Twice a week for the last several months I’ve been sending out my messages in a bottle to whoever will reel them in. Last week I asked my brother, Geoff, to give me some candid feedback and he offered, “I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about in that blog.” LOL, as the say. I have rationalized that since he is a professional musician, Lean might not be his thing. I appreciated his feedback none-the-less as well as some a bit more encouraging from other readers. The audience is growing each week, and your comments are inspiring. Thank you.
The objectives of Oldleandude include:
- sharing TPS thinking (bi-directional sharing),
- acknowledging TPS-minded enterprises like the Shingo Prize and, yes,
- promoting GBMP, a northeastern US provider of Lean implementation assistance. GBMP’s mission, to keep good jobs in our region, may be a bit parochial, but I hear the same concerns when I visit other parts of the globe.
- Finally, I just enjoy concocting the bi-weekly entries to Oldleandude.
In the spirit of continuous improvement, I have some process-related questions I’d like to toss out to anyone who has a moment to respond. If you are able, please email me at Oldleandude@aol.com :
Frequency. I think twice per week is about the right amount for me in order to not run out of things to say too soon. But I wonder if twice per week is about right for you.
Length. I’m trying to reach people with short attention spans, i.e., nearly everybody. Time is precious. There are a few links to movie or music clips that may lengthen your stay on the blog, but I aim for a reading time of about five minutes. Is that okay?
Content. I don’t have a master plan. Whatever pops into my mind on blog day is the topic. Several persons have requested specific topics; I’m happy to oblige. Please email any requests. Because I have spent most of my career in management, this will necessarily be the frame of reference for my posts. To broaden the blog’s perspective, I’m considering asking for guest posts from persons with different experience. What do you think of this idea?
Approach. I try with each post to make just one or two key points as take-aways for readers to consider. I think that both implicit and explicit learning are valuable, so I refer to books and articles that I consider valuable. Are these links useful to you?
Medium. With the exception of a couple Youtube clips, my communication has been largely written. I’ll continue to experiment with other forms of communication. If you have ideas regarding media, please share them.
Audience. As I noted in a recent post, the range of TPS understanding is so broad, that I can’t be sure my messages are always understood. Or, maybe I’m the one who doesn’t understand. If there are points I should clarify and you would prefer not to become part of the public blog, then please respond to me confidentially at Oldleandude@aol.com .
I’ll be grateful for any observations or questions from you. In the meantime, my free association will reign twice per week.
O.L.D.
Hi Bruce,
As both a blogger and reader of blogs, I can give you my take. I’m growing to like your blog just for your great headlines that show up in my email alert feed. If that’s all I read, I feel I got a little thought starter from Bruce Hamilton for the day. I tend to skip over the blog alerts I get every day, and then take some time every so often and dip down into one of the blogs I get. I think there’s room for all types of blogs.
I appreciate those that have short posts, though sometimes I miss a full development of an idea. My posts in Lean Directions are almost always longer than I think optimal, but I like to be thorough. I wonder if I need to be more focused, but seem to have a cadre of readers who roll with me. Some people who have nothing to do with lean see snippets in Facebook and tell me they are getting an idea of what I’m talking about.
My frequency is not what I’d like – I’m lucky to get out two posts a month, but I rationalize that there are so many others, I don’t need to kill myself to do more. However, mine has had years to develop recognition so you might want to stay with twice a week for now. I don’t think anyone needs to post daily.
I like “Old Lean Dude” as your title and persona, but I think it would be nice to have a short paragraph about the real Bruce Hamilton. For people who don’t know you, you would establish the reasons why your observations are more valid than the many pretenders who are blogging away.
You might have a different experience, but I usually don’t get comments on each post. That’s pretty normal — if you get action from 1% of your total audience, you are doing fine. Don’t be discouraged.
Here’s a topic, if you haven’t written about it yet – what led you do do the toast video, and how did you decide to pretend to be a kitchen bumbler (sorry) to illustrate your point? I hear people say frequently that it is their video of choice for introducing lean, so you really created something that has caught on — even without a cute kitten in it.
Bruce, I’ve been so intriqued/entertained by your training videos I wanted to sign up for your OLD blog because I know that you are going to deliver some nuggets to us most every time. So for me I think you should continue the current process of your delivery to us. Length & frequency & topics are all good for now. I may have some specific requests for changes as time goes on….but for now I like it!!! Thank for being a catalyst for thought provoking change! Mike Vachon, Mgr Quality & Continuous Improvement – Marsh Industries
I have been pleased with your postings thus far. 2/week is a good frequency.
Thanks for sharing you knowledge and experience.