Who you gonna call?

When I worked in BigLaw, there were plenty of opportunities to exchange ideas and commiserate with co-workers. The office was veritably pulsing with fellow paralegals, IT folks, litigation support people, legal secretaries and document clerks who were all involved somehow in the endeavor of providing excellent service to firm clients. Everyone had a role to play in getting the firm’s work done, and everyone in his or her own way was dedicated to accomplishing that.

I had people everywhere I could seek help from, brainstorm with, complain to (not that I would ever do that!), and get encouragement from. And co-workers would come to me for the same reasons. There was (usually) a spirit of teamwork and cooperation.

Or at the very least, a coffee run co-conspirator or after work drinking buddy.

Ah, but I work in BigLaw no longer! I am flying solo . . . master (mistress??) of my own fate . . . a solitary soul slaving in solitude, so to speak!

If you’re a biz owner, a “solopreneur” as the current buzzword goes, where do you go to get ideas?

Who do you turn to when you need to ask a question, or to get advice, or to vent, or to enjoy a simple cuppa coffee forgodssake?

Who you gonna call?????

Well it turns out, much to my delight, there actually are folks!

First, there are colleagues in my paralegal association. As I go to meetings – whether it's the entire membership, the litigation section, or the occasional board meeting, I've begun to form friendships. Most of these colleagues work in law firms; some work as freelance paralegals as I do; a few are unemployed and looking for work. I can empathize with all these situations, and we support each other.

Next there are colleagues, both paralegals and attorneys, whom I’ve begun to make friends with through my involvement in other associations, such as the county bar association and my Women in Law group. We can swap stories, swap tips about legal vendors, or occasionally even reminisce about our former life in BigLaw!

I have developed a network of local fellow biz owners who are great friends, and who also brainstorm with me about building my business. (Turns out they’re superb drinking buddies too!)

But what I didn't anticipate when I began my virtual paralegal business was how many friends I’d meet online through Twitter, LinkedIn and blogs!

• There is a small group of fellow virtual paralegals I've phone-conferenced with, and who are proving to be a supportive group to exchange ideas with.
• There is a group of fellow freelancers, in a wide variety of fields, that I have weekly chats with about marketing and other business matters.
• There are interesting and talented legal professionals who share or post material that I find useful and that I learn from.
• There is a virtual assistant and tech guru extraordinaire I met on Twitter, who is now helping me revamp my website. (Thanks @TMarieHilton!)

What I’ve learned is that participating in professional organizations, building friendships with fellow biz owners, and being active on social media sites are even more important for me as a self-employed virtual paralegal than they were when I was an employee. Now that I can’t just walk down the hallway to find a co-worker to consult with, it has become doubly important to make sure I’m active in my paralegal & bar associations, and that I'm showing up online to exchange information and good will with folks.

Plus, I've gotta get my coffee run co-conspirators and drinking buddies from somewhere!

What about you? Who are you gonna call?

The Great Twitter Controversy

Ever read something that you can't quit thinking about, writing as it were your own thoughts on the subject in your head? Well, this happened for me yesterday when one of my Twitter friends forwarded a link and in particular, pointed out the fascinating conversation going on in the comments. I was drawn in; I couldn't stop reading the really voluminous comments, and then I couldn't stop thinking about it . . So . . here are my thoughts on the subject.

The original springboard for this controversy was Mitch Joel's 10/24 blog post which he entitled, Being a Twitter Snob is a Good Thing. I read this post last week and honestly didn't think a lot about it except to perhaps feel affirmed in my decision not to automatically follow everyone following me on Twitter. (I read the post in my RSS feed, and thus didn't read the comments until today, but they are interesting as well.) However, the post my friend tweeted was Mark Schaefer's Bringing down the Twitter snobs, in which he took issue with Mitch's analysis. A passionate discussion ensued in the comments! Check it out!

Mitch Joel advocated limiting the number of people he follows on Twitter and not automatically following back everyone who follows him, acknowledging the possible hypocrisy (he doesn't use this word in his post) of appearing to be generous by following everyone when in reality you're filtering people out. 

I don't agree with all of Mitch's reasons for limiting follows - I rarely use who someone follows as a criterion for following them myself, and I'm not interested in gaining credibility as a result of whom I choose to follow (be careful not to misunderstand Mitch here; I believe he's talking about being helpful to potential followers, not about judging followees). However, he says that being selective in following actually indicates an interest in true connection; it's a much better signal than following more people than you could ever hope to connect with, and I agree with this wholeheartedly. 

