Sacha Chua â Life as a 27-year-old - 1 Sacha Chua: Living an ...

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Sacha Chua: Living an Awesome Life as a 27-year-old August 2010 ...................................................................................................................................... 10 What’s success, anyway? ............................................................................................................. 10 Weekly review: Week ending August 1, 2010 ........................................................................... 11 Two days of awesome .................................................................................................................. 12 Success and blogging ................................................................................................................... 13 Long weekend reflections............................................................................................................ 14 On passion and luck ..................................................................................................................... 14 On finding a great job .................................................................................................................. 15 Monthly review: July 2010 ......................................................................................................... 17 Sample code for allowing drag-and-drop of Notes/Domino documents (including email) to a table in a plugin..................................................................................................................... 18 Weekly review: Week ending August 8, 2010 .......................................................................... 19 Television and the push and pull of motivation ...................................................................... 20 Networking events ....................................................................................................................... 21 Reflecting on introductions ........................................................................................................ 22 The delicate dance of status ........................................................................................................ 23 Twenty-seven ................................................................................................................................ 24 Weekly review: Week ending August 15, 2010......................................................................... 26 Note-taking revisited ................................................................................................................... 26 Diversity and awareness of privilege ......................................................................................... 27 Speed-reading ............................................................................................................................... 28 Hypercubes, happiness, and serenity ........................................................................................ 28 Backyard trades ............................................................................................................................ 29 Six steps to make sharing part of how you work ..................................................................... 29 Weekly review: Week ending August 22, 2010 ........................................................................ 31 Learning storytelling from my parents ..................................................................................... 32 Keeping in touch with diffuse networks.................................................................................... 32 Proactive communication: Five tips for following up ............................................................. 33 On a Lenovo X61 .......................................................................................................................... 34 Drawing with my tablet ............................................................................................................... 34 Setting up my new tablet PC – apps, config, etc. ..................................................................... 35 Week ending August 29, 2010 .................................................................................................... 36 Limiting my options so that I can focus .................................................................................... 36 September 2010................................................................................................................................ 37 It’s okay if you can’t remember or spell my name; being human ......................................... 37 Book: Leading Outside the Lines ............................................................................................... 38 The value of constraints .............................................................................................................. 39 Thinking of autumn ..................................................................................................................... 39 Fit for You: Thinking about my priorities................................................................................. 40 Week ending September 5, 2010 ............................................................................................... 40 Redoing things .............................................................................................................................. 42 Labour Day painting .................................................................................................................... 42 Stuff is just stuff, and experiences are just experiences ......................................................... 43 Monthly review: August 2010 .................................................................................................... 44 Emacs Org mode and publishing a weekly review .................................................................. 45 Getting the WordPress Lifestream plugin to work on my blog ............................................. 46 Week ending September 12, 2010.............................................................................................. 47 Filipiniana ..................................................................................................................................... 49 Towards equity ............................................................................................................................. 50 ‘round the bend ............................................................................................................................ 51 Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 1

Tips for entrepreneurs ................................................................................................................. 51 Welcome, listeners of the Taking Notes podcast! .................................................................... 52 Getting past generation-based conversations .......................................................................... 52 Week ending September 19, 2010.............................................................................................. 53 What can I do to help make the world more equitable? ......................................................... 59 Tips from remote workers........................................................................................................... 59 Rhetoric ......................................................................................................................................... 61 Old notes on staffing a virtual conference booth ..................................................................... 62 New note-taking workflow with Emacs Org-mode ................................................................. 63 How to be dispensable, and why you should document and automate yourself out of a job ......................................................................................................................................................... 64 Week ending September 26, 2010 ............................................................................................. 65 Systematically eliminating choices ............................................................................................ 71 Book: Getting to Yes .................................................................................................................... 72 Book: Thank You for Arguing ..................................................................................................... 75 Book: How to Win Every Argument: The Use and Abuse of Logic ....................................... 77 October 2010..................................................................................................................................... 79 The Exploratorium, or playgrounds for the mind ................................................................... 79 Married! ......................................................................................................................................... 80 Quick catch-up .............................................................................................................................. 80 Lotus Notes mail practices .......................................................................................................... 80 Cleaning up HTML from Microsoft Word ................................................................................ 81 Week ending October 10, 2010 .................................................................................................. 81 Monthly review: September 2010 .............................................................................................. 82 Placeholder: The Examined Life: Technology and Experimentation ................................... 83 Toaster’s toasted ........................................................................................................................... 83 Back on the writing wagon .......................................................................................................... 84 Weekly review: Week ending October 17, 2010 ....................................................................... 85 Book: Fast Track Networking: Turning Conversations into Contacts .................................. 87 Notes from DrupalCampToronto 2010 ..................................................................................... 88 Memories of Mandelbrot ............................................................................................................ 89 Saving development time through virtual appliances ............................................................ 90 Book: Critical inquiry: the process of argument ...................................................................... 91 Drupal Features and Drush: updating our development workflow ...................................... 92 Thinking about getting better at writing................................................................................... 92 Weekly review: Week ending October 24, 2010 ...................................................................... 93 How I got into computer science ............................................................................................... 94 "But what can I talk about?" Toastmaster tactics for tackling topics ................................... 97 Notes from Quantified Self Toronto, October 27, 2010.......................................................... 99 Speaking: In case of emergency, break glass............................................................................ 99 Emacs, keypresses, and why keyboard combinations aren’t that scary ............................. 100 Weekly review: Week ending October 31, 2010 ..................................................................... 100 November 2010 .............................................................................................................................. 101 Saving team members from RSI .............................................................................................. 101 Book: Choose to be happily married: How everyday decisions can lead to lasting love .. 102 Thoughts on speaking ................................................................................................................ 103 How much time does it take to blog? ...................................................................................... 103 Where do you find topics to write about? How to have tons of topics ............................... 104 My reading round-up ................................................................................................................. 105 Weekly review: Week ending November 7, 2010 .................................................................. 107 The story of the shoes at our wedding; also, wedding pictures ........................................... 108 Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 2

How to use Drush to download and install Drupal modules ............................................... 109 Getting more drawing into my life ........................................................................................... 109 Reinvention: virtual storytelling summit Nov 11 – 22, 2010 ............................................... 110 Drupal, SimpleTest, and the node access API........................................................................ 112 Sketches: Wicked........................................................................................................................ 114 Watched Wicked again; thinking about experiences ............................................................ 115 Weekly review: Week ending November 14, 2010 ................................................................ 115 Monthly review: October 2010 ................................................................................................. 116 What I’m focusing on................................................................................................................. 117 Sketchnotes: Why I do them, how I do them, and how you can get started ...................... 118 Smiling ......................................................................................................................................... 119 Conversations: Stian Håklev .................................................................................................... 120 Experimenting with mornings ................................................................................................. 121 Weekly review: Week ending November 19, 2010 ................................................................ 122 Week beginnings ........................................................................................................................ 122 Emacs: Recording ledger entries with org-capture-templates ............................................ 123 I just got an Android phone ...................................................................................................... 124 Android: Tracking sleep with Sleep Bot .................................................................................. 124 Reclaiming................................................................................................................................... 125 Work and life............................................................................................................................... 125 Weekly review: Week ending November 26, 2010 ................................................................ 128 Learning Android development by hacking MobileOrg ....................................................... 129 Limiting flow ............................................................................................................................... 130 December 2010 ............................................................................................................................... 131 Sometimes you have to work at being happy ......................................................................... 131 Quantified Self Toronto: Second Meetup ............................................................................... 132 More thoughts on week beginnings: it’s about being proactive .......................................... 133 Happy holidays, eh! ................................................................................................................... 134 Weekly review: Week ending December 3, 2010................................................................... 134 Monthly review: November 2010 ............................................................................................ 135 Taho.............................................................................................................................................. 137 Writing about lots of different kinds of things ....................................................................... 137 Making the most of the conference hallway track ................................................................. 138 Sketchnotes: The Science of Blogging: Dan Zarrella (Hubspot) ......................................... 140 What if sharing knowledge could make a difference between life and death? .................. 140 Understanding analytics for personal blogs ........................................................................... 140 Weekly review: Week ending December 10, 2010................................................................. 142 XKCD, tic-tac-toe, and fractal goodness ................................................................................. 142 Happy Holidays, Eh! First edition greeting card giveaway .................................................. 143 Conference tips: planning your attendance............................................................................ 144 Android life so far ....................................................................................................................... 145 Android Tasker: Setting time limits for Angry Birds and other timesucks ....................... 146 More MobileOrg hacking on the Android............................................................................... 147 Test-driven development and happiness ................................................................................ 147 Weekly review: Week ending December 18, 2010 ................................................................. 148 Reflecting on life as an experiment, gender gaps, and privilege ......................................... 149 Yearly review: 2010 .................................................................................................................... 150 Code and consulting .................................................................................................................. 152 What’s coming up in Emacs 24 ................................................................................................ 153 More reflections on code and consulting ................................................................................ 153 Using Simpletest and spreadsheets to populate Drupal with data ..................................... 154 Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 3

Reflections on mentoring new developers in Drupal ............................................................ 155 Weekly review: Week ending December 24, 2010 ................................................................ 156 Drupal fixes: Modifying the entries in Calendar ................................................................... 157 The great washing machine adventure ................................................................................... 157 Ten lessons learned from disassembling and rebuilding our washing machine .............. 158 Blogging and conference networking tips .............................................................................. 160 Thinking about time tracking ................................................................................................... 162 Thinking about housework ....................................................................................................... 163 January 2011 ................................................................................................................................... 164 Weekly review: Week ending December 31, 2010 ................................................................. 164 Sick days ...................................................................................................................................... 165 Momentum and holidays .......................................................................................................... 166 Sketches: If you want to make the most of your next conference, you should blog ......... 167 Marking up books ...................................................................................................................... 168 Moving my book notes online .................................................................................................. 169 Emacs, BBDB, and getting your contacts on the Android or iPhone ................................. 169 Weekly review: Week ending January 7, 2011 ....................................................................... 170 Snippets from life ....................................................................................................................... 171 Work on the business from the outside, not in it – Book: Effortless entrepreneur ......... 172 Wrapping up projects and preparing for the next one ......................................................... 173 Three tips for cheerful chores ................................................................................................... 173 Book: Let’s Get Real About Money: Profit from the Habits of the Best Personal Finance Managers ..................................................................................................................................... 174 13,705 steps and counting ......................................................................................................... 175 Weekly review: Week ending January 14, 2011 ..................................................................... 176 Emacs 24 and the package manager ....................................................................................... 177 Switched my Fido plan .............................................................................................................. 177 Batch baking for fun and awesomeness .................................................................................. 178 Sketchnotes: Gretchen Rubin, Happiness Project book tour .............................................. 179 Of recipes and memories........................................................................................................... 180 Fun and rational economic theory: reflections on the book “The Logic of Life” .............. 180 Monthly review: December 2010 ............................................................................................. 183 Sketchnotes from Quantified Self Toronto meetup #3 ......................................................... 184 Weekly review: Week ending January 21, 2011 ..................................................................... 185 Sketches: What index cards are teaching me about drawing .............................................. 187 Unbaffled ..................................................................................................................................... 188 Tweaking fun and nudging myself out of procrastination ................................................... 189 Cross-posting between Lotus Connections blogs and a personal blog ............................... 189 Draft Lotusphere BoF on working with the Connections API ............................................. 190 A braindump of tips for other new immigrants from the Philippines ................................ 190 Pre-conference networking tips for the Instructional Technology Strategies Conference ....................................................................................................................................................... 192 Weekly review: Week ending January 28, 2011..................................................................... 192 February 2011 ................................................................................................................................. 194 Lotusphere 2011 wrap-up ......................................................................................................... 194 A story of pi ................................................................................................................................. 196 On appearance and bias: thoughts from the Nerd Girls panel at Lotusphere 2011 ......... 197 Weekly review: Week ending February 4, 2011 ..................................................................... 199 Monthly review: January 2011 ................................................................................................. 201 Disagreement and the road to trusting yourself .................................................................... 202 Working on estimates ................................................................................................................ 203 Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 4

Things to write about: questions for your blogger’s block ................................................... 203 Thinking about personal random moment studies ............................................................... 204 Hackbuzzbuzzbuzz ..................................................................................................................... 205 Books to write ............................................................................................................................. 206 Weekly review: Week ending February 11, 2011 .................................................................... 207 On friendship and getting better at it ...................................................................................... 209 On presenting, anxiety, and moving forward......................................................................... 210 More about getting 27″ washers and dryers down 26″ hallways ........................................ 211 How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Webinar: Energy, Interaction, and ROI 213 From zero to hero: a newbie’s guide to learning and building a reputation along the way ....................................................................................................................................................... 217 Imagine success for social media ............................................................................................. 218 On friendship and becoming more social ............................................................................... 219 Book: Daddy Long Legs, and letters ........................................................................................ 221 LinkedIn tip: Customize your profile URL ............................................................................. 221 Decision review: Limiting my blog to one post a day ........................................................... 222 Weekly review: Week ending February 18, 2011 ................................................................... 224 Waking up: looking at my data ................................................................................................ 226 ITSC guide to conference awesomeness ................................................................................. 226 How I spent my Family Day weekend ..................................................................................... 227 Kaizen: Thinking about presentations .................................................................................... 227 Posted revised “Remote Presentations That Rock” presentation ....................................... 229 Get More Value from Blogging, part I: The Immediate Benefits of Thought .................... 229 Get More Value from Blogging, part II: The Compounding Value of an Archive ............. 232 Trying out Slideshare’s new Zipcast feature........................................................................... 234 Weekly review: Week ending February 25, 2011 ................................................................... 236 Get More Value from Blogging, part III: Sharing Makes the Blog Go ‘Round .................. 237 Get More Value from Blogging, part IV: Connecting with People ...................................... 240 March 2011 ...................................................................................................................................... 242 Dealing with intimidating projects .......................................................................................... 242 Get More Value from Blogging, part V: Communication Matters ...................................... 242 Questions and answers from #infoboomSC tweetchat on blogging ................................... 244 Get More Value from Blogging, part VI: Let’s Get Down to Business ................................ 246 Presentation experiment: Shy Connector, Six Steps to Sharing, and other presentations in March! .......................................................................................................................................... 248 Weekly review: Week ending March 4, 2011 .......................................................................... 248 Monthly review: February 2011 ............................................................................................... 249 Can’t see cross-domain images in your Flash file? Make a crossdomain.xml ................... 251 Quick notes from Emacs Org-mode talk at GTALUG ........................................................... 251 Leveling up as a developer! ....................................................................................................... 252 Trying MemoLane (social timeline) ........................................................................................ 253 Math and energy......................................................................................................................... 253 Weekly review: Week ending March 11, 2011 ......................................................................... 254 Get More Value from Blogging, Part VII: Inspiring Yourself and Inspiring Others ........ 255 Coconut buns and the economics of home awesomeness .................................................... 256 Continuing experiments with Slideshare’s Zipcast web conferences ................................. 257 Recipes: Coconut cocktail bun recipe ...................................................................................... 257 Thinking about a developer setup template ........................................................................... 259 Decision trees and self-challenges: how my laptop’s recent battery failure is a great excuse to think ............................................................................................................................ 259 Cats: 0, toilet paper monster: 1; also, ArtRage and Autodesk Sketchbook Pro ................ 261 Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 5

Spring! ......................................................................................................................................... 262 Weekly review: Week ending March 18, 2011 ........................................................................ 263 Pirate kitties ................................................................................................................................ 264 Learning more about Websphere and web service development........................................ 264 Shanghaippy birthday, John Grimme! Recipe: Lumpiang shanghai ................................. 264 The three argumenteers ............................................................................................................ 265 Weekly review: Week ending March 25, 2011 ........................................................................ 266 Filling in the learning gaps ....................................................................................................... 267 On typing in Dvorak ................................................................................................................... 268 Helping kids learn about automation ..................................................................................... 268 More thoughts on time analysis: correlations and revealed preferences........................... 269 Becoming a faster developer ..................................................................................................... 271 Quid est nōmen tuum? Nōmen meum est “Sacha” ............................................................... 272 April 2011......................................................................................................................................... 272 Running the Selenium IDE testing plugin with Firefox 4 .................................................... 272 Weekly review: Week ending April 1, 2011 ............................................................................. 272 Starting up our garden .............................................................................................................. 273 The Busy Person’s Guide to Learning from the Network (a guide for IBMers) ................ 274 Setting up Ruby on Rails on a Redhat Enterprise Linux Rackspace Cloud Server .......... 276 Helping kids learn algebra ........................................................................................................ 277 Why we use more than math textbooks and general-purpose resources ........................... 278 Spousonomics: Using economics to master love, marriage, and dirty dishes................... 279 Decision review: Battery ........................................................................................................... 279 Writing more about life ............................................................................................................. 280 Weekly review: Week ending April 8, 2011 ............................................................................ 280 On developing a reputation for project work ......................................................................... 281 Math study group: Positive and negative numbers ............................................................... 282 Still cold? Wear a hat to bed ..................................................................................................... 283 Using behavioural economics to motivate yourself when working on risky projects ...... 283 Three cat life................................................................................................................................ 284 Weekly review: Week ending April 15, 2011 ........................................................................... 284 Study group update: negative numbers, exponents, and awesomeness ............................ 285 Learning from my mood data ................................................................................................... 286 Making better use of travel time .............................................................................................. 286 Compost magic and happiness ................................................................................................. 287 Mr. Fluffers: Stray or not stray? ............................................................................................... 287 Back in the garden, the perennials are coming back............................................................. 288 Weekly review: Week ending April 22, 2011 .......................................................................... 288 Monthly review: March 2011 .................................................................................................... 289 Writing macrons in Linux for Latin pronunciation .............................................................. 290 Stuff or experiences.................................................................................................................... 290 The enemy of your enemy is your friend: mnemonics and negative integers ................... 291 Remote training that rocks ....................................................................................................... 292 Giving a presentation using Autodesk Sketchbook Pro and a web conference ................. 293 Study group: Flashcards and the Leitner method ................................................................. 294 Weekly review: Week ending April 29, 2011 .......................................................................... 294 "An Easy Method for Beginners in Latin" and macron-insensitive search for Tiddlywiki ....................................................................................................................................................... 295 May 2011 .......................................................................................................................................... 297 Negative productivity and learning from oopses ................................................................... 297 Thoughts from marriage: Learning together ......................................................................... 298 Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 6

Cucumber, Capybara, and the joys of integration testing in Rails ...................................... 299 On people changing companies ............................................................................................... 299 Tweaking married life for everyday happiness ...................................................................... 300 Rails: Exporting data from specific tables into fixtures ....................................................... 300 Condensing requirements into use cases ................................................................................ 301 On kids and the learning of tangible things ........................................................................... 302 Rails: Paperclip needs attributes defined by attr_accessible, not just attr_accessor ...... 302 Back from the Netherlands ....................................................................................................... 302 Weekly review: Week ending May 6, 2011 .............................................................................. 303 First foray into community-supported agriculture ............................................................... 303 Cattus Petasatus ......................................................................................................................... 304 Weekly review: Week ending May 13, 2011 ............................................................................ 304 Rails: Preserving test data......................................................................................................... 305 Finding the bright side of business travel............................................................................... 305 Walking outside my comfort zone – bike? push/kick scooter? ........................................... 306 Ordered a Kindle with free 3G.................................................................................................. 308 Travel updates: GPS, Pearl Street, Vibram toe shoes ........................................................... 308 Waiting for my Kindle ............................................................................................................... 309 Presentation draft: Mentoring on the Network ..................................................................... 309 Notes from the airport: Missed my flight; not the end of the world after all .................... 311 Victoria Day weekend: back to the garden ............................................................................. 312 Gardening: Horticultural investments, social dividends ..................................................... 313 Experimenting with standing desks ........................................................................................ 313 The flow of opportunities in a large company ........................................................................ 314 Taking a break while working on presentations .................................................................... 314 Developing a workflow with Autodesk Sketchbook Pro ....................................................... 315 Weekly review: Weeks ending May 20, 2011 and May 27, 2011 .......................................... 316 Dealing with a bad calendar week ........................................................................................... 316 May 29, 2011: bagels, banana bread, bok choi, bath stuff, and books................................ 317 Made a kitty soap holder ........................................................................................................... 317 Seasons and salad days.............................................................................................................. 317 Learning from Mr. Collins: Practice, conversation, and what to do when someone says something mean ......................................................................................................................... 318 June 2011 ......................................................................................................................................... 319 VMWare, Samba, Eclipse, and XDebug: Mixing a virtual Linux environment with a Microsoft Windows development environment .................................................................... 319 Hungry hungry compost and other garden updates ............................................................. 320 It’s Bike Month in Toronto! ...................................................................................................... 321 Monthly reviews: April and May 2011 ..................................................................................... 321 Decision review: calendars, development, standing desks, toe shoes, Kindle, bike, CSA, Autodesk Sketchbook, blogging ............................................................................................... 322 Bike ride in the rain ................................................................................................................... 323 Weekly review: Week ending June 3, 2011 ............................................................................. 323 Plans for summer: Relationships, work, gardening, biking, drawing and photography, making, and finances ................................................................................................................. 324 Made a stuff sack for J- ............................................................................................................. 326 Negative optimization ............................................................................................................... 327 Thinking about our development practices ............................................................................ 327 Drush, Simpletest, and continuous integration for Drupal using Jenkins (previously Hudson) ....................................................................................................................................... 328 Sketchnotes from Democamp Toronto 29, June 2011 .......................................................... 329 Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 7

Managing configuration changes in Drupal ........................................................................... 330 Weekly review: Week ending June 11, 2011 ........................................................................... 332 Getting things ready for the next week: cooking and gardening ......................................... 332 This is what my blog looks like on paper ................................................................................ 333 Decision review: Kitchen counter computing (ad hoc standing desk) ............................... 334 Cook Or Die Season II: Community-Supported Agriculture ............................................... 334 Kaizen in the little things: The way the door opens .............................................................. 335 Make-ahead meals ..................................................................................................................... 335 Personal projects ........................................................................................................................ 336 Getting the hang of community-supported agriculture........................................................ 337 Gardening notes: Cut-and-come-again lettuce ...................................................................... 337 An abundance of cilantro, now freezing in cubes; strawberries and peas ......................... 338 Weekly review: Week ending June 18, 2011 ........................................................................... 339 Thinking about speaking topics ............................................................................................... 339 Switching back to Linux as my development host ................................................................ 341 (500) days of salad ..................................................................................................................... 341 Portal 2 and teachable moments in argument ....................................................................... 342 Portal 2......................................................................................................................................... 343 Mindful spending, experiments, and living in line with your values.................................. 343 Weekly review: Week ending June 25, 2011........................................................................... 344 Strawberry rhubarb baking....................................................................................................... 345 Writing your way past “What have I been doing with my life?” .......................................... 346 Learning from the speeches of grade seven students ........................................................... 347 Drupal notes from helping a client improve her development environment .................... 348 Meaning and acknowledgement .............................................................................................. 348 Context-switching and a four-project day .............................................................................. 349 July 2011 .......................................................................................................................................... 351 Four-day weekend ahead .......................................................................................................... 351 How I organize my personal finances ..................................................................................... 352 Getting a grip on a large database migration ......................................................................... 354 Fifty kilometers on my bicycle .................................................................................................. 354 Embracing Pollyanna................................................................................................................. 355 Organizing my digital life .......................................................................................................... 356 Hacking Drupal views and taxonomy: looking for 100% matching of terms .................... 357 Planning for summer ................................................................................................................. 358 In an imperfect world ................................................................................................................ 360 Thinking about activities to share with others ....................................................................... 361 Weekly review: Two weeks ending July 9, 2011 .................................................................... 363 Monthly review: June 2011 ....................................................................................................... 363 On cherry tomatoes, frugality, and wanting ........................................................................... 365 Love, web development, and imaginary friends .................................................................... 365 The first blueberries from our garden ..................................................................................... 366 A zucchini a day keeps the vegetable drawer okay ................................................................ 366 Cake was not a lie ....................................................................................................................... 367 An elephant love story: Real stories of Manila Zoo ............................................................... 368 Piano lessons ............................................................................................................................... 372 Dealing with web development and stress ............................................................................. 372 Weekly review: Week ending July 16, 2011 ............................................................................ 373 Dealing with a heat wave in Toronto ....................................................................................... 373 Starting piano again ................................................................................................................... 374 Rhetoric and the Manila Zoo; reflections on conversations and a request for insight .... 374 Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 8

Public transit day........................................................................................................................ 377 Weekly review: Week ending July 24, 2011............................................................................ 377 Cats in high places ...................................................................................................................... 378 Sketchnotes from Quantified Self Toronto meetup: Conferences, pollution sensing, and growing old at home .................................................................................................................. 378 Piano lesson week 2 ................................................................................................................... 379 Long weekend ahead ................................................................................................................. 380 Mornings at our house............................................................................................................... 380 Software and making pots......................................................................................................... 380 Weekly review: Week ending July 31, 2011 ............................................................................ 381

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 9

alive, I’m happy, and I love. (This is not dependent on being loved back, although that makes things even awesomer!)

August 2010

What’s success, anyway? http://sachachua.com/blog/p/7286 August 1, 2010 Categories: happiness, life, reflection, succe ss Cate Huston and I are figuring out happiness and success. She wonders if happiness inhibits success, and if that jolt of insecurity is necessary for greatness. I’m happy and successful, so I want to explore what that means, and if being content gets in the way of being great. It seems like you need that kind of driving ambition in order to live the kind of life that gets written about in books. This is great. History has both happy geniuses and unhappy geniuses, although we tend to focus more on the unhappy geniuses. (Perhaps they make us feel better about ourselves?) The language that we use to talk of happiness frames it as a pursuit, a goal. People dream of being happy. People work on being happy. People achieve happiness. Or they achieve their previously-set goals, only to find that the goalposts have moved. They thought they’d be happy with a hundred thousand dollars in the bank, and now they want a million. What if happiness isn’t something to be pursued? What if it just is? What if you just are? What if you accept the world as it is, and find your serenity and happiness in each moment? What if you don’t need to be entertained or loved each moment? What if you can find the grace in the pain and the joy of life? I’m happy. Sometimes I’m annoyed on the surface, but I’m generally happy, and it’s fun to grow even happier–to get better at reflexive happy-do. I’m successful: I’m

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 10

Realization: Growth doesn’t stop when you’re doing well. Your questions change. Instead of asking, “Why does this suck?” or “How can I make this suck less?”, you ask, “How wonderful can it be? How can I help get there? How can I help more people experience this?” A tangent: One of the interesting job openings at work is looking for people who want to challenge the status quo. Reflecting on that, I realized that my drive is different. I want to share the status quo, recognizing that there are many kinds of status quo. My status quo is that I’m happy, I have a wonderful life, and I work with an awesome organization. Within that organization, there are pockets of status quo like that. Within each person, there are moments like that. I want to bring out those moments. There will probably be resistance, even from people who already want to change, but we don’t have to be adversaries. It’s different when you start from a perspective of abundance and love. It will be an interesting experiment to see if I can keep this perspective through the years. Deepen it. Share it. What’s success? Dreaming, I could set my sights on a job title and climb the ladder; carve out a name for myself in history through endeavor; become a titan and create an empire. (It would be nice to be like Carnegie and plant libraries all over!) There are people with drive and ambition enough for that. People will do what needs to be done. Maybe I will explore the little way, the ordinary life well-lived. As my parents’ example continues to teach me, you don’t need an Extraordinary Master Life Plan to make awesome things happen. My ordinary-but-awesome life so far is working well, although occasionally people need a

reminder that these things are ordinary and doable.

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[X] Coordinate with family on new date

So: success. What is it, anyway? If I can live, be happy, and share happiness, that should be pretty good. We can figure out how wonderful life can be (for as many people as possible) along the way.

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Helped a friend learn more about cooking

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Tidied up my computer

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Had great conversations about connecting, introductions, etc.

Hmm, time to read up on philosophy again. I need better words and perspectives to explore this! =)

Life •

[-] Organize everything into neat zippered pouches, etc.

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[-] Declutter: Eliminate one thing a day

http://sachachua.com/blog/p/7300 August 2, 2010 - Categories: weekly

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[C] Sign up for singing lessons – focusing on other things right now

Work

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[-] Take advantage of free studio time at the Sewing Studio (Sunday, 2pm to 6pm – get all of my cutting and serging and sewing done, and get some exercise on the way there and back too)

Weekly review: Week ending August 1, 2010

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[X] Support upcoming workshops

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[X] Re-use Idea Lab results

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[X] Launch expertise pilot with SMEs

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[X] Explore possible expertise specialist position

Also: Cleared and replanted parts of the garden

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Learned more about woodworking

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Drew, yay!

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Explored Craigslist a little more

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[X] Add features to community toolkit plugin

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Helped community owners learn more about vitality and metrics

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Added statistics to Lotus Notes community tools plugin

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Learned how to modify Lotus Notes plugins and use Expeditor!

Relationships •

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[X] Experiment with more recipes (instead of hiring cooking teacher? More sustainable, and we’ve got the basics sorted out already) [-] Reflect on happiness with a friend, co-writing a blog entry – postponed to next week [-] Follow up with people from tweetup, learning about them and their interests

PLANS FOR NEXT WEEK: Long-weekend focus: declutter space, organize information Work •

[ ] Organize upcoming Idea Labs

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[ ] Answer more requests for community toolkit

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[ ] Package Lotus Notes plugin

Relationships •

[ ] Declutter living room

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[ ] Follow up with people, learning about them and their interests

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[ ] Catch up with mylifeandart

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 11

Life •

[ ] Draw more! =)

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[ ] Create an index for images, book notes, blog posts, etc.

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[ ] Plan next tea party

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[ ] Price-match blender if possible

Two days of awesome http://sachachua.com/blog/p/7299 August 3, 2010 Categories: cooking, hobbies, sketches, woo dworking I spent Saturday at Lee Valley’s Women and Power Tools seminar. In the process of building a toolbox, we got to use a circular saw, a mitre saw, a table saw, a jigsaw, a band saw, a drill press, routers (both fixed and hand-held), a belt sander, a palm sander, and a portable drill. W- and I used a circular saw, a jigsaw, and a portable drill to build our Muskoka chairs, but I wanted to try out the stationary power tools like the table saw and the drill press. We haven’t set up a permanent workshop, so all of our tools have to be portable enough to set up on the deck. The class was lots of fun. I enjoyed meeting other women who were interested in woodworking. Our two instructors were both great role models: passionate, experienced, and engaged. I’m looking forward to seeing the list of autumn classes at Lee Valley’s and learning more. I’m happy with the toolbox I built. The sides aren’t perfectly matched and the wood has knots, but the toolbox holds together, and the little buttons that cover the sunken screws are so cute. =)

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I really liked the drill press, the belt/orbital sander, and the table saw. I think our next major tool investment might be a portable table saw, if W- and I find one that we’re happy with. But we’ll buy that only if we get into serious carpentry, like building cabinets. The folding table I’ve got on my to-build list should be doable with the tools that we have. One of my classmates is into sewing, gardening, and woodworking too. Yay! =) Maybe she’ll come to one of my tea parties? I’d love to connect with other crafters. On Sunday, I invited Maira to come over and try batch-cooking. The kitchen at her sublet apartment is small and sparsely equipped. W- and I both enjoy cooking, and we have a decently-stocked kitchen. So Maira and I spent three hours cooking up a storm: lemon refrigerator cookies, baked chicken, and chicken with mushroom sauce. There was a lot of food. Maira took home a week or two of meals, and we stashed the rest in the chest freezer. I’m glad I invited her to come and cook with me. It’s great to try new recipes and realize they’re not so scary, and company turns cooking into a conversation. If cooking batches works for her, then she can repeat the recipes or try new ones and manage her time more efficiently. (I spent many student days living off pans of lasagna I made for myself!) I also repotted some of my parsley for her. The large bunches of parsley in the supermarket made Maira feel bad about the potential waste, but growing parsley will let her harvest a little bit at a time. After we dropped Maira off, we passed by Walmart to see if they had any sergers in stock. I’d like to get a serger to finish my edges more cleanly and do better rolled hems, but it’s hard to decide which one to buy. The Walmart at Dufferin Mall had two Singer 14CG74 sergers in stock. The Brother 1034D is highly recommended, but I haven’t found out where to buy it in Toronto. Wvolunteered to help me do research and check out Craigslist, which is terrific because he’s really good at doing that kind of comparison shopping.

I offered to make him a green monster (vegetable smoothie), but I dropped the blender and the plastic shattered. It was the lowend blender I’d bought during my student days, so I wasn’t troubled by it. After some research, Wand I bought a KitchenAid blender from Home Outfitters. It turned out to be $50 cheaper to order the blender from FutureShop, so I’ll call Home Outfitters after the long weekend to find out if they’ll match the lower price. As W- reminded me, a blender in hand might beat two in the mail. ;) I’m starting to like these vegetable smoothies. They took some getting used to when we first made them, but the frozen strawberries and blueberries make them almost a treat, and we go through so much more spinach (and even kale!) than we do if we just have salad. In other news: you know, this drawing thing is fun. I find it more fun than taking and posting pictures, even. Why haven’t I been doing this more often? Maybe because I’ve been writing about these abstract things that don’t suggest images, but that’s a good exercise for the imagination. Perhaps I can write these slice-of-life posts from time to time. I like playing with colour and ink when I draw on my computer… =)

Success and blogging http://sachachua.com/blog/p/7285 August 4, 2010 Categories: blogging, success What’s success when you’re writing a personal blog–not a niche blog which you want to make money from through ads or ebooks, not a corporate blog where you want to project a certain brand, but a personal blog, a notebook into which you write whatever might be useful to you and others?

Success is not a matter of becoming wildly popular. You succeed as soon as you grasp a thought and try to think it through, writing it down. Even if you throw away your draft and never publish it (although please do–you’ll be surprised at how valuable these sketches and attempts to explain can be), you have already gained a little more clarity and understanding. You succeed again when you share those thoughts, getting over your fear, anxiety, and discomfort. You succeed again when you look up your old posts for a solution you’d written down or a reflection you’d shared, saving you time figuring things out again. You succeed again when people read your post–even several years later, brought in by search engines–and they learn something from it. You succeed again when they do something about it. You succeed again when someone shares their thoughts in a comment, even if it’s to point out that you’ve missed something. (Another opportunity to learn!) You succeed again when one comment turns into another, and into a serendipitous connection you might never have made. You succeed again when you learn something, and again when you do something about it. You succeed again when you build friendships. There are so many different kinds of success in blogging. Don’t get distracted by all the fuss about increasing your subscriber count, building your personal brand, or making money through ads, products, or services. There’s more to it than that. Enjoy! 2010-07-28 Wed 07:46

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Long weekend reflections http://sachachua.com/blog/p/7301 August 5, 2010 Categories: life, productivity, reflection, vac ation Long weekends? We don’t pack our bags and travel, or kick our feet up and chill out at our (non-existent) cottage. We work. House-work, life-work, all the projects where investing hours of concentrated time pays. On Monday, we played a real-life puzzle game in our living room, moving tables and boxes around until we could reorganize everything the way we wanted it. Moved the bicycles to the deck, followed by the woodworking tools and materials. With the floor-space cleared (at least a little), disassembled the table and rolled it out to the porch for donation. Moved the bric-abrac hiding behind the table to their rightful places, then moved the piano into the space formerly occupied by the table. Moved the coffee table aside. Moved the couch to the space occupied by the piano. With access to the shelves, moved all the books off the back bookshelf, then moved the bookcase to the opposite wall. Moved the bicycles into the space formerly occupied by the bookcase. Moved the books back onto the bookcase, setting aside many books for donation. Moved books from the second bookcase onto the first bookcase and the third bookcase, again setting aside more books. Moved the now-empty second bookcase beside the first bookcase. Moved the third bookcase’s books to the second bookcase, again setting aside books for donation. Moved the third bookcase into the kitchen. Moved the canned goods, baking supplies, and other shelf-stable ingredients from the basement to the bookcase-turned-pantry. It felt awesome. On Tuesday, we worked on our Adirondack chairs. I disassembled my chair and sanded the parts to prepare it for painting, while Wand J- worked on J-‘s chair. They were quite a while from painting, so I scanned my sketchbook and tweaked my digital filing

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system in order to be able to review my drawings more easily. Our two-week vacation last year? Cooking, canning, sewing, gardening, biking, writing. After something like that, work feels like an equal pleasure—perhaps even a relaxing treat. It’s not the sharp contrast between idyllic perfection and the cubicle grind, or exotic thrills and mundane routines. And relaxation? A good day’s work, a good meal’s satisfaction, a good night’s sleep. Self-control to let neither work nor hobbies overrun each other. Love and laughter sprinkled throughout the day. Why do I write this? To share that it’s okay if your idea of a great vacation doesn’t involve vacating. That life doesn’t have to be predicated on a dread of Mondays and a desire for escape. That house-work and life-work done with intention and love can be fulfilling.

On passion and luck http://sachachua.com/blog/p/7302 August 6, 2010 Categories: career, highlight, life, passion Cate Huston is an Extreme Blue intern who stumbled across her dream project at IBM. She asks: What if you don’t get so lucky? What if you don’t happen upon someone working on something you’re that passionate about? Two thoughts. The first: Luck is overrated. I’m here because of a gazillion coincidences that just happened to turn out this way. I’m working on Innovation Discovery because they liked my work after bringing me in as a workshop speaker on collaboration and Gen Y, which happened because Nicoline Braat recommended them to me, which happened because she read my blog, which happened

because she stumbled across me on the intranet (presentations? communities?), which happened because I joined IBM, which happened because I fell in love with the company while doing my research funded by the IBM Toronto Center for Advanced Studies, which happened because I did my master’s at the University of Toronto, which happened because U of T accepted me and offered me full funding, which happened because my future research supervisor met me and was convinced I’d be a good fit, which happened because I met him when we were both in Japan, which happened because I was checking out interesting research groups at U of T, which happened because of my interest in personal information management (and the recommendation of U of T from an old friend who had also been a scholar there), which happened because I got into Emacs and Planner, which happened because I got into open source in university, which happened because I wanted to do more than what we took up in computer science classes, which I took up because I loved programming, which I taught myself when I was in grade school because my sister was doing it and she refused to teach me, which I could do because I loved using the computer, which was because we had an Apple ][e clone in the house, which happened because my parents thought it would be educational… (And there are many other branching coincidences along the way!) Am I lucky? Yes. Could it have turned out better or worse? Yes. Did I have something to do with that luck? Probably, by casting a wide and deep net: wide in terms of interests that could lead to new passions and in terms of people watching out for opportunities , and deep in terms of building skills that helped me make the most of new opportunities. You will always walk on the edge of possibilities, an unimaginably complex path culminating in the present and branching off into innumerable opportunities in the future.

Luck. Prepare the soil, plant seeds, and share the ongoing harvest. Second: Passion is overrated. ;) By that, I mean that people often hope—or expect—to be swept away by some grand passion, to wake up one morning and find a flame burning in their heart and a job opening that neatly takes advantage of that new flame. I don’t know much about that because I don’t remember falling in love with my first passion. I’ve been using computers and delighting in how I could use them since before memory. But I do remember falling in love with writing, because I used to hate it in school. I hated writing book reports and critical analyses that no one else would really read, and that felt like I was just making things up. Translated into a different context—the very geeky context of sharing code and tips—the love of writing snuck up on me gradually. Trees start as little seeds and saplings. More often than people expect, passion builds from skill and intention. Sometimes you have to be good at something—or at least decent—before you can love it. This is not to say that people shouldn’t find work that builds on their strengths and compensates for their weaknesses. Sometimes, though, you can learn a lot about your strengths and surprise yourself with your (non-)weaknesses by applying yourself to something. No matter what you do, find something to be passionate about and build on it. Build that aspect up as much as you can. When you ride your passion to the limits of your role, you’ll have clues about the next role to take.

On finding a great job http://sachachua.com/blog/p/7303

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August 7, 2010 Categories: career, highlight, life, passion, w ork Cate Huston blogged: I have put this huge stress on myself because I really want to have a job lined up for January by the end of September, preferably by the end of August. And I don’t want it to be just any job, I want it to be a greatjob. And this is a problem because my ideas of what I want to do are somewhat vague – I want to make things! I want them to be pretty! I want to make the world a better place! Programmers can do that, I know it!

Ah. Time for me to put my mentor hat on and braindump a few things I’ve stumbled across. =) Great jobs The second-best job description is the one that’s been written for you. It speaks to your strengths. It pushes the right buttons. It gets you excited about working on cool things and making a difference. How do you get it? Well, you convince a manager to take a risk on you. A big risk, actually, because hiring is expensive and turnover is even more so. What’s better than that, and easier to get into? The best job description is the one you write for yourself. Even if you start with a generic job role, if you’ve resolved to be a star in that role, you probably will be one. If you’re good, people often want to help you make the most of your strengths. Yes, there will be things that drive you a little crazy. I didn’t like dealing with finicky cross-browser CSS. But I did it, got things done, and demonstrated to the team that it would be even better if someone else did that part and I did, say, the fiddly system administration tasks that other people didn’t like. Flexibility. If you’ve got a good manager, he or she will tweak your role to take advantage of your strengths and trade your weaknesses.

