stephen blyth’s blog

When I’m facilitating a meeting or workshop I like to have something on the table for people to munch on, gaze at wistfully or even turn over in their hands.

A small offering helps pass the time during any dull bits and it makes people feel valued as you’ve gone to some effort to think of their needs. Offering sweets or peppermints is easy. This is perhaps why all the corporate venues have the hard, little white rocks.

When I was walking from Grey Lynn to the NGO I was working with on Thursday I wanted to get some plums. A generous big bag.

Being seasonal fruit was really appropriate for the group I was working with, not to mention the health benefits. A colourful addition to the setting I hoped.

At this time of the year plums are falling off the trees. But not so on my route along Karangahape Road. Not a plum tree, nor did the shops stock them.

I stopped looking in little dairies after number five. The fruit on offer was, well, totally insipid. One shop, whose owner had the audacity to list on its signage the promise of fruit and vegetables for sale, stocked a desultory bag of yellowing oranges in a fridge. About seven bananas, 20 apples and a few more oranges was all I saw.

Nor did I see a greengrocer on K Road, though there are plenty of stodgy bakers and greasy take away outlets. Makes sense I guess. Who is going to opt for a peach or plum when they’re out on the town.

Packaged foods with long shelf lives (ie crisps, sweets, nuts, etc), starch and fatty foods make money, but fruit obvioulsy doesn’t. How can it be that the market provides all this, but ready access to plentiful, fresh and healthy fruit is scarce. No wonder we’re facing an obesity epidemic.

Fortunately, even without a bowl of elusive plums the workshop went well.

And in the end I summoned up a gift for the participants. The night before the workshop I stumbled on the replica of the labyrinth in Chartres Cathedral, created in 1200, at St Columba Church in Surrey Crescent. It’s “a quiet place so that we, who are unable to make long retreats from our busy lives may find refreshment in these small havens of peace.” I thought storing away the idea of a place to step back from the hurly burly of the project (and work as usual) might come in useful.

No plums but maybe something more lasting.

Photo credit: Anushruti RK’s photostream

Now it’s time to head-offline to actually read something, rather than just scanning, sorting, saving links, removing unread articles from my desktop, more scanning, etc.  Yes, I’m downing tools and going on holiday.

Packed in my bag are a couple of books and unread newspapers.

And, yes, amongst everything else is my laptop. I’m taking it along mostly so I can read feature articles and to decide if I’ll print out a few e-books I’ve downloaded over the last year.

Making reading more appealing on a computer is a big ask, but I’ve found a few ways to make things more pleasurable. Of course, for Mac users we’ve had the nifty Tofu application for ages: simply paste a story in the box and the text is converted into columns. Each column is only as high as your window so it’s a bit like reading a paper.

Even more like reading a paper is the PressDisplay database offered to Wellington City Library patrons. Open the browser based programme and you can read any one of hundreds papers from 80 countries exactly as it appears in print. That means all adverts, page numbers, cross words, weather forecasts, as well as the actual articles. Editions are often available on the day they’re issued. Zoom in, select articles for printing, make comments. Brilliant - thank you librarians.

Although the New York Times isn’t amongst papers in the PressDisplay collection, they do have a new tool for reading the paper. Called the Times Skimmer, you are presented with one page snapshots of articles from the paper’s 17 main sections. At a glance on a single screen you can get a sense of the top stories - it’s not like looking at a webpage at all. When you do want to read something, you dive back into the website proper, where fortunately there is plenty of whitespace around the actual article text.

Whitespace isn’t always obvious on many websites - busy, crowded, distracting are words that come to mind. Installing the Readibility bookmarklet solves this unforgiveable affront to readers. After finding a page or article you want to read on any website, click on the bookmarklet and you’ve got a clean, immensely readable view. All adds, navigation and other clutter are remove, leaving you with just the text you want to read. Thanks to Miraz for pointing this out - I’ve been using it heaps.

Aside from mentioning the ever popular and contentious Guardian top 100 websites (released 9 December), which is likely to induce more surfing than actual reading, I will throw in a mention of Zotero. I’m really taken by this tool which sits inside Firefox and is designed to help people organise their publicatin collections. Mine include manuals, reports, guides, case studies, newsletters, etc. (Okay, so this one is not strictly about holiday reading).