Mark Schaefer seems to be advocating following back everyone (barring obvious spammers and porn sites) who follows him. Everyone is amazing, and everyone is worth a follow. He also seems to misinterpret (in my view) Mitch's rationale for not following. He selected a person whom he assumed Mitch would never follow because this person wouldn't be deemed an "A-Lister" - note that Mitch never used this term; Mark interjected this term on his own - and then proceeded to build a hypothetical argument for why Mitch would be wrong not to follow such a fine man, and is in fact missing the point of social media by not following everyone.

(Note: I don't know who it was that coined the term "A-Listers" in connection with Important Bloggers or Important Tweeters or whatever, whom one assumes are better than the rest of us, but I would like to punch that person in the nose!)

So what is my view?

One of the early social media concepts I learned from Mitch Joel (Six Pixels of Separation, pp. 50-51) is to think about why I'm on Twitter at all. Strategy must dictate tactics. My first goal on Twitter is to learn from others, to educate myself. My second goal is to build relationships with people in my network. My third goal is to establish credibility in my field. So it seems obvious to me that these strategies should dictate who I follow on Twitter, which is why I find myself for the most part in Mitch's camp rather than Mark's. There is a limit to how many people I can learn from or build relationships with on line - not because there are a limited number of interesting people out there - far from it - but because there are limits to my available time and attention span.

So for what it's worth, this is what I do on Twitter. 

When I first started, I searched for people to follow, people in the legal industry, people in marketing whose expertise seemed relevant for my small business situation, other bloggers. And I started following them. I don't actively search any more; I follow a few more people each week, but I generally find them through the re-tweets or #FollowFriday recommendations of people already in my Twitter stream.

And I really don't care that much how many followers I have - I suppose my feelings would be hurt if I only had 2 (I have more), but it isn't a goal of mine to reach the 16,700 or the 21,800 followers (at this writing) that Mark and Mitch have, respectively. I do gain followers every week, and I'm pleased about that, but I don't try to strategize about how to gain more.

As for following, I follow somewhere around 350 people now I think. And already I can't possibly read or process more than a small sampling of tweets from all of those people - god help me if I followed 14,600 as Mark does! 

I have lists - mine are public rather than the private lists discussed in the comments to Mitch's post - I don't have anything against private lists, but I don't have any. (People follow several of my lists, too. And I'm on several lists made by others.) My lists enable me (in my beloved TweetDeck) to focus on particular topics, depending on what I'm doing or am interested in at a given moment. Some of my lists relate to my legal work. Others relate to marketing and business. Still others relate to wine, or are location-based. It is sometimes fun to look at my entire Twitter stream as it flows by, but for the most part, if I follow you but you're not in one of my lists, chances are small that I'll see your Tweets.

In light of the difficulty I have paying attention to only 350 people, I can't possibly get my undies in a bunch if I follow you and you don't follow back! (Some of the commenters to both blog posts seemed genuinely insulted about this!) There's only so much information a person can absorb, and we each have to determine what our priorities are, and if I'm not your priority, that is A-OK with me. In fact, I may not even know whether you're following me back or not. I do not check. If I get a notification that you've followed me and I see I'm following you too, I think "Oh that's nice!" but beyond that I don't give it a lot of thought.

And I don't automatically follow back everyone who follows me. How do I decide? It's admittedly a very quick, very subjective snap decision. When I get notice someone is following me, I glance at any followees-followers we might have in common, mainly for clues about how she found me. I'll look at her profile, see what she does, read a sampling of tweets. If she's a legal professional of some kind, I'll probably follow. If she's not, but there's a variety of stuff in her tweets (RTs, links, @replies), I'll probably follow. If all I see are what appear to be sales tweets, I probably won't. If there is no bio, or there are no tweets, I probably won't. If all the tweets are in - say - Portuguese, I probably won't follow either . . . I'm sure she's interesting, but if I can't read it, I don't see the point. 

At this point I follow people in a variety of professions and locations. Of course I follow a lot of legal professionals, but also people who specialize in marketing, sales, business, copywriting, web design; it's an increasingly eclectic list. If we've interacted in a chat arising from a webinar or some other common interest, I'll definitely follow. If when I look at a profile and a sample of tweets, I have an "I like this person!" reaction, I'll definitely follow. Maybe I wouldn't even make the same decision on two different days - as I said, it's pretty subjective. 

