The last post (for a while at least)

The few assiduous readers of LunchOverIP may have wondered whether I was abandoning the blog, given the paucity of my posts in the last couple of months.

Well, "abandoning" is the wrong word, but yes, I'm suspending LoIP for a while at least. In part, this is because my professional priorities have shifted in the second part of the year, and my work and travel loads have increased, leaving me with less time.

Mostly, however, I'm stopping because after more than three years and more than 1000 posts -- many of which are more akin to essays than rapid-fire notes -- I no longer find blogging a satisfactory instrument for organizing my thoughts, keeping track of ideas, trends and interesting novelties, and engaging in a conversation with readers and friends.

I've blogged passionately, and learned a lot, and "met" many compelling characters, but I've now started to work on a couple of new ideas, and while they will certainly include some forms of blogging, if or when they come to fruition, the blog is not the right tool to explore and develop them.

I have discussed this with a few people in recent weeks, and several of them have asked me "will you switch over to Twitter?", as if that were a kind of natural evolutionary path. My answer is no: I find Twitter mostly uninteresting and a waste of time and of that other precious and too-constrained resource: attention.

So, LoIP stops here. I will be spending the next months working on producing TEDGlobal 2009 (Oxford, July) and the Forum des 100 (Lausanne, May). I will continue to speak at conferences and host/moderate events. I will still blog occasionally on the TED blog and probably on the HuffingtonPost, and write stories for the publications I contribute to (list on the left-hand biographical notice). And then I will take time to read, to think, to discuss face-to-face, and to work on new ideas.

LoIP will remain online, so the articles archive (including the posts written by the several guest bloggers) will continue to be accessible, and the "comments" fields open, and the RSS feed alive (so that when I start blogging again, you will know).

Thank you for reading, and for commenting. Ciao,

Bruno

Comments

[cri]

Oups, what a kind of news is this! Thanks a lot for those 1000 very interesting posts and all the best for the next activities... we'll miss U!

[Barbara]

Hi Bruno,
We will miss your blog!!!
Let me know please when you decide to publish on Huffington Post. Also re: TED Global 2009. Merry Christmas!
Barbara

[ThierryWeber.com]

What a news
Hi Bruno
all the best for next steps and also for your new carreer

Thierry

[Marco]

Hi Bruno, I hope to read you soon somewhere!

[Thomas Crampton]

Bruno,

I am very sorry to hear this!

Perhaps if enough of us leave comments, you will rescind the threat.

Good luck with your other endeavors and I do hope our paths cross soon.

Thank you for your time (and attention)

Tom

[peter warne]

quite right ... blogging is coming to an end; and twitter is not its successor. see you soon irl, dottore

[Steve R]

Congrats on all the new (and continuing) projects. I know you'll always keep writing and publishing, so I'm already looking forward to following you at another address. Best wishes for the holidays. See you at LIFT, if not before!

[LivePaola]

All the best Bruno.

[Ellen Wallace]

Bruno, a brave decision and a sensible one, I'm sure, but I know many of us will miss you here. We'll also miss the security of the thought in the back of our minds - "ah, Bruno's probably following that!" I think your decision parallels a growing sense by many that blogs are a lot of trouble and work to maintain over the long haul and that life is too full to keep a blog running on the side. The blog isn't dead: the technology is too useful for that. But as it grows up, it will probably stop being the right instrument for a lot of people. Now to see what you do next!
And stay in touch, please. Best wishes for a very happy 2009, with new projects, new dreams.

[Andre Ribeirinho]

You produced one of my favourite reads on the Web for the last couple of years. I've learned and discovered amazing new things on this blog.

I have to say I was kind of sad to hear this news but life goes on.

Good luck on the new ventures!

See you soon.

[Laurent]

Thanks for the time spent sharing your ideas and thoughts, for elevating blogging to a quality standard rarely seen, and for the inspiration provided through more than a thousand posts!