When I apply myself, I’m sure the documents I use reguarly will be well sorted, easy to retrieve and provide reference citations at the push of a button. References of any sort can be entered, both electronic and print. With hundreds of documents scattered across folders on my computer and in manilla folders it will take a fair amount of effort. I’m going to pace myself, as I’ve tried before and made little headway. The my classification will be organic, but I’m pretty sure the search function using tags will be more searchable than what I’ve currently got (even with the powerful Spotlight).

It remains to be seen if I end up being as virtuous as make out I’m going to be. Given a sunny day you’ll probably find me reclining under a shady tree, book tossed aside and eyes closed.

Happy reading. See you in 2010.

PS To see what I’m reading in print, here’s a recent booklist I started on Goodreads.

After I cram in spare clothes, relevant documents from the paper war, spanners and sandwiches there is never much room for my 15in laptop in my cycle pannier. This tight squeeze, the hefty weight to lug up Brooklyn Hill and a nagging worry that constant vibration is shortening the life of my computer started me thinking.

What say I get a smaller, more portable device?

After reading an interminable number of reviews about netbooks, I settled on the HP Mini 5101 netbook. The sleek, black gadget has a 160 GB hard-drive, 2 GB ram and 92% keyboard.

Rather than opting for a machine with Windows pre-installed (which would have made a lot of sense given my need to test websites using Internet Explorer), I chose the model with FreeDos from Ascent Computers. When the netbook arrived it actually came with Novell’s SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop operating software.

Although familiar with free, open source software (FOSS) I’d never spent much time using a computer with a FOSS operating system. Using Firefox, Thunderbird for email and OpenOffice on proprietary operating systems was the extent of my experience.

When I fired up the wee HP brute I was in familiar territory. My initial impression was an interface that mixed the best of both Mac OS 10.x and Windows. The keyboard shortcuts are the same, there is a Windows Explorer style file navigator and even easy switching between between multiple windows. SUSE is designed to slip into corporate environments where people are happy using Windows.

Pre-loaded software includes familiar productivity tools as well as more exotic vector graphics and diagram editors, the slick Banshee music player and T-spot for organising photos.

At the click of a button a webpage will magically expand to take up the whole screen (sans any browser bars). The 1366 x 768 resolution and high level of brightness mean that even with a 10.1in screen it’s an ideal for reading while lounging on the couch with a cuppa.

When I want to reconfigure any system settings (including allowing for a wobbly effect when windows minimise) there is lots even a regular user can do. I imagine there is much more configurability under the hood. I’m pleased virtually everything has worked out of the box, including the built in webcam.

A few bumps along the way have meant my first experience with FOSS has not been without some aggravation.

At first I couldn’t connect to my home wireless network. Calling in a techy provided a pretty speedy answer. SUSE didn’t like the jolly green giant, the name of my multiple word SSID, or the password with funny characters. It took a reset of my router’s account details to connect.

Installing new programmes has not been encouraging. I’m not actually sure I’ve got the right version of software as there are open source variants for the many FOSS operating systems, and you need to find the right one. As I haven’t figured out how this works I’ve tried downloading a few files that won’t unpack. I must have the wrong version of Skype as the one I’ve got doesn’t work.

There have been a few other niggles:

• Using some Flash based software, including Adobe Connect Pro which I’ve written about before, can crash the computer. Some customisations to system settings are lost in the process.
• Not all the messages that should appear from my IMAP email server actually appear in the inbox of Evolution (the email programme). There is often a handful missing.
• A few icons for applications have disappeared. Hardly important in themselves, but it makes me wonder what else is happening under the skin.
• Separate keyboard layouts are used for login screens and when I’m actually logged in. It was my mistake to select the UK keyboard when I was setting up (the ampersand key is where the quote marks are on US keyboard) and later try to change keyboard layouts. Repeated attempts at a fix have not worked.
• Ejecting my JungleDisk WebDav folder bring up an error message - permission denied even though I’m administrator numero uno.