However, I definitely don't feel an obligation to follow everyone back. I think that's a numbers game, and I don't take it that personally, and if you do - well, my apologies.

Periodically, I'll go through my followers and look once again at who's following me that I'm not following, and reevaluate it. I'll also periodically cull down who I follow a bit. 

My final observation: I really enjoy Twitter! I try to be helpful and friendly and pass along things that interest me, and I do experience a gratifying connection with many of the folks in my network. All of which reveals how very far I've come since I wrote my Confessions of a Lurker post!

So there you have it. Follow me on Twitter if you like! :P And tell me what you think in the comments!

Newsletter Launch! Or, Where Have I Been?

It is true that I haven’t posted here for a while.  A bit of a noticeable absence.  A long pause.  So what’s up with that?  What have I been doing?
 

Lately I have been preoccupied with planning a new resource that I’m actually quite excited about!  It is the launch of my Drescher ProParalegal Newsletter for paralegals, legal secretaries and other legal support staff!  (Attorneys welcome too, of course!)
 

A newsletter is something I’ve been thinking about for some time.  The more I've thought about it, the more I like the idea.  I believe I have useful and practical knowledge to share, and a perspective on law firm life that comes from my varied employment background, all of which I enjoy writing about.  This blog has never felt like the perfect medium for that kind of writing. 
 

Even more important, what I’ve missed the most about my law firm employment has been the many wonderful opportunities I had to train, to exchange knowledge with peers, and to mentor junior staff.  I’m hoping my newsletter will provide an avenue for doing so once more.
 

My newsletter will be a culmination of the reading, research and on-line participation I've been doing since I started my freelance business.  It will include practice tips and resources for my fellow legal staffers.  It will include lots of links to articles that interest me - articles that are thought provoking, or inspiring, or just plain laugh-out-loud-funny.  It will report on what I'm up to, where my various business, educational or networking events are taking me, and what I'm learning from them.  I also plan to to share fun tidbits about my other passions for cooking, entertaining, wine and food.  I believe it will be both relevant and entertaining for my colleagues in the legal profession.  What a blast!

 

But isn’t the competition steep?  After all, there are a lot of fine newsletters already out there – I know, because I subscribe to a number of them, and will continue to do so!  Well, I don’t think it’s about competition.  I believe all the many legal newsletter writers out there have their own niche to fill.  I believe there is plenty of room for us all!  In fact, readers will probably see links to some of these writers’ articles included in my own newsletter!
 

In short, this newsletter is something I’m quite excited about, and am having a lot of fun doing.  And it is my sincere hope that it will be valuable for my readers too! 
 

Perhaps it will even be valuable for you!  The first edition will be available next week!  Why don’t you sign up to receive it?  Just click the link here, and follow the usual instructions, OR use the sign-up form to the right in my blog sidebar!  And then go on and share it with your friends!  Email me with your comments and ideas! 
 

And if you don’t see me posting quite as much here on the blog in the weeks ahead, you can be sure you will see my tips, resources and insights in the newsletter in weeks to come.  Cheers!
 

Here are the usual, but very true, disclaimers:  All newsletter content will be public (i.e., nothing confidential, nothing related to any specific law firm or client), and included for information or entertainment purposes only.  I am not an attorney, and no newsletter content will constitute (or probably even remotely resemble!) legal advice or recommendations on any legal matters.  And probably most important of all, your email address will never be shared, rented or sold, and you can unsubscribe at any time.  (But of course, I hope you don’t! :P)

How to Succeed in Business . . . by Really, Really Trying

Occasionally I read an article or blog post I find so thought provoking, I cannot shake it off. 

Such as last month, when I read Sonia Simone’s CopyBlogger piece, The Three Surprisingly Simple Keys to Success.  What was provocative about this piece for me was the discussion of things that I typically view as outside my control which may actually be very much within my control.

What are the three keys, and are they within my grasp after all?  The article starts with the well-known premise that in order to succeed – in whatever you’re trying to succeed in – you need any two of the three following things: talent, luck, or persistence.  Now, the last one, persistence, may be challenging, but at least it's up to me and me alone to persist or not.  But what if I’m neither talented enough nor lucky enough?

