Nollind Whachell

Cya around! Uh, maybe.

James Torio’s thesis entitled Blogs: A Global Conversation (via Doc Searls).

It’s good to remember people complain about things they care about and are interested in. Companies should only be afraid when customers are not saying anything at all.

And therefore you can say that since I’ve complained about a hell of a lot in the past, it is only because I cared a hell of a lot. I mean if I didn’t care, why complain right?

One of the reasons I spent so much time researching my ideas and sharing them on this weblog was that I hoped it would eventually lead to getting a job with someone. I assumed that once people read my ideas, they would see that I was passionate about them and would want to hire that passion to work on projects of a similar nature (i.e. building online communities, social software, etc).

Well not only did no one take interest in hiring me but very few took interest in what I had to say, at least as far as I can tell anyways because very few people care to comment on my ideas and thoughts on my site. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m too far out there with my thoughts or what, as I’m usually talking about future thinking stuff. I mean I’ve even considered removing the “comments” link from posts because I mean what’s the fricken point right if barely anyone is commenting? Anyways, I’ll keep them in for now to see if my radical deviation in flight trajectory has peaked anyone’s interest at all.

And finally I’ve decided what the hell, I’ll throw up my resume (ZIP’d PDF 57K) online as well to let people take a look at it. Personally I think it’s crap and doesn’t justify what I’ve done in the past. So why not just change it? Because that’s the hard part. How do I show that I’m more of an idea person than a technological person? Resumes usually focus on showing off your technological skill sets but that isn’t my greatest strength. My greatest ability seems to come from being able to help a company solve problems throughout the entire company (not just with web development work) by coming up with ideas that provide solutions for them. For example, here’s an excerpt I sent to someone in an email about what I did in my last major role within a company.

Now the strange thing to note is that my transition to Senior Web Developer while happening quickly, almost occurred naturally (which is why the official title came later). In addition, as I’ll explain below, it is also why I had so many other official and unofficial titles in the company. You see I became the unofficial team lead first because people naturally seemed to gravitate to me for advice and guidance with regards to problems or doubts they may have been having. It wasn’t like I was looking to be the team lead (or even thinking about it). I instead just focused on helping as many people in the company as I could because that’s what I liked doing. And this is why I later got titles like Usability & Community Architect and also became a Business Advisor for the company as well. Actually management themselves were even having a difficult time because they couldn’t figure out what the hell to give me as a single title because I did so many things for them besides just web work. For example, a typical day for me might be doing my own web work, helping other developers with their own work, making recommendations to the Project Manager on a course of action on an existing project as well as stating the needed requirements of information for upcoming projects, assisting staff with computer/printer problems, setting up computers for new staff members, assisting management with creating a streamlined operations process, doing research on new upcoming web technologies and software, assisting the marketing people in reviewing their client proposals, counselling people with regards frustrations they were having at a company level, and, most importantly of all, helping in guiding the overall direction and goals of the company. And that’s only the stuff I can remember off the top of my head. 🙂

Now the really funny thing in all of this is that people would always tell me that I’m an amazingly talented individual.

Um, whoopdie do! What good is talent if it can’t be utilized?

That’s pretty much how I feel like right now. I’ve got all these ideas in my head and there is no outlet for them.

I would love to work with others on projects but I need to get paid so I can pay the bills.

That pretty much scratches out working with just a few individuals on our own because everyone would have to support themselves till the project came to fruitition.

Therefore, my only real option left is to go work at a company. And again we’re right back where we started.

How do I show my ability and talent on a resume when I have a hard time trying to explain it myself?

I can sit there and tell stories about myself all day which is exactly what I would love to do because those stories help communicate what I did better than a resume ever could.

Grrr, it’s so frustrating. I’m sick of this. Oh well, whatever. Back to getting a part-time job again I guess to tie me over till I can find something better.

I’m sick of this. Blogging that is. Or maybe more aptly what it should be. From now I’m going to write whatever I have on my mind. Therefore, as noted in my sidebar warning, please feel free to jump ship anytime you’d care to because it may be a bumpy ride ahead.

First off. I’m depressed. No I’m not suicidal or anything. Craig is though. Which is why I went over to talk to him on his site. And in talking to him, in letting out my own feelings, I realized what I had to do. I had to start opening up and just letting all the crap that’s been building up inside of me out.

I’m sick of how I’m supposed to blog in a certain way for the convenience of everyone else. This site is for myself first and foremost. I love and value hearing people’s feedback on things that I write about but you just have to realize that I’m unloading all of my thoughts and feelings more for myself than for you.

Second of all I’m totally sick of how people seem to keep raving about how technology (i.e. Web 2.0) is going to make the world a better place. It isn’t technology that is going to change the world, it is people like you and me that are going to do it. Therefore, if you’re looking for more posts on technology you probably won’t find many here in future. I’ll be sticking to my ideas more than technological plumbing as much as possible from now on.