We'll be in touch I think ;)

[Alfonso]

Maestro,

don't get caught it the blogosphere's last trap, it is not an all or nothing play!
It's been great to have a place to locate you and/or your thoughts, please keep that active one way or the other, be it once a month ;-)

All the best in your new endeavors & see you soon (moving to ZH end of Feb)
yours
Alfonso

[Marc Duchesne]

First of all: Merry Christmas, and the rest!
I understand your motivations for stopping LoIP for a while, as I'm also right into the same kind of changes. Time seems to become a scarce resource those days, maybe even worst than a credit line at the Societe Generale.

So, we need to get back to the roots, to our core "business", and more, to our core life.
Hence the question about blogging or no more blogging, Twitter or not Twitter, etc.

Sure enough, a blog is a fantastic mean to get in touch with people all over the Planet, as Twitter is. The question is: do we really need that ? If the answer is 'no', then why the heck have we been spending so much time on blogging before ? Hence the fact: we must keep in touch with the people we once met - at least virtually. It's a kind of respect. Otherwise, what's this 'Social Networking' stuff, if not all about PEOPLE ?...

Therefore, as you're a smart guy, I'm convinced you'll find a way to keep in touch with us. Why not using FriendFeed, which can help you gather your different 'online' postings onto one single place.

Anyway, Merry Christmas, and see you somewhere on the Blogosphere next year !

All the best,
Yours, sincerely,
_Marc

[Florent Bondoux]

3 years and 1000 posts.. What a commitment to ideas sharing ! Thanks for all and have fun with your ongoing projects ;-)
Best,

Florent

[Michèle Laird]

There comes a time in life when we get back to the bare essentials. Thank you, Bruno, for taking us there.

[Phoenix Woman]

I understand what you mean about Twitter; it's really useful only if you're a journalist/blogger who spits out lots of tiny discrete information morsels in the course of a day. It's utterly useless for the longer-form thought framework towards which you're moving.

Good luck in your future endeavors!

[Pedro Custódio]

Hey Bruno, although I feel sad to know that this space of yours is being put on hold for a while, I confess that not only I don understand the reasoning behind such decision (since I'm having the exact same problems) but I think it's indeed an overwhelming need of energy to cope with the regularity and quality of a good blog, not all ideas can be published without thoughts and the more you have to say the more you spend on writing it...

strangely I can almost feel as if we're guilty of over perfectionism on posting and if a more short/raw version of ideas weren't better for ourselves..

I've started blogging as a way to cope and deal with all my daily ramblings, but doesn't seem to be working for me these days.. how are you coping with that and if I may ask, what are you using instead? :)

[BrunoG]

Hello all,
thank you for your very kind and friendly words. You've guessed that the decision to suspend the blog was not an easy one, but two weeks later I certainly feel it was the right one.
A couple personal answers:

@Barbara: TEDGLOBAL 2009 is on track, we have opened registrations and there is public information available here:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/pages/view/id/207

@Peter, Andre, Marc and Pedro: yes, it seems to be a trend, people discontinuing their blogging or slowing down, isn't it? Mostly, it's because we have outgrown the blog as an instrument -- simply it doesn't match our needs anymore. Pedro: I haven't set on a new tool yet, I'm searching and I'm not satisfied with what I'm finding so far.

I wish you all a great start into the new year. Ciao! Thank you again.
Bruno

[Madeleine von Holzen]

Ciao Bruno and tks. Never wrote or commented, but read you, was great. See you soon elsewhere, no doubt ;-)
Madeleine

[Lucy Hooberman]

the end of an era it seems. I enjoy your thinking and writing - and I enjoy occasional blog posts too. So please continue sharing in whichever way works for you - just as long as I don't have to go to as many conferences as you to keep up with you!

[R.Paul Herman]

Dear Bruno - Thank you for always providing genuine insights with integrity and honesty. You will be missed in the blogosphere, but happy to see TEDglobal in Oxford again.

You will be missed of course, and we anxiously await your next initiative. Keep us "posted" :) Paul Herman, HIPinvestor.com

[Claudia Benassi-Faltys]

Hi Bruno,

A bit late.. I used to follow your blog from time to time (but catching up!). Always with the highest interest.

For me (also), it was the top of the top: content and writing. It contributed to open my mind.
It is surely of meaning if you decide to stop (adequation between tool, technology and content, objectives?). Maybe one day you'll explain more thouroughly the underlying reasons and it will be enlightning, once again :-)

All the best to you