Last year when I was helping organize BarCamp Madison 2011 I was busy getting the website set up.  I set up a WordPress site and planned on getting modules installed to handle registrations and session tracking.  Before I even got a chance to do anything other members of the group set up an eventbrite event for registrations, a google moderator site set up for session tracking, a google wave set up for organizer communication and there was already a google group for community communication.

Instead of taking the time to build up value in our web property, they scattered our brand and functionality all over the internet.  Have people given up on the concept of web ownership?

It’s one thing if you’re technologically unsavvy and have no other way to piece together the functionality you need, but these were the Madison tech-elite!  Why would they do such a thing?  One person actually said something to the extent of “Do people actually have websites anymore?”

Am I the only person left who thinks it’s a good thing to create a strong web presence?  To stake out your own space and build it up?  When we were promoting the event where should someone link to?  Obviously it should be http://www.barcampmadison.org/ but if someone wanted to link to the registration page they would link to EventBrite and we would lose that link.

When we have BarCamp this year I hope to be prepared with all the functionality on the BarCamp website.  Otherwise will we be able to reuse the registration link from last year or is that tied to the old event?  Will we be able to easily clear out the ideas on the old Google Moderator site?

My girlfriend uses Facebook as her primary form of online communication.  Is this any better?  I own the domain andrewshell.org and I own my e-mail address at that domain.  Right now it’s being hosted by Google, but if I wanted to get off that tomorrow I could set up my own e-mail server, point my e-mail address at the new server and nothing changes.  If my girlfriend gets off of facebook what will happen?  People will either continue to send her messages on facebook, or if she deletes her account they won’t know how to reach her.

On the internet it’s important to own your content.  Please don’t give away your freedom.  Dave Winer has the right idea with his new minimal blogging tool.  It’s OK to publish to twitter, it’s just not OK to publish in twitter.

Related Posts:
Escaping Corporate Silos With WordPress

I own a lot of stuff.  A rough estimate puts me at 600 CDs. There was a time I would buy 1-3 CDs every week but the last CDs I bought were back in December 2009 and I don’t think I’ve ever put those CDs in a CD player.  I bought them, put them on a shelf and continued to listen to them on Rhapsody.  Clearly I wasn’t buying them for the music. It was about ownership, putting it on a shelf for people to see.  My CD collection was who I was.

I’ve had a realization.  I don’t care anymore.

I held off buying any sort of DRM protected eBooks.  I wanted to be able to read, archive and share my books without worrying that one day my books would stop working.  Lately I’ve been buying kindle books to read on my iPad.  Today I canceled my pre-order for the hardcover of Seth Godin’s upcoming book Poke the Box.  I decided I’d rather not bring more physical stuff into my life and ordered the kindle version instead.

I’ve been following Ev Bogue as he wrote and published his new eBook Augmented Humanity which I’ve been reading and so far as been amazing. Ev practices minimalism and has written a couple eBooks on the subject.  I admit I envy his freedom.  In a recent post he talks about his packing list as he travels around the world.  I have too much stuff to be able to live his lifestyle.

I don’t know if I would ever be able to get down to less then 100 possessions and I’m not sure I’d want to.  What this has done is allow me to analyze my relationship with the things that surround me. Why do I have this book? Unless I’m currently reading it, or have it on a schedule to read, why do I have it?  Maybe I should just get rid of it.

Take a look in your own life and ask yourself about the relationship you have with your possessions. Are they adding value to your life or are they draining it from you?  Would you be able to easily move right now if you wanted or would your possessions keep you from your destiny?

I had an interesting conversation with my friend Monica last night. We talked about information overload and she brought up a term “News Poisoning” which means how you can poison your mind by watching the news.

What do I mean by poisoning your mind? If you watch the news you may be afraid to leave your house because everything from hotel rooms to movie theaters are infested with bed bugs. My Mom (who watches the news nightly) is afraid that if I go to Mexico I’ll be kidnapped.  I also believe that the Tea Party Movement is caused by News Poisoning.

