the Quarantine project

” I trained for the marathon with a repaired knee, taught my daughter to drive and started my blog. What did you accomplish during the great quarantine?..”

Future Me speaking at a hypothetical commencement ceremony

I hate working from home. I always have and was never good at it. I watch too much ESPN, read too many Twitter posts and am generally a lot less productive. When i would work from home in the BQ* era *before quarantine, I was always amazed at how many people came by the house every single day. Mailman, landscapers, Amazon prime deliveries x 4, 2 kids friends, dry clean delivery, etc etc. That was before lunch. The traffic really started when the kids start rolling home. How the hell are you supposed to get anything accomplished with all that traffic?

In fact, I am one of the very rare species who actually enjoys the daily Long Island Railroad ritual or Uber ride to JFK for a flight. Fresh cup of coffee and a change of context that signals my brain… “I’m now switching to work mode”. Some of us are simple.

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“What was it like DQ* grandpa“? *during quarantine

During Quarantine, if you have kids, you get a little (*actually a lot) closer to the content of what they are learning in school. That is a topic for another, much longer post. This last week my high school aged daughter had a writing project which made me feel really bad for every college admissions officers everywhere, for the next 10 years. The assignment: Begin your college admission essay. “What I accomplished during quarantine….” . Her essay was about the business she started during quarantine. It is a Jewelry business. The essay was inspiring and I loved it. Only she hasn’t started a business. She only thought of the name. When reminded of that, she said to me…its just like that blog you always talk about.

…..so, in order to model the right behavior and avoid becoming like Aunt Becky, I told her she should start her business and I would start my blog.

I am not even sure I want to be a blogger – – but I write a lot already. When I worked on Wall St, I got used to writing daily to summarize our research, communicate ideas to my clients and share my thinking.  I started a weekly piece and published to a broader institutional clientele. The writing habit carried over to my roles in enterprise technology. It helps me clarify my thinking and communicate with my colleagues and customers. I subscribe to the FEYNMAN technique…

The FEYNMAN technique of learning:

STEP 1 – Pick and study a topic

STEP 2 – Explain the topic to someone, like a child, who is unfamiliar with the topic

STEP 3 – Identify any gaps in your understanding

STEP 4 – Review and Simplify! 🧠

— Prof. Feynman (@ProfFeynman) March 1, 2020

I plan to write about technology industry, enterprise sales, business development topics and some equity and macro market topics. I follow politics but will try desperately not to ever write about it. I like NY sports teams but will save that for twitter.

While I hope it proves useful to a broader audience…I know it will be useful for me. I like feedback – let me know what you think. Let’s see how it goes…while I often start new projects, I sometimes don’t f