I’m not a real fan of excuses, so I won’t offer you any. In short; I hit an especially bad patch in my personal life and during the long, painful and pathetic healing process I’ve been a bit of a recluse. B00-hoo, right?!

I suspect that a sudden and prolonged absence from “public life” is not necessarily a good choice for a person whose main career focus the past few years has been web technology, social media and community management.

Since I can’t go back time, I’ll just have to deal. Regret and dumb mistakes are simply not going to stop me this late in the game.

I’m Not Back; I Never Left

Despite my year-long personal funk and temporary loss of mojo, I have not lost the underlying passion for web technology, sharing knowledge and connecting with people that originally started me on this journey.

I owe a huge debt of gratitude to those who continue to believe that I have enough talent and skills to keep me employed in the career field I chose. I owe much more to those who have taken me under their wing, educated me and allowed me such close access to their brilliance. The only way I can repay those people is to reach my full potential.

I have not been a total loser, check out my updated LinkedIn profile and stay tuned here to see what I do next. My plan is to use this blog as a home base for everything I do. I already have tons of cool and useful things to show you from my social media internship at Tripwire, Inc. and much more.

I am no longer covering the weekend news beat at ReadWriteWeb.  In my situation, the amount of time I had to spend writing and covering breaking news during the weekend was not conducive to a harmonious family life.  I do hope I can continue to be useful to RWW in the future, as working there has been one of the great experiences of my life and I owe them a huge debt of gratitude.  It’s hardly possible to properly thank Marshall Kirkpatrick and founder Richard MacManus for the opportunity they have given me.  Working with the whole RWW team has been a worthwhile experience for sure.

Right now I am continuing to work as a freelance writer and I’m beginning to specialize in social media and community management.  I have been writing various articles for newspapers and magazines as well as online and lately have been putting out some feelers, looking for a “real job”.  I love freelancing, but the feast-or-famine nature of it is stressful now that I have a family to support.  There are at least a couple of exciting opportunities I am looking into and for now I am keeping my options open.

I am determined to do what I am passionate about for a living, that’s just how I roll.  This is a exciting and challenging time for me, I’ll keep you posted.

My personal blog was supposed to be a real thing of beauty, my ticket to blogging super-stardom. In reality it’s kind of a piece of crap. I try to do this shit for a living and frankly this site doesn’t pay me, so I don’t work on it much.

Well anyway, just testing this out writing things nobody will ever read.

How’s your mother? Tell her I said hi.

Some of you may be unfamiliar with Iterasi and what it does.   I am not going to review it here for you now, but I will tell you it is one of my favorite internet apps ever.  Rick Turoczy described it best when he called it “your own personal Wayback Machine”.   Admittedly, I haven’t used it much lately, but that’s going to change.  I mostly use it to archive my own writing for various outlets and other projects.  You can check out my public archives here.

As fate would have it, call it some sort of cosmic synchronicity if you will, I was reading my favorite local Portland tech blog Silicon Florist today and the headline read: PositivePress: Iterasi uses Web Archiving Technology to Track Traditional and Social Media Coverage.  Sweet!

Basically the company has “retooled” its technology, updated its site and added some functionality for tracking and archiving traditional and social media sites.  The cool part is that it’s using good ‘ol RSS to feed its archiving engine.  According to Iterasi CEO Pete Grillo:

We really didn’t have to look too far to find the best method to monitor and capture interesting stories on the Web. Real Simple Syndication (RSS) is both simple and ubiquitous. It is simple in that it exists on virtually every news source, blog, search engine and social media source. Most browsers identify RSS feeds automatically. RSS has emerged as the de-facto technology used throughout the Internet to pass information. Think of RSS as the silk that makes the Internet into a Web. From simple tools like browser-based readers to complex programming tools like Yahoo Pipes, RSS is the answer to subscribing to information flow in the Open Web.

