Availability Management

July 26th, 2009, 10:34 am 4 comments

This might well be a topic that’s been beaten to death, but I’ve been thinking lately about the new ways in which we’re managing in a hyper-connected culture. It hit me yesterday while I was waiting for my huevos rancheros that I wanted to “dm” someone through foursquare. Someone whose number I think I actually have in my phone, and whose email I could surely obtain in seconds. So, why the hell would I want to do that?

Context.

We are building a system of unspoken (though possibly over blogged, sorry) rules around these services. When is it appropriate to publicize your activity through twitter, through foursquare, through facebook? Where are the subtle differences between your facebook friends, your twitter follows, your LinkedIn contacts, and your foursquare connections?

We are starting to do some subtle filtering, not through sub-groups on any of these services, but by the services themselves. (Though I do know several people with secret, private twitter and facebook accounts for this reason) Where this gets really interesting to me is around availability management. In other words, how to give people the appropriate access to you, by varying levels of information sharing and enabling direct contact, and more so, how to revoke that?

I’ll admit, I text like a teenage girl. If I had been born 15 years later, it would have been my cell phone bill that got me in trouble instead of the BBS changes on the phone bill. Same impulse.

Texting is often my primary form of communication with friends, family, and coworkers, and those who know me well know that a phone call often can’t be answered, I loathe voicemail, and emails get buried quickly. However, I have this little device in my hand or on my person at all times, and if I’ve given you access, you can make it buzz at me – and you’ll usually get a brief, but immediate response. That’s a lot of access to give someone. It’s the universal bypass.

So like many of you, I don’t hand out those digits all over the internet. (Though I’m still deathly curious – does anyone still get unwanted phone calls from strangers, not telemarketers, but people who want access to you for something specific? It might just be the bubble I’ve been in, but first (personal, not business) contact through phone calls is starting to seem very foreign)

However, I essentially HAVE given that access over to the 847 folks I’m following on twitter, who have the ability to reach out and ping me immediately. And judging by my 3,665 direct messages, I use this method *a lot*.

I believe two factors come into play here:
1) Courtesy
2) Revocation

Courtesy
As for courtesy, we are unlikely to send a text message out of the blue to someone who do not have a close connection with. We know for sure that this is invasive. We know how they will receive this message and that, if you are not in their contacts list already, you will show up as a phone number. It lacks context. It lacks an immediate link to qualify you and your identity. It can be jarring.

There is a plausible deniability to direct messages. Perhaps the person you’re sending to does not take dms as text messages. Perhaps they will only see this in a desktop client or on email or by manually checking the page. You are assuring that you are communicating with them only in a manner in which they have (generally but explicitly) allowed. You are also giving them the space to take more time answering, since you cannot know how quickly they have received this message.

Revocation
Ok, here’s the interesting one for me. Once someone has your number, they have it. You cannot turn off their ability to contact you with it, short of blocking them or changing numbers. There is no revocation for ‘direct’ contact.

I have complete revocation powers with services-based contacts, and it only requires changing settings on my management layer with the service, not to my endpoint (my phone number). If I wanted to disassociate my phone completely from twitter, I could. If I wanted to just stop receiving direct messages as text messages, I could. And I have simple, rapid control over exactly who can contact me directly from it, which can be revoked and reinstated at will (though will probably cause some confusion).

So, we’re filtering and adding context to our communications by exchanging mobile services info instead of phone numbers, facebook profiles instead of emails. The privacy, security, and identity implications of this would be an entire other post, but as a concept, I like this. We NEED these filters as we blow Dunbar’s number out of the water by an order of magnitude.

The interesting question is how we adapt this and expand the idea in other services. If services develop their products with the concepts of context and revocation in mind, what will they do differently? Some have already done this (remember the “ex-girlfriend bug” in Dodgeball?) Why doesn’t anything now have quite the same way to silently manage who gets your updates?

