Kelsey is good at expanding my reading list. His second slide had three book covers on it. Two new to me (Do You Matter and Start with Why), and one not (The Designful Company—Marty Neumeier’s, author of the fantastic The Brand Gap,  brain child) which I really need to finish reading on the ProQuest site.

Kelsey then went on to talk about “cool” and how cool (especially American cool) is a product of  a confluence of three behaviors: following you own path, being unique, and taking calculated risks. It is interesting to note here that, from Kelsey’s definition of cool, that being cool flows from how you act rather than what you do. Apple makes music players. So does SanDisk. Which company do you think is cooler of the two?

I’m not sure if Kelsey explained why being cool as a business was important (or if I even asked), but here’s my shot at it. When you are cool, people like you. People will much more readily buy things from people they think are cool. If your product is cool enough,  they will try to “borrow” your cool (intro Apple fanatics). Cool companies make cool products. Uncool companies try to emulate cool and wind up with crappy products or perhaps decent products at best.

In his exploration of cool, Kelsey also tied in some musicians/bands. The act of perfoming music almost lends you a kind of cool all by itself. I started thinking about why this is. Music—whether soothing or inciting of feelings of aggression—is evocative. It makes you feel something. Listen to some of the works of Joe Satriani if you don’t believe me (particularly anything off of “Surfing with the Alien”). Music is often accompanied by storytelling—lyrics—which further lends the artist a different kind of cool. Music resonates with people (physics pun not intended). People like the experience of music.

The first artist Kelsey mentioned was Coltrane (heck even the guy’s name is cool). He offered this quote from Coltrane:

I never even thought about whether or not they understand what I’m doing…the emotional reaction is  all that matters as long as there’s some feeling of communication, it isn’t necessary that it be understood.

Great art—of any kind regardless of whether it’s painting, sculpture, or music—reaches people on a visceral level. There is some communication there. Art is ambiguous by it’s very nature. It is open to interpretation. People experience art how they experience it rather than how someone tells them to experience it. There is no one correct interpretation of a work—even the artist’s own. Similar to art, the experience of a product is also subjective and individualized. Experience is tied to social and historical context. A company who builds bombs for a living isn’t going to become cool to a music loving pacifist just because they start cranking out MP3 players. On the other hand, if Lockheed started churning out music players, and they were designed worth a damn, I might buy one. This just reinforces the old saying, “You can’t please all of the people all of the time.” Try to do so, and you wind up with products and/or services that no one is passionate about.

Then Kelsey went on to talk about Digable Planets. They single handedly proved that you don’t have to talk about “being a gangsta” have a good rap song. They won a Grammy for their efforts. Google them. You’ve probably heard their work before, but just don’t remember the name.

Like great music, great products and services offer a great experience. That experience stems from design. The problem with design is that often people are doing it, and they don’t realize that they are. Kelsey talks about design being more than just visual aesthetics. Presentation Zen says something similar. It differentiates between design and decoration:

To many business people, design is something you spread on the surface, like icing on a cake.

You should never build something and then “pretty it up” (and you should never ever hire someone outside your company to do this). This is doing decoration. Even if you need to hire or otherwise secure the help of specialists like web designers or programmers, you should never remove your business from the design process. If a freelancer meets you in a design brief and says I’ll be back to you with a working x in 60 days, run like hell.

Kelsey also threw out this quote by Steve Jobs:

Design is the fundamental soul of the company that expresses itself through an end result—the product.

And he followed it with a really great saying of his own:

Simply chasing design is a really bad idea; inspired by design is great idea. Don’t do it because you research it, do it because you breath it.

Design emanates from within and carries with it your knowledge base including everything you know about your consumer base and how best to interact with them. If you see a design that works great, decompose it and examine it in context. Ask yourself, why does the design work? If you are Saab, don’t try to be Lamborghini and vice versa. Know what you specialize in (your differentiator) and run with it.

Most non-profits that I’ve met are knowledge work organizations. The various packages the knowledge they have gets dispersed in are essential their product. They are about knowledge delivery. The core competencies of such an agency should be storytelling, copy-writing, publishing and presentation. This is often not the case. But this is not the result of a lack of professionalism. For the most part, all of the formal education all of the workers of a non-profit receive is in their knowledge base. Universities don’t put a lot of stock in training people how to deliver information unless your major is English or Speech Communication. Frankly, a lot of professors in “real disciplines” dismiss such skills out of hand as “fluffy stuff”.

