Phillip Smith

Beautiful Trouble: Powered by Wordpress, Advanced Custom Fields, and Bootstrap

2012-05-17T16:21:03Z

We’re hurtling toward the June 1st date for the launch of the Beautiful Trouble Web toolkit. Hitting that date is going to be challenging, as there’s lots of work left to do and I hit the road in less than a week, but we’ve made some serious progress since the last update.

The decision to build on Wordpress has turned out to be a huge win. The brave individual who is loading the content, Mara Ranville, was immediately familiar with the interface and has experienced very few technical challenges along the way. Both of the editors, Dave and Andrew, are already Wordpress users and should have no problems keeping the site updated with the minimum of fuss. And, now that we’re finally moving toward the goal, we’re moving fast.

I’ve been able to keep the Wordpress set-up nice and simple, and we’re only using a handful of plug-ins:

Advanced Custom Fields: This was the critical piece to make everything work. This module, while using the existing Wordpress custom field functionality, super-charges the user interface so that custom fields are presented logically, with help text, and validation. We’re also using the “Flexible Content” add-on to make it possible to add repeating elements to a page, i.e., multiple epigraphs and so on. Each module has its own “field group” that is shown on the edit screen, which makes it possible to capture module-specific information quickly and easily. This plug-in, when paired with the paid extra functionality of repeating and flexible fields, gives systems like Drupal’s Content Creation Kit a real run for the money.
Co-Authors Plus: Let’s us add multiple authors to a post, which is great because there was a lot of collaboration in Beautiful Trouble.
CSV User Import: was the first module I ran across for bulk uploading our list of Beautiful Trouble contributors. However, the module was quite minimalist and I needed to work around that to upload each contributor’s bio and meta information. Then, of course, I stumbled on the more functional Import Users from CSV. Oh well, next time.
CSV Importer: Helped with uploading a stub for each module and associating the correct author.
And for some extra formatting we’re using Graceful Pull-Quotes and Footnotes for WordPress. Both pull quotes and footnotes are now very simple to add to a module thanks to the AddQuicktag plug-in, which adds a Pullquote and Footnote button to the Wordpress content editor.

As far as presentation goes, I’m currently working with the Bootstrap theme built by 320press to give everyone a quick sense of where the various parts of each module will show up on the screen. However, after some research the other day, I suspect I’ll migrate to BootstrapWP as it appears to be a more straightforward implementation of Bootstrap that will be easier to extend into something that’s uniquely Beautiful Trouble.

Anyway, now that we have content flowing into Wordpress, it’s time to get down to layout and design. I’m hoping to drag Michael Barrish into that process, possible kicking and screaming, as we’ve been having a great back-and-forth conversation about Resopnsive Web Design and the many tools and processes that are being developed for designing with responsive in mind.

Onward!

Note to self: It pays to ask

2012-05-15T14:17:55Z

I’ve been stuck on Firefox 9.0.1 for the last several months because I’ve come to rely on the Awesome Screenshot add-on by Diigo. I use it daily. It’s one of the few screen shot add-ons that lets me capture the full page, not just the visible part of the page.

There was another add-on that I used previously (Screengrab, I think), but I recall having the same issue with it, i.e.: where I couldn’t update Firefox because the add-on wasn’t compatible with the newer releases. So I was a bit surprised to experience this same issue with the Awesome Screenshot add-on, as it’s developed by Diigo and they seem like a pretty active bunch.

Anyway, the other day, tired of waiting, I e-mailed the support contact for the add-on and I was surprised to receive a response the same day:

Joel Liu wrote: Hi Philip, The new version is in the review queue of mozilla. There are 7 addons before awesome screenshot now.

Stay tuned.

BTW, actually, you can still install the current version in the FF 12 although Firefox says it is not compatible.

I have to say, I’m always impressed when people are actually listening at these support addresses, even more so when they get back to users promptly. More than that, I learned something new: that I can upgrade Firefox and install “incompatible” add-ons. Who knew?

I recall reading or hearing about a change in strategy for add-ons that was going to match-up with the new Firefox release cycle — basically where all add-ons would be compatible by default — but,given these messages I was receiving about incompatibilities, I thought that never came to pass.

Anyway, here I am on Firefox 12, and all my add-ons appears to working nicely.

Note to self: it pays to ask (nicely).

Pay yourself first, in life.

2012-05-14T16:05:28Z

I was laying on the floor staring at the ceiling this morning and for some reason the phrase “pay yourself first” came to mind. I’m familiar with the saying from various business, finance, and leadership books that I’ve read over the years. It’s a great business philosophy, but it didn’t hit me until this morning what a great personal philosophy it is too.

As I blathered last week, I’ve had to shift to exercising in the mornings, because in Oaxaca it’s getting pretty hot by 10AM this time of year, and it often doesn’t cool off until after 8PM. Now, as mentioned, I hate getting up early, and — frankly — I hate exercise too, so getting up early to exercise is about the last thing I want to do on a given day. However, in the middle of a set of sit-ups early this morning, the thought hit me: I’m paying myself first.

The feeling I had in that moment was roughly equivalent to the feeling I experience when I start the day by either reading a book or writing (preferably, a bit of both), which is a sense that I’m doing what deeply fulfills me before offering my services to others.

Along a similar line of thinking, I made a number of decisions earlier this year — some that have been a challenge to stick with, I admit — that I hope will work toward a sense of putting priorities right, for example:

I put my phone on airplane mode before I go to bed each night. There are really very few emergencies that can’t wait until the morning. I find this ensures that I’m not tempted to check my e-mail before bed, or first thing in the morning.
When I get up, I leave the phone off, and my computers off. I make my first breakfast and get straight to exercise. Having had a good eight or ten hour reprieve from e-mail or interruptions, I find that my mind is more meditative and creative.
If it was a run day, I would listen to the New York Times front page on route to the park (sadly, discontinued in March; currently looking for a replacement). In general, I look at a screen too much of my day, so when there’s an opportunity to use my ears instead, I take it. Though I’ve listened to fewer audio books this year than previous, I think that is solely due to the fact that I don’t currently have a hammock. All that to say, to change my news consumption habits (addictions?), I try to consume it through my ears, not my eyes: radio, podcasts, etc.

