continuous partial attention

The day I lived! And ignore the butterfly.

Happy Halloween everyone! I used to hate this hallowday (sorry, couldn't halp it) but now I celebrate it as the day I survived.

Five years ago today, at 6:47pm est, I was walking across a street on the way to dinner when I was struck by a car going 40mph by a drunk college student going from one party to another. I flew over the 30 feet or so (I'd have to check the records) and was going in and out of consiousness for about 40 minutes until the ambulance came. My clothing (including an awesome and brand new sweater I had just gotten for my birthday! ) was unceremoniously ripped off of me by the paramedics rather dissimilarly to the way I had imagined and hoped it might happen that night. I was taken to the hospital where I was given a clean bill health and walked out a few hours later! I had to borrow some clothing from a few friends.

This was an event that changed the course of my life. And it's totally awesome memory! It also changed my outlook on Halloween. It's the day I survived!

Given the circumstances of the accident, and the fact that I suffered no major physical injuries other then really painful bruising (in the following days), led many to consider the event miraculous. From what I've been told however, most people on campus hadn't heard that I actually survived. Apparently I still haunt the place.

To be honest, I would have preferred the physical damage.

The damage from the accident was mental. And thank god for it! If it weren't for the brain damage, I would never have pulled out of school the next semester. I would never have run into the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence, the Acceleration Studies Foundation, nor had time to obsess over all this open source, blogging, and social networking stuff!

The day I survived led to the rest of my life. So, thank the gods for drunk driving, brain damage, and Halloween!

In other news, if you frequent my site you may notice a few changes. First of all, it's no longer blue, but red! Also, there's a pretty butterfly in the top right corner. Ignore the butterfly. I like the overall color scheme, and am thinking about revamping my web presence and the butterfly is helping me in my thinking. Ignore the butterfly.

You may also notice a new widget to the top right. It's a countdown to my next surgery. This will be number thirty.. something on my vocal chords since I was an infant. I lost count after I passed thirty.

For many, this would be something to be sad about. I find it life affirming. And funny. Very funny.

Each time I have surgery, there's a remote chance I might not wake up from the anesthesia. This is a reality I've faced since I was young. It's never something I've feared. (Needles on the other hand...) To be honest, I've almost grown to enjoy my hospital visits in some perverse way! Save for having to deal with insurance.. That completely ruins the experience.

Why am I blogging this? Because each surgery I've had has been a day I've survived. I've had more brushes with death than I can even count, and each one has given me an appreciation for life that I'm thankful for without words, and a morbid sense of humor that it pains me to have to reign in around most company.

Also, I wanted to explain the widget. It's my way to celebrate! Ignore the butterfly.

Tags: surgery, halloween, life, celebration

Coworking Atlanta. Let's do this!

As I mentioned previously, Coworking is something that's been on my mind for a bit.

So what is Coworking exactly? From the Coworking Community Blog:

"Coworking is a movement to create a community of cafe-like collaboration spaces for developers, writers and independents."

This can take a number of forms, from a bunch of people getting together at a cafe (with open wifi), someone's home, or a shared community space in order to get work done.

I've had conversations over the last few weeks with a number of people (too many to mention here) about coworking, and there seems to be a lot of interest. Also, given the level of social media connectivity that's  (finally!!) forming in Atlanta, the time seems to be right for coworking to start happening.

Why do I want this?

If you know me, you know that I'm really into the stuff I work on! I'm big on understanding where the world/web is going, and I'm even bigger on using this knowledge to mobilize communities to make a difference. I'm lucky enough to be working with a team of people who share many of my goals, philosophies, and values, but as we're a virtual team I often feel like I'm missing out on the type of community that being a part of a physical workplace brings.

Bottom line? Working at home sucks. It can be lonely sometimes (not to mention difficult to self motivate) and I want more exposure to a diverse range of people who are as passionate about what they do as I am! (Srsly!!)

Secondly, we often talk about "Web 2.0" and social media as not being about technology, but being about culture. Social media is both a product of cultural change as well as a catalyst for change that's driven by people. For the past two year, it's been difficult being a social media consultant in Atlanta because the city has been so far behind the learning curve.

