Haven’t had a lot to say lately, partly because I’ve been thinking about where I want things to go here both in direction and style.

Direction.  The key focus here has been service dogs, particularly as they relate to veterans, and will continue to be.  But I really like all working dogs – service dogs, police and military K-9s, search and rescue dogs, etc. – and will continue  to write about those dogs as well.  Which means you likely won’t ever see stuff about surfing dogs (enough with the surfing dog video, please – heartwarming, sure, but I’m totally worn out on it), skateboarding dogs, or any of a number of other feelgood dog stories you see everywhere else – sorry.

Style.  Very long discussion, but the general guideline for online presence has evolved to Twitter and Facebook for short things, and blogs for longer discussions, but there’s no hard-and-fast rule about that and things have really changed in the last year. Most of that change is simply due to the pace of information, ease in quickly getting information out, interaction with readers, and what people expect in those areas – blogs aren’t necessarily the best way to handle those needs.

For now, though, the blog will stay as is, but I may do what others have and move to something like Posterous (THE platform I’d recommend now to anyone with no presence who wanted to be up-and-running quickly and easily).  I already have a Posterous site (albrittain.posterous.com) but, as you’ll notice, haven’t done anything with it yet.

In that vein, note that I have added a Lifestream page which right now only shows my blog updates and Twitter feed. I want to add Facebook and LinkedIn, but the feeds available there do not provide the information I want to see at this point.

That’s where things stand for now.

With the beginning of another year, good time to step back just a little and address the direction of things here.

Justin Kownacki is pretty obnoxious and profane, and there are a lotta times I don’t agree with or even read him, but I really like his “cut through the crap” style (most of the time).

His post today is the best one I’ve seen on this subject: “So What Do We *Do* With All This Information?” The whole thing is worth reading, but even if you don’t read it, there’s one key takeaway question he asks that anybody sharing information, especially online, needs to continually ask themselves:

“Am I just creating more white noise in your life,  or am I giving you information that can be applied / acted on / experienced?”

Justin’s put into words exactly how I try to operate (and he sets a great example by doing the latter in his post, too). Might not always be successful, but that’s what I’ve aimed for in the past and will continue to aim for, and it drives what you see here – and don’t.