This list goes on, and it extends — or tries to put into practice — some older ideas that I’ve pondered like slow e-mail, not working weekends, living on the learning edge, and a commitment to trying new things. What all of these commitments have in common, I now see, is the concept of “paying myself first.”

Though I start my “work day” later than most, I’m often able to start it with a sense of calmness that helps me stay focused and not easily distracted. My personal commitments already complete (writing, exercise, phone calls, etc.), I don’t have to worry that a work “emergency” will keep me from them later in the day. And, when friends call in the evening and ask me to join them for some R&R, I can close the laptop, head out the door, and be fully present; to paraphrase the Taoists “let go, when your work is done.”

None of this is new. I suspect we all know this in our guts. We use the amount of time we have available: if you give yourself eighteen hours a day to work, you’ll work eighteen hours a day. If you give yourself six, you’ll get the work done in six. I shared these ideas — stolen blatantly from all the best time-management books — with a room from a social-change activists back in 2008, and I’m quite sure I saw people’s heads explode.

There are two key take aways from that presentation. One, most of us in our 30s have approximately 40 more summers left to enjoy in our lifetime (harsh, I know). Two, to do important work in the world, we have prioritize important work in ourselves. For me, these two ideas boil down to: when I pay myself first, I’m better able to serve those that I invest the rest of my time with — my collaborators, my clients, my friends, my family, and my community — and I’m confident that I’ll get to fully enjoy those remaining summers.

In summary: Pay yourself first, in life.

Beautiful Trouble launch events in Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco and Edmonton. May 15, 16, 17 & 23.

2012-05-10T15:49:07Z

“The current political moment calls for bold leaps of imagination, new forms of organizing and a fearless blend of confrontation and celebration. Beautiful Trouble is a crash course in the emerging field of carnivalesque realpolitik, both elegant and incendiary.” — Naomi Klein

Dear friends of Beautiful Trouble:

Over the next couple of weeks we are teaming up with local Beautiful Trouble authors and partner organizations in Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco and Edmonton to celebrate the long-awaited publication of Beautiful Trouble. Please help us spread the word by forwarding the event details to your contacts in these cities!

Vancouver, May 15, 7 pm
Purple Thistle Center
260 - 975 Vernon Dr., Coast Salish Territory
RSVP/details

Seattle, May 16, 7 pm
Richard Hugo House
1634 11th Ave (in Capitol Hill)
RSVP/details

San Francisco, May 17, 7 pm
Sub-Mission Art Space, 2183 Mission
(b/w 17th & 18th)
RSVP/details

Edmonton, May 23, 7 pm
(location to be confirmed)
RSVP/details

We’re also planning to have launches in Boston, D.C., Toronto, Regina, Saskatoon and elsewhere (Montreal? London? Paris? Barcelona? Copenhagen?) in the coming months. To learn more or to get involved in organizing a launch event near you, email us at this address.

About Beautiful Trouble

Beautiful Trouble is a book and (soon-to-be-live) web toolkit that puts the accumulated wisdom of decades of creative protest in the hands of the next generation of changemakers. To learn more or to order a copy, visit www.beautifultrouble.org.

Mexico: Month four, Te veré pronto, Oaxaca.

2012-05-09T17:22:09Z

The first Sunday BBQ at Casa Felipe

Four months ago today, I stepped onto AeroMexico flight 543 from Mexico City Benito Juarez International (MEX) to Oaxaca Xoxocotlan (OAX), and made Oaxaca de Juárez — or Oaxaca, Oaxaca, as it’s often referred to — my home base.

As I had hoped when I started out on this journey to Mexico, it has been quite an adventure. The year I spent living and working from Buenos Aires, Argentina in 2009 was the trial run, and now the stage is set for an ongoing series of life abroad experiences. As my friends have heard me say all too often, I hate travelling but, for the record, I love living in other places. Waking up to a place that is new, and that I’m slowly getting to know, makes every day a bit more fun.

Given that I’m not a huge fan of unnecessary travel, I’ve spent most of my time in the city of Oaxaca. That said, I thankfully have friends that pulled me away for a handful of little outings, like an overnight trip to Hierve el Agua that involved a gas can of local mezcal, a week-long stay in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, and a magical few days on the beach in Mazunte. But, I have yet to make the time to visit Monte Alban, which is probably only twenty minutes away.

Although my aspirations don’t always turn into a reality, I feel like I’ve managed to make some progress here: I’ve found a great group of friends to relax with; I became a member at The Hub and can envision some future collaborations with people and projects there; I made time to study Spanish for several weeks at the Instituto Cultural Oaxaca; I kick started the Clandestine Oaxaca Appreciation Society, a Facebook group and Google Map used to exchange information. I managed to stay on top of my work and my health…

These are all baby steps. My Spanish is nowhere close to where I would like it to be (admittedly, I’ve not put in the effort). The Clandestine Oaxaca Appreciation Society shows the potential for something really interesting — like an evolving guide to living in Oaxaca, by a unique group of young, progressive individuals — but I don’t have the time to push it forward at the moment. I have a lovely home for hosting, but I’ve only managed to organize one gathering so far. So, there is still work to do.

What I miss most about Canada, obviously, is being close to my friends and family. I also miss amazing Quebec cheeses, ample charcuterie options, and quirky little local bars where people know each other by name. And, maybe just a little bit, I miss high-speed Internet — though I’ve gotten used to having to consider what movie I want to watch in advance, so I can start the download three or four hours ahead of time. Perhaps there should be a movement around “Slow Internet,” as it does provide some of the same advantages of slow e-mail?