So how ’bout it, foursquare, can I have a way to privately message from mobile the exact group of people I’ve identified as my ‘trusted, know-in-person, don’t mind knowing my physical whereabouts, but only while we’re in the same city’ group? I’m sure we’ll figure out a reason to need that soon.

More Changes – Joining up With WorkHabit

September 23rd, 2008, 8:59 pm 11 comments

Only sitting down to write this do I realize it’s been three months since my last couple of posts, almost to the day. A lot happened in the latter half of Summer 2008; Dan revealed his DNS bug to the world, we got his blog up and running, I moved to Seattle, we traveled to Vegas, LA, Mexico, and Texas, I’ve gotten settled in here in Seattle while doing some fun work for Seesmic and others, and I co-organized DrupalCampLA 2008, which had around 300 attendees.

I’ve also missed working with a team. A lot. While I definitely enjoy my solo projects, it’s great to be a part of something bigger. There is little I enjoy more than building things with brilliant, inspiring people.

So when my old friends and Drupal gurus at WorkHabit pulled a cheeky stunt and brought me my own WorkHabit business cards (not to mention 90% of their company) to DrupalCampLA, I didn’t protest too much. It’s a partnership we’ve both wanted to make happen for a while, but other projects, timing, and geography hadn’t really made feasible.

Thankfully, the timing felt right this time, and signing on with absolutely anyone else would have just felt wrong. I’m thrilled to announce that as of October 13th, I’ll be joining WorkHabit as Vice President, Professional Services.

I really couldn’t be more excited to be joining such a strong group of engineering and business minds, and they’ve already shown me a very warm welcome. So, Toorcon, Tokyo, and then my summer vacation is over. :)

Stuff

June 28th, 2008, 12:24 pm 1 comment

The title is not a cop-out, this is a post about stuff. My stuff, specifically.

I’m getting a bit introspective and over-caffeinated, starting in on the pre-moving process. Again. I’ve learned that there is a major difference between moves where you see your stuff the next day, moves where you see your stuff the next week, and moves where you throw everything in a portable box and hedge your bets before getting on a plane.

I’m prepping for that last type again, though there’s going to be a truck involved. I have a reasonable (or unreasonable) amount of experience with this already, but it’s still not easy or worry free. I was 25 the last time I did this, and honestly, the only large item I’ve acquired since then (not counting my car) is one (1) Ikea bookcase (the large, chunky – could also be a bench model). I have still yet to muster the will/acceptance of terms to buy a couch. Couches are symbols of sedentary lifestyles to me. I’m more in the hot-swapping countries camp.

So the process goes something like this:

• Sort everything into “need on a weekly basis”, “comfort items I want to keep”, and “purge”
• Pack, Clean, Pack, repeat as necessary
• Take care of every last lingering piece of paper, to-do item, to-mail item, etc. (This step sucks, btw)
• Freak out a bit, grasp tightly at LA a bit, remember WHY I’m doing this and move forward
• Spend a much caffeinated couple of hours in front of computer changing address on EVERYTHING
• Party with friends I’m going to miss
• Give things away or sell them until it’s just me and the boxes
• Put things in truck, hope for the best
• Put me on plane, ditto

I’ll be traveling up to Seattle via Foo Camp. So if you see me there and think “man, that chick REALLY overpacks” you’ll please understand. We fly up to Seattle on Sunday night and start work again Monday. Last couple of weeks of July will be work-heavy, first couple of weeks of August are owned by Black Hat, Defcon, and some sort of decompression post-con. The plan is to move into a guest-room-enabled place after that, retrieve my stuff, and proceed with a life devoid of 7am Monday morning flights. imagine!

I’ve grown less and less attached to ’stuff’ in general. My books (by replacement cost) are by and large the most expensive thing I own. My bought-for-$200 stainless steel dining table is by far the heaviest, but it’s so solid and versatile (look ma, no coasters!) that I keep moving it. I’ve opted for plastic stacking drawers instead of a dresser. I haven’t owned a couch or a bedframe since 2004. I don’t collect anything but books and plants. (and the plants can’t be moved.) There’s a lot that I keep/move not because the replacement cost, but simply because I don’t like unnecessary buying.