I admit some of the problems are because I’m lazy: I haven’t read the manual. I think I’ve been spoilt, with software on other systems working with a minimum of fuss and a maximal amount of intuition.

With three months of phone support, I better call HP before time runs out. I’m also going to try using an alternative to SUSE Linux. When I get usb drive with more than 4GB storage, I’ll try running Ubuntu Netbook Remix, a slim version of the popular desktop distribution.

As the open source fraternity is a sharing bunch I’ll try to tap into some local expertise. Going to an ‘installfest’ is not only a way of learning useful stuff but as you can lug your own computer around, you do some fine-tuning settings on the day. What a great way to get some help from a wise Linux techie.

In good time I’ll get everything sorted, but I’ve become a bit more realistic about what it would take to change a whole organisation over the an open source software. Rather than the haphazard approach I’ve taken, good planning and support are a must.

It’s comforting to find out I’m not the only one grappling with how to carry a laptop on a bike, as Pashley from Lovely Bicycle writes in her post about “Laptop Transport: Trusting your bicycle with your precious machine”. If all else fails, Anonymous suggests in a follow-up comment:

A few layers of bubble wrap is a cheap and very effective shock absorber. I don’t carry a laptop, but bubble wrap is great for groceries like eggs and tomatoes in the pannier.

With my little HP brute I’m confident throwing (not literally!) the netbook in my pannier, and I’ve now got room for an orange.

It wasn’t exactly hidden in the fineprint. The guidelines for running a mini-conference session clearly included something called a back-up plan. Most of my other classmates on the Facilitating Online Communities (FO09) course referred to some sort of alternative should things go astray during their session.

Based on intermittent access to Elluminate, the online learning environment, during the course and numerous technology hiccups with software on a weekly basis, I should have realised the importance of a back-up plan.

Yesterday, during the session I facilitated on using online tools for conservation planning I didn’t have a plan. So when things went wrong I was out on a perilous limb.

At 1.55pm I saw new people trying to enter the meeting room, but not gaining access I got a sense something was not quite right. Several emails alerted me to a message people trying to sign-in were receiving: the web meeting room is full.

Quickly searching the web I quickly realised I’d exceeded the limit of the trial account. How could I have not looked into that!! In hindsight, I know more indepth reading of the terms would have uncovered this basic condition.

Without a back-up plan I wasn’t really able to juggle the dozen things that needed to happen simultaneously. With some swift action by our tutor Sarah I did manage to find an alternative meeting space using Elluminate. My guest presenter Caroline Lees (co-covenor of the Conservation Breeding Specialist Group) not only was able to login in, but she very quickly adapted to unfamiliar software.

The supportive words from my classmates and Caroline’s insightful presentation meant I feel we salvaged something. A recording will be available soon.

However, without a list of email addresses I wasn’t able to contact people who hadn’t been able to join in. Unfortunately, I lost many participants along the way.

Somewhat humbled by the experience, wistfully wondering if perhaps I was somewhat overconfident, it’s a true understatement to say I’ve learned a few things. I’m going to note a few reflections here.

1. Have a back-up plan. Not just some notional one, but a properly tested one. In this case having quick access to the list of email addresses so I could notify people would have helped.
2. Try to have a second facilitator or support person. When things went wrong, I just didn’t have a enough time to send emails, communicate in the first software programme, set up Elluminate, coach Caroline on the new software, etc. This is a good idea even if when things go well. It’s quite a handful keeping an eye on the chat thread for questions, noting down URLs, contributing follow-up questions with a guest, and technical problem solving.
3. Practice. Practice. Practice. Learning in this space takes more than reading or listening to good advice. Take every opportunity to learn.
4. Have guidance on likely technical hiccups on hand, eg how participant’s can connect their microphone. An instruction document or screenshots would be a big help. If it’s really important to have all participants join in, coach people through this before the meeting proper through one-to-one sessions. This is something Caroline said was relevant to the mala online workshop process.

I’ve been really been fortunate to make a stumble running my first webinar within the supportive environment of the FO09 class. The encouraging comments and joint problem solving means a lot. A thread running through our discussions, made very visible last night during a session hosted by Catherine, is that making mistakes is a learning strategy.