I think that helping non-profits with things like document design, presentation design, content strategy, writing, etc. is where Net Tuesday can really shine.

Rather than try to bribe people into visiting your establishment, buying your T-Shirt, or whatever, you should try to remind them why they like your business in the first place. If you are a restaraunteer with a server who is known for his beverage tray spinning ability, post photos or videos of said server doing his schtick on Flickr or Youtube. If you are building a new site or remodeling your current one, post pictures of the progress online (i.e. http://bit.ly/dvTuBO).

In your efforts to extend the “your company name here” experience, you should think about all your stakeholders (i.e. employees, coworkers, investors, etc.). This goes double for volunteer-oriented non-profits.

The way to get people to volunteer is through word of mouth. Concentrate on creating a great experience for your current volunteers, and the next group of volunteers will practically beat a path to your door. Many non-profits place volunteers into situations where they are assisting people in unfortunate circumstances. Keep their spirits up by constantly showing them the difference they are making. Young volunteers are usually pretty idealistic. It is up to you whether they become disillusioned and jaded or re-affirmed in their desire to help. Don’t only provide council to your consumer base but also to your volunteers as well. If it looks like they are getting burnt out, ask them if they think they should back off a little bit. Volunteers should be part of your working family; not just a source of “free” labor. People want to go where they know they’ll be respected and be able to make an impact.

If you take nothing else away from this, go look at slide 13 on this presentation: http://www.slideshare.net/krianbalma/extending-the-customer-experience.

The aim of any Net Tuesday is to connect digital creators, tech literati,  social media types, etc. with local non-profits to aid those non-profits in spreading their message, bringing in funding, locating volunteers, etc.

In short, Net Tuesday is about empowering for-good non-profits through the web.

Here’s what Net Tuesday B/CS needs to pull off said lofty goal:

Presenters. Meetings without content aren’t meetings at all. Presenters can be from the community (i.e. tech geeks like me), or presenters can be the leadership of local non-profits. In the case of the former, one would make a presentation about how some particular piece of knowledge or tool could be used to benefit a non-profit. This could be in the form of a critique of an organization’s web site, or it could be talking about how to use Skype for connecting to potential donors or clients. The sky’s the limit. Really. In the case of the latter, a member of the leadership team of a non-profit could tell the group something about the organization in question (i.e. their elevator pitch). Then said non-profit leader could query the audience for ways in which design/tech/social media could be used to address some of their problems. Every non-profit is different. Some may have more trouble getting funding than volunteers. For others it may be the reverse of that situation. One thing all non-profits have in common is that they have to make due. Sometimes that means being your own IT. Sometimes that means being your own web content specialist. For-good non-profits are the guerrilla warriors of the the do good set. They have no choice but to think outside the box, and you can help them do so. At the end of every presentation, there’s one principle I’ve borrowed from Open Space Technology that I’d like you to keep in mind: the conversation is over when its over. Don’t let the fact that the venue owner has turned off some of the house lights and is shooing everyone towards the door keep you from thinking about how you might start a project to help a non-profit. For example, you might be interested in figuring out how to help KEOS stream their broadcasts over the internet using something like Red5. I digress.

Sponsors and venues. Sponsors aren’t really necessary, but they don’t hurt. Being a human being I can freely admit I am much more likely to show up to a meeting where there is free chow and/or beer. Any creative worth their salt will tell you that all great ideas originated from a coffee bean. Venues are a must have. If you know a local business that would like to host a Net Tuesday, have them give @NetTuesdayBCS a shout.

Co-organizers. There isn’t a tech geek or non-profit exec alive that doesn’t already have way too much crap on their plate. Net Tuesday B/CS is going to need a team of co-horts to keep it going. These folks will do things like try to make contact with area non-profits, try to find interested local tech folks, try to find tech vendors that are willing to donate their services to non-profits, and try to find venues and sponsors.

Last but definitely not least, we need you. If you stand around waiting for someone else to fix a problem, you might never see it happen. I don’t care if you are a first year design student or if you just sent out your first tweet ever. If you have an idea about what you are doing and you are passionate about helping people, do everybody a favor and show up. We can’t afford to wait around for government, experts in this or that, or anybody else to address the problems of our society. If we want things to get better, we have to do it ourselves. The good news is, there’s a lot of us out there.