Here’s to starting fresh.

Big Changes and a Bigger Move

June 26th, 2008, 7:41 pm 19 comments

My parents have long learned to, if not worry, at least be curious when I suddenly fall off the radar. It’s true, when I stop pushing photos to flickr, calling every other day, writing here, twittering… it usually means periods of extremely high stress, major projects, and at times, mulling life-sweeping changes.

It’s been radio silence from me for a couple of months now, but decisions are made now and it’s time to come out with it. July 2nd will be my last day at Warner Bros. Records and I’ll be moving to Seattle, WA on July 10th.

These last few months in the Music Industry have been a fantastic learning experience and I’ve gotten to work closely with some truly amazing people. I’ve worked on web promotions for Madonna, the Raconteurs, Disturbed, and V.I.C., and ran point on Mission:Metallica.com. There are some amazing people in the WBR building, and I will miss them, as well as the artist management I’ve worked closely with, terribly.

The move is partly a personal one. As many of you know, my partner, Dan, lives in Seattle and we’ve been commuting over the past year. This is an incredibly exciting and happy time for both of us. I’ve had the chance over the past few years to get to know Seattle like a 2nd home and have already forged bonds with a few barristas up and down Pike St. who don’t know I don’t live there already. Please extend your condolences to Alaska Airlines.

Seattle is also home to a bustling tech scene (more than Microsoft and Amazon), some really fantastic live music, great weather (almost 3 months out of the year!). I attended the first BarCamp Seattle just a couple of weeks ago and met loads of interesting individuals from Microsoft, MySQL, and quite a few entrepreneurs. I hear they also have coffee there.

I’d like to take a wee bit of breather to get settled and attack some long-patient personal projects, but consulting opportunities are already in the works and my schedule is starting to fill out. I do plan to transition to Consulting full time, so if you know anyone looking for some major project management help, CMS implementation/planning, event production, or new media centric brand outreach, I’ll be available for new projects in September.

I will miss Los Angeles like no other. This city has become a true home for me over the last nine years. I know it as well as I think most people ever know it, and adore its layers upon layers of language, culture, and peoples. I hereby commit to a 10 (or maybe 20) favorite things about Los Angeles post here in the near future.

But most of all, I’m going to miss my friends and the community here. It’s no secret anymore that the LA tech scene is buzzing. We’ve seen BarCampLA grow from 100 to 300 attendees since Fall of 2006 when I came back from my stint in Vancouver. Some weeks, you can go geek out with lovely people over drinks 3-4 nights of the week. The start-up scene is firing up. VCs, Journalists, and top talent are taking notice, and LA is really carving out a niche as the rightful home of media-centric technology. New companies like Mahalo, Hulu, Topspin, Gigya, as well as creative branches of many of the media giants are right at home here.

I’m really proud of what we’ve built together. I’m still dedicated to planning DrupalCampLA 2008, and BarCampLA-6 (omg really, 6?) looks like it already has a great crew of new and veteran un-organizers to take it on (but don’t think I’d miss it for the world). Geek Dinner is going strong after 2+ years, Mindshare is all fired up, LA Drupal is becoming a force to be reckoned with, and The Hollywood Hill is doing some amazing events lately… I really hope to make it down soon and often to stay in touch with everything going on here. I <3 LA, indeed.

And most of all, to my friends… everyone I’ve danced all night with, invited out to dinner last minute, dressed up with, cooked for, picnic’d with at Hollywood Forever, brunched with at Millie’s or Lazy Daisy, hiked Runyon Canyon with, drank whiskey with at Seven Grand, seen movies with at the Arclight, wandered Santee Alley or LACMA with, or just taken a minute on a gorgeous day in LA and said “wow.. we actually live here…”… I’m going to miss you all terribly. You know who you are. :)

The good thing is that travel is imminent. I will see you in Seattle (we’ll have a spare room – come see us), Berlin, San Francisco, Tokyo, New York, Mexico, Tennesee, or right back here in Los Angeles. I promise to visit if you do the same.

