Month: February 2007

Graham Chastney 2.0

Jimmy and Grandad have a problemIt seems to be really popular these days to create a 2.0 of everything, so I was wondering whether I ought to think about a Graham Chastney 2.0.

It’s proved to be an interesting question.

If I could move from a Version 1.0 me to a Version 2.0 me what would change.

As with the whole Web 2.0 thing, nothing would go away, it would just be added to. So Graham Chastney 2.0 would be Graham Chastney 1.0 with a load of additional services. I’d still have to do all of the old things that I used to do, but I’d have a whole load of new things to do each ending in ‘r’.

Graham Chastney 1.0 needs sleep – Graham Chastney 2.0 would have sleepr. Web 2.0 services are better than Web 1.0 services because they are more interactive and so sleepr would be better than sleep because I would still be awake, allowing people to interact. Because I would still need to support sleep, I would still do that during the night, sleepr would be an extra service that I would offer during other hours.

Graham Chastney 1.0 needs exercise – Graham Chastney 2.0 would have exerciser. Exerciser, being an interactive service would only be available as a team experience.

Graham Chastney 1.0 needs his family – Graham Chastney 2.0 would have familyr. Because family is already quite interactive, familyr would bring in a whole new set of capabilities aimed at creating social networks extending beyond family. This would simply be a closer integration of the friends service and the family service. Perhaps it’s tag line would be familyr = family + friends.

Graham Chastney 1.0 works in an online and offline manner currently. In order to deliver the extra capabilities required for Graham Chastney 2.0, these service would only be available online.

The information that is currently being processed by Graham Chastney 1.0 is not that easy to get to, particularly the personal reflections that are kept in the journal. In Graham Chastney 2.0 journal would be enhanced by a new service journalr. Journalr would be available via RSS to anyone who wants access. They would also be able to comment on journalr and see everyone else’s comments.

(Perhaps I’ll stick with Graham Chastney 1.0)

Count Your Blessings #96 – The Shower

Waves at La Palud

It’s late here in the UK and I’m still working, 22:00 to be precise. One of the joys of working in a global role within a global organisation is that sometimes you have to join calls with people in different time zones.

Not only is it late, but I’m also tired and have a headache. I’ve already taken some paracetamol but it is only numbing the pain rather than taking it away altogether.

When I have finished this call I am looking forward to leaving this desk, releasing my hands from the keyboard and getting into the shower. Standing in the shower I know that my headache will subside and the tight muscles in my neck will relax.

A few years ago now, when we moved house, one of the things we looked for was a good shower. The shower in our current home has certainly lived up to our requirements.

I have spent hundreds of hours stood in showers over the years, and I don’t regret any of them. Standing in the flow is so therapeutic that it is very precious indeed.

Sometimes I stand in the shower and imagine that I am sat beneath a waterfall.

Sometimes I imagine that the show is a wave crashing over me.

Standing there I am taken out of my immediate surroundings and taken to a much more relaxed place.

The shower is also a great place to think. There are many times when I am trying to get my head around something that a shower provides the answer.

“Everyone who’s ever taken a shower has an idea. It’s the person who gets out of the shower, dries off and does something about it who makes a difference.”

Nolan Bushnell

Most Popular Pages

Jimmy blags a rideThe two pages on this site which get the most hits are as follows:

Thought you might like to know, just in case you are missing out on something important they might be saying.

The strange thing is, having mentioned this fact I have now completely skewed the statistics. Oops.

Oh and also I’ve been really busy recently so wanted to say something just incase you all thought I’d gone to sleep.

Where will my data be in 5 years time? (Part 3)

Jimmy and Grandad have a problemWhy bother thinking about the data?

Why not think about the applications you will be using?

The reason I want to consider the data is that the data is the important part, I’ll explain why.

An application is a representation of data. Different applications reflect different things about the data. Different applications also allow the data to be manipulated in different ways. This, of course, requires the data to be available to the applications, but also to be stored in a format that the application can understand.

