why? Because at heart I'm very lazy, and this translated into an instant 12.5% reduction in expended energy and effort.

But also, it occurred to me that sometimes there can be too much of something. I wondered if by making content scarcer, it might be more considered more valuable. I mean, it worked for DeBeers and diamonds, what?

The rapid appearance of new posts one after another might not be the most reader-friendly approach, I reasoned, and might well cause you to say "Too much, I can't keep up," and not be bothered.

3. On December 8 I dropped the number of daily posts from 7 to 6 and reinstituted rigid scheduling as in the old 8-post days: this time around, though, at 12:01 a.m., 4:01 a.m., 8:01 a.m., 12:01 p.m., 4:01 p.m., and 8:01 p.m.

I like the look of that grid a lot and I think it has the advantage of letting a post percolate a while before something new bubbles to the surface.

Besides which, it makes boj a truly global production in that no matter where you are, new posts appear throughout your waking day.

This makes sense to me since less than half of my readers are in the U.S.: boj really does have world-wide reach.

Above, a current graph of joeheads around the planet.

Have these changes been for the good?

I can say for sure they've been for my good and that's important because if I ain't happy, there's not gonna be any bookofjoe.

Wouldn't surprise me in the least if one day it suddenly goes dark.

"Never complain, never explain" is one of my all-time favorite quotes (Jack Kent Cooke said it) and I've always taken it to heart, and it's precisely the approach I'll be taking when it's time.

But not today.

Since September 27, the day I started shaking things up, traffic has increased.

So much for the analytical, data-driven approach a là Google. 

Diff'rent strokes.

Below, another shot from mission control:

Gray Cat in her stateroom after turning over the bridge to yours truly.