And lastly, I don’t plan to leave without saying goodbye (for now), so save July 5th. I don’t have details yet, but I’ll be throwing something casual so people can come and go, hang out, chill and have a good time. I’d love if you’d please stop by.

Much love Angelenos,
Crystal

BarCampLA-5 Wrap Up

March 7th, 2008, 8:12 pm 1 comment

You know, we keep thinking that at some point, people are going to get tired of this whole “BarCampLA” thing. Apparently that point hasn’t come yet. *phew!*

This past weekend, about 220 of you joined us at the AOL offices in Beverly Hills for the fifth BarCamp in Los Angeles. We talked about Wordpress, hacking, the Internet Backbone, Computers that may/will take over the world, Ninjas, Zombies, and sandwiches. We played fake guitars (and real ones). We danced with inflatable robots. We rickrolled each other. We ate, we laughed, we talked, and hopefully, we learned some cool stuff in the process.

One of the best feelings I get at these events is when I’ve poked my head into the room to give a 5 minute time warning, and I get a dozen people shooing me away. That happened more than a few times this past weekend, and I can think of no better validation that we’re doing something right here. So thanks, everyone, for showing up, sharing what you know, and soaking up the knowledge and ideas of your peers. It’s always amazing to see what people bring to this.

Ok, enough with the sap, let’s start thanking people.

Travis Savo and Marie Maxey, our in-house hosts from AOL went above and beyond the call of HALP!. When we decided to abandon our potential downtown LA venue because of complications from the LA Marathon (it would have been ugly, folks), Mike Macadaan from AOL answered the call and got this space arranged in under a week. Since Mike couldn’t join us for the weekend, Travis and Marie, veteran BarCampers, volunteered to be our hosts. We couldn’t ask for two nicer people in the world, and much of the credit for the event running as smoothly as it did goes to these guys. Thanks again!

Geoff Emery (Dude, what’s your url?) also jumped into the fray of organizing this time by handling all of our food arrangements, catering orders, etc. If you enjoyed eating, you should thank this man. We did! (Thanks!)

James Cooper was there before I was on Saturday and already had half the chairs moved into rooms. Much, much thanks. We’ll work on that hat, ok? :-)

Jane Lee once again swooped in and picked up the monster load of Saturday’s lunch and the lion’s share of the sodas. The necessary Saturday morning Costco run is one of the biggest logistics “can’t be in two places at once” problems, and twice in a row now, Jane has made that a non-issue. Thank you!

Chris Darbro ensured we all had coffee. Both days. Deserves a medal in some cultures, but isn’t coffee its own reward? (thanks, good sir!)

Eric Hammond – Somewhere a few weeks back, I just started getting a flood of people interested in giving us money to do this. It turns out, Eric sent them our way. Funding these things is always one of the hardest parts. (It’s a what-camp? Bar-what?) I don’t know what you did, man, but thanks! It worked!

Chef JoAnna continues to guide our fooding, even when the catering orders come in looking a little too small to feed the mob outside the kitchen. That woman can wield a knife better than I hope to in a hundred years. Thank you!

A shout-out to the incomparable C.Nelson for bringing you the SMS and flickr projection walls (written on-site!) and the DJ/sound gear. Mucho entertainment. Props to Substandard!

Big thanks to Woody Pewitt, Andy Sternberg, and Mr. Michael Lambie for the kegs, without which, Rock Band would have been better performed and far less popular.