Despite this rather stressful formative experience I still believe online learning has a lot to offer community and voluntary groups. I’m going to quietly look into running a series of webinars in 2010 about using technology powerfully for good causes.

Photo credit: Brittney Bush.

Ignore website visitors at your peril. That was the message Natasha Lampard gave participants at the Engage your community conference last week.

Nathasha, former head of user experience at TradeMe and web usability advocate, says if your website isn’t designed with your users in mind it’s simple: they’ll leave.

Ostentatious descriptions of usability are common, but don’t be put off. The idea at the heart of usability is removing friction visitors encounter when they’re trying to achieve something on your website. Whether it is donating money, signing up to a newsletter, comparing prices or any other task, Natasha says people should not be made to feel stupid or fail.

It’s a mindset as much as a technical challenge. Natasha likened it to inviting people over to your place. As host you proffer tea, solicit conversation and show people where the bathroom is. Online it is curiously similar where website owners or custodians want you to come to their place. Regard for others by displaying courtesy and manners is crucial.

Building usability into a website development process isn’t just about talking to users when you’ve almost finished building your website. It can be included along the way, as the step-by-step usability guide produced by usability.gov shows.

When it comes to usability testing Natasha suggested a guerilla approach. Even simple, DIY testing with 4-6 people can bring dramatic improvements to your website.

This idea is not a new one. Web writing sage Rachel McAlpine shared her thoughts on DIY usability testing in about 2002 (see The Hey, You! user-test in action and Rough and ready website usability testing).

I’ve used this guidance, which includes coaching on how to set up sessions, elicit feedback with prompts and decide on priorities. It works. As a result of testing I’ve addressed problems with terminology, the location on a page of key tasks and a lack of contextual information.

An added cheap tool in the usability toolkit was introduced by Nathan Donaldson, who was a guest speaker in my “Getting the quality website your organisation deserves” workshop.

Boost New Media, which Nathan runs, wanted a way to simplify the collection of user feedback on websites as works in progress. IntuitionHQ provides a tool to track where users actually click on a pages in response to instructions to complete key tasks (eg click where you think you sign up for the e-newsletter).

Whether the tasks are completed by 10 or 200 people, the results show where clicks cluster and the outliers. The heat maps, which are like abstract splatter art, can then be analysed to identify improvements.

Anyone can trial IntuitionHQ for free, with each test costing just US $5.

Regardless of the methods you use to garner feedback, it’s important to plan usability in from the start. Some of the testing you may do yourself, other parts may be included in the brief for your paid or volunteer website designer, or you may contract a specialist service. Just remember, as Natasha says “lets give people a break and give them what they want”.

PS: I will be running the “Getting the quality website your organisation deserves” workshop in 2010. Watch this space.

PPS: Natasha is Senior VP of Webstock, two days of standards based web design, good coffee, conversation and trends 18-19 February 2010 in Wellington. Early bird registration ends 4 December.

Not all the resources I’ll be taking along to share at the workshop I’m leading at the Engage your community conference on Friday 13 November are actually finished.

My copy of a “Website owner’s manual: the secret to successful websites” by Paul Boag is available online as an unedited draft. It comes as an e-book from Manning Publications who specialise in a book publication process which engages a book’s audience in the creation process.

Through the early access program new chapters are made available as they are being written. I can interact with the author to ask questions and provide feedback which will actually feed into the final manuscript. Once finished I will receive the completed book in electronic format (with hardcopy also available). Somewhat ignominiously I printed out the 280 page ebook (on OfficeMax 100% post consumer recycled) as I was struggling to read it on screen.

Many of the topics I’m covering in my workshop are touched on the book by Boag, an experienced web designer, consultant and podcaster. Those that are particularly pertinent include: defining roles, setting objectives, planning and measuring, commissioning websites, working with designers and accessibility.

Rather than trying to teach people how to actually design a website, my workshop is for managers, coordinators and others with responsibility. We’ll take a helicopter view of the whole shebang then focus on a few critical areas in more depth. I’ll also be sharing a simple self-guided health check so participants can assess and improve their  website’s performance.

