I’m a fan of Seth Godin.

Many years ago, I bought his book Permission Marketing* as an audiobook from Audible.com.

For some reason, whenever I mention Seth Godin’s name to those who are only casually familiar with him, they all seem to say, “Oh, yeah…Purple Cow.” Sure, Mr. Godin has written many fine books. But PM still stands out to me as his finest. (Although All Marketers are Liars was a close second to me.) PM was one of those books that affected me greatly, and still bears influence on how I work today.

Today, Mr. Godin announces the book’s 10 year anniversary.

Hats off to you, Seth!

And, thanks.

_____

*The links on this page contain my Amazon Associates ID. I disclose this because I do not want anyone to think it to be an ulterior motive for commending Mr. Godin.

Dat-dah-de-daaah! Presenting Alex Barnett and Ted Haeger’s Evans Data Corp Developer Relations Conference Slideshow Extravaganza!

For my friends in Free Software, bear in mind that this presentation is about Open Source, not Free Software. It covers how professional developer relations managers can use code sharing to help their developers.

My esteemed former colleague, Mr. Alex Barnett and I are co-presenting a session at Evans Data Corp’s annual Developer Relations Conference.

I attended the DRC for the first time last year, and I’ll attest that the conference is high value for anyone in the developer relations field. I returned to Bungee Labs with a sack full of great new ideas, and a refreshed attitude. Alex and I have since gone separate directions from our time working together at Bungee, but we share a keen interest in how to enable developers to be successful with our new companies’ API’s. (Alex at Intuit, me at Touchatag.) So, we decided to collaborate on a session at the show.

Our session is called, “To Open Source or Not to Open Source…where is the ROI?” and it specifically deals with how developer relations managers can incorporate various elements of code and technology sharing into their strategy. With roughly 40 minutes to cover the topic, I feel that we will barely get started before getting the hook.

Alex and I have established #EDCDRC on Twitter for those who tweet, and those who watch. Since we’re attending, we’ll try to take copious, disjointed, fragmentary notes of the sessions we attend.

Into Bell Labs
I’m now working within Bell Labs, which is part of the recently merged company Alcatel-Lucent. Bell Labs is renowned for its venerable history of major R&D innovations (such as the transistor, the solar cell, and the laser, and of course, the Unix operating system).

Where in Bell Labs would someone like me fit? Bell Labs has a start-up organization called Alcatel-Lucent Ventures, which is chartered with advancing Bell Labs’ innovations and other ideas into commercial products and services. One of the venture groups is a lean team (like, barely into double-digit headcount) called touchatag, and that is my new home.

About Touchatag
Touchatag is working in a space that is sometimes called “The Internet of Things,” a vision in which real world objects have online identities. By putting an identifier tag on any object, you can use that object in many new ways, such as accessing web-based information about it.

Today, touchatag gives you two types of tags to work with: 2D barcode tags (also called QR codes), and a type of RFID tag for use with Near Field Communication (NFC) readers. The QR code shown at right is my “social business card.” If you have QR code reader software on your phone or computer, you can use it to take you to a web page showing many ways to find out more about me.

RFID tags are the solid-state complement to QR codes. Small stickers, each embedded with a unique RFID, give you a more durable and less easily copied identifier that can be applied to any object. The scenarios currently available for use on touchatag’s site today is a mere pinhole glimpse at the breadth of possibilities that this technology will eventually yield…which brings us to my role at touchatag.

Assume Innovation Occurs Elsewhere
What do you do when the uses for an emerging technology’s potential extend far beyond what you can possibly deliver? Quoted in various ways, Bill Joy’s law advises:  ”Most of the bright people don’t work for you–no matter who you are. You need a strategy that allows for innovation occurring elsewhere.” Perhaps Bell Labs, so well known for innovation, would be an unexpected source for that sentiment. Nevertheless, it’s why I am now at touchatag.

Developer networks are one of the more  powerful programs that companies use in order to accomodate Joy’s Law. Rather than trying to deliver everything for a technology or service unilaterally, providing developers opportunities and interfaces into that technology allows innovation to run far and wide. A well run developer program fosters mutual success and/or prosperity between the company and the 3rd party developers who adopt the company’s services.

Touchatag is building an online service that we hope will make it easy for developers to innovate extensively in the emerging space of NFC or QR codes, and the larger Internet of Things. My charter is to define and direct touchatag’s developer network.

For now, I’ll stay out of the details and simply say that the touchatag team and I have  a lot of interesting work ahead of us.

But What About Open Source?
If you’ve read my blog in the past, you may notice that I’ve dropped the old title “Open Source Advocacy with Reverend Ted.” While I still hold many of the ideals of Free Software, I hold other ideals that are much more dear to me.

When I was half my current age, I became conscious of environmental conservation, particularly the survival of species. Through 15 years of building a career in technology, I deepened my passion of the natural world by working to become more scientifically literate. I became increasingly focused on human consciousness and how it came about. In the process, I also developed a fascination for the Great Apes: bonobos, chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans. These wonderful creatures, all severely endangered in the wild, are humanity’s closest kin. I never want to see our world without them.

