Instead of a photo of myself today, I'm offering a glimpse of my current workspace. The photo doesn't really capture it all (particularly not the laden bookcases off to the right), but it's a fairly good representation of the environment.

What I've learned (#5): Here I will mercilessly steal the words of poet and businessman Dana Gioia (who just stepped down as head of the NEA):

With each promotion at General Foods, I found that my background in the arts and humanities was more relevant. The higher you get in a corporation, the more you're dealing with qualitative issues. By the time I was in senior management, I was very effective in rebuilding businesses because I had good creative judgment—I had kept parts alive that most business executives did not.

(This comes from an article in Fast Company.)

Although I spend a lot of time on this blog (and in my workshops) talking about the importance of sales, marketing, promotion, and the numbers-numbers-numbers, I've found that making the right decision is almost never about looking at the numbers and instead about this creative judgment, usually critical thinking combined with grandiose, technicolor vision. This is what fuels, I would argue, the best businesses (and projects) in publishing today.

Related point: Numbers and money follow, they do not lead. If you manage by spreadsheet, with no regard to the fact that our work relies mostly on humans, you've made a grave mistake. Humans lead. Numbers follow.