The prac­tice of post­ing some form of dis­clo­sure state­ment has been taken up by some blog­gers, and I fol­low their exam­ple in offer­ing the fol­low­ing state­ment of disclosure.

Remu­ner­a­tion

“Show me the money!” Right?

Books & Other Schwag

From time to time, pub­li­cists will send me copies of books with stated or unstated hopes of a men­tion or review. It is not my prac­tice to promise a review before receiv­ing a book, because if it doesn’t hold me, I won’t fin­ish read­ing it. My time is more valu­able than that. I may men­tion any num­ber of books or authors, but if I do so approv­ingly, it is strictly on the basis of merit. If I review a book I have received for free, I will gen­er­ally state this to be the case. I have not sold spe­cific post con­tent or rec­om­men­da­tions on this blog.

Adver­tis­ing & Affil­i­ate Programs

I’ve exper­i­mented with adver­tis­ing on this site but have cut back on the ads. They don’t pay that much and I don’t want to detract from the con­tent. I’ve done the same with some affil­i­ate pro­grams, but have only retained a few. Most of the Ama­zon book links are affil­i­ate links for which I grate­fully receive a small per­cent­age of sales. Usu­ally I blow that and more on books again any­way. I also include affil­i­ate links for DreamHost and GoDaddy, both of which I use and recommend.

How I Actu­ally Earn Money

Obvi­ously I don’t make my liv­ing blog­ging, though there is some indi­rect income asso­ci­ated with the prac­tice. Mainly I make my liv­ing con­sult­ing on and deliv­er­ing the types of prod­ucts and ser­vices about which I blog, namely web­site devel­op­ment plus mar­ket­ing and busi­ness con­sult­ing ser­vices. I am also an author and exer­cise my craft of writ­ing as part of what I do for a living.

Third-Party Attach­ments

Attach­ments and biases aren’t always strictly about the money. Though come to think of it, even when it’s not, it some­how finds a way to affect the money.

Clients

From time to time, I may men­tion clients or projects that I’ve worked on. I don’t men­tion them all, but there’s nor­mally no real rhyme or rea­son to it, so it’s no slight against them if I don’t drop their name. If I rec­om­mend them, it’s because I mean to rec­om­mend them and not because I’m paid to (adver­tis­ing excepted). I try to limit work for clients I can’t rec­om­mend, for obvi­ous reasons.

Boards & Associations

I am a mem­ber of the board of direc­tors of Rainy Day Inter­net (Rainy Day Soft­ware), where I am a major share­holder and where I spent all of my time from 2000–2007. Other asso­ci­a­tions and mem­ber­ships, includ­ing on a vol­un­teer basis, may vary from time to time.

Pref­er­ences & Biases

Okay, some­times there are biases that aren’t all about money, or at least aren’t sup­posed to be.

Tech­nol­ogy

I’m a sup­porter of Open Source tech­nol­ogy, and have built this site and many oth­ers on Word­Press, care­fully cod­ing the html, css, and php using vi on the Linux servers at DreamHost.

Pol­i­tics

Maybe I shouldn’t broach one of the two major top­ics that shouldn’t be dis­cussed in civil com­pany. When peo­ple ask about my pol­i­tics, I gen­er­ally tell them I’m in favour of the secret bal­lot. If pressed, I might call myself a Red Tory, partly because I like the way it attempts to defy neat categorization.

Reli­gion

Since I’m on a roll with taboo dis­clo­sures, I’ve also got reli­gion of some kind or other. I’m not that reli­gious, but self-identify as being in the Chris­t­ian tra­di­tion (the bet­ter parts of it, any­way). Under the pseu­do­nym of Brother May­nard, I have writ­ten, pub­lished, and have been asso­ci­ated with what is or has been called the emerging/missional church.

Poli­cies & Assurances

Even­tu­ally, I have to make some kind of reas­sur­ing state­ment — or at least let you know what to expect besides 50% More Pith.

Edi­to­r­ial Policy

I rarely pull posts once I’ve put them online, even if I change my mind about some­thing I’ve said. The older the post is, the higher the chance that may have hap­pened some­where along the way. Times and sit­u­a­tions change, and so may the opin­ions I’ve voiced in the past. I let pretty much any com­ment pass unless it’s offen­sive, spammy (hate the spam), or if I can’t fig­ure out what the heck it’s try­ing to say. My dis­cre­tion, you’ve gotta live with it. I won’t with­hold a com­ment because I dis­agree with it — in other words, you don’t have to be right to com­ment here, just civil and on-point with no ad hominem attacks. You can go for the jugu­lar, but it has to be that of the the­sis, not your opponent.

Pri­vacy

Names and email addresses col­lected on this site are mainly for the proper func­tion­ing of the com­ment sys­tem. I won’t ever sell them because I hates the spam… but I don’t 100% rule out send­ing you an email some­time down the road when/if I start an occa­sional mail­ing list. If that hap­pens, you’ll get an easy unsub­scribe link and I won’t get offended if you use it. But once again, your data is not for sale. If you wants the spam, let me know and I’ll for­ward you all of mine.

Why I Do This

After read­ing all of that, the obvi­ous ques­tion is why on earth I’m doing this. The answer is that I’m just daft enough to enjoy it and just dis­tracted enough to do it, though not enough of either to be as con­sis­tent at it as I really want to be, deep down. The blog, the Twit­ter stream, and the other online accou­trements are there for clients, asso­ciates, and col­leagues to read and be wowed by their insight, and to freely put it to use. Or to mock me with, whichever. If you find what I write help­ful to you in your busi­ness, I’m glad for that, and I’d like to hear from you. If you find it so help­ful that you’d like to hire me to con­sult a lit­tle, I’d like that too.

My Promise

I’ll do my best to stick to what I said above, and won’t lie to you about it. I may some­day be tempted to break some of these prin­ci­ples by plunk­ing down a big suit­case full of cash in front of me. If that hap­pens, I’ll try to let you know in advance, but I’m not hold­ing my breath and you don’t have much to fear on that count.

If any of this presents a real prob­lem for you, send me a com­plaint: . I’ve been known to lis­ten in the past sometimes.