In just two short weeks I’ll start the journey back toward Toronto, via New York and Vancouver, and I wonder what I’ll miss most about Oaxaca when I’m gone. Perhaps the organic market where I spend Friday and Saturday mornings having breakfast and conversations in the shade with friends? Maybe the lively scene and endless new culinary experiences of lunch in Parque El Llano on Friday afternoons? Definitely, waking up to sunshine and mountains every day.

I won’t have to miss it for long, however, as I’ve decided to make Oaxaca home base until next February or March. After a summer with friends in Toronto — involving lots of cheese and charcuterie — I’ll slowly make my way back to my little “casita” in Xochimilco, where I now own a grill among other small life-improving appliances, to re-double my efforts to learn Spanish and to achieve my dream of becoming a first-class slacker.

Te veré pronto, Oaxaca

Does "living open" increase positive personal motivation?

2012-05-08T14:54:29Z

I was out on a run this morning once again reflecting on the transformational power of “Open”.

Let me just state for the record: I hate running in the mornings — in fact, I hate getting up early — but it’s the only time to run these days because the weather in Oaxaca quickly gets up above 30 ºC between April and July. And, if I wait until the evening when things start to cool off, there’s an ever-increasing chance that I’ll succumb to the urge to have a beer or glass of wine, which tends to prevent me from running at all. But, alas, this post is not about running, so I will digress.

What I was thinking about this morning is: What would it look like to incorporate more “open” into my work and personal life, and what is the motivation? Looking at the various “quantified self” tools and apps that many friends have started using, I’m curious about the psychological effect that putting this information online has. For example, does it in fact keep me honest and motivated if anyone can see when I skip a run or a workout? Or is it about ego? Or is it a bit of both? From my side of the experience, I have to admit that I get a feeling of pride when I see my friends post their latest run and it inspires me to get my ass out the door in the morning; so maybe there is something to the peer-to-peer motivation that these little pieces of the “living open” puzzle provide.

But how far could these ideas be pushed? Taken to their extreme, would the benefits continue, or break down? For example, I’ve been wondering about the following:

On the sillier side, I wonder what effect publishing my iTunes and other online entertainment purchases would have on my pre-purchase decisions? For example, if I knew that every movie rental would be public and possible seen by someone, somewhere, would it work as a positive motivator to rent that documentary I’ve been meaning to see instead of the latest ridiculous action movie that I regret watching immediately after? Books are not as much of an issue, as my reading time tends to be more serious, but — again — I wonder if I would trend toward a more diverse set of reads if the information was public (I tend to read business books, but would like read more fiction and history).
At the more challenging end of the spectrum, I’ve been wondering about publishing the information I collect about the hours I’ve worked every day. I use a little time tracking application on all of my devices so that I can bill my clients accurately for the time I’ve invested in their projects, and also so that they don’t get billed for time that I spend doing other things. I’ve been doing this since 2005. In January, I opened up that data to the clients themselves so they can log-in and see what I’ve been working on and the notes associated with the work. I wonder what, if any, motivation would come from putting this information online? To my friends and peers I’ve tried to cultivate the image of a “slacker” over the last few years, and I have no idea if this information would prove or disprove that. :)
Most radically, I wonder what it means to put one’s finances in public view? It’s something that so many of us hold so closely and personally. It’s used as a (often ineffective) measure of success, and it’s used to assess a person’s “worth” and “stability,” i.e., people who can manage their own finances effectively are seen as more “together” than those who struggle with the financial aspects of life. However, I suspect that many of us know how broken these conceptions are, and how thin a picture of a person we would get if we could only see their finances. That said, I do wonder what effect putting my revenue, expenses, assets, and liabilities online would have on me? Would it motivate me to become more focused on financial goals, or would it free me from being concerned with them? It’s an interesting question.

Of course, there are many points in between these points on a spectrum of “living open:” data about consumption — food, alcohol, energy, water — and data about where we are, how we use our time, who we’re with, how we look every day, and so on. As I ponder each of these, I ask: Which are digital-age vanity, and which could actually be effective motivators of positive self behavior? Which are a fad, and which ones will prove to be interesting over the long haul? It takes time and effort to capture data and to publish it, no matter how simple the process is, so how does one measure a return on that investment, how do we know that a change has happened?

I believe that “Open” has the potential to be transformational, but it also has the potential to be a huge distraction and wasted effort (and potentially a big mess!) if not applied thoughtfully. Open is not a magic bullet, obviously, and — like any philosophy or principle — it needs to be used appropriately to have the most impact.

I’m not really any closer to an answer on any of the above. Perhaps some experimentation is in order. Until then, I’ll just keep pondering the question How can I further apply the principles of “Open” to my work and personal life? and looking for examples of other people doing the same.

(Full disclosure, my last movie rental was Shame and the book I’m currently reading is What is the What.)

Working toward a more "open" news organization at @TheTyee

2012-05-03T17:00:51Z

I haven’t done much “thinking out loud” about my ongoing work for the award-winning daily online news site, The Tyee. The collaboration started in 2007 when I was asked to retool and automate The Tyee’s e-newsletter systems. From there, we started working together on special projects and campaigns, and — after their design refresh in 2009 — I took over as the resident Web Maker on May 1st, 2010.

Over the last two years, I’ve worked most closely with The Tyee’s Front Page & Technical Editor, Geoff D’Auria. We work together so closely, in fact, that I often stay at Geoff’s when I’m in Vancouver for work sprints with The Tyee (you know a working relationship is a good one when you can pull that off!).