Verizon and other providers will let you send email to a cell phone provided you know the mail domain (in the case of Verizon “vtext.com”) of the provider and the recipients cell phone number (ha, I’m not putting my cell # online). This would not only be useful for non-profit leaders who manage business and personal twitter accounts, but also for owners of for profit businesses as well. For all you smartphone users out there, this means you don’t have to leave your Twitter app on sucking down system memory.

I’ve also been thinking about how something like this could be used to alert organizers/vendors of an event like Texas Reds to a potential weather/emergency situation (i.e. impending storms, high heat index, mad gunman on the loose, etc.) or just memos to event organizers/vendors. Code Maroon already does something similar to this for Aggies. The difference is Code Maroon is opt in. With a person’s cell phone number, and the name of their provider, you could subscribe them to a distribution list without any further action from them. Believe it or not; it would not take very long at all to set something like this up.

This post has mainly been to give the people interested in Net Tuesday B/CS some food for thought until the next meeting, but anyone should feel free to leave comments. I encourage the Net Tues crowd to join the Facebook group if you haven’t already and to discuss these ideas in an open forum there. What are your ideas for using design/tech/social media to empower businesses for and non profit alike?

I believe Bryan, Texas is in a position to make more substantial progress than Houston.

This post was already in draft form when I heard about Save The Queen

Most people will conceed that ours is a knowledge work economy. The future is in science and technology; not manufacturing. Services are needed as well. Our infrastructure is crumbling. Just ask Mike Rowe. The more our technology advances, the more technically inclined the people supporting our infrastructure are going to need to be.

That phrase “the children are our future” is more than just a catchy line in a song; it is the literal truth. As more and more of us are living into old age and requiring senior care, who do we think will be taking care of us? In hospitals? In nursing homes? Managing our retirement funds?

But we have a problem, our school children are falling behind the rest of the world in science and technology. That’s where an infusion of knowledge workers (a.k.a geeks) and a little outside the box thinking come in. There are numerous examples of how concerned individuals with know-how have come together to make a positive impact on education and the lives of  children:

• Dave Eggers’ wish: Once Upon a School
• Bill Strickland makes change with a slide show
• Recipe For Success
• Austin Bat Cave

If I had a nickel for everytime I heard someone sell Bryan/College Station as “big city convenience in a small town setting” …

Knowledge workers are usually (but not always) people that went to college. We know from history (and personal experience) that people who go to college are interested in things like culture, community involvement, etc. The kinds of people who will work tirelessly towards revitalizing a city.

Thousands of these kind of people surge into and out of the area every year. What are we doing to try to get these people to stay (or at least come back in their working lives)?

One message that I’ve heard over and over again is that we can’t wait for the politicians to fix things. We’ve got to take our fate into our own hands.

What if there were a way to crowd source public wi-fi in Byran/College Station. We all recycle computers every year. We may have some old routers laying around too. Why not run that old router publicly, and run your new one for your private network? If everyone in both cities did this, iPhone and Droid users may not have to pay a single cent to their wireless carrier while inside the city limits. Don’t you think that would attract knowledge workers to the area?

Geeks (I can use that word because I am one) are also attracted to culture: concerts, public speaking events, film festivals, conferences of every shape and size.

If we build it, they will come.

You might ask, “do we really want these geeks in our city?” The answer is yes. I’m one, and I’ve been trying to figure out how to give back since I got here. I am not alone.

Like most other knowledge workers, I want my work to be meaningful; to have purpose. Like way too many knowledge workers, my work isn’t as meaningful as I’d like it to be. I would love to spend my life researching why we do things that turn the gears of the economy instead of doing things that matter. If you think the guy that designs happy meal toys for a living has found a sense of fulfillment in his work, you are dreaming.

Much to the chagrin of my wife, I try to do things big. I love complexity. I try to introduce a three ring circus where a simple clown or juggler would have sufficed.

I tried to organize a Net Tuesday here in Bryan/College Station, but it took more than I had to give. That hurt. Bad.

It took going to TEDxHouston to figure out that I don’t need to perform some grandiose gesture to be a philanthropist. I do good works everyday. I answer people’s questions about web/design/coding without compensation. I’m glad too. Gratitude is great, and it is in short supply around my office, so I’ll take it where I can get it.

My life is about empowerment for a simple reason. I would not be where I am today if other people hadn’t medeled in my life. My wife, my mom, family, my JROTC instructor, clergy (read: I’m a possibilian), parents of friends; the list goes on. Without the influence of others, I’m not entirely sure I’d even be alive today (this works on multiple levels).