How much thought do you put into what you allow into your mind?  How much are you influenced by what’s available in your community?  Dave Winer on returning from Sundance commented on the awful state of news in Park City, UT.

I’ve been a consumer of RSS feeds for a long time.  However last year I declared RSS bankruptcy.  I’ve also struggled for a long time knowing that I’m not particularly knowledgeable in world affairs.  How do you choose what’s important and how do you make sure the information you’re getting is accurate?  I currently get my news in two ways.   First I still use Google Reader, to a much lesser extent then before.  I only follow 5 blogs and can easily check my feeds once a day max.  Secondly I’ve replaced much of what I used to use Google Reader for with my own River of News.  This suits me better because there isn’t an unlimited backlog of posts and there is no status for what has been read or not.  I can just visit that page and see what’s new.  If I’m busy, I don’t feel compelled to check it at all.  I might only read that page once a week.

I don’t know the answer to this.  I realize that I’m not getting a balanced diet of information but I’m not sure I care anymore.  It’s more important to me to consume less information because at least then I won’t feel overloaded.  If something really important is going on, I’ll hear about it.

What is your strategy for staying informed?  Do you watch the evening news?

My life needs fixing. There are a lot of things going on that I need to repair. Some of which are:

1. Lose weight, get in shape
2. Develop the power to avoid procrastination
3. Improve my concentration
4. Start my own business

I think the key to solving these problems is to put those parts of my life on autopilot.  If I can get into a routine where I don’t have to think in order to succeed ideally I’ll be more inclined to actually accomplish my goals.

A good example of this is what I’ve done already with working out.  I signed up for Orange Shoe Personal Fitness which has been great.  The reason it’s worked better then a traditional gym membership is the accountability.  Since I’m working in small groups (no more then 4 people) or one-on-one personal training, when I schedule a session I know I have to go.  People will notice and contact me if I miss a session.  I got a routine of when I go and I’ve been going 2-3 times a week since I started.  And since I’m working with a personal trainer I don’t have to think about what exercises I’m going to do or if I’m pushing myself too hard or not enough.  I just show up and they tell me what to do.  Obviously this is more expensive then a traditional gym membership, but I’m getting results.

What else will I be able to put on autopilot?  I’m thinking I should put together a morning checklist.  Something where every day I wake up and go through each item on the list.  That way I can make sure I do the things I need to do like my stretching exercises and 10-15 minutes of meditation.

What are some aspects of your life that could benefit from being on autopilot?

I’m not a huge fan of new years resolutions. I think most people throw out some big vague goal like “lose weight” or “start my own business” then forget about it by the end of January.

I was just thinking of a different approach to new years resolutions. What could you accomplish if you spent 60 hours working on your goal in 2011? Well, guess what? That breaks down to approximately 10 minutes a day.

If you just decide to spend 10 minutes every day working toward your goal you will spend about 5 hours a month or 60 hours a year.

How about spend 10 minutes a day meditating or reading? Or spend 10 minutes every morning doing some jumping jacks to boost your metabolism? Maybe you should pick a few goals and dedicate 10 minutes a day on each one?

What will you spend 10 minutes a day on in 2011?

This is a reply to Why Gen Y is Smarter, From a Gen X

We are becoming more dependent on technology. The use of a GPS like they mention in the TechCrunch article is a good example. GPS is great since it allows you to get to places very easily without having to carry a ton of maps around. If you miss your exit or hit a detour you can get back on track quickly. However if the GPS has invalid information or stops working many people would be completely lost, unable even to backtrack the way they came.

The risk is not that we’re outsourcing the storage of knowledge and facts, rather we’re outsourcing our thinking. Sometimes that’s a good thing. If you have a GPS that is getting a real-time feed of traffic conditions it may direct you a quicker route then you would have gone on your own. Mathematica can solve problems for you in seconds that would have been impossible or time consuming if done by hand. We still need to have the ability to interpret the results we’re getting so we know if it’s accurate or not. We have to trust that the GPS map data is accurate but at the same time compare it to what we see in front of us. We don’t want to drive off a cliff because the GPS tells us there is a bridge there.