And to Vaughn Hannon, Michael Dorausch, Bronwyn Lewis, and Chris Gagne for just being darn helpful with a bunch of various things. If I’ve forgotten you, please ping me. No slights intended, all help greatly appreciated, and no notes taken (by me). :-)

And finally, there’s this “Jason” character I keep hearing about. Dude… It doesn’t feel right to thank you here, because this is equal sweat, blood, and lolcats. (ok, the LOLcats are *all* Cosper. Actually, if it was spontaneous and glinting of awesome, it was almost surely Cosper) But holyFSM, we did it. Again! BarCampLA-5 was sustained awesome, and I’m so glad we’re on the same team. (psst, folks, the Scoops Ice Cream on Sunday? That was ALL Jason – go mob him with your thanks).

But wait, there’s more!

Sponsors!

A Giant thanks to all of you. You make this event happen!

Venue

AOL – Again, thank you! You guys really came through for us last minute, and it was fantastic.

Sponsors ++

• 3Jane IndieClick

• SpeakTECH
• Qtask zomg.. Cupcakes! Thanks again!
• CyberCoders
• Yahoo Developer Network
• MatchCraft
• Planet Chiropractic
• Oddica
• Ticketmaster
• Streamy

Sponsors

• Hulu
• ::search.labs
• Startup Schwag
• BlueString
• LAtwiist

Party Sponsor

• Thursday Lunch

Media Circus

I am totally going to cheat right now and just post in the slideshow of all photos from the camp here:

photos tagged barcampla5 in flickr
I’ll put up some personal faves soon. Go check out the main page of BarCampLA-5 for links to talk notes, PPTs, audio, video, etc. And add your’s if you’ve got ‘em!

Looking Forward

Yes, we’ll be doing another one of these. Yes, we’re open to new faces getting involved (and old ones taking on bigger roles. We’ve already started some great discussions on the google group about that and also started a Suggestions Page while the ideas are fresh. Lots of good points there already.

Ok, As the pig says, That’s All, Folks. This community continues to impress me as it grows. Tag your photos, keep up the conversation, go out and learn more cool stuff to share, and we’ll see you for the next time.

Downtown LA, I still love you

February 15th, 2008, 10:12 pm 2 comments

Ok, so I’m moving up to North Hollywood tomorrow (which means I really should be, uh, packing now), but Downtown Los Angeles still owns my LA-loving heart. If nothing else, the sheer capacity for strange is just stronger there, and I dig it.

So we were down there last night to participate in the monthly Downtown LA Art Walk (second Thursday of every month, folks). We started out at one of my favorite Vietnamese joints in LA, Blossom before proceeding to check out Dave Bullock’s show at Niche Gallery and then on to others.

As if Weenez, a hot dog (and..cupcakes?) place attached to Red Dot Gallery wasn’t strange enough on it’s own, while we were there, a makeshift parade of clarinets, saxophones, drums, and accordians marched past us, accompanied by a guy wearing nothing but a diaper and shooting toy arrows at people (Cupid, Valentines day… I get it, still odd). The group turned out to be LA Experimental Jazz Troup KillSonic (Warning, sound.. and it’s experimental jazz at that).

It was too fun to pass up, so we joined their parade around downtown LA, basically circling the gallery district, invading the Hive Gallery, missing the shuttle, walking some more, and then finally boarding the bus with the entire band, all of us followers, and a very amused (no, really) bus driver. The band jammed on, we picked up more people at every stop, and it was a damn fine time of “wait, is this really happening?”And yes, that’s when I love this town the most.

Some pics from the evening:

More photos here

Redesigning

February 11th, 2008, 9:01 pm 2 comments

While I was upgrading to WP 2.3.3 this weekend, I decided to ditch my tired old theme while I was at it. A redesign was more than overdue, since I hadn’t really changed things up since October 2006. *cringe*

So consider this a work in progress, I do intend to add some minor graphics to this, but at the moment that is falling in the priority list somewhere behind beginning new job, moving to and decorating new apartment, planning BarCampLA-5, starting a new diet, and this little thing called “sleep” that I’ve been meaning to try. :-)

Comments still welcome and please tell me if something is horrifically broken (and not just ‘plain’).

