The Coworking Employee
I like to think that I’m acutely aware of my personal productivity at work, and this puts me in a great position to tune my working environment to maximise both the benefit to my employer, and my own happiness. The two key factors are my hours and location. The hours I work is an entire blog post all by itself, suffice to say that I hate being stressed by a rush hour commute, and the early bird may catch the worms, but I’m no bird, my needs go far beyond basic feeding. The other is where, or more specifically with whom.
Despite having an engineering degree I like to think of myself as a creative. I create software and I put my heart and soul into it because I love what I do. This may seem slightly at odds to the traditional view of a tech based employee, some kind of man-machine hybrid that mechanically churns out software on demand, but if you’ve ever met me I’m sure you will agree that I’m far from the norm in this industry. To keep creative juices flowing you need inspiration and in my case I’m looking for those key conversations where you just met someone and end up having a heated agreement.
Coworking spaces all around the world attract exactly the kinds of people I’m passionate about meeting. I think those of us who get coworking have a shared passion for exactly these types of experiences, and we seek them out whenever possible. They have the uncanny ability to turn your otherwise average day into one that you will remember for a lifetime. You simply can’t find these experiences on a regular basis in traditional office environments, but in coworking spaces they are de rigueur.
And this isn’t just hyperbole, just yesterday I was working out of New Work City in New York, plodding away on some Perl code when I struck up a conversation with Campbell of Loose Cubes (a coworking space finder) and was so inspired and energised by our conversation that I went on to do 5 hours of work on top of my usual working day.
It’s been clearly shown that money is not the key incentive to happy productive employees but that freedom, flexibility and creative ownership are. So sure, as an employer, you could have people like me sitting in their cube, punching in at 10 and out at 6, doing what is required of us, but nothing more, or you could let your employees have that little bit of freedom to work how and where we are most productive, and watch our productivity go through the roof.
Why I Hate Perl: Reason 1
Gumtree, my current place of work, is written almost entirely in Perl, and if you’ve found my blog via a tweet, you will almost certainly know that I hate Perl. I can’t often explain in 140 characters either how much I hate it, or what specifically about Perl I hate, so I’m going to start by writing a blog post every time I come across another reason, and have the volition to actually write about it.
So, what’s todays reason? Context.
My recent talk at Dibi Conference was (and an extended one at Web 2 Expo NY will be) about how we automatically provide context to the vast quantity of data we collect through the web. Without the context data is pretty much meaningless. And the same is true in Perl, without context to your variables, their content is meaningless . Access an array variable in a scalar context, and you don’t get an error, you get it’s length. Access an ArrayRef as though it’s a scalar and you just end up with bleedy eyes.
Providing this context shouldn’t be hard, other compilers / interpreters manage to do it. As a developer I shouldn’t have to mess about with working out context, this should be taken care of for me so that I can get on with the business of building logical process through code.
Thinking Digital – The Aftermath
Despite having been in Newcastle the the past two years during Thinking Digital, I’ve never actually had a chance to attend. My time in newcastle has instead been spent partying hard at the mal, running up Tara Hunt’s champagne bill (love ya!), and nursing mammoth hangovers on the train up to edinburgh. This year, however, I was fortunate enough to attend this conference I have head so many good things about, and I have to say, it lived up to expectations. And not just because Herb Kim knows how to throw a party…
This year the conference was split in two – The Main Hall, and the Livecast Lounge. Now, I loved the theory of the Livecast Lounge – a more relaxed space to listen to watch the talks from, on a giant screen, somewhere you could, eat and drink, talk to fellow attendees, blog, and so on. This appealed to me specifically because I often find it hard to sit in a seat and just listen, I need to do 100 things at once (I’m watching Being Erica whilst writing this, oh, and shopping for wedding presents).