Another problem I see is that the internet allows us to live within our own bubble. Prior to the internet, if you wanted to read news while you drank your coffee in the morning you had a choice of a handful of newspapers and magazines. Even when you selected the newspaper that resonated with your preferences (liberal vs conservative for example) you were exposed to a variety of stories about many different things. Now with news aggregation you could spend all day only reading news stories about how great Apple is. Before, even if you didn’t read all the articles you probably absorbed something from the headlines. It’s never been easier to isolate yourself in a world that doesn’t challenge your beliefs.

The way we consume information is changing. I find it’s difficult to read long form writing because I’m used to scanning headers and bulleted lists on the internet. I think this is bad and I should work on correcting this issue. If I try to read a book and find that my mind is wondering and unable to focus I will probably put the book down and do a Google search to find the abridged version.

At the end of the day we’re evolving to use the tools that are available to us. It will be a problem if a catastrophe occurs that takes down the internet and cellular network. With card catalogs on computers if a city lost power we wouldn’t even be able to find information in the physical books in our libraries. Heck without GPS we probably wouldn’t even be able to find the library. This isn’t very different from our reliance on cars. If you choose where you live based on the assumption of having a car, you have to balance that with the risk that someday your car might not be available.

I’ve been rolling around in my head for a while now about the best way to publish structured data via RSS. My primary use case is with syndicating data between websites, especially social networks like Brazen Careerist. I like the idea of pulling in a feed that has more information in it then just the rendered HTML.

I started thinking about this again after reading Dave Winer’s post WinerLinks and outliners because Dave provides structured OPML data for all of his blog posts. Looking at his RSS feed I noticed that he references these OPML files in each item with a scripting2:source tag which is defined in the Scripting2 namespace.

The only problem I see is he defines the tag as a link to the OPML source for the story behind the item. This is accurate for his use case, but what if the source for the item isn’t OPML? In the RSS 2.0 Specification they have an enclosure tag which is what’s used for podcasting. It would have been nice if the scripting2:source tag emulated the enclosure tag and required length and type in addition to the URL. This way if the source of my item is a CSV file, and Excel Spreadsheet or any other type of structured data we could link to it and the feed readers could potentially do something interesting with it.

Obviously there is nothing keeping me from creating my own RSS extension or just using the scripting2:source tag to point at something that isn’t an OPML file. I’d just prefer to do things the “right” way and not create another tag that is so similar to this existing one.

I’ve been trying to be more minimalist lately. I deleted the vast majority of blogs I follow in my RSS feed (I only follow 5 now). One of the blogs I still follow is Far Beyond the Stars by Everett Bogue. Everett is a guy who lives his live with a ridiculously small number of possessions (less then 100). I really resonate with his message but I find that I also conflict with it.

When I moved to CA (and then back again) moving all my stuff was a major expense and hassle. I’m currently living in a condo that’s a little over 1000 sq ft and I don’t know how my girlfriend could move in with me because there wouldn’t be enough room for both of our stuff. Just our clothes alone would be a problem. I have in my bedroom one closet and two tall dressers filled with clothes. I have three drawers filled with t-shirts. This is clearly ridiculous. There is absolutely no reason why two people couldn’t live comfortably in my condo. Especially if we’re a couple sharing a bedroom.

I’ve started getting rid of things. I took a bunch of books to Frugal Muse but they didn’t take many of them. I’ll probably offer up some of my computer books at my next PHP Meetup. Some of the stuff I feel like I’d have a hard time getting rid of are my DVDs and CDs. I’m not sure why the idea of getting rid of them bothers me so much. There are other things that I wouldn’t want to get rid of like my pinball machine. Ideally I’d have more pinball machines but I’m not sure why I have this desire to accumulate things.

