This morning I watched a video of my cousin bench pressing 515 lbs, in support of his Strength Ministry. Apparently this is some kind of record for people who only weigh 308 lbs. He is also 6’ 8”. I must admit there is a little security in knowing the incredible Hulk is a family member.

I guess I just have to believe that I got all the brains… sadly I’m not sure that is the case either. He sets a high bar (so to speak). I can only hope to do as much for the world. I’m not sure it is as entertaining as rolling up a frying pan, but I think I can add some value from my blog.

Like most people I learn by doing. I spend a lot of time on the bleeding edge of betas (or alphas) for our products, I like to think of myself as a bit of a “tryer” when it comes to software. Until recently, however, my willingness to try new products stopped when it required me to join, subscribe, log in or establish an account. I spent enough time around advertising (including being a designer of it) that I am very suspicious of leaving breadcrumbs around for marketers to follow. I might be a “tryer,” but I am not really a “joiner.”

Contrary to perception, I am not a techno-gadget nut wanting every new experience out there. I am obsessed with a few of them, but not nearly all of them. Someone recently handed me their brand new Widget-Rich 2.3.4.0 phone to show me how cool it was. I checked it for a dial tone and handed it back.. saying “yeah. Pretty cool.”

I may listen to Autechre, but on some topics I am very much a laggard or at best a vocal member of the late majority. This is the case when it comes to online services. I have had a yahoo mail account for 13 years, retired one on Excite, etc. I also suffered their early iterations of a portal. I didn’t care that much for the concept because it always felt like advertisers got the best of that relationship.

Recently I have been much more aggressive with connecting my desktop to relevant services. There is enough good stuff out there (and with the promise of much more on the horizon) that makes this a good time to think through how I plan to service myself with content using “the cloud.”

I could recite a lot of messaging and benefits statements, but because this affects my basic productivity level, I’d like approach my sharing of the experience differently. I would like to share my personal experience migrating to online services for the things I do at work.

My next sequence of posts will be about the migration to online. My goal by the end of the exercise is as follows:

• To move to online as my primary means of document storage. This allows me to be more portable and to save drive space.
• To do so securely. I deal with much pre-release data, and obviously storing those documents in a library that is search-engine indexed by default won’t do. Mixing my personal data with my private data needs to be managed.
• To do so with a single identity. I have a presence online today. I have this blog, my personal blog, I use LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. I’d like to have (at a minimum) a single tool to present me a view of that activity.
• I’d like to use client software as the UI. It’s a personal preference, but (especially for work), clients are better than browsers most of the time. Not always, but mostly.

I am here-and-there on this effort today. I already have some of this working, but I don’t use it yet. We’ll see what it takes to get me from here to “there,” where I am using online as a method of managing my work content and schedules. I’m open to your suggestions, but I’m going to blog about what I use most: Microsoft Products & Services.

Off we go.