At the main EYC event conference there’s a presentation on “Putting your users first - ways to improve your website”, which looks to be a great overview of usability. Presenter Natasha Lambard is a founder of the Webstock conferences and was Head of User Experience at Trade Me, so she has lots insights into how you let ‘users’ needs drive development of your website.

I admit I’m biased as I’ve been involved on the organising team, but she’s just one of many top notch presenters on day one. Fundraising, community building, Second Life and communications strategies are some of the other topics being covered.

I look forward to sharing a few battered copies of some of the resources I have if you come to my workshop, along with enthusiasm for high quality websites. See you there.

In big letters: Places are still available to both the full-day EYC conference on Thursday 12 November (register here), and six half day workshops offered on Friday 13 November. The event is being in Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand.

Out of context the question “how come?” may sound innocuous. That’s why I’m replying on my blog to the question from Adobe’s Connect Pro team, not via Twitter. I’m adding some much needed context, something Twitter posts are invariably oblivious to, so my reply exceeds 140 characters.

Where to begin?

Last week I fired off a bon mot tweet bemoaning the difficulties of accessing Adobe’s web conferencing software in New Zealand. After a month of searching and a second evaluation of the product Michael and I decided it was the best of the web conferencing tools available (see my earlier post “Does the tool really do the job?”). Videos play clear and crisp, the interface is relatively intuitive, and video input from an external source has been thought through. These are areas the other products we looked at fell down.

As we’re just running a one-off event (at this stage), the pricing advertised on Adobe’s Asia Pacific website is very attractive: $55 for a month’s access allowing 100 simultaneous participants. Whether it is US, Euro or Australian, this price represents good value for the quality of the product. Though I’d have to say this price is unaffordable to most grassroots community groups I work with.

Unfortunately, at the moment casual month-by-month access is not offered directly by Adobe to customers in Aotearoa. This isn’t stated anywhere I could find on their website, but is something I only confirmed after a call to the customer support line.

Buying the software outright is not an option, as the costs of running a server with system administration support and license fees is prohibitive. Especially for a one off event.

The one Australasian supplier I found gave some excellent advice, but quoted several thousand dollars to use their system when I asked for a price for our one-off event. Bemused is the most polite word I can think of to describe my reaction.

At this point I tweeted: “Adobe customer service excellent - the answer not so rosy: no easy way to get Connect Pro in NZ. Drats!” The glass half empty perspective is well founded as I was told by Carla from the customer support team that “We are still in the process of widening the horizon of our service to reach out to as many customers as we can. Please feel free to check our website for latest updates and so that you may be guided accordingly.”

I hope this answers “how come?”, with some context thrown in, but without a wider, excoriating rant about the sins of capitalism and proprietary software.

As I want to end on a high note, I can report the earth has rotated a few times since my tweet and I’ve found an organisation that can help out with our online launch requirements in a spirit of public goodness. I expect a few more ups and downs, but it looks like everything will work out.

Visiting the Friends of the Urban Forest & Permaculture Project island in Second Life.

For some reason I’ve been dreading the next couple of weeks on the FO09 course. After the safeground of looking for community in forums, wikis and blogs we’re moving into the virtual world. It’s off to Second Life we go.

The fact that I know I’ll be in good company as demonstrated by the presence of the Nonprofit Commons, Second Life Education New Zealand (SLENZ) project and many other reputable outfits (including hundreds of universities), doesn’t dissolve my wariness. This is particularly accentuated as I don’t have a lot of time to devote to coming to a deep appreciation of what is offered. So, I’m likely to be both tentative and superficial. What a combination!

Anyway, I’ll set aside my reservations, without losing my skepticism and I’ll trudge off to the front gates of Second Life. I’m writing up my experience, using a diary format, after Earl at Groupings said he’d be interested to hear how things go.

Wednesday 14 October
4.12pm: I open the Second Life application I downloaded a couple of weeks ago. It’s pretty obvious what to do - create an account.