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Don’t worry about finding the best possible project or job description. Find a good manager and a good team. That’s what your side of the interview is about: figuring out if it will be a good fit. Good managers and good teams can help you navigate the system and get things done. Pick a job that doesn’t make you die inside. Throw yourself into it and figure out what you can love about it. Make things happen. Rewrite your role. Pack as much awesomeness into it as you can. Create your next role, or evolve it out of what you’re already doing. You might be certain that you would totally rock if all the stars lined up, but it can be surprisingly fun—and a great deal more practical and confidence-building—to take almost anything and rock it. Besides, awesome job posts are rare. Why? Because it’s nearly impossible to anticipate someone’s awesomeness without the risk of overly narrowing the applicant pool, and so it’s nearly impossible to anticipate what kind of role can make the most of their skills. For example, a job description to find a exact replacement for me in my current role would involve: strong communication and facilitation skills; some graphic design skills; deep Lotus Connections experience; programming in LotusScript, Java, and Microsoft Excel VBA; wide personal networks; automation; speed-reading (seriously, this comes in quite handy); fast typing; a passion for both consulting and development… Right. If we ever want me to be able to move on from this role, we need to settle for someone who’s a quick learner. =) Maybe they’ll be awesome in entirely different ways, and they’ll take the role in entirely new directions. (Which would be awesome!) Also: what I’m passionate about might not be the same as what you’re passionate about. Which is cool. Some job descriptions will emphasize your role in making a difference and changing the world. Some job

descriptions (implement and maintain widget X in dashboard Y) may sound boring. But it really all comes down to how good someone is at coming up with and communicating a vision, because even implementing a widget in a dashboard can be pretty awesome if you know why it matters. Here’s the surprising thing: you can come up with that vision, that reason why this work matters, even if your company doesn’t tell you. Business books love sharing those stories. The cleaner at a nursing home? Might hate the drudge work, or might be passionate about it because it makes residents happier to be in a neat place. Meaning is something you can put into your own work. It means, though, that job posts for awesome positions sometimes don’t look like they are. On the flip side, job posts that look awesome (a hodgepodge of “cool” technologies! hipster language!) sometimes aren’t. Figure out if you can deal with the core responsibilities, if you like the team, and if you can grow. Take responsibility for finding meaning. On not knowing You don’t need to figure out everything in the beginning. Find something that looks something like what you might like. Use it to learn what you really like and what you really don’t like. Experiment. Improve. Let life teach and surprise you.

Monthly review: July 2010 http://sachachua.com/blog/p/7305 August 8, 2010 - Categories: monthly Last month, I said: What will July be like? I want to polish my community toolkit and share it with more people. I want to explore sales and see what I can learn even in my current role. I want to

invest more time into developing relationships. I want to build a few projects. I want to learn how to play at least one song on my ukulele. It’ll be busy and fun and amazing.

And it was busy and fun and amazing. Lots of Idea Lab awesomeness: It’s always such a thrill to bring together so many engaged and insightful people to help our clients innovate. And we’re getting better at the process, too. We pulled the latest Idea Lab together in three weeks or so, and I prepared the summary of the results on the same day. We’ve got a number of Idea Labs on the go, and I even helped a client learn more about how they might do those Idea Labs internally. I’ve been doing lots of other fun stuff at work, too. The expertise location pilot I’m working on is going well, and dozens of SMEs have filled out their profiles. I’ve been revising presentations, designing simple posters, preparing handouts, organizing information, and updating tracking spreadsheets. Thank goodness for to-do lists, organizational tools, I learned how to extend Lotus Notes with Java plugins. Added a bunch of features to the Community Toolkit plugin Luis Benitez had started, including the metrics tool that people had wanted for private communities. Also added a bucketload of metrics to the web-based tool. Fixed some bugs along the way, too. I’ve started seeing communities weave the output into their newsletters, and it always makes me feel warm and fuzzy. I’m checking out another fascinating career possibility – a new digital expertise position that’s just been created. It looks like a great fit, and we’ll see if things work out. It’s amazing how so many of my different passions come together. That position, for example, might take advantage of my master’s work in expertise location, my development using Drupal, my interest in marketing and communications, my passion for helping people connect and collaborate… Another position I’m interested in would make the most of my passion for helping people and organizations collaborate better, my interest

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in sales, my love of making quick prototypes. Passions can be like LEGO blocks, quickly reconfigured and combined. Reflecting and mentoring: I’ve been thinking a lot about life, success, and happiness these days, prompted by what other people post or ask. Here are some of those reflections: •

Finding opportunities in a big company

•

A philosophy of sharing and a truth about teaching

•

Technology evangelists: What we do, how to find and hire one, how to become one

•

Reflections from a tweetup

•

Love and reaction

•

Thoughts on writing and starting again

Relationships: I enjoyed having people over for tea, and I made a few new friends along the way, too. I’ve also been helping a friend settle into Toronto and learn how to cook. I’ve (slowly) been sending out bottles of jam, and really should set up some kind of packing center so that I can get more of these out the door. Also, moved wedding to October 2 because of delays related to my parents’ visas. I think everything’s sorted out now! =)

wedding, reorganize space, meet up with W’s family, have a tea party, meet up with friends, mentor and be mentored. Life: Get back into sewing pouches and other organizers. Draw and write more vividly. Have fun. =) Other blog posts from this month: Cool mornings Electronic ears: Using Performous to learn how to sing Living an awesome life: Not a Greek tragedy Getting the hang of leading small things Giving myself permission to delegate again Troubleshooting my Lotus Notes 8.5.2, Expeditor 6.2, and Eclipse 3.4 setup Using org2blog to publish Org-mode subtrees This is a test post from org2blog Garden riches Keeping track of multiple projects Playing the long game: writing, raw material, and backups Delegation and thinking about what I want to do CookOrDie: Passing it on with lemonrosemary chicken Sooner or later? Expertise and the new Yogurt, change, and growing oldness Get-together ideas for Toronto Career growth in a large company Blueberry jam, apricot syrup, and kiwi jam Thinking about dinner parties Tools, big companies, and collaboration

Ukulele: Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah – can play it, but haven’t memorized it yet. It sounds very chipper on a ukulele. ;) Woodworking: Not as much as last month, but we did work on our chairs some more. Sewing: Stops and starts, but am definitely keen on sewing more.

Weekly reviews:

What will August look like? I’m turning 27, so it’ll be a great excuse to do that yearly review (and what a year!). Work: Organize lots of Idea Labs, support workshops, attend training, improve our community toolkit, come up with a way for other people to organize Idea Labs easily, explore opportunities, and prepare presentations. Relationships: Sort everything out for Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 18

Last month’s review: Monthly review: June 2010

•

Week ending July 26, 2010

•

Week ending July 18, 2010

•

Week ending July 11, 2010

•

Week ending July 4, 2010

Sample code for allowing drag-and-drop of Notes/Domino documents

(including email) to a table in a plugin http://sachachua.com/blog/p/7304 August 9, 2010 Categories: geek, java, lotus, notes, program ming Because I had to piece this together from examples on the Internet, and probably other people do too: Transfer[] transferArray = new Transfer[]{ XMLTransfer.getInstance(), }; tableViewer.addDropSupport(DND.DROP_D EFAULT | DND.DROP_COPY | DND.DROP_MOVE | DND.DROP_LINK, transferArray, new DropTargetAdapter() { public void drop(DropTargetEvent event) { TableItem item = (TableItem) event.item; // You can access the object with item.getData() try { NotesThread.sinitThread(); Session session = NotesFactory.createSessionWithFullAcc ess(); if (event.data instanceof URIDescriptor[]){ URIDescriptor[] droppedURL = (URIDescriptor[]) event.data; for (int i = 0; i < droppedURL.length; i++) { URI uri = ((URIDescriptor) droppedURL[i]).uri; Document d = (Document) session.resolve(uri.toString()); // Do things with the document } } } catch (Exception e) { e.printStackTrace(); } finally { NotesThread.stermThread(); } }});

Use session.resolve instead of db.getDocumentByURL to retrieve a document from a plugin, as both

session.getAgentContext() and session.getCurrentDatabase() will return null.

Weekly review: Week ending August 8, 2010 http://sachachua.com/blog/p/7307 August 10, 2010 - Categories: weekly From last week’s plans: Long-weekend focus: declutter space, organize information Work •

[X] Organize upcoming Idea Labs

•

[X] Answer more requests for community toolkit: statistics, bugfixes, etc.

•

[ ] Package Lotus Notes plugin – postponed, but worked on community membership management for Lotus Notes plugin

•

Helped revise slides and posters

•

Helped a client learn more about Idea Labs

•

Gave mentoring advice

•

Talked to potential new team

Relationships •

[X] Declutter living room – wow! so different now.

•

[ ] Follow up with people, learning about them and their interests – still haven’t followed up on tweetup or class

•

[X] Catch up with mylifeandart

•

Bought a television and a Playstation 3

•

Bought latest book in Artemis Fowl series

•

Treated W- and J- to Despicable Me, which was lots of fun

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•

Experimented with the Litter Robot – wonder if the cats will take to it. Pricey, but if it works…

•

Decluttered living room and gave away a third of our books

•

Harvested our first bitter melon and made pinakbet with it =)

Life •

[-] Draw more! =)

•

[-] Create an index for images, book notes, blog posts, etc. – scanned my sketches

•

[-] Plan next tea party – maybe end of month?

•

[C] Price-match blender if possible – cancelled because of price differences for colour

•

Posted lots of reflections

•

Replanted large parts of the garden

•

Upgraded to Lucid Lynx

Next week’s plans: Work •

Organize upcoming Idea Labs

•

Attend training for Application Innovation Services consultants

•

Work on plugin to make it easier for other people to organize Idea Labs

•

Contact briefing consultants regarding the expertise pilot

Relationships •

Send a quick note to people I met at VXToronto and in woodworking class

•

Mail lots of jam

Life •

Pick up more travel business wear at the Tilley sale

Outline my “lifeline of books” (see “Write for Your Lives”) Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 20 •

Television and the push and pull of motivation http://sachachua.com/blog/p/7306 August 11, 2010 Categories: family, highlight, life, reflection For the first time in years, we have a television in the house. I resisted the idea at first, nervous about the gravitational pull of a large television, the mind-numbing effects of passive attention, the shift of hours away from other pursuits. It would be nice to play games with W- and J-, though. I remember how much Jenjoyed teaming up when we both had Nintendo DSes, and there were some new games that would be fun to explore on a Playstation 3. And the TV would come in handy when watching movies from the library, which we often do while folding laundry. So we crunched the numbers, figured out what would be worth it based on a projected use of 1-3 hours per week, and headed to FutureShop to pick up the television. FutureShop was out of Playstation 3s. Walmart had plenty in stock, as well as less expensive HDMI cables and controllers. (You can save a few more dollars by ordering an HDMI cable off the Internet, if you plan ahead.) Having rounded up the gaming parts, we returned to FutureShop to get the TV and a wall-mounting bracket (important for keeping it out of reach of cats). We’ve had the TV for a weekend. So far, we’re still okay. The chores are done. The freezer is full of meals for the next week. I’ve still had time to read and write. We’ve still had great conversations. And it was a lot of fun exploring the world of LEGO Harry Potter with J-, who’s getting a lot of practice in solving puzzles, particularly stubborn ones. She and Whave been having fun playing LittleBigPlanet, too. Here are some things I’ve realized about having a television:

TV is not inherently bad. It’s a tool. However, many people have invested a lot of time and energy into figuring out how to use this tool to engage or sell to others, so we should be careful about how we use it and what we absorb. Knowing that movies and video games can be very engaging, I want to make it easier for me to make time to do other things. This is where choosing the right perspective really matters. If I frame it as resisting the pull of the television, that’s going to take energy and wear down my self-control. (More about ego depletion on Wikipedia.) On the other hand, if I focus on how much I want to do other things, then it becomes much easier to do them. I’m not fighting the television; it’s just the wrong tool for what I want to do. Let’s say that I want to write, which is fun and interesting and helps me learn. Instead of watching a movie, thinking, “I really should be writing,” and then trying to muster the energy to change activities and do it, I’ll focus on how much and why I want to write, and the television becomes irrelevant because it’s the wrong tool. It’s easier to focus on the positive than to resist the negative. Easier for me to pull myself towards something than to push myself. Are you avoiding or trying to break a bad habit, too? What if you tried flipping things around – focusing on the good parts of things you would rather do, instead of on resisting the bad parts of the things you don’t want to do?

Networking events http://sachachua.com/blog/p/7291 August 12, 2010 Categories: connecting, networking, reflecti on It’s my birthday, yay! (Happy birthday, Mom!) But I’m away at training, so the annual review + sketches will have to wait for the weekend. In the meantime, here’s

something I was thinking about the other day… I confess: I don’t go to “networking events” to meet people. I go to eavesdrop on interesting conversations. I go to share and pick up tips and ideas. I go to practise avoiding the name/rank/serial number conversations (and in my small way, perhaps show people there is an alternative). I go to have fun connecting the dots. I go to work on remembering names and little details. I’m not there to find a new job. I have an awesome one. I’m not there to find new friends. If the seeds of friendships are planted there, terrific. The real work happens outside the event, after all. I’m there to learn from the conversations that people have with people other than me. It’s one of the reasons why I like having a group of friends over instead of talking to them one-on-one. Other people bring out different aspects of people that I wouldn’t see on my own. What do I hope for? I hope that I can collapse the distance between people. I hope that I can share people and ideas and resources outside the event. I hope that a chance conversation might turn into a weak tie, and a month or several years down the road, into another connect-the-dots experience, another aha!, or another friendship. So I seldom go to or organize networking events per se. I like going to events with a bigger purpose. DemoCamp, with its promise of interesting startups and ideas. Tea, an excuse for me to prepare treats and create a space for conversation. Conferences. IBM speed mentoring events in Second Life. (Yes, we have them, and they’re lots of fun.) Your typical stand-up-and-meet-people? Sometimes they’re the starting point of interesting conversations and reflections, like the ones I had with Neal Schaffer around sharing and with Judy Gombita about introductions. Sometimes they

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require lots of digging to get past the surface conversations. Sometimes I wonder if I’ve crossed some kind of tipping point, where the scale effects of the Internet tend to work more for me than the hallway conversations and chance connections of real-life events. (Are search engine results like those serendipitous encounters, except longer-lasting?) I prefer writing and commenting and tweeting over speaking over the din; we reach more people, blossom into more conversations. I could be missing out on subtleties, which is why I go to events from time to time–to see and experience and reflect. But the world stretches before us, and why limit myself to this corner when we could enable aha!s all over? /Thanks to Dennie Theodore for blogging about large events and nudging me to think about them!/ 2010-07-30 Fri 07:40

Reflecting on introductions http://sachachua.com/blog/p/7289 August 13, 2010 Categories: connecting, networking SCHEDULED: 2010-07-31 Sat 08:00 Introductions. I’m thinking about this because I feel odd when Judy Gombita (@jgombita) enthusiastically introduces me as a tech evangelist rock star, and I need to tease out where that comes from. I recognize her introduction as a gift, and I appreciate it. Where does this reticence come from?

One-up Part of it, I think, is not wanting to be lumped in with self-proclaimed experts. It seems you can’t throw a link without hitting a social media guru these days. While it’s great that people are excited about this and are working on helping businesses and people learn, I don’t know if we know enough about social media to be experts in it yet.

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 22

Relatively, maybe. There are people whom you can help, even if you’re just starting out. You don’t have to be an expert to help. You don’t even need to be an expert for people to find you. (It’s like fame. If you have to say you’re famous, you aren’t. If you’re famous, you don’t have to say it.) There’s so much mystique about “expertise”–or “eminence”, another term that comes up at IBM often these days. I feel a little weird about it, even though I’m currently working on an expertise location initiative. (I think of it as about finding people. That helps.) Expert, rockstar, guru, maven, and all of these other “one-up” nouns make me feel odd. I’ve always had a problem with articles listing me as “self-proclaimed geek”, despite the fact that I’ve got “geek” on my card, website, and e-mail signature. If we have to qualify the word “geek”, I’d rather use “selfconfessed.” A minor tweak. In the past, I’ve kidded about “domestic goddesshood” and being a “geek goddess”, but always as a joke. I like being on the same level as people. It’s hard enough helping people believe that they could write/blog/bookmark/participate in communities/program/draw/follow their passions. It’s almost impossible if they think, “Oh, that’s very well and good for you because you’re you, but I could never do it.” I remember when I was teaching university freshmen the joy of programming. Some were intimidated by the way I could read a program upside down and ask questions to help them debug it. I told them that was because I had spent a lot of time struggling with my own bugs and reading textbooks I didn’t quite understand. (I didn’t tell them that I started reading those textbooks in grade school, borrowing them off my sister’s shelves.) Is this a gendered thing, the way women are taught to fold their hands and shrink into themselves while men are encouraged to boast of their achievements? But I wasn’t

brought up that way, and I know many male role models who are competent and humble.

Nouns and verbs Another thought that came up in the conversation with Judy: nouns versus verbs. I don’t want to be known as a tech evangelist, rock star, or a social media guru. Nouns. Hype. (Where does the conversation go from there?) I’d rather people focused on how I can help others. “Oh, you want to get started in blogging? Talk to Sacha, she might have tips.” Not an expert. A co-learner. A coadventurer. Which makes me think that it might be good to experiment with my cards, because most of the time, “Evangelist” grabs people’s attention and then they focus on that, and there’s something missing. I like my e-mail signature better. The last line is: “My passion is helping people connect and collaborate. How can I help you make things happen?” It also reminds me of why I like blogging and presenting. There are no introductions – or if there’s a bio, it’s brief. It’s having all these half-conversations open, inviting you to jump in without the awkwardness of the start.

Introductions I think of how people come together in my tea parties. A small group, manageable. One or two conversations going on at a time. There are brief introductions: names, sometimes stories. But I don’t really introduce people. Instead, we jump into the middle of conversations. My favourite connecting tool is the question. The more I know about people’s interests, the more I can ask questions that draw out those connections in larger conversation. I like listening to what people are talking about and connecting that to what other people can share. It’s okay to be quiet, too.

I do introduce people, from time to time. When we’re standing around at a crowded event and someone clearly wants to join the circle. When we’re having a conversation and something comes up that’s relevant to someone across the room whom my conversation partner hasn’t met. Most of the time, I whiz past the introduction and head straight into common interests, shared issues, or some kind of understanding that we can build through conversation. Details and competencies and networking needs can emerge through the conversation. When I remember, I use people’s names often so that other people can remember their names. One approach among many. I like it, though. It would be interesting to experiment with other ways to help people connect: let people do the normal introduction and small talk routine? elevator pitches? But it’s fun skipping the titles and focusing on what people want to talk about. =) Haven’t figured this out yet. There’s more to understand in here, somewhere. Here’s what I understand a little more clearly now: •

I don’t like one-up nouns or titles because they create distance and risk backlash.

•

I like skipping introductions and jumping into the middle of a conversation. My preferences influence the ways I help people connect.

•

Might be fun to experiment: change my card, tinker with introductions… 2010-07-29 Thu 09:05

The delicate dance of status http://sachachua.com/blog/p/7290 August 14, 2010 Categories: braindump, connecting, reflecti on

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 23

The interns helping my mom put together a memory book asked me to rank the top 25 people who have influenced me. I refused, explaining that I felt very uncomfortable doing that. I remember coming across this speaking tip: During Q&A, don’t say “great question” to fill in the silence while you’re thinking of the answer, because then you’ll have to say something like it for the other questions or making people feel their question isn’t as important as others’. It reminded me of a tip I’d read in a different book, even longer ago, which went something like this: Introducing one person as “my friend” and omitting that when introducing the other can lead to friction. One of my friends once anxiously asked me if it was okay if he considered me a best friend, but not his best, best friend. I told him it doesn’t matter to me, and that I’m glad we’re close friends. My middle sister can be more particular about sibling ranking than I am, and often jokes about the pecking order. I’ve opted out of caring about that, I guess. =) I have no qualms about praising people in public. In some contexts, though– comparative ones?–status gets odd. It reminds me of how, at a conference on education that I attended in my sixth grade, I spoke up about cooperation instead of competition. I try to minimize the distance between me and whoever I want to help. I want people to be able to easily identify with me. I try to think of people as approachable and human, no matter what their job titles or life situations are, and to let them also interact with other people that way if they want to. Presenting through web conferences–with full back channels and closer facial expressions–feels more intimate than giving

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 24

a talk in an auditorium, separated by lights and a stage. It reminds me of improv. There are games you can play with status and the inversion of status. I still need to practice and relax more before I can easily play those games, and even more before I can play those games for laughs, but it was interesting to learn about the games and start seeing the patterns of conversation. Unequal status can feel okay, too: introducing someone to a potential mentor, for example. The status difference is justified by the context, not the title (and sometimes is inversely related to job titles or experience). I’m okay with starting one-up if I know how I can help someone, but I feel uncomfortable if I don’t know or we have to dig for it. I usually introduce myself as equal-ish. In presentations, I sometimes take the slightly-up-at-least-in-this-context position (here are some things I learned that might save you time), and sometimes the slightly-down position (here’s what I know, and I’d love to bring out what you know). Hmm…. /Thanks to Judy Gombita (@jgombita) for the nudge to reflect on this!/ 2010-07-29 Thu 16:57

Twenty-seven http://sachachua.com/blog/p/7309 August 15, 2010 Categories: birthday, yearly UPDATE: Fixed PDF. I turned 27 years old this week. If life as a 25-year-old was about taking small steps to build a wonderful life, life as a 26year-old was about flourishing. Reviewing the past year’s blog posts to get a sense of how I’ve grown, I realized that life had gotten much deeper and richer. Work gave me plenty of opportunities to learn, share,

and make a difference. W- and I have worked out our long-term plans and will be getting married in October. I learned a lot from friends, mentors, and proteges, and I shared tons of thoughts and ideas in blogs, presentations, conversations, and notes. It’s been a great life. Fewer storms than movies or books had me believe, and plenty of wonderful memories and realizations on which to build a future. On the cusp between the mid-twenties and the late twenties, the most unexpected discovery has been that of unconditional serenity. Now I have more to share, and more to discover along with other people. I’ve selected my favourite blog posts for Aug 2009-2010 and put them into a PDF so that I can archive them in a three-ring binder. If you’d like to review it too, see sachachua26.pdf. (184 pages, 353k) Thanks for sharing this year with me!

I’ve also calculated the my time value of money and decided that some things like technical clothing are well worth the cost. •

[X] enjoyed home cooking and explored new recipes – This was excellent!

•

[-] relaxed in improvised situations – I haven’t signed up for further improv classes (low sign-ups for the class I want to take), but I’m looking forward to doing this again

•

[-] saved half of my income and donated a tenth – Saved about half, shifting to investing and then donating when that appreciates

•

[X] got to the point of having a place for everything, and everything in its place – Progress! After thinking about what gets misplaced and where clutter accumulates, I tried a few tweaks (beltbag, etc.). Haven’t misplaced important things in a while.

•

[X] built and deepened more friendships – I’ve been mentoring more people and hosting tea parties, and I really enjoy doing both

•

[X] figured out what I know, what I want to learn, and how to share both of those – I’ve been writing and blogging even more, and scaling back on my presentations has given me more time to think and share. Good stuff!

•

[X] shared my happiness and enthusiasm with even more people – =)

Here’s how the year stacked up against the goals I shared in last year’s recap: I’m looking forward to learning even more about my passions and interests, people, and life. When I turn 27, I hope to be able to look back and say that I: •

[X] created another year’s worth of experiences, memories, and dreams – it feels like more than a year’s worth, even!

•

[X] helped build innovation networks and shared what I’ve learned with others – we’ve not only scaled up our Idea Labs (virtual brainstorming discussions), I’ve also helped other groups and organizations use the technique to engage people around the world

•

[X] helped build Drupal skills within the company – Drupal is well-established in our toolkit, and we’re looking forward to doing even more

•

[-] wore something I made every day – I’ve been making more of my clothes and accessories, but

What will life as a 27-year-old look like? I’m excited about long-term growth: marriage, work, friendships, interests. I’m looking forward tosmall, constant improvements in the way we live. I want to get even better at learning and sharing. When I turn 28, I hope to be able to look back and say that I: •

helped build an excellent foundation for a loving partnership

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 25

•

made a difference at work and grew in my career

•

experimented with ways of living better and shared my results

•

shared lots of ideas, questions, and insights with people

•

lived another year of an awesome life.

and-wear blazer, blouse, and pants for ~$190 total including tax!) •

[X] Outline my “lifeline of books” (see “Write for Your Lives”) – also outlined presentations; looking into posting this online

•

Packed lots of frozen lunches

Plans for next week:

Weekly review: Week ending August 15, 2010

Work

http://sachachua.com/blog/p/7310 August 16, 2010 - Categories: weekly

•

[ ] Share notes and follow up on action items from training

From last week’s plans:

•

[ ] Prepare presentation on sharing and workflow

Work

•

[ ] Organize and run Idea Labs

•

[X] Organize upcoming Idea Labs

•

[ ] Follow up on expertise pilot

•

[X] Attend training for Application Innovation Services consultants

•

[ ] Draft follow-up presentations / articles on eminence?

•

[X] Work on plugin to make it easier for other people to organize Idea Labs

•

[X] Contact briefing consultants regarding the expertise pilot

•

Scanned my notes

•

Did innovation archetype analysis for car company

•

Produced slidecast for Communicating Across Cultures session

•

Helped more people with stats / community tools

Relationships •

[C] Send a quick note to people I met at VXToronto and in woodworking class

•

[-] Mail lots of jam – packed, but not yet sent

Life •

[X] Pick up more travel business wear at the Tilley sale (yay for wash-

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 26

Relationships •

[ ] Have dinner with W’s parents

•

[ ] Go to W’s family get-together

•

[ ] Plan tea party for end of August or beginning of September

•

[ ] Sort out accommodations / travel plans for my family

Life •

[ ] Catch up after busy weekend

•

[ ] Organize notes

Note-taking revisited http://sachachua.com/blog/p/7311 August 17, 2010 Categories: connecting, highlight, kaizen, ne tworking, notetaking, productivity I was away for training last week, attending a 3-day learning session organized by IBM. There were around 500 IBMers there. My manager not only suggested that I go, he even gave me a lift. I resolved to make the most of it.

Packing light meant taking my work laptop, leaving my netbook, and bringing a small paper notebook along as a backup for notetaking. I like taking notes. I’d rather slow down and take notes than waste the time and the opportunity by forgetting. In 2006, I wrote about how taking notes during conversations helps with post-event connection. What’s changed in the last four years? I now take casual notes on my iPod Touch. I’ve been thinking about getting a tablet PC for better note-taking. But for fast-flowing conversations, I still return to paper. I’ve rediscovered drawing. My notes are punctuated by doodles: quick sketches of presenters, random objects that suggest themselves to a wandering right-brain. I like drawing. It helps me remember what a session felt like, instead of just what it contained. I no longer bring fountain pens, as they’re all too easy to drop. Instead, I use a finepoint gel pen, which is clearer than pencils when it comes to scanning or review, and which writes more smoothly than a ballpoint pen does. I use a multi-colour ballpoint pen for review and emphasis. My workflow has improved. While taking notes, I mark action items with a square on the left, particularly interesting topics with a star, ideas with a lightbulb, and thoughts and reflections with a thoughtcloud. This makes it easy to skim my notes for action items during review. Instead of trying to hold the notebook open as I type thoughts in, I scan new pages at 600dpi full colour. This gives me a digital backup that I can flip through on my computer while I type my notes on a separate screen. As I type, I copy my action items into a separate section. After I finish writing my notes, I review the action items and import them into my task manager. How can I make this even better? I can write more neatly. This means slowing down in the beginning, but it will

save me time when skimming or reading my notes. (And if I do it really well, maybe Evernote can understand my handwriting!) I can try using a pad and then scan sheets using the automatic document feeder. Our printer/scanner’s automatic document feeder scans only one side, but I can simply do two passes. This would reduce scanning time. I can save up for a tablet and see if that works out better for notetaking. I like being able to draw diagrams and icons while taking notes, so it would be good to experiment with a Tablet PC.

Diversity and awareness of privilege http://sachachua.com/blog/p/7312 August 18, 2010 Categories: Uncategorized, women I came across If you were hacking since age 8, it means you were privileged on geekfeminism.org, and I went, “Hmm. They’re right.” I started very early, and the extra years of practice and immersion and love meant that I could run rings around my classmates by the time we got to high school. I also had great role models in my parents, who raised us to follow our passions and not let people’s gender stereotypes get in the way. This reminds me of the first session we took in a women’s leadership course. During the discussion, I said that I didn’t relate to many of the challenges described in the video, which had been produced a number of years ago. But I’ve been lucky. The challenge, then, is to help more people experience this. I also enjoy the privilege of working in a mostly-balanced workplace. I feel normal at IBM. I’m not the only woman, not the only immigrant, not the only newbie, not the only Filipino, and definitely not the only geek. I’m surrounded by role models who show me that so many things are possible in both the managerial and professional career paths (and that people don’t have to be Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 27

confined to one or the other). Sure, there are still some aspects missing from our mix, but it’s cool.

all the rest worth it. Then people will ask you: How can you read so quickly?

This accepted diversity means that instead of fighting to prove my worth as a human being, I can focus on the fights where I want to make a real difference, like helping people connect, collaborate, and do their best from wherever.

Hypercubes, happiness, and serenity

Instead of renouncing this privilege, then, I can do two things. I can use it as a springboard to work on the next challenges. I can be aware of the circumstances that brought me to this point, and help people bridge the gaps instead of thinking that because it was easy for me, it should be easy for most people. And then there are little tweaks along the way that I can do to help make things even more equitable… These things are worth working on.

Speed-reading http://sachachua.com/blog/p/7313 August 19, 2010 Categories: highlight, reading, sketches, tips People ask me how I can read so quickly. Here are some things that might help you read and learn faster. 1. Don’t slow yourself down. Do you read aloud? Do you imagine yourself reading aloud? Speech is so much slower than sight. See. In fact, don’t trace the words with your eyes. Jump around. Look at the important words. Skim. Take advantage of peripheral vision.

http://sachachua.com/blog/p/7314 August 20, 2010 Categories: happiness, math, reflection I remember reading an excerpt from Flatland in Childcraft when I was growing up, and wondering: how would a flat square understand this threedimensional world we live in? In high school, I read a book about mathematical curiosities. Challenged by the idea of visualizing hypercubes and other higherdimension objects, I turned to a trick I’d come across while reading: take what you see, use time as the fourth dimension, and imagine all the moments superimposed. Non-existence, birth, life, motion, death, and oblivion collapsed into a single space, further complicated by the rotation and revolution of the earth, the other motions of our galaxy and universe… I had an existential moment: life is so short and insignificant! And then I thought, “Hey, this is pretty cool.” I dipped into this imagined world occasionally, thinking about the past and future of places, objects, and people. It proved to be a useful test for relationships: what would life be like with the grief of losing this person – will it have been worth it? It also helped me let go of stuff. I could see myself before I got whatever it was, and I could see myself after.

2. Take advantage of structure. Read tables of content, conclusions. A book is a nonlinear device. How to Read a Book (Adler and van Doren): this book is awesome.

You might say it’s an odd sort of happiness that maintains an awareness of death and insignificance, but it’s the sort of calm happiness that’s confident that everything will work out. Why get upset over something that will pass?

3. Read. A lot. You’ll get lots of practice. You’ll be surprised by how much books repeat themselves or other books. And you’ll find yourself reading for those rare gems, the aha! moments that make reading

So when I came across the ideas of unconditional serenity and emptiness in Joseph Sestito’s Write for Your Lives (an approach that draws on Buddhism), I thought, “Hmm. That’s what they call it.”

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 28

It’s still a little strange to look at someone, stretch my imagination, and see them as child and senior, idea and memory. It’s good practice, though, and it reminds me that we’re all in the middle of our own journeys.

Backyard trades http://sachachua.com/blog/p/7315 August 21, 2010 Categories: canada, gardening, life We live in a semi-detached house and often chat with our immediate neighbors, Dan and Jen. Their kids sometimes come over to play with J-. When we make jams or jelly, we share it with them, and they share other interesting things with us. Dan recently bought a smoker because he was pining for the briskets of his Texan youth. He made pulled pork recently, and he brought over some for us. We sprinkled it on pizzas, sandwiches, and other yummy treats. When we finished it, I washed the container and filled it with freshly-picked jalapeno peppers from our garden. (We have too many to eat, and not enough to make jelly.) It’s nice getting along with your neighbors, particularly when there’s food involved. =)

Six steps to make sharing part of how you work http://sachachua.com/blog/p/7316 August 22, 2010 Categories: blogging, highlight, notetaking, presentation, sharing, sketches, speaking, w ork Six Steps to Sharing View more presentations from Sacha Chua. People often ask me how I find the time to write, blog, or give presentations, so I’ve put together these tips on how to turn sharing from something that takes up extra time to something that saves you time as you work. Sharing is intimidating. You might think that you need to master blogs or wikis before you can make the most of Web 2.0

tools to help you share your knowledge and build your network. But even if you never post in public, you’ve got plenty of opportunities to make a bigger difference through sharing. I’m not going to tell you to start a blog today. Here’s a six-step program to help you save time by making sharing part of the way you work, even if most of what you work with is confidential or lives in e-mail. Give it a try! Step 1. Review your e-mail for information that you repeatedly send people. Do different people ask you the same questions? Are there links or files you find yourself always looking up and sending? Are there common problems you often solve? Save time by filing those messages in a "Reference" folder so that you can easily find them the next time someone asks that question or needs that file. Save even more time by rewriting your notes so that you can easily cut and paste them into new messages. You can use your e-mail program to manage this information by saving the e-mails in a "Reference" folder that might be subdivided into more folders, or you can save the information in directories on your hard drive, encrypting it if necessary. The key change is to create a virtual filing cabinet and put useful information in it. This virtual filing cabinet can save you a lot of time on your own work, too. I often find myself searching for my notes on how I solved a problem six months ago because I have to solve it again, and my notes save me a lot of time. Step 2. When talking to people, listen for opportunities to take advantage of your reference information. Now that you’ve got an virtual filing cabinet of useful information, keep an ear open for ways you can use that information to help people more efficiently. When people ask you a question you’ve answered before, give them a quick answer and promise to e-mail them the rest of the details.

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 29

When you look for ways to reuse the information you already have, you’ll find plenty of opportunities to get a lot more benefit from the effort that you’ve already invested.

need them, and proactively reaching out. You can stop there and already save a lot of time–or you can learn about sharing your notes more widely, helping you build your network and increase your impact.

Step 3. Reach out. Now that you’ve saved time and helped more people by sharing the information in your virtual filing cabinet when they ask, you’ve got a better sense of which notes are very useful. Take a moment to review your files and think about who might benefit from learning from that information. Reach out to them, sending them a note about what you’ve learned and why it can save them time. It might lead to interesting conversations and good opportunities.

Proactively reaching out to people who might find your notes useful has probably helped you develop stronger working relationships with a small investment of time. However, this is limited by who you know, how much you know about what they’re working on, and the timing of the information. On the other hand, if you share some of your notes in public areas where people can search for or browse them, then you can help people you might not think of reaching out to, and they can find your information whenever they need it.

For example, let’s say you e-mailed one of your coworkers an answer to his problem. Think of other team members who might have run into the same problem, and send them a short note about it too. If you do this judiciously, people will feel grateful without feeling overwhelmed by e-mail. Step 4. Prepare and take notes. Now you’re getting lots of return on the time you invested into organizing your existing information, and you’ve got an idea of what kinds of information help you and other people a lot. Proactively write down information that might be useful instead of waiting until someone asks you about it, because you might not remember all the relevant details by that time. In fact, take notes while you’re working instead of leaving it for the end. File those notes in your virtual filing cabinet as well, and share them with other people who might find this useful. In addition to helping you save time in the future, writing about what you’re learning or doing can help you think more clearly, catch mistakes, and make better decisions. Step 5. Look for ways to share your notes with more people. By now, you’ve probably developed a habit of looking for ways to take advantage of what you’re learning or doing: writing and filing your notes, retrieving your notes when people

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 30

You don’t have to share all your information publicly. Review your virtual filing cabinet for information that can be shared with everyone or with a small group, and look for ways to share it with the appropriate access permissions. You can share different versions of documents, too. For example, I share public information on my blog because blogs make it easy to publish quick notes, and search engines make it easy for people to find what they need even if I posted those notes several years ago. On the other hand, there are many notes that I post to internal accesscontrolled repositories. Sometimes, I’ll post a sanitized version publicly, and a more detailed version internally. This is where you can get exponential return on your time investment. If people can find and benefit from your notes on their own, then you can reach many more people and create much more impact. People may not find and use your information right away. Keep building that archive, though. You’ll be surprised by how useful people can find your work, and by the number of opportunities and relationships you build along the way.

Step 6. Review your organizational system and look for opportunities for relentless improvement. You’ve collected useful information from your e-mails and conversations, organized that in your virtual filing cabinet, reached out to people, and shared some of your notes publicly. Congratulations! You’re probably getting your work done faster because you don’t waste time solving problems again. Your coworkers probably look to you for answers because you not only help them solve problems, you do so in a timely and detailed manner. And you might already have discovered how helpful your notes can be for others you wouldn’t have thought of contacting. What’s next? Review your virtual filing cabinet. Can you organize it for faster access? Can you fill in missing topics? Can you identify and update obsolete information? Look for opportunities to improve your process, and you’ll save even more time and make a bigger impact. Want to share your experiences? Need help? Please feel free to leave a comment!

Weekly review: Week ending August 22, 2010

•

[-] Draft follow-up presentations / articles on eminence?

•

Started working on bookmark summarization tool

•

Reflected on career options

•

Prepared ThinkLabs information

•

Learned about Pickover format for evaluating invention disclosures

•

Talked about my community tool and social analytics

•

Helped organize non-InnovationDiscovery Idea Labs

•

Attended meeting for potential Drupal project

Relationships •

[X] Have dinner with W’s parents – keeping my name, clashing with traditions

•

[X] Go to W’s family get-together

•

[ ] Plan tea party for end of August or beginning of September

•

[-] Sort out accommodations / travel plans for my family – checked out some places

•

Helped rescue Maira from temporary housing crisis

Life

http://sachachua.com/blog/p/7318 August 23, 2010 - Categories: weekly

•

[X] Catch up after busy weekend

Plans from last week:

•

[-] Organize notes

•

Finished Scott Pilgrim game on Average Joe setting

Work •

[X] Share notes and follow up on action items from training

Plans for next week:

•

[-] Prepare presentation on sharing and workflow – written up, but not yet illustrated

Work

•

[X] Organize and run Idea Labs – one down, another to go

•

[X] Follow up on expertise pilot – shared with team member, whew!

•

[ ] Have several mentoring conversations

•

[ ] Run Energy & Utilities Idea Lab

•

[ ] Work on bookmark tool for Boz and Yael

•

[ ] Prepare presentation on sharing

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 31

Relationships

to get better at saving and telling stories, particularly the difficult ones, and writing is my way of remembering.

•

[ ] Confirm accommodations and photographer

•

[ ] Apply for marriage licence

•

[ ] Plan tea party

Keeping in touch with diffuse networks

•

[ ] Set up twine support for peas

http://sachachua.com/blog/p/7319 August 25, 2010 Categories: connecting, highlight, networki ng

•

[ ] Organize my notes

•

[ ] Tweak schedule so that weekly reviews go out on Sunday or Monday

Life

Learning storytelling from my parents http://sachachua.com/blog/p/7317 August 24, 2010 Categories: family, highlight, storytelling My parents are both storytellers. My dad makes everyday life seem epic, with sound effects and humour. He embellishes tales to make them more dramatic. He tells stories in conversation, and is often the center of attention in a large crowd. My mom keeps the stories of generations, revealing unexpected connections with grandparents or great-grandparents. She tries to stick as close to the truth as she can remember. She tells stories in intimate conversation and through her writing. I look forward to our weekly Skype conversations because of the mix of stories she shares: some about the past, some about recent adventures. I’m really lucky that my parents both love telling stories. Growing up, I saw how the stories they told inspired and energized and connected people. Good stories don’t have to have morals, points, or storybook villains threatening to destroy the universe. Sometimes a slice of life can make an unexpected connection. I want to learn how to tell stories like that. My sister Kathy tells stories like my dad does, and I tell stories like my mom. I want Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 32

Soha wrote: I’m a long time reader of your blog and I must say it’s pretty amazing and inspiring. I always look forward to your next post and read it over and over for tips and ideas But there was one thing that I’m not sure if you’ve covered in the past .. It’s about keeping in touch with your networks and freinds I’m really having a hard time with this issue.. Particularly how to stay in touch.. What do to and what to say and how often… Etc.. Is there a system that u tried that works for u? Or a schedule that You follow to keep yourself on track? And what about freinds ?? Do u apply the same approach as with your networks or do u so something else ?? Hope I didn’t ask too many questions but any help with this matter would be greatly appreciated

I rarely e-mail or call people just to catch up. I occasionally look for experiences I can share with friends, and I host get-togethers from time to time. I like checking out people’s social networking updates from time to time, and I comment when I’ve got something to share. I mostly reach out to people when: •

I’ve come across something that they might find useful

•

I can answer one of their questions or help them out with something

•

I can connect them with someone who has a question they can answer

More about the tools I use to connect This mostly-passive networking style doesn’t fit the advice of most networking books, which focus on techniques for active networking: making lists of contacts you want to make, cultivating relationships through coffees and lunches, working those network events. It works for me, though.

Isabelle’s manager wanted her to get better at proactive communication. She’s comfortable e-mailing people, but she has a hard time following up when people don’t respond. Timezone differences between team members in Singapore and in the US compound delays. She reached out to me for advice, and I suggested a few things that might help:

Part of this might be because I let go of the need to be in close touch with specific people, and I open things up to serendipity instead. I don’t have to stress out about not being in close touch with my friends. I still feel warm and fuzzy about people even if I haven’t seen them in a year, and I hope they feel the same too.

1. Clear, dated requests. When asking for help or a response through e-mail, specify a target date instead of leaving it open-ended, and give a reason for that date if possible. This makes it easier for people to prioritize working on your task. (Don’t always ask people to get back to you TODAY, though. It looks like you don’t plan well.)

Besides, it’s easy for people to keep in touch with me. I write about life on my blog, and I occasionally post social network updates on Twitter, which is synchronized with Facebook and LinkedIn.

2. Clear, dated responses and priorities. If you’re working with other people on some lower-priority tasks, those tasks might never be finished. Clarify the relative priority of a task with your manager: it might turn out to be higherpriority than you thought. If it really is a low-priority project, contact the people you need to collaborate with and get an estimate of when they might be able to work on their part of the project. Find out what other important projects they’re working on, too. This will allow you to:

Back to diffuse networks. Clouds, if you will. There’s an oft-quoted limit to social relationships: Dunbar’s number, some 150 people in your “village”, the maximum number of people most people can keep track of, with their interrelationships and quirks. I don’t try. I want to touch the lives of many more people than I can know, just as I learn from many more people than I can meet. People drift in and out whenever they want. I try to remember as much as I can about people, but it’s okay to re-learn and re-discover. How do you keep in touch with people? Or perhaps, a different question: How do you cultivate serendipity?

