[Courses] chapter nine: Running A Business- Business Plan and Focus

[Conor Daly]

On Fri, Aug 30, 2002 at 07:29:05PM -0400 or so it is rumoured hereabouts, 
Marcia Barrett Nice thought:
 
> Alright, my question is this: How realistic should the further flung goals be 
> (in your humble opinion)?  
> For example, I took your list here and applied it toward my goal of being a 
> professional sf novelist (please stop laughing at me, I'm serious).  

I haven't yet had the pleasure of being able to say "I knew her before she
was famous" (I knew the choir my sister left before _they_ got famous
though!) so maybe I'll be able to say it of you...

> So my 
> goal for today was: Revise 10 pages out of that blasted novel.  Doable, 
> realistic, and a solid start since so far I had printed it and written notes 
> on the printed copy.  (And done, yay me!)
> Next week includes things like: set up the printer (we just moved last month, 
> so this makes more sense than it sounds like) and submit a piece I've already 
> finished.
> And so on, obviously becoming somewhat more vague as I move outward.
> Now at 5 years, my goal is to have written one novel per year, which isn't 
> particularly unrealistic if I apply myself.
> But at 10 & 20 years, I'm just befuddled.  I can get starry eyed "Be more 
> famous than Stephen King".  I can be more realistic "Have published 10 
> novels."  I can do both.  I can't determine from where I sit which would be 
> more helpful, and so I'm asking.

At work (what with being a humble employee and all...) we make out a
yearly personal plan which consists of goals, objectives etc.  One of my
goals is: "Eliminate the use of proprietry software in the company".  This
is pretty unrealistic in the current M$ dominated IT world but it remains
a goal / ambition for me.  I may not attain it but it _is_ something
towards which I work and it is something that I can progress towards.
Everywhere I can, I propose and promote the Open Source alternative and
things are changing...

So, go for it!  "Be more famous than Stephen King (who?)", "publish 10
novels", "be able to live off the royalties from your novels".  How
realistic any of these are depends solely on you.

Conor
-- 
Conor Daly <conor.daly at oceanfree.net>

Domestic Sysadmin :-)
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