I think this is rapidly changing. It's becoming much easier to talk about blogs, open source, virtual worlds, etc with people, and we're beginning to see lots of interest in events around said topics and using said mediums. We've had a number of unconferences this year including (but not limited to!) SoCon07, Podcamp, and most recently a Barcamp! I look out at the what's going on in this city, and I see that there's a lot of connectivity between creatives of all types (software developers, artists, entrepreneurs, bloggers, etc) and a thirst for even more community, interaction, and the personal and professional opportunities these would bring.

Historically, it's been difficult for creatives in this city to form such a community because there are too many centers. Atlanta is the poster child for urban sprawl, and until last year I didn't even realize that there was anything to do! Let alone people to meet. But now things are so interconnected that I think we can finally start connecting the dots here.

So, let's do this!

What's next?

Amusingly, while doing a bit of research for this post, I found that someone beat me to the punch! Last friday was the first meeting of a group of coworkers under the banner of Jelly led by one Kristyn Shayon and attended by a number of people I know! So there's already one coworking group within the Perimeter! The next meeting is on Friday, November 16th and you can go to the groups wiki to rsvp.

Secondly, I've talked to a number of my colleagues at What a Concept! and we're going to start having coworking sessions as a company on the north side of Atlanta (From Buckhead all the way up to Sandy Springs, Alpheretta, maybe Kennasaw, etc.) We think it would be really cool to extend an invitation to anyone who would like to join us! We'll be posting details on our company blog in the next few days.

Eventually, I'd like to have a coworking space that we can call our own. Check out Citizen Space in San Francisco to see an example of what I have in mind! Of course, placement is difficult due to urban sprawl... and first things first: bringing the community together.

So rather then try and centralize the Atlanta coworking community to a single place or under a single banner, I'm proposing that we use Yahoo's Upcoming event service so that anyone can post coworking events to a shared calendar. I've created a Coworking Atlanta group, and hope that everyone interested in organizing coworking events will join me in posting their events to this calendar. Join the Atlanta Coworking group on Upcoming, and link to it with the words "Atlanta Coworking" (like I just did) so it will be easily googleible. (And don't tell me that's not a word, Sherry.)

As mentioned in the block quote earlier, coworking is a movement that's gaining steam in cities all over the place. If you're interested in learning more and becoming involved in the larger conversation, there's a blog at coworking.info, a wiki at wiki.coworking.info, and a coworking google group where you can connect with members of the global coworking community.

Lastly, if you're planning on blogging about coworking activities in Atlanta, posting coworking pictures on flickr, social bookmarking, etc: I propose we use the following tag scheme: coworkingatlanta, coworking, atlanta.

Tags: coworkingatlanta, coworking, atlanta, community, social media

Fires in Southern California

As I blog, the fires in southern California are all over the news and on the front page of everywhere! Of all the things I'd have liked to replace Georgia's drought problem in the news, this was not among them.

A friend of mine in Cali is Twittering some social media disaster relief efforts that I wanted to share forward. If you know anyone in southern california near the fires, this might be helpful.

The Las Angeles Fire Department is Twittering fire updates.

Someone has created a google maps of the fires with emergency centers, and evacuation routes, and more! Click on "View Larger Map" to go to the full google maps pages.

View Larger Map

A mapped timeline of how the fires have spread:

View Larger Map

I wonder if there is a way to find out how much impact these tools are actually having at this time. Their promise is immense, and I'm hopeful that we will continue to see more of this type of activity occur when disasters happen. This is the type of creative use of social media tools that can save lives!

Tags: sandiego fire, disaster recovery, recovery 2.0, google maps

Barcamp Atlanta Followup

Following Barcamp I slept 15 hours (after having been up for over 30!!) and then jumped straight to working on projects, and I haven't yet had a chance to post a followup until tonight!

My overall impression is that this is exactly the type of event we need to see more of in Atlanta! This was a very different group from what I've seen at past events focused on social media in Atlanta where there's traditionally been more of a business community presence. (It's Atlanta. We do things a bit differently here.) This event was totally geek, and seemed to draw from diverse range of interests and expertise! We definitely need more of this. We need more of this, and often.

Among the highlights (if anyone knows the names of people I mention in these bullet points, let me know so I can link them!):

• Dinner on the top of the ATDC parking deck. The sunset was absolutely gorgeous, especially with how the sunlight reflected off of nearby skyscrapers in downtown.
  