My primary example of this is the humble JPG image file. I have a digital camera the creates JPG files. Once I’ve created the image on the camera I copy it to one of the PC’s in the house. having got it to a place where it is available to the applications I use a whole array of applications to do things with the data:

  • If I want to send it to someone I use Outlook, compose an e-mail, and attach the picture. At the point Outlook asks me if I want to send the image in any one of an array of sizes. I don’t have to use one application to resize it and another to send it. I can do it all in one.
  • If I want to view the images in a slideshow I seem to have lots of choices. My preference is to use the capabilities that are included within the software that Canon make available with the camera.
  • If I want to manipulate the picture I have another set of choices.
  • I can also add the picture to other documents.
  • I might also post it to flickr where they will present it in a number of sizes.

In other words, the data is not dependent upon the application for it’s existence, but the application is dependent upon the data.

What most of these applications have in common is that they are expecting the data to be available on a file service, and they are expecting it to be a specific format.

The one application that is different is flickr. Flickr doesn’t expect the data to be on a file service. It expects the data to be copied to it’s data store before it can be used by that application. Once available within the flickr data store the flickr platform does a reasonable job of making it available to other web applications, but these are all extension to the flickr application.

If I wanted to use a different application to flickr (that did a similar thing) I would need to reload the data. The new application might provide some form of migration or move capability, but I’ve not seen any examples of it yet.

So what’s the result? the result is that I keep a copy of all of my pictures on local hard disks so that if I wanted to shut of flickr I still have my data. I’m not yet in a position where I am happy having any of my data locked into an online service. It’s fine as an application which has its own copy of the data, but it’s not going to become the owner of my data.

And that is one of the problems with Web 2.0 applications.

 

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Google Makes Friends with Feedburner

Jimmy and Grandad wait patientlyMy Feedburner statistics took a little jump this week when they started reporting the number of Google Reader subscribers.

Previously these have appeared as a single entry because Feedburner couldn’t distinguish individual users – now I can see that I have some Google subscribers. 

 

Where will my data be in 5 years time? (Part 2)

An interesting view of why it’s all changing:

Where will my data be in 5 years time? (Part 1)

Public FootpathI’ve written a few times about the future of the shared file server (here, here, here). This has got me thinking about the future of data. Where will it be in 5 years time? Where will it be in 10 years time?

I’ve been around long enough to remember discussions over the excesses of 20MB hard disks (and yes I do mean Mega Bytes). I’m currently sitting here with:

  • A smartphone which has a 2GB memory card in it.
  • A tablet PC with a 40GB hard disk.
  • A desktop PC with 360GB of disk storage.
  • Downstairs there is another desktop PC with 100GB of disk space
  • Jonathan carries around a laptop with a 60GB hard disk in it.

I also have a load of online data:

  • This blog is actually only about 20MB but that’s because:
  • My flickr site has 1200 photos stored.

I have hundreds of CD’s and DVD’s. I have hundreds of books and papers too.

And that’s just Graham Chastney the consumer, there’s another laptop with a 20GB hard disk in it on which I do my work.

There are some things about this configuration that I love, and some that worry me.

But will this still be the case in 5 or 10 years time?

What would make me change? Is there a compelling reason to change? Would I ever give all of this data over to Google, or Microsoft, or anyone else? What would they have to give me to make that happen? Would I be willing to pay for it?

The return of the Highlight Report

Waves at La PaludOnce upon a time I produced a highlight report every week and it went to one person – my boss. Over time I become embedded within in matrix organisation where there was no-one to demand a highlight report. So I stopped doing highlight reports.

A few years ago I was involved in a team where we were moving quite fast on things and we wanted to keep each other up-to speed with how we were getting on. We recreated the concept of the highlight report as a mechanism for communicating within the team. Steve wrote about this some time ago.

I’m now working in a globally distributed matrix set of teams where communication is an issue. Steve has been badgering me to get back into writing a highlight report, and so have others. So this week I returned to writing highlight reports.

I’d prefer to be writing an internal blog, but the infrastructure just isn’t available so the highlight report will have to do for now.

The benefits of a highlight report weren’t just communication though. One of the feelings I’ve been having recently is that I’ve not been making much progress on things, writing a highlight report made me realise how much I had achieved.

Sometimes it’s the basic disciplines that make the difference.

Computer Based Training

Chateau de DinanA significant proportion of the Leadership Development training that I am doing at the moment is Computer Based Training (CBT). My immediate reaction to CBT is negative. It strikes me as a very dull way of learning. My preferred learning styles are more traditional:

  • Give me a book to read and I’ll read it and learn from it.
  • Put me in a team of people working through a problem and I’ll learn.
  • Put me in a traditional lecture with a good speaker and I’ll learn.