Unfortunately, the Livecast Lounge didn’t quite live up to my expectations. Don’t get me wrong, it was great being there, I was just hoping for something a little different. The somewhat stoical atmosphere was, at times, excruciating, and if I wasn’t as bold and crazy as I am, I would have felt quite uncomfortable clapping at the end of talks – almost everyone in the lounge just sat there. I think it went wrong on two counts: first that people bought Livecast Lounge tickets as overflow when the Main Hall was sold out, when from my perspective it wasn’t overflow, but a different way to experience a conference. And secondly that the physical layout of the room reinforced the overflow mentality. Instead of seats in rows I would have thrown in beanbags and couches around the outside, put screens on all the walls (so that you can sit facing people whilst still watching), and found a way to engage with the lounge participants more, perhaps a two-way video link during questions.
I think this was a great attempt at doing something new and innovative with conferences, and despite my thoughts, I had a great few days. Planning for Thinking Digital is already underway for next year, and I certainly plan to go back to the Livecast Lounge.
Content Analysis is King
Notes for my presentation at DiBi Conference 2010.
Slides on Slideshare
Links
LiveCast Lounge at Thinking Digital Conference
Despite my love for conversational, interactive conferences, there are some that simply don’t fit that bill and Thinking Digital is one of them. It’s tag line “Technology, Ideas and Our Future” hints at a breath of fresh air from the traditional web/tech conference circuit, and with speakers with quirky background such as Robert Lang, a world origami expert, it promises to be very interesting this year. I have to confess that whilst I have never been to Newcastle specifically for Thinking Digital before I have been in ‘toon in and around it’s dates for various reasons. Last year I had the privilege to spend the day with some of the speakers on a jaunt to Edinburgh for the day, and through the haze of a truly epic champagne hangover was unbelievably inspired by people like Caleb Chung (creator of the Furby and Pleo) and Chandler Burr (The New York Times’ perfume critic).
Thinking Digital are clearly doing something right because this year they have already sold out, and the demand has been so high that they have created what they are calling the “Live Lounge“, a space where attendees will be able to watch live streams of the talks, relax, eat, drink, tweet and so on. For people like myself who are addicted to being connected it’s difficult to spend all day sitting in a traditional conference venue even with fantastic speakers, so I am very excited by the prospects of this space and the conversations it will inspire.
So, if you find yourself at Thinking Digital 2010 please do swing by the LiveCast Lounge and say hello to the girl with the red hair furiously tapping away on the iPad in her hand.
on sxsw panels, conversations and how to get me out of bed
My favourite sessions at barcamps tend to be those which are (directed) discussions on topics ranging from sex and gender to rural broadband. I love to engage with other participants during these moments, often playing devils advocate so that ideas and concepts are deeply justified and thought through. Oh, and I love to get my opinion across too! I always walk away from these sessions with a feeling of satisfaction, even if no conclusions have been reached and often feel both inspired by what other people have said, and hopeful that I have had some impact on others too. It really doesn’t matter if you are leading the discussion or not, everyone should have a chance to speak their mind.
On the flip side what seriously frustrates me about panels is that I have to watch a discussion take place, and despite the ability to ask questions I do not have a chance to engage in actual conversation with either panelists, or more importantly other attendees. I only attended one panel at SXSWi this year “What Guys Are Doing To Get More Girls Into Tech” (#moregirlsintech) and the frustration experienced by many attendees was evident through the hash tag stream on the giant screen. Many of us wanted to engage in discussion but had to resort to venting our frustration and disagreement through twitter.
Perhaps it’s the physical layout of the room. In the core conversation I attended “How Geeks Grabbed Philly By The Balls” (#geeksgrabbedphilly) the two core conversationalists were on the same level as the attendees, physically much closer, and encouraged to disrupt the process, whereas in the panel the panelists were on a raised platform at the front. That physical separation makes it much harder for the audience to become participants and engage with the panelists.
I’m fairly certain that this is not an issue of the conversationalists of panalists themselves. My amazing friend Alex Hillman was key to the Philly conversation and the panelists were also incredibly fascinating people, as was the modertor who did a very good job of fielding twitter queries where she could.