We’ve often discussed the opportunity to be more “open” and transparent with The Tyee’s community — specifically, we’ve discussed being more proactive in talking about technical changes we implement and about technical priorities in the coming months. For example, there have been several re-launches of The Tyee’s commenting system over the years — it started as a kludge to tie together story pages with Web forum software back in 2003 or 2004 — and eventually became what it is today, where the comments are powered by Drupal, while the site itself is managed with Bricolage. There’s a good chance it will change again later this year — part of our push to simplify the technical infrastructure as much as possible — and it would be an interesting experiment to communicate that to users in advance, and to invite feedback on the options that we’re investigating.

There are many other projects that would have been interesting to announce ahead of their implementation, like the HTML5 Web app, the “Small-M” mobile site, and the new Video section. And, as new non-technical projects roll out at The Tyee this year, like the Master Class series, the Builder Campaign, and a soon-to-be-launched iBook experiment, my sense is that there are lots of opportunities to leverage the wisdom of The Tyee’s crowd, who are in my experience smart, often tech-savvy, and very tuned-in to local and regional issues.

But, practically, what does this type of user engagement look like?

Geoff and I have discussed everything from a “Tyee Labs” blog, similar to what several news organizations with “news apps” teams have done, to something more straightforward like The Verge’s Version History page. For me, neither are quite right for The Tyee. Even though the team at The Tyee likes to think of the whole enterprise as an experiment (which is an awesome context to be able to work within), the honest truth is that technical resources are stretched pretty thin and we don’t have a lot of extra cycles for true “experiments,” so my sense is that a “Labs blog” might be underwhelming. On the flip side, while I like the simplicity of the Version History idea, it does nothing to provide a forward-looking view into what we’re working on, i.e., what’s on deck for next week, next month, or next year.

The more I think about it, the more a picture comes to mind that is half what the Guardian UK is trying by publishing their “news lists” and with their Inside The Guardian blog, and half an idea that Amanda Hickman waxed poetic about at last year’s NICAR conference that involved using a “bug tracker” or issue-tracking system for news, and making that system visible to the users. In summary, something that would capture both what we are working on, what we’re discussing, what we’ve completed recently, and what “bugs” or issues that the community has brought to our attention.

Ultimately, I wrestle with the two tensions around a project like this:

First, I have a gut sense that a lot of the Tyee’s community would really appreciate a “view inside” their favourite news organization, a peek “inside the tent” if you will. But what I’m talking about here is almost exclusively technical, and not about the editorial calendar or the personalities inside The Tyee, which is probably the most outwardly interesting stuff. So, would this view across technical projects be enough to create some deeper engagement with Tyee users?
Second, there’s the obvious question of the work involved in “opening-up The Tyee,” whether that’s technical systems or, more likely to be a big push, the effort to change the way we do things so that there’s more “thinking out loud.” Then, after that work, there’s the added overhead of listening to users and bringing their voices into regular planning meetings, and so on. Just like having comments on stories, once you give users the opportunity to speak you have to be prepared to make time to listen.

With any new project I always try to consider the opportunity cost, i.e., What will we not be able to do because we’re embarking on this undertaking, and I try to weight that against the possible upside, i.e., what’s the best and worst possible outcome of the project in question and does it justify the investment of time and resources?

It’s a tough question.

Having inspiring examples of other news organizations that have lead the way on projects like this is always helpful fodder for these discussions. So, if you have some examples, please drop them in the comments, or shoot me a note on The Twitters.

Beautiful Trouble online toolkit update: Rebooting for the June 1st launch.

2012-05-02T16:09:00Z

In the spirit of trying to introduce a bit more “open” into my work, I’m going to try to post more frequent updates about the project I’m working on, the challenges I’m facing in those projects, and the eventual solutions.

Back in February, I wrote about the idea of producing a Web site for Beautiful Trouble that would be completely powered by Google Docs. The idea is sound, and I built a prototype of a “CMS without a CMS” whereby adding documents to a Google Docs collection would output them as pages or posts on a front-end Web site. Think of it as a thin layer between a Web site and Google Docs, but without the need to log-in to anything resembling a CMS. Like so may things these days, the focus was minimalism and simplicity.

Unfortunately, in terms of using it for Beautiful Trouble, I hit a serious road block: each “module” in the book is collection of various component parts — the “document model,” if you’re familiar with that term, is very complex. For example, each module links to other modules, and also to practitioners and contributors, and also has various component parts — epigraphs, insights, best & worst examples, and so on — in addition to the main blob of text that makes up the “meat” of the module.

In the end, parsing the component parts out of unstructured Google Docs, which were not entirely consistent across the collection, looked like the wrong way to go because it would be neither “minimalist” nor “simple,” and that seemed like a slippery slope to start going down.

So, I went back to the drawing board. The first step was re-evaluating the usual CMS suspects: Django, Drupal, Worpress, and — my own personal favorite — Bricolage. I’ve been building sites with Bricolage for more than eight years now, so it’s always been a top contender when I’m starting a new project. However, it’s a big system and the hosting requirements to run it are not insignificant, so I wanted to take a closer look at how the others handled complex documents these days, e.g., how far along as Drupal’s CCK module has come, how easy would it be to build these complex documents in Django, etc.

I’ll skip the blow-by-blow and simply say that the top three requirements were: familiarity and ease of use for the editors, inexpensive and uncomplicated hosting, and the ability to create complex documents with many component parts. To my own surprise, Wordpress emerged as the most obvious choice.

I haven’t developed with Wordpress in years, so I was a bit reluctant to go down that road at first. But the developer documentation is surprisingly thorough and there are abundant resources on the Web that cover almost every possible customization. Specifically, I was looking to set up custom posts types for each of the types of content that are in the book (Theories, Principles, Tactics, Case Studies, Practitioners, and Contributors), and to display the right custom fields on the right edit pages. Both were easily accomplished, thanks to some straightforward theme functions and the impressive Advanced Custom Fields module.

I walked Andrew and Dave through the edit screens yesterday and they seemed encouraged by the familiarity of the interface and the straightforward ways that content can be entered on each screen. We’re not past the finish line yet, but it now feels like we’re running on the right track.