•

give clearer reasons for delays (“We can only work on the report next week because we have to finish the keynote presentation this week”)

•

negotiate better solutions (“I can do that part of the presentation if you can do this part of the report”)

•

re-negotiate priorities with your manager (“Actually, this report is more important than adding animation to the presentation”), and

•

give you dates for following up (“John is working on the presentation now, but he promised to work on the report on Monday, and I’ll follow up with him then”).

2010-08-23 Mon 20:09

Proactive communication: Five tips for following up http://sachachua.com/blog/p/7320 August 26, 2010 Categories: communication, highlight, ibm, mentoring, productivity, work

3. Status reports. They’re good for your manager and for you. Keep track of where

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 33

you are on projects: what your next actions are, what you’re waiting for, and what you’ve accomplished. Share this with your manager frequently, so there are no surprises. 4. Concrete follow-ups. When you’re waiting for a response, schedule a follow-up so that it doesn’t slip through the cracks. Follow up by e-mail, and then move up to following up by phone or instant message if needed. I don’t do this for all of my tasks, but I do this for tasks I “own,” and it helps. Concrete follow-up dates also help you write better status reports. Instead of reporting “Waiting for response”, you can report “Waiting for response; will follow up on ____ by e-mail and _____ by phone.” Clear follow-up plans make people feel more confident that the task won’t be forgotten. 5. Tactful escalation. When people don’t respond, sometimes you need to find other ways to get things going. Isabelle had learned how to cc:ing her manager so that her manager could stay updated, but she wasn’t comfortable with cc:ing the other person’s manager because it felt like escalation. If done tactfully, though, escalation can be a good tool. How to escalate: Give people the benefit of the doubt, and acknowledge that they might be busy working on priority projects. Send them a gentle reminder, cc:ing their manager. In the note, explain to the manager that you understand that the original contact may be busy or your request might be a better fit for someone on the team, and ask who might be the best person to talk to. Hope that helps! 2010-08-24 Tue 10:20

On a Lenovo X61 http://sachachua.com/blog/p/7325 August 27, 2010 Categories: gadgets, geek, sketches, tech

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 34

I’ve been saving up for a Lenovo X61 for a while. Drawing had turned out to be tons of fun, and l wanted something more portable than my much-enjoyed Cintiq 12WX. So when l came across a Craigslist ad offering the X61 at a decent price, I went for it. It’s the computer I thought it would be. And it understands my handwriting! So now l get to experiment with my workflow to figure out what works for me… By golly, the future is actually here.

Drawing with my tablet http://sachachua.com/blog/p/7328 August 28, 2010 Categories: cat, gadgets, inkscape, sketches

Drawing with my new tablet PC is lots of fun. Instead of being stuck in the basement or near a table large enough to hold a laptop and a regular tablet, I can draw pretty much anywhere – like the couch where Neko loves to nap. There are plenty of drawing programs for tablets. Some mimic traditional drawing media: pencils, charcoal, even oil paint. Some let you use all sorts of effects. Others take a different approach to drawing, with lines and shapes that you can draw and edit. I like the latter more, because I can tweak my drawings until they look more like what I had in mind. My favourite drawing program is Inkscape. Using it in full tablet mode isn’t as convenient as working on the Cintiq

because I don’t have all the buttons I’m used to, but I’ve been working on my configuration to make it easier to draw. I use mouse gestures to switch between different tools so that I don’t have to click on the toolbox, and I’ve mapped one of the buttons on the tablet frame to “Delete”. Growing up, I hadn’t really thought of myself as artistic. We’d fallen into the habit of labelling ourselves, I guess. My eldest sister and I were academically and technologically inclined. My middle sister was the one who was good at photography and drama and all that stuff. In high school, the split became even bigger as I compared myself with classmates who created beautiful landscapes and still-life drawings in art and drafting. Gadgets and presentations lured me back into drawing. I got a Nintendo DS to play games and draw on it, discovering along the way that drawing was a lot of fun. I sketched a presentation on it, and the overwhelming response to that told me I’d stumbled across something more fun than illustrating my presentations with impersonal stock photographs. I’m beginning to think of myself as someone who can draw–perhaps not amazingly well, but enough to make me and other people smile. I have a feeling this will definitely be worth the money I set aside for it. =)

Setting up my new tablet PC – apps, config, etc. http://sachachua.com/blog/p/7330 August 29, 2010 - Categories: geek •

AdAware: check the computer for any malware from previous owner’s use – checked out clean

•

Dropbox: synchronize my files

•

Emacs: note-taking, personal information management, awesomeness o

Set HOME directory in Control Panel – System – Environment Variables

•

o

Use mklink to create symbolic links under Windows

o

Write a simple .emacs that loads the dotemacs.el in My Dropbox/elisp

AutoHotkey: map Caps to Control and create all sorts of other useful shortcuts o

Add My Dropbox/personal/shortcuts. ahk to my startup

•

Launchy: quick access to programs

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Inkscape and MyPaint: Favourite free drawing programs o

Set drawing tools to use last selected style

o

Set preferences for transforms: don’t scale strokes, etc.

o

Tinker with smoothing to get something that feels right

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Google Chrome: set up synchronization for bookmarks and extensions

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FeedDemon: Feed reader, easier than using Google Reader interface

•

StrokeIt: Gestures make pen computing even easier o

Set up custom gestures for Inkscape, FeedDemon, and general operation

•

Windows Live Writer

•

Windows setup: Use a plain black background, turn off unnecessary visual effects, go back to old form of Alt-Tab. (When alt-tabbing, press the other alt key to switch to classic view.)

And that should be enough to get me working smoothly for now. I might dualboot Ubuntu or run it in a virtual machine, depending on how well this 32-bit version of Windows 7 performs. If I find myself spending more time in Microsoft Windows because of all the tablet-y goodness, I’ll go the VM route, or I’ll give Cygwin another try.

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 35

SCHEDULED: 2010-08-29 Sun 08:00

Week ending August 29, 2010

Plans for next week •

http://sachachua.com/blog/p/7332 August 30, 2010 - Categories: weekly SCHEDULED: 2010-08-30 Mon 8:00

Work o

[] Plan Idea Labs: Follow up on other Idea Labs

o

[] Classroom to Client: Finish formatting Idea Lab presentation for ThinkLabs

o

[] Classroom to Client: Create community and structure online resoruces

o

[] Connections Toolkit: Build Activities reporter

From last week’s plans •

•

Work o

[X] Have several mentoring conversations

o

[X] Run Energy & Utilities Idea Lab

o

[X] Work on bookmark tool for Boz and Yael

o

[X] Prepare presentation on sharing

o

[] Build mailto form processor

o

[X] Move feed magic tool

o

[] Track down Client Business Value report

o

Reflected on career, figured out what I want my next step to be

Relationships o

[] Wedding: Plan transportation

o

[] Hobbies: Reassemble chair

Relationships o

•

•

[-] Confirm accommodations and photographer: Accommodations booked, confirming with photographer

o

[X] Apply for marriage licence

o

[C] Plan tea party

Life o

[X] Set up twine support for peas

o

[X] Organize my notes

o

[X] Tweak schedule so that weekly reviews go out on Sunday or Monday

o

o

Painted my chair Pooh Bear Yellow (works reasonably well with W-’s Bibbidi Bobbidi Blue chair Bought tablet PC: Lenovo X61T

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 36

•

Life o

[] Set up laptop: Experiment with workflow

o

[] Sleep by 10

Limiting my options so that I can focus http://sachachua.com/blog/p/7331 August 31, 2010 Categories: career, life, reflection We’re fascinated by choice, almost slaves to keeping our options open. Sometimes it’s better to close doors, impose constraints, ignore possibilities. Focus. I’ve been thinking about this a lot as I plan the next step in my career. There are so many paths to choose from: consulting? development? management, perhaps even executive?

Constraints make choosing easier. I want to build a wonderful relationship with W-. This is easier to do with little or no travel, manageable hours, and low stress at work. That probably rules out the kind of consulting IBM tends to do, and the executive career path as well. I want to experiment and create new opportunities. I’d like to try product development / consulting / coaching / webinars / e-books. People have made that business model work. But I’ve got a great opportunity to help change the way IBM works, and through IBM, help change the way the world works, so I’m focusing on that. I should make sure that familiarity and comfort don’t take me too far away from what I want to do, though: help people connect, collaborate, and learn. Between following a formal career path and going where no job title has gone before, I think I’d like to explore the latter. I can take risks. I learn quickly, and I’m good at making things work. This will be interesting.

September 2010

It’s okay if you can’t remember or spell my name; being human http://sachachua.com/blog/p/7337 September 1, 2010 Categories: connecting, networking Lifehacker had a recent post with tips on how to remember people’s names – generally useful tips, ground well-covered in networking books. There is one tip I disagree with, though. I realized I don’t often hear disagreement about it, so I thought I’d share. Here’s the tip:

DON’T ever call people by the wrong name Hearing your name mispronounced can be annoying but forgivable, especially if lots of people find your name hard to pronounce, but

hearing someone call you by the wrong name is always infuriating! Out of all facts that someone can possibly misremember about you (e.g., your job, college major, or ethnicity), getting your name wrong is the ultimate insult. It simply leaves a yucky visceral impression that the other person doesn’t give a damn about you.

I disagree with this tip because I think it creates unnecessary fear, anxiety, and expectation. I think there’s a better way to do this. Let’s look at it from both sides. If someone has forgotten your name, you could get mad about it… or you could just shrug it off and give the person the benefit of the doubt. If they consistently get your name wrong, you could bear a grudge, or you could laugh about the possible crossed wires (maybe you really remind them of their great-aunt!). If they sneer while mangling your name so much it sounds like an epithet, something might be up. But in general, people are good people, and they’re not trying to insult you or say that you’re worthless. When I talk to people, I don’t assume that I’m important to them, or that they should devote precious brainspace to remembering me. If people make an effort and get my name wrong anyway, I’ll still appreciate that. They’re human. Let’s look at the other side. If you’ve forgotten someone’s name despite your best efforts, go ahead and ‘fess up, or try to see if you can pick it up from the conversation (or from a networking buddy). I prefer the direct confession route over the awkwardstanding-around route. It gets the pain over faster, and it makes more of a human connection. I try to make up for any name shortcomings by remembering other little details about people, focusing on creating value, and connecting people with other people. And if I thought I knew someone’s name but it turns out I was mistaken, well, it happens. I’ll try to remember. Some people’s faces get mixed up in my memory. I’m not going to beat myself up over it, and I hope other Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 37

people don’t feel permanently offended. (Besides, if they did hold a grudge, that says more about them than about me…) My only pet peeve when it comes to this, actually, are people who punish you for not knowing their name, those who make you guess or otherwise embarrass you when they detect the faintest whiff of uncertainty from you about who they are. Not cool. People who do that might “score points” in that conversation, but they lose the longterm game. (I remember writing a post about this before this other one, but I can’t find it. Ah well, probably not good to rant too much anyway… =) ) So. Make it easier for other people to remember your name. (I usually bring my own nametag to events.) Make an effort to remember and use other people’s names, and to remember other details about them. Above all, be human, and let other people be human.

Book: Leading Outside the Lines http://sachachua.com/blog/p/7335 September 2, 2010 Categories: book, management, organizatio n, reading, work I want to get really good at being a fast zebra. The metaphor comes from Leading Outside the Lines, Jon R. Katzenbach and Zia Khan’s book on working with the informal organizational structure. According to Mark Wallace (former US ambassador to the United Nations), fast zebras are people who can absorb information and adapt to challenges quickly. The authors explain, “On the African savannah, it is the fast zebra that survives a visit to the watering hole, drinking quickly and moving on, while the slower herd members fall prey to predators lurking in the shadows. The fast zebra is, in essence, a person who knows how to draw on both the formal and informal organizations with equal facility.” Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 38

It seems like a business cliche – who wouldn’t want to absorb information and adapt to challenges quickly? – but Katzenbach and Khan go into more detail. “They help the formal organization get unstuck when surprises come its way, or when it’s time to head in a new direction. They have the ability to understand how the organization works, and the street smarts to figure out how to get around stubborn obstacles. They draw on values and personal relationships to help people make choices that align with overall strategy and get around misguided policy. They draw on networks to form teams that collaborate on problems not owned by any formal structure. They tap into different sources of pride to motivate the behaviors ignored by formal reward systems.” Like the loneliness facing early adopters, fast zebras can feel isolated. Identifying and connecting fast zebras can help them move faster and make more of a difference. I can think of many fast zebras in IBM. People like Robi Brunner, John Handy Bosma, and Jean-Francois Chenier work across organizational lines to make things happen. Lotus Connections and other collaboration tools make a big difference in our ability to connect and self-organize around things that need to be done. They also provide informal channels for motivation, which is important because this kind of boundary-spanning work often doesn’t result in formal recognition (at least in the beginning). The book describes characteristics of organizations that successfully integrate formal and informal structures, and it has practical advice for people at all levels. It also has plenty of stories from organizational role models. My takeaway? Harnessing the informal organization and helping people discover intrinsic motivation for their work can make significant differences in an organization’s ability to react, so it’s worth learning more about that. Recommended reading.

Leading Outside the Lines Jon R. Katzenbach and Zia Khan Published by John Wiley and Sons, 2010

The value of constraints http://sachachua.com/blog/p/7336 September 3, 2010 Categories: life, productivity I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately because I’ve been surprised by how useful they are. One of the challenges of being an agreeable, optimistic person is that I’m often tempted to say yes to many opportunities and try all sorts of things. Explicit constraints help me keep things manageable, and they help me remember why I chose them. For example, this year, I’m experimenting with limiting my presentations to one talk a month, and little or no conference travel. Except for March (always conference/event season), I’ve been pretty good at sticking to that. It’s easy to explain the constraint to people, and they’re happy with either referrals to other speakers or postponement to one of my free months. It means I have more time to think, experiment, write, and draw. I’ve also been trying a limit of one blog post per day, instead of bursts of two or three posts. One of these days, I’ll crunch numbers to see if I have a significant difference in terms of volume or comments. I like the rhythm, though. It makes me think more about what I want to publish, which posts I want to prioritize. I still write a lot, but that’s more so that I have a buffer for those busy days. Now that I’ve gotten over the initial disruption of having a Playstation 3 in the house, I’ve been getting back on track with my sleep schedule. Limiting the hours I spend on work and other things forces me to be clear about my priorities and work more efficiently. I’m getting better at knowing when I need to use constraints. When I pack my life too full, I find myself reshuffling my task list too

often. My mind feels like it buzzes. Choices threaten to overwhelm. It’s a good time to step back and ask myself: How can I simplify this? What can I limit?

Thinking of autumn http://sachachua.com/blog/p/7338 September 4, 2010 Categories: gardening, life A former teacher of mine asked me, “If you were a season, what would you be, and why?” I thought about it because I wanted to dig beyond the trite answers that tempted me: summer for sun, spring for new beginnings. If I were to pick a season, it would be autumn – and not because of the breeze or the brilliant colours. (Isn’t it funny that the colours are always there in the leaves, but the green must die to let the other colours show?) I’d choose it for harvest, celebration, preparation, and the ever-present awareness of winter. If life is a year of seasons, it might be strange that I often think of winter, and of other years I’ll never see. That’s why it’s good to do the work now: to save the seeds from what’s working well, to plan and prepare the soil so that next year’s beds can bear more fruit. The harvest is abundant, although it might not much resemble the plans from spring. Save some for the long winter – stored sunshine and water and nutrients in a variety of forms. There may even be just enough time to sneak in one more cool-weather crop of lettuce, which frost makes sweeter. Who knows? Start it anyway. And then, when winter embraces the garden, let go. You have done your work. Underneath the blanket of stillness is a future you can influence but not predict.

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 39

Fit for You: Thinking about my priorities http://sachachua.com/blog/p/7321 September 5, 2010 Categories: career, highlight, life, reflection In a lively mentoring session on Wednesday, Annie English suggested that I fill in the Fit for You assessment, something my new manager had also mentioned. So here’s my quick list of the top five things that satisfy me about work, which I’ll continue to reflect on as I learn more. =) 1. Satisfaction with work-life balance: I care about free weekends, minimal required evening work, and limited or no travel. I find that placing constraints on work gives me incentives to work quickly and efficiently, and to be realistic with my time estimates. The space also allows me to cultivate rich relationships with family, friends, and my fiance, and numerous personal interests that occasionally turn out to be useful or inspiring. My current role lets me do this quite well, and the occasional workshop trips become more of a treat as I get to meet lots of interesting people. (Very satisfied.) 2. Development of new skills: I like learning new tools and solving new problems. If I already know how to do something, I’d rather teach it or automate it instead of do it again and again. My current role lets me improve my communication skills, and the Lotus Connections toolkit I’m building for fun lets me play around with new challenges too. (Very satisfied.) 3. Meaning and significance: I love making a difference in people’s lives, whether it’s saving them time, helping them work together better, or helping them imagine new possibilities. My current work lets me make this kind of difference from my kitchen table – yay! (Very satisfied.)

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 40

4. Connection with clients and colleagues: I like the fact that I’ve gotten to know many IBMers as people, and I’ve gotten to know a few clients as well. I don’t think I’d enjoy working on a technically awesome but isolating and unbloggable project. I love how my current role lets me connect throughout IBM, and how I get to learn from all sorts of interesting clients along the way. (Very satisfied.) 5. Value creation and compensation: This is somewhat related to #3. I love creating a lot of value. I also like hearing from people about what we’re doing well and how that creates value for them, because that helps us build on strengths. Being compensated for the created value is nice, too. It’s not the money (I save a lot of what I earn, and I like being frugal), but growth is good, and money is one way of measuring growth. I’d be happy to take extra time (as that’s harder to buy), although I know extra time tends to get encroached on. (Satisfied) Overall: Very satisfied. These priorities will probably change over time, but at least you folks know the right buttons to press… =)

Week ending September 5, 2010 http://sachachua.com/blog/p/7339 September 6, 2010 - Categories: weekly SCHEDULED: 2010-09-06 Mon 8:00

From last week’s plans •

Work o

[X] Plan Idea Labs: Follow up on other Idea Labs

o

[X] Classroom to Client: Finish formatting Idea Lab presentation for ThinkLabs

o

o

[-] Classroom to Client: Create community and structure online resoruces [] Connections Toolkit: Build Activities reporter – postponed

o

[C] Build mailto form processor

o

[X] Track down Client Business Value report

•

o o

•

•

Expertise location: Sent follow-up message

Relationships o

•

Virtual Forum: Connected organizers with Jam providers

Classroom to Client: Created "Did you know" presentation for the changing nature of work [X] Wedding: Plan transportation – cabs will work fine

o

[-] Chair: Reassemble chair

o

Wedding: Met with photographer

Life o

[X] Set up laptop: Experiment with workflow

o

[-] Sleep by 10

o

[-] Classroom to Client: Create community and structure online resoruces [] Connections Toolkit: Build Activities reporter – postponed

[] Idea Labs: Assist with planning, send RSVPs

o

[] Career: Set up Ruby on Rails

Relationships [] Wedding: Plan NYC trip

Life o

[] Sew dress: Transfer dots and mark stitching lines

o

[] Chair: Paint and assemble chair

o

[] Productivity: Tweak GTD process

o

[] Productivity: Organize files

•

An Ode to My Son’s Piggy Bank (Sun, Sep 5, 2010)

•

Simple Strategies, Simply Explained (Sat, Sep 4, 2010)

•

Auto Copy Selected Text to Clipboard (Fri, Sep 3, 2010)

•

sachac: RT @eric_andersen: Whoa! #IBM makes the business case for enterprise social bookmarking: $4.6M in savings! http://j.mp/dxGqmB #e20 /by @ … (Fri, Sep 3, 2010)

•

sachac: Got tired of struggling with our Botero collapsible background. Folded and unfolded it five times to get the hang of it.(Wed, Sep 1, 2010)

•

The Business Case for Enterprise Social Bookmarking: $4.6 Million a Year in Cost Savings! (Wed, Sep 1, 2010)

Work o

o

Elsewhere on the Internet:

Plans for next week •

[] Classroom to Client: Format Idea Lab reference presentation

o

Also: o

o

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 41

•

sachac: Presented six steps to sharing: http://sachachua.com/blog/p/7316 . Tablet’s fun! Got questions about multiple tools, being indispensable. =) (Wed, Sep 1, 2010)

•

The Minimalist’s Guide to Cultivating Passion (Tue, Aug 31, 2010)

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sachac: Dealing with textboxes in MS Office: just copy-and-paste them instead of clicking to create. (Tue, Aug 31, 2010)

•

•

sachac: Hmm. Ribbon UI in newer MS Office driving me slightly crazy. Now takes lots of clicks to place text boxes on slides. (Tue, Aug 31, 2010) Dixon. (Tue, Aug 31, 2010)

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XPages – the "other" skills (Tue, Aug 31, 2010)

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What a fabled marching band can teach you about innovation (Tue, Aug 31, 2010)

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Using AT&T Network Client VPN with Ubuntu 64bit at Andrew Ferrier (Tue, Aug 31, 2010)

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Why Men Still Get More Promotions Than Women – Harvard Business Review (Mon, Aug 30, 2010)

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Your Projects, Diminishing Returns, and Phantom To-Dos [Productivity] (Mon, Aug 30, 2010)

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written by a good old friend (Mon, Aug 30, 2010)

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Creating Excel Spreadsheets In Notes (Mon, Aug 30, 2010)

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Making Ideas Happen (Mon, Aug 30, 2010)

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 42

Redoing things http://sachachua.com/blog/p/7340 September 7, 2010 Categories: family, life, woodworking It took me an extra weekend, but I repainted the chair I’ve been working on. This chair was my very first paint job. When we were working on this last weekend, Wwas painting his chair too, and I made the mistake of not asking him for help. It turns out I’d loaded the brush too heavily, and the resulting runs marred the finish. So we sanded and scraped some of the excess paint down, and I repainted the pieces. I thanked W- for helping me learn. He thanked me for caring. =) There are a lot of things I’m doing for the first time. Whether it’s figuring out painting or my career, I try things out, make the occasional mistake, and get better. Lessons learned from painting: Don’t rush. Go light – paint with an almost-dry brush. Ask questions. Watch other people. And don’t be afraid to do it again, even if doing again might make things worse. (I sometimes gouged wood out while trying to scrape paint off.) It’s just a chair, so don’t worry too much about it, but it’s a good story too. In other news: W- has finished painting his chair Bibbidi Bobbidi Blue, and J- is painting hers with One Enchanted Evening. Mine is Pooh Bear Yellow. Attack of the Disney pastels! =) When we finish the chairs, I’ll post a picture of the three of us.

Labour Day painting http://sachachua.com/blog/p/7343 September 8, 2010 Categories: life, sketches, wFrom Monday: We spent the Labour Day weekend finishing our Adirondack chairs, patching holes and dings in our hallway, and priming the surface for the

another colour. I’m speckled with paint, but most of it has ended up on the wall and on my chair, so things are good. I got frustrated, was encouraged, took a break, returned to my work, and made things happen. I had fun. DIY makes me feel just a little more grownup, a little more ready to take on life. I’m not afraid of hanging things on the wall, because I know we can patch it up. I’m not constrained by the furniture available in stores. I can make simple pieces. I’m not limited by the produce in the neighborhood supermarket. I can grow bitter melon and different varieties of basil. It would’ve been much harder to explore these things on my own. I’m so lucky that W- has a lot of experience in these things, and he makes it easy for me to learn too. A lot of it has to do with having a house, and investing time into shared practical interests. What else could I have been doing with my time? Writing. Coding. Drawing. Every moment is a decision to do one thing instead of another. Even if DIY leads to a less optimal life than, say, focusing on development and outsourcing timeconsuming tasks not related to that, I like the balance and the freedom and the diversity of experience. I like building more stories into the everyday backdrop of our lives. Here’s to working with your hands.

Stuff is just stuff, and experiences are just experiences http://sachachua.com/blog/p/7344 September 9, 2010 Categories: highlight, life I was browsing the featured presentations on Slideshare for design and content inspiration, and I noticed that one of the presentations from IgniteToronto made it to the front page. The key message

was: Spend on experiences, not on stuff. (Warning: language.) Technomads / Ignite Toronto 4 / Sept 2010 View more presentations from Sean Bonner. This is a message I mostly agree with, and it’s good to remind people that stuff is just stuff. But I’m starting to be a little wary of how people are using this idea of spending on experiences to pack their lives, make themselves unhappy, and one-up each other. Experiences have their dangers, too. You can get just as attached to experiences as you can to material things. You can get addicted to adrenaline rushes and bragging rights. You can plunge yourself into debt for a week or a year of bliss and still be paying for it when your tan has faded and your souvenirs are gone. You can chase after happiness in different countries and lose the ability to be who you are wherever you are. You can use your experiences to make other people feel worse about their own lives instead of inspiring them to find their own path. I’ve played with the thought of making a “bucket list” – a list of things I want to do before I kick the bucket, a list of things I want to do before I die. I always find myself asking these questions: Is this really what I want, or am I listing this because I think I want it? Can my life still be rich and happy without this experience? I realized that experiences are just stuff, too. They may not take up space in your house, but they take up time and energy. Take weddings, for example – one of the most emotionally-charged and heavily-marketed experiences one could have. W- and I are getting married in less than a month. If I let myself be swayed by advertising, I might ask myself: Why not splurge on a grand hall, a limousine, the best restaurant for the reception, a luxurious honeymoon, a toprated photographer? After all, it’s a once-ina-lifetime experience. (Or twice-, in the case of W-.) Live it up. Go big or go home.

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 43

But an experience is just an experience. At the end of the day, we will be just as married in City Hall as in a cathedral, and simple wedding memories would be more in line with our values than lavish celebrations would be. He who dies with the most experiences still dies. It’s not about quantity, or variety, or even quality—for who’s to say one experience is objectively better than another? Everything depends on what you take away from that experience, how that experience becomes part of you, how you use that experience to make people’s lives better. It’s good to explore new experiences. You might discover lots of interesting things along the way. But be wary of the new materialism: the one that shuns stuff but adorns itself in anecdotes, always looking for happiness instead of recognizing it. There is beauty and depth in everyday life as well. Savour the water you drink. Enjoy the work that you do. Live the life that you live.

Monthly review: August 2010 http://sachachua.com/blog/p/7346 September 10, 2010 - Categories: monthly

training, creating training material, tweaking the community toolkit. Lots of changes – things that rippled into changes in lifestyle: a blender for healthy breakfast shakes, a television and a PS3 for family gaming (but be careful with the timesuck!), a tablet PC for drawing and presentations. We helped a friend solve a temporary housing problem. And the wedding preparations – mostly okay, but a fair bit of drama. The licence has been obtained, the bed-and-breakfast for my family has been reserved, the dress has arrived, the photographer has been booked. Some differences. Fortunately, W- is amazing, and we’re going to get through this. I’ve got a little bit more clarity around the career front regarding what I want to do, so I only need to focus on resolving one thing at a time. September: more Idea Labs, preparations, keeping things sane. October: a whirlwind. And then a new normal, I hope. Reviews: •

Week ending August 29, 2010

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Weekly review: Week ending August 22, 2010

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Weekly review: Week ending August 15, 2010

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Weekly review: Week ending August 8, 2010

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Weekly review: Week ending August 1, 2010

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Monthly review: July 2010

Last month, I wrote: What will August look like? I’m turning 27, so it’ll be a great excuse to do that yearly review (and what a year!). Work: Organize lots of Idea Labs, support workshops, attend training, improve our community toolkit, come up with a way for other people to organize Idea Labs easily, explore opportunities, and prepare presentations. Relationships: Sort everything out for wedding, reorganize space, meet up with W-’s family, have a tea party, meet up with friends, mentor and be mentored. Life: Get back into sewing pouches and other organizers. Draw and write more vividly. Have fun. =)

It’s been quite a month. As promised, a yearly review, with a PDF of my favourite blog posts from life as a 26-year-old. Lots of work: organizing Idea Labs, attending

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 44

Work and tips: •

Proactive communication: Five tips for following up

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Six steps to make sharing part of how you work

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Keeping in touch with diffuse networks

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Speed-reading

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Note-taking revisited

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Sample code for allowing drag-anddrop of Notes/Domino documents (including email) to a table in a plugin Success and blogging

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On finding a great job

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On passion and luck

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What’s success, anyway?

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Television and the push and pull of motivation

Life: •

Limiting my options so that I can focus

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Setting up my new tablet PC – apps, config, etc.

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Drawing with my tablet

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On a Lenovo X61

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Learning storytelling from my parents

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Backyard trades

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Hypercubes, happiness, and serenity

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Diversity and awareness of privilege

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Twenty-seven

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The delicate dance of status

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Reflecting on introductions

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Networking events

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Long weekend reflections

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Two days of awesome

Emacs Org mode and publishing a weekly review http://sachachua.com/blog/p/8375 September 11, 2010 Categories: emacs, gtd, highlight, kaizen, or g, process 2010-09-11 Sat 08:00 I like using Emacs Org-mode to organize my notes. One of the things it makes it easy to do is to keep a weekly review. I used to switch between using Windows Live Writer and using Emacs Org to draft the post, but

with org2blog, I’ve been using Org more and more. Here’s how I use it. At the beginning of my ~/personal/organizer.org, I have a headline for * Weekly review. Underneath it is a template that makes it easy for me to review my current projects and make sure that I’ve got next actions for each of them. Below that is a reverse-chronological list of weekly reviews, with the most recent weekly review first. This allows me to easily review my weekly priorities and copy that into a new entry. Here’s what the first part of my Org file looks like (minus the spaces at the beginning of the line) * Weekly review ** Template *** Plans for next week **** Work - [ ] *Support Classroom to Client:* - [ ] *Build Connections Toolkit:* - [ ] *Organize Idea Labs:* - [ ] *Build career:* **** Relationships - [ ] *Plan Wedding:* **** Life - [ ] *Sew dress:* - [ ] *Improve productivity:* ** Week ending September 12, 2010 *** From last week's plans **** Work - [X] *Classroom to Client:* Create community and structure online resoruces - [X] *Connections Toolkit:* Build Activities reporter - [X] *Classroom to Client:* Format Idea Lab reference presentation - [X] *Idea Labs:* Assist with planning, process RSVPs - [X] *Career:* Set up Ruby on Rails - Helped Darrel Rader with blog feed - Helped Sunaina with Notes e-mail conversion - Finalized Idea Lab reference - Had great conversation with Boz, Rooney, Kieran, etc. about culture and sharing - Followed up on expertise location, sent draft report - Collected interesting Lotus Connections practices into a presentation - Put together match-up slide for IBM acquisitions **** Relationships - [X] *Wedding:* Plan NYC trip

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 45

**** Life - [ ] *Sew dress:* Transfer dots and mark stitching lines - [X] *Chair:* Paint and assemble chair - [X] *Productivity:* Tweak GTD process - use Org for my weekly review/project template - [X] *Productivity:* Organize files - Added weekly lifestream archive **** Plans for next week ***** Work - [ ] *Support Classroom to Client:* Collect lessons learned and create new material - [ ] *Build Connections Toolkit:* Make GUI - [ ] *Organize Idea Labs:* Update invitation template - [ ] *Build career:* Go through Ruby on Rails tutorials - [ ] *Build career:* Prototype Drupal site and learn about new practices along the way - [ ] *Build career:* Mentor people ***** Relationships - [ ] *Plan wedding:* Plan BBQ reception - [ ] *Plan wedding:* Make checklist and timeline for cleaning up, etc. ***** Life - [ ] *Sew dress:* Machine-baste pieces together - [ ] *Improve productivity:* File inbox items from my Org file

Most of the time, I leave the template section collapsed, and the “Plans from last week” expanded. Throughout the week, I cross items off and add quick notes about other accomplishments. When I reach the next week, I create a new entry, move the “Plans for next week” subtree and rename it “From last week’s plans”. When I do my weekly review (or throughout the week, as I notice new items), I create a “Plans for next week” section and fill it in. The editing can easily be automated, but I’ll tinker with it a bit first before writing code. This approach means duplicate information in my task list. It would be interesting to use TODO items instead of list items for tracking my weekly priorities, with possible integration with my web-based task list through org-toodledo. However, I’d need to write code to make the TODO items publish Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 46

as neatly as this list gets published using org2blog, and I don’t feel like going into that yet. Anyway, that’s how I’m currently doing it. =)

Getting the WordPress Lifestream plugin to work on my blog http://sachachua.com/blog/p/7581 September 12, 2010 Categories: code, geek, php, wordpress I’ve been thinking about including a digest of Twitter, Delicious bookmarks, Google Reader shared items, and other social activity in my weekly review. This lets me include the information in my archive, and it gives people more opportunities to bump into things I found interesting. It took a bit of hacking, but I eventually got the Lifestream plugin for WordPress to work, with the help of another webpage and some source code diving. Here’s the code that powers this lifestream page: 50); $events = $lifestream>get_events($options); foreach ($events as $event) { echo '

'; $label_inst = $event>get_label_instance($options); if ($event->feed>options['icon_url']) { echo ' $(' . $event->feed->options['feed_label'] . ') \$ '; } echo 'data[0]['link'] . '">' . $event>data[0]['title'] . ' (' . date('D, M j, Y', $event>data[0]['date']) . ')'; echo '

'; } ?>

$event->render had been giving me problems, so I specified my own output

format. It didn’t automatically pick up icon URLs, so I specified the URLs myself. (Bug: the settings get lost if you re-configure the feed.) The plugin seems to be broken out of the box, but there are enough pieces in there for a geek to make things work. Because I don’t want to use up two of my one-post-a-day slots on weekly reviews, I’m leaving it as a web page that I can review and manually copy into my weekly review post instead of automatically publishing something.

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Had great conversation with Boz, Rooney, Kieran, etc. about culture and sharing

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Followed up on expertise location, sent draft report

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Collected interesting Lotus Connections practices into a presentation

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Put together match-up slide for IBM acquisitions

Relationships

You can see it in action in last week’s review.

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[X] Wedding: Plan NYC trip

Work in progress. Hope this helps!

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Helped paint the hallway

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Attended Linda and Tim’s party

Week ending September 12, 2010

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http://sachachua.com/blog/p/8524 September 13, 2010 - Categories: weekly SCHEDULED: 2010-09-13 Mon 08:00

From last week’s plans •

Work o

o

o

[X] Classroom to Client: Create community and structure online resources [X] Connections Toolkit: Build Activities reporter [X] Classroom to Client: Format Idea Lab reference presentation

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[X] Idea Labs: Assist with planning, process RSVPs

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[X] Career: Set up Ruby on Rails

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Life o

[] Sew dress: Transfer dots and mark stitching lines – postponed until after wedding

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[X] Chair: Paint and assemble chair

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[X] Productivity: Tweak GTD process – use Org for my weekly review/project template

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[X] Productivity: Organize files

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Added weekly lifestream archive

Plans for next week •

Work o

[] Support Classroom to Client: Collect lessons learned and create new material

Helped Darrel Rader with blog feed

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[] Build Connections Toolkit: Make GUI

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Helped Sunaina with Notes email conversion

o

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Finalized Idea Lab reference

[] Organize Idea Labs: Update invitation template

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[] Build career: Prototype Drupal site and learn about new practices along the way

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 47

o

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[] Build career: Mentor people

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[] Plan wedding: Plan BBQ

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[] Plan wedding: Make checklist and timeline for next two weeks

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8 recommended books on visual thinking (Fri, Sep 10, 2010)

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For every site a make file (Fri, Sep 10, 2010)

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sachac: @lbenitez Good luck! I think the #ibmexperience is awesome. =) (Fri, Sep 10, 2010)

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sachac: @jamiemcquay Congratulations! May you have many more anniversaries to come. =) (Fri, Sep 10, 2010)

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sachac: City of Toronto has sense of humour, yay. =) E-waste: http://www.boingboing.net/2010/0 9/09/city-of-torontos-e-w.html (pity about backslash) (Fri, Sep 10, 2010)

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sachac: @debh2u Thanks for the #FF, and for sharing those slides with your friends! =) (Fri, Sep 10, 2010)

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sachac: @blm849 But it’s so fun exposing people’s actual behavior using statistics, like the post you linked to… ;) My, what a datastore. (Thu, Sep 9, 2010)

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sachac: @kittenthebad Sometime, when life settles down a bit for both of us. =) The good thing about happiness is that it’s a timeless topic. (Thu, Sep 9, 2010)

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The Joy of Less (Thu, Sep 9, 2010)

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sachac: @kittenthebad Doing awesome! Attended virtual

Life [] Improve productivity: File inbox items from my Org file

Elsewhere on the Net sachac: @hypatiadotca Happy to drop them off at the HackLab open house if Tuesday’s not rainy. =) With jam, too, for toast and stuff! (Sat, Sep 11, 2010)

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sachac: #FF @lindaristevski @ian_g @blm849 @skemsley @taniasam @hypatiadotca @hilarity_ensues @accordionguy @ianirving and other friends in Toronto (Fri, Sep 10, 2010)

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sachac: @mikesansone Thanks for the #FF! =) (Fri, Sep 10, 2010)

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sachac: @hypatiadotca All win belong to you. =) Have you decided re location? Want jalapeno peppers? Our garden overfloweth, but not enough to can. (Fri, Sep 10, 2010)

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sachac: Ikea cat ad makes me feel happy inside: http://vodpod.com/watch/4408918ikea-happy-inside-cats (more homelike than cookies baking in oven) (Fri, Sep 10, 2010)

Relationships

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IKEA Lets 100 Cats Loose in Store – TIME NewsFeed (Fri, Sep 10, 2010)

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Ikea Happy Inside Cats Video (Fri, Sep 10, 2010)

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sachac: @blm849 Oh, absolutely. =) Lies, damned lies, and statistics, and all that. ;)(Fri, Sep 10, 2010)

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 48

networking thing for IBM remote employees yesterday, had fun, wrote up notes. Posting soon. =) (Thu, Sep 9, 2010) •

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sachac: @blm849 Fascinating! I’m always up for statistical analyses and models of communication. See also: okcupid blog. (Thu, Sep 9, 2010) Technology Review: Blogs: arXiv blog: How To Tell Who Is Influencing Whom in a Group Discussion (Thu, Sep 9, 2010)

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sachac: @blm849 Or a cat with pointy bits. =) (Thu, Sep 9, 2010)

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Are You Saving Too Much? (Thu, Sep 9, 2010)

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Spigit Offers Release S3 to a Maturing Market (Thu, Sep 9, 2010)

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Getting a job: Is there a motherhood penalty? (Wed, Sep 8, 2010)

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ChessBase.com – Chess News – Male chess players show elevated aggressiveness against women (Wed, Sep 8, 2010) sachac: @allanschoenberg We need fewer rockstars (http://j.mp/b5yjbg) and more humans. ;) Thanks for the rec, @jgombita!(Wed, Sep 8, 2010) sachac: Accidentally in Code » 10 Things I Learned About Presenting in Extreme Blue: http://disq.us/m6akl (@kittenthebad)(Wed, Sep 8, 2010)

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Accidentally in Code » 10 Things I Learned About Presenting in Extreme Blue (Wed, Sep 8, 2010)

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Blog:Tomas Roggero » Blog Archive » Lifestream Documentation and Debugging(Wed, Sep 8, 2010)

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sachac: @MarcinMokaPhoto Hello to you too! =) (Wed, Sep 8, 2010)

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Teach a Kid to Argue – Figures of Speech (Wed, Sep 8, 2010)

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sachac: @heidigoseek I find I can’t stand listening to nonfiction – reading is so much faster. Fiction, though, when read really well… Awesome! (Tue, Sep 7, 2010)

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sachac: @heidigoseek We regularly raid the library for audiobooks, movies, and magazines… =) Yay libraries! (Tue, Sep 7, 2010)

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sachac: @heidigoseek We’re big fans of the Bartimaeus trilogy, read by Nathaniel Parker. =) (Tue, Sep 7, 2010)

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The Philippine Traditional Costumes (Tue, Sep 7, 2010)

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FILIPINO GIRL PAPER DOLL CARD TOPPER SET OF 2 by kirakirahoshi (Tue, Sep 7, 2010)

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Why Is Knowledge Sharing Important? A Matter of Survival (Mon, Sep 6, 2010)

Filipiniana http://sachachua.com/blog/p/7345 September 14, 2010 Categories: clothing, culture, filipino, philip pines The dress arrived last week. It’s a simple ivory sheath of piña (pineapple fiber), with a lightly-beaded and embroidered panuelo (wrap). Although I’d never met the seamstress who made it, the dress fit like a charm, thanks to the measurements I’d sent. I had been planning to wear a dress a family friend had given me before, but my mom wouldn’t hear of it. She wanted to be Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 49

involved in planning the wedding, so she volunteered to take care of the dress. It would be her gift, she said. I accepted, asking her to make sure it was simple, classic, and something I could wear again. This dress fits the bill perfectly. It would do just fine at a wedding and at a formal gettogether or cultural celebration.

embellished with metallic threads or beads. The baro’t saya is close enough to regular wear for me to avoid having tons of conversations with strangers about whether I’m heading off to perform somewhere.

In addition to this knee-length dress, she has also commissioned a Maria Clara, in case a long dress proves a better fit. My concession to the pageantry of weddings is to reach back in time and connect with my roots. I asked her to make sure the designer didn’t get carried away with modernizing the outfit. Traditional. Classic. A dress I can be buried in, I said.

