Today’s task for Blogging 101 was to rename your blog (if appropriate) and add a tagline. It caused me to reflect on why I initially started this blog called ‘The Squiggly Line’ and what that has come to mean for me over the years. For the past 7 years or so, it’s been my home online. It’s served as my email address and any other internet accounts where ‘Steve Hopkins’ was already registered. To this day, I still really like it, so I won’t be changing it. I’m curious to know if people think my tagline helps them understand what the blog is about, but I also still feel good about that. I thought today I’d share where it came from and what it means to me.
About 8 years ago, I was part of a small organisation called Venture Tribe – along with people I still consider great friends. In one session early on in the organisations life, we were going through the task of naming it. Venture Tribe wasn’t something we’d come up with yet. So, we were doing some quickfire brainstorming about names. At the time, Cam had scribbled out some of his suggestions and in the pace to go around the table just simply said “…er, er, Squiggly Line.” I really liked it and instantly wanted to use it. I got this sense and image in my mind that it could represent how the world of business was becoming far less linear and much more chaotic and squiggly. We ended up going with Venture Tribe and so after that I asked if I could begin using The Squiggly Line for my blog. The rest, as they say, is history.
Years later, my passion is still around helping people within organisations think more about making their ‘work’ the best thing it can be. I work at Yammer, within Microsoft, where we create a product that millions of people use to make their communications with their team more social, open and transformative. I’m more and more interested in ideas such as Mindfulness and how that can positively impact the world inside and outside of a persons work accountabilities. And, I’m a passionate believer that we’re in the middle of seeing many of our worlds organisations transition to being much more responsive by adopting new was of operating. And amongst all of that, the world has only continued to get more and more squiggly. Thanks for reading.
The Squiggly Line 