Hello WBR – Big Changes for 2008

January 31st, 2008, 8:00 am 12 comments

2007 was one hell of a ride, 2008 might even surpass. I don’t even know where to begin with this, so out with it…

February 8th will be my last day at Sisu.
February 12th will be my first day as Director of Technology Projects for Warner Bros. Records..

This past year with Sisu has been fantastic. I’ve had the chance to work on some amazing projects for The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Myspace, Wasserman Media Group (creating sites for professional athletes such as Tracy McGrady, JJ Redick, and Freddy Adu), the Hallmark Channel, Fonality, Hearst Magazine Mobile sites, Sony, Veoh, Zannel, and Nonesuch Records. And I’ve had the opportunity to do it with 5 of the best coworkers imaginable. Guild, Coleen, Dave, Kevin, and Matt – thank you all. Seriously. I’m going to miss seeing all of you every day, there is no replacement for friday status meetings, and I’d better be invited to the 6th year Sisuversary party, punks.

Looking forward to my new life in Burbank, I’m really drawn to this position for a number of reasons. I’ll be joining up with a crack team of solidly cool geeks who have some great ideas about how to save the music industry. We like music, we’d like to keep it around. The technology team at WBR is super progressive, relying on open-source technologies wherever possible, and pushing for some innovative ways to keep money coming in and going to artists. All artist sites are being built on Drupal, an open-source content management system that I have some experience with.

As a music, econ, and tech geek with an unnatural interest in social networks and a nearly two-year history with the Drupal Community, this is a really exciting opportunity to combine my passions and go out and build something. It’s a challenging place to be right now, but that’s the way I like it.

I’m probably going to need bigger sunglasses, though.

BarCampLA-4 Wrap Up

November 13th, 2007, 2:02 pm 2 comments

It always takes me about a week to come to closure with a camp. Besides the obvious sleep debt to be paid, I also enjoy watching the pics and videos roll in, checking out the session media that gets posted, and listening to the conversations that originated at camp as they get taken out into the world. Especially the last one: I believe that’s what motivates me to keep working on these. Those conversations and connections are priceless, and it’s a pretty amazing feeling to get to see those shockwaves from the epicenter. So, really, thank you all for making good on all the promises we made that this would be an amazing group of people with things to share. We can only set the stage, but you guys put on one hell of a play.

By the Numbers

So, the breakdown looked something like this:

• About 200 Participants over two days (That’s almost double from March 2007)
• Close to 40 unique presentations
• 15 Sponsors
• $5400 Budget (Spent to the last $40 or so, so if anyone wants reimbursing for drinks or snacks, hit me up) Complete Expense details will be available on the wiki as soon as the last sponsor check gets processed.
• Two Gongs (Opening intros were MUCH shorter this time!)
• 113 BarCamper Portraits
• And the world’s first FooBar Mitzvah

I’m happy with that.

Thanks

There are more people to thank than I think I can fit into this space or possibly link to, so let me start off by saying thank you to every person who answered our call for help on Sunday morning and brought sodas, fruit, bread, yogurt, ice, etc. When you’re on a fixed budget for a free conference and then attendance doubles out of nowhere (as it did), you’re suddenly not sure whether to say “yay!” or “uh oh…” Those contributions, from cupcakes to sunflower seeds to sodas to fruit, kept us in the “yay!” category. So thank you all for stepping up and really being every bit the awesome community we love to brag about.