Towards equity

I was half-tempted to suggest an Ifugao outfit – our family has many memories of Banaue – but it seemed easier to find a seamstress to work on a beautiful Tagalog outfit than to (a) pick the right tribe, and (b) find an outfit that doesn’t scream “tourist souvenir”. Maria Claras and nice panuelos are non-mainstream enough to require a seamstress, but there’s plenty of wedding inspiration. The rich weaves and beading of the mountain tribes are more niche. And there’d be no question of W- matching my outfit – a g-string? in Canada? in October? At least W- has a barong, which he may or may not choose to wear. Actually, the wraparound skirts and colourful belts of some of the tribes can work really well here, too. I’ll need to find a way to pick up some of those when I next visit, as SM Kultura doesn’t stock a lot of those. =) We don’t have nearly enough variety in those department stores. I was looking all over for a payneta, and I think I only found it in Baguio… I love wearing Filipiniana, from the malongs I wear in summers to the colourful Ifugao belt I once repurposed as earwarmers in winter. I’d like to wear more of it, like the way I see men and women in ethnic outfits even at work. That might mean learning how to sew my own everyday versions, because the only baro’t saya I’ve seen in Philippine department stores are

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 50

Yay culture. =)

http://sachachua.com/blog/p/7728 September 15, 2010 - Categories: equity In one of the sessions of a women’s leadership course at work, we were talking about our reactions on a training video that encouraged women to speak up. Some people were glad to be reminded, remembering how they’d been taught to speak softly and minimize their presence. I thought back over my childhood and couldn’t remember being limited just because I was a girl instead of a boy. Sure, we had etiquette lessons in grade school – how to stand, how to sit, how to walk – but nothing like the pressures that people faced a generation or two ago. I grew up knowing I could have a career and that it’s okay to work. I have my own bank account. I can sign contracts. Some things have been solved, at least here. But full equity is not yet a reality. I’m beginning to fear more limits. I’m tempted to choose where to compromise. Maybe this isn’t my fight, I think. Because it can be a big fight. There are a lot of opinionated people who’ve attacked stronger targets than I am. It’s a good thing W- is who he is. When I fret about discrimination about mothers, he reminds me that in the microcosm of IBM, there are plenty of role models from all sorts of walks of life, and that people make things work. There’s still more that needs to be done, but it’s a good start. So, equity. Might be uncomfortable working towards it, might not make all that big a difference. Life is limited and all of that. But it’s worth it. Besides, what am I going to do with a life circumscribed by stereotypes?

I’m in as good a place as any to push those boundaries, and maybe that will help the future push them out even more. Please remind me if I let fear or the avoidance of discomfort make excuses for me. =)

‘round the bend http://sachachua.com/blog/p/8805 September 16, 2010 - Categories: wedding You know those moments in formulaic movies. Our heroes hit their lowest points. Everything looks stressful. Then something changes, and everything starts looking up. This week feels different from last week. I think we’ve finally made it ‘round the bend in terms of wedding planning. With two weeks to go until the wedding, it’s about time. =) We’ve cleared most of the woodworking tools from the living room, so there’s space for guests. We reinstalled the shoe cabinets in the newly-painted hallway. We have a detailed plan for things to do until the big day. We’ve got a definite answer for the drama we’d been struggling with, and everything else looks like it will work out. Things are looking up. I’m even excited – it might not be the stressful day I’d been dreading. It might even be fun. =)

Tips for entrepreneurs http://sachachua.com/blog/p/9504 September 17, 2010 Categories: entrepreneurship One of my role models is leaving IBM to explore the world of entrepreneurship. Jamie Alexander has a lot of development experience. He built a number of sites, including PassItAlong, an internal social learning system we use at IBM. He’d be the first to admit he needs help with the business side, though, and he’s looking forward to learning more about marketing and adoption. He’s applying to the Digital Media Zone incubator at Ryerson University,

and will check out the local technology events. What advice could help a new tech/web entrepreneur get started? Here are a few tips I picked up by osmosis from the Toronto technology scene. What do I know about it? I haven’t started a company yet. But this is what I’ve heard from lots of conversations and books, and it might be useful. I’m hoping people will pitch in with other ideas. Learn from companies that have done it. There are a number of interesting local companies that you can learn from, like Idee, Freshbooks and LearnHub. How did they do it? How did they identify and go after their market? How did they bootstrap? Did they need investment, or did they selffund their growth? What challenges did they encounter and how did they deal with them? There are lots of events that feature companies in different stages of evolution. Go to them and ask questions. Read blogs and news articles online, too. But don’t get too focused on how people have done things before – the world is always changing, and there’s no sure-fire recipe for success. Connect with mentors and the community. There are a number of tech events for startups. Go. Meet people. Learn from others. Connect with potential mentors, investors, and partners. There are plenty of online networks, too. Don’t get stuck in the new media echo chamber – you’ll still need to actually make a product or service, and you still need to go out there and build or discover your audience – but connect with people who can share what they’ve learned. I just did a quick search for Toronto startup events and foundhttp://toronto.startupweekend.org (S ept 24-26, 2010 at Ryerson). There’s always something going on. Make it easy to keep in touch. “Do I have to use Twitter?” Jamie asked. If you’re starting a Toronto web startup, yes. It makes it easier for people to talk about you and your sites. Create a Twitter account and a blog, and use that to make it easy for people to find out more about you, interact

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 51

with you, and refer to you. Reach out and connect with people. Share what you’re learning. Make it part of the way you work. You need that network. Why limit it to just the people you can regularly e-mail or have coffee with? Collaborate. You don’t have to do everything yourself. Find people with complementary skills and who believe in your vision. This is easier said than done. Where can you find business people if you’re a tech person? Startup events are one way to do it – you’ll find people of varying experience. Look for people who have succeeded before. Ask your mentors for referrals. Look for people who have failed before but know what they’re going to do differently next time. If you’re partnering with someone who’s also new to this, factor that into your planning, then hustle as much as you can. Don’t let an artificial tech/business division isolate you. You need to know your customers. You need to know the business side as well as the tech side. Here’s a tip from entrepreneurs who have learned the hard way: get things in writing. You might be great friends now, but get your partnership on paper, and make sure you can live with the exit clauses. Sure, you probably won’t waste your time suing people, but it’s good to be clear about expectations and contingency plans. Ship. Make something. Sell it to somebody. Seth Godin has lots of great insights on the value of shipping on his blog and in his recent book, “Linchpin.” Make something happen. What else can help a new Toronto tech entrepreneur? See also: •

My notes from Sarah Prevette’s talk on Sprouter

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DemoCamp

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Canada Business

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 52

Welcome, listeners of the Taking Notes podcast! http://sachachua.com/blog/p/10519 September 17, 2010 - Categories: lotus (If you haven’t listened to this morning’s podcast where Bruce Elgort and Julian Robichaux interviewed Luis Benitez and me about Lotus Connections, check it out – it’s about 40 minutes long.) I’m a tech evangelist, storyteller, and geek in IBM Global Business Services. In addition to helping organizations learn more about emerging technologies through executive workshops, I build software that makes people’s lives better, like the Lotus Connections tools people have been using to help with community adoption. (Newsletters, metrics, data export, etc.) More later, but you might be interested in: •

My Lotus-related posts

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My Lotus Connections-related posts

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My Web 2.0-related posts

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… and other stuff from my archives.

Have fun, and leave a comment if you want to learn more or if you want to share any tips!

Getting past generation-based conversations http://sachachua.com/blog/p/8374 September 18, 2010 Categories: equity, gen-y, generation I’ve talked about generations in the workplace, from myths to organizational shapes to moving forward. I’m with Luis Suarez on this one:can we move on from the generation-based conversations? People are well-meaning, but it’s interesting to look at what we accept when we have these conversations. I think we’re much better off focusing on workplaces that can deal with all sorts of diversity – age, gender, race, lifestyle, and so on.

Take this post from the Harvard Business Review discussion threads: Create Mutual Mentoring Relationships Conflicts between Boomers and GenYs may feel inevitable. They have different approaches to getting work done, assumptions about how to do things, and philosophies about what work means. They also have a lot to teach each other. To help bridge the generation gap, pair people of these generations up and ask them to share what they know. This shouldn’t be a "Teach me, Oh Wise Boomer" relationship but one in which the parties exchange knowledge and expertise. Gen Ys can show Boomers different uses for technology and how to integrate it into their work. More experienced Boomers can help Gen Ys better understand the history and culture of the organization. Creating mutually beneficial relationships can demonstrate what these generations have in common: a need to learn.

It’s a good point. I’m a fan of mentoring, and both people grow in the process. But it’s interesting to think about the dialogue we’re having, and the assumptions we accept. If we replaced age with, say, gender: Conflicts between men and women may feel inevitable. They have different approaches to getting work done, assumptions about how to do things, and philosophies about what work means. They also have a lot to teach each other. To help bridge the gender gap, pair people of these genders up and ask them to share what they know. This shouldn’t be a "Teach me, Oh Wise Man" relationship but one in which the parties exchange knowledge and expertise. Women can show men different uses for ______ and how to integrate it into their work. More experienced men can help women better understand the history and culture of the organization. Creating mutually beneficial relationships can demonstrate what these genders have in common: a need to learn.

White" relationship but one in which the parties exchange knowledge and expertise. Asians can show Caucasians different uses for ______ and how to integrate it into their work. More experienced Caucasians can help Asians better understand the history and culture of the organization. Creating mutually beneficial relationships can demonstrate what these races have in common: a need to learn.

That just gave me the heebiejeebies. =) Where’s the line? Where do we let generation-based discussions turn people into “others”? Where do we let age become an excuse? Wouldn’t it be cool to build a workplace where these things just aren’t issues, where we’re used to working with people who aren’t like us? Talking about this stuff is better than not talking about this stuff. People have stereotypes about age, and those stereotypes affect all generations. (The ageism of the technology industry, the ageism of society in general…) But we can do better than that, you know. We can treat it as normal that we work with people who are different from us and who have different experiences from what we have, and we can get better at recognizing not only the value other people bring to the organization, but also the value of the diversity of people in an organization.

Week ending September 19, 2010 http://sachachua.com/blog/p/11863 September 19, 2010 - Categories: weekly

From last week’s plans •

… doesn’t that feel weird? What about race or culture? Conflicts between Caucasians and Asians may feel inevitable. They have different approaches to getting work done, assumptions about how to do things, and philosophies about what work means. They also have a lot to teach each other. To help bridge the racial gap, pair people of these races up and ask them to share what they know. This shouldn’t be a "Teach me, Oh Wise

Work o

[-] Support Classroom to Client: Collect lessons learned and create new material – People are busy

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[-] Build Connections Toolkit: Make GUI – Decided against Java GUI. Will just build everything into

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 53

Sametime plugin. Need to set up environment. o

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[X] Organize Idea Labs: Update invitation template

[] Support Classroom to Client: Collect lessons learned and revise material

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[X] Build career: Prototype Drupal site and learn about new practices along the way

[] Build Connections Toolkit: Add export to plugin

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[X] Build career: Mentor people

[] Build Connections Toolkit: Track down a couple of bugs

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Build career: Also talked to my manager about his idea for a very interesting role

[] Organize Idea Labs: Finalize invitation for E.S. Idea Lab

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[] Build career: Co-present "Leading Innovation" at Showcase Ontario

Build Connections Toolkit: Create arbitrary blog feed exporter

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Build Connections Toolkit: Was interviewed by Bruce and Julian (along with Luis Benitez) regarding Lotus Connections for the Taking Notes podcast Innovation Discovery: Created and populated Activity for upcoming Smarter Cities event (Jason Wild) Picked up "Collaboration Evangelist" as a cool title from @trondareutle [X] Plan wedding: Plan BBQ [X] Plan wedding: Make checklist and timeline for next two weeks

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Had a facial

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Learned more about rhetoric =)

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[] Plan wedding: Consider fixing front garden

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[] Plan wedding: Clear stuff to throw / donate

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[] Plan wedding: Confirm all travel details

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[] Improve productivity: Apply rhetorical principles to blogging

Elsewhere on the Net:

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Review: The Checklist Manifesto (Sun, Sep 19, 2010)

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How to change Data Execution Prevention (DEP) settings in Windows 7? (Sat, Sep 18, 2010)

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sachac: @researchgoddess *boggle* Watch the Ikea kitty ad instead. It’ll make you feel better. =) (Sat, Sep 18, 2010)

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sachac: Love how W responds to interpersonal conflict by learning more about rhetoric through books,

Life o

[X] Improve productivity: File inbox items from my Org file

Plans for next week •

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Work

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 54

going to do things (or not) in the future. =) (Fri, Sep 17, 2010)

Internet, and conversations. _So_ marrying him! (Sat, Sep 18, 2010) •

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The $3 iPad (or Other Tablet) Wall Mount [Clever Uses] (Fri, Sep 17, 2010)

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sachac: Awwww, the @torontolibrary stocks @rawn’s awesome book "Social Networking for Business". Yay IBMer! =D (Fri, Sep 17, 2010)

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sachac: @kittenthebad Fascinating! Liz Wiseman came out with a book called "Multipliers: how the best leaders make everyone smarter". (2010) (Fri, Sep 17, 2010)

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sachac: @counti8 Awww. =) @remarkk Don’t think of your blog. Take notes while you make things happen, and then post notes that might help others. (Fri, Sep 17, 2010)

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sachac: @belgort How about I make up for smackdown by mostly de-umming podcast? ;) http://j.mp/aybTw3 Six minutes shaved off. Transcript to follow. (Fri, Sep 17, 2010)

sachac: @trondareutle I like "collaboration evangelist" more than "tech evangelist" or "Enterprise 2.0 evangelist". Thanks for the idea! =) (Fri, Sep 17, 2010)

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sachac: @BilalJaffery Organizational memory and collaboration software for connectedness. (Extra myelin, thanks!) @roonoid @creckling @lbenitez (Fri, Sep 17, 2010)

sachac: @trondareutle Enterprise 2.0 evangelist on IBM card. Tech evangelist, storyteller, geek on my extra card and on my internal/external blogs (Fri, Sep 17, 2010)

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sachac: @jrobichaux I’ve been thinking about adding "toolsmith" to that, possibly replacing/clarifying "geek". =) (Fri, Sep 17, 2010)

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sachac: @jrobichaux Thanks for nsftools! =) (Fri, Sep 17, 2010)

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sachac: Evangelizing Lotus Connections with @lbenitez, @belgort, @jrobichaux and me 37:35 http://planetlotus.org/743e12

sachac: @david_hay @hex_cargo E2.0 is how I plug into the brains of many, many people smarter than I am. =) (Sat, Sep 18, 2010) sachac: @belgort After all, we’ve already put the work into it, so we might as well make it more searchable. (Sat, Sep 18, 2010) sachac: @gilsaints88 @blm849 I decided to bike home anyway. The skirt had two layers and it was still warm out, so I wasn’t too worried. =) (Sat, Sep 18, 2010) sachac: Oh dear, restroom’s closed. I’ll have to bike home in my office clothes instead of changing into bikewear. What would Superman do? (Fri, Sep 17, 2010)

sachac: @roonoid @creckling @lbenitez Unless you’re referring to, say, obsolete procedures and tools we do want people to forget. =) (Fri, Sep 17, 2010) sachac: @roonoid @creckling @lbenitez But that’s part of who we are and helps us shape how we’re

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 55

9/14/being-dispensable . =) (Thu, Sep 16, 2010)

#lotusconnections #ibm (Fri, Sep 17, 2010) •

Nil by mouth – Roger Ebert’s Journal (Fri, Sep 17, 2010)

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All Us Christensens: Sweet nothings (Thu, Sep 16, 2010)

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sachac: @belgort Have a nap. You deserve it. =) (Fri, Sep 17, 2010)

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sachac: #FF Lotus geeks: @lbenitez @belgort @jrobichaux @notessensei @alanlepo =) (Fri, Sep 17, 2010)

sachac: @kittenthebad Thanks for sharing it with others! Getting better at realizing what I’m not hearing or reading. (Thu, Sep 16, 2010)

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sachac: Toronto Startup Wknd Sept 24-26: @leilaboujnane and other cool speakers. toronto.startupweekend.org Not going, but looks like fun! (Thu, Sep 16, 2010)

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One Life Japan: Experience the Japan Countryside by Bike and Foot (Thu, Sep 16, 2010)

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The Diarists’ Art (Thu, Sep 16, 2010)

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Sweet nothings (Wed, Sep 15, 2010)

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findutils – GNU Project – Free Software Foundation (FSF) (Tue, Sep 14, 2010)

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Being Dispensable (Tue, Sep 14, 2010)

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sachac: @twitteratti It’s fun watching geeks of different persuasions. (Tue, Sep 14, 2010)

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sachac: @BilalJaffery My sister cooks by feel. She makes awesome stuff, but you have to enjoy it then, as it’s probably never going to happen again. (Tue, Sep 14, 2010)

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sachac: @blm849 I lack the experience to make up for a lack of intuition, so I have to follow the craft approach for now. =) (Tue, Sep 14, 2010)

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sachac: @belgort Yes! And @jrobichaux too! =) (Fri, Sep 17, 2010)

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sachac: @lbenitez I should develop a radio voice too! (Fri, Sep 17, 2010)

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sachac: @kittenthebad Exponential value for the win. =) (Fri, Sep 17, 2010) sachac: Had tons of fun recording Taking Notes podcast with @belgort and @lbenitez =) @curiousmitch You’ll like it! (Fri, Sep 17, 2010) Puño’s TEDx Madrid Sketchboards (Fri, Sep 17, 2010) sachac: @belgort Just sent you background for podcast tomorrow, in case you find that useful for asking questions and exploring conversation threads (Fri, Sep 17, 2010) Ruth Bader Ginsburg shows how feminism is done. Again. – By Dahlia Lithwick – Slate Magazine (Thu, Sep 16, 2010)

sachac: Like @kittenthebad’s take on dealing with difficult people, being dispensable: http://catehuston.com/blog/2010/0 Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 56 •

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sachac: @trajano @gilsaints88 Tried disabling all the firewalls. Still no joy. Oh well! Will put XAMPP on the XP comp instead, as I can access it. (Tue, Sep 14, 2010) sachac: Okay. @gabrielmansour @lindaristevski and other awesome people. Snakes and Lattes. Friday? Help me keep sane during wedding planning. =) (Tue, Sep 14, 2010) sachac: @blm849 There’s an interesting distinction between people who enjoy cooking with recipes and people who cook without them. (Tue, Sep 14, 2010)

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Blog U.: Naming Assumptions – University of Venus – Inside Higher Ed (Tue, Sep 14, 2010)

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“You just need to get started” is bad advice (Tue, Sep 14, 2010)

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Removing [nid:n] in nodereference autocomplete – Stack Overflow (Mon, Sep 13, 2010)

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sachac: @belgort @lbenitez I’m sachachua83, and I’m in EDT. (Mon, Sep 13, 2010) sachac: Grr, can ping Linux -> XP, Linux -> Win 7, and Win 7 -> Win XP, but can’t ping Win XP -> Linux. #fb (Mon, Sep 13, 2010)

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Creating a Compound Field Module for CCK in Drupal 6.x | Poplar ProductivityWare |(Mon, Sep 13, 2010)

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sachac: @lbenitez @belgort Sure, sounds good. Sep 17? (Mon, Sep 13, 2010)

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sachac: So happy. =) People ask, "Where’s the wiki so we can share files?" (They mean Activities.) I think

it’s starting to become expected. (Mon, Sep 13, 2010) •

Baumkuchen (Mon, Sep 13, 2010)

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Barbecue on a Budget: Throw a Cook-Out for 20 for Under $120 | TradingMarkets.com (Sun, Sep 12, 2010)

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sachac: @hypatiadotca Happy to drop them off at the HackLab open house if Tuesday’s not rainy. =) With jam, too, for toast and stuff! (Sat, Sep 11, 2010)

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sachac: #FF @lindaristevski @ian_g @blm849 @skemsley @taniasam @hypatiadotca @hilarity_ensues @accordionguy @ianirving and other friends in Toronto (Fri, Sep 10, 2010)

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sachac: @mikesansone Thanks for the #FF! =) (Fri, Sep 10, 2010)

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sachac: @hypatiadotca All win belong to you. =) Have you decided re location? Want jalapeno peppers? Our garden overfloweth, but not enough to can. (Fri, Sep 10, 2010)

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IKEA Lets 100 Cats Loose in Store – TIME NewsFeed (Fri, Sep 10, 2010)

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Ikea Happy Inside Cats Video (Fri, Sep 10, 2010)

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sachac: @blm849 Oh, absolutely. =) Lies, damned lies, and statistics, and all that. ;) (Fri, Sep 10, 2010)

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sachac: Ikea cat ad makes me feel happy inside: http://vodpod.com/watch/4408918ikea-happy-inside-cats (more homelike than cookies baking in oven) (Fri, Sep 10, 2010)

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 57

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8 recommended books on visual thinking (Fri, Sep 10, 2010)

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For every site a make file (Fri, Sep 10, 2010)

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and models of communication. See also: okcupid blog. (Thu, Sep 9, 2010) •

Technology Review: Blogs: arXiv blog: How To Tell Who Is Influencing Whom in a Group Discussion (Thu, Sep 9, 2010)

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sachac: @blm849 Or a cat with pointy bits. =) (Thu, Sep 9, 2010)

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Are You Saving Too Much? (Thu, Sep 9, 2010)

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Spigit Offers Release S3 to a Maturing Market (Thu, Sep 9, 2010)

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Getting a job: Is there a motherhood penalty? (Wed, Sep 8, 2010)

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ChessBase.com – Chess News – Male chess players show elevated aggressiveness against women (Wed, Sep 8, 2010)

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sachac: @allanschoenberg We need fewer rockstars (http://j.mp/b5yjbg) and more humans. ;) Thanks for the rec, @jgombita!(Wed, Sep 8, 2010)

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sachac: Accidentally in Code » 10 Things I Learned About Presenting in Extreme Blue: http://disq.us/m6akl (@kittenthebad)(Wed, Sep 8, 2010)

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Accidentally in Code » 10 Things I Learned About Presenting in Extreme Blue (Wed, Sep 8, 2010)

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Blog:Tomas Roggero » Blog Archive » Lifestream Documentation and Debugging(Wed, Sep 8, 2010)

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sachac: @MarcinMokaPhoto Hello to you too! =) (Wed, Sep 8, 2010)

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Teach a Kid to Argue – Figures of Speech (Wed, Sep 8, 2010)

sachac: @lbenitez Good luck! I think the #ibmexperience is awesome. =) (Fri, Sep 10, 2010) sachac: @jamiemcquay Congratulations! May you have many more anniversaries to come. =) (Fri, Sep 10, 2010) sachac: City of Toronto has sense of humour, yay. =) E-waste: http://www.boingboing.net/2010/0 9/09/city-of-torontos-e-w.html (pity about backslash) (Fri, Sep 10, 2010) sachac: @debh2u Thanks for the #FF, and for sharing those slides with your friends! =) (Fri, Sep 10, 2010) sachac: @blm849 But it’s so fun exposing people’s actual behavior using statistics, like the post you linked to… ;) My, what a datastore. (Thu, Sep 9, 2010) sachac: @kittenthebad Sometime, when life settles down a bit for both of us. =) The good thing about happiness is that it’s a timeless topic. (Thu, Sep 9, 2010) The Joy of Less (Thu, Sep 9, 2010) sachac: @kittenthebad Doing awesome! Attended virtual networking thing for IBM remote employees yesterday, had fun, wrote up notes. Posting soon. =) (Thu, Sep 9, 2010) sachac: @blm849 Fascinating! I’m always up for statistical analyses

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 58

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sachac: @heidigoseek I find I can’t stand listening to nonfiction – reading is so much faster. Fiction, though, when read really well… Awesome! (Tue, Sep 7, 2010)

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sachac: @heidigoseek We regularly raid the library for audiobooks, movies, and magazines… =) Yay libraries! (Tue, Sep 7, 2010)

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sachac: @heidigoseek We’re big fans of the Bartimaeus trilogy, read by Nathaniel Parker. =) (Tue, Sep 7, 2010)

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The Philippine Traditional Costumes (Tue, Sep 7, 2010)

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FILIPINO GIRL PAPER DOLL CARD TOPPER SET OF 2 by kirakirahoshi (Tue, Sep 7, 2010)

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Why Is Knowledge Sharing Important? A Matter of Survival (Mon, Sep 6, 2010)

What can I do to help make the world more equitable? http://sachachua.com/blog/p/11864 September 20, 2010 - Categories: equity I want to make it easier for people to do and be their best wherever and whoever they are. This involves stepping out of my comfort zone and challenging assumptions, but it’s a good use of a life. What can I do? I can share more. When it comes to exploring assumptions and inequities, I think it’s better to err on the side of oversharing than undersharing. I’ve seen this a number of times on my blog. I’ve written about things I was thinking through, things I thought were straightforward, or things that were difficult, and people have told me that they appreciated reading about something they were going through themselves. If I hadn’t written in public

about keeping my name, I wouldn’t have had to deal with the consequences of that decision. But even though that was stressful, it was a good way to clarify what I believed, and connect with other people who’ve considered or will consider similar issues. So I will share more, particularly if the discomfort I feel points me to something that is conventionally devalued or hidden. I can question more assumptions and avoid opting out. Sometimes we disqualify ourselves, taking the easier path because we don’t believe something will be possible or easy. If we don’t opt out, we can bring out the real “no”s – or find out that our assumptions don’t match up with a more equitable reality. I can mentor. It was wonderful to have all sorts of role models when I was starting out in computing. I was inspired by people who didn’t make excuses for themselves: gender, education, age, occupation, geography, disability… I’m glad I can pay them back by mentoring other people, and I enjoy helping people learn. I learn a lot in the process, too. I can learn more about the issues, and I can help work on those issues. There are plenty of things that need to be addressed, and it can feel pretty overwhelming. Maybe I can pick one or two areas I can develop depth in (gender equity? work-life? globalization?), and learn a lot about those. I’m here for only a short time. I might as well make the world a little bit better, so that the next batch of people can build on that.

Tips from remote workers http://sachachua.com/blog/p/7828 September 21, 2010 Categories: ibm, tips, work I attended a networking event for IBM Other Than Traditional Office employees (OTTO, for short) – people who work from home, client sites, mobility centers, and other places. It was held in Second Life

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Enterprise to take advantage of the Center for Advanced Learning’s speed-networking tools: a system for assigning conversational groups, sound-isolated tables so that you could talk without interfering with other tables, and a screen for information.

and I shared how useful I find a second laptop. •

Invest in practices. Lots of people told me about the need for discipline because working at home makes it easier for work to take over other parts of your life. One person suggested blocking off time for exercise on your calendar, a tip he picked up while shadowing an executive. Another told me about the schedule he keeps: an early start at 7 or 8 to get his main work in before the rest of his team interrupted him through instant messaging, with an early end to the day as well. Other people told me about early and late teleconference calls to accommodate different timezones, and how they made sure to set aside time during the day to take care of personal tasks.

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Diversity is awesome. One of the people I talked to casually mentioned that this was her second career, which she entered after her kids grew up. I was talking to another person about tools and practices for remote workers (headsets!), and he mentioned he’d gotten a wireless one that works really well, which helps because he’s in a wheelchair. I talked to people who really appreciated the ability to flexibly manage their schedule around taking kids to school. IBM rocks.

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Thinking about the platform: A minor hack to make it easier to limit chats to an area: use channels to message a bot that repeats the message only to people within the same group? Also, I really like the system they’ve built for assigning people into groups that maximize the number of new people you meet. A straightforward improvement would be to build a teleporting tool that uses that information to send you directly to the table for your group, although it might take a little finagling to figure out which chairs haven’t yet been occupied. You could

Here’s what I learned from the eight people I got to talk to: •

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It’s not even the new normal, it’s the old normal. Many people have been telecommuting for a long time (like 15 years!). I was talking to someone who’d worked on the Selectric typewriter. He said that when he first went remote, people were initially hesitant about whether he’d be available enough. Now it’s generally accepted, and his manager has even told him that he’s easier to contact than people who work in the office. Another person I talked to told me that she’d been encouraged to work from home after she was getting too many interruptions at work. I told them how people compare virtual conversations with watercooler chats and how my norm isn’t the watercooler, it’s online. We live in a pocket of the future – isn’t that amazing? We’re mobile almost by default. Most people I talked to worked from home because they were working with a global team, although some started as the only remote person for an otherwise colocated team. When your team is all over the world, there’s no need to go in to a particular office.

Invest in tools. People told me how their wireless keyboards and mice helped them minimize the tangle of cables on their desk. They told me about having a separate business line, with phones that had good features. I shared how much I liked having a headset for my phone – I use a wired headset with a wireless phone (Panasonic KX TGA740). We talked about having second monitors and big monitors, Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 60 •

then embed that script into a “kiosk”-type object in the main area as well as the individual timers in the discussion pods. When moving to a new group, then, people could click on the timer to be moved to the right position. (What if the previous round of people are still sitting in the pods?) Perhaps people can be teleported near the pod. The current system of standing up and walking to the right pod works fine, though, so this is really only if you’ve got a lot of avatars – which is unlikely given the load on each grid segment. So it would be cool to have these tweaks, but it’s not necessary at this scale. All the questions in the post-networking group chat were about the platform. I’ve been to a number of IBM events in SecondLife, and I think it can be a great way to connect. Looking forward to seeing other groups take advantage of this!

Rhetoric http://sachachua.com/blog/p/13750 September 22, 2010 Categories: books, communication, love, rea ding, relationship, rhetoric W- and I are getting married in less than two weeks. In preparation for that (and as a way of keeping sane during the pre-wedding hullabaloo), we’ve been learning how to argue. You’ve gotta love a man whose reaction to a challenging situation is to not only figure how to address the conflict, but also to learn more about effective communication. You might be thinking: Isn’t rhetoric about political grandstanding, slick salesmanship, and mouldy Greeks and Romans? Isn’t “argument” just a fancy word for “fight?” I thought so too, non-confrontational me. It turns out that learning more about rhetoric and argument can make relationships even better. In “Thank You for Arguing: What Aristotle, Lincoln and Homer Simpson Can Teach Us About the Art of Persuasion,” Jay Heinrichs points out the difference between

fighting to win and arguing to win people over. What’s more, he uses familiar situations drawn from everyday life: persuading his teenage son to get him toothpaste, defusing potential fights with his wife, and analyzing the selling techniques and marketing tactics that beseige us. My first encounter with Heinrichs was when W- pointed me to Heinrichs’ post on “How to Teach a Child to Argue.” It’s a clever example of logos, ethos, and pathos. Reading it, I thought: Hey, this is so practical. Then I wondered: Why didn’t I learn this in school? But I brought myself firmly back into a focus on the future by asking: What can I do to get better at this? When Heinrich writes about the past (forensic), present (demonstrative), and future (deliberative) tenses of arguments, I recognize my own urge to focus on moving forward–practical things we can do–during difficult conversations that threaten to spiral into blame games or overgeneralizations. Learning more about rhetoric helps me understand the patterns, working with them without being sucked in. It isn’t easy to admit to learning more about rhetoric and argument. One downside of reading mybooks on communication and relationships as a child was that people occasionally doubted if I meant what I said. As a grade school kid, I found it hard to prove I wasn’t being manipulative. It’s still hard even now, but at least experiences give me more depth and reassurance that I’m not just making things up. I like Heinrichs’ approach. He and his family are well aware of the tactics they use, but they relate well anyway, and they give each other points for trying. I’m sure we’ll run into unwarranted expectations along the way – learning about argument doesn’t mean I’ll magically become an empathetic wizard of win-win! – but I’d rather learn rhetoric than stumble along without it. Besides, argument – good argument, not fights – could be amazing. In “Ask Figaro“, Heinrichs writes:

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“My wife and I believed that happy couples never argued; but since we started manipulating each other rhetorically (we recognize each other’s tricks, which just makes it all the more fun), we’ve become a happier couple.”

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To learn more beyond “Thank You for Arguing”, we’ve also raided the library for other rhetoric books. Nancy Wood’s “Essentials of Argument” is a concise university-level textbook with plenty of exercises that I plan to work on after the wedding. “Critical Inquiry: The Process of Argument” also promises to be a good read. These are not books to skim and slurp up. They demand practice. Results so far: I have had deeper conversations with W-, had a stillemotional-but-getting-better conversation with my mom (I’m getting better at recovering my balance), and conceded an argument with Luke about dinner. (It’s hard to argue with a cat who sits on your lap and meows – pure pathos in action.) I’ll keep you posted. I look forward to practicing rhetoric in blogging, too.

::!hello::Welcome to the IBM social networking booth. I’m Sacha Chua ([email removed]), a consultant who helps organizations figure out what Web 2.0 is, how it fits with their strategy, how to implement it, and how to make the most of it. Please feel free to ask me questions by sending a note or inviting me to chat. What can I help you with? ::!tapscott::Hello and welcome to the IBM social networking booth. I’m Sacha Chua ([email removed]), an IBM consultant who helps organizations figure out what Web 2.0 is, how it fits with their strategy, how to implement it, and how to make the most of it. What did you think of Don Tapscott’s keynote? Please feel free to start a chat if you want to talk about it or if you have any questions about social networking.

I’ve won the relationship lottery, I really have. In a city of 5.5 million people, in the third country I’ve lived in, I found someone who exemplifies the saying: When the going gets tough, the tough hit the books. (edited for clarity)

Old notes on staffing a virtual conference booth http://sachachua.com/blog/p/9250 September 23, 2010 Categories: autohotkey, automation, confere nce, connecting, event, virtual It’s fantastic how a blog archive lets me pull up lessons learned from a virtual conference I helped at two years ago. Some of these tips from my internal blog post are platform-specific, but others might be useful. Staffing the Social Networking booth at the Innovation in Action event. Here are quick tips:

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Set up text shortcuts. You’ll need to type in a lot of text rapidly. The built-in Text Entries are not available when you’re sending an initial message or inviting someone to a chat, so type in some boilerplate text into Notepad and then copy and paste it. Messages you send from the booth will be marked as from your booth name, so include your name and e-mail address in your message. Advanced tip: use AutoHotkey to create a text macro. Install it from AutoHotkeyInstaller.exe, create a file like shortcuts.ahk (customize this of course), then double-click shortcuts.ahk to make it part of your system. Example shortcuts.ahk:

After that, you’ll be able to type !hello into anywhere and have it expanded. To update, edit shortcuts.ahk and then double-click it again. •

Check people’s visitor histories. The visitor history will tell you about any messages sent from or to this booth, if the visitor has been to this booth before, and so on. Great way to make sure you don’t send a message twice.

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Send people messages and invite them to chat with you. You can initiate only one chat at a time, and you have to wait for the person to accept or reject the invitation before inviting another person. You can send as many messages as you want, though, and you can have as many open chats as you want. Send yourself follow-up requests after conversations. Your goal in each conversation is to find out what people are interested and give yourself an excuse to follow up. After you get that, use the [i] button on the right (your chat partner’s profile) to display the profile, then use the Followup button to send yourself a copy of the person’s visitor history. WARNING: There’s some delay when selecting names from the list, so double-check that you’re sending the right person’s information. Pull in experts. Need help answering a question? Tell the visitor you’re bringing someone in, then click on the expert’s profile, choose Invite to chat, and choose the chat session you want the expert to join.

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As people enter and leave the booth, odd things happen to the page. Be prepared to have to find people again.

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Things get much quieter when people are listening to sessions. Eat or rest during those times.

New note-taking workflow with Emacs Org-mode http://sachachua.com/blog/p/15329 September 24, 2010 Categories: emacs, highlight, kaizen, noteta king, org, pkm, productivity, workflow The new workflow looks like it works better for me. Or rather, it’s an old workflow with new tools. Now, instead of using Windows Live Writer or ScribeFire to post my notes directly to my blog, I’m back to using M-x remember and Emacs, keeping a superset of my notes in text files and publishing selected parts of it. •

The new workflow o

M-x remember saves quick notes into a large text file (~/personal/organizer.org), possibly with tags, with diagrams inserted later.

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I regularly review and file items into the appropriate sections of ~/personal/outline.org.

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I post selected items to my blog using C-u M-x org2blogpost-subtree, scheduling them by adding a timestamp or using the C-c C-s (orgschedule) command.

Non-obvious things: •

Your name will not be associated with any messages (from or to), so don’t count on being able to quickly see replies from people or find out what you sent someone.

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The sorting buttons on the lists sort only the displayed entries, not all the entries. Entries will always be arranged chronologically, although in-page sorting may be different. Don’t count on being able to use this to see all the messages sent by visitors. Just leave it on Date.

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If someone leaves your booth while you’re trying to check their visitor history, their info box disappears.

I sometimes use Microsoft OneNote on my new tablet to take notes during meetings, but it’s easy enough to convert my handwriting to text and paste it into my Org-mode file. I still have to think of a better way to refer to images while keeping my file manageable, but a filename is probably okay.

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A worked example This is being composed in a M-x remember window. (Well, remember is bound to C-c r on my system, so it’s easy to invoke). After I finish braindumping, I’ll use C-c C-c to save it somewhere. I may schedule the post immediately (C-c s (org-schedule) and then C-u M-x org2blog-post-subtree), or tag it for later review. (:toblog: – ready to go, but not scheduled? :rough: – needs more thinking?) When I review the items, I’ll copy this into the Geek – Emacs section of my outline.org. It feels nice having my notes in plain text, and being able to organize it in more than just chronological order…

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The history From 2001 to about 2006, I kept an Emacs Planner wiki with all of my notes in it. Emacs Remember let me write notes that were automatically hyperlinked to whatever I was looking at, and I added code to Planner that made it easy for me to file the notes both chronologically and topically. Planner rocked. I loved being able to easily hyperlink between topics, and the wiki structure kept pages a mostly manageable size. (My public Planner files are still on the Net, but I need to regenerate the index or enable directory lists so that they’re usable.) When I moved to WordPress as a blogging platform in order to make it easier for people to leave comments, I hacked around with RSS to import my posts from Planner into WordPress (ex: http://sachachua.com/blog/200 2/). Moving to WordPress meant a change in my workflow. I now had

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two places to store my notes: Planner and my blog. I tried Emacs Org because I liked the way it organized information. In Planner, we’d been struggling with elegant ways to manage tasks and notes that needed to be accessed in multiple contexts. The approach we had taken in Planner was to make copies of the information, but Org had a cleaner way to do it using different views. It was intriguing. When I started working at IBM, however, my information workflow diverged. I shifted to using a webbased to-do list and Lotus Notes, posting on an internal blog and an external one, and managing multiple sources and repositories of information. I wanted to go back to keeping my notes in plain text, encrypted if necessary, and to have a place where I could keep notes that might not be publishable. I still had to manage multiple computers, but synchronizing systems like Dropbox or SpiderOak got rid of some of the hassles I’d encountered with git. When I found out about org2blog thanks to a test link from punchagan, I modified the code to work with subtrees instead of new buffers, and that solved the blog publishing part of it.

How to be dispensable, and why you should document and automate yourself out of a job http://sachachua.com/blog/p/16429 September 25, 2010 Categories: career, highlight, tips, work My out-of-office message links to wikis where people can get self-service information, and backup contacts in case people have other questions. I’ve helped the three teams I’m working with learn more about using the Idea Lab tools I built. I can

take my two-week vacation without worrying that projects will be delayed. Heck, I can get hit by a bus and things will still be okay at work. (Although I’ll try not to be hit by a bus.) Making myself dispensable is paying off. It’s good to make yourself dispensable. It’s even better when you don’t have to do the mad scramble for documents and tools the week before you leave. I’ve been documenting and automating my work from the beginning. In a recent presentation to a defense client, I talked about how to develop the habit of sharing. During the discussion, one of the participants asked how that related to job security. I mentioned a good book on how to be indispensable: Linchpin, by Seth Godin. But it’s much better to be dispensable and invaluable. Indispensable people are a big risk. Whether they’re indispensable for good reasons (always knows the right thing to do) or bad reasons (hoards knowledge so that no one else can solve that problem), they can derail your project or your organization. People become dependent on them. And then when something happens— vacation, lottery, promotion, sickness, death—the team stumbles. Something always happens. On the other hand, invaluable people help their teams grow along with them. They make themselves obsolete by coaching successors, delegating tasks to help people learn. They eliminate waste and automate processes to save time. They share what they know. They teach themselves out of a job. The interesting thing that happens to invaluable people is that in the process of spreading their capabilities to the team, they create new opportunities. They get rid of part of their job so that they can take on new challenges. Indispensable people can’t be promoted without disruption. Invaluable people can be promoted, and everyone grows underneath them.

You might be harder to fire if you’re the only one who knows the secret recipe, but wouldn’t you rather be the person people want to work with because you can solve new challenges? The first might save you during a round of layoffs, but the second will help you grow no matter where you are. So, how can you be dispensable and invaluable? Document with your successor in mind. Write instructions. Organize resources. Make it easy to turn your projects over so that you can take an even better opportunity if it comes along. Document, document, document. Push the knowledge out so that you’re not the only expert. This will help you and your team work more effectively, and it will reduce the work too. Automate, automate, automate. If you can automate the repetitive or error-prone parts of your work, you’ll rock, and you’ll help your team rock too. If you don’t know how to program, you might consider learning how to – whether it’s Microsoft Excel wizardry or Perl geekery. Save time. Cut out the boring parts. Make your work easier. If you do this well, you will work yourself out of at least the bottom 10% of your job each year… and you’ll open up at least 20% in productivity and new opportunities–not to mention the multiplying effect that you’ll have on your team and your organization. Be dispensable. Be invaluable. Make stuff happen. Cate Huston has a great post about this, too. Check hers out!

Week ending September 26, 2010 http://sachachua.com/blog/p/16433 September 26, 2010 - Categories: weekly

From last week’s plans •

Work

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 65

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[X] Support Classroom to Client: Collect lessons learned and revise material

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[C] Build Connections Toolkit: Add export to plugin

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[-] Build Connections Toolkit: Track down a couple of bugs

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[X] Organize Idea Labs: Finalize invitation for E.S. Idea Lab

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Updated Connections Toolkit to work with exporting members from ibm.com/communities Created step-by-step instructions for using Connections Toolkit to list members Walked Marian Friedman through using my RSVP summarization script Walked Richard Mound and Jenna Goldstein through reporting tool for community members [X] Plan wedding: Consider fixing front garden – nah, it will be fine

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[X] Plan wedding: Clear stuff to throw / donate

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[X] Plan wedding: Confirm all travel details

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Had great mentoring chat with Cate Huston [X] Improve productivity: Apply rhetorical principles to blogging

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Work o

[ ] Organize Idea Labs: Run report for external Idea Lab

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Take a break!

Relationships o

[ ] Plan wedding: Get married!

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[ ] Plan wedding: Host barbecue reception for lunch/afternoon

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[ ] Plan wedding: Take family to Niagara falls

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Life

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[ ] Stay sane =)

Blog posts this week •

How to be dispensable, and why you should document and automate yourself out of a job

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New note-taking workflow with Emacs Org-mode

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Old notes on staffing a virtual conference booth

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Rhetoric

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Tips from remote workers

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What can I do to help make the world more equitable?