Talent

I’ve been accustomed to thinking talent is innate.  Something I was born to be good at.  Some “gift” that always came naturally to me.  (Phrased that way, how many of these do I actually have?!?  Hmm . . .)  For example, I had a bit of an ear for music when I was young, and thought of it as a “talent” I had been born with - possibly discounting too much the 1-2 hours per day I practiced (which is of course nothing by musicians’ standards - but still).  But Simone suggests that what we think of as talent is more often something we love so much that we do it a lot, in which case does the success stem from innate ability, or from “nonstop, almost obsessive practice”? 

Thought provoking question!  If some activity I need to make my business succeed - such as successful marketing, thoughtful use of social media, writing useful articles - doesn’t come naturally to me, do I give up on talent and turn to the other two Keys to Success?  Nope.  I keep marketing.  I keep working at communicating.  I write, and write, and write some more. 

As Simone writes, “The more you work, the more talented you get.”  Which is actually a huge relief!

Luck

Luck is obviously completely outside my realm of influence - or so I thought.  But what if luck isn’t really “luck”?  If a brand new client phones me because my marketing piece lands on her desk the very day she needs help, is that luck?  Maybe, but if I strew my marketing pieces wider and farther and more strategically and more often, can I improve the odds of such a thing happening?

If I bump into three potential clients at a social event and spark their interest in my business primarily because I’m likable and I express confidence that I can benefit them, is that lucky?  Perhaps a bit, but if I get out more often and meet more people, and if I’m putting my most likable self forward at all times, do I improve my odds? 

What if I’m always striving to be kind, be helpful, be generous, improve my karma, and increase my whuffie?  What if these things, over time, bring me more business and happier clients?  Is that luck?

As Simone says, “The more you work, the luckier you get.”  Good news!

Persistence

I’m not suggesting this one is easy; however it is a lot easier for me to realize that this particular key to success is within my control.  I need to keep at it and not give up.  Keep working hard and well for my clients.  Keep dreaming up new avenues for finding and attracting clients.  Keep marketing.  Keep writing.  Keep interacting.  Keep striving to be generous.  Keep doing my best work.  Relentlessly.  Every day.  No matter what.  Without fail.

So when I’m tempted to feel discouraged that things aren’t going my way, not falling into place, not progressing quickly enough, this article is an excellent reminder to me that if I just persist, keep working hard at all the tasks before me, perhaps I can increase my talent, create my own luck, and my business will become a success.

Building My Business or Spinning My Wheels?

When I first started my own business, I floundered trying to figure out how to be productive.  After all, I had spent much of my work life having my activities dictated by supervisors.  Obviously, one of the appeals of entrepreneurship is that I do in fact now set my own schedule and determine my own work activities!  But instead of being happy about that, I was frustrated at all the distractions hurtling my way that I wasn’t managing well, and anxious that I wasn’t getting enough done, or wasn’t getting the right things done.

After all, there are many things I need to fit into my schedule in order to keep my business running, and part of my learning curve as a new entrepreneur has been figuring out what those things are.  I devised ever longer lists of activities I hoped would grow my business.  Yet, even with to do lists, I still wasn’t content with my progress, and felt that important tasks were slipping through the cracks due to distractions, or poor time management, or perhaps just through poor prioritization.  Or perhaps because I just didn’t know what the heck I was doing!

Mostly I felt I was spinning my wheels.
 

Finally the messages of the business books and blogs I was reading sunk in, and I stepped back and thought about strategy.  I’ve written about this before, but it bears repeating.  Mitch Joel talks about tactics - in my case my to-do list - being useless without a strategy.  I needed to ask myself why I would do any of the tasks on my to-do list, and which piece of my overall strategy each item supported.  So I sat down and thought about my business strategy, and prioritized broad business goals.  Then I listed categories of tasks under each goal, and I made sure that every task I dreamed up to do fit somewhere into that strategy and supported at least one of those goals.
 

Even that wasn’t enough.  It doesn’t do to merely write up a strategy; I must implement it.  So I have devised a daily schedule for myself.  I have even set up reminders.  And I am trying to stick to my schedule.  I may make daily decisions about flexing parts of the schedule here or there depending on my client commitments or appointments, but I am finding it tremendously useful to have thought through a plan for my day which is based upon my business strategy, rather than the whim du jour.  Here’s how it works.
 