4.35pm: The name of the avatar I choose could stick for a long time, so I really should deeply mull this over. I don’t. Instead I enter a first name that pops into my head, then have a choice of 50 odd surnames. Nothing really appeals. I run a search on a few of those offered: Halaan is a of type clam. Exotic food, sounds fitting so it’s now a part of my Second Life persona.

4.37pm: I try logging in with my new name but it doesn’t work. Rechecking my email I find made a typo when searching - oh dear, my assumed identify refers to a character in Golgotha. Should I stick with it, or start again. I can’t bear to kill off my new identity so the name stays.

8.38pm: I don’t always read the fineprint of terms of service before accepting them (ahem). This time is different. My suspicions about Second Life are so deeply entrenched I’m actually going to read what conditions I’m entering into.

9.48pm: Being brutally honest, I’m not actually that much clearer about the conditions having spent the last 10 minutes reading them. Be careful is probably the sum of it. Regardless of intellectual property rights you may have in content you create or otherwise own, Linden Labs (which runs Second Life) owns all the accounts. I guess this means they can shut you down your business and lock you out. I’m reassured by both the Privacy and Harassment policies about the protections available.

9.05pm: My search for “Second Life scams” on Google reveals lots of examples of shysters and rogues plus some deluded folk making awful mistakes, but I didn’t see much about the architecture or what Linden Labs does that is worrisome. Time to take the plunge - click “Accept”. Will my life ever be the same.

10.25pm: Not so scary. But I’m stuck on the god damn help island where I first land. Read the start guide again. Look on the knowledgebase wiki. Finally, back to searching on Google: “basic start Second Life”. Where did I miss reading the bit about double clicking to ‘touch’ objects and then have the option of ‘teleporting’.

11.02pm: So far I’ve got a free Linux t-shirt, visited a memorial to John Lennon, strayed across a desert island. Barely seen a another ‘soul’. On Friday I know there’s a presentation on digital storytelling offered by TechSoup. Maybe there’ll be some likeminded avatars to chat to. Anyway, I’ve put the avatar to sleep… when I reawake I’ll be wandering into a class room.

Thursday 15 October
9.15pm: Not quite the first thing that I do, but before I dive into work I decide to see if my avatar wakes up with a crowd of people around it. 30 seconds to load and I’m looking at my avatar in Friends of the Urban Forest & Permaculture Project island. It’s deserted. How pleasant waking to a gentle back bird song soundtrack wafts over me. I resist the temptation to get a Pohutakawa, on sale to raise funds for the permaculturists.

9.27am: Bump into another bald avatar - we try to work out how to regain our hair. Another 10 minutes wasted but I triumph. I’m able to control where virtually every follicle grows. I’m manipulating buttons and sliders on the screen using my real body by hitting keys and moving my mouse to change things on screen to represent a likeness of myself - this is weird, other worldly. A kind of dissonance sets in. Eyes are glazing over.

9.40am: With a glimmer of my younger self on screen it’s time to sign-off and do some productive work. One of my fears has been somewhat allayed - you don’t necessarily wake in the morning with people screaming in your avatar’s face. Indeed, I’ve found out if there is any trouble there are lots of options: mute incoming chat, sit, teleport elsewhere (I don’t think avatars can be followed), quit, shut down.

1.54pm: I receive a request by email: Would you be my friend in Second Life? I don’t have to do anything immediately as I can respond to the request when I login to the virtual world. I’m pleased to a see visible instructions on how I can stop receiving similar emails. It’s really the last thing I want cluttering up my inbox.

8.00pm Five students turn-up for the introductory tour of second life… after some scene setting, we all login into Second Life. I accept the request to ‘teleport’ to where our tutor is standing on Koru island (here’s the SLURL for it).  It’s owned by the Nelson Marborough Institute of Technology where a Masters student is creating a wonderful learning environment: part funfair, part campus of the future.

Somewhere along the way two others have gone astray - without any easy way of contacting people outside of the Second Life we proceed without any idea of what has happened to them. Later we find out a software problem prevented them from logging on.

