Relocation, relocation, relocation

Tl:dr we're moving house

The time has come, to pack up the house and move. Not my actual house. Well, not yet anyway (that’s a story for a later date, oh to be a tenant in the UK who happened to insist her landlord replace the condemned boiler / hot water and got served with eviction proceedings for the pleasure of it).

No, Unperfect is moving. Technically, it’s already moved, several months ago, but I hadn’t exactly unpacked or decorated. Not until last week.

What’s the skinny?

I felt well an truly lost for most of last year. I really didn’t know what direction to travel in. For the most part i felt there wasn’t the need or desire for my skills. But a couple of paying gigs that were meaningful and relevant to those skills came my way. In doing so it gave me hope and belief in myself that I haven’t had in a very long time.

The rebranding happened purely randomly, largely because I finally found a name that felt right. It felt comfortable. Y’know, like a pair of old jogging trousers that are soft and comfy. And things really do need to feel right for me. Stuff needs to fit together.

The business, as of today, has been renamed Murmuration Systems, but I’ve been calling her Murmuration for a good couple of months.

Murmuration: 1. murmuring; 2. A doubtful word for flock of starlings

Strangely, both definitions reflect what it is that I do.

So what do you do?

Murmuration, for the small details that make the big picture. I specialise in taxonomy, ontology and systems thinking consulting.

A taxonomy is the starling. An ontology is the murmuration. Systems thinking is the shape of the murmuration and the environment it flies in.

Murmuration system gives me a much wider scope than Wolf Peach or even Unperfect did. It gives me, and my clients, a clearer understanding of what it is that I do.

Well, when I’m not trying to explain it for the muggles who don’t understand it. But that’s a much bigger problem to think about.

What’s changing?

Well, not only have I changed my business name and rebranded, I’ve replatformed the site onto Ghost. Ghost is sort of like Substack, except it’s a paid for platform.

I chose Ghost, even if it has been somewhat painful to get everything set-up, because I wanted the main focus to be writing posts that reflect what I do. So it needed to be a blogging platform.

I chose not to go back to WordPress, because it’s old AF. Also, Matt Mullenweg (the guy who’s the CEO of Automattic, WordPress’ parent company) is a bit of a tosser.

I also chose not to go back to SquareSpace, because while it’s a great CMS, it’s not really set-up for blogging.

You might ask why am I not staying on Substack. Well, a few reasons, the top one being, I really struggled with the pressure of it being a newsletter platform, not a blogging one. I don’t do well with schedules and sticking to them (ironic after the outcome of the ADHD assessment yesterday 🙄😑). I felt under huge pressure to stick to a schedule over here. I also didn’t want to be sending out newsletters all the time.

There’s also the small issue of Substack allowing and promoting Nazi, fascist and far-right sites. Given everything that’s going on, it doesn’t feel right to me. And yes, before you ask, I also shut down my business instagram and facebook account. I’ll probably follow suit with my personal facebook account too.

So, I went with Ghost. It’s far from perfect, and there is a post in the draft folder of my brain about how bad it is to set-up in the circumstances I’m using it in. But that aside, it’s a good option for what I want.

What this means for you

Well, I’m sending this out, so I can give you the option of unsubscribing, if you want. Content on Murmuration will be about taxonomy, ontology, systems thinking and some off topic content. Emails will probably also be sporadic, so I’ll feel less pressure to send them out.

Don’t panic if you don’t fancy staying, it’s all cool. Emails won’t be on a regular schedule, if I remember to send them out at all.

The link for anyone wanting a browse is www.murmuration.uk and the blog is called Murmurings.