Obviously work for my clients takes priority, and having lots of client work is the point of the whole exercise.  So when I have client work to do, I devote large chunks of time to it, and fit other tasks in as I may.  That said, these are the tasks I make sure I work into my schedule.

Social Media

 

I set aside some time each day for LinkedIn, Twitter and my RSS feed.  I check in on LinkedIn, see if there are any group discussions I want to contribute to.  I skim through my various Twitter feeds, click on interesting links, and retweet things I find useful.  I skim through the blogs in my RSS feed, and comment on or tweet blogs posts, as seems appropriate.  The business strategy here is three-fold.  First, it’s educational for me; it helps me keep abreast of the trends in my industry.  Next, I am building on-line relationships with people in my field from whom I can learn and whom I can perhaps assist.  And finally, I am developing my “brand” as a skilled paralegal who is an expert in her field.  However, I could spend all day on these things, so I set a time limit to it – I try to keep it to an hour (90 non-consecutive minutes max).
 

Writing

 

I set aside time for writing projects.  I am always working on articles related to the legal industry and/or paralegal work.  I make them available for download on my website, and I plan to pursue publication avenues for some of them in the future.  The business strategy behind this is twofold:  I want to continue to learn and keep my skills sharp, and the research required by writing articles accomplishes this.  And second, writing articles helps me in that above-mentioned “brand development.”

Marketing

 

Do you remember that line from the movie Glengarry Glen Ross, “Always Be Closing”?  The business strategy here is “Always Be Marketing.”  I can’t afford to take a break from this.  I need to find ways to reach new markets, and to stay on the radar of potential clients.  I always have a few marketing projects going, whether it’s tweaking my website, developing new marketing materials, executing a direct mail campaign, building my marketing database, in person networking with former colleagues or potential clients, or studying marketing books.  I need to be relentless in my marketing efforts in order to keep business coming in the door.

The Rest of It

 

Recently I have begun scheduling regular time for writing posts for my two blogs, because I’ve realized that was the only way I would fit it in.  It is my hope that this will help me post a bit more consistently in the future.  I also set aside time most days for a little work-out, and this happens whether I have client work or not.  No one is going to keep me healthy but me!
 

Add in errands, meal preparation, and reading my various business books and magazines, plus some cooking magazines and the occasional novel (this usually happens in the evenings when my brain is too weary to “work” any more), and my days are very full!  That’s a good thing!
 

But the best thing of all is that when I regularly review my strategy for growing my business and the activities needed to support that strategy, and then stick to a schedule for chipping away at these activities, I accomplish more, and I hope the things I accomplish are actually pushing my business strategy forward! 

 

What are your time management strategies?  Feel free to share them in the comments.

Care and Feeding of Your Whuffie

A)  Kid’s toy?  B) Foreign curse word?  C) Porn name?  What in heaven’s name, you ask, is whuffie?  Well according to Tara Hunt,

Whuffie is the residual outcome – the currency – of your reputation.  You lose or gain it based on positive or negative actions, your contributions to the community, and what people think of you.  The measurement of your whuffie is weighted according to your interactions with communities and individuals. (at 4)

Originally coined by Cory Doctory in his sci-fi novel, “Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom,” (free download – very generous, very cool), who envisions “whuffie” as the currency that replaces money and better reflects the “personal capital” money once represented, whuffie is gained – or lost – by the helpfulness of your deeds - or lack thereof.  Quoting Hunt again,

In the gift economy, the more you give away, the more whuffie you gain, which is completely opposite from currency in the market economy, where when you give away money, it’s pretty much gone.  (at 5)

Hunt uses this metaphor to discuss building a business through building relationships with customers and the communities they are part of via digital, social networks (Facebook, Twitter and blogging are but the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the various tools discussed by Hunt for building these relationships).

Hunt focuses primarily on businesses selling products on line, and her book is packed with interesting stuff.  However, reading the book has stimulated thought for me in a somewhat different direction.  After all, we’ve talked about my reticence at embracing social media tools.  Instead, I find myself thinking long and hard about ways I can connect and build relationships in my physical, local, “real” community.  After all, while my adorable town of Sonoma and surrounding environs are certainly not the only - or even primary - markets for my fledgling virtual and freelance paralegal business, they are the likely arenas for that part-time job I’m hunting for and the wine/food business I plan to start soon.  The people I bump into in my travels about the Sonoma valley could well be the ones with whom I will interact in those businesses some day.