It was great to try out all the communication tools (chat and voice, plus one-to-one instant messaging) and befriend people. When I go ‘in-world’ I can see who of my friends is also there. Coming to grips with our inventory of map coordinates, facial features and spare underwear is essential, as you never know when your avatar will need this sort of stuff.

Aside from many laughs as we stumble around, the highlight of the visit to Koru was obtaining a free tuxedo from the Rapungakore learning space. This “The Skill Mastery Hyperdome” is part of the SLENZ project. Accordng to the blurb this is a space where “students can learn, develop and practise skills that will help them progress on their career pathways and achieve their life goals”. Heaps of outfits are hanging up for people to try as they simulate different interview situations.

9.40pm Quit. Re-immerse myself in reality reality - Dilmah black tea with milk thanks.

Friday 17 October
11.10am Arrive at Nonprofit Commons (NPC) meeting space with a friendly greeting from Brena Benoir. Unfortunately I missed the weekly meeting. To join in means sitting at my computer at 4.30am! Brena said they generally have a good turn-out (the meeting earlier had 34 people attend) and cover a wide range of topics (see meeting notes on the Nonprofit Commons wiki). Quite a few people turn up for dances on Tuesday and Thursday evenings,  plus there are other events I see from the NPC calendar.

Wednesday 21 October
8.45am Opening my email I’m reminded about Second Life - something that hasn’t been on the top of my mind in the few days. It’s advertising junkmail promoting a shallow consumerist culture:

“Looking your best is important in Second Life, which is why our Fashion Showcase offers limitless ways to show off your style. Plus, meet new friends who share your taste in clothes while you shop!”

I’m wondering if I can get some free wrinkles with a tan thrown in from the Male and Female Skins store. A chance to play I guess.

Much to my relief, in the last week I haven’t found I’ve got an unknown addiction for Second Life escapism. Nor have I come to any harm. There’s much to like about the imaginary, playful alternate reality - there is amazing creativity on show and a chance to talk with people from many walks of life. I can see some potential for education, as I glimpsed when visiting the employment training centre set up by SLENZ.

But there are real barriers, particularly if you don’t have a newish computer. Some of my classmates on the FO09 course have not managed to enter Second Life at all. And the learning curve is steep. When I was stuck for an hour trying to move from the first island I landed on, I was almost ready to delete the whole application and terminate my avatar. Buying stuff, finding a home, creating art works… to find out how this all works and if it’s worth it means more time in front of the computer.

For all my tribulations and doubts I’ll actually keep exploring, if very slowly. If you’re ever in SL, look out for my avatar, Tipene Haalan.

I’m up to my eyeballs investigating options for running a live, online launch. It’s interesting that once you take the wrapping off the box of some of the web conference products you quickly find out just what the strengths and limitations are.

The marketing hype promises seamless use of video and application sharing. But during a recent trial of Webex Event Centre we spent an hour viewing barely a single moving image. Somehow the formats uploaded didn’t work (mainly because I was uploading from a Mac), then there was a problem from down the line when somebody didn’t have all the right browser plugins or Java updates.

It was frustrating and pre-figured some of the difficulties participants may face.

Our fears about the likely difficulties of running an online event in the way we envisage were realised. For all the convenience all-in-one web conference software might offer (ie integrated presentations, whiteboards, VOIP, chat, recording, registration, etc) it seems sharing pre-recorded video is not a strength.

The lesson in all this is not to take the claims of marketers at face value (who is surprised when I suggest this), and really drill down into the specifics of what is offered. I’m realistic to know some trade-offs are inevitable, but it’s best not to sacrifice the most important type of interaction or content to be shared. In this instance it’s all about wanting to share high quality video.

The matching of technology to audience, event goals, and processes is actually a complicated business. It’s something we’re all having to grapple with in the #FO09 course. In November students are jointly running an online mini-conference. Each is choosing the way to deliver each conference sessions, as well as the topic, with initial ideas being shared through the course wiki.

Facilitating learning in an online setting, raises some alarm bells for my classmate Willie Campbell. She says:

I am conscious of the constraints and affordances of any platform you use to work with others in an educational way. Doesn’t matter whether or not it is digital or manual. SO choose wisely- is this piece of digital technology able to be accessed, understood, interpreted by your group of learners? If not, then why are you choosing it?