I would have a lot more freedom without this weird desire to accumulate stuff. I’d be content living in my condo (which is paid off) instead of looking to buy a house and taking on a mortgage. I’d also have more money because I wouldn’t be spending it on stuff I don’t need. I live within my means, but I have almost no savings. There is no reason I shouldn’t be sitting on piles of money because I make a good salary and I don’t have a ton of fixed monthly expenses. I’d like to start a business of my own, but I can’t right now because of my lack of savings and my dependence on my salary.

Clearly I need to keep taking steps towards reducing what I spend and what I have. I’d like to have my girlfriend move in when her lease is up in 6 months so ideally I’ll need to get rid of half of what I have in my currently full condo. This is something I can do and I feel like I’ll be a much better person for it on the flip side.

I’m looking for a product that makes it easy for users of Brazen Careerist to set up and broadcast webcasts to other members of our site. The idea is that we want in our UI for a user to schedule a webcast that they want to host. At the time of the event they go to the event page and assuming they’re logged on already authorize the widget to have access to their camera and they see themselves with a broadcast button. We will have our own chat on the page so the webcasting has to be done entirely on our page, nothing to download, no going to another website.

Here are my ideal requirements:

• Ideally something we can pay for to be white label
• Flash widget to embed on our website
• API so I can programmatically create new events (get a webcast token or something)
• If there is an admin=true or something variable set the widget is in admin mode and the viewer is given a login prompt. There should also be an API so I can integrate this login with our existing user authentication.
• Once the admin logs in they see themselves as the viewers would, only they have a button in the corner so they can start and stop broadcasting.
• If the admin=true variable had not been set then it’s just in viewer mode and all they see is the webcast if the admin is broadcasting.
• Extra points if you could configure an image to show when the video is not being webcast.

This seems super simple but I’m not finding a solution anywhere. Sites like UStream, JustinTV, Livestream and Vokle all have giant interfaces that even if you can embed the webcast on a web page, the admin is not on the website, but rather in some special admin. They also tend to have features like chat and whatnot all built in. I can’t find anything that is just super simple embedded webcast software. Am I just not finding it or doesn’t this exist?

Here’s an example mockup of what it should look like for a webcaster:

Here’s an exercise I just came up with as a method to expand and pivot my passions. Start out with something that excites you, something that you’re really passionate about. Visualize that this activity or idea is just a lake that’s part of a big network of lakes, rivers, streams and oceans of passion. An example for me is running the Madison PHP Meetup Group.

Next start asking yourself questions. Why is this important? What about this jacks you up? Is this a subset of a larger passion of yours? We need to swim into the other bodies of passion that feed into or out of this idea. For my example I love running the PHP group because I enjoy teaching and helping people, solving problems, learning new things and sharing what I know.

Repeat the last step a few more times. Ask more questions not only on the original idea but on all the related ideas that you’re discovering. Pick some other things that you’re passionate about and work through the exercise on those ideas too. You’ll probably start to find overlap between things. These are your core passions. Other things I’m interested in are self development and entrepreneurship.

Once you have a giant list of ideas and activities and passions try to organize them. One way could be creating a mind map so you can look at how every idea is related.

The final step is to start coming up with some new ideas and activities. This can be done by finding patterns in what you see or by expanding or refining the ideas you already have. You’re not trying to find more things that you’re currently doing, but rather new things that you would probably be passionate about if you were doing them. These ideas can be things to strive for or to start working on. For myself since I like teaching and helping people and I’m also interested in entrepreneurship I’d probably be very passionate teaching entrepreneurship. Now I’m not currently qualified to do this, but it’s something that I could start working on.

Why is this useful? If you’re someone like me who’s interested in starting their own business, you’ll be happier doing something that you’re passionate about (and probably more successful). The larger the pool of passions you have, the more chances you’ll have to find one that can be built into a profitable business.