More updates to follow…

By the way, we’re looking for a Web intern, should you happen to be looking for a radically awesome part-time project this summer. :)

Reflecting on the transformational power of "Open."

2012-04-30T17:24:04Z

Over the years I’ve been lucky enough to work with a lot of people who are enthusiastic about the idea of “Open.” Collaboration with folks like Dymitri Kleiner to wax poetic about open-source software and Gabe Sawhney to dream about free and open municipal wifi; with purposeful individuals like Jason Mogus to facilitate incredible events like Web of Change and with power couples like Mark and Tonya Surman to help bring some amazing projects to life like the Awesome Foundation Toronto and the Knight-Mozilla News Technology Partnership.

Through all of these collaborations, conversations, and friendships, one theme has been consistent: the transformational power of “open.”

I tried to capture the emerging movement around these ideas back in 2009. It was a pitch to my friends at New Internationalist to dedicate an entire issue of the magazine to the unfolding global movement happening around open. This was the same year that Salman Khan quit his job to focus on the Khan Academy full-time. It felt like a pivotal moment.

Reading that essay now, I’m struck by how quickly the movement has grown and how far it has spread in the last three years: from recent announcements like the one made by Harvard Library about the need to move to open access journals, to the expanding number of open education initiatives like Peer-to-Peer University, Hackasaurus, Codecademy, Stanford’s free online courses, Udacity, and Coursera.

At the same time, as there have always been, there are new warnings about the forces that work against the power of open. Companies want our attention, governments want our information, the academy wants our knowledge, and the rich and powerful want our obedience. The persistent tension between these forces is almost Zen-like.

I started this post wanting to explore a question about how to live an “open life,” without the spectacle or narcissism, but I’ve managed to blather on without getting there yet … I’ll leave that for another day.

Suffice it to say that “open” remains a powerful change agent — in the world, intellectually, and I suspect individually too, both spiritually and practically — and the question I’m left with recently is: how can I embrace more open in my work life, and in my personal life?

Perhaps you have some great, inspirational, examples from your own experiences to share? :)

When in doubt, try something new.

2012-04-18T16:08:58Z

I caught this tweet from a long-time colleague flying across my screen this morning:

Referenced @PhillipADsmith’s post on not working weekends while chatting productivity hacks: bit.ly/IKlwfF Definitely worth a read.
— Erin Polgreen (@erinpolgreen) April 18, 2012

It reminded me that, a ways back, I wrote stuff about my personal life that wasn’t just travel updates or work-related musings. I had this idea many years ago that I’d write more about personal beliefs when it comes to striking a balance between doing what you love, and loving what you do. I thought I would call it the “Tao of consulting,” because I believed that to be great at consulting, you needed to be even better at living.

Some time later, taking enormous inspiration from a range of characters that I’d met over the years, I decided to try out a new persona: The Slacker. The concept is quite simple really and not that novel: work smart, not hard. There’s a fair bit of writing out there that supports the idea that people who make time to reflect and who engage a variety of interests are more effective at creative problem solving — it’s well worth a Google search or two.

After more than fifteen years of actively exploring and thinking about the various ways of being an effective professional activist, consultant, collaborator, convener, and agitator, I’m always rejuvenated to return to the point where there’s something new to learn. And, thankfully, it’s still easy to find that place.

But… learning is hard for me. I’m a Taurus and I was born in the Year of the Ox. To say I’m stubborn or set in my ways would be a understatement of the most significant kind. I don’t like to try new things. I like routine. I like repeatable patterns. I like a steady pace and a known, well-trodden, path. I am pulled toward the things that I already know well.

However, just because you like something doesn’t mean that it’s good for you. (I’m stealing inspiration here from Clay Johnson’s excellent book The Information Diet)

So I’ve started thinking about some easy ways to ensure that I stay on my learning edge. We’re currently living in a world of learning opportunities, so — in general — this isn’t exactly difficult, but even in the pursuit of learning, my experience is that it’s possible to fall into the pattern of taking the easy, or known, path vs. trying something new. And, for me at least, it’s the stretch goals that result in the most significant outcomes.

In addition to not working weekends, I’m going to propose another “mission” for you to experiment with (as I am, currently): When in doubt, try something new.

It’s really that simple.

Let me know how it works for you. :)

Mozilla Planet: Bootstrapping technology news for the people.

2012-04-10T13:20:45Z

A short vacation concluded, it’s been fun to dive back into the evolving series of blog posts that go all the way from Rethinking Planet Mozilla, to Matt Thompson’s excellent “Planet Mozilla needs humans,” and continue with Lyre Calliope’s posts on “Mozilla as a media organization” (You can catch Lyre talking about the idea on today’s Webmaker community call).

Bootstrapping a technology news site for Mozillians

One of the driving questions we left off with was:

What would be required to bootstrap the best information-delivery system for Mozillians, made by Mozillians, about Mozillians?

And when I say bootstrapping, I mean how do we narrow the idea down to a minimum viable product, i.e., something so simple that it would be possible to get a version of the idea up-and-running in six-to-twelve weeks? What is the very essence of the idea and what are the handful of must-have “features” that would enable the idea to exist in a way that people could interact with it and help to improve it?

In my mind, these are the must-have features of this information-delivery system:

A narrow and extreme focus on one niche category: innovation within the Mozilla community, specifically the people, the ideas, and the products that are changing the face of the Web.
A practical demonstration of “Web thinking” and “thinking out loud” applied to the challenge of helping the growing Mozilla community understand the quickly changing world around them.
A laboratory that experiments with new ideas and open-source tools and libraries to push the envelope of how news, reporting, and information is delivered online.

