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First, I’ll get it out of the way. I apologize for my lack of posts here for a while. A few (ok, more than a few) weeks ago, I was bugged by some things not quite working with this blog. Nothing dramatic, just updates I had style="text-decoration: line-through;">postponed procrastinated and some back end things I just didn’t find sexy enough to push up the priority list.

Sound familiar?

The front end – the facade, the interactions, the content development, the client deliveries – are important. They’re sexy and fun and full of feedback for me. Yes, I’m a creature dependent on feedback. I thrive on the audience, the comments, the clients, the “people.”

Technology, in all its front-end glory, has a complicated and mysterious backdrop full of connections and equations that I don’t understand. I don’t understand most of it, but just enough to be dangerous. In other words, I’m no technologist, but I understand what is possible.

class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-754" title="Zen" src="http://www.360connext.com/site/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Zen-150x112.jpg" alt="Zen Robot" width="150" height="112" />So I knew I had to act. But I just didn’t want to. I could keep focusing on the flashy front end that I love. I kept putting up with the somewhat insignificant but growing list of annoyances and improvements I wanted to make.

Finally, I decided to stop putting up with stuff. Take some of the time I dedicate to the front end deadlines and put that time and energy towards the back end.

It took longer than I expected to buff and shine the technology supporting this facade than I would have liked. By then, I had other obligations to attend to before I could test it all out. I had become accustomed to NOT writing often.

And then I heard from some of you. And it made me want to come back and reap the rewards of working on the not-so-sexy side of things.

The back-end of things – technology, processes, evaluations, planning, debriefs, laundry, scheduling, etc. – is not sexy or fun. It’s not what we put on resumes, discuss at cocktail parties or share in blogs. We don’t get excited or passionate about what maintenance does for us or our clients or customers.

But trust me, it’s worth it.

So I’m back after client work, business travels and an extremely relaxing vacation with my husband. I have a renewed commitment to maintenance. It’s not exciting or exhilarating, but it’s important.

So help me out. What are some areas of maintenance or “back end” items you struggle with? How do you get motivated?

And thanks for sticking around.  The relationships I’ve built here are motivation in themselves.

(Photo credit:  href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gogdog/2570778653/" target="_blank">GogDog)

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