CBT doesn’t do any of these three things. I’ve done a number of CBT courses and they always go something like this:

  • Picture on screen that is there for purely aesthetic reasons.
  • Words on screen that are read by a voice that is not great. It’s easily understood, but it has no character.
  • Every few seconds you are expected to press some form of “Next” button.

It’s quite a lot like having a dull presenter read you through a bulleted PowerPoint presentation.

Every now and then they try to spice it up by adding in a little quiz.

Knowing that I had at least 4 hours of CBT ahead of me I was determined to break through this problem and learn something. I wasn’t going to sleep walk through.

The answer was surprisingly simple in the end.

I envisioned the CBT as a dull speaker in a traditional lecture. I have a method for dealing with this situation – I take lots of notes normally in the form of mind maps. I’ll never refer to these notes ever again, but the very act of taking the notes keeps my brain awake and helps me to learn.

I discovered that being left handed was a significant advantage especially as I have grown up using my right hand for the mouse. This orientation meant that I could take notes with one hand while clicking “next” with the other.

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Leadership Orientation – Dreamer?

DovedaleI’ve been doing some Leadership Development training recently, with more to come throughout the year. I’m actually enjoying it, the main reason is because I’m learning and I enjoy learning.

Yesterday I sat through a session on leadership styles. I know there are loads of different ways the people classify this. The particular one we were looking at was one which used four classifications:

  • Director
  • Relator
  • Motivator
  • Dreamer

Having gone through some of the assessment that was included in the session it would appear that my primary focus is that of “Dreamer”.

My initial reaction to this was not great. Within the British context (not sure about other cultural context) a “Dreamer” is someone who gets nothing done. A “Dreamer” is not a great thing to be when you are talking about leadership. Continuing through the sessions though, I become more comfortable with being a “Dreamer” because the meaning was different to the meaning I first gave it.

A “Dreamer” is someone who is forward looking and sees the broad picture, they also have the ability to imagine the ideal. A “Dreamer” sees what others do not see.

The other thing I learnt was that I’m supposed to balance my “Relator” style by being more of a “Relator”. The thing about the “Relator” is that they are “easily approachable”, now there’s a challenge!

Count Your Blessings #95 – Walking into the Light

IMG_1566I have something of a routine for weekday mornings. This routine often involves a good long walk before I start work.

For the last few months this walk has been completely in the dark. Leave in the dark, come back in the dark. Everything is still shut down. Not much wildlife can be bothered to out and about in the cold and the dark. Neighbours walking their dogs are just black shadows somewhere in the distance.

Today was different.

Today I left in the dark, but I came back in the light. Today the birds were in a spiraling competition to have the loudest call. Blackbird alarm calls were shooting off in every direction. Today the rabbits white tails were bobbing across the grass seeking cover. Today there was a slight glisten on the brook.

Today I walked into the light. 

Walking is so rich with meaning – the changing of the light seemed to bring these meanings into clear focus.

Walking means steady progress. Each step forward is a step forward, it’s not a radical painful wrench it’s a step forward. Each step forward was a step into a new day with new opportunities.

Walking means rhythm. Each step was followed by another step, and another. Each day’s walk is a step further in the rhythm of the seasons. Last week I walked in the dark. This week I leave in the light and come back in the dark. Next week I will probably leave in the light and come back in the light.

As I was walking I was reminded of a Bob Dylan song:

Well I’m pressing on
Yes, I’m pressing on
Well I’m pressing on
To the higher calling of my Lord.

Many try to stop me, shake me up in my mind,
Say, “Prove to me that He is Lord, show me a sign.”
What kind of sign they need when it all come from within,
When what’s lost has been found, what’s to come has already been?

Well I’m pressing on
Yes, I’m pressing on
Well I’m pressing on
To the higher calling of my Lord.

Shake the dust off of your feet, don’t look back.
Nothing now can hold you down, nothing that you lack.
Temptation’s not an easy thing, Adam given the devil reign
Because he sinned I got no choice, it run in my vein.

Well I’m pressing on
Yes, I’m pressing on
Well I’m pressing on
To the higher calling of my Lord.