So I’ve been making more of an effort to meet folks locally.  Mind you, I’m pretty good at that already – after only seven months here, I’ve made a number of friends due to my penchant for striking up conversations with folks I meet in restaurants, bars and tasting rooms.  Recently though, I’ve taken to wandering into the shops and businesses on and near the Plaza, less to shop than to talk.  I’ve been chatting with the business owners.  Meeting fellow shoppers and guests.  I want to know who they are, how they came to Sonoma, what they enjoy doing, what businesses they are in, what they hope for the future.  I want to find out what we have in common, whether I have information to share, whether there is a way I can help.

And if, in so doing, I manage to increase my “whuffie” within my local community, well, so much the better!

Got your own “whuffie” story?  Feel free to share it in the comments.  And meanwhile, if you see me wandering around the Plaza in Sonoma, be sure to stop me and say hi.

The Whuffie Factor: Using the Power of Social Networks to Build Your Business, by Tara Hunt.  New York: Crown Business (2009)

Confessions of a Lurker

I have been - and for the most part continue to be – an internet “lurker.”  I have a Facebook account, a LinkedIn account, a Twitter account.  I read a lot (a lot) of other bloggers.  But I’m just not much of a participant.  I do sometimes comment on other people’s blogs.  Obviously, I blog myself.  But I’m fairly silent in these other forums.

Folks who write a lot about building business through participation in online communities say this is precisely what one must not do.  They say the only way to become visible to people who might benefit from your business is to participate, make connections, communicate, be helpful.  Put yourself out there.  Talk.  And I’ve no doubt that’s true.
 

And yet it all goes against my nature. 
 

Throughout my life, I’ve been so very private.  I’ve valued intense one-on-one conversation over group communication; I’ve preferred small groups of close friends over large gatherings of acquaintances.  I don’t think in sound bites.  I listen intently and then respond, and my responses are rarely brief.
 

It’s not that I think these social media mechanisms of communication are a waste of time – far from it.  I’m very interested in what all my friends and family are saying on Facebook.  I read Twitter and my RSS feed avidly, devouring content as though famished.  In fact, I must limit the time I spend on these, lest the day slip away from me.  But I’m intimidated by the notion of sharing my own thoughts through these channels.   What if anyone linked to or following me finds my comments boring?  What if they roll their eyes and sigh over someone having the temerity to clog up their feeds with such drivel?  Add to this the oft heard advice from the social media gurus that you must have valuable things to say.  You must add to the conversation.  Your comments must be insightful.  Frankly, I find these admonitions chilling.  Much better to be silent than to risk being perceived as uninteresting.
 

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the possible sources of this anxiety.  After all, I have a lot of friends in the “actual” - as opposed to “virtual” - world.  These friends, with whom I converse with my voice rather than my keyboard, don’t appear to find me boring.  They seek my company and my input.  They listen when I speak.  They frequently even laugh.  So why the fear that those “reading” instead of “hearing” my voice might react differently?
 

I crave a response that I can measure, an expression on the face, an inflection in the voice.  These responses aren’t available in the virtual, on-line world.  Moreover, it all just feels new to me.  After all, I am old enough to remember Life Before Home Computers, never mind Life Before The Internet.  I formed my sense of self through in-person interaction.  “Virtual” interaction still feels a little untrustworthy, a little shallow to me, even while I have “met” a number of very sincere and interesting people through on-line channels. 
 

Yet there is probably a sense in which the sources of my intimidation or the excuses I might pose don’t matter; what matters is slowly moving past them.  So I’m working on that.  I’m working on being a bit more vocal on Facebook – and lo and behold, my friends actually comment back, as though they’re glad to hear from me.  I’m working on commenting more on blogs I find interesting or moving – and lo and behold, sometimes people write back nice things (and even if not, they certainly don’t comment back telling me I’m an idiot).  And if I don’t Tweet a lot yet, I’m thinking about it more.  When an idea or story or blog post or article arrests my thinking, I roll over in my mind ways of expressing those thoughts concisely.  I ponder sharing my musings with others.  I compose new blog posts in my head.  And it is my hope that one day, some of those ruminations will actually find their way out of my head and into those on-line channels.  I’m starting to trust that people will be welcoming.
 

Bear with me.  I’m working up to it.