John Burkholder

There are occasions where that one emotion I keep tied down works it way to the edge of my personality without any reason...anger. I really hate this emotion. It makes absolutely no sense to me and yet, here I am...angry. What do I have to be angry about? I have a loving family, I have a job that is great, I live in a city that has everything. But at times I want to scream at the top of my lungs, throw something out the window of the skyscraper, or just get in a car and drive to some small insignificant town in the middle of nowhere and disappear. Before you get the wrong impression, not kill myself, never that... just disappear metaphorically. The idea of just blinking from any traceable media like the web, work, or the city sometimes appeals to me...in the short term. I could never really disconnect. I thrive on information, learning, knowledge and witty banter. But today, I am angry and I should be sent to the corner. Maybe I just need a vacation...or a car. This has been my r

This last weekend I went to my class reunion for the first time. After spending 35 years with my own ideas and misconceptions about my high school graduating class, I found it actually helped to solve some questions I was dealing with from my past, and answer a question that has been bothering me in my present. In high school I had a passion for only a few things...music, writing, and girls. Even though one person brought up my time working with her in Yearbook, and me remembering my time working in Journalism, my passion for writing hasn't diminished a whole lot, but it also hasn't reached the level where I need to write daily either. My passion for music was significant. I wrote songs, sang, played multiple instruments, listened to my Walkman constantly, and went to concerts as often as I could while living in a small town in the middle of Illinois. While in my senior year, I had scholarships to several arts colleges for music which, after some serious soul searching, I d

But John, why are you fixing something that isn't broken? Let's start with the perception that it isn't broken to begin with. Everything is broken in some way or another. That is why we have innovations. If it worked perfectly, why is the next big thing better? Is it faster? Does it integrate into something better? OK, so how did I get on this subject? I am at a Forrester conference and some of the eye opening things brought to light was that business is constantly needing to innovate to survive. All of the IT processes and technologies are constantly changing. How people interact with those technologies is also changing. The day of the telegraph is long gone and that wasn't "broken" either. The telephone replaced it...and now, the computer is replacing the telephone. So the 30 year evolution of IT departments needs a makeover. The technology has changed. The processes have even changed. But how do we take IT from working in the basement answer calls and

A acquaintance of mine is in fear of all of the hate being spread in the world. It has come to the point that she fears telling anyone which religion she follows. She wants to know how to help everyone turn hate into love and acceptance. I thought about tweeting back, but I don’t think that amount of characters can do my response justice.  Here we go. All of this hate and fear monger if is based on ignorance. Our education systems have trained children based on where they live, beliefs systems (even in public schools), and failed family systems. A failed system where some schools are not allowed to teach true science of climate change, evolution, and anthropology. A system that would avoid teaching sex education and healthy relationships. A system that lacks in teaching how to live and thrive in diverse society. Religions that want to inject those beliefs into schools to provide a skewed view of life where treating people different than you as “evil” instead of displaying love to

Every day i am hit by more and more spam emails at work. Many are from actual technology firms that just want to get into the door. I get it. You want new clients. But do you think that by adding to my mountain of emails your one company or event, that you will just be there, reconsider. It is my junk mail. I will click that unsubscribe button fast. If you don't have an unsubscribe, you are added to the black hole I call the junk mail filter. Recently though, I received an email from a vendor in Dulles, VA that added a little something to their email that made me laugh. First was a link to their privacy policy . It basically says they "Collecting very specific, relevant data is a necessary part of us being able to provide you with the products and services you purchase from us. It also enables us to answer your inquiries and provide you with the information you request." This interestingly enough has nothing to do with me because I am not a customer...nor will I ever

My adopted father would move to a town, set up a bakery, get it all running smoothly, and sell it to move on to the next town to do it all over again. It took him about 9 months to get bored. Boredom was eventually the death of him. When I was six years old, he went to the garage, closed the door, turned on the car and fell asleep for the last time. I would never commit suicide. However, I often see the same small pattern in myself that was in Lloyd. I will work on a project between 18 months and 3 years before I get bored and move on to the next challenge. The companies I leave want me to stay, but if I get bored, I become miserable. I just passed the 4 year mark in my current company. I am a bit surprised to be honest. I just came here to fix how they work on their Intranet but now my group has continued to expand, and the work is much more diverse. The amount of work is actually increasing which is another entirely different result than the end of a project. I love i