For what is a man, what has he got?
“My Way” (Performed by: Frank Sinatra. Lyrics: Paul Anka)
If not himself, then he has naught
To say the things he truly feels
And not the words of one who kneels
The record shows
I took the blows
And did it my way
Yes, it was my way.
Volume 1 deals mostly with things that have been happening in the automation space from the beginning up until now. So, it deals with the past, leading up to the present. I will intermix many stories, incidents, and experiences from my professional journey. I will describe my learnings and conclusions, and you will then know why I have the biases that I mentioned in the previous post.
All the articles that have been posted on this site can be considered to belong under the “Volume 1” category. I have purposely omitted the volume prefix for the moment in order to keep the article titles brief and uncluttered.
Volume 2 has not yet been fully written. When it gets released, it will deal with things that I have been working on after I moved on from “pure RPA”. The articles in this category will elaborate more on the motivations that I had listed previously.
Volume 3 is in planning stage, and the articles will explain the ultimate state that we need to achieve. I will describe how I think we can achieve this state.
Most articles in this series are written in long-form. My writing style and sentence structures do not score well on the Hemingway Readability Scale. I am not planning to change my style. I will, over time, endeavour to correct grammatical errors and dangling sentences that manage to slip through my initial review of each post.
The posts in this blog do not profess to be “military grade” and therefore are not written in BLUF format. I prefer to build a background and take a journey through the subject matter, highlight certain nuances, and then discuss inferences and conclusions. Bottom-line-up-front (BLUF) is great for reports, where the reader has some context and wishes to know the conclusion before reading the details. However, it is not an optimal choice when an argument is presented; especially if there is a risk that the reader may have cognitive biases. In such cases, upon immediately hearing or reading the bottom-line, the receiver’s cognitive bias (or previously established belief) will influence their absorption of the actual argument that is presented.
I’ve heard about people being so busy that they don’t have the time to read beyond four hundred words. Many humans these days seem to have the same attention span as that of fruit flies, and therefore can only digest SMS-length content. Then there are those, especially VC-types, who want everything explained in such ways that the matter could be understood in ninety seconds — not only by them, but also their eight year old child/grandchild and eighty year old parent/grandparent. This blog is not aimed at the above demographics.
For those who cannot take it any more, herein I offer the following escape routes — here, here, this, and one more — that will take you back to safety; and for the brave and tough, who wish to run the gauntlet of reading the rest of the posts: Oorah!.
The tone of writing in Volume 1 is critical towards the way things (according to me) have incorrectly evolved. I respect everyone that I have interacted with professionally over these years, and I wish each one the very best in life. But in this blog, I will be critical of various technical and organisational decisions that I have experienced over the years, without naming specific individuals or organisations. If you are looking for cheerleading, platitudinous, congratulatory content, I recommend LinkedIn.
