A Manifesto of Sorts

Welcome to the new Cappuccino! Like the the old Cappuccino, this is a virtual coffeehouse focused on the relationship between business and the rest of our lives.

When I first started blogging, my focus was mostly on the way that technological and cultural changes are at the core of that relationship. That’s still a dominant theme, but over time, I’ve also come to pay more attention to the role of institutionalized factors like international relations and economic policy. On the new Cappuccino, you should expect to see a healthy dose of all of the above.

The more I’ve worked as a journalist, the closer to the ground, to the granular, this blog has gotten. It’s more of a news blog now, a reaction to specific events with out-takes of my reporting, than the more philosophical project it used to be. I’m ambivalent about that: it feels more appropriate as a reporter-blogger to focus on the news, but at the same time, I have misgivings about getting sucked into the horse race and the he-said-she-said of the newsosphere, and I tend to react to events a few days after they occur, which isn’t really suited to that kind of blogging.

In this new incarnation, I’m going to try to sort out my ambivalence by blogging more frequently. That means there will be more timely news coverage with brief comments (instead of the stream of links I’d been dumping in the old sidebar), at least one more in depth analysis of an issue a week, and at least one more idea-oriented piece a week. I’ll be rolling out a fourth (as yet undisclosed) content category in September.

I’m putting that in writing as much for you as for myself, and I’m hoping that if I start to get lazy on those commitments, one of you takes me to task in the comments.