And here’s a straightforward proposal for how to make it happen:

A one-year commitment from Mozilla to underwrite the experiment in its start-up phase (and the trust to give the project some editorial independence and a bit of profile).
One full-time staff writer/blogger with excellent editing skills and a willingness to experiment.
A small volunteer editorial board who are active writers/editors/bloggers and also keenly plugged into the Mozilla community, e.g., both tech-centric people like Christian Heilmann and Pascal Finette, and also storytellers like Matt Thompson, and Dan Sinker.

In terms of technical practicalities, I would propose the following:

A blogging platform. Preferably something open source and extensible.
An inexpensive DSLR that shoots video and a portable audio recorder with a decent microphone, as well as a tripod, smart phone and a laptop.
Use of a desk at each of the Mozilla Spaces, as required.

Yep. That’s it. Just a blog, some multimedia equipment, and a place for this storyteller to park their arse as they chase the unfolding story of bottom-up innovation in the ever-expanding city that is Mozilla.

(Okay, okay: If the budget allowed, I’d also lobby for a Livestream Livepack, or an open source equivalent, and an annual Livestream Premium subscription, because video is critically important part of news delivery and an important part of the future of the Web too. And, let’s face it, editing video takes time, it’s often better to just “go live” and let the Internet take care of the post-publishing edits.)

This brave and pioneering soul — an expert at uncovering a good story and telling it quickly, concisely, and in the spirit of the Web — would be tasked with producing two “stories”* a day, four days a week, and also editing a handful of other stories submitted by the editorial board and community contributors. They would also manage a news river of their sources, and would communicate regularly and openly with the editorial board and community via micro status updates. Finally, they would collaborate with Mozilla staff and volunteer contributors to iterate forward the technical underpinnings of this initiative. Phew! This is no small endeavor, but I suspect it is one that would appeal greatly to the right person.

* Story defined loosely enough to allow for lots of experimentation with text, multimedia, data, and so on.

Not a new idea, but a proven idea

This project isn’t about breaking new ground. None of this proposal is overly daring or experimental. As Matt pointed out, variations on this idea have been explored by Digg, Tumblr, and even Google.

Beyond these technology-company driven examples, the broader community of online news start-ups illustrate how this enterprise has been undertaken before:

TechCrunch: Started as a straightforward blog in 2005 by the tech-obsessed lawyer Michael Arrington, it only took a year to confirm that there was an audience for this hyper-specific beat.
LifeHacker: Run single-handedly by founding editor Gina Trapani until September 2005, Lifehacker provides another example of how a “micro-publication” gets bootstrapped.
The Tyee: Looking in my own backyard, I’m happy to be able to point to the award-winning Canadian independent online news site TheTyee.ca. Since 2003, this scrappy newsroom has produced high-quality reporting on a tight budget and a tiny staff. Eight years later (and no longer a “start-up,” as founding editor David Beers enjoys pointing out), The Tyee has grown into a prominent and respected Canadian news brand. (Full disclosure, The Tyee is a long-standing client, and I’m big fan of what they’ve accomplished, so I may be gushing a bit here.)
The list goes on and on … In fact, there are lots of examples of Web-first micro-publications that bootstrapped themselves quickly and (relatively) inexpensively: Paid Content, 43 Folders, Gizmodo, GigaOm, TreeHugger, Grist, and so on.

Mozilla as a news brand

Phillip however seems to lean toward suggesting something more radical: Planet Mozilla should evolve beyond being a glorified RSS aggregator to a full blown news brand.

Yes, it’s true: as I said before, if the idea is successful the conversation about what to do with Planet Mozilla will be irrelevant. Planet Mozilla would become just one of many sources of information — Mozilla events, news feeds, IRC channels, mailing lists, conference calls, wiki changes, and so on — from which would be distilled a constant drumbeat of pure signal — the unfolding story of innovation in a global community of millions; a focus on the “open Web” and how it’s redefining everything from education to journalism; a technology news site “for the people,” one that doesn’t obsess about the latest proprietary software start-up, the next round of funding, or the imminent purchase by Facebook (Goodbye Instagram!).

There you have it: an elevator pitch of sorts. Mozilla Planet: Technology news for the people. Up-and-running in six-to-twelve weeks. Rapidly innovating with the help of the community it serves. One year to become the best information-delivery system for Mozillians.

What’s your minimum viable product?

Mexico: Adventures in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas.

2012-04-03T16:05:42Z

What can I say: hop on a bus in Oaxaca, head south for eleven hours, and you are in a completely different world. It’s a world that wears its indigenous Mayan roots on its sleeve; the streets and markets are thick with a cultural richness that you can see, smell, touch, and interact with.

It’s my first visit to Chiapas and I’ve landed in San Cristobal de las Casas, the mountain town that is considered to be the “cultural capital” of this region. The size of this city — about half the size of Oaxaca, Oaxaca — doesn’t hold it back from having lots on offer: colonial buildings, cobblestone streets, massive rambling artisanal markets, fantastic restaurants featuring food from around the world, and a lively nighttime scene of cafes, bars, and restaurants, most with live music.

Summary: It’s a little oasis in the mountains. Painted with the colors of its revolutionary history. Home to “the hippie set,” both the young and the free, and the older and greying kinds.

The bus pulled in at 7:30 AM on Sunday. A short walk later and the streets open onto the central Zocalo. It’s a small centre when compared to Oaxaca’s and it’s quiet at this early hour. What’s different is the style of cafes surrounding it: stylish, with strong espresso and savory crepes — it’s a bit too much of a taste of North America, but it’s appreciated nonetheless.

Next, a walk to Plaza Guadalupe to meet the mischievous and charming Loius of San Cristobal Language School. There is a slight misunderstanding with the apartment rental — the lovely cabin on offer is much further from the centre than expected — but the issue is quickly resolved and Luis is overly generous in his help toward finding new lodgings. I’m resolved to come back and dive into a Spanish immersion at his school in the coming months.

