What’s in a Name?

I’ve just finished the heaviest lifting in restructuring things at GlobalChicago.NET… making distinctions, cleaning up the parts, and reshaping my own mind a bit. The latter task being really the central affair, and accomplishment. I guess i make it so public just in case it’s of use to anyone else. And for the pressure or energy that comes when you bring and share your attention here, thank you.

For some time, “my work” has been a sort of undifferentiated, but definitely expanding universe. As of this weekend, some real clarity has emerged… planets, I suppose. Or maybe I should hope they are suns? Either way, these chunks suddenly seem real enough to stand on their own, or go away:

• GlobalChicago is now presented more clearly than ever as a hosting project.
• MichaelHermanAssociates offerings and explanations are significantly updated and evolved.
• SmallChangeNews is giving in action, and wanting to come alive next.
• OpenSpaceTech is a simple and deep facilitator learning and practice resource archive and OpenSpaceWorld (which I manage) finally feels really stable on its own.

And finally, this weblog, though I’ve been recently questionning it’s future, suddenly seems to have some purpose in sorting out how these pieces play together, an intricate web of informing and depending on each other.

The most interesting phenomenon in all of this is that even though I’m obviously still the primary instigator of all of them, all of these pieces suddenly feel significantly more separate from “me.” Some of them have their own domain names, and MichaelHerman.com has really been in the background… until now.

Over the weekend I made a central page for myself. Just me. Michael Herman. No Associates. No Global. No Network. Not even any initials or credentials. It was refreshing and a wee bit startling to have just me, and a simple little list of the things I do, there on one main splashy sort of page. Simple. It seems something new is emerging. The old forms can die if they want to. Something new is emerging… and it has the same name as me. How curious.