The panel I was on “Don’t Stop Believin’: How karaoke is going to change the world” (#dontstopbelievin) (slides) was not a conversation panel, but rather a set of 7 short and sweet presentations followed by questions and karaoke – and I think they key difference here is the presentation aspect. Let conversations be conversations and presentations be presentations, even if they have 7 people presenting. Panels muddy the water. They give you a taste of a conversation you can not be part of, and that frustrates me.
So my request to SXSWi 2011 is that they significantly ramp up the number core conversations they have by switching out some of the panels. There is no reason conversations can’t be guided and focused by a group of key conversationalists, nor is there any reasons presentations can’t be presented by several presenters. This is an interactive conference after all, so let’s get interactive where we can. Turn panelists into conversationalists by bringing them down to floor level and into the discussion. Minimise the gap (physical and virtual) between them and the attendees, and overall increase engagement. Everyone will benefit from this. And you might actually encourage me out of bed and into a session or two…
BarCampLondon6 Accounts
I know these are about 9 months late, but here they are.
As a summary, BarCampLondon6 raised £5600 in income, and spent £5300 on running the event, leaving a surplus of £300 which will be put towards future BarCampsLondons.
A more detailed budget can be downloaded (and now in text format too).
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in contact.
Single Table Inheritance with Sequel
I struggled with STI with Sequel as there is very little documentation on using plugins, let alone this specific one. It turns out it is incredibly trivial, but did require trawling through the code base to figure it out.
In your super class you need to activate the plugin (Sequel::Plugins::SingleTableInheritance), and specify the column name to be used to hold the name of the specific class for each object. In this case the super class is called Fruit, and the field I am using is object_type
class Fruit < Sequel::Model
plugin :single_table_inheritance, :object_type
end
It’s really important that the field name is a symbol. If it is a string it will go bang.
Obviously you need to create the field object_type in your database table fruits as some kind of text field long enough to hold the name of the superclass and any subclass.
Your subclasses are trivial, simply extend your superclass.
class Apple < Fruit
end
Hope this helps someone!
Don’t Loose Focus on Women in Tech
Yahoo!’s recent atrocity of hiring lap dancers for geeks at their Taiwan hack day was the cause of a flurry of activity on the web and caused some people who don’t often talk out on women in tech issues to speak up. That’s a great thing, but did it really take this unbelievable event to get the world to sit up and listen?
What worries me more is that this may be the new bar by which the attitude towards women in tech is judged. Whilst the norm (outside of this event) seems to be fairly innocuous and less explicit (few female speakers / attendees, general hyper-masculine attitude, pink laptops, etc) this is clearly way out there. The danger is that by focusing on not doing such incredibly insensitive activities we loose track of where the real battlefield should be. That by focusing on not objectifying women we stop focusing on ensuring we feel more involved.
The BarCampLondonPlanningAssociation (BCLPA)
We set up this association whilst planning BarCampLondon6 as a body to hold a bank account and assets to simplify organising future BarCamps in and around London. By no means is there any implied overlap between the membership of BCLPA and the planning team of any BarCamp. The BCLPA has no authority over anything, but is there to be used as a resource by anyone who wants it’s help. It is able to provide the following:
- assistance in terms of experience and support of people who have been involved with the planning of BarCamps.
- banking support for BarCamp sponsorship so you don’t have to set up your own bank account
- reusable items such as power strips, ethernet cables and spare items such as post it notes and index cards.
The BCLPA is not a group of people who are specifically planning any future BarCamp, nor are it’s members the only people who can use the name BarCampLondon – that is something anyone can decide to use. There are, however, a number of members who are interested in running future BarCamps, but they do this individually not as members of the BCLPA. Membership of the BCLPA is only indicative of your interest in how BarCamps are planned and run.
To clarify, the role of the BCLPA is purely advisory and assistance to planners of Camps in and around London. We actively encourage people to go ahead and plan BarCamps (including future BarCampLondons) without being a member of the association. We are sorry if there has been any confusion over this.
If you are organising a Camp in or around London and you do want some of the assistance that the BCLPA can provide, or you are interested in becoming a member to help out others please feel free to contact Emma Persky (emma.persky@gmail.com / @emmapersky).