To learn more about Iterasi and its exciting new changes, be sure to check out the Iterasi blog.  While you’re at it, follow the company on Twitter @Iterasi and definitely go bug CEO @petegrillo for his latest omelette recipe.    His own personal archived pages on Iterasi are pretty darn interesting also, you can pick your way through those here.

Hi,

Word on the street (actually a Twitter update from @XXXXXXXXX) is that you may be looking for some help with WordPress. I have some experience with WordPress and I could help you out and even teach you about it if you want. I have included my contact info in my signature, feel free to email or call me anytime.

Thanks,

Doug Coleman
Freelance Writer, Social Media, Multimedia, Web and Communications Specialist
Blog: https://dougcoleman.wordpress.com/
Twitter: @dougcoleman
Friendfeed: http://friendfeed.com/dougcoleman
Phone: (503) 912-1446 (503) 869-3416 (cell)

I got this response:

Hi,
Thanks for your interest in our project. I’ve heard from a bunch of folks interested in the re-design so I need to winnow. Any ideas on how to choose a web designer? I’d love to hear them. Thanks.

and I responded…

Hi Gary,

I would say right off hand to look at that person’s portfolio of sites they have designed. Do some research to see if their cost fits your budget. Speak with others that they have done work for. It sounds like a no-brainer, but meet that person face-to-face and simply see if you like them. A good designer should also have good communication skills as they need to communicate with those providing the content and administrators. You should have some sort of written contract that provides a timeline and spells out what is expected from both parties involved. I would say go local, there are many good Web designers in Oregon and the Portland metro area.

Ultimately, the success of a site is up to you (or whoever is in charge of it). You need to be very clear about your goals and expectations. It doesn’t hurt to meet with a consultant about the Web and what social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) could do for your business. It’s not as expensive as you might think to hire a consultant and most businesses really benefit from it.

Here is a search page about choosing a good Web designer. Look through these, there is some good info here: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=eDQ&ei=d1d3SoezMo7gswPh26TVBA&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=choosing+a+good+web+designer&spell=1

I hope this helps, good luck.

Doug

I helped a little, right? I answer people’s questions like this all the time, on lots of different networks. I think I would make a great community manager…just sayin’.

Leah Buley; Good Design Faster

Make it great. Colleagues and clients always want results sooner. How can you deliver without compromising quality? In this workshop, Leah Buley will show you how to use design sprints and lo-fi design techniques to achieve remarkable productivity in relatively short time.

This subject is close to my heart.  I have been thinking about the future of newspapers for many years now and in fact, I am convinced that I have a series of solutions that could save the news industry. I know that’s a bold statement but as I begin to outline my ideas, it will become obvious to everyone.  I’m not sure newspapers themselves should be saved.  They have had plenty of opportunities to participate as leaders in the digital age but have failed to let go of outdated models and methods.  I am really more interested in journalism and perfecting a new way to deliver news that includes even those without computers or internet connections. There is so much I want to say about this first ever hearing of this kind in the US senate.  However, this is going to be the first in a series of posts that I am (tentatively) titling “Public Media 2.0”.  I think the appropriate thing to do right now is just listen.  The problems facing newspapers in this digital age are spelled out in this hearing and it’s just a good place to begin. Below is the full webcast and additional information.  NOTE:  This webcast does not begin until 60:00 into the video. The Future of Journalism

Communications, Technology, and the Internet

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

02:30 PM

SR – 253

View Archive Webcast

The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation announces the following Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet hearing: The Future of Journalism.

Majority Statements John D. Rockefeller, IV

Opening Remarks

Panel 1

Senator Ben Cardin Senator United States Senate

Panel 2

Marissa Mayer Vice President, Search Products & User Experience Google Inc.

Alberto Ibargüen President and Chief Executive Officer John S. And James L. Knight Foundation

David Simon Author, TV Producer and Former Newspaperman

Steve Coll Former Managing Editor The Washington Post

James Moroney Publisher/CEO The Dallas Morning News

Arianna Huffington Co-founder and Editor-in-Chief The Huffington Post