With my recent experiences and Willie’s words ringing in my ear, I actually think it is very relevant to delve into methods and practices that help community leaders and teachers get the balance right between activities, processes and technology choices. In a few words this seems to be about stewarding technology for communities, as described by Wenger, White and Smith in Digital Habitats.

The mini-conference is open to the wider public so I’m keen to hear about the level of interest in a session exploring these sorts of issues. Two options present themselves: hearing from someone who has studied in this area, or inviting two or three local practitioners to share their insights and then have a conversation.

I’ve got a month to get organised, so let me know your views.

BTW: I’m not one to be put off, so we have begun exploring another avenue to host the live website launch. The goal is to remove any impediments to people joining in, particularly any software constraints that mean people walk away dis-satisfied and potentially bearing some sort of a grudge against the website being launched.

Yesterday when I arrived at Deirdre Kent’s place she was sitting with a friend sharing tools and tips for using their laptop computers. It looked liked they were having a productive session. Deirdre is a convenor of the Transition Towns Aotearoa social media network.

It’s about the third time in the last fortnight where I’ve encountered people talking about their peculiar mix of technology and practices to get work done, communicate, and ideally be creative.

On the groupings blog Earl draws out some insights from a post by Nancy White describing what he sees as an “Object lesson in ICT competence”. Nancy has written about the “the architecture of the information technology of a person busy online” (see “the social media I use”, 12 August 2009).

Earl suggests she “never, ever, uses just one [tool] for any particular task”.  The list for email alone includes the Eudora email client, two Gmail accounts, web-based mail plus probably a Yahoo or Hotmail account.

The question raised on the groupings blog is “whether this feels doable and reasonable or just a welter of work and organisation that is too steep a cliff to climb?” I’d suggest many individual practices come about in an organic way. New needs dictate new tools, but the old ways don’t necessarily disappear. This is different to how organisations generally approach things where planning and some element of rigor plays a far greater role.

Pausing for a second to look at my personal technology configuration, to use Nancy’s phrase, most of what I end up doing is the result of a happy accident or an urgent need. It’s got me thinking I could write about some of the ways I learn and adapt what tools I use, how and why.

My back-up regime is classic example. Most of my back-up is manual. Even though I’m using the ChronoSync programme which allows for scheduling I’ve never got around to learning how to set this up. Instead I’ve got a weekly habit of backing up at a specific time.

It’s a bit complicated so I’ve got a list. I’m want my back-up to cater for recovery of any files I accidentally over-write and for disaster recovery (including fire), so I’ve got a combination of on-site and online back-up. I mostly save just files I’m working on plus associated resources, though I do have an old snapshot of the entire contents of my hard-drive.

At the moment this is the backup I’ve got in place:

1. Hourly: Portable hard-drive using Time Machine programme which makes back-ups via Firewire cable. I’m able to instantly retrieve files from the last month.
2. Daily: synchronised backup to JungleDisk, online service. I found this particular service after reading an opinion piece in by Cory Doctorow called “Not every cloud has a silver lining”. My data is transferred securely and can be encrypted. I’m able to drag and drop files or use my file sync programme. I only pay for data transferred or stored, rather than a set amount per month. As it’s backed by Amazon I feel pretty confident about the reliability of the service.
3. Weekly: synchronised backup to my 80GB iPod and another computer. As I generally take my music player out with me I class this as offsite storage. With an iPod files will easily be able to extracted, singly or en masse, should I need it.

To get another perspective on backups, listen to Peter Griffin reviewing some of the free and paid-for options for storing and backing up your important personal data online (see “Digital back-ups”). (This aired on This Way Up on Saturday 3 October is available online for  up to 10 weeks).

As my backup regime is something that’s evolved over the last few years I’ve grown to be pretty comfortable with it, but I don’t know if it’d stand-up to outside scrutiny.  Perhaps reflecting on my personal technology configuration and sharing my thoughts might lead to some changes. As I’m not going to do everything at once I definitely think it’s doable and reasonable, to answer Earl’s question.