Anyways, I have no idea where I’m going to go from here but, as I said above, get ready for a bumpy ride.

How’d you sleep?

Sweet dreams…

Permaculture research reveals that this stability is achieved only through a complex network of connections…”functional connections” between elements in the total system. The more functional connections a system has, the more sustainable it becomes.

Ok, it’s statements like the one above, from permaearth.org, that literally blow me away and freak me out at the same time. I mean doesn’t that description above, of permaculture, sound exactly like the Web?

One thing I’d like to add to this. Not only does the system become more sustainable but it becomes more usable and valuable.

So if you haven’t deduced what I’ve been talking about in my last ten posts yet (which means my RSS feed won’t show them all probably) then here is the answer. I’ve been talking about the ten principles of permaculture and I’ll elaborate more later as to why I think this topic literally gives community development on the Web a whole new meaning and outlook. That’s right. As I said before, the future is not so much a change of technology as much as a change of thinking. Utilizing permaculture, you are changing the way you think about the Web so that you are no longer just a single site on the Web but a site within an entire Web “ecosystem”. What I find interesting about this approach is that some people are already applying these principles to their sites without even being aware of the encompassing principle that they are trying to work towards.

An important and often overlooked function of design is to inform people about their environment and help them understand it. Frequently, for example, the means of technology are hidden behind false building shells, across town in ‘someone else’s back yard’, or in our own utility rooms and basements. Water and food flow in and out of the house and community with little knowledge of how it got there or where it is going. People have lost touch with how technology supports us and how it, in turn, is interconnected with the natural world.

Much of the problem with contemporary design as an informative and educational tool is that it deals more with image than with substance. In this it is reflective of patterns of marketing, advertising, consumption, entertainment and political discourse. It tends toward homogenization across broad geographical and cultural regions. The end result of such trends is to have a singular global economy and culture attuned to standardized mass produced design elements. Form, and much that we see around us bears this out, reflects simplification and loss of diversity. Counter to the push toward globalization is the resistance of people who feel a social and spiritual need for a sense of place and expression of regional, community and personal identity. Designs that grow from consideration of natural systems and forces have the ability to reflect the place and the individual.

People have lost touch with how technology works but only because it is becoming more and more complex I believe. However, there are examples where this isn’t always true. Look at RSS for example. It is very simple technology to use and you can see its inner workings if you so choose to do so. When you have such an easy technology to use, you can then easily start building things with it, assuming you change your thinking to be perceptive to these ideas. My “connected communities” approach is one such idea that can be easily accomplished using the simple technology of RSS.

Now when I read the words in the second paragraph that say contemporary design deals “more with image than with substance” I had to laugh again at the truth to those words. Real design is not about how pretty something looks, it is more about the proper placement of those elements upon the site so that the entire experience of using the site becomes an effortless and appealing one as everything just seems to flow and make sense to the user.

BTW I’m seeing more and more designer truly designing amazing sites that aren’t “homogenized” but have their own local feeling, yet they still exist quite well in relation to the other sites that neighbor them within their “community”.

Information and participation replace standardization, power and anonymity of decisions to produce a precise fit between elements and function to meet need. The need for power and standardization to resolve design problems can be countered by substitution of careful observation, acquired knowledge and direct participation. Given adequate information we can achieve precise fits between system and function and make design more closely related to particular user needs. This information may be applied in initial shaping of the environment or during operation and use where feedback may be used.

For much of history design has been an intuitive part of culture. People understood their regions and communities and knew the design templates that would work. More recently, design professions have supplanted intuitive design processes.

Ok there are a couple of really important things being said here. The first quote, which may seem confusing, is really just saying design your environment to suit your taste and approach (but obviously still consider your neighboring sites as mentioned before). In other words, think local vs global. Or if you’ve read any books on designing online communities, most will tell you to build your community based upon the focus of the community itself. In other words, don’t use a cookie cutter approach. Just because another site is using a certain structure and design, it doesn’t mean that same design will work for your site and its community. Figure out your needs or focus and design your site based upon them.

The second thing said here in the next quote is something I’ve seen recently elsewhere actually. It is basically saying that the average person can understand design. However, I believe they often can’t because of the faster paced world we are living in. To understand design, all you need to do is to slow down and observe what is going on upon your site and those neighboring sites around you. Often times people don’t have the time to do this, thus they leave it up to the experts who do focus most of their time to observing and learning these things.

BTW I just remembered one more thing. This local vs global issue is one that I’ve been noticing quite a lot with regards to tagging or categorizing my content. Basically I found tagging my content, say using global Technorati tags, to be pretty much useless for me on a local level because the tag groupings become less useful to me the more I have of them. Instead I find that categorizing my content into meaningful topics works much better. That way each category tag is almost like a discussion thread that someone can follow like reading a story.