This past summer, I met Heidi, a beautiful and intelligent woman who shares my interest. It’s both her hobby and her field of study. Together, she and I have formed a partnership in which we can collaborate on a shared cause. With Heidi, I see a path ahead in which my work in technology can contribute to something that is intensely important to me.

There are important ideals and ideas in the Free Software movement–I see it as a Humanist cause. But many of its proponents become singularly absorbed in its ideals, perhaps at the expense of more pressing issues. Poverty. Diseases, such as AIDS and malaria. Global human rights. Extinction. Climate change. There are serious problems in the world for humanity to address. I want to apply my efforts to affecting positive change.

I hope that those who come here for any reason will continue to read my posts about technology, but also my periodic posts about this other subject too.

Get a Touchatag Starter Kit
If you’re interested in checking out out how touchatag works, you can start using QR codes online today at no charge simply by registering on the touchatag website.

Okay, so you want :

1. to get something fun for a kid/the kids/the family.
2. to really impress your spouse/significant other/love interest
3. to get yourself something that makes you feel like you know about something special

My suggestion:

• Give the gift of Monstrous, Huge, Unbelievably Big Bubbles with the Bubble Thing.

The pictures show my mother making a big bubble, and the actual bubble she made.

I first used “the Bubble Thing” many years ago while in college. I just got one for myself after all these years and re-discovered the simple, wonderful joys that it brings. And not just to me, my wonderful, beautiful girlfriend Heidi loves to watch.

The monster bubbles that you make with the Bubble Thing wobble in the wind and swirl with magnificent iridescent colors. Many sink to the ground and pop, but some find enough lift to fly skyward. (Heidi forms personal relationships with each one I make, talking to them, rooting for them, telling them not to hit this tree branch, or those wires, or the wall of a building.)

It’ll cost you about $12 (not including some Dawn dish soap).

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands, November 19 (RT) — Hein-Pieter Van Braam, self described as “an arrogant viking,” has engaged in a David Blaine-style self-imposed total isolation experiment. The task: to survive a week using all proprietary Software. Van Braam has dubbed it, “The Freedom-Free Week.”

For seven days, or until he chickens out, Van Braam will use the proprietary operating system Windows Vista for all of his daily computing needs. In an early, exclusive interview Van Braam stated: ”Well, I hate to admit it, but after you’ve looked at it for a while it looks kinda slick.” Adding, “But I haven’t gotten much further than the desktop, Internet Explorer, and the screenshooter app.”

Best knownfor his blogroll link on the prominent open source blog Open Source Advocacy with Reverend Ted, and minorly for his participation in the LugRadio community, Van Braam is well known for his extremist Free Software viewpoint. Said Ubuntu community manager and LugRadio host Jono Bacon, “Oh, yeah, he’s a real nutter, that one. Seems like he gets on one of his barely articulate Free Software rants just by telling him hello. Makes me quite uncomfortable, actually.”

As Van Braam slogs his way through this seven-day trial, he reports his findings on his blog. In our exclusive interview, Van Braam shared that, “The small [Aeroglass] 3d effects are executed quite nicely, in my humble opinion. I can’t really compare it to compiz as I don’t run it.” Concluding, “Although…user interface consistency is an entirely alien concept to Microsoft. It feels like I’m running WxWidgets, Qt, GTK+ and Tk apps.”

To learn more about Van Braam’s “Freedom-Free Week” experiment and findings, visit http://blog.tmm.cx.

____

Addenda and Errata:

• If I have mischaracterized Mr. Van Braam in any way–especially in a libelious way–it was entirely unintentional.
• The genesis of this fake news report was a simple request from Hein-Pieter to me, asking me to simply mention and link to his project.
• Jono Bacon’s quote is not so much a quote as a paraphrasing of Mr. Bacon’s general sentiment about Mr. Van Braam, albeit with far fewer expletives, colorful gesticulating, and complete-loss-for-words halting pauses. Check comments below, frequently, to confirm whether Mr. Bacon refutes, endorses, or embellishes upon the quote.
• The link to David Blaine implies that Mr. Blaine is an idiot. I do not support this position, as it could be proven libelious. However, I do support the position that Mr. Blaine is a self-absorbed, batshit fucktard.

Note: Contrary to the title’s implication, this is not an anti-microblogging post. Originally a skeptic, I’m converted to the value of microblogging.

Addendum: Please be sure to read some of the very thoughtful comments made by Bob Jonkman, Hein-Pieter Van Braam, Craig, and Odin Omdal Hørthe. They managed to sway my opinion about Identi.ca.

A listener of the Linux Action Show left a comment about a statement I made on the show, something to the effect of, “I’m not on Identi.ca, because…what’s the point?”

I knew right after saying it that would rub a few people the wrong way. I don’t really have anything against Identi.ca. The glib tone of that comment is rooted in something I have asserted many times in my advocacy of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). I’ll state it again, this time in the context of web applications and services.

