Today, January 2, 2009, marks the second anniversary of my first blog post at The Hot Iron. Now 2 years later and this marking 420 posts, it has been an interesting journey to say the least.

Why I Blog

Many people ask me why I blog, which is a perfectly sensible question. I initially got into blogging in order to practice what I preach at my Internet consulting firm Dunkirk Systems, LLC. I use The Hot Iron as well as sourcegate and Out In The Loop as testbeds for ideas and functions to deploy for clients. As well, I have something I want to say, and as talking to yourself is still looked upon as strange behavior, what a better thing to do than have conversations with others?

Thoughts on 2008

Don’t worry, I will not do a thorough analysis of the 200+ blog posts I have written over the last year. The past year was a good year. I did well with in my business, but blogging took a backseat, especially at the midway point of the year after the birth of my daughter. Usually I would get up early and write a blog post as I was preparing my workday. In the latter part of the year, I blogged when I could.

The highlight for me and blogging was when I was asked to attend Nokia’s first OpenLab event in Helsinki, Finland. How else would have I had been found other than my blog? Through the blogs of the attendees I got to know who else was going, and I continue to follow their thoughts and ideas.

Thoughts on 2009

For the most part, I plan to keep doing what I am doing, hopefully with a little more frequency. Any changing in my blogging will more than likely be the result of any changes in my business.

I also invite all of you reading to comment. Maybe I have not compelled you to in what I write, or maybe you are shy. In either case, it’s always nice to hear who’s out there!

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Whether you are already into it or about to be, I wish all of my readers a happy and prosperous 2009.

Yes, I did say prosperous! Despite all that is going on in the world, in our economies – not to forget Illinois politics – life and business must still go on. It will be the fast thinkers and movers and those ideas outside of the box, even with inside of the box budgets, which will do well in the coming year. Where we all will be at the end of 2009 it is hard to say right now, but the way things have been, up is almost the only way to go.

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Just taking a few moments out of our family gathering to wish everybody out there reading this a very Merry Christmas! For myself and my lovely wife, it is very special as it is our baby’s first Christmas, as can be seen in the accompanying photo of little Margo looking in amazement at the tree and presents.

I am grateful for the things I have. We always want more or want certain scenarios to be different, and those take work. I just don’t want to be forgetful of what I have as I quest for what I don’t have yet.

Now back to my outhouse wall calendar and big box of Almond Joys I got from Santa.

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There is a growing and growing myth out there about what some call the “traditional office” but not many people realize it.

The myth is that it is alive and well! Office space keeps going up, or in the case of the accompanying photo of the BlueCross BlueShield building in Chicago, it is expanding. The reality, though, is that it is shrinking. As huge corporations lay off people in droves, send jobs overseas or just shutdown, the notion that there is a need for so much space is far-fetched. Even for those organizations who continue to thrive, the need for traditional space is declining.

Why is this? Office space is expensive, and the reality is that it is underutilized. Other than storage, how many hours of the day to employees really occupy their space? Couple this with more and more people working form home or Starbucks or wherever, especially by choice, the picture is clearer about the lack of need for massive office spaces, and the shift away from the traditional office.

Still, I have encountered many people who have not embraced this, and I share these examples.

At my last employer before I went on my own and started Dunkirk Systems, LLC, I had all of the capabilities to work remotely. From VPN connection to all of the software, I could work from home, and did so in the evenings. But during the day I was not allowed to. My immediate manager did though, and others outside of my department did, but I couldn’t. Why? I was told the VP of the group liked seeing people in their cubicles. Granted the cubes had 5-foot walls! But it didn’t matter, it was not an option.

Recently I made a connection with a local high school about possibly bringing on one of their students as an intern. As I work from home, I told them we could arrange to meet at the school, a library or other neutral environment. Their response was pleasant, but since I could not offer their students a “traditional office” experience, I was disqualified from their program. We never got into any details about my business or what I could offer the students. I never got a response from them on my challenge to them to consider the new paradigm of offices.

A friend moved to the southern US from the north recently and I connected with him briefly last week during the day. He told me he had to go as his office was shutting down. I wondered how this impacted him, as he still had the same job, just working remotely. His response was the manager of the group was closing the office due to local snowstorms, which didn’t impact him at all. Even after inquiring to his manager about working as his colleagues dashed through the snow home, he was told the network would be disconnected.

Perhaps these examples will help paint the picture of where offices are going, and feel free to refer these to those who don’t quite get it yet.

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Chicago is a city all about its directions. There’s the North Side and the South Side and nothing in between them. With the exception of a few streets the city is in a grid formation, and all addresses have a north, south, east or west before the name. Many times signs tell you to go in a direction and, unless you know where you are, you would have no idea how to proceed.

At the corner of Wabash Avenue and Madison Street is the 5 North Wabash building. Originally known as the Kesner Building, it was previously commercial space and home of jewelers before converted to condos several years ago. The building has a storied past, including the setting for the book The Girl from Farris’s by Edgar Rice Burroughs and the movie The Package. Burroughs is rumored to have written Tarzan of the Apes there, and Ernest Hemingway is thought to have purchased the gun he used to commit suicide with at the Abercrombie & Fitch store there, back when A&F was a high-end sporting good store before it became the teenie-bopper clothing store. And Mr. T reportedly bought some of his jewelry there.

Up until this summer, at the corner of the building there was a compass laid into the sidewalk, showing which was which as well as the street names, as pictured below.

This photo shows the compass much clearer.

In addition to the compass was the name “Capper & Capper” which was the name of a men’s clothing store that once occupied part of the building. It is mostly obstructed by a piece of plywood as the sidewalk was vaulted and there was a hole under the board, as pictured below.

Needless to say, this sidewalk had been put to great use over the years. And partially for that reason all the sidewalks were ripped up along Wabash this summer and replaced, as pictured

As you can see, the compass is gone. With all of the heavy jackhammering that it took to remove the old sidewalk, most likely it and its letters were broken up and hauled away with the concrete. Another small piece of history lost. Though the sidewalks are much, much better and new street signage declare Wabash Avenue as Jewelers Row, they don’t tell you which direction you are going.

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