Last August I thought I had a pretty good idea about how to share the lessons learned and best practices from spending eight years helping the Army rethink how we integrated data and analytics into our human resources and talent management functions.
I put together a book proposal. A good friend introduced me to his publisher, who has also published some pretty big names in the business data space. They accepted my proposal and put me on contract.
I wrote 40,000 words almost immediately.
I hated them. I rewrote them. And I did it again. And again. I wrote 60,000. Deleted 25,000. Did it again.
I sent drafts back and forth to my editor, to friends, even to my mom (bless you, Laura Freberg, for reading my take on your textbook chapters on motivation and conditioning).
(And thank you, Greg Johnson, for editing and critiquing all the articles I’ve written, in advance for proofreading the Moneyball chapter I’m going to send you, and for encouraging me to just buckle down and do it).
I despaired a little. It’s a very different game to provide keynote speeches and panel presentations on data driven talent management than it is to write 80,000 words on it that a publisher is going to put in print, bind, and put into people’s hands.
But I wrote those 80,000 words.
It’s not quite done yet. I have to turn hyperlinked references into documented ones, make sure I didn’t use the same word 32 times in a row to describe something, and check to see if the jokes I wrote in a caffeine-riddled stupor are actually funny.
But we’re close. And if all goes well, around 27 August 2024, you’ll be able to get 13 chapters of strategy, snark, way too many superhero and Harry Potter references, and everything I can put down in words about data driven talent management in your hands!
I’m excited. I hope you’re excited, too!
Stay tuned 📘 ✨
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