Let’s first lay out a couple definitions:

• Identi.ca is a microblogging service that is very similar to Twitter
• Laconica is the FOSS offering that powers Identi.ca

Onward we go…

Is Laconica Cloneware?

Long, long ago, I posted some thoughts on “cloneware”: free software that simply knocks off the functionality of a proprietary offering mainly for the sake of replicating the proprietary offering. Typically, what results is a cheaper, crappier version of the original. There are notable exceptions, and I hardly mean to suggest that its wrong to replicate just for the sake of doing it. But if the only goal is to replicate–meaning there is no other driving reason such as new innovation–then I don’t expect a very inspiring offering. (SourceForge is littered with many such dead-end projects.)

So is Laconica cloneware? No, I don’t think it is. Laconica is useful. For example, with Laconica organizations can freely implement their own microblogging hosts for whatever need they may have, such as hosting a confidential microblog. Laconica also demonstrates innovation. As an example, it allows you to federate your Laconica host with other Laconica hosts. So, if Laconica perhaps started off as mere cloneware, it then demonstrates that cloneware can beget innovation.

So, my “What’s the point?” comment was not at all aimed at Laconica. It was about Identi.ca. Why would I use Identi.ca?

Religiosity & FOSS: Why I Use Twitter instead of Identi.ca

I disagree with those who feel that we should all use FOSS for the principle of it. That sentiment is arrogant B.S. promoted by those who spend too much time enagaged in technological omphaloskepsis. Sure, you can make a case for how we all need to support OSS at every opportunity, but to me, it starts to sound a lot like religious dogma after a certain point.

I love innovations that provide me with a new and useful tool that just works. So while I advocate Free Software as a great delivery mechanism of new innovations, I have no issue with using a proprietary service that gets a job done. Twitter is a great example of such a service.

Twitter costs me nothing. Usually, it just works. For the price, I’m okay with when it doesn’t. It has an API that gives sufficient freedom for my data. Twitter also has a user base that dwarfs any other Microblogging service, which is very important. Much like Facebook, I can find almost every wired person in one place. The originators of Twitter were responsible for the advent of microblogging, and consequently they have a massive user base. I see nothing inherently evil with Twitter. In my opinion, they earned their success, and I’m comfortable to be one of their millions of users.

So, when I asked “what’s the point?” about Identi.ca, I was being deliberately provocative because I don’t see any advantage to using Identi.ca. Identi.ca cannot lure me away from Twitter merely by virtue of its use of a FOSS offering instead of a proprietary system. As I see it, Identi.ca is simply a knock off of a well-established service. Unlike Laconica, I don’t see its purpose.

…and in a sick way, it was really kind of cool.

I’ve been playing with Google Chrome for a couple days.

But because Chrome is only available (natively) for Windows right now, I have to run a Windows XP virtual machine on my Linux machine (which still runs openSUSE).

And since I hardly ever need to use Windows anymore, the VM needed several updates, see?

So, I’m a-browsin’ and a-updatin’, and really enjoying how well the browser performs–especially with AJAX–while wondering how much the snappiness will decrease when Chrome is laden with more full set of browser features…

…and then Windows Update completes its work and tells me to reboot.

So, I click the “Close” option and skip the “Restart” so that I can do a Shutdown-and-Apply-Updates instead, because that’s how I want to do it, see?

But Chrome doesn’t want to close down. In fact, it stops responding altogether. Now Google Chrome is in a stare down with Windows shutdown.

Well, you know what Windows does to programs that don’t stop. That’s right, it puts up dialog messages. This one essentially says, “He don’t wanna go, boss. Can I kill’im?”

But before I can even respond, Chrome frickin’ blue screens Windows. As the kids say these days, >Snap!<

Next thing I know, I’m watching the VMware POST process emulation, and hoping that my VM is not hopelessly corrupted.

Good old nostalgia…I haven’t seen a Blue Screen of Death on my own machine in ages.

On Saturday night, I joined Chris and Bryan to discuss web applications, software development in the age of cloud computing, and what the Free Software community must watch for regarding open source licenses.

Check out the show here.

As a short update on my status, I’m now beginning to seek my next exciting role in technology.

As of Monday morning, I no longer work for Bungee Labs. My departure is part of Bungee Labs’ continuing restructuring that started with a larger layoff in late August.

I gained a lot from working with the Bungee team. I come away with a solid basis in object-oriented programming, its major design patterns, and an innovative re-take on the Model-View-Controller architectural pattern.  I learned how to work with RESTful, SOAP and other XML web APIs. And I gained an enormous amount of experience in relating to developers and building a developer program. All in all, I leave with new experience and skills that are particularly well suited for today’s technology market.

I’m still in the process of assembling my go-to-market-myself plan, but if you know of an organization seeking an innovative evangelist/community manager/developer-marketer or other tech generalist-specialist, please point them to my LinkedIn Profile.

Thanks,

Ted