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Week ending September 19, 2010

Elsewhere on the Internet

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sachac: @alanlepo 200 people is an older startup, though. ;) I’m thinking tiny. (Sat, Sep 25, 2010)

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sachac: #FF my first five followers when I joined in Feb 2007: @matthewburpee @gabrielmansour

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Wrote more than 6,800 words by Friday – new flow working well

Plans for next week

[X] Build career: Copresent "Leading Innovation" at Showcase Ontario

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@Minger @clothbot @thomasknoll http://bit.ly/first5 (Fri, Sep 24, 2010) •

sachac: @counti8 @CatherineOmega Oh, that sounds like a classic application for “Waiting For” in GTD – pick any GTD-happy tool. (Fri, Sep 24, 2010)

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“Chance Favors the Connected Mind” [Video] (Fri, Sep 24, 2010)

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sachac: Most of the cool Gen Yers I know who might be thinking about Enterprise 2.0 / collaboration are working in startups. Hmm. (Fri, Sep 24, 2010)

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sachac: @TaniaSam Hope you feel better soon! Have plenty of chicken soup. (Fri, Sep 24, 2010)

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The Best-Kept Secret to Frugal Living (Fri, Sep 24, 2010)

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Applying The Fisch Flip To Your Conference Model (Fri, Sep 24, 2010)

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sachac: RT @johannabragge: Analyzing informal networks RT @EskoKilpi MIT Sloan: The Collaborative Organization http://bit.ly/cxmFt9 (Fri, Sep 24, 2010) The Collaborative Organization: How to Make Employee Networks Really Work – The Magazine – MIT Sloan Management Review (Fri, Sep 24, 2010)

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On Leadership (Thu, Sep 23, 2010)

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Latest Happenings in the QS World (Wed, Sep 22, 2010)

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Junction v1.05 (Wed, Sep 22, 2010)

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sachac: Autumnal equinox and super harvest moon tonight, apparently. Enjoy, Northern Hemispherers! #fb (Wed, Sep 22, 2010)

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sachac: @andypiper Of course! @belgort @jrobichaux you should totally interview @andypiper for awesome Lotus evangelism with an English accent ;) (Wed, Sep 22, 2010)

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sachac: @ian_g Good idea! Pity they don’t stock 12-passenger vans, though… (Wed, Sep 22, 2010)

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sachac: @andypiper You don’t need a podcast to know that @lbenitez and I like Connections… ;) (Wed, Sep 22, 2010)

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sachac: @blm849 Thanks! But no 12-passenger vans at Hertz, it seems. (Wed, Sep 22, 2010)

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What are we working for, really? (Wed, Sep 22, 2010)

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sachac: Considering renting van from Zoom Rent-a-Car. Mixed reviews on Internet, but hard to tell what’s real. Go for it, or run away screaming? #fb (Wed, Sep 22, 2010)

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The Myth of the Exceptional Life (Tue, Sep 21, 2010)

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Hyperbole and a Half: This is Why I’ll Never be an Adult (Tue, Sep 21, 2010)

13 Books Well Worth Reading: The Cream of the Book Review Crop (Thu, Sep 23, 2010) sachac: @ian_g Oh, thanks! I didn’t see 12-passenger vans on their website, but since you told me they had them, I asked their customer service. (Thu, Sep 23, 2010)

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 67

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Starwood Hotels Explore Second Life First (Tue, Sep 21, 2010)

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Niagara Falls to Niagara-on-theLake – Road biking trip – Everytrail (Tue, Sep 21, 2010)

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Mac’s Bikes – Bike Rentals and Tours Niagara Falls (Tue, Sep 21, 2010)

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MIT OpenCourseWare | Writing and Humanistic Studies | 21W.747-1 Rhetoric, Spring 2006 | Home (Tue, Sep 21, 2010)

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sachac: @kittenthebad Oh, yeah, Northstar… =) @lbenitez has more info on that too, I think! (Tue, Sep 21, 2010)

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Comparison of Average Moving Cost Estimates for Different Methods (Tue, Sep 21, 2010)

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Runtime Error on Opening Files (Mon, Sep 20, 2010)

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How To Go From Idea To Launching With Paying Customers In 8 Steps | Jason L. Baptiste (Mon, Sep 20, 2010)

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Review: The Checklist Manifesto (Sun, Sep 19, 2010)

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How to change Data Execution Prevention (DEP) settings in Windows 7? (Sat, Sep 18, 2010)

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sachac: @researchgoddess *boggle* Watch the Ikea kitty ad instead. It’ll make you feel better. =) (Sat, Sep 18, 2010)

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sachac: Love how W responds to interpersonal conflict by learning more about rhetoric through books, Internet, and conversations. _So_ marrying him! (Sat, Sep 18, 2010)

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sachac: @david_hay @hex_cargo E2.0 is how I plug into the brains of many, many people

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 68

smarter than I am. =) (Sat, Sep 18, 2010) •

sachac: @belgort After all, we’ve already put the work into it, so we might as well make it more searchable. (Sat, Sep 18, 2010)

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sachac: @gilsaints88 @blm849 I decided to bike home anyway. The skirt had two layers and it was still warm out, so I wasn’t too worried. =) (Sat, Sep 18, 2010)

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sachac: Oh dear, restroom’s closed. I’ll have to bike home in my office clothes instead of changing into bikewear. What would Superman do? (Fri, Sep 17, 2010)

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sachac: @belgort How about I make up for smackdown by mostly de-umming podcast? ;) http://j.mp/aybTw3 Six minutes shaved off. Transcript to follow. (Fri, Sep 17, 2010)

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sachac: @BilalJaffery Organizational memory and collaboration software for connectedness. (Extra myelin, thanks!) @roonoid @creckling @lbenitez (Fri, Sep 17, 2010)

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sachac: @roonoid @creckling @lbenitez Unless you’re referring to, say, obsolete procedures and tools we do want people to forget. =) (Fri, Sep 17, 2010)

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sachac: @roonoid @creckling @lbenitez But that’s part of who we are and helps us shape how we’re going to do things (or not) in the future. =) (Fri, Sep 17, 2010)

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The $3 iPad (or Other Tablet) Wall Mount [Clever Uses] (Fri, Sep 17, 2010)

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sachac: Awwww, the @torontolibrary stocks @rawn’s awesome book “Social Networking for Business”. Yay IBMer! =D (Fri, Sep 17, 2010) sachac: @kittenthebad Fascinating! Liz Wiseman came out with a book called “Multipliers: how the best leaders make everyone smarter”. (2010) (Fri, Sep 17, 2010) sachac: @counti8 Awww. =) @remarkk Don’t think of your blog. Take notes while you make things happen, and then post notes that might help others. (Fri, Sep 17, 2010) sachac: @trondareutle I like “collaboration evangelist” more than “tech evangelist” or “Enterprise 2.0 evangelist”. Thanks for the idea! =) (Fri, Sep 17, 2010) sachac: @trondareutle Enterprise 2.0 evangelist on IBM card. Tech evangelist, storyteller, geek on my extra card and on my internal/external blogs (Fri, Sep 17, 2010)

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sachac: @jrobichaux I’ve been thinking about adding “toolsmith” to that, possibly replacing/clarifying “geek”. =) (Fri, Sep 17, 2010)

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sachac: @jrobichaux Thanks for nsftools! =) (Fri, Sep 17, 2010)

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sachac: Evangelizing Lotus Connections with @lbenitez, @belgort, @jrobichaux and me 37:35 http://planetlotus.org/743e12 #lotusconnections #ibm (Fri, Sep 17, 2010)

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Nil by mouth – Roger Ebert’s Journal (Fri, Sep 17, 2010)

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sachac: @belgort Have a nap. You deserve it. =) (Fri, Sep 17, 2010)

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sachac: #FF Lotus geeks: @lbenitez @belgort @jrobichaux @notessensei @alanlepo =) (Fri, Sep 17, 2010)

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sachac: @belgort Yes! And @jrobichaux too! =) (Fri, Sep 17, 2010)

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sachac: @lbenitez I should develop a radio voice too! (Fri, Sep 17, 2010)

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sachac: @kittenthebad Exponential value for the win. =) (Fri, Sep 17, 2010)

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sachac: Had tons of fun recording Taking Notes podcast with @belgort and @lbenitez =) @curiousmitch You’ll like it! (Fri, Sep 17, 2010)

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Puño’s TEDx Madrid Sketchboards (Fri, Sep 17, 2010)

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sachac: @belgort Just sent you background for podcast tomorrow, in case you find that useful for asking questions and exploring conversation threads (Fri, Sep 17, 2010)

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Ruth Bader Ginsburg shows how feminism is done. Again. – By Dahlia Lithwick – Slate Magazine (Thu, Sep 16, 2010)

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sachac: Like @kittenthebad’s take on dealing with difficult people, being dispensable: http://catehuston.com/blog/2010/0 9/14/being-dispensable . =) (Thu, Sep 16, 2010)

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All Us Christensens: Sweet nothings (Thu, Sep 16, 2010)

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 69

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sachac: @kittenthebad Thanks for sharing it with others! Getting better at realizing what I’m not hearing or reading. (Thu, Sep 16, 2010)

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sachac: Toronto Startup Wknd Sept 24-26: @leilaboujnane and other cool speakers. toronto.startupweekend.org Not going, but looks like fun! (Thu, Sep 16, 2010)

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sachac: Okay. @gabrielmansour @lindaristevski and other awesome people. Snakes and Lattes. Friday? Help me keep sane during wedding planning. =) (Tue, Sep 14, 2010)

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sachac: @blm849 There’s an interesting distinction between people who enjoy cooking with recipes and people who cook without them. (Tue, Sep 14, 2010)

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Blog U.: Naming Assumptions – University of Venus – Inside Higher Ed (Tue, Sep 14, 2010)

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One Life Japan: Experience the Japan Countryside by Bike and Foot (Thu, Sep 16, 2010)

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The Diarists’ Art (Thu, Sep 16, 2010)

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“You just need to get started” is bad advice (Tue, Sep 14, 2010)

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Sweet nothings (Wed, Sep 15, 2010)

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findutils – GNU Project – Free Software Foundation (FSF) (Tue, Sep 14, 2010)

Removing [nid:n] in nodereference autocomplete – Stack Overflow (Mon, Sep 13, 2010)

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sachac: @belgort @lbenitez I’m sachachua83, and I’m in EDT. (Mon, Sep 13, 2010)

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sachac: Grr, can ping Linux -> XP, Linux -> Win 7, and Win 7 -> Win XP, but can’t ping Win XP -> Linux. #fb (Mon, Sep 13, 2010)

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Creating a Compound Field Module for CCK in Drupal 6.x | Poplar ProductivityWare | (Mon, Sep 13, 2010)

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sachac: @lbenitez @belgort Sure, sounds good. Sep 17? (Mon, Sep 13, 2010)

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sachac: So happy. =) People ask, “Where’s the wiki so we can share files?” (They mean Activities.) I think it’s starting to become expected. (Mon, Sep 13, 2010)

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Baumkuchen (Mon, Sep 13, 2010)

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Being Dispensable (Tue, Sep 14, 2010)

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sachac: @twitteratti It’s fun watching geeks of different persuasions. (Tue, Sep 14, 2010)

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sachac: @BilalJaffery My sister cooks by feel. She makes awesome stuff, but you have to enjoy it then, as it’s probably never going to happen again. (Tue, Sep 14, 2010)

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sachac: @blm849 I lack the experience to make up for a lack of intuition, so I have to follow the craft approach for now. =) (Tue, Sep 14, 2010) sachac: @trajano @gilsaints88 Tried disabling all the firewalls. Still no joy. Oh well! Will put XAMPP on the XP comp instead, as I can access it. (Tue, Sep 14, 2010)

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 70

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Barbecue on a Budget: Throw a Cook-Out for 20 for Under $120 | TradingMarkets.com (Sun, Sep 12, 2010)

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sachac: @hypatiadotca Happy to drop them off at the HackLab open house if Tuesday’s not rainy. =) With jam, too, for toast and stuff! (Sat, Sep 11, 2010)

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sachac: #FF @lindaristevski @ian_g @blm849 @skemsley @taniasam @hypatiadotca @hilarity_ensues @accordionguy @ianirving and other friends in Toronto (Fri, Sep 10, 2010)

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sachac: @lbenitez Good luck! I think the #ibmexperience is awesome. =) (Fri, Sep 10, 2010)

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sachac: @jamiemcquay Congratulations! May you have many more anniversaries to come. =) (Fri, Sep 10, 2010)

Systematically eliminating choices http://sachachua.com/blog/p/16431 September 27, 2010 Categories: choices, highlight, life, wedding I confess: I sometimes feel overwhelmed when researching choices. I find it really helpful to write options down and then systematically eliminate them as I learn more.

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sachac: @mikesansone Thanks for the #FF! =) (Fri, Sep 10, 2010)

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sachac: @hypatiadotca All win belong to you. =) Have you decided re location? Want jalapeno peppers? Our garden overfloweth, but not enough to can. (Fri, Sep 10, 2010)

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IKEA Lets 100 Cats Loose in Store – TIME NewsFeed (Fri, Sep 10, 2010)

1. Rent a 12-passenger van and take everyone.

Ikea Happy Inside Cats Video (Fri, Sep 10, 2010)

2. Rent a 7-passenger minivan and go in a convoy.

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sachac: @blm849 Oh, absolutely. =) Lies, damned lies, and statistics, and all that. ;) (Fri, Sep 10, 2010) sachac: Ikea cat ad makes me feel happy inside: http://vodpod.com/watch/4408918ikea-happy-inside-cats (more homelike than cookies baking in oven) (Fri, Sep 10, 2010)

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8 recommended books on visual thinking (Fri, Sep 10, 2010)

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For every site a make file (Fri, Sep 10, 2010)

For example, we’re planning how to take 11 people (ourselves included) to Niagara Falls and Niagara-on-the-Lake. Based on a few Internet searches, we identified the following options:

3. Charter a yacht and go across the lake. 4. Charter a private tour van from Toronto. 5. Take a pre-determined Niagara Falls and Niagara-on-the-Lake tour. 6. Go to Niagara Falls by bus. 7. Skip Niagara entirely. Decisions are less stressful when you’ve got a basic plan in place, like the way that writing is easier once you’ve written a first draft, and like the way negotiations are easier when you’ve identified your best alternative to a negotiated agreement (BATNA).

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 71

Our “first draft” was option 6: taking an inexpensive bus to Niagara Falls, and then doing a self-directed tour. That beat option 7, which might’ve involved making more preserves. ;) We briefly looked at option 5 (public bus tour), too, but it didn’t feel like a good fit. So we struck that out. Our ideal would’ve been to rent a 12passenger van, but the companies that listed them as available seemed sketchy (mixed reviews on the Internet, complaints about transactions), and the larger rental companies didn’t have any 12-passenger vans available during that period. (Update: the smaller companies reported not having any vans for those dates, either. Moot point, then.) We played around with the idea of taking a yacht (3) because it would be an awesome experience, but we decided it wasn’t worth it. 1. Rent a 12-passenger van and take everyone. 2. Rent a 7-passenger minivan and go in a convoy. 3. Charter a yacht and go across the lake.

W- reasoned that it made more sense to rent a minivan for the entire time than to hire a van and a driver, considering many people in our family can drive. 1. Rent a 12-passenger van and take everyone. 2. Rent a 7-passenger minivan and go in a convoy. 3. Charter a yacht and go across the lake. 4. Charter a private tour van from Toronto. 5. Take a pre-determined Niagara Falls and Niagara-on-the-Lake tour. 6. Go to Niagara Falls by bus. 7. Skip Niagara entirely. When you feel overwhelmed with choices, it helps to list those choices and then get rid of them one by one.

Book: Getting to Yes http://sachachua.com/blog/p/16430 September 28, 2010 Categories: book, communication, highlight , negotiation, reading

4. Charter a private tour van from Toronto. 5. Take a pre-determined Niagara Falls and Niagara-on-the-Lake tour. 6. Go to Niagara Falls by bus. 7. Skip Niagara entirely. Renting a minivan and going in a convoy (2) was much better than going to Niagara Falls by bus, so we made that our current working option. A bit of digging turned up the IBM discount for Enterprise Car, which was okay. (I found out from Ian Garmaise that Enterprise also has 12-passenger vans, but none were available for the period we were looking at.)

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(c) 2010 David Prior – Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Licence Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In Roger Fisher, William Ury, and Bruce Patton, 2nd ed. 1991 New York: Houghton Mifflin Company ISBN-13: 978-0-395-63124-9

Personal response Getting to Yes is a slim book that packs a lot of useful advice from corporate, government, and personal experience. The focus on

principled negotiation, reason, and objective criteria will help me learn to keep my cool during difficult negotiations, and to stay focused on finding or creating options that address people’s interests instead of being limited to the positions that have been expressed.

negotiation: people, interests, options, and criteria. People: We often see negotiation as an adversarial problem. If you can reframe it from a contest of wills to a cooperative initiative to find something that works for all parties, negotiation becomes much easier. This can be difficult when there’s a lot of public pressure, so understand people’s private interests as well as their expressed ones. The book also points out the importance of focusing not just on the situation, but also on the relationship, and the value of developing a good working relationship outside the negotiation.

This book focuses more on the process of negotiation, while “Thank You for Arguing” focuses more on the forms of rhetoric and the components of argument. Both are good reads in this area. One of the key things I’d like to do to apply the lessons from this book is to develop better relationships with people, which can help when negotiating. (Not just for the purpose of negotiation, of course!) The more I understand about other people and the more they understand about me, the better the conversations can be.

Interests: The positions people take may give some clues about the interests they have, but these positions should not be the final word in negotiation. Find out more about what people truly value, because that may help you find creative ways to address those interests.

Aside from applying these ideas to relationships with family and friends, I’m also looking forward to exploring this through outsourcing or other avenues.

Contents •

When you think about negotiation, it’s hard to escape the stereotype of haggling over souvenirs, houses, or salaries. There are age-old tactics for dealing with those kinds of negotations: start with an extreme, and only grudgingly give up ground. The authors argue that this kind of position-based negotiation is inefficient and ineffective. Instead of getting locked into one position or another, you should focus on understanding your interests and other parties’ interests, and inventing creative solutions that work for everyone if possible. •

Options: If you don’t firmly commit yourself to a position, you have more space to find better solutions that line up with people’s interests.

Part 1: The Problem: Don’t bargain over positions

Part 2: The method In this part, the book gives concrete tips for working through the different components of a

Criteria: It’s better to negotiate using reason and objective criteria than to take arbitrary positions. Identify objective criteria you and other parties can agree on, and use those to evaluate the options. Translate irrational arguments into objective criteria, asking questions to investigate. •

Part 3: Yes, but… This is where negotiation meets the real world. In this part, the book covers how to negotiate with a seemingly more powerful opponent, a stand-off, and dirty tricks. How to deal with power imbalances: Develop your best

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alternative to a negotiated agreement (BATNA). This will help you resist pressure. If your alternative is stronger than their alternative, you will also have more negotiation room. It’s important to pick one alternative as your best alternative to a negotiated agreement, and to have a good idea of this alternative before negotiating. We can be overly optimistic and think of hundreds of alternatives. If we don’t choose, however, we can feel overwhelmed. Picking one forces clarity and makes it easier to walk away if necessary. How to deal with people who won’t negotiate: If people are locked into positions and don’t want to negotiate, or focus on irrational arguments, you still have several approaches you can try. The first approach is to focus on negotiating well yourself, using interests, options, and objective criteria. Another option is to redirect their negotiation moves in a way that focuses on interests, options, and objective criteria. The third strategy uses a trained mediator who can help you focus on collaboratively finding a solution.

o

1. “Does positional bargaining ever make sense?” 2. “What if the other side believes in a different standard of fairness?” 3. “Should I be fair even if I don’t have to be?” o

2. “Should I negotiate even with terrorists or someone like Hitler? When does it make sense not to negotiate?” 3. “How should I adjust my negotiating approach to account for differences of personality, gender, culture, and so on?” o

Part 5: Ten questions people ask about Getting to Yes Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 74 •

Questions about tactics 1. “How do I decide things like ‘Where should we meet?’ ‘Who should make the first offer?’ and ‘How high should I start?’” 2. “Concretely, how do I move from inventing options to making commitments?”

Part 4: In Conclusion It’s not about “winning” – it’s about finding ways to deal with differences. The book has a lot of advice that we’ve heard from different sources, but you still need to practice in order to get better at it.

Questions about dealing with people 1. “What do I do if the people are the problem?”

How to deal with dirty tricks: Keep your best alternative in mind. Call out the tactic and talk about it. Use objective criteria to avoid giving in to pressure. Don’t be afraid to take breaks or to walk away if necessary. •

Questions about fairness and “principled” negotiation

3. “How do I try out these ideas without taking too much risk?” o

Questions about power 1. “Can the way I negotiate really make a difference if the other side is more powerful?” And “How

argument as negatives, but we’re immersed in it. Learning about argument can help us not only recognize when we’re being persuaded, but use it to improve everyday life.

do I enhance my negotiating power?”

Book: Thank You for Arguing http://sachachua.com/blog/p/17965 September 29, 2010 Categories: argument, book, communicatio n, highlight, reading, rhetoric

•

Offense 2. Set your goals: Cicero’s lightbulb: Fights and arguments are two different things. You’re in a fight to win; you’re in an argument to get what you want or to come to an agreement. When you argue, you want to change people’s mood, mind, and/or willingness to act. p17: story about “argument by the stick”

(c) 2009 Mark Robinson – Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Licence Thank You for Arguing: What Aristotle, Lincoln and Homer Simpson Can Teach Us About the Art of Persuasion Jay Heinrichs 2007 1st ed. ISBN: 978-0307-34144-0 New York: Three Rivers Press

Personal response I really like this book. Jay Heinrichs writes in a clear, accessible style that shows the relevance of rhetoric in life and gives great tips on how to get started. Through anecdotes, he also shows that rhetoric doesn’t have to be dodgy, and can contribute to a richer work and personal life. W- and I are both studying this book, and it has given us a helpful framework for deeper discussions. I plan to use the tools in the book to analyze arguments, and to apply them when blogging too. (Hmm, might be interesting to use the classical structure for posts in response to other blog posts…) Well worth a read.

Contents •

Introduction 1. Open your eyes: The invisible argument: We treat rhetoric and

3. Control the tense: Orphan Annie’s law: When people argue, they can be focused on the past (blame), the present (values), or the future (choices). Pick the appropriate tense for your argument. Future tense helps you keep moving forward. The author writes: o

Present-tense (demonstrative) rhetoric tends to finish with people bonding or separating.

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Past-tense (forensic) rhetoric threatens punishment.

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Future-tense (deliberative) argument promises a payoff.

The author also reminds us: “Never debate the undebatable. Instead, focus on your goals.” 4. Soften them up: Character, logic, emotion: Or ethos, logos, and pathos, if you want to use their classic names. Read this chapter for great arguments by the author’s children. 5. Get them to like you: Eminem’s rules of decorum: Ethos: Work with your audience’s expectations. Make it

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easier for them to believe you and identify with you. Fit in. 6. Make them listen: The Lincoln gambit: Help the audience see your common values and practical wisdom. Show them that you’re focused on their best interests, not just yours. If necessary, you may need to mimic other people’s values in order to get them to hear you. Take advantage of opportunities to build perception of your character, such as changing your position based on people’s arguments.

labels. Redefine words if needed, using a clear definition. Use the values of your audience. Switch tenses to focus on future choices, too. 13. Control the argument: Homer Simpson’s canons of logic: This chapter covers deductive and inductive logic, and how to support inductive logic with facts, comparisons, or stories. •

14. Spot fallacies: The seven deadly logical sins: This chapter lists logical fallacies and how to deal with them.

7. Show leadership: The Belushi paradigm: “Show off your experience. Bend the rules. Appear to take the middle course.”

15. Call a foul: Nixon’s trick: Identify fouls and deal with them, because if the conversation goes into inarguable territory, you’ll just be going around and round.

8. Win their trust: Quintilian’s useful doubt: Be doubtful or reluctant, talk about your sacrifice, or dial down your rhetoric skills if that serves your cause.

16. Know whom to trust: Persuasion detectors: Are people being extreme? Are people focusing on needs that don’t include yours? Watch out when negotiating.

9. Control the mood: The Aquinas maneuver: Use stories, volume control, plain language, and emotional influencers to change the mood. 10. Turn the volume down: The scientist’s lie: Manage anger by using passive voice when referring to things other people had done (not you). Calm people by reacting more than they would, on their behalf. Humor might be a good tool, too, but it’s tricky.

Defense

17. Find the sweet spot: More persuasion detectors: Do people try to give you a solution without hearing the details of your problem? Do people have relevant, accurate, unbiased information? Can people figure out what matters? •

Advanced offense

11. Gain the high ground: Aristotle’s favorite topic: Take advantage of common beliefs, values, or sayings as a foundation for your argument. Make your argument seem obvious. If people use common sayings to reject your argument, listen for that and come up with something relevant next time.

18. Speak your audience’s language: The rhetorical ape: Listen for the jargon and the keywords of a group, and repeat them. Try using antonyms when refuting other people’s arguments, if the original words will cause negative responses. Don’t be afraid to experiment with the logic of a sentence.

12. Persuade on your terms: What “is” is: Pay attention to

19. Make them identify with your choice: The mother-in-law

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ruse: Let people come up with your idea by identifying with them and letting them identify with you. Use in-words and irony if needed to help a certain group identify with you more (possibly with the exclusion of another group). 20. Get instant cleverness: Monty Python’s treasury of wit: This chapter covers figures of speech, subverted cliches, and other techniques for being wittier. 21. Seize the occasion: Stalin’s timing secret: Pay attention to timing, and watch for persuadable moments. 22. Use the right medium: The Jumbotron blunder: Different media emphasize different combinations of ethos, pathos, and logos. According to the author:

•

o

Sight is mostly pathos and ethos.

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Sound is the most logical sense.

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Smell, taste, and touch are almost purely emotional.

Reading list •

A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms, Richard A. Lanham

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Encyclopedia of Rhetoric (Oxford University Press, 2001)

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Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student, P. J. Corbett (Oxford University Press, 1990)

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The Art of Rhetoric, Aristotle (Penguin, 1991)

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Cicero, Anthony Everitt (Random House, 2001)

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The Founders and the Classics, Carl J. Richard (Harvard, 1994)

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A Rhetoric of Motives, Kenneth Burke (University of California, 1950)

Book: How to Win Every Argument: The Use and Abuse of Logic http://sachachua.com/blog/p/18520 September 30, 2010 Categories: argument, book, logic, reading, rhetoric

Advanced agreement 23. Give a persuasive talk: The oldest invention: Invention, arrangement (ethos, then logos, then pathos), style, memory, and delivery. Classical structure: Introduction (ethos), narration, division, proof, refutation, conclusion. 24. Use the right tools: The Brad Pitt factor: Goals, ethos, pathos, logos, kairos (timing). This chapter has examples of how tools from different chapters work together in real-life situations. 25: Run an agreeable country: Rhetoric’s revival: We need more rhetoric in real life. Yay!

Photo (c) 2008 Simon Peckhan – Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Licence Madsen Pirie (2006) London: Continuum International ISBN: 0826490069 How to Win Every Argument is a tour of 79 logical fallacies. Pirie’s clever examples help you recognize past fallacies that have tricked you, refute fallacies that come up, and perhaps even perpetrate them on others. In fact, it might be fun to play fallacy scavenger hunt: pick a set of fallacies (or the Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 77

entire thing!), and keep your eyes and ears open for occurrences. It might be easier to memorize a small set of definitions and rebuttal techniques than to try to identify all of the fallacies you come across. Just listening to a CBC Radio call-in section, I’ve come across argumentum ad misericordiam (#49), post hoc ergo propter hoc (#59), loaded words (#48), argumentum ad populum (#57), argumentum ad nauseum (#50), and unaccepted enthymemes (#75). This armchair quarterbacking doesn’t mean I do any better myself in my conversations, though – but it does mean I see room for personal improvement. Might be fun to fold into our weekly routine, as we’ve started picking up Saturday papers so that J- has materials for her current news homework. I’m looking forward to regularly learning from “How to Win Every Argument”, and getting better at recognizing and refuting (or using!) logical fallacies. Contents:

18. Contradictory premises 19. Crumenam, argumentum ad 20. Cum hoc ergo propter hoc 21. Damning the alternatives 22. Definitional retreat 23. Denying the antecedent 24. Dicto simpliciter 25. Division 26. Emotional appeals 27. Equivocation 28. Every schoolboy knows 29. The exception that proves the rule 30. Exclusive premises 31. The existential fallacy 32. Ex-post-facto statistics 33. Extensional pruning 34. False conversion 35. False precision 36. The gambler’s fallacy

1. Abusive analogy

37. The genetic fallacy

2. Accent

38. Half-concealed qualification

3. Accident

39. Hedging

4. Affirming the consequent

40. Hominem (abusive), argumentum ad

5. Amphiboly 6. Analogical fallacy

41. Hominem (circumstantial), argume ntum ad

7. Antiquitam, argumentum ad

42. Ignoratiam, argumentum ad

8. Apriorism

43. Ignoratio elenchi

9. Baculum, argumentum ad

44. Illicit process

10. Bifurcation

45. Irrelevant humour

11. Blinding with science

46. Lapidem, argumentum ad

12. The bogus dilemma

47. Lazarum, argumentum ad

13. Circulus in probando

48. Loaded words

14. The complex question (plurium interrogationum)

49. Misericordiam, argumentum ad

15. Composition 16. Concealed qualification 17. Conclusion which denies premises

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50. Nauseum, argumentum ad 51. Non-anticipation 52. Novitam, argumentum ad

53. Numeram, argumentum ad 54. One-sided assessment 55. Petitio principii 56. Poisoning the well 57. Populum, argumentum ad 58. Positive conclusion from negative premise 59. Post hoc ergo propter hoc 60. Quaternio terminorum 61. The red herring 62. Refuting the example 63. Reification 64. The runaway train 65. Secundum quid 66. Shifting ground 67. Shifing the burden of proof 68. The slippery slope 69. Special pleading 70. The straw man 71. Temperantiam, argumentum ad 72. Thatcher’s blame 73. Trivial objections 74. Tu quoque 75. Unaccepted enthymemes 76. The undistributed middle 77. Unobtainable perfection 78. Verecundiam, argumentum ad 79. Wishful thinking

October 2010

The Exploratorium, or playgrounds for the mind http://sachachua.com/blog/p/16432 October 1, 2010 Categories: family, life, science In this post about visiting San Francisco, Devin Reams wrote:

We also enjoyed walking around the Marina area and visiting the Exploratorium. I’ve been to some pretty good science museums (Denver, Smithsonian) but this place is amazing. The energy and exhibits possibly could’ve kept us there all day.

Ah, the Exploratorium. When I was in grade school, one of my most-loved books was the Explorabook: A Kid’s Science Museum in a Book. I read it until it was tattered and falling apart. No, I did more than read it – I did stuff with it. I used the included Fresnel lens to burn holes in leaves. I looked at streetlights through the diffraction grate. I pulled paperclips along paper using the magnet. (Hence the falling-apart thing: I disassembled the book to get to my favourite tools.) My only regret about the book: I wish I had worked up the courage to make agar jelly. I remember reading and re-reading the blurb about the Exploratorium, the San Francisco science museum that helped develop the book. When my parents were planning our backpacking trip across the United States, there were two things I dreamed about: being tall enough to ride the rollercoasters at Disney World, and going to the Exploratorium. The Exploratorium was every bit as scientifically magical as I imagined. I could’ve spent days there. We also visited the Smithsonian, which I also loved. (They had a replica of Babbage’s calculating machine!) The Smithsonian probably takes weeks, even years to properly explore. But to a kid without all the deep background one needs to appreciate all the history, what was that compared to the giant soap bubbles and interactive exhibits of a science museum? Whenever I have time in a new city, I make a trip to its science museum. I went to the one in Odaiba in Tokyo, where I saw a kinetic sculpture that simulated SMTP mail delivery. I went to the one in Boston and the one in Montreal. When I was in San Francisco for another trip, I dropped by the Exploratorium again. The

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 79

exhibits were a little smaller than I remembered (I’d grown a bit since I was nine years old, but not by much), but it was still magical. I checked out one of the new science museum in Manila when I visited, and I’m looking forward to yet another one that I’ve heard is being built. We’ve been to the Ontario Science Centre a number of times, of course. We’ve even made a trip to a place specifically to see a science museum (Sudbury, Science North). What keeps me coming back? Many of the exhibits are similar across different science museums, but sometimes I come across an interesting surprise, a clever way of turning a concept into an experience. And even with the familiar exhibits or in the less-endowed museums, there’s always the wonder of someone encountering these ideas for the first time – the kids on school trips, the parents and teachers and other visitors puzzling things through… For me, science museums are like direct connections to the wonder of discovery. Love love love. I think science exhibit designers must have one of the coolest jobs around. Science museums and libraries are my favourite ways to imagine my tax dollars hard at work.

Quick catch-up http://sachachua.com/blog/p/18832 October 3, 2010 - Categories: wedding Too many things going on. Haven’t been able to sit down and properly write for almost a week, and probably won’t get a chance to do so until people have left. Fortunately, my parents (already awesome storytellers) have gotten addicted to writing, so I can probably piece together the important bits from their Facebook news feed. (It’s really cool. You can almost see my dad go, “Hmm, I should share that.”) Everything turned out even awesomer than we’d planned. =D

Lotus Notes mail practices http://sachachua.com/blog/p/7696 October 7, 2010 - Categories: lotus, notes Here is a partial list of interesting practices I’ve seen, which I can compile into an internal or external wiki if I don’t come across an existing repository yet: •

Voting buttons in newsletters to allow people to rate the usefulness

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Subscription button in newsletters to allow people who received forwarded messages to be added to the distribution list

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Calendar buttons

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Forms/surveys

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RSVP+calendar entry buttons in event invitations – creating nonblocking entries if necessary

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Calendar button for scheduling replays if you can’t make it to the original event

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Using sections to hide material (note: manually configure section properties so that sections are collapsed by default, but automatically expanded for printing)

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Voting/volunteering buttons

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Response summarization agents

Share a science museum with someone!

Married! http://sachachua.com/blog/p/18831 October 2, 2010 - Categories: highlight, w, wedding

Married!

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 80

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Mail merge

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Stationery

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Standard response documents

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Introductory sentence explaining why people are getting mail

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Reply button with template

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Cleaning up HTML from Microsoft Word

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http://sachachua.com/blog/p/8185 October 8, 2010 - Categories: tips I often see HTML pasted in from Microsoft Word. It has a lot of non-standard and irrelevant code in it, so sometimes it breaks our systems. It’s also hard to edit afterwards.

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Week ending October 10, 2010 http://sachachua.com/blog/p/19597 October 12, 2010 - Categories: weekly

From the other week’s plans: •

o

[X] Plan wedding: Take family to Niagara falls

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Also went to New Jersey for family reunion / party

o

Took lots of pictures; still need to sort through them

o

Rescheduled barbecue

Life o

[X] Stay sane =)

o

Bought serger and other useful things

Work o

[ ] Organize Idea Labs: Support planning for upcoming Idea Lab

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[ ] Build Connections Toolkit: Build requested improvements

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[ ] Build career: Connect with manager regarding new projects

Relationships o

[ ] Wedding: Review and select pictures

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[ ] Wedding: Collect mailing addresses and e-mail addresses for everyone

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[ ] Wedding: Send thankyou notes with prints

Work o

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[X] Plan wedding: Host barbecue reception for lunch/afternoon

Plans for next week:

An easy way to clean that up is to paste it into Windows Live Writer using Edit > Paste Special > Thinned HTML, which removes most of the Microsoft Word extras while leaving the basic formatting in place. You can then copy-and-paste it into the blog/wiki editor. You can also use View > Source to get the HTML source code, which you can paste into the HTML mode of the blog/wiki editor. Hope that helps!

o

[X] Organize Idea Labs: Run report for external Idea Lab

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Take a break!

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Sent spreadsheet with Idea Lab discussions

Relationships o

[X] Plan wedding: Get married!

•

Life o

[ ] Improve productivity: Reorganize house, put things away

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[ ] Sew dress: Mark chalk lines on dress

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[ ] Writing: Flesh out wedding stories

Elsewhere on the Net:

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 81

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sachac: Home! Cats happy. Last two weeks awesome buzz. Ready to rock work and married life. Stories to come. Thanks, all! #fb(Tue, Oct 12, 2010)

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[daily dose of imagery] square fountains (Wed, Sep 29, 2010)

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Caterpillar | Flickr – Photo Sharing! (Wed, Sep 29, 2010)

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The Wisdom of Your Former Self (Mon, Oct 11, 2010)

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sachac: My parents are arriving in Toronto tomorrow. Yay! =D #fb (Tue, Sep 28, 2010)

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sachac: Hah, still haven’t gotten a chance to write. Running into posts I scheduled for "some time in the future." Hectic trip! Have rough notes. (Sat, Oct 9, 2010)

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Org ad hoc code, quick hacks and workarounds (Mon, Sep 27, 2010)

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sachac: @kittenthebad Oh yes! Reading about energizers made me smile. =) Thanks for thinking of me! (Mon, Sep 27, 2010)

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How to Massively Increase Your Reading Comprehension (Sat, Oct 9, 2010)

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#possesa Fri: 5 minutes of improvisation (Fri, Oct 8, 2010)

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Schedule Your Work to Avoid a Calendar Choked with Interruptions [Scheduling](Wed, Oct 6, 2010) Are you experimenting with email? Should you? (Wed, Oct 6, 2010)

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Resonate: A fantastic new book on presentation (Sun, Oct 3, 2010)

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Marlo Thomas dissects humor and how the pros use it (Sun, Oct 3, 2010)

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sachac: I’m getting married in the morning! Ding, dong, the bells are going to chime. #fb (Sat, Oct 2, 2010)

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The Discipline to Write Daily (Fri, Oct 1, 2010)

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» XX Tech Founders | StartupNorth (Fri, Oct 1, 2010)

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sachac: @frogpond Glad you liked that! Thanks for sharing. You might also like Getting to Yes, Critical Inquiry, and other books about arg./neg. (Wed, Sep 29, 2010)

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 82

Monthly review: September 2010 http://sachachua.com/blog/p/19598 October 13, 2010 - Categories: monthly Last month, I wrote: September: more Idea Labs, preparations, keeping things sane

We’re halfway through October already. As predicted, September was packed with preparations. The tools I had built made it easy to delegate my work, and the simplicity of our wedding plans meant fewer lastminute panics. We survived. October, of course, was for the wedding and the family get-togethers. All three of us sisters married or will marry in October, making anniversaries easy to remember and group dictations easy to plan. We had also all partnered up with electrical engineers, in the kind of coincidence that’s usually reserved for identical twins. (And then there’s the unusual number of people named John in our family…)

The rest of October will be for recuperation, getting back into the patterns of everyday life after so many months of preparation. I look forward to returning to that rhythm of writing that helps me make sense of the days. Book: How to Win Every Argument: The Use and Abuse of Logic

skills, sharing what I’m figuring out, and Book: Thank You for Arguing learning from others through my blog and Book: Getting to Yes other tools. Systematically eliminating choices How to be dispensable, and why you should document and automate Resources: yourself out of a job New note-taking workflow with Emacs Org-mode • Quantified Self: Tools for knowing Old notes on staffing a virtual conference booth your own mind and body Rhetoric • Edison: The Experimenter’s Journal, Tips from remote workers and Think Try Learn What can I do to help make the world more equitable? Getting past generation-based conversations • Lifehacker Welcome, listeners of the Taking Notes podcast! • Minimalist word processors: Tips for entrepreneurs WriteRoom, Dark Room, WriteSpace ‘round the bend Towards equity • Gadgets: Carpet Alarm Clock, Clocky robot alarm clock, etc. Filipiniana Getting the WordPress Lifestream plugin to work on my blog • New York Times: The Data-Driven Emacs Org mode and publishing a weekly review Life Stuff is just stuff, and experiences are just experiences • Personal Data Collection Labour Day painting @GetRichSlowly Redoing things Fit for You: Thinking about my priorities From overall description of conference: Thinking of autumn The value of constraints Technology pervades our developed Book: Leading Outside the Lines world and mediates our perception of it. We are alive in a period of profound It’s okay if you can’t remember or spell my name; being human Reviews •

Week ending September 26, 2010

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Week ending September 19, 2010

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Week ending September 12, 2010

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Week ending September 5, 2010

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Monthly review: August 2010

Placeholder: The Examined Life: Technology and Experimentation http://sachachua.com/blog/p/20029 October 14, 2010 Categories: highlight, presentation, speakin g This is a placeholder for the Technology and Humans talk I’m giving today on “The Examined Life.” I want to explore how people are using technology to practice relentless improvement, and I’ll tell a couple of stories of how I’m improving my

technological transformation, from a world of limited discrete technology appliances to one where technology is both pervasive and embedded in us and our environment. This transformation can be exciting, fun, and inspiring. Or it can be stressful, frustrating, and isolating. For all of us, it is forcing and evolution in our thinking, skills, learning methods, and perception. This conference explores perspectives on this transformation and how our adaptation will change the opportunities for IBM and the world. Get broad perspectives on the human impact of technology, now and in the future.

Toaster’s toasted http://sachachua.com/blog/p/20189 October 15, 2010 Categories: frugality, geek, life Our wedding vacation was a whirlwind of cooking, thanks to the talents of my middle sister Kathy and our family friend Tita Gay. When the dust cleared, casualties included Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 83

one burned-out stove element, and one broken toaster oven. We can work around the burned-out stove element easily – just use the other elements – but no toaster oven means that toast, biscuits, and tarts take more energy than before. W- took advantage of his electrical engineering training to troubleshoot the toaster. He identified the solenoid as the problem part. Now we’re figuring out if we should repair the toaster, replace it, or eliminate it. The decision is complicated by the fact that the toaster was an under-cabinet Black and Decker toaster oven, which was great because it saved counter space. Almost all toasters these days are countertop models, and we’d need to make space for them. The two under-cabinet models still sold by Black and Decker have middling reviews on Amazon.com. We’re going to try replacing the solenoid on our toaster first. If that doesn’t work, we might bring it into a small appliance repair shop (if we can still find one of those!). If that fails, then we’ll look into other options. Yay geeks!