Sponsors

BarCamp simply could not be the free, accessible, community event it is without our sponsors. These companies make this event possible, pitch-free, no strings attached. They ‘get’ what we’re doing here, and so many of them were in active participation at the event, not as sponsors, but as BarCampers. So, thank you to:

• Little Radio Warehouse – There’s a reason we list these guys under both ‘Sponsors’ and ‘Hosts’ on the wiki. Not only do they give us such an awesome venue for free, Jimmy spends the weekend working just as hard as the organizers to make sure everything runs smoothly for the event. I don’t think we can say thanks enough, but we try.
• 3jane IndieClick – A big thanks to 3jane IndieClick for returning as sponsors this round.
• Belkin - Belkin has always been such a huge supporter of BarCamps in LA and elsewhere. Thanks so much to Jory and crew for sticking with us!
• crowdgather – Thanks Sanjay and crew for supporting BarCampLA!
• Disney – A big thanks to Mike and the team at Disney for continuing to support BarCamp in Los Angeles, even with the success of PoohCamp, their internal unconference. Also, I think Mike’s most excellent wi-fi shirt upstaged us all for supreme geek wear.
• DreamHost – Suuuuure, Dreamhost couldn’t just sponsor, they had to throw in a year’s free hosting for everyone at BarCamp as well. Sweet! Thanks, guys!
• Microsoft – Thanks again to Microsoft, always a huge help to us. They were kind enough this year to cover our insurance costs, one of our largest expenses, for us. Such a huge help. Also, a huge thanks to Woody Pewitt for working the registration desk for most of the day Saturday.
• ::search.labs -search labs specializes in placing top talent in the web 2.0 and new media sphere. Thanks for supporting BarCamp!
• Show-in-a-Box -How cool is it that a free software project wanted to be a BarCamp sponsor? Show in a Box is a video blogging platform built on Wordpress, and consisting of Wordpress, a custom set of plug-ins, and a custom theme. Check it out! It’s free!
• [Si]TV – [Si]Tv is a 24 hour, English-speaking Latino cable channel with a video-rich website. Tune over to www.sitv.com/ to see what they’ve got going on.
• Startup Schwag – Startup Schwag picks up where ValleySchwag left off, bringing the latest Web2.0 shirts and tchochkes to folks everywhere. Check them out!
• Qtask -A huge thanks to Reichart, Lisette, Emi, and the rest of the Qtask crew for the sponsorship, the help, and the cupcakes! (ok, and the pink t-shirt)
• twiistup- Next twiistup is Jan 16, 2008 in Vence. Deadline to apply to Showoff is November 15, so hurry! Thanks again, guys!
• Yahoo! Developer Network – A big thanks to the Yahoo! Developer Network for sponsoring lunch on Sunday. Cheers!

Special Thanks To:

Jason Cosper, my co-BarCamp Counselor (Lambie, did you coin that?). You know I can’t possibly name everything, but thanks for the moral support, the mad publicity and blog and twitter and sponsorship wrangling, Saturday and Sunday and all they entailed, and for that amazing yell of doom of yours that made it possible for my squawking to be heard. Beer doesn’t cut it, I owe you whiskey.
Dan Tentler, for running network ops and getting/keeping the wifi running. “What? There’s a muffin up here! How the hell?
JoAnna and her ninja-like reflexes where catering is involved made it possible to get food laid out for 150+ people in 10 mins or less not once, but THREE times. That plus the pre-ordering food consulting made a world of difference for us.
CJ Little, whose remarkably lifelike cardboard facsimile somehow managed to co-staff the registration booth for most of Saturday along with Woody Pewitt, ensuring that BarCampers were greeted, tagged, and signed in. Thanks!
Andy Sternberg, who wrangled us an awesome keg of Craftsman and the ice to cool it.
More thanks to Bino Gopal for the no-questions-asked instant office supply run.
Jane Lee, who volunteered herself and her vehicle to pick up EVERYTHING that wouldn’t fit in my car from Costco, plus Saturday’s lunch. (That was a lifesaver!)
Thanks to Chris Gagne for picking up Saturday morning’s coffee.
And lastly, a huge thanks to Darren Wong for not taking no for an answer and working in the middle of the night to give us a killer new BarCampLA logo. We love it!