• Someone brought an XO Laptop (one laptop per child project laptop). As far as I'm concerned, no Barcamp is complete without one!
• Talks on space travel, venture capital, and the energy politics. All by Stephen Fleming! He's one smart dude, and reminds me of some of my favorite people in places like Boston. ;)
  
• Playing a board game and finally giving up because no one could harvest enough resources to build enough buildings to get enough points to build a society to end the game.
• Lots of discussions about the Facebook platform.
• Creating ad-hoc presentations/discussions with people who's names I hadn't even learned yet.
• Blow darts!
• Wiimote music!! This was seriously awesome! (Srsly, If anyone knows this guys contact info, let me know.)
• Staying up till odd hours of the morning with smart people talking about gis technology, politics, linux, and art!
• Dave Coustan had the absolute coolest Google Reader shirt! I wants it. It will be mine one way or another.

My sessions went great. The first was the discussion on the open social graph/social network portability that Toby Ho and I hacked together the night before. A number of people joined us, and I thought there was some good discussion.

My second session was the one I sensationalistically entited "The Future of Democracy: Social Software, Law, Gaming, UI design, and You." Unfortunately, half an hour isn't enough time to make these connections and then shift to discussion and Q&A. By the time I got to stopping point, the time was up! The feedback afterwards was very positive though, and I can't wait until I work out my thoughts and examples enough to actually give a more formal presentation! David Cohen blogged a great summary of my session.

The third session was one on coworking attended by Sam Shenkman-Moore and... myself. Both of us are interested in coworking, know a bunch of people who are also interested in coworking, and so we talked about the steps to creating a coworking community. And I may have a plan. Stay tuned for that.

What would I like to see at the next BarCamp? Definitely more time per session. More freedom for guided discussion that only a schedule stickler can provide. Not necessarily someone herding people to sessions, but at least making people aware of when sessions start and stop and what's going on. I paradoxically found the chaos a little restrictive. Lastly, more closure at the end. That's how I like my storybooks, and this was definitely a geek story book weekend!

Kudos to Jeff Haynie and everyone else who had a hand in organizing the event and making it the wonderful experience it was. And because I haven't mentioned them in this post yet, here's a shoutout to Michael Mealing, Lance Weatherby, Jesse Newland, Chris Martin, Michael Ivey, Selah Abrams, and Brian Pitts!

BarCamp Atl: Session Planning 1

The sessions have ended for the night and we've moved into the main networking part of the night!

I'm currently working with Toby Ho on the Social Network Portability session tomorrow. We're looking through converations about this topic that have been happening the past few weeks.

We're probably going to be stealing borrowing using part of this presentation that Tantek Celik gave a little more then a week ago. (Public domain FTW!)

Toby and I both prefer more open discussions rather then formal presentations, so we're doing a mindmap to get key points out of the way and set the stage for the discussion as quickly and clearly as possible.

Actually, here's an idea. For presentations and blog posts and other things we might want to share for our session, let's use the barcampatl tag on del.icio.us.

BarCamp Atlanta!

I'm really excited that BarCamp has FINALLY come to Atlanta! It feels great to have the unconference flavor in my own backyard for a change rather then have to fly elsewhere to be amongst my peeps!

So far, I've attended two sessions: one on OpenID, and the current one on the technical ramifications of privatized space travel. Dave Coustan is currently in another room giving a talk on creating corporate blogs that doesn't suck, a topic of which he has much experience. :)

During dinner, (which was on the roof of ATDC's parking garage) I spotted someone with an XO laptop, which is the computer created for the One Laptop Per Child Project. A mob of us convinced him to give a demo tomorrow. Totally excited about that!

I've signed up to facilitate a session tomorrow I've titled The Future of Democracy: Social Software, Law, Gaming, UI Design, and You. In typical Barcamp fashion, I have nothing prepared for it yet.

I may also be co-facilitating a session on Social Network Portability in the morning. We'll likely be cannibalizing presentations given this past week at the Graphing Social Patterns Conference. Ad-hoc presentations are the best!

Here's the Flickr page for the BarCamp Atlanta photo pool that I'm posting photos to.