It is kind of ironic that I give people crap about thinking about philanthropy in traditional terms (large financial gestures) when I am over here spinning my wheels trying to do something really big without getting anywhere.

Time to accept my fate and move on. Though I really envy people in operations like Austin’s Bat Cave . I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to be a part of something like that. At least not until I retire anyway. Assuming I live that long. I’ve got to keep in mind that I do make a difference (maybe a trifling one, but a difference all the same) every day. Every time someone has a “how do I” question, I answer it if I’m able, and find someone who can if I can’t. I’ll teach people about HTML/CSS/JavaScript/PickALanguage just because I like to see smiling faces. To quote Brené Browne, “I am enough.” I’ve got to stop deprecating my efforts because they are lacking in scale. I’ve got to be content to do what I can, when I can. Help people learn how to do things. Share what I know about things like Open Space and blogging.

A pivotal moment in my life was when a fellow student started teaching me about ASP.NET just because I was interested in the subject. A few hours made a lifetime of difference. Another one was when my JROTC instructor (a retired senior enlisted man) appointed me Armed Drill Team Commander. I’ve had an obsession with all things leadership ever since. Yet another was my introduction to Open Space Technology. These acts did not require buckets of time, but each one made a lasting life altering impact.

There is immense irony in the fact that my biggest weakness has been that I’ve tried too hard fo too long (just ask anyone who knows me). But, hopefully I’m past that.

Thank you TEDxers for your time on a Saturday in June. It has made a difference in my life.

My time is limited, but how can I help you?

I think OST is about empowerment; about the equality of ideas. I think OST presupposes that the strongest mind in the room may accompany the weakest voice.

During my first experience with OST, I felt one feeling abouve all others. I felt heard. Genuinely, truthfully, absolutely heard. This is a very powerful emotional state to be in, especially for someone who feels no efficacy in their environment (rightly so or not). Mistakenly, as I’m sure a lot of people do, I began to think OST was about me (while convincing myself that I thought it was about us).

I thought that if I worked in a place with a flat (or near flat) hierarchy (read self organizing team), all my problems would magically disappear. That people would begin to hear what I had to say. Would be forced to deal with me. This was extremely naive on my part. People normally listen to exactly one thing: what they want to hear. This was driven home for me by this guy.

OST creates a rather effective abnormality within 10 minutes or so of the convening of a space. The convener (a.k.a facilitator) gives the attendees a forum (whiteboard, chalkboard, huge post-its, etc.) for throwing out a topic that they want to talk about during the open space within the theme of the open space. This is huge. It opens minds like nothing I’ve ever seen before. I guess the subconscious thought process goes something like, “Ok, if these people will honestly listen to what I want to talk about, they must have something worth saying too.”

While people are writing down their topics, comes the fun part, assigning a space and time to talk about the topics. There are usually more topics than there is time/space to talk about them. This assignment of topics to a space (room, circle of chairs, etc—there can be more than one thread of conversation at a time and usually is in an open space) and time always happens rather quickly and without bloodshed. There is usually some kind of grid (whether executed with tape on a wall or chalkboard lines) in which all the topics have to fit. Like I said before, there are usually more topics than there is space available in the grid. I am a fan of having people write down their ideas on huge post-its and placing those on/alongside the grid rather than within the grid directly. More ideas seem to be generated this way. If space runs out on the grid, the faciliator will step in and say, “Why don’t you put your topic alongside the time/space you’d like it to occupy?”

After people are done writing, comes the resolution. People will negotiate with the authors of other topics. Many times without even being asked a person will give deference to the topic of another person who’s competing for the same time spot. You really have to witness this to understand its true power.

Again, I think OST is about empowerment; about the equality of ideas. Ideas are equal in that we have to care about them to have them. If we care about them, they must be worth having. Some ideas have more proponents than others. The ideas are not to blame. They are just products of the world they are born into, and some ideas have better parents than others. This is why I love Open Space Technology. Why I’ll talk to you about OST till I’m blue in the face if you’ll let me. And why I’ll facilitate for you if you can’t find someone more qualified. OST isn’t about me. It isn’t about you either. It’s about us. Thank you for listening. Please share your thoughts if you feel so inclined.

