The name is a real place

Beacon Rock is an 848-foot basalt monolith on the Washington side of the Columbia River Gorge, up the river from my house. It also marks the upper reach of tidal influence on the Columbia. Above it, the river runs on snowmelt and momentum. Below it, the ocean is in play, and the water behaves differently in ways you can't see from the shore.

That's the turn. Influence changes direction inside a system that keeps right on functioning. Results, behavior, and the explanations everyone relies on just stop lining up cleanly, and the shift is easy to miss unless you're paying attention.

I want to look for truth rather than validation.

Something I wrote back in 2015

Most of my work starts at that moment. The old explanations have gone stale, and the next launch, story, program, or plan has to be built on whatever replaced them. The tempting move is grabbing borrowed language that sounds better than what you can articulate yourself. Doing the actual work instead is the practice.

Who I am

I'm Lance Haun, an independent analyst, journalist, and advisor covering work technology. Beacon Turn is my practice. Through it I write a column at Reworked, publish The Turn most Tuesdays, and take editorial and research assignments.

Before this I spent close to two decades in work technology on both the media side and the vendor side: editor at TLNT and ERE Media, vice president of market insights at The Starr Conspiracy, and practice lead for research and insights at Rep Cap. I live in Vancouver, Washington, with my wife, kid, and three cats.