Plus, a very special thanks to Richard M. Stallman (RMS) for joining us, hanging out, having fun, and for speaking. We don’t usually condone ‘keynotes’ for BarCamp, but if there were ever a case for an exception, this was most certainly the time.

And lastly, the Media…

If you haven’t already, go check out Noodle Scar’s On Location at BarCampLA-4 video. You can find other videos here, on YouTube, and linked off of the BarCampLA-4 Main Wiki. If you have videos you want the world to see, put them there!

There are also Tons of great pictures, of course, so check them out, help with tagging, and make sure your own are up and tagged so we can all enjoy them. Here are some of my personal favorites.

I’m going to treasure this one for a long time.
Photo by Daniel Hengeveld.

PowerPoint Karaoke
Photo by Lisa Brewster

FooBarMitzvah
Photo by Lisa Brewster

“What’s in your Not-Coming-Back-Bag.” I walked in to call time on this session and just lost it laughing. Thanks, guys!
Photo by Dan Tentler

The bus. Seriously, the bus was awesome. Go check out The 1 Second Film.
Photo by Dan Tentler

Thanks everyone. It was nothing short of surreal. Post your pics and comments here and/or to the wiki and we’ll see you for the next one!

-Crystal

When Bad UI Goes Good

October 18th, 2007, 12:26 am 2 comments

So basically, if I have ever emailed with you at all, you’re in my gmail address book. And if you are in my gmail address book, all 600ish of you, around the first of September, you got a message that looked something like this:

“cleverclevergirl” would like you to join them on Zannel

Zannel is a mobile community where you can meet people, send messages and share photos and videos on your mobile phone. Share your life in real time.

Click here to join and accept the invitation.

And then if you also follow me on twitter, you shortly after received a few frantic, apologetic tweets from me explaining that some UI had malfunctioned and to please ignore the bother. I try to be exceedingly careful with my contacts and tend to never invite people to things unless I’m positive they want to be invited. I hate email, I assume you hate email too, and I try to avoid sending any unless it’s necessary or just purely pleasant.

So I was pretty devastated that this happened, especially since I generally consider myself savvier than that, but figured I’d done what I could and it was done with.

Until I got a message on the site from Zannel’s CTO the next day.

Hey there – I’m with Zannel, and I’ve heard some buzz about our friend invite feature – r u open to discussing?

Uh oh.

Chris Messina was amongst the unintentionally-invited. Chris, thankfully, has a pretty low tolerance for bad UI, so he made some screenshots

This was noted by Tantek Çelik, who asked Chris to submit screenshots to the wiki he’s been working on, documenting Social Network Anti-Patterns, something expecially useful in the wake of the Quechup disaster. (Incidentally, Chris has a whole collection of these screenshots here)

Zannel’s PR folks had picked up on the grumblings, traced it back to me, and now wanted to chat.

So we chatted. First off, they were genuinely apologetic. This was really an unintentional effect of the common mobile design strategy of reducing page length by having many small pages of information, and definitely not a ’strategy’ of any sort.

I explained that the problem had occurred while using their mobile interface. I had wanted to *check* if anyone I knew was already using this service, but only intended to invite one coworker. Unfortunately, the default state for “send invites to everyone” was set to TRUE, and that option was on a separate page than the main confirm screen. So by requesting and confirming to invite one friend, everyone else got dragged into it. They admitted that this was a problem and one that had been discussed internally.

They also agreed to fix it. Quickly.

And I’m very pleased to say that they did! The fix has been in place now for about a month and apparently now, users complain, if anything, that it is too difficult to add a bunch of friends at once. So far, though, everyone seems to agree that this is a better problem to have.

They were also kind enough to send me some screenshots of the new interface:

Congrats to Zannel for making this right, and a big thanks to Chris and Tantek for their zero-tolerance policies.

Go Check them out.They’re getting nods from the likes of TechCrunch, Mashable, and The LA Times.