In the past, I haven’t done this. I held tight to my values feeling more and more the outsider and more and more that my cries for change were falling on deaf ears. Disillusioned and disenchanted, my mood darkened, and my tone in most conversation was deeply sardonic and skeptical. In short, I had become the toxic personality at my workplace. But this is not who I set out to be. After months and months of trying to undo the damage, I am beginning to make progress. I want to bring more light than heat into this world. I want to be a positive presence and a positive influence on those around me. In that vein, I will no longer talk about anything directly work related on this blog.

Instead, I’ve chosen to focus on something much more positive: maker culture. This blog will be my exploration of the projects of others as well as those of my own. I hope you enjoy the ride.

Oh, and p.s.: if anyone is interested in having me guest post on their blog, I am farming out all my old and future content on programming, design (well mostly), leadership, and community engagement. If interested, contact me at robert dot stackhouse at gmail dot com.

That I’ve seen, ways to extend (or even understand) the inner workings of software packages are unfortunately almost never mentioned in software training (even in university classes). Most often such training consists of pushing buttons in the right sequence or remembering hotkeys.

Our society has commoditized (or at least tried extremely hard to commoditize) our creative people and knowledge workers. The underlying management theory is graphic designers, engineers, programmers, etc. can be substituted one-for-one as long as they “know” the right software packages. In my experience, many managers seem to be convinced of the sanity of this approach (even after firing more than a handful of people that weren’t worth their salt—more often a result of a shoddy work ethic or a lack of creativity than a lack of software proficiency).

This stinks to me of the “I don’t give a crap about people” way of being that most companies and corporations seem to have fallen victim to. The worst part is that our workers (and workers in training) seem to have bought into this nonsense hook line and sinker. I can’t tell you how many students I’ve crossed paths with that want to go to work for a software, engineering, architecture or entertainment giant. The thinking is that bigger is better. Although I’ve never worked for them, when I think of Google, IBM, Microsoft, etc. I think more of the faceless masses of the proletariat in 1984 than I do of a better life. I’d actually like to meet my customer in the flesh and shake his hand.

When I think of companies that I’d like to work for, I usually think small (perhaps smallish) like: Always Creative or Improving Enterprises.

In schools, we should be training people to make tools, not just use them. We should teach people to be platform independent, to give them the ability to choose the right tool for the job (or build it from scratch if necessary) rather than ever only always going with the devil they know.

In this day and age, every high school aged student should be taught how to program. After all, it is not rocket science. Domain experts than can program (scientists, engineers, doctors, lawyers, etc.)  have more societal (not to mention economic) value that those that can’t or won’t.

In addition to programming skills, students should be given the opportunity to learn mechanical skills as well. As our world continues to embrace technology, the designers of the future are going to have to understand way more than just aesthetics (oh yeah, we should encourage our kids to draw too).

I agree with Rushkoff in that technology should be used to extend our humanity rather than diminish it. Technology isn’t the issue. Technology just is. We are the problem. Let us train and employ and lead whole people rather than bulleted lists of proficiencies.

I am a .NET Developer so doing this on a VPS has the added benefit of letting me work on my Linux-fu.

I used wget to download AutoMySQLBackup into /etc/cron.daily. Next, I chmod-ed the AutoMySQLBackup script file to make it executable. I opened the script in vi to set the database and email properties. Then I used aptitude (my VPS is running Ubuntu) to install mailx and mutt.  After that I used dpkg-reconfigure exim4-config to edit the Exim configuration (Exim 4 is an MTA and a dependency of mailx).

The AutoMySQLBackup script didn’t work for me straight out of the box (I think the script was written using an earlier version of mutt),  so I used aptitude to install ruby1.9 and ported (sort of) the script to Ruby.

require 'date'

$username = "username"
$password = "pwd"
$hostname = "hostname"
$outputfilename = "/backups/daily/#{Date.today.to_s}.sql"
$databasenames = "databasename"
$message = "Backup"
$subject = "Backup"
$emailaddress = "username@yourdomain.com"

puts `mysqldump --user=#{$username} --password=#{$password} --host=#{$hostname}
--quote-names --compact --databases #{$databasenames} > #{$outputfilename}`

puts `gzip -f #{$outputfilename}`

puts `echo "#{$message}" | mutt -s "#{$subject}" -a #{$outputfilename}.gz
-- #{$emailaddress}`

Finally I ran sudo ruby1.9 backupmysql to test the whole thing out.

I use Remember the Milk as my to-do list manager, and it lets you assign a URL to a task. So now, if I’ve done any research for one of my action items in my personal wiki, I can link to it from my action item in Remember the Milk.