A Hangingon Contest!

While it ain't quite time for the revival of the hangies, it is time for some reader participation in these parts. So we're having our first online contest, stolen, in true blogger form, from elsewhere.

I've long been a fan of Barbara Wallraff's Word Fugitives in the Atlantic. (I actually prefer Word Court, but have grown to enjoy Fugitives nearly as much.) Word Fugitives is a contest for readers to create a new word.

And I am in search of a word.

The other day at work I was explaining to my boss how our organization is suffering from . . . "the opposite of synergy." Unlike effective organizations where different people's work seems to enhance the value of other people's work, building upon one another toward a common goal, our organization seems to have lots of people working really really hard and achieving less and less. A lack of focus, vision and discipline means we're achieving less than the sum of our work. So . . . what's this called? What's your nomination and explanation for a single word encapsulating this thought? Use the comments link (yes, tis a shameless plug for comments) and feel free to submit multiple nominees.

Here We Go Again

So it's been nine years since my first blog (hangingon . . . ) which has mostly disappeared into the inter-ether. I blogged pretty well for about two years between 1999 and 2001. It included lots of stuff about the 2000 election, about business school and about random crap. Some of it was actually kinda good. (Mostly the poems.)

I gave up blogging for a couple of different reasons. I became a bit self aware about my audience, worried that I would somehow say something that would be offensive or overly personal. I worried about work (what, exactly, I don't know). I worried that all my political posts were soundling like rip-offs of Andrew Sullivan and all my personal posts were just whiney. So I stopped.

So maybe it's time to start again. Maybe I was just boycotting blogging during the Bush years. My interests haven't changed much. Assuming I keep this thing up it will likely be filled with posts about:

• Economics and specifically how we measure and value social good in the free market
• Politics of the national variety mostly
• Educational reform which may be a little tricky since it's work and all.
  
• Peronsal stuff
• Poetry

That's it. Let's see if this takes.