• Microsoft: My way or the highway with SOA? Though Microsoft can certainly afford to do “SOA their way” and though such approaches have certainly worked in the past, I wonder if this one might actually hurt them is the long run. As Joe says, “What Microsoft appears to be doing… goes completely against what SOA is supposed to be all about, which is the ability to deploy and run what you need based on what you need, unencumbered by the limitations of vendors’ systems.” Wouldn’t it be ironic if Microsoft’s way of forcing organizations to “do SOA” causes organizations to turn to SOA itself as a way to minimize their dependencies on Microsoft systems?
• Project Zero: IBM enables REST-based development - Not surprising to see IBM adding support for REST, especially since Microsoft is doing the same by adding a Web Programming model to its WCF upgrades in the .NET 3.5 Framework. In many ways, this simply underscores David Chappell’s assertion that the REST versus WS-* debate is over. While we may still have a place in our hearts for one over the other, the major vendors seem to be saying “why not both?”
• Binding SOA to BPM instead of BPM to SOA - Not sure I understand the assertion that we should attach SOA to the swimlane diagram and not BPMN Nick. Pools and Lanes are used heavily in BPMN, so what is it about BPMN that you have an issue with? If it’s the BPEL/automation side of BPMN, then I agree, but I think that BPMN can be very useful to organizations without that side, especially since what you get is a standard Process modeling language where none exists today.
• Why Sales isn’t process driven - According to Steve Jones, the “mechanism for the implementation and measurement of a service” (process) isn’t always the same thing as the drivers for and value of the service (goals). Meaning that our services ought to pay attention to user goals first and the underlying process second. It’s a UCD/UX perspective for SOA…
• PowerPoint: Boon or Bane? I tend to fall into the camp of PowerPoint is a misused tool, not a bad tool in and of itself, though its conventions in the form of automatic title and bullet regions do encourage bad behavior. 
• Stuff - I read recently that it took the self-storage industry 25 years to build the first billion square feet of storage space and only 8 years for the second billion. Yet our houses have grown by 80% and we still face a storage crisis. Stuff is best gotten rid of…

Thanks to Joe Lewis, I’ve been hit with a meme. Everyone says they never do these things, but this one sounds harmless enough since I can say whatever 8 random things I want to in response.

The rules for this meme are:

1. Let others know who tagged you.
2. Players start with 8 random facts about themselves.
3. Those who are tagged should post these rules and their 8 random facts.
4. Players should tag 8 other people and notify them they have been tagged.

Ok, so 8 random facts about me:

1. I received my undergraduate degree in MIS from Baylor University. Since then (all apart from my full-time job), I have considered seminary, law school (took the LSAT even), business school and seminary again. I enrolled in an LIS program at the University of Denver last Spring, then moved into a CIS program at DU’s University College after the faculty decided that technology isn’t that important to LIS programs. I’m a vagabond student, what can I say. If somebody is willing to give me a Master’s degree where I pick all the curriculum, I think I’d finally be happy. Of course, I could do that now. It’s called learning on your own…
2. A few weeks ago, I started teaching myself Ruby on Rails for grins. I’d been interested for a while, but I finally took the plunge and bought Agile Web Development with Rails, 2nd Ed. I haven’t had this much fun doing development in a while.
3. My dream career is to be a writer (and actually be able to live off of it). I’ve wanted to be once ever since I learned to read and have written on the side actively since I was eighteen. One of these days, I’ll force myself through NaNoWriMo and finally move in that direction.
4. My wife and I sponsor three children with Compassion International, the organization which I am privileged to serve. The names of our children are Denis (Tanzania), Immanuel (El Salvador) and Ana Maria (Dominican Republic). Last year, I was in the Dominican Republic and was blessed enough to be able to meet Ana Maria and her mother. It was an amazing experience and one I will never forget and I am reminded every day how fortunate I am that I get to do something I love for an organization who is on the front lines of ending poverty.
5. My Myers-Briggs personality type is ENFP (stealing one from Joe). Apparently, I am an idealist and am also terrible at follow-through.
6. I love technology, but my hobbies (running, biking, hiking, backpacking) take me outdoors where I feel free without my digital leashes.
7. I am an avid GTD-er. I love the book, the ideas, 43Folders and all things GTD. Right now, I am actually supposed to be doing my weekly review. I think this blog post (though on my action list) took longer than 2 minutes…
8. I wish I was as smart as Edward Tufte.

So that’s that. Now to pass this albatross on to others:

1. Ken Scott
2. Dempsey Williams
3. Jason Foster
4. Dan Fox
5. Rob Fay
6. Adnan Masood
7. Phil Ripperger
8. Russ Debenport 

Now how’s that for some structured procrastination?