New lodgings are quickly sorted, thanks to Cisco and Dani at Sol y Luna, a quirky little B&B in Barrio Carrillo. Cisco is the classic ex-pat host with the most: an LA-based photographer that left the hustle and bustle to run a guest house and grow orchids in Chiapas; you couldn’t find anything more authentic if you tried. How he and Dani keep the wheels on the cart with a two-year old and three-month old twins is beyond me.

Sol y Luna is a great home base from which to explore the various churches, walking streets, and curiosities the San Cristobal has on offer. The market at Santo Domingo is impressive if you’re into artisanal handicrafts. The infamous Casa Na Bloom is interesting but underwhelming given the praise that it receives. So far, the stand out experience of this place is the food and live music — entirely different from Oaxaca — the first evening is punctuated with tasty “pechuga” mezcal and jazz at sultry Cocoliche and it leaves me with the taste for more.

Alas, there is still much to explore that requires one’s senses in the morning — and I’ve managed an impressive sun burn (again!) — so the intensity will need to be dialed down a notch if I’m going to survive an excursion to San Juan Chamula this week.

Worry not, sunscreen is on hand.

An information-delivery system for Mozillians, made by Mozillians, about Mozillians

2012-03-15T18:00:00Z

Let’s set the context. It’s 2012, and a hell of a lot has changed since the early days of Planet software (~2006) — since the days when it was enough to just aggregate a community’s RSS feeds and call it a “river of news.” It’s almost an entirely different Internet now, and — most certainly — it’s a different Internet audience.

The question “What could Planet Mozilla be if it was invented today without the limitations of its past?” is exciting and daunting at the same time. Here is a modest proposal for five creative constraints to help us stay focused:

First, to avoid the confusion and emotions surrounding it, let’s drop the name “Planet Mozilla” for this exercise. We can do better, and why hitch our exploration to a quickly derailing train? In the past, we’ve noodled Mozilla Nation (think Digg Nation), Daily Mozilla or Daily Webmakers, and I also think that MozillaZine could be a fun way to reference the DIY culture that is developing inside of Mozilla via Mozilla’s Webmaker initiatives. Use whatever name works for you, or suggest some others, it’s not really that important right now.
Second, I’ve believe that re-invention, or iterative improvement — while great in many situations — is not what’s needed here. With many entrenched systems, both technical, and meritocratic, there comes a time when routing around the problem — being “of the Internet, not just on the Internet” — is the more appropriate way to move forward. Thus, I would propose that whatever new idea, or envisioned product, or dream outcome that this conversation produces should simply aim to do a mind-blowingly better job at delivering information to Mozillians than Planet Mozilla does today. If it succeeds in that mission, the question of “What to do about Planet Mozilla” become irrelevant.
Third, to avoid going down the software-centric path, I would propose that we think of this opportunity — that is, the opportunity to be the best information-delivery system for Mozillians, made by Mozillians, about Mozillians — not as a technical “plumbing” challenge, but instead as a challenge to be awesome at community engagement, curating and filtering the vast amounts of information in the Mozillaverse, and — most importantly — storytelling. And if the conversation veers toward software at times, because inevitably it will, let us agree to A) only discuss the most minimal of minimum viable products, and B) to be nimble, agile, and to “fail fast and forward,” because there are “known unknowns, and unknown unknowns” and we, no doubt, have a lot of both. All that to say, let’s start simple and figure out what works (and what doesn’t) along the way.
Fourth, Planet Mozilla’s “beat”, so to speak, has always been limited to Mozillians with blogs who self-selected and opted-in to be aggregated on the Planet. It is, at best, a narrow view of what’s happening in Mozilla today. It goes without saying that blogs and RSS feeds are only one of many sources that information flows on the Web today, and not including information that flows from the other pipes — mailing lists, newsgroups, IRC, events, community calls, and so on, not to mention social media and Mozilla’s own outreach, campaigns, and communications — is a missed opportunity to deliver a more comprehensive Mozilla story.
Last but not least — probably the one idea that I think about the most — is that the idea of “Sources going direct” is both empowering, and limited. Some people are great at public speaking, some at giving interviews, some at producing rapid prototypes, some at writing lengthy essays on governance in newsgroups, and some at the minutia of bit-twiddling to make our beloved Firefox start-up one micro-second faster. But, as a generalization, most people are not mind-blowingly excellent at telling their own stories. Call it humility, call it being busy, or maybe chalk it up to just not having gotten the hang of “talking out loud” — the important point is that we’re currently missing a lot of the most interesting stories and work in Mozilla because they’re not being told well, or not being told at all because we simply don’t know about them.

On this last point, I take great inspiration from Matt Thompson’s weekly summary of the Webmakers open conference call. I read those updates, pulled together quickly in the midst of many distractions no doubt, and think “What if there was something like this for everything awesome that is happening in Mozilla right now?”

To steal from an earlier post:

When I think about Mozilla, I think of a city that is growing. At its core is a small city council (Mozilla’s board of directors and executives). There is an active city staff (Mozilla’s employees) and many people that work directly on city projects (project-based staff, consultants, etc.). Expanding out from there is a large community of people who are active citizens: the shop owners, academics, activists, and so on (mostly volunteer contributors to Mozilla projects like Firefox). Beyond that there are the 400,000,000 people who live in the city every day just going about their business (people who use Mozilla software or interact with Mozilla projects).

So the opportunity ahead, the one that I’m excited to see a conversation unfold around, is: What would be required to bootstrap the best information-delivery system for Mozillians, made by Mozillians, about Mozillians?

I have some ideas, I’m hoping you do too.

Mexico: Week eight. All your base are belong to us.

2012-03-15T05:19:51Z

From Oaxaca, Mexico, 2012

Typically, there comes a point for me when the place I’m living becomes “home base.” And by home base, I mean the place where I want to leave my things, and the place where I want to return to after a long trip. I’m on the edge of that now with Oaxaca.