Back on the writing wagon http://sachachua.com/blog/p/20245 October 16, 2010 Categories: family, wedding, writing From October 6: It’s been a whirlwind week. My family flew into Toronto to celebrate our wedding. I’ve been jotting quick notes in my ever-growing text file, rough sketches of things I’d like to tell stories about. I just haven’t made enough time to sit quietly and turn quick thoughts into something longer. I chose sleep, which turned out to be a good decision. I’d normally choose to do fewer things so that I could write and sleep, but my family just overflows with awesomeness and stories. I can think of this as braindump

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mode – cramming a year’s worth of interaction into a week. Besides, I can review my parents’ Facebook posts for stories to tell. Yay social media! A few quick stories: Languages: I like how undistinguished I feel around them. For example, my sister Kathy jokes around in English, Tagalog, German, Dutch, and Afrikaans. I can’t understand everything she’s saying, but I’m glad she has fun, and it nudges me to learn Cantonese and review my Japanese. I am going to learn Cantonese because I want to be able to listen and talk to Wayne’s family, and because it’s fun to pick up a new language. I also want to learn how to write it eventually. Halibut: My dad says he will only eat fish he can spell. My sister once tried making him halibut, but it was a no-go. But Gene Hattori deep-fried cubes of halibut (that he had caught himself in Alaska!) in a beer batter, and it was scrumptious. So my dad learned how to spell–and eat–halibut. School: J- ended up skipping a week of school and then some. She had a bad cold and cough for the first few days, so her dad kept her home from camp. She felt a little better by Thursday, but she was learning so much from my dad and the rest of my family that W- decided it was better for her to take advantage of those learning opportunities. He also got her excused from Monday afternoon’s classes so that she could come with us to the Hattoris. After all, it’s not every day that one gets to chat with someone who has been an official photographer for the Queen. =) (… is how W- explained it to J-’s teacher, I think. Not that there was much talk of government over the excellent food the Hattoris prepared.) Everyone: It has been so much fun having everyone over. This is the first time my entire family has visited me here in Canada. I don’t think our kitchen has ever been this busy – or smelled this good — before. Tita Gay and Kathy treated us to days of

constantly eating gourmet home-cooked food, and everyone regaled us with stories. Stories: Wayne and I like the way people tell stories. There are several parts to that: developing confidence and fluency in freeflowing conversations; developing an archive of stories; and connecting stories to each other. We’d like to get better at that. We can do that by hosting or hanging out with storytellers, going on our own adventures, and practicing telling stories around the kitchen table. I also enjoy writing.

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Sent talk description to Adil Sardar

Relationships o

[-] Wedding: Review and select pictures

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[-] Wedding: Collect mailing addresses and e-mail addresses for everyone

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[-] Wedding: Send thankyou notes with prints

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Drafted most of the thankyou notes

More snippets as I make time to write.

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Followed up with lawyers and photographers

Weekly review: Week ending October 17, 2010

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Attended concert with MIL

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http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21125 October 17, 2010 - Categories: weekly

Life o

[X] Improve productivity: Reorganize house, put things away

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[-] Sew dress: Mark chalk lines on dress

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[X] Writing: Flesh out wedding stories

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Starting to get back into the habit of using Org for timetracking

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Tried out datetree for orgcapture – looks useful

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Installed Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11

From last week’s plans •

Work o

[X] Organize Idea Labs: Support planning for upcoming Idea Lab

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[X] Build Connections Toolkit: Build requested improvements

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[X] Build career: Connect with manager regarding new projects

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Built text template tool for Darrel Rader

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Added thread sorting to forum export

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Submitted Lotusphere abstract

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Plans for next week •

Work o

[ ] Work on Drupal project: Learn about Features

Submitted Community Toolkit as Hackday project

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[ ] Work on Drupal project: Try out CiviCRM

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Attended DrupalCampToronto

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[ ] Organize Idea Labs: Support Idea Lab

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Got back into Drupal development: prototyped with Workflow, Profile Permission, Calendar, etc.

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[ ] Build Connections Toolkit: Add event feed and other information

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[ ] Build career: Configure hard-disk encryption

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sachac: @alanlepo There’s hope for the new version, though! (Fri, Oct 15, 2010)

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sachac: @ianirving Indeed. Getting the hang of the new interface. =) (Fri, Oct 15, 2010)

Relationships o

[ ] Wedding: Send thankyou notes

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[ ] Wedding: Download and organize photos

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[ ] Shared interests: Try a new recipe

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[ ] Improve productivity: Track sleep, wake-up, and snooze

sachac: @_aid_ Indeed! That just might tip me over to using #newtwitter (Fri, Oct 15, 2010)

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sachac: Hmm. Why doesn’t Twitter have an easy "view replies to this tweet" kind of thing? Or is it just hiding? (Fri, Oct 15, 2010)

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sachac: RT @blm849: The best way to get me to follow someone on #ff is to retweet something they tweeted that’s really good.(Fri, Oct 15, 2010)

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Cooking Classes and Appearance of Norene Gilletz (Fri, Oct 15, 2010)

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Arvinda’s Healthy Gourmet Indian Cooking – Cooking Classes in Toronto, Ontario, Canada (Fri, Oct 15, 2010)

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sachac: @jgombita It might need further reflection, but I suspect there’s value in making and sharing potentially crappy presentations. ;) (Fri, Oct 15, 2010)

Life o

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[ ] Sew dress: Mark chalk lines on dress

Elsewhere on the Net:

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sachac: @jgombita Evaluations are a funny thing. Sure, it’s good to be entertaining, but I’d rather find out if people acted on suggestions. ;) (Sun, Oct 17, 2010)

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sachac: @jgombita Deliberately risky, definitely yes. Underprepared, forgivable. Ones that break promises or show no respect, definitely no. (Sat, Oct 16, 2010)

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Past experiments you didn’t know about? You bet! (Fri, Oct 15, 2010)

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Homemade Gift Series #5: Wine Jelly (Fri, Oct 15, 2010)

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Sir Ken Robinson on Education, Animated (Fri, Oct 15, 2010)

Is there a data-driven personality? (Thu, Oct 14, 2010)

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Developer Evangelist. Toronto Area. Now Hiring. Maybe You? – Canadian Developer Connection – Site Home – MSDN Blogs(Fri, Oct 15, 2010)

10 More Essential Skills You Didn’t Learn in College (Thu, Oct 14, 2010)

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How to Setup a Drupal Publishing Workflow – O’Reilly Answers (Thu, Oct 14, 2010)

Sketchnotes / Visual Notetaking (Fri, Oct 15, 2010)

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Leveraging Social Networks in the Workplace (Thu, Oct 14, 2010)

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Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 86

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Cooking for Geeks: Organize Your Kitchen Like a Programmer [Organization] (Thu, Oct 14, 2010)

October 18, 2010 Categories: book, connecting, networking, r eading

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- This is going to be BIG! – Need a Technical Co-founder? Hire a Product Design Lead First (Wed, Oct 13, 2010)

Lucy Rosen with Claudia Gryvatz Copquin Franklin Lakes, NJ: Career Press 2010 ISBN 978-1-60163-121-3

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sachac: @ianirving Your pictures make me miss Japan! =) (Wed, Oct 13, 2010)

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Make DIY Reusable DustTrapping Cloths [DIY] (Wed, Oct 13, 2010)

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Founders Block » Blog Archive » 25 Best Startup Failure PostMortems (Wed, Oct 13, 2010)

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sachac: @tessalau I play Nethack too! =) (Wed, Oct 13, 2010)

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What’s Your Favorite Quick and Simple Meal? [Ask The Readers] (Tue, Oct 12, 2010)

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sachac: RT @byosko: RT @dunchill: Looking for good local WordPress developers. Appreciate any recommendations. #toronto(Tue, Oct 12, 2010)

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Use Bags of Rice or Beans to Stabilize Your Tripod [Photography] (Tue, Oct 12, 2010)

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sachac: Home! Cats happy. Last two weeks awesome buzz. Ready to rock work and married life. Stories to come. Thanks, all! #fb(Tue, Oct 12, 2010)

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The Wisdom of Your Former Self (Mon, Oct 11, 2010)

Book: Fast Track Networking: Turning Conversations into Contacts

In Fast Track Networking, Lucy Rosen shares networking tips from more than two decades of organizing networking events. Many of these tips can be found in other books and blogs: wear your nametag on your right side, act as a host, and follow up. Where Fast Track Networking goes into more depth than other books I’ve read, however, is how to set up and run a networking group (also known as a mastermind group). Rosen includes stepby-step planning, sample forms, and a plan for following up. In addition, she also provides several examples of referral sheets, which are short descriptions of how you help other people and what an ideal client looks like. I’ve come across that advice before, but printed referral sheets (as she suggests in her book) can be much more effective than the verbal descriptions I’ve seen encouraged in other books. If you’re tired of going to yet another networking event with too many people, you may want to read this book for tips on smaller-scale, more intimate networking. Plans: After the wedding, I’d like to experiment with one of the techniques she describes: inviting up to a dozen people out to have dinner at a restaurant. People pay for their own meals, but they come for the conversation and the potential connections. I’ve thought about doing that in the past, but I decided to host people instead because I could bring people together for more relaxed conversation (and for less money!) than we could in a restaurant or cafe. I find that I host these get-togethers infrequently, though, and perhaps alternating with eating out might be good for convenience as well as for expanding the circle of conversation.

http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21285

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Notes from DrupalCampToronto 2010 http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21500 October 19, 2010 Categories: drupal, geek, sketches, sketchno tes, work I’m shifting from a emerging technologies consulting project (organizing executive workshops and brainstorming sessions) to Drupal development projects here in IBM, so I took the opportunity to attend DrupalCampToronto 2010 last Saturday. It was great to see a lot of activity around Drupal, and I’m looking forward to catching up with all the new features. =) I wrote and sketched notes using Microsoft Onenote on my Lenovo X61T tablet. Check out my DrupalCampToronto 2010 sketchnotes in the gallery. Example:

(… there’s more – click on the image to see the rest of this!) I still have a lot to do before my sketchnotes can be as pretty as these, but I had a lot of fun taking notes, and sketching helped me stay focused. Some sessions covered things I could probably figure out from blog posts, articles, READMEs, slides, and handbook pages, but it was good to meet people and take a quick tour of what the community thought was important. I’m looking forward to reviewing the topics with a Drupal site at hand, so that I can experiment with these interesting ideas. OneNote’s handwriting recognition got confused by the sketches, I think, but I can resummarize sessions here:

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Conversion optimization: Think about your website as an asset. You can increase your return on investment by measuring and optimizing your conversion. Keep your audiences in mind, and use personas instead of just demographics in order to make them concrete. Establish trust through consistency and relevance. Create ongoing experiments, where you use Google Website Optimizer to test one thing at a time through split-testing. Make sure your offer pages pass the 6-second test (can people remember all the relevant details after a 6-second look at the website?). Sketchnotes for conversion optimization Search engine optimization: There are a whole bunch of modules to help you with SEO on Drupal. Key ones: pathauto to add search engine keywords to the URL, path redirect to redirect old aliases, page title to set the page titles and target specific keywords, node words for metadata (including description – set this for better search engine listings), global redirect to avoid duplicate content penalties for multiple URLs, XML sitemap to aid in discovery and indexing, and SEO checklist for lots of other tips. The Zen theme is really handy because it puts your content earlier in the page, too. Sketchnotes for search engine optimization An agile project management toolkit built with Drupal: Demo of the Fragile Solutions tool a company built to manage its projects. The code hasn’t been released as modules on drupal.org and I think they’re not planning to package it, but they said they’re open to sharing the code if you contact them. Good use of Views + Panels for dashboards, plus custom modules for calculating velocity, tracking revision history when stories are moved across sprints. Good use of programmatic views for greater database independence. Interesting company-wide view of sprints (instead of individual project views) makes it easier to do forecasting on a company level. Sketchnotes for agile project management

If you give away the milk for free, they’ll buy the cow (Selling Drupal services): Focus on benefits, not technology. Lullabot has great criteria for leads (see Liza Kindred): must be nice people, and must have healthy budget and/or interesting projects. Use the qualification process to ask lots of questions, trying to figure out why you shouldn’t work with someone. Charge for diagnosis/discovery/design phase as well (see doctor example). Use business hours for calling people, not for developing. Books to check out: “Getting Naked” (Patrick Lencioni) and “The Win Without Pitching Manifesto” (Blair Enns, free). Great story illustrating show vs tell: Tupperware, hammers. Paraphrased here: One of the selling points of Tupperware was that the plastic Tupperware containers were much less fragile than the glass containers popular then. At a big Tupperware sales convention, people got together to share notes. They found that one representative outsold the others by a significant margin. The other representatives asked him for his secret. He said that instead of telling potential customers that Tupperware was hard to break, he always took a hammer and tried to break the Tupperware in front of them. The next year, sales improved as people started carrying hammers – but the same representative still outsold everyone. They asked him what he did. He said that he now gave potential customers the hammer so that they could try to break the Tupperware. Showing people is better than telling people. Letting people experience the benefits is the best of all.

On a related note, someone in the session also told a story about a real estate agent who lets potential buyers park in the driveway and unlock the door with the house key, further giving people that sense of ownership before they discuss the deal. Sketchnotes for selling Drupal The sessions on Panels 3: Panels 3 looks really cool. Looking forward to trying it out. Must check out the Total Control and Views Bulk Operation modules too, and keep in mind that Panels and CTools need to be

upgraded at the same time. Sketchnotes for architecting with Panels 3 and Emma Jane’s talk

Memories of Mandelbrot http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21828 October 20, 2010 - Categories: geek, ibm

Image (c) 2007 fsse8info Creative Commons Attribution Copyleft Licence Benoit Mandelbrot, father of fractals, passed away from pancreatic cancer on October 14, 2010. He was 85 years old. Fractals made me fall in love with mathematics. I must’ve come across them in first year high school, training for programming competitions. When we weren’t solving problems, we often wrote demo programs to show off what we could do with mathematics, graphics, music, animation, or brute force. One of my team members showed us the Mandelbrot set – beautiful complexity from simple equations. After that, I looked for fractals elsewhere: applications that let you zoom in, animations in the Encarta encyclopedia, the ferns along the path. Also in high school: on learning that I was interested in fractals, one of my best friends lent me a thick book all about fractals. Partly to impress him (I had a crush on him then, which led to the requisite drama, from which we have thankfully long recovered) and partly for fun, I wrote a Turbo Pascal program that drew several of the fractals described in the book. In fact, it remains my

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oldest source code still posted on the web (1997), archived by a Russian demo site. Later on, in the breaks between programming contest training sessions, I wrote Lindenmayer system (L-system) evaluators using QBasic so that I could draw binary trees, Koch snowflakes, and Peano curves. When I encountered fractals in fiction – the dragon fractal that iterated through the chapters of Jurassic Park – it was like understanding an in-joke. Part of the appeal, perhaps, was the combination of limitations and infinities. For example, the Koch snowflake has an infinite perimeter enclosing a finite area. Like the Foxtrot strip where Jason stretches his mind by imagining negative infinity and positive infinity, fractal dimensions boggled me. I loved the feeling. Simple rules belying complexity. And from there it was a short random walk along the chapters and articles to chaos, Lorenz attractors, and butterflies and storms. I may never understand it all fully – but it was reassuring to know that we may never understand it all either. High school as well, perhaps: I remember a few minutes spent in a bookstore in Hong Kong, hurriedly reading a book on mathematical equations that model nature or produce interesting graphs, hoping I could remember at least a few of the equations from the book by the time I got to a computer. The book was too expensive for me to ask my parents for it on impulse, so I regretfully tucked it back into the crowded bookshelf. Now, of course, Amazon lists thousands of books about equations and fractals, but I don’t know which books were those that tweaked my life to the mathematical inclination. It’s okay, I remind myself. It’s not important that I have them, and they may not have the same fascination for others. One last anecdote about fractals; my only anecdote about Benoit Mandelbrot, actually. We were walking through the halls of the IBM research lab I was visiting. Another researcher walked by, nodding. When he was out of earshot, my guide – the

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 90

awesome Michael Muller– whispered to me, “That was Benoit Mandelbrot.” I was immediately aflutter. I had dimly recalled that computers helped enable the exploration of fractals, but that Benoit Mandelbrot–a figure I had once thought of with the Olympian distance of long-dead science and math heroes like Einstein or Madame Curie–was alive and active, and not only that, he was at IBM… Wow. I wondered if I should run back and ask for his autograph. I didn’t – I try not to be distracted by celebrity – but I kept that feeling of wonder as my souvenir. It was so hard to not just turn around and fangirl. So I’m doing that now, here.

Saving development time through virtual appliances http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21829 October 21, 2010 Categories: development, drupal, geek, wor k I’m beginning to be a big fan of virtual images for development work, because they save me from having to have the setup above. I already bring two laptops – don’t need more! By downloading and customizing an image of a system that is already configured for typical development tasks, I can save myself a lot of administrative time – and keep development work more cleanly separated from the other files on my computer. Both VMWare and Virtualbox have many virtual appliances available, and you can start using them with the appropriate player. Both VMWare and Virtualbox are free for personal, non-commercial use. I’ve taken advantage of a VMWare licensing program at work, installing VMWare Workstation so that I could take snapshots of my development environment if necessary. I picked the Turnkey Drupal 6 distribution, a 175MB download. Installing Apache, MySQL, and PHP on Ubuntu is easy, but it

was good to be able to take advantage of Turnkey’s support for https and other niceties. I may still have to install everything onto the production server manually, but at least we can do the setup easily. I changed the passwords from the defaults, of course. I didn’t think it would be this easy. I had avoided virtualization for a while because it had felt slow and clunky the last time I tried it years ago. With 3GB of memory, this tablet PC can run both Windows 7 and the development server images just fine. Running Linux inside Microsoft Windows (instead of the other way around) might have helped, too. Setting up networking was a breeze, too. I chose bridged networking, which made the virtual machine seem like a new computer on the network. The only quibble I’d like to fix is definitely a nerdy one – I’m back to QWERTY in the virtual machine, because it ignores the Dvorak keyboard mapping I’ve chosen on the host operating system. It’s an easy matter to change this on Linux (“loadkeys dvorak” at the command-line), but an even easier (and more responsive) way to work with this is to use ssh to connect to the virtual image. Full speed ahead!

Book: Critical inquiry: the process of argument http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21830 October 22, 2010 Categories: argument, book, reading, rhetor ic

Photo source: I Can Has Cheezburger

Critical Inquiry: The Process of Argument Michael Boylan, 2009, Westview Press ISBN: 9780813344522 I wish I had read Critical Inquiry (or a book like it) before going to school. It would’ve made my required courses in philosophy, theology, and literature much more engaging and more rewarding. The tips in the book are straightforward: 1. Identify the conclusion and the premises, 2. Organize them in a logical outline, and 3. Develop arguments for or against premises that can be objected to, repairing minor flaws so that you’re fighting the strongest version of the argument. This make sense. But for some reason, I didn’t have that framework before. If I had thought of those classes as partly about debugging arguments, applying the same decomposition skills I loved to use in computer science, I would’ve enjoyed the courses a lot more and gotten a lot more out of them. Better late than never! The book also shares classic structures for developing a response in support of or against someone’s position. You outline the original position, develop the pros and cons, choose a position, state the strongest arguments of the opposing side, and refute those arguments with your own. Although this might feel a little formulaic–or too stifling for casual blog posts that start with captioned animals!–it’s a good way to make sure you thoroughly examine different sides. I’m going to experiment with using these ideas when writing blog posts. I think the bigger challenge for me is taking a position. I’ve discovered there are a number of things I can’t help but get on my soapbox about, so there’s a start. Essays can lead me to more questions and arguments. It’ll be a fun way to discover what I think.

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Drupal Features and Drush: updating our development workflow http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21831 October 23, 2010 Categories: drupal, drush, features, geek, w ork I’m working with two other people on a Drupal project, so we’re coordinating our work through a Subversion source code repository. A lot has changed in Drupal since the days when I dived into the source code to figure out the code I needed in order to duplicate the configuration changes I made through the web interface (Drupal staging and deployment: it’s all code). Now, the Features module can export various configuration bits as a module that you can check into your source tree and enable on your site. It will even show you which settings you’ve overridden through the web interface, so you can regenerate the code and make sure everything’s included. Drush (the Drupal shell) has some commands that make Drupal features even easier to use. For example, I use drush features-diff to see which settings I’ve changed, and drush features-update to re-export the settings to source code.

Thinking about getting better at writing http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21833 October 24, 2010 Categories: blog, blogging, kaizen, va, writin g

Photo (c) 2009 Markus Rodder – Creative Commons Attribution No Derivatives Licence 2.0 I want to become a more engaging, more thorough, and more organized writer. I want to be able to write clear and insightful essays – not high school book report essays, but discovering-life essays. I want to get good at capturing all this raw material that flows through life, and digesting them so that I and other people can learn. Practice is essential, of course. Stephen King writes:

Because we’ll be using Features to share our changes instead of working off SQL backups, I need to make sure that I’ve included all the relevant components in the features I create. One way to test that is to use Backup and Migrate to save my configured database (just in case!), load a previous backup, enable the feature, and confirm that everything works as expected.

If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcuts.

Tests using either SimpleTest or Selenium would be the best way to confirm everything is working, of course. When Stuart comes back on Monday, he can help us set up an environment using hudson as a continuous integration server. Stuart has set up Selenium tests before, and it might be possible to use simpletest with hudson also.

Deliberate practice and feedback would be good, too. A few weeks ago, I posted an oDesk listing for a personal blog editor and writing coach. I’m not particularly impressed by any of the candidates. Part of it is because I’m not yet clear on what I want.

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I’m not looking for a shortcut. I’m looking forward to decades of figuring this out. If I remember to keep backups along the way, it will be fun to review the archives.

Part of it is because what I want is different from what most people writing blogs want. I don’t want to write a niche blog that rockets to the top of

Google rankings and becomes a passive income stream through affiliate marketing, ads, or information products. I’m not failing with my current blog, and I’m not looking for help “fixing” it. I’m doing better than I could’ve imagined my notes could do. Who knew so many people would keep coming back and reading? One of these days I might discover what you like about this blog – or maybe you can tell me, and I can think about doing more of it. Here’s how I want my blog to work, in some ideal future: I’ve got an excellent capture workflow that encourages me to write about everything I’m learning. A subset of this is published to my blog, where interested passers-by and the occasional searcher can find (a) technical snippets that save them hours of work, or (b) reflections that make them go “hmm” or “aha”. My evil plan is that people might discover other interesting posts along the way and will look up from their browser window several minutes or hours later having learned about all sorts of things they wouldn’t have thought of searching. I will settle for going through that same discovery process myself, as I find things I’ve forgotten writing. How can someone help now? I want someone to read my planned posts and tell me: here you need to explain things more. Tighten this up. Take this out and put it into another post because you’re trying to do too much. Get rid of “nice” and use a real word. But more than this surface-level editing, I want logical editing. What’s your point here? It doesn’t make sense. That argument doesn’t support your conclusion, so get rid of it. That’s a fallacy there. Let’s work on that metaphor. If you reorganize it like this, everything falls into place. And then I want meta help: on how to ask interesting questions that lead to exploration, how to capture as much learning as possible, and how to organize all of that so I can make sense of it later. Like Lion Kimbro’s How to make a complete map of every thought you think, except maybe less rigorous and more technologically-assisted. I want to be able to

work with an archive spanning years and years. I could edit myself. I have old entries I’m no longer attached to, and future ones that I can examine closely. I keep looking for ways to improve my system. I can just throw a lot of time and effort at it, and become much better in a decade or two. It would be good to work with other people, though, who can be more ruthless. It would be great if they’ve spent lots of time figuring out their own workflow and system for keeping everything organized and they can tell me the pitfalls I should avoid or address. I haven’t found anyone I really want to work with. I don’t think I’ll find other people who are passionate about this kind of braindumping on oDesk or any other freelance site. (Particularly geeks who can also help me tweak my Emacs setup to totally rock.) Sometimes it feels like I’m going after the fiddly bits, that last 20% that will take another 80% of effort. I’m a goodenough writer, and my notes are organized well enough. The blog is searchable, and I’ve got structured text files holding almost everything else. Sometimes I worry that I’m leaning towards perfectionism and indistinguishable differences. But then I read people who are better writers, and I think: I’ve barely begun. No substitute for writing, reading, or living. I’m going to have to do the hard but fun work: reading interesting people and figuring out what I like about them, living, writing about life, revising, tinkering around with some kind of organizational system. Ah, well. I guess there are some things you can’t learn from books. There are some things you can’t even learn from teachers.

Weekly review: Week ending October 24, 2010 http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21832 Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 93

October 25, 2010 - Categories: weekly Almost back to normal. The freezer is full of lunch portions of rice, chicken, squash, and vegetables. Life is good.

From last week’s plans •

Work o

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[X] Work on Drupal project: Try out CiviCRM

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[X] Build Connections Toolkit: Add event feed and other information

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[X] Build career: Configure hard-disk encryption

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[X] Work on Drupal project: Learn about Features

[X] Organize Idea Labs: Support Idea Lab

Added org capture template that uses org-toodledo tasks and folders

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Checked out library books

Plans for next week •

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Work o

[ ] Drupal: Work on Drupal project

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[ ] Idea Labs: Help compile Idea Lab results

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[ ] Idea Labs: Touch base with Innovation Discovery team

o

[ ] Speaking: Give presentation for IBM Toronto Lab Toastmasters: “But what can I talk about?”

o

[ ] Connections Toolkit: Split off source code for easy packaging on catalog.lotus.com

Also: Idea Labs: Export discussion spreadsheet

Relationships

•

Relationships

o

[X] Wedding: Send thankyou notes

o

[X] Wedding: Download and organize photos

o

[X] Shared interests: Try a new recipe

o

Had dinner with Maira

o

o

Attended Rebecca’s birthday parthy

[ ] Sewing: Fix seams for dress, add zipper

o

[ ] Buy winter things

o

Visited Morgan, Cathy, and Micah

o

[ ] Cook green tomatoes

Life o

[X] Improve productivity: Track sleep, wake-up, and snooze

o

[X] Sew dress: Mark chalk lines on dress

o

Sewing: Sewed most of dress

o

Sewing: Set up serger

Added folder and goal support to my copy of orgtoodledo Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 94 o

•

o

[ ] Sewing: Make burp cloths for nephew

o

[ ] Friends: Host gettogether

Life

How I got into computer science http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21834 October 26, 2010 Categories: geek, highlight, life How did I get into computer science? I don’t know. I grew up immersed in computers. A preschooler: At the panel interview for my admission to grade school (this additional scrutiny required because my parents want me admitted a year early), the principal is

relieved to hear I can’t write my name. She is about to reject the application–when I ask for a computer mouse so that I can write it. The bemused principal asks, “A mouse?” I’m in grade one, in my first computer class. The computers are PC XTs, older than the computer we have at home. The program is LOGO. I light up. It’s an old friend. I finish my exercise quickly and fidget. Before long, I’m helping my classmates with the blessing of my teacher. Then I’m helping the teachers with Wordstar. At home. My sister is learning Turbo Pascal in high school. I idolize my eldest sister, seven years older than I am. I want to wear the same kinds of clothes, read the same books, do the same kinds of things. She is in high school, and is probably annoyed by this at home and embarrassed by this in front of friends. My first taste of rebellious learning: when people are busy or distracted, I sneak into the computer area and dive into the Turbo Pascal manuals. I don’t understand them yet, but given enough reading – and whatever experimentation I can fit into my ration of computer time – I will. And I do. I watch Doogie Howser type his episodic summary into a simple text editor. I figure out how to create a similar tool myself, and discover the interesting secrets of the ASCII character set along the way. Grade school English classes. I teach myself how to speed-read through the SRA reading labs, focusing on which parts are likely to turn up in the review sections. I finish well ahead of schedule. The teacher sends me to the computer lab to play educational games and tinker. My eldest sister relents and teaches me about bulletin board systems. I’m nine, one of the youngest. I hide it with clear writing and good punctuation, although my poetry is still trite. I write. A lot. By the time I hit high school, I’m firmly established as a computer geek. In a school full of nerds and geeks, I can code circles around most people in my batch. While my classmates get the hang of MSDOS Edit and

Microsoft Word, my high school teacher Hagee Sarmago gives me root access on a Linux machine and a few tips on how to find documentation. He asks me to set up a Linux-based BBS. It’s my first time to work with that operating system. I love it. My teacher also invites me to try out for the programming competitions team. I scribble some algorithms in Turbo Pascal-like pseudocode and others in flowcharts. I make it into the list of trainees. Then it’s a crash course in QBasic and competitive problem solving. The rest of high school computing class is a blur – Turbo Pascal (officially now), SQL, Visual Basic – nothing as challenging or as fascinating as the competitions. My parents take us backpacking through Europe over my protests; I’d rather be in training all summer, even if I’m not on the main team. By my second year of contests, I consistently place among the top spots. This is also where I discover that it’s interesting to be a geek girl. I have crushes on, am crushed-on by, and go through the requisite high school drama mostly within the closeknit tech group. Sometimes I take advantage of this, turning up at programming contests in a dress in case people will underestimate me. Sometimes I struggle to navigate friendships complicated by expectations. There’s no question about what course I want to take in university, only where I want to take it. I want to go to the University of the Philippines, where many of my friends have gone. My parents make me apply to another school, just in case – Ateneo de Manila University. I go to Ateneo’s computer science open house and see the professors laughing, having fun with the orientation. Everyone is nice. I go there. I discover a few of my former team members in the same course, a few years ahead. We start joining programming competitions again, training during summers. We do well. In my spare time, we build web systems and other tech projects for the school. I get a kick out of seeing

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teachers use our system. Much better than projects that get deleted at the end of the term. I support it through several incarnations. Some of my friends talk the residence manager into bumping me up the waitlist because of my technical skills. I get a spot in the girls’ dorm. I have my own key to the server room, which is in the boys’ dorm. It’s airconditioned, a paradise in August heat. I help administer the network: everything from installing LAN cards and crimping cables, to labelling wires with the help of a tester, to creating firewall rules and managing our small web server. There are a number of other geeks who do amazing things. I learn by osmosis. I’m in third year university, looking at my curriculum. I hear operating systems class will be high-level; learn from the textbook, understand, and answer the tests. I look with envy at the syllabus from Georgia Tech, where students learn about operating systems by hacking Linux on the Compaq iPaq PDA. I decide that if ordinary undergraduates at a good school can do that, surely I should be able to figure something out. I ask my parents for an iPaq for my 18th birthday, instead of a fancy party. I get the iPaq and flash Linux onto it carefully. It works. I want to try out the ideas from class. I skim a book about the Linux kernel, but it’s too big for me to grasp. I start with the iPaq bootloader. I read the C source code and spot two small errors: = instead of ==. I write the developers and confirm that those were really errors. Emboldened, I read some more, and write code for some their low-priority task items. They teach me how to send a diff. It’s finals week and I’m procrastinating studying, so I hack some more features in. Several days of this, and Jamey Hicks from the Compaq Research Labs calls me up to ask me who I am and if I want commit access to their repository. I add tab completion and help to their shell, and FAT support for long filenames.

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I try different editors until Unix Power Tools convinces me to stick with Emacs for a while. I do. I learn to tweak it. I try things out. I fall in love with the Emacs Planner mode for managing your day, and I send John Wiegley a note volunteering to help track down bugs. He promptly makes me the maintainer. I’m down to four classes a semester during my final year, because I got extra credits from advanced placement and took summer classes too. I have plenty of time to code, and I do. I start using Emacs Planner to keep my notes. Following people’s requests and my ideas, I build publishing tools, cross-referencing tools, tracking tools. I build a community through a mailing list, start hanging out on IRC. A bug of mine wipes out someone’s data. He writes me an unhappy but polite note. I’m mortified, but we keep working on it, and eventually we solve the problem. The solution helps another, inspires yet another, and we add more and more. And there I am, an 18-year-old girl in a developing country, and I’m making a difference in hundreds of people’s lives through code. Open source transformed computer science for me. It wasn’t about figuring out the right algorithm for a problem – although that was fun for years. It wasn’t about building projects that would get briefly reviewed by a teacher and then forgotten. It was about making things that helped people work or live better. It was a profoundly social experience, a conversation with countless others through the medium of code. Part of the reason why I have this deep love of Emacs (irrational for a computer program?) is this experience of layer upon layer of accreted functionality from programmers solving problems and scratching itches, a treasurehunt of gems, an incredible community across time and space. And always that question: how can I do things a little bit better?

You might know this story. You may even have helped me through it, and know more clearly the parts that are fuzzy or forgotten. There’s luck in it, but I owe a lot more to conscious decisions by others: my family, my teachers, my friends, and so many other people. Thanks. (… and thanks to Cate Huston for the nudge to write about this!)

"But what can I talk about?" Toastmaster tactics for tackling topics http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21836 October 27, 2010 Categories: highlight, presentation, speakin g, tips, toastmasters This is a talk I’m giving to the IBM Toronto Lab Toastmasters today. I should trim a few hundred words from it to get it to more comfortably fit in 5-7 minutes, but it’s got the key points. Today, we’re going to transform the way you benefit from Toastmasters. Right now, ten people in this club have a speech scheduled. After this talk, I want each of you to sign up to give three speeches, all committed to in advance. Not only that, I want you to get into the habit of always working on a talk – and it’s going to take you less time and give you more results than before. "You’re crazy, Sacha. What can I talk about? When am I going to find the time to work on it? It’s not like I do interesting things, anyway."

1. IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE BRILLIANT. We have really high standards for ourselves. We want to be as insightful as New York Times columnists, as funny as standup comedians, and as persuasive as managers during performance reviews. Me, I have days when I don’t want to give a presentation because I’m sure that I’m going to suck. Newsflash: It doesn’t have to be brilliant. You don’t have to be brilliant. In fact, if you’re giving a Toastmasters presentation like this, even if you bore people, they’re only bored for seven minutes. You’re not going to ruin anyone’s lunch, much less their life. What about longer talks? As long as you’re telling the truth in your title and abstract, then the organizer of the talk can decide if it’s a great fit, and people can choose whether to show up or not – or whether to check their e-mail. There are plenty of things you can share: everything from the structural determination of organic compounds to how to buy a car from the US. Pick one thing you’ve learned or experienced and put together a talk about it. But there’s a harder reality to this. The truth is that you don’t get to be interesting until you go through the boring parts. Being interesting is hard work. You have to figure out what you want to say and how you want to say it, and you can only do that by trying.

I know. I’d be thinking that, too. But you’re in Toastmasters, and it’s not just so that you can spend lunch time listening to other people talk. I’m going to share three lessons I learned the hard way. If these three lessons help you get over the hump and get on with speaking, fantastic! Mission accomplished. If they don’t, get in touch with me and we’ll figure out what will.

2. IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE NEW.

So here’s what I’ve learned about coming up with topics to talk about.

You’re not going to figure everything out on the first try. Have you ever heard stand-up

So after this talk, you’re going to SIGN UP FOR YOUR NEXT TALK. When you finish that, you’re going to sign up for your next talk, and the next, and the next. Always be working on your next talk. Which brings us to secret #2.

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comedians during their off hours? One of my friends was doing stand-up comedy. You could tell because whenever we met someone new, he’d tell the same joke. He’d change the timing. He’d change the words. But he kept practicing each joke until he nailed them. I looked up all the talks people gave in this Toastmasters club this year. There’s one repeat. Everything else is all new, all the time. Remember: It doesn’t have to be new. REDUCE your effort by REUSING your talks and RECYCLING your ideas. Don’t be a one-trick pony, though. Make things better. How can you do that? Do you have copies of your past speeches? What about your notes? Your conversations? Your ideas? If you don’t keep at least some of that, you’re throwing so much away.

3. IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE WHAT YOU ALREADY KNOW. I have a confession to make. I propose topics I don’t know about, so that I can force myself to learn. It’s an amazing excuse to get going. When you’ve committed yourself to teaching people, you learn more deeply. And you’ve got a deadline, too. Don’t limit yourself to things you know. Pick something you want to learn, and promise a talk on it. Then learn it, share what you’ve learned, and save people time. You might be thinking: "But what can I share if I’m just a beginner?" This is actually the perfect time to share. By the time you’re an expert, you’ve forgotten all the things people need to learn. Share as you go. You don’t have to be brilliant, and you might need to try it a few times before you figure things out, but there’s no better way to learn.

Everything I work on goes into one big text file. I write as much as I can. Everyday, I take notes so that I can remember, because forgetting is such a waste of time.

If you can convince people to try something out, or help them avoid your mistakes, or save people an hour or two of figuring things out on their own, then that’s already worth it.

I might write or present about a topic four or five times so that I can understand it better. It’s part of the learning process.

So, how does this line up with what you are going to do after lunch? Well, you’re going to sign up to give three speeches.

I learn something about a topic every time I present it. It’s part of the process.

Your first speech doesn’t have to be brilliant. Look up your next goal from your workbook, pick something you’ve learned at work or at home, and commit to sharing it.

Your topic doesn’t have to be new. Go back and look at your old stuff. Start saving your work from now on: your talks, your notes, your ideas. Writing down notes is incredibly powerful. Over time, you’ll build this amazing library that you can refer to any time you need. In fact, if you share it with people – and it’s incredible when you do – you can get crazy return on investment. I have presentations from three years ago that people are still looking at, still learning from, because they can find those presentations through search engines. Last secret. This is a big one.

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Your second speech doesn’t have to be new. Pick something you’ve already shared, and make it better. Your third speech doesn’t have to be what you already know. Pick something you want to learn, and commit to sharing it. If you’re doing one speech a month – that’s plenty of time to prepare – you have at least two full months to try an experiment. It can be a technical overview, or something as practical as a speech about "How to wake up at 6 AM everyday for one month." Just do it.

Then make life easier for yourself! REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE. Make your own library of past speeches and ideas for future ones. Keep an eye out for interesting things to share. You’ll find yourself with plenty of material in no time. Who’s ready to sign up? Who needs some more coaching? We’ll figure out something that works. Take that card, use it as a reminder, and get in touch with me if there’s any way I can help. There’s so much you can talk about, but you’ve got to take that step.

Notes from Quantified Self Toronto, October 27, 2010 http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21838 October 28, 2010 Categories: geek, highlight, life, lifehack, me etings, quantified, sketches, sketchnotes Bits from the meetup: automated tracking of computer activity, CureTogether.com for aggregated health self-reporting of conditions and treatments, and the oddly popular desire for a statistical silver bullet that will crunch your data and tell you what’s potentially interesting about you, instead of you coming up with questions and designing proper experiments. This makes me think about t-tests and how you can do too many tests for significance (PDF). Intentional experiments may be slower, but I think they’re worth it. Anyway, here are the notes! I took these notes using Microsoft OneNote 2007 on a Lenovo X61T tablet. I then exported the graphics to the Gimp, did a little bit of editing, and uploaded them to Gallery2 on my blog. See my other sketchrelated blog posts, or check out my other sketches in the gallery.

Speaking: In case of emergency, break glass http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21839

October 29, 2010 Categories: presentation, speaking

IBM Fellow John Cohn shares a tale of two talks: one that sucked, and another that rocked. He says: I don’t know.. all that I know is that really empty feeling of beinghalf way through a talk .. all eyes on you.. and you just know that you’re sucking big time.. You can’t gracefully just stop.. thogh perhaps that would be better than continuing.. maybe the est thing to do in a circumstance like that is to reach for the fire alarm and jump out a window.

It’s reassuring to know that even seasoned tech celebrities (he’s got an awesome TV show, even!) have panic moments like that. =) I know that feeling. I’ve run into that a couple of times, and it’s never any fun. One time, I was just a few minutes into a talk for high school students when I realized that the presentation I prepared was likely to bore me, not to mention the tough crowd. So I threw out my slides, turned off the projector, gave people a quick idea of what I knew about, and had a great conversation instead. When in doubt, listen and improvise. (Which I’m sure John Cohn has done more times and more effectively than I ever have!) If you find yourself unavoidably sucking at a presentation, don’t be so hard on yourself afterwards. You propose a topic, the organizer accepts it, and people usually have a choice of whether or not to attend – and certainly, whether or not to pay attention. If one of these points fail – maybe you or the organizers misread the audience, Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 99

maybe people just aren’t having a good day – that doesn’t make you any less awesome. Keep trying.

Emacs, keypresses, and why keyboard combinations aren’t that scary http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21840 October 30, 2010 Categories: emacs, highlight I came across this comment on Chris Lowis’ blog post about small-screen development in Emacs: Alex: I can’t be geek enough to use Emacs… it’s not that I think the editor is bad: it’s the excessive number of keys to press to accomplish anything.

It made me stop and think, because one of the things I love about Emacs is that I can press lots of keys to accomplish anything. What’s the alternative? Mouse clicks? Eeew. My most-common keyboard shortcuts are one or two keys long. Yes, there are many of them, and I use a small subset depending on what I’m working on. If I forget the keyboard shortcut for something, or I want to run a command that doesn’t have a keyboard shortcut, I use M-x (which is really Alt-x on my keyboard) to call the function by name (ex: M-x shell-commandon-region, which turns out to have M-| as a shortcut). I hardly ever type entire function names. icomplete-mode offers autocompletion for M-x. I also shows me the keyboard shortcuts for a command in order to help me work more efficiently. If I like something a lot, I can easily define a keyboard shortcut for it using global-set-key. I can set mode-specific keyboard shortcuts so that some shortcuts are active when I’m programming and inactive when I’m not. I can load sets of shortcuts depending on what I want to do. It’s incredibly flexible. Yes, it requires some learning, but it’s been well worth the investment for me.