I’ve been here a bit more than eight weeks, I own a bike, a couch, and various other things that are kinda’ hard to pack into a carry-on bag. I have a cute little one-bedroom apartment in a quiet part of the city, just north of the “Centro” and across the street from an organic market. I take my breakfast outside on the front porch (where I’m writing this) while a cool summer breeze sways the big leaves on the palm tree in the courtyard. It’s pretty hard to beat.

I know that it’s one of the driest winters in history for Toronto — a fact that many of my friends there have been only too happy to over-share with me — but, as warm as the Toronto winter gets, I’m quite sure it’s still winter.

All that said, Oaxaca feels like a place where people are always going to, coming from, or getting lost in for a while. My visit here has been dotted with “despididas” — ostensibly, a going away party, but they tend to happen for several days in a row — which makes it feel like someone is always leaving. In fact, my first night in Oaxaca was memorable because we went to a despidida for Roberto, where I met many of the people that I know now.

It makes me wonder if I’ve actually met people anywhere other than a going away party? Anyway, there’s something about the coming and going that seems to shape many of the interactions that people have here: I get the sense that when I meet new people they’re evaluating how long I’ll be sticking around.

“Are you a tourist?”

“Are you an ex-pat just here for the winter?”

“Are you working at a local NGO?”

“How long have you been here; how long will you be here?”

… and so it goes.

It’s only two-and-a-half months until I’ll be flying back to Vancouver to deliver a workshop, and then to Toronto to speak at a conference. It’s hard to imagine being back in Canada just ten weeks from now.

Then there is the pressing question: what’s next?

I’m going to take the next couple of weeks to ponder that question. I feel quite certain that moving back to Toronto is not in the cards right now: I love that city, but I’ve got the rest of my life to live in Toronto. Right now, it just feels like everywhere but Toronto is the most inspiring, exciting — fuck, exhilarating — option.

The biggest challenge? Missing the awesome individuals I know in Toronto. I’m putting a wish out there to the universe that they’ll come and visit me wherever I am, because I’ll always have a couch on offer and — most likely — weather that is warmer than the warmest winter Toronto will ever have. :)

Here’s to not getting lost.

Is it time to throw out the Planet with the Universe?

2012-03-13T17:07:02Z

This is a long-overdue follow-up on two posts from last year about the opportunity for Planet Mozilla to play a more central role in Mozilla’s community.

It’s a particularly opportune time to start thinking out loud again, given the recent dust-up over the direction of Planet Mozilla.

The gist of the issue is that a Planet Mozilla contributor posted an ask for people to sign a petition that they believed in, but that petition was offensive to other people in the Mozilla world that read the Planet. The issue, ostensibly, dances the line between free speech and hate speech, depending on your point of view, and has forced Chief Lizard Wrangler, Mitchell Baker, to wade into a conversation that asks: What role does Planet Mozilla play in the Mozillaverse?

Reading through the various Mozilla governance newsgroup threads provides sausage-factory-level insight into how Mozilla’s governance works — it’s an awesome thing to behold, but betrays the inherent challenges of governance in a distributed organization that has an institutionalized meritocracy behind the official org chart. (But it also provides an inspiration example of “open governance” — kudos!)

However, the conversation appears to have slipped into a default pattern of “thinking inside the box,” i.e., the people involved in the discussion are limited by their view the problem space, or are so attached to their experience of Planet Mozilla, or to their belief of what Planet Mozilla should be, that the solutions are limited to that context. Thus, the conversation to date has focused a handful of questions and ideas:

Staying “on message”: Should Planet Mozilla be limited to Mozilla-specific content? Other planet initiatives specifically encourage personal posts, and posts that are not project-related, as a way to help the community get to know each other. Some in the Mozilla community believe this should be the case. Others feel that posts should be limited to Mozilla project updates.
Ethics: The trickier question about, and slippery slope of, the ethics police. Should there be a “code of conduct,” or a way of limiting “free speech” on Mozilla’s technical infrastructure. If the answer is “yes” for Planet Mozilla, then what does that mean for newsgroups, mailing lists, IRC channels, and so on? And, ultimately, who gets to decide on the rules?
Technical plumbing: Of course, being an organization of software engineers, no conversation would be complete without a discussion of re-vamping the technical underpinnings of Planet Mozilla as a way to solve the problem. Maybe up-voting and down-voting? A range of dials, knobs, and sliders to fine-tune the Planet Mozilla signal so it’s just right — nothing too offensive, or too creative — nothing that will raise people’s blood pressure.
Reproducing the problems elsewhere: Last but not least is the proposal to create yet another Planet — Planet Mozillians — that is less well known and that moves all of the non-Mozilla content to its own little quiet corner of the Interweb. Now the problem has multiplied in size, scope, and technical investment.

It’s unfortunate that the conversation about solutions is so limited, because I think that Mitchell and a few others see the opportunity and possibility for Planet Mozilla to be a centerpiece of the Mozillaverse, but there doesn’t appear to be a way to “get there from here,” and — in light of the emotions involved — I sense that Planet Mozilla’s future reach and role is going to be fairly limited.

But, one person’s problem is another’s opportunity.

Before these events, I was optimistic enough believe that Planet Mozilla could be re-invented as something awesome: something that would meet the information needs of both those new to Mozilla’s mission, and those who have been a part of the community since the beginning of time. Now, however, I see the likely futility of that idea — too many people are overly invested in what Planet Mozilla was supposed to be, or was once in the past — and it’s unlikely that it will ever be anything more than reflection of the software that underlies its origins.

I’m pretty fskin’ stoked to have gotten this glimpse inside the sausage factory, and to more fully understand the dynamics of the situation: it makes it much easier to move forward by starting a conversation about something new. An exploration what Planet Mozilla could be if it was invented today without the limitations of its past.

Go we go. :)