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Because you only have so many keys on a keyboard, it’s useful to be able to define multiple-key shortcuts. I’d rather type Ctrl-c r t than Ctrl-Alt-Shift-R or something like that. (Or worse: spend time looking for just the right toolbar button, and try to click on it with the mouse.) I think of it like super-fast selection through a menu that makes sense to me. In my case, Ctrl-c turned out to be easier to get to than F9 (which I’d previously been using for personal shortcuts), r means remember, and t means task. You might think that a keyboard-driven editor is slow, but it’s fast enough to keep up with me, and I can probably code circles around you. ;)

Weekly review: Week ending October 31, 2010 http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21841 October 31, 2010 - Categories: weekly

From last week’s plans •

Work o

[X] Drupal: Work on Drupal project

o

[X] Idea Labs: Help compile Idea Lab results

o

[X] Idea Labs: Touch base with Innovation Discovery team

o

[X] Speaking: Give presentation for IBM Toronto Lab Toastmasters: “But what can I talk about?”

o

[-] Connections Toolkit: Split off source code for easy packaging on catalog.lotus.com – postponed, busy!

o

Drupal: Made AutoHotkey script for copying tasks into Rational Team Concert

o

Drupal: Set up virtual machine for integration server

o

•

o

Started working on deck for social media and retail

o

Sent my manager possible contacts for my yearly review

o

Made lots of frozen lunch portions

Relationships o

[-] Sewing: Make burp cloths for nephew – bought fabric

o

[X] Friends: Host gettogether

o

•

Volunteered for job shadowing and had fun. Francis probably now more interested in computers and engineering than before.

Helped J- learn more about writing

Life o

[-] Sewing: Fix seams for dress, add zipper – postponed, busy this weekend

o

[-] Buy winter things – not yet stocked in stores

o

[-] Cook green tomatoes

Plans for next week •

•

•

Work o

[ ] Work on yearly review documentation

o

[ ] Give presentation on social media and retail

o

[ ] Work on Drupal project: get integration server set up, etc.

Relationships

November 2010

Saving team members from RSI http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21842 November 1, 2010 Categories: autohotkey, automation, geek, w ork I watched Jen: Ctrl-C, Alt-Tab, click, click, Ctrl-v, click, click, click, click, click, Alt-Tab, Down, Ctrl-C… One by one, Jen copied the tasks from our Drupal planning spreadsheet to the Rational Team Concert task-tracking system. I didn’t know if RTC had a batch import system we could use, but I’d rather do a macro using AutoHotkey instead of letting Jen copy the information one row at a time. (And with so many clicks, too!) Fifteen minutes and some tweaking later, I have an AutoHotkey script that copies the information, creates the task, and moves to the next row. A few minutes, and I’ve copied all the rest of the tasks. Less risk of repetitive strain injury for everyone, more interesting work, and the ability to easily handle future spreadsheets. Yay! I show her the AutoHotkey script at work. “Coool,” she says. Time to organize the tasks by story. Dragand-drop to the rescue. Not easy with a mouse – Fitts’s law, small targets – but it’s easy enough with the tablet stylus. It feels natural.

o

[ ] Write stories

Keep an eye out for the little things that you can fix with just the right tool. =)

o

[ ] Smoothen household routines

AutoHotkey script:

Life o

[ ] Go to writing group

o

[ ] Redeem salon coupon

F12::MakeRTCTask() MakeRTCTask() { SetTitleMatchMode,2 CoordMode Mouse, Screen

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 101

WinActivate, Planning WinWaitActive, Planning Send ^c Sleep 200 WinActivate, IBM Rational Team Concert WinWaitActive, IBM Rational Team Concert Click 972, 346 ; add Sleep 500 Click 927, 406 ; task Sleep 500 Click 468, 154 ; summary text field Send ^v Send {TAB}{TAB} Sleep 100 Send {DOWN} ; filed against Send {TAB}{TAB}{TAB}{TAB} Sleep 100 Send 1 ; priority Send 1 Click 807, 125 ; save and close Sleep 500 Send {PgUp}{PgUp}{PgUp} WinActivate, Planning WinWaitActive, Planning Send {ESC}{DOWN} }

Book: Choose to be happily married: How everyday decisions can lead to lasting love

•

Bonnie Jacobson, PhD., with Alexia Paul 2010 Adams Media, Avon, Massachusetts ISBN 13: 978-1-60550-625-8

•

Flexibility

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 102

Reactive

Good judgment

Critical judgment

Expressing your true self

Conforming to a role

Autonomy

Isolation

Surrender

Submission

Establishing space Neglect

http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21843 November 2, 2010 Categories: book, love, reading, relationship s

The book consists of short chapters that explore common conflicts and positive approaches in committed relationships. Each chapter includes one or two case studies, ways to recognize the conflict, and tips for resolving the conflict. This book is a good read for couples who are beginning to find themselves ensnared in repeating conflict patterns because they can identify and get tips for their situation. Couples who are starting out may also find it useful as a way to recognize potential conflicts before they become established.

Responsive

Patience

Passivity

Benign boundaries

Emotional tyranny

Awareness of limits

Emotional recklessness

Embracing change

Preserving the status quo

Communication

Taking responsibility

Blame

Needs

Wants

Detach

Withdraw

Speaking up

Silence

Giving the benefit of Making the doubt assumptions

•

Intimate listening

Hearing

Influence

Control

Constructive criticism

Destructive criticism

Personal power

Deciding

Craving

Fighting fair

Fighting unfair

Support

Protection

Forgiving

Forgetting

Good selfish

Bad selfish

Family loyalty Self-interest Joy

Happiness

Thoughts on speaking http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21844 November 3, 2010 Categories: presentation, speaking I always ask why I let myself get suckered into preparing a presentation. I struggle with ideas, wrestling with them until I can make sense. I stutter and sweat in the spotlight. Why bother?

sometimes didn’t follow because of work or interesting opportunities. I don’t want to travel for talks, because that takes too large a chunk of personal time (even the work trips do). I’m comfortable with virtual presentations, and people have told me that my energy and passion come through. If the cost for a presentation-worth of learning is an evening or two of focus, it’s a decent trade – especially if I can get lots of reuse and ongoing insights from it.

How much time does it take to blog? http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21845 November 4, 2010 Categories: blogging, highlight

But I can’t deny that I enjoy presenting more than other people might. No, not the act of presenting. That’s the tuition I pay. I enjoy that struggle, the tangled thoughts turning into stories. Sometimes I propose talks on topics I don’t know much about because I’m interested in what we’ll find out along the way. I don’t have any standard speeches. Everything has to be on the boundary, even the old talks people like and ask me to revise. I need to learn something new each time I speak. Sometimes it’s the delight of being wrong and of arriving at an better understanding. A talk isn’t a talk unless I can make it a conversation. If it’s just going to be a speech, no questions, no answers, I may as well leave it as a blog post or a video. I want to learn from people. I feel like my talks with no discussions trail off in mid-air, interrupted by silence. Sometimes I need to prepare these kinds of questions myself – standalone presentations viewed by strangers, talks in constrained formats for fun and creativity. I want people to ask questions anyway. Presentations are scary, but they’re a fun way to learn. So maybe I’ll give up on my one-talk-a-month constraint, which I

Me? Five to ten minutes extra, tops. That’s for my most useful posts: the ones where I’m sharing how to solve a problem or answer a question I’ve come across. That’s all it takes to strip out sensitive information, format it for readability, pick tags, and throw in a few hyperlinks if I’m feeling diligent. I’ve already done the hard work of solving the problem or answering the question. I might as well spend an extra five minutes to make it part of my personal reference library and share it with search engines. I take longer to write my other posts – the ones I write from scratch. But that’s not blogging time, that’s thinking time. I’m going to have to think through things anyway. For example, it usually takes me four hours to prepare a presentation, from brainstorming key points and

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 103

examples to organizing everything into a coherent story. At some point, I usually write things down into an outline, and from there, I often write full speaker’s notes. Whether or not I blog something complex like a presentation, I’ll still spend time thinking through it. Blogging saves me time and stress because I don’t have to worry about forgetting anything important, and it allows people to not only share that resource with others but also to stumble across it through search engines. Five minutes to post presentation notes and share the slides on Slideshare – okay, maybe closer to ten minutes because I like cross-linking them, which results in a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation – that’s nothing compared to the return on investment I get from sharing. At this point in my post, for example, I’ve spent eight minutes thinking through typing. This is one of the reasons why I encourage everyone to learn how to touch-type. When you don’t have to think about typing, you can type as a way of thinking. You can have a record of what you’re working on for very little extra effort. “But I type so much slower than I think!”, you say. Personally, I catch myself thinking that when I’m thinking too quickly, I’m wasting a lot of effort by going around in circles or working on things I’m going to forget. Slowing down to my typing speed is not a problem. In fact, my bottleneck isn’t typing. The previous four paragraphs (almost 380 words) took me 10 minutes to write, giving me a thinking+typing speed of about 38 words per minute, or 1.5 seconds per word. On the other hand, a typing test rates me at about 110 wpm (using a software-based Dvorak keyboard layout, on a Lenovo X61 keyboard), or about 0.5 seconds per word. Where did that other second go? Thinking. I tend to speak at200 wpm or so when I’m excited (0.3 seconds a word?), so obviously, I can think faster – but how much more value is added by that, or taken away at that speed? Slower thought is worth the clarity and reach.

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 104

There you have it. A post I’ve recycled from something else – a presentation, an answer, a technical solution? Five to ten minutes extra, with more time if I’m crossposting or illustrating or doing anything fancy. A new post like this? 20 minutes, and now I have something I can link to in case this comes up in conversation again. =) (I have many recurring conversations, most with different people, some spread over years. Each time we revisit a topic, it becomes richer.) How much time does it take me to write? The real answer is probably a negative amount. If I don’t write about things I’m thinking about, I waste more time thinking in circles and solving problems all over again. This saves me time. How much time does it take you to write? Image (c) 2006 Alexandre Duret-Lutz, Creative Commons Attribution Sharealike License

Where do you find topics to write about? How to have tons of topics http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21847 November 5, 2010 Categories: blogging, highlight, writing

People often ask me how they can blog more. The easiest blog post to write is the answer. It is also the most useful. You start with a question, and you stop when you’ve answered it.

Where do you find questions? In your e-mail inbox, in your conversations, in your work, in your life, in the things you want to learn or do. Everything starts with a question. Always have questions. Learn intentionally. Make yourself a curriculum of questions you want to explore, and share what you learn along the way. Ask and you shall learn. You may not know the answer. Write as you figure things out. Share those in-between steps, the questions you ask, the partial answers you find. Show your work. Help people build on what you’ve shared. Watch other people who answer questions. Learn not only from their answers, but also their problem-solving techniques. Don’t be afraid to return to a question. The best questions teach you each time you attempt them. For example: How can I do this better? What is the meaning of life? Even simple questions like “Where did I put my keys?” can lead you on an adventure of “How can I avoid losing my keys?” and “What would it be like if I were better organized, and how can I get there?” If you ever run out of your own questions, or if you want to prioritize which answers might be more useful, look at other people’s questions. When you become the person who can answer questions – or at least give a good try – people will come to you with more questions. What a gift! You can spend a lifetime answering questions. In the process, who knows what you’ll discover and share? Photo (c) 2008 the Italian voice – Creative Commons Attribution Licence

My reading round-up http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21849 November 6, 2010 Categories: book, reading •

Books The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology that Fuel Success and Performance at Work 2010 Shawn Achor, 978-0-307591548 http://books.google.com/books?id =ceYlEs6gT3QC Are people happy because they’re successful, or successful because they’re happy? Achor summarizes a lot of research into positive psychology, sprinkling anecdotes from corporate consulting and dayto-day life in between easy-to-read findings. Achor also shares some useful tips for changing your behavior. If you like this, you might want to read Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life for another research-backed practical approach to happiness. If your taste runs towards life-as-experiment memoirs, check out The Happiness Project.

Writing About Your Life 2004 William K. Zinsser, 1-569244685, http://books.google.com/books?i d=rLaciLyzFFEC In this memoir, William Zinsser not only shares tips on how to write about your life but also demonstrates those tips in action. He sometimes steps out of the narrative to point out how the memoir works. Definitely worth a read if you’re writing a personal blog, or any sort of

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nonfiction that could benefit from story.

Well Connected: An Unconventional Approach to Building Genuine, Effective Business Relationships 2010 Gordon S. Curtis and Greg Lewis, 978-0-470-577943, http://books.google.com/books?i d=4bbo9S06QloC This is an intermediate/advanced book on targeted social networking. It’s a good book to turn to when you have clear goals and you need to figure out how to reach the specific people who can help you achieve them: the right person, the right approach. It builds on reciprocity and suggests several ways you can offer value.

Life’s Too Short to Fold Fitted Sheets: Your Ultimate Guide to Domestic Liberation 2010 Lisa Quinn, 978-0-8118-69935, http://books.google.com/books?i d=BpnGPwAACAAJ This book boils down into: Don’t stress out so much, and here are some productivity, housekeeping, home decoration, and entertaining tips for making life easier. I’m particularly looking forward to trying the section called “17 meals made from a deli chicken.”

This turned out to be a deep research collection on the economics of Latin American companies. Interesting section on company tax evasion and the effects on productivity: taxevading companies stay small to avoid attention, but that means they can’t enjoy economies of scale. The Heart of Simple Living 2010 Wanda Urbanska, 978-1-440204517 http://books.google.com/books?id =r38fQAAACAAJ Typical tips on simplifying, decluttering, and developing the domestic arts. Good tip on reciprocal dining, which is more like a time/meal exchange among friends instead of a dinner party. More focus on environmental sustainability than most books I’ve read in this field. The Art of Barter: How to Trade for Almost Anything 2010 Karen S. Hoffman and Shera D. Dalin, 978-1-60239-9532 http://books.google.com/books?id =Btv9QQAACAAJ This book covers why, how, and where to swap instead of sell. Might be handy for negotiation practice. Choose to be Happily Married: How Everyday Decisions Can Lead to Lasting Love 2010 Bonnie Jacobson, PhD with Alexia Paul, 978-1-60550-6258 http://books.google.com/books?id =ABD_DJDSeZAC See my notes elsewhere.

The Age of Productivity: Transforming Economies from the Bottom Up 210 Edited by Carmen Pages, 978-0230-623521http://books.google.com/books?id =dUWPQAAACAAJ

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The Complete Works of Montaigne 1943 Translated by Donald M. Frame, 0-8047-04848 http://isbn2book.com/0-804704848/the_complete_works_of_montaig ne_essays_travel_journal_letters/

I’m not done with this one yet. There’s a lot to read and learn in this collection of essays, travel journals, and letters from the man who invented the essay. I’ve skimmed the Gutenberg Project’s version and the John Florio translation, but Donald Frame’s translation is the style I like the most. I look forward to learning more about philosophy, history, and assorted topics. Thanks to Ryan Holiday for the post about Montaigne’s work!

it be cool to share your experiences with DIY or hiring things out, and your actual costs? Ever been interested in doing something, only to be discouraged because you suck? The Montreal Improv blog shares a great tidbit from Ira Glass. You might have started cat painting because you like . In the beginning, your abilities can’t match up your taste. Practice is the only way to close that gap.

Pretty good haul for one week. •

Other blog posts I liked The other day, I heard a weather forecast use the word “flurries”. Winter’s coming! Fortunately, Lifehacker has tips on winterizing your body. Me, I’m renaming winter to “baking season.” Or soup season. Or hot chocolate season. It’s also a good time to do social experiments, like getting better at giving gifts and setting up time to hang out with friends.

Weekly review: Week ending November 7, 2010 http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21851 November 7, 2010 - Categories: weekly

From last week’s plans •

*British comedian Stephen Fry rants about language snobs and the evolution of English.* He convinces me to reconsider my gripes about people using “action” as a verb, as in: “Please action this survey.” I can see this will be a tough thing to get over. Fortunately, IBM gives me many opportunities to practice this new attitude. Want to know if it’ll be worth picking up that hammer? DIY or Not compares the average cost of professional labour or do-it-yourself resourcefulness. It also tells you what kinds of projects the site’s readers would prefer to DIY or hire. For example, installing kitchen wall cabinets yourself might save you ~$800, but most people would rather have someone else do it. This site would be even better with a social network makeover. Wouldn’t

•

Work o

[X] Work on yearly review documentation

o

[X] Give presentation on social media and retail

o

[X] Work on Drupal project: get integration server set up, etc.

o

Also gave presentation on intranet blogging

o

Drupal: Wrestled with Calendar and Faceted Search, still figuring out how to display faceted search results in a calendar

Relationships o

[X] Write stories

o

[X] Smoothen household routines

o

Kitchen extravaganza! Baked beans, brownies, 32 roast chicken lunches (thank you, deli chicken) for freezing, chicken stock

o

Tried new recipe: appleparsnip soup. Mmm!

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o

•

Played Munchkin with Linda and Tim

Life o

[-] Go to writing group

o

[X] Redeem salon coupon

o

Checked out human book program at Toronto Public Library

o

Bought fall/winter biking things

o

Experimented with waking up early

Plans for next week •

•

•

Work o

[ ] Drupal: Display faceted search results in calendar form

o

[ ] Work on yearly review documentation – project assessment and personal business commitments review

Relationships o

[ ] Watch Wicked with Wand J-

o

[ ] Improve household routines: declutter and streamline

Life o

[ ] Attend writing group session

o

[ ] Bike

The story of the shoes at our wedding; also, wedding pictures http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21852 November 8, 2010 Categories: highlight, life, story, wedding Here are some of the wedding pictures:

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Wedding pictures

People found the shoes we wore remarkable, so let me tell the story for all the people who weren’t there. W- had formal shoes from the time we attended a wedding in the Philippines. I had cream flat shoes that went well with the dress. But J- didn’t have any formal shoes that fit. She had grown size-7 feet while we weren’t looking. Time to shop for shoes. On a good day, it’s hard to find a simple, flat, dressy-but-nottoo-formal style. In the weeks before a wedding (and as retailers replace their summer flats with fall boots), it’s even harder. We must’ve checked five or six stores before we found a shoe that fit well, had a low heel, and would go well with a dress. The shoe was too dressy for school, though. W- said, “I’m not paying that much for shoes that she’s only going to wear for an hour.” The man I married is as frugal as I am. We joked about the Chuck Taylors we’d seen in Aldo. It was pink plaid. W- looked at me. “What about the Chucks? She can pull off the look,” he said. “We can wear whatever we want,” I said. “We’re not optimizing just for photographs.” J- lit up. Sold! We headed back to Aldo’s. For fun and family solidarity, W- and I picked out our own Chuck Taylors too. I chose a gray plaid, and he chose a bright red.

J- wore her Chucks to the wedding, while W- and I brought ours in a bag. After the wedding ceremony, we changed into our Chucks and had fun. So that’s the story of the shoes. They’re about choosing everyday life over stereotypical expectations, the cultivation of in-jokes, and the serious fun of love.

How to use Drush to download and install Drupal modules http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21853 November 9, 2010 Categories: drupal, geek, tips, work One of the best things about building websites with Drupal is that there are thousands of modules that help you quickly create functionality.

screens, I can just issue the following commands to download and enable the module. drush dl modulename drush en -y modulename

(The -y option means say yes to all the prompts.) So much faster and easier. You can use these commands with several modules (module1 module2 module3), and you can use drush cli to start a shell that’s optimized for Drush. Drush is also useful if you’ve screwed up your Drupal installation and you need to disable themes or modules before things can work again. In the past, I’d go into the {system} table and carefully set the status of the offending row to 0. Now, that’s just a drush dis modulename.

To set things up, you need to download Drush and add it to your path. For example, you might unpack it into /opt/drush and then add the following line to your ~/.bashrc:

Drush has a bucketload of other useful commands, and drush help is well worth browsing. Give it a try!

PATH=/opt/drush:$PATH export PATH

Getting more drawing into my life

Reload your ~/.bashrc with source ~/.bashrc, and the drush command should become available. If you’re on Microsoft Windows, it might need some more finagling. (Or you can just give up and use a virtual image of Linux to develop your Drupal websites. You’ll probably end up much happier. ;) )

http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21856 November 10, 2010 Categories: drawing, highlight, sketches

Once you’ve installed Drush, what can you do with it? Drush is a huge time-saver. For example, I install dozens of modules in the course of building a Drupal website. Instead of copying the download link, changing to my sites/all/modules directory, pasting the download URL into my terminal window after wget, unpacking the file, deleting the archive, and then clicking through the various module enablement

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Shift Your Story Arc: Creating the Trajectory of Your Life, Julie Ann Turner

Screw Your Career Path, Live Your Story! Jason Seiden

Reinvention: virtual storytelling summit Nov 11 – 22, 2010

Previously posted: Why You Need to Tell a Bigger Story, Get Storied

http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21866 November 11, 2010 Categories: highlight, sketches, sketchnotes, storytelling UPDATE: Here are my sketchnotes from the first day. Click on each one to view the full-sized version. Want to share this post with others? Short URL: http://sachachua.com/blog/p/2 1866 . (Follow me on Twitter: @sachac) New: Added three more sketchnotes: That Resonates With Me! How to Change the World, One Story at a Time, Nancy Duarte

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Spend Shift: How the Post-Crisis Values Revolution is Changing the Way We Buy, Sell, and Live, John Gerzema

to Nov 22, and the basic Explorer’s Pass is currently $33.33 - which you can get down to $8.33 if my math is right, using this $25 coupon code: REINVENTION. – the REINVENTION coupon doesn’t seem to apply, but oh well! Not a bad price for attending sessions by Nancy Duarte, Steve Denning, and other storytelling gurus.

Just Enough to Make a Story: Creating a Narrative from an Anecdote, Sean Buvala

Social Movements as Participatory Storytelling, Andy Goodman and Lily McCombs

Want to share this post with others? Short URL: http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21866 . (Follow me on Twitter: @sachac) —– I normally gloss over marketing e-mails, particularly the ones that ask me to promote something to the readers of "sacha chua :: tech evangelist, storyteller, geek". It was a good thing Anthony Marques reached out to me again about the Reinvention Summit, which turned out to be a virtual summit on storytelling with some pretty good speakers. The sessions will run from Nov 11 (today!)

Of the 32 sessions planned, here are a few I’m particularly interested in: Just Enough to Make A Story: Creating a Narrative from an Anecdote Sean Buvala, Thu, November 11, 4pm – 5pm In most business and nonprofit settings, there is plenty of anecdotal content for just about any point you would like to illustrate. However, these single-reference-point remnants of story need to be filled out and supported in order to make their biggest impact. In this workshop, you will learn some methods for helping you create impactful stories from these story-starters. That Resonates with Me! How to Change the World One Presentation at a Time Nancy Duarte, Thursday, November 18, 2pm – 3pm If you say "I have an idea for something", what you really mean is "I want to change the world in some way." You might not be able to change the entire world, but what is "the world" anyway? It is simply all of the ideas of all our ancestors. Look around you. Your clothes, language, furniture, house, city, and nation all began as visions in other minds. Humans love to create. And creating starts with an idea that can change the world. "The only reason to give a speech is to change the world." – John F. Kennedy Presentations are the lingua franca of business and those who master communicating with them rise faster than their peers, reach more customers than

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their competitors, and turn causes into a groundswell.

connecting marketing messages, vision and values and corridor conversations.

Pioneering presentation innovator Nancy Duarte, CEO of Duarte Design, will demonstrate how to apply the methods in her book resonate: Presenting Visual Stories That Transform Audiences, to build meaningful connections with audiences that compel them to action. Her groundbreaking work details a new way of structuring a presentation and connecting with an audience – helping the presenter create a human connection.

Why Great Storytelling Initiatives Fail, and What Can Be Done About It Steve Denning, Friday, November 19, 4pm – 5pm

Changing the world starts with transforming an audience and an audience will only change if you resonate with them. In this session, you will learn to: •

Leverage the hidden story structures inherent in great communication

•

Connect with your audience empathetically

•

Create captivating content

•

Craft ideas that get repeated

•

Inspire enthusiasm and support for your vision

This session is for leaders who are tasked with communicating clearly and persuading through verbal communications. Telling Taller Tales Andrew Melville, Monday, November 15, 5pm – 6pm I run through a model of three different levels of story; interesting, through memorable to compelling. I build on journalistic and script writing story principles to discuss people’s Intention behind storytelling, and look at observation, juxtaposition and transformation as components of powerful storytelling. I talk about experiences working with the Maori tribes of New Zealand, and their oral traditions, and metaphors from nature. Telling Taller Tales talks about building authentic and honest stories in the workplace, melding a brand story

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Why do great leadership storytelling initiatives tend to fail? These world-class initiatives in established organizations seem to flourish for a while, with strong top management support and demonstrated results; but then something happens, and the initiative is sidelined or downsized or undermined in some indirect fashion, Why do managers act in this way? Why don’t they recognize that storytelling is central to leadership and key to their organizations future? What can be done to sustain storytelling initiatives? Steve Denning draws on the findings from his new book, The Leader’s Guide to Radical Management, and shows what kind of changes are needed to have storytelling take its rightful place as a key management and leadership tool in 21st Century organizations. Come learn seven principles to enable storytelling in organizations. -— Even if Anthony didn’t offer me a free press pass and discount coupon for sharing (code: REINVENTION), I’d probably pay for it anyway – it looks like it will be worth it. I might not have come across it without his nudging, though, so thanks, Anthony! =) I’ll post sketchnotes for the sessions I do manage to make it to. Check it out! http://www.reinventionsummit.com

Drupal, SimpleTest, and the node access API http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21860 November 11, 2010 Categories: drupal, drush, tips, work Setting up Simpletest and Drush on Drupal 6.x:

1. Download and enable Simpletest with drush dl simpletest; drush en -y simpletest

2. Download simpletest.drush.inc to your ~/.drush/drush_extras direct ory. This version allows you to run a single test from the command-line. 3. Create a custom module with a tests/ subdirectory, and write your tests in it. (See this Lullabot Simpletest tutorial.) We’re starting another Drupal project. While the IT architect is working on clarifying the requirements, I volunteered to implement the risky parts so that we could get a better sense of what we needed to do. The first major chunk of risk was fine-grained access control. Some users needed to be able to edit the nodes associated with other users, and some users needed to have partial access to nodes depending on how they were referenced by the node. Because there were many cases, I decided to start by writing unit tests. SimpleTest was not as straightforward in Drupal 6.x as it was in Drupal 5.x. There were a few things that confused me before I figured things out. I wondered why my queries were running off different table prefixes. I didn’t have some of the data I expected to have. It turns out that Simpletest now works on a separate Drupal instance by default, using a unique table prefix so that it doesn’t mess around with your regular database. I’m doing this on a test server and I want to be able to easily look up details using SQL, so I needed to add this to my test case: class ExampleTestCase extends DrupalWebTestCase { function setUp() { global $base_url; $this->originalPrefix = $GLOBALS['db_prefix']; } function tearDown() { } }

I also didn’t like how the built-in $this>drupalCreateUser took permissions instead of roles, and how it created custom roles each time. I created a function that

looked up the role IDs using the {role} table, then added the role IDs and roles to the $edit['roles'] array before creating the user. Lastly, I needed to add the Content Profile operations to my custom user creation function. I based this code on content_profile.test. $this->drupalLogin($account); // create a content_profile node $edit = array( 'title' => $account->name, 'body' => $this->randomName(), ); $this->drupalGet('node/add'); $this->drupalPost('node/add/' . str_replace(' ', '-', $role), $edit, t('Save'));

It would’ve been even better to do this without going through the web interface, but it was fine for a quick hack. I had the setup I wanted for writing test cases that checked user permissions. I wrote functions for checking if the user could accept an invitation (must be invited, must not already have accepted, and must be able to fit). SimpleTest made it easy to test each of the functions, allowing me to build and test blocks that I could then put together. The code in content_permission.module turned out to be a good starting point for my field-level permissions, while the Drupal node access API made it easy to handle the userassociation-related permissions even though I used node references instead of user references. It was a good day of hacking. I wrote tests, then I wrote code, then I argued with the computer until my tests passed. ;) It was fun seeing my progress and knowing I wasn’t screwing up things I’d already solved. If you’re writing Drupal code, I strongly recommend giving SimpleTest a try. Implementing hook_node_access_records andhook_node_grants is much easier when you can write a test to make sure the right records are showing up. (With the Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 113

occasional use ofnode_access_acquire_grants to recalculate…) Otherwise-invisible Drupal code becomes easy to verify. The time you invest into writing tests will pay off throughout the project, and during future work as well. Have fun!

Sketches: Wicked http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21863 November 12, 2010 Categories: life, sketches Jump to text

We’re watching Wicked on Friday. It will be J-’s first time to see it live. W- and I have seen it before, and its story is bound up in our own. In 2006, I was a graduate student at the University of Toronto. I lived in Graduate House and did my research at the IBM Toronto Lab. To save time on the commute, I carpooled with a new friend. We listened to recordings of CBC Ideas on the way up to the Lab, swapped books, and had great conversations.

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One day, we saw ads for a production of Wicked. I promised to look into discounted tickets through Graduate House. Several months later, the musical opened in Toronto. My then-boyfriend wasn’t interested in going, so I just bought tickets for myself and my friend. We both loved the show, and we immediately bought the music. I listened to Wicked while working on my computer and while walking around. When my boyfriend and I broke up, Wicked provided a soundtrack that picked me up and got me going. So what if I was Not that Girl? I could be Defying Gravity. Things settled down. Life went back to normal(ish).

performances, not just listening to music. It makes it much easier to remember and enjoy the music afterwards. I like musicals and operas more than concerts, so I’ll check out the Canadian Opera Company’s season and take advantage of their under-30 discount. W- and I love clever wordplay, too, so anything like that is fair game. Looking forward to more awesomeness!

Weekly review: Week ending November 14, 2010 http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21876 November 14, 2010 - Categories: weekly

From last week’s plans •

To return the favour, my friend invited me to a performance of Rigoletto. Three years and many adventures later, I married him.

Work o

[C] Drupal: Display faceted search results in calendar form – low priority

o

[-] Work on yearly review documentation – project assessment and personal business commitments review

o

Wrote test cases and code for access control for both Drupal projects, yay

o

Attended sessions from Reinvention storytelling summit, posted visual notes

Watched Wicked again; thinking about experiences http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21875 November 13, 2010 Categories: Uncategorized We watched Wicked last night from some of the best seats in the house. It was amazing. J- had never seen it. For her, it was an entirely new experience. For me, seeing people’s facial expressions made the performance just so much richer – something I couldn’t do from the discounted rear seats we’d had the last time W- and I watched the musical. What did we like about the experience? It added a richer sense of enjoyment to something we already loved. We often listen to the music from Wicked, and it was fantastic to be able to see it. There were new memories too, like the “Bring out the battering ramekin” quip that made W- and I laugh in an otherwise quiet theatre. (What, did they miss the pun?) It was a perfect fit for our dream fund.

•

•

Relationships o

[X] Watch Wicked with Wand J- – it was awesome!

o

[-] Improve household routines: declutter and streamline

o

[X] Give burp cloths and Teach Your baby to Morgan and Cathy

o

Helped J- with her assignment on tracking one week’s groceries. Fun!

Life

What did it teach me about experiences to seek out? I really like watching

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o

[-] Attend writing group session – postponed to next week

o

[-] Bike

We’re halfway through November already. I need to write a yearly review. My work anniversary syncs well with our yearly performance review cycle. I’ve got pictures to organize and memories to write. And then theres’s the holiday season coming up. We’re working on being more social.

Plans for next week •

•

•

Work o

[ ] Submit yearly review

o

[ ] Drupal: Write more of the access control code

o

[ ] Sketchnote more sessions from the storytelling summit

Life is good. Reviews: •

Weekly review: Week ending October 31, 2010

•

Weekly review: Week ending October 24, 2010

•

Weekly review: Week ending October 17, 2010

•

Week ending October 10, 2010

•

Monthly review: September 2010

Relationships o

[ ] Write Christmas cards

o

[ ] Make and buy gifts

o

Declutter and streamline: winter stuff

Life o

[ ] Attend writing group session

o

[ ] Bike to work (maybe 15th, 16th?)

Monthly review: October 2010 http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21877 November 15, 2010 - Categories: monthly W- and I got married in October. That pretty much took up the whole month between spending time with our wonderful families and recuperating from the celebration. When I got back to work, I started on a Drupal project. It’s good to be back in development. We’ve switched back to Eastern Standard Time. The sun sets earlier now. I’ve taken my winter mittens and scarves out of storage. We’re gearing up for what I’m resolutely calling "baking season" – a way of reminding myself that even winter has its benefits. To celebrate baking season, W- has been baking these absolutely scrumptious brownies.

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Other stuff: •

Emacs, keypresses, and why keyboard combinations aren’t that scary

•

Speaking: In case of emergency, break glass

•

Notes from Quantified Self Toronto, October 27, 2010

•

"But what can I talk about?" Toastmaster tactics for tackling topics

•

How I got into computer science

•

Thinking about getting better at writing

•

Drupal Features and Drush: updating our development workflow

•

Book: Critical inquiry: the process of argument

•

Saving development time through virtual appliances

•

Memories of Mandelbrot

•

Notes from DrupalCampToronto 2010

•

Book: Fast Track Networking: Turning Conversations into Contacts

•

Back on the writing wagon

•

Toaster’s toasted

•

Placeholder: The Examined Life: Technology and Experimentation

•

Cleaning up HTML from Microsoft Word

•

Lotus Notes mail practices

•

Quick catch-up

•

Married!

•

The Exploratorium, or playgrounds for the mind

What I’m focusing on http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21879 November 16, 2010 - Categories: life A friend e-mailed: I would like to help you with your project ideas and goals. We could be a good source of mutual inspiration.

So I took the opportunity to review what my actual project ideas and goals are, and what kind of help I would find really useful. Everything I do fits surprisingly well into an overall plan. I can tell you how the work that I do at IBM and the things I do for fun support my long-term goals. (To wit: One of the things I want to do is build a more collaborative workplace, and consulting lets me help organizations with that. I also want to improve a set of particularly useful skills, hence all the development. As for fun, writing and drawing help me rock, while sewing and woodworking may help me prototype things in the future.) For most of the big projects on my list, it’s a matter of time and personal effort. Throwing resources or people at it won’t gain me very much. Mentors are great, but it takes time and experience to become an even awesomer developer, and to learn how to do design well. It takes time and

experience to learn more about writing or drawing, and to live a life worth sharing. It’s an interesting thing, to be patient with life as it unfolds. I’m growing at a good (and sustainable) pace. There’s inspiration all around me. It’s simply a matter of reaching out and doing things, putting in that deliberate practice, experimenting with life, and maybe picking up tips along the way. So, what do I want to learn from other people? If you think I’m doing interesting things, how can you help? Here’s one of the projects I’ve set for myself: sharing what I know. A great way to help me is to nudge me by asking questions, because then I share (or learn!) in the process of answering. You can also teach me by example, by sharing what you know about sharing what you now. =) Another really good way to help me is to refer me to people who are also passionate about this and who’ve been working on their systems for capturing, organizing, and sharing knowledge. What’s cool about this? You’ll help lots of people along the way. I’ve also started working on a new project: building relationships over time and space. I’m inspired by how my parents have built these long-lasting friendships, and I’m working on learning how to do something similar. In particular, I’m figuring out: •

how to keep in touch with people who don’t write about their lives as frequently as I do,

•

how to share experiences with people who aren’t in the same geographical location (or timezone!),

•

how to make people’s lives better, and how to let them make a difference in mine

•

and of course, how to build wonderful loving relationships (Hi, W-!)

Great ways to help would be to show me by example, share your experiences and Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 117

experiments, or refer me to people who do really well at this (particularly if they’re also dealing with virtual connections, and if they’re introverted too). Bonus: this will directly help me with my goal, too! What’s cool about this? I think the world is going in this direction, and people could really use the tips. So that’s where I am. Life is awesome. I’m making steady progress. I’m pretty sure that whether or not I get where I currently want to go, I’ll do something wonderful with both the journey and the final destination. In terms of help, I’m okay – other people need more help than I do. If you think what I’m doing is terrific and you’d like to see it happen sooner, maybe you can make that one of your projects too. Then it’s not about helping me, it’s about making your life and the world awesomer. Not me, but the bigger dreams I work towards. =) C’est la vie, in the bestest way possible.

Sketchnotes: Why I do them, how I do them, and how you can get started http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21883 November 17, 2010 Categories: highlight, sketches, sketchnotes

Why do I sketch my notes? A few years ago, I sketched a presentation just for fun, to see if I could do it on my Nintendo DS. The Gen Y Guide to Web 2.0 at Work has been viewed more than 50,000 times. People told me they liked the style. So I sketched more, inspired by books such as "Back of the Napkin", and videos like Common Craft and RSAnimate’s work.

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 118

I have a hard time sitting still and listening to lectures. I used to fall asleep in class. Writing and sharing helped me stay engaged. It also helped me continue the conversation and meet interesting people. Combining sharing with drawing was natural, and it kept me focused on listening instead of distracted. So, why? It makes me happy, others too. How do I sketch my notes? Mostly on a Tablet PC (Lenovo X61T) using Microsoft OneNote 2010 (good handwriting recognition) or the free Inkscape. I export using The Gimp (free) and upload it to my website (sachachua.com). That’s all there is to it. Once in a blue moon, I’ll draw on paper and scan it in (Samsung SCX-4828FN), but it’s easier to fix my drawings on the computer: change size, add colour, move things around. How can you get started? Forget what you’ve been telling yourself: "I’m not an artist. I can’t draw." Just take notes and have fun along the way. Draw on paper. Take a picture, or scan your work. Get a basic drawing tablet, digital pen, or tablet PC. Learn from other people. (Search for visual notetaking, visual thinking, graphic recording, etc.) Experiment and enjoy.

Smiling http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21859 November 18, 2010 Categories: life, sketches

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Conversations: Stian Håklev http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21890 November 19, 2010 Categories: conversation, education, sketch es, teaching Stian Håklev is passionate about education – and in particular, the richness of different cultures and perspectives. Here are some notes from a fascinating conversation I had with him at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, where he’s doing his PhD.

(larger version) … and it wasn’t all questions, either – he has lots of ideas! You can read his thesis at reganmian.net or check out the peer-to-peer education site he’s working on, where they’ve partnered with the Mozilla Foundation and other people to offer web development and other courses. Sample creative assignment: draw the Internet! Stian’s passionate about open access, open research, multiculturalism, peer-to-peer education, and other interesting things. He’s hooked into Mozilla Foundation and the Center for Social Innovation. What else can he look at and who can he talk to? Possibly related: Open Notebook Science,LearnHub, Third Culture Kids, DemoCampToronto (to show his peerto-peer education site and ask for tips?) Do these questions strike a chord with you? Get in touch with Stian and make cool stuff happen! reganmian.net

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Experimenting with mornings http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21891 November 20, 2010 Categories: highlight, kaizen, life, productivi ty Here’s my approximate sleep data for the past week, tracked with the free “Sleep on It” app I installed on my iPod Touch.

Woke up November 13

Slept 1:30 AM the next day

November 14

7:54 AM

11:14 PM

November 15

7:09 AM

8:45 PM

November 16

6:50 AM

9:23 PM

November 17

5:32 AM

9:06 PM

November 18

5:05 AM

9:34 PM

November 19

5:00 AM

I switched back to an early-morning schedule, and I really like it. Let’s see how wonderful it can be if I can tweak things further! What’s working well? I set my cellphone alarm a few minutes after my iPod Touch alarm. Then I put my cellphone on the drawers in the hallway. Tada! Social obligation to get out of bed AND deal with cats, instead of just reaching for the oh-so-handy snooze button. Also, I made several lists. Here they are: Things worth waking up early for: Writing. Drawing. Hacking, particularly because I can get lots of

momentum and make tons of progress before our 10 AM update. Things not worth staying up late for: Browsing the Web (it will still be there tomorrow). Reading books (ditto, save it for lunch). Things worth staying up Things not worth late for: Social waking up early interaction. Laying the for: casual web groundwork for a browsing. Hitting productive morning the snooze button. (setting clothes out, etc.) This classification makes it easier for me to put away my computer and get ready for a 9-ish bedtime. (Yes, I’m often in bed before J-.) It also helps me use my morning time more productively. I didn’t get up early just to spend hours on iCanHasCheezburger.com! (Besides, it only takes me a few minutes to see the latest cat pictures…) I haven’t run into problems with afternoon fatigue. It might be the way I switch between different kinds of tasks I enjoy, and it might be that I eat a light lunch and I have snacks. There are still a few things to work out. Commuting to work means interrupting flow, although if I wake up early enough, I can get a chunk of time. When I go into productive hacking mode so that I can check off lots of tasks before our morning status update, I find it hard to make time for my hobbies during the regular workday, because people come in with interesting requests. And then there’s syncing up with W-, who’s more of a night owl, but that’s where shared activities and routines can help. If you’re experimenting with waking up earlier, maybe social obligations and selfreminders can help you too. I’ll keep you posted as I learn and experience more!

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Weekly review: Week ending November 19, 2010

o

[C] Bike to work (maybe 15th, 16th?) – took the TTC instead

http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21892 November 21, 2010 - Categories: weekly

o

Discussed possibility of getting Android phone

o

Installed Android development kit

o

Experimented with waking up early, yay!

From last week’s plans •

Work o

[X] Submit yearly review

o

[X] Drupal: Write more of the access control code

o

[X] Sketchnote more sessions from the storytelling summit

o

Drupal project: Installed the Rational Team Concert Jazz client. It’s cool!

o

Helped more people with community toolkit

o

Planned upcoming workshops/presentations

o

Drupal project: Led first sprint demo

o

•

•

•

Innovation Discovery: Told Luis Chiang-Carbonell about Compfight for finding Creative Commons photos

o

o

Plans for next week

Drupal project: Helped with noderef design Drupal project: Got the hang of contentpermissions and node access!

Relationships

•

•

Work o

[ ] Drupal project: Polish programs, work on events

o

[ ] Drupal project: Work on items identified during sprint review

o

[ ] Community toolkit: Build blog summarizer

o

[ ] Drupal: Explore making a diagramming tool for node references – dot?

Relationships o

[ ] Help with homework

o

[ ] Cook more

Life o

[ ] Look into Android development

o

[ ] Plan upcoming presentations / posts

o

[ ] Catch up on drawing some of the other Reinvention Summit sessions I missed

o

[ ] Draw other talks

o

[X] Write Christmas cards

o

[X] Make and buy gifts

o

Planned Skype get-together for family

o

Baked brownies, mm!

Week beginnings

o

Had game night with Linda and Gabriel – played Chez Geek and Guillotine. Might pick up Guillotine, or maybe Bohnanza.

http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21896 November 22, 2010 Categories: balance, life, productivity, w-

Life o

[C] Attend writing group session – spent the day

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 122

What day does your week start on? It’s the same seven days, but where you start can influence how you look at things. Today I realized that my week doesn’t actually start with Mondays, as I thought before. Or maybe it shifted.

W- and I treat our weekends as week beginnings: the perfect time to lay the groundwork for a smooth-running and productive week. We do the laundry, shop for groceries, prepare food, drop off and pick up library books, tidy up, finish assorted tasks, reset our sleep schedules, and tweak our household routines. Preparing is fun. W- and I enjoy cooking, so it hardly counts as a chore. This weekend, we made chicken adobo, leftover stirfry, and these incredibly moist and airy brownies. I also experimented with making onigiri, which would be great for afternoon snacking throughout the week. I may have gotten a little carried away.

and energy levels on an even keel. Instead of swinging wildly from “Oh no, it’s Monday” to “Thank goodness it’s Friday!”, or treating the work as something that gets in the way of life, we treat all of the days as part of life, and we invest time into making those days more wonderful. We also make sure we don’t end up thinking of the weekend as something that gets in the way of work. Try turning your weekend into the beginning of your week, and use that time to make your week better.

Emacs: Recording ledger entries with org-capturetemplates http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21878 November 23, 2010 Categories: emacs, ledger

Other chores are relaxing, too. Washing dishes, folding laundry, and putting things away are meditations in action. If we finish early, or we want to take breaks along the way, then we spend time on other interests. I set aside blocks of time for reading, writing, coding, drawing, or sewing, depending on what I feel like. I also make time for social interaction – not so much that I’ll feel worn out, but enough to get to know other people better. Some weekends are busy, such as our once-a-month lunch-packing extravaganza. Then we’re doubly glad when Monday comes around: proud of the accomplishment, and looking forward to the relative relaxation of the work-week! I love the way this has been working for us. Most weeks run smoothly. When crunch time comes, we’ve got healthy food in the fridge, routines we can rely on, and relationships that carry us through. Using part of our weekend to make the rest of the week better also helps keep our stress

I use John Wiegley’s ledger program to keep track of my personal finances. It’s quick, it’s light, and it lets me slice-and-dice my data however I want. I enjoy opening my ledger file and adding transactions to it. (Particularly if it involves income!) Yes, I’m that kind of weird. I wanted to make it even easier to add entries. Instead of using C-x C-f to find the file, using ESC > to go to the end of the buffer, and typing in the transactions, I decided to add some of my common transactions to org-capture-templates. Here’s the relevant snippet: (setq org-capture-templates (append '(("l" "Ledger entries") ("lm" "MBNA" plain (file "~/personal/ledger") "%(org-read-date) %^{Payee} Liabilities:MBNA Expenses:%^{Account}

%^{Amount}

") ("lc" "Cash" plain (file "~/personal/ledger") "%(org-read-date) * %^{Payee} Expenses:Cash Expenses:%^{Account} %^{Amount} ")) org-capture-templates))

I’ve bound org-capture to C-c r using (global-set-key (kbd "C-c r") 'org-capture), so now I can use C-c r l m to create an entry for my MBNA Mastercard. This keyboard shortcut might

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 123

not seem short to you, but if you think about it as C-c remember ledger Mastercard, it makes perfect sense. =) (Besides, orgcapture prompts me just in case I forget.) Hooray for org-capture!

I just got an Android phone http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21897 November 24, 2010 Categories: android, geek

From Phone

Thanks to W’s fine research and comparison shopping, I bought an Android phone off Craigslist. I’ve just installed Tasker and a whole bunch of other apps, and I can’t wait to try all sorts of experiments. I’m looking forward to mobile development, too! (… and yes, MobileOrg was one of the first things I installed… =) )

Sleep Bot Tracker Log is a fantastic sleep tracker – and it’s free. The basics: you “clock in” by clicking on the going to sleep button, which changes to a waking up button. When you wake up, you can hit the snooze button (if you’ve configured snooze) or slide your finger across the screen in order to clear the alarm. Using Sleep Bot to track your sleep means that you can view your sleep data as a graph, graph, table, or comma-separated export file – good for keeping yourself accountable.

You can set an alarm by clicking on the small alarm clock icon in the upper right. I particularly like the ability to see how much time is left before the alarm goes off, which helps me figure out how much time I have before I should go to bed. You can set the alarm tone to ringtones or songs, and configure it to fade in gradually. You’ll also see the alarm countdown on the Android lock screen – great for a quick check. As last night’s lock screen shows on the right, I stayed up a little bit late.

Android: Tracking sleep with Sleep Bot http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21914 November 25, 2010 Categories: android, geek I recently switched to an early-morning schedule, just for fun. Tracking my sleep helps me motivate myself to go to bed when I promised to and wake up when my alarm goes off, and it comes with useful bonuses too. I had been using the Sleep On It application on my iPod Touch to track my sleep and set my alarm. When I switched to an Android phone, one of the first applications I installed was for sleep tracking as well. Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 124

But wait, there’s more. Sleep Bot makes it easy to set all sorts of useful settings to help you stay asleep. I’ve told it to avoid calls, set my phone to silent + vibrate, and turn off WiFi to minimize late-night disturbances. Configuring it is also simpler

than configuring similar rules using Tracker, Locale, or other context-sensitive Android applications.

Look up the free Sleep Bot Tracker Log application on your Android phone with this handy QR code. You can add the widget to your home screen for even faster checking in. Recommend.

Reclaiming http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21915 November 26, 2010 - Categories: life Cate Huston writes about falling out of love with literature because of English classes, the urge to build instead of destroy, and the pigeonholing of people’s passions. I know what that’s like. I read voraciously in grade school. My principal said I wasn’t just a bookworm, I was a booksnake. I split my free time between the library and the computer lab. I read everywhere, even while walking. In high school and university, I learned that literature wasn’t my thing. My classmates wrote poetry, stories, even plays. I tucked my grade-school verses into a corner of my hard disk. They wrote clear, insightful literary analyses of irony or imagery—or at least I assume they were clear and insightful, given the grades they received. I struggled to do the work, or even motivate myself to do so. I still read for myself, tackling War and Peace and other classics on my own. But just like I’d ceded art to the artists, I ceded literature to others. It was not my domain. I was clearly the computer geek of my batch, and my enjoyment of that made it easier to avoid investing myself in other subjects. We sometimes reflect on how children learn that they can’t draw, or that they can’t sing, or that they can’t act. They can, of course, but somewhere along the line, people stop trying. They think of something as outside

themselves, not themselves, not for them. Despite the best intentions of teachers and family and friends, I learned that lesson. The good thing about learning that lesson, however, is that I’m learning how to unlearn it – how to reclaim those interests. So now I write. Mostly blogs, but I’ve experimented with fiction before. I’m slowly coming to terms with the fact that other people see me as a writer – maybe not a Writer, but someone who enjoys and does well with words. I read. Mostly nonfiction, but also children’s literature (which I like because it tends to be unpretentious and not over-wrought), classics, and odd discoveries. I still can’t dissect the things I read, although I’m starting to be able to tell why I like some things and not others. I draw. Not the beautiful drawings my friends could make, but enough to make people smile. I revisit the shop and home economic skills that gave me anxiety in the classroom. I reclaim those parts of self that I’d discarded along the way. Helping J- with homework gives me plenty of opportunities to re-encounter and reclaim. (I’m looking at you, biology, with your jargon and memorization…) Would I have done things any differently? That overriding passion that crowded out the others gave me a lot of strength, confidence, and security, so I don’t think I would have discarded it to be more of a generalist. Some people in my class excelled in multiple areas. Perhaps if I had figured out earlier how to use a strength in one area to build strengths in another, and how to take advantage of complementary skills. I learned that towards the end of university, when blogging helped me develop reflective practice, speaking helped me learn how to scale, and learning with strangers helped me enjoy the process of figuring things out. What will you reclaim?

Work and life http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21916 November 27, 2010 Categories: life, reflection, work-life

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 125

Work and life. I want to write about this in the context of family, because two of my friends recently reflected on work-life integration:

aspects of my life to prioritize, it’s clearly easier for me to advance.

It’s also been fascinating and edifying to see how… life fits into all of this. See, the thing about work/life balance is that it’s really easy if your life is work; you’ve only got one thing to balance, so by default, blam, you’re done. Watching Heidi blend her teaching and work, scholarship and family, kids and research, home and school – you’re a mom and you’re a professor and you’re the same person and you blend those lives and don’t compartmentalize them…

So here’s what I’m coming to understand:

… it’s been a revelation to see both sides at the same time, and to realize they’re not really “sides,” but… that it’s possible to blend them, you don’t have to partition one from the other quite so firmly. … I know what I don’t want. I’ve seen my female family members at home, and I don’t want that work-life balance; what I’ve seen is that either you have no work (I love my work! I want a career! I want to teach!) or the equally unpalatable-to-me alternative of having your work is dictated by someone who’s not you (taking a job because your family demands it rather than actually choosing to work in that way in that time; giving up a personal career at a company in order to help with your husband’s business, that sort of thing). I know it’s possible! I just don’t know how it’s possible! It’s hard to see and hear and find stories of how people come to find that sort of balance, what it looks like, what it feels like. And I’m too shy to ask people about this most of the time – and earlier on, when I didn’t know these things were possible, I didn’t even know that I could ask.

Mel Chua and feminism: However I don’t really talk about what I mean by feminist because 1) it doesn’t come up and 2) it’s not really something I think about a lot. When it does, what often seems to come up is the unfairness of women being penalized for motherhood, and as someone who doesn’t want to have children, I’m not always sure I agree. If a woman chooses to take a year off work and I don’t, it seems fair that I should be a year ahead in my career. If I’m willing to travel, and relocate for my job, and have fewer other

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 126

Cate Huston

It is possible for women to combine satisfying workplace accomplishments with family, community, and individual happiness. In some organizations, it’s even normal. I’m lucky to be at IBM, where I’m surrounded by role models with all sorts of life experiences: single, in a relationship, raising young kids, raising school-age kids, empty-nesters, people who had chosen not to have kids at all; people who’ve returned to the workforce after raising their children; women whose spouses focused on childrearing; couples who shared child-rearing responsibilities equally… Wow. Seeing people actually live out their lives has gone a long way towards helping me accept the possibilities. There was a point in my life that I was afraid that relationships would distract me from the work I wanted to do. Now I’m married to someone who helps and inspires me do more than I had dreamed of doing. The sneak preview of parenting I get along the way shows me that it’s challenging, but not impossible, and it would help me grow, too. So, feminism. It’s not about making everyone the same, or invalidating other people’s choices. A person who has made significant sacrifices for their career – moved a lot? took on additional challenges involving lots of extra work? – will understandably be at an advantage. That’s okay. *It’s about the availability of choices,* so that people can build careers that fit them. Flexible schedules, off-ramps and on-ramps help people adjust their workload so that it doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing. Parental leaves help redress another imbalance: fathers should be able to spend time with their children too.

*It’s about valuing more kinds of work and more kinds of choices,* not just working long hours or sacrificing everything for the company. It’s about calling out and reducing discrimination against people who’ve made different life choices. It’s about recognizing and correctingsystemic disadvantages. It will be hard to work the biases out of our society. Women whose bios include parenting are described more negatively, while men actually get a benefit. I was listening to a Harvard Business podcast about advice for women returning to the workforce. The podcast described how some organizations have a “project watch” – a taskforce that occasionally reviews projects assigned to people on flexible workloads in on-ramp initiatives in order to make sure that the projects give people a reasonable chance of success. Not impossibly hard, but also not mindnumbingly easy. Neither type of project helps people grow their careers, and it’s important for people to be able to grow. Even the way we talk about it reveals biases. I don’t think women “opt out of the workforce” – or worse, “flee the workforce”, as I’ve seen described. I think people sometimes choose the sanity of focusing on one major project at a time. I don’t think giving up on family life is a prerequisite for career success. I see examples of people who have made things work. I don’t think childrearing is necessarily insular and limited. You can learn widely-useful things and transferrable skills along the way. When the statistics and news stories get me down, I remind myself: Some societies and organizations are better than others. I’m lucky to have grown up with strong role models, both male and female. I’m lucky to live in a society where sexism is discouraged. I’m lucky to be in an organization that offers many options. I’m lucky to be surrounded by people who have made things work. It’s not about the theoretical best. This is something I had to come to terms with

years ago. If you worry too much about living up to your “full potential”, you’ll never be happy – particularly if you let other people define your full potential for you. It’s okay if I don’t become a superpopular nomadic entrepreneur or executive with a gazillion patents. (I find travel stressful, actually, so that would rule out the nomadic part anyway.) It doesn’t matter if other people are promoted faster, if they earn more, or if they become more famous. What matters is that I build a life that fits me, and I share what I’m learning along the way so that other people can build even better lives. I don’t have to make all the life decisions now. A lot of this depends on things I don’t know yet. From all accounts, a baby’s first year is hectic, so people might as well plan to take a year off. After that, people make all sorts of choices. Being in a good financial and social position helps, as does keeping professional skills and networks up to date (always a good idea anyway). We don’t have to solve all the problems in this life. I would love to wave a magic wand and create an equitable society (tada!), but it’s okay to help inch forward and work on not sliding back. We can grow a little bit at a time. Some of the little things I’m doing to nudge us forward are to always refer to it as “parental leave” instead of “maternity leave”, because worklife integration makes sense for men, too; to write without the assumption that it’s always going to be the woman staying home and raising kids; and to reflect on our biases about presenteeism, choices, and other things. Here are some tips from another draft of this post: Laying the groundwork •

Save money and build a good nest egg. One of the insights I picked up from Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own” is the freedom you get from having your own assets.

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 127

•

Build your skills and your passions so that you can make what you need doing what you love.

o

Volunteered to help with Lotusphere 2011 resources for evangelists

•

Find or build the support structures you might need: relationships, company culture, skills…

o

Helped community improve communications strategy

o

Submitted revised annual review notes, whee!

o

Shared updated Web 2.0 and retail deck

o

Volunteered to help with Smarter Planet sales community

• •

Cultivate relationships with supportive people. Go deeper. Question the assumptions. Create unexpected value.

Weekly review: Week ending November 26, 2010

•

http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21917 November 28, 2010 - Categories: weekly

Relationships o

[X] Help with homework

o

[X] Cook more – made pad thai from mostly-scratch – home-made sauce this time!

o

Set up three-way Skype chat with family

o

Sent a number of Christmas cards

From last week’s plans •

Work o

o

[-] Drupal project: Polish programs, work on events (removed events from scope) [X] Drupal project: Work on items identified during sprint review

o

[X] Community toolkit: Build blog summarizer

o

[-] Drupal: Explore making a diagramming tool for node references – dot?

o

Drupal: Prototyped practitioner – educator selection using AJAX, woohoo! Node references had to be AHAH-ed in prerender

o

Drupal: Prototyped investor graph using Raphael JS

o

Community: Updated README.txt with better instructions

o

•

Helped Brandon Anderson (knowledge and collaboration) learn how to use Community Toolkit to export forum posts

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 128

Life o

[X] Look into Android development – woohoo! Bought an Android, have been hacking on it!

o

[-] Plan upcoming presentations / posts

o

[-] Catch up on drawing some of the other Reinvention Summit sessions I missed

o

[-] Draw other talks

o

Tweaked MobileOrg =D

Plans for next week •

Work o

[ ] Drupal: Get project S in shape for Iteration 2 review

o

[ ] Drupal: Take on more development responsibilities for project M

o

[ ] Prepare standalone presentation on collaboration in the enterprise for Dec 10 launch

o

•

•

[ ] Go through open source process so that I can contribute MobileOrg patches back to community

Second: The editing interface was functional but not convenient , so I dug into views and layouts and all sorts of niftiness. Before and after:

Relationships o

[ ] Prepare food for the week

o

[ ] Take care of things while W- is in crunch mode

o

[ ] Set up regular schedule of Skype chats with family

o

[ ] Write and send more cards

Life o

[ ] Android: Tweak MobileOrg some more

(… and it’s all wired up and working, at least for me!)

o

[ ] Android: Think about that grocery/inventory app I want to build (like GTracker, but with tweaks)

Mwahaha! Along the way, I ended up learning about org-mobile.el and how to set up a somewhat finicky configuration so that I could synchronize my files over Dropbox onto my SD card and into MobileOrg, and then back over Dropbox and into my computer. It’s not fully automatic, but the pieces are mostly connected now. The relevant parts of my experimental config:

Learning Android development by hacking MobileOrg http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21928 November 29, 2010 Categories: android, emacs, geek I spent most of Saturday plunging into Android development, starting from the Hello World and Notepad tutorials. It was lots of fun. I wanted to use MobileOrg on Android, but it lacked a lot of things that were in MobileOrg for iPhone, so I taught myself Android development by fixing little things that a newbie like me could do. First: I wanted the capture form to resize itself when the soft keyboard was displayed, instead of letting the virtual keyboard hide the Save button. Fortunately, I’d come across a solution while reading the technical articles on developer.android.com: resize the activity based on the onscreen input method. I tested it on my system, then reported the issue and the fix through MobileOrg’s github. Within a few hours, the fix was included in the project. Yay! (It took me a while to figure out I could use the back button to hide the keyboard, but it was a productive while.)

(setq org-mobile-directory "~/dropbox/mobile") (setq org-mobile-inbox-for-pull "~/personal/mobileorg.org") (setq default-buffer-file-codingsystem 'utf-8) (setq org-mobile-files '("~/personal/organizer.org" "~/personal/outline.org" "~/personal/test.org")) (setq org-mobile-agendas '("a"))

Then I used M-x org-mobile-push to sync things up. There was a bit of a kerfluffle I had to sort out. I moved files around, so I needed to delete the /sdcard/mobileorg database on my Android, and I also needed to download the checksums and other files using Dropbox before loading them in MobileOrg. But things work reasonably well now, I think, and I can browse my Org files and capture some updates. Whee!

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programming or doing something else, and it’s hard to resist that urge for flow – that immersive, transcendental experience of engagement and success.

… and so on. Next step: Talk to my manager about open source approvals so that I can share my patches with the community. There’s still plenty more to build on top of MobileOrg, but at least I’ve taken care of the two big things that were getting in my way. I’ll have to decide whether I’m going to build my other app ideas as separate lightweight apps, or be evil and store as much data as I can into Org… >:) Hmm. Org as grocery list, price tracker, inventory management, and recipe database? Org as sewing organizer for patterns, notions, fabric, measurements, and projects? Org as a hammer for an unbelievable variety of nails? Mwahahaha! (Okay, maybe I’ll build things for SQLite first, but there’ll probably be some kind of .org or CSV eventually…)

Limiting flow http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21929 November 30, 2010 Categories: balance, geek, highlight, life, wo rk-life Sunday: My head was buzzing from a good weekend of learning how to program on a new platform, so I set aside some time to reflect and clear it. This is what I had started to write: Programming is addictive. It distracts me in a way that few other pursuits do. I dream about code. I doodle ideas. I get lost in development. Every free hour is a choice between spending it

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Flow messes me up. In the flow of programming, I forget the joy and ease of other activities. I feel myself resisting the need to surface from flow in order to take care of household chores or work on other projects. Just another test, just another function, just another little success. When I reluctantly slip away, the ghost of it hovers there, a background process that takes up memory and processing time, interrupts me with ideas and invitations, and makes it hard for me be mindful and focused on other things. I know I’m lucky to be passionate about something like this, so it seems wasteful to think of setting bounds. But my thinking feels disjointed, hyperlinked, broken down into small functions – a little the kind of unraveling I feel when I haven’t had the chance to properly write and reflect—

Then W- said, “How would you like to help clean up the yard?” So I did. While W- changed his tires and Jraked the leaves, I tidied up what remained of this year’s garden. Then I came back to the kitchen and roasted four turkey drumsticks, helped pack 11 lunch portions, made turkey pot pie filling, and prepared onigiri for next week’s snacks. It was productive, social, and good. I remembered that weekends are good for preparing for the future, and I felt even better. There’s something interesting about that thought, and I want to explore it further. Maybe if I experiment with setting aside blocks of time, I’ll get a better balance instead of mostly going by what I feel most like doing. There is an inertia to enjoyment. The more I focus on one thing, the harder it is to return to others. While a life focused on programming – and perhaps writing as well – is probably going to be just as awesome, I’d like to pick up a few other interests as well: cooking, drawing, sewing… Even speaking and making presentations tend to go on the backburner when I have a program in mind, which results in stress down the road.

For those other interests, I need to invest time doing things that are less fun than programming in order to get to the point where I might have as much fun doing that as I have writing code. Improving my ability to switch is likely to pay off in terms of better quality of life, lower stress, and richer combinations of complementary skills. Here are some ways I’m thinking of experimenting with that: Limit programming to 4-hour blocks at a time, with rest breaks throughout. Do something noncomputer-related for at least an hour between programming sessions. By getting better at resuming where I left off, I’ll be able to let go with more confidence. Schedule a block of recreational programming time on my calendar. That way, I know I’m going to be able to try things out at least once during the week, so it’ll be easier for me to resist the urge to swap chores for programming. I can keep a TODO list of things to work on, which will help me use that time more effectively. Schedule other interests/tasks on my calendar as needed. It’s just like homework. If I’ve got a presentation or an idea planned for a certain date, I might do better by setting aside specific times to work on it. I might also use sprints or the Pomodoro technique to make it easier to focus. Beef up my weekly review, and ruthlessly trim my task list. I’ve been postponing items that weren’t particularly important. I’d like to move each of my open projects forward at least a little each week, and the weekly review is a good time to catch that. If I do my weekly review on Friday or Saturday, I can use Sunday for focused, planned work, or target things for mornings as well. If I run into something I still don’t want to do, time to think about whether I want to scratch that off my list.

Hmm…

December 2010

Sometimes you have to work at being happy http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21930 December 1, 2010 Categories: happiness, highlight Here’s one of the secrets to happiness: Sometimes you have to work at being happy. This is normal. Preparing makes it easier. When I find myself getting frustrated or annoyed about something, I make lists. What do I like about it? What can I do to make things better? What alternatives would I consider, and in which situations would those alternatives be better? These things keep me firmly focused on moving forward. I particularly like the practice of listing what I like. This is a good exercise in gratitude, and it makes it even easier to deal with future hiccups. For example, before I married W-, I wrote a long list of things I appreciated about him. It’s an incomplete list, but I’m sure it will help us get through future disagreements. I haven’t needed it yet. Ditto for work. Yes, I’ve written down a list of reasons why I like IBM. When I feel like sticking my tongue out at a frustrating problem or process, I review my list–and often find myself adding a few more reasons why. I like focusing on what I can do to make things better, too. It’s fun. Sometimes I need to ask other people for help, and that’s good practice as well. It’s easy to forget your reasons when you’re tired or frustrated or annoyed or angry. No point in getting sucked into that spiral, though. Work around your limitations by writing things down before you get into that situation, and focus on productive thoughts when you need to deal with something.

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Quantified Self Toronto: Second Meetup http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21931 December 2, 2010 Categories: android, geek, highlight, life, qu antified, sketches, sketchnotes, tracking I went to last night’s Quantified Self Toronto meetup, a get-together for people who are interested in tracking data about their lives. It was good to hear about people’s projects and questions. I shared what I’d been doing with my new Android phone, too. Here are my notes:

For me, the most interesting point was that of analyzing the data you already have in order to understand your patterns. Correction: I haven’t just had my phone for three days, I’ve had it for a week. (Ah, time flies when you’re having fun.) I’ve only been tracking activities for three days, though, so I guess that’s why that number got stuck in my brain. =) What do I track, why do I track it, and how do I track it? I want to experiment with getting up earlier, and to see if I still get enough sleep. I knew that tracking would help me stick to my alarm clock, like the way that tracking time helps me stay focused. I’ve written about tracking my sleep, so you can check out the detailed screenshots there. So far, I’ve been waking up within a few minutes of 5 AM, getting an average of seven hours of sleep, and feeling reasonably awake and energetic. I want to capture and share as much as possible. On my computer, Org-mode is working well for me – big text files that I dump notes into, with a bit of structure along the way. I’d like to have a structured way to capture notes on my Android, particularly if I can pull those notes into my Org-mode text files. I haven’t settled on any one application yet, although I’m working on tweaking MobileOrg to fit me better. I’m also playing around with mindmapping (Thinking Space supports Freemind maps), and I’m looking for a good way to keep outlined lists. I want to track how much time I spend on different activities. This will be useful for calibrating my time estimates, comparing my time with my priorities, and identifying opportunities to improve. This definitely has to be a mobile app, as I do things away from the computer too. Time Recording has been working well for me so far. I want to track my finances. I do this on my laptop so that I can take advantage of all the wonderful reporting tools that

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the ledgercommand-line tool gives me. I’ve figured out a virtual envelope-based system that works for me, and I enjoy balancing my books. I don’t particularly feel the need to use my Android to capture this data, as I try to keep my transactions electronic. The occasional note about cash expenses can be handy, though. I eventually want to get better at tracking my contacts. I like the way Gist gives me a dashboard sorted by importance or filtered by tags. I want to get to the point of deliberately reaching out to people on a regular schedule.

2. Figure out what doing that thing is like when you’re good at it, and it’s easy – the ease that comes from skill and practice, the ease that comes with awareness and control. 3. Figure out how you’re going to get yourself in shape so that the thing you want to do is easy.

… it’s about figuring out what a good week feels like, and setting things up so that you can enjoy that kind of week. What does the difference feel like?

Hmm… Monthly review: October 2010

More thoughts on week beginnings: it’s about being proactive

For me, a good week involves:

http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21934 December 3, 2010 Categories: highlight, life, productivity, refle ction, sketches

•

Good work at the office: clear priorities and progress

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Plenty of focused time for personal projects, like writing or drawing

One of the great things about reflecting out loud is that other people share their own insights and make things even clearer. Here’s what Mel said about my post on week beginnings:

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Social connection with W-, J-, friends, and folks online

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Smoothly flowing household routines: knowing where things are, remembering what’s important, minimizing useless stress

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An appreciation for all the days of the week, instead of slogging through some days in order to get to others

I think I’d like to try weekends as weekbeginnings this weekend. It’s treating Saturday and Sunday as time to set up for the week ahead, rather than time to recover from whatever the week did to you – it’s a decision to happen to life rather than let life happen to you. And that’s the way I want my week to be. Proactive rather than reactive.

What did I do to prepare for that? •

That’s it. It’s about taking responsibility for how you want your week to unfold, and investing the time into making it happen. To combine that with another point Mel makes in her post:

Invested time into learning about project planning and Rational Team Concert so that I can always work with a clear, prioritized task list with time estimates.

•

Switched to waking up early so that I could have blocks of focused time for personal projects.

So maybe it’s something like this:

•

Planned social events into my calendar and prioritized social interaction for evenings.

Mel Chua, “Brain-clearing on equilibrium”

1.

Figure out what you want to do.

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•

•

Packed individual lunch portions and stored them in our freezer so that we can be sure of having good food for lunch; cooked dinners during weekends and organized the leftovers in the fridge; switched to using a beltbag instead of a purse so that I’ll always have my keys, badge, and phone in a well-defined place; helped tweak the corridor flow for leaving and entering the house (the big shelves near the front are really useful!).

send the exact same design of cards, so she scrambled to find a Dutch card instead. Ever the geek, W- suggested a Christmas card protocol to eliminate collisions. We’ll focus on Canadian cards, Kathy can do Philippine or Dutch cards, and Ching can do Singaporean cards if she wants. What does a Canadian Christmas card look like? I was thinking about it, and an idea got stuck in my head. I had fun drawing this:

Planned my week to make sure I have things to look forward to during the week and during the weekend; set things up so that I enjoyed my work; developed things to enjoy outside work as well.

On a bigger scale, the same principle applies. It’s not about escape, it’s about preparation. The two-week staycation W- and I took in August 2009 is a good example. We thought about we wanted life to be like, and we invested time into getting a little bit closer to that vision. We use our long weekends the same way. It’s relaxing and productive. I take breaks so that I can have focused time to step back, reflect, and work on the foundation of my life, the moments of truth, the systems that will pay off a lot over time… and maybe enjoy a new experience or two along the way. This reflection reminds me of a discussion from my university theology classes: the difference between freedom from and freedom for.Many people think about breaks as freedom from work. I like thinking about them as freedom for awesomeness. =)

Happy holidays, eh! http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21936 December 4, 2010 - Categories: sketches I sent my first batch of Christmas cards two weeks ago, raiding my stash of Philippinethemed Christmas cards. Good thing, too. My sister had apparently been planning to

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© 2010 Sacha Chua – Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License I’ve just ordered a set of 30 custom Christmas cards from VistaPrint. They’ll arrive too late to send to family and friends in the Philippines, but I can use them for people here. It’s a good experiment in creativity. If they work out, I might make or order more next year. If you want to print your own set, I could share the hi-res file. =) Disclaimer: I haven’t seen what this looks like as a printed greeting card yet!

Weekly review: Week ending December 3, 2010 http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21937 December 5, 2010 - Categories: weekly

From last week’s plans •

Work o

[X] Drupal: Get project S in shape for Iteration 2 review

o

[X] Drupal: Take on more development responsibilities for project M – now tech lead

o

[-] Prepare standalone presentation on collaboration in the enterprise for Dec 10 launch – Partial; will share my social media in telecoms or social media in retail presentation instead

o

o

Bought more winter things

Plans for next week •

[X] Go through open source process so that I can contribute MobileOrg patches back to community – asked my manager

Work o

[ ] Drupal: More Drupal work – build tricky parts of project M

o

[ ] Finish blog post for Dec 10 launch

o

[ ] Help with Slideshare IBM network

Helped John Conrad with the community toolkit

o

[ ] Write more posts for conference toolkit

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Helped Violanda de Man find Innovation Discovery resources

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[ ] Work on PDFA for level 4 IT specialist

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[ ] Discuss social media and telecoms over lunch

Started working on PDFA for level 4

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Relationships o

[X] Prepare food for the week: curry, pasta sauce

o

[X] Take care of things while W- is in crunch mode

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[X] Set up regular schedule of Skype chats with family

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[-] Write and send more cards – made Christmas card design, so will wait for Vistaprint to deliver

o

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Experimented with GTracker for grocery list management

o

o

•

o

Today: Cook with the Hattoris

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Relationships o

[ ] Help with homework

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[ ] Buy fleece for making throw

Life o

[ ] Design my own grocery list / tracking app for the Android

Monthly review: November 2010 http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21938 December 6, 2010 - Categories: monthly In last month’s review, I wrote:

Life o

[-] Android: Tweak MobileOrg some more

o

[X] Android: Think about that grocery/inventory app I want to build (like GTracker, but with tweaks)

o

Drafted blog posts for preconference kit

o

Experimented with tracking activity

We’re halfway through November already. I need to write a yearly review. My work anniversary syncs well with our yearly performance review cycle. I’ve got pictures to organize and memories to write. And then there’s the holiday season coming up. We’re working on being more social.

November was great. We got back into the swing of work. I’ve been up to my ears in Drupal, and lovin’ it. We’ve also been tweaking our household routines, and have

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taken to cooking all of our dinners during the weekend. With lunch portions in the freezer and dinner portions in the fridge, we hardly have to do any cooking during the week – freeing up time to help with homework or take on personal projects. We’re going to keep up with that experiment in December, and then see if we can expand it to two weeks of dinners (some in the freezer) once we free up more freezer space. It was fun working on my annual review together with my manager, and the notes that I kept helped me flesh things out in detail. He encouraged me to apply for the next level of professional qualifications, too, so I’m going to spend some time working on that. I took lots of sketchnotes during a virtual conference I attended, and people liked the sketchnotes. =) It was fun drawing them! I bought an Android phone and learned how to program for it, so I’m looking forward to all sorts of geeking around. I downloaded a few tracking apps, too, and have been experimenting with logging the time I spend on activities. Social: Progress on this front! We sent out our first batch of Christmas cards as a married couple, yay. I’ve also been better at organizing or attending get-togethers with friends. =) I still haven’t sorted out the rest of the wedding pictures. I’m thinking of just burning a copy and mailing the disc home to my parents. Oh, and we watched Wicked again! =) What will December look like? Lots of good work, more productivity experiments, maybe some Android hacking, a few social get-togethers, and onwards to another great year. Reviews: •

Weekly review: Week ending November 7, 2010

Weekly review: Week ending November 14, 2010 Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 136 •

•

Weekly review: Week ending November 19, 2010

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Weekly review: Week ending November 26, 2010

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Monthly review: October 2010

Writing and blogging: •

How much time does it take to blog?

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Where do you find topics to write about? How to have tons of topics

Work •

Saving team members from RSI

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How to use Drush to download and install Drupal modules

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Drupal, SimpleTest, and the node access API

Sketches •

Getting more drawing into my life

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Reinvention: virtual storytelling summit Nov 11 – 22, 2010

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Sketches: Wicked

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Sketchnotes: Why I do them, how I do them, and how you can get started

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Smiling

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Conversations: Stian Håklev

Productivity: •

Experimenting with mornings

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Week beginnings

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Work and life

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Limiting flow

Android: •

I just got an Android phone

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Android: Tracking sleep with Sleep Bot

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Learning Android development by hacking MobileOrg

Other stuff: •

Book: Choose to be happily married: How everyday decisions can lead to lasting love

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Thoughts on speaking

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My reading round-up

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The story of the shoes at our wedding; also, wedding pictures

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Watched Wicked again; thinking about experiences

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What I’m focusing on

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Emacs: Recording ledger entries with org-capture-templates

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Reclaiming

Taho http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21941 December 7, 2010 Categories: filipino, food, philippines, pictur e From Sunday: When I was growing up, we often had taho for breakfast. Manila had many magtataho who roamed the streets each morning, with two aluminum buckets hanging in balance from a pole. One bucket had tofu, and the other had compartments for tapioca pearls and sugar syrup. Yaya would have glasses filled and brought upstairs, where they would wait under crocheted glass-covers for us. Sometimes I lucked out and had two glasses of taho, like when I knew other people had finished breakfast already. Sometimes we had taho for afternoon snacks, too. It was fun watching the vendors work: swiftly scooping the tofu into a glass, spooning tapioca pearls in, swirling the syrup and mixing everything together.

There are no taho vendors in this part of Toronto – or perhaps anywhere in Canada. But we can get silken tofu and tapioca pearls at the Lawrence Supermarket on Black Creek Drive. After five years of only having taho on my trips home, I found a recipe on the Internet and made taho for the first time. It’s simple: a syrup of brown sugar and water, tapioca pearls, and warm silken tofu. It tasted like the quiet mornings of childhood.

Writing about lots of different kinds of things http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21942 December 8, 2010 Categories: blogging, workflow, writing The first change off the bat is to just start writing more varied material and see what sticks, an approach that I used when I first started blogging back in 2005 but discarded when the broad patterns became more clear, and found myself niched into “personal development”. If I can find a way to write on broad topics but remain topically interesting to a broad audience, that would rock.

David Seah, A restatement of purpose (See, even people who’ve been blogging since 2004 are working on figuring this out. =) ) How do you balance varied interests and focused niches? Some people write tightly-focused blogs. They might have many blogs, one blog per

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niche, each almost a silo of content. This is good for advertising, but it’s harder to keep track of everything and make sure all the blogs are active. This is my personal blog. I write about lots of different topics. I use categories to help people sift through the entries for what they want to learn more about, and I make it easy for people to view or subscribe to a few categories I tend to write about a lot. Blog aggregators like Planet Drupal and Planet Emacsen pick up categorized entries from my blog, so I don’t have to worry about being off-topic. The diversity of topics might result in fewer subscribers than, say, a consistent focus on productivity (or code, or whatever) might, but it has also led to all sorts of wonderfully serendipitous conversations from the intersections of interests. I like this. I like being a real person with many facets, not just a focused and filtered personal brand. So, what’s my workflow like? I write as much as I can in my personal notes – anything I want, even things I probably won’t post for decades. I might write about a topic several times, as there’s always more to understand. I publish one post a day – an experiment in limitsthat has been working well for me. When I want to organize a category more clearly, like all of my tips on connecting, I make linking posts, knowledge maps, presentations, or documents. (Maybe an e-book someday!) That’s how I’m currently working. If you write, how do you balance variety and focus? And as a reader, what would make it easier for you to browse this blog and find things you want?

Making the most of the conference hallway track http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21943 December 9, 2010 Categories: conference, connecting, network ing, tips The informal conversations you have in conference corridors in between sessions Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 138

can help you learn a lot more and connect with more people than the planned sessions do. Here are some tips to help you make the most of the hallway track. •

Before the conference Prepare by looking up people’s names and faces. Make a list of people you want to meet at the conference, like the speakers you’re interested in listening to or other participants you want to chat with. Review their names so that you can recognize them when you read people’s nametags. If possible, look up people’s pictures, too, so that you can spot them in a crowd. Make time by managing expectations. The gaps between sessions are NOT the time to check your e-mail or join conference calls. Prepare for the conference by setting your coworkers’ expectations. You’ll get the most out of the conference – and you’ll have the most to bring back – if no one expects you to constantly check e-mail or be available for meetings. Block the time off. Make time by being ruthless with conference agendas. If you really don’t see any sessions you might be interested in, or if the session you’re in turns out to be a waste of time for you, leave and check the hallway track. If no one’s in the hallway, you can slip into anohter session you were interested in. Be easy to find. Plan to make it easy for people to find you so that they can continue interesting conversations with you or introduce you to other people they think you should meet. One of my friends wears a green blazer to conferences, so that he’s easy to find in a crowd. I wear a hat. Make it easy for people to connect.

your conversation? Invite them in and make them part of it. Connect the dots. Introduce people to each other, bring out shared interests, and make people feel comfortable.

Plan to take notes and exchange information. Don’t waste the time you spend talking. Bring a notebook or a PDA that you can use to write quick notes. Bring business cards, too – they’re still the most reliable way to give someone your contact information as a physical reminder to follow up.

Look for homework. Make following up easier for yourself by looking for opportunities to give yourself homework. Find out how you can help the other person. Can you share your conference notes? Can you introduce them to other people? Can you help them with what they’re working on? Do you want to learn more about something they’re doing? Write that down and swap contact information. Now you have a reason for following up.

Set up meetings with people you really want to meet. Reconnecting with old colleagues? Really want to talk to a speaker? Don’t leave it up to chance. Find out where people are and arrange to meet them. •

During the conference

Reinforce the connection. Unless you’re at a huge conference, you’ll probably see many of your new acquaintances a few times. Smile and wave to them. Chat with them and compare notes on the sessions people have attended. Introduce them to other people. Reinforce that connection so that following up is easier.

Give people excuses to talk to you. Make it easy for people to start a conversation with you about a topic of mutual interest. Write keywords on your nametag, or wear a second nametag with keywords on it. Going to a geek conference? Wear a T-shirt related to your project, and people will almost certainly ask you about it. Start the conversation. Yes, it can be scary, but the good news is that conferences give you natural conversation starters. Ask people what session they attended and what they learned from it. Ask people which sessions they’re looking forward to and why. Ask people what they’ve liked the most about the conference so far, and what would make it even better. Ask people what actions they’re planning to take based on what they’ve learned. There’s no need to stick to small talk about the weather or what people do. Expand the circle. If you want to open a conversation so that other people feel less awkward about joining it, don’t stand directly in front of the person you’re talking to; open things up so that you’re standing in an incomplete circle. See people hovering near the edge of

Take breaks if you need them. Conferences can be overwhelming, particularly for introverts. Don’t be ashamed about taking a quiet break somewhere to recharge so that you can make the most of the rest of the day. I like taking a walk outside. I’ve sometimes napped in conference hallways so that I can be in good shape to give a presentation. •

After the conference Review your notes and do your homework. Congrats! You’ve gotten through your conference. Now do the homework you’ve promised to do and follow up with the people you promised to get in touch with.

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Sketchnotes: The Science of Blogging: Dan Zarrella (Hubspot) http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21946 December 9, 2010 Categories: blogging, highlight, sketchnotes

Awesome stuff. Key actions for most blogs: by-lines should list real people, you should have Facebook and Retweet buttons that indicate # of shares, and you should really, really, really get your analytics going.

What if sharing knowledge could make a difference between life and death? http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21947 December 10, 2010 Categories: blogging, knowledge, sharing Are there types of organizations where knowledge sharing is a matter of life and death, and what can we learn from them? Travis Cord and Harold Jarche write about the social components of military training. Travis shares: The formal pilot training course consists mainly of an instructor and student flying a specific lesson which the student learned as much as he could in the 1 hour flight. It is expected that you take the lessons you learned in the air and share it with all your classmates, because there is no way to learn everything in the 1 hour flight. It was never a good thing if one student knew a critical piece of information and the rest of the class didn’t. The saying was always “Cooperate and graduate”.

This kind of knowledge sharing is critical in the field, too. It may be a struggle to get people in conservative organizations to share, but there are clear situations where sharing helps others and helps you. Medicine is similar. Sharing knowledge and effective practices can save lives. In The

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Checklist Manifesto, Atul Gawande writes : … the volume and complexity of knowledge today has exceeded our ability as individuals to properly deliver it to people—consistently, correctly, safely.

He describes how distilling shared knowledge into checklists (that include quick conversations between the surgeon, nurses, and anaesthetists!) can prevent missed steps and coordination errors that might have fatal results. You might think that if you share what you know through a presentation or blog post, you still won’t save a life or make a big difference. I think of it this way: sharing can help me make a bigger difference than I can on my own. Sharing also helps me helps other people make a bigger difference than they can on their own. Who knows, maybe through the magic of compounding knowledge, I can fit two or more “lives” into this one life that I have. Not as dramatic as saving a life, but it can still help build a better world. So my question is: what if sharing knowledge could make a difference between a bigger life and a smaller life? My answer is yes, so I do.

Understanding analytics for personal blogs http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21948 December 10, 2010 Categories: analytics, blogging, highlight, sh aring Dan Zarrella’s talk on the science of blogging (#blogsci; my sketchnotes) was an interesting data-backed analysis of what kinds of behaviour were correlated with views, comments, Facebook shares, and Twitter retweets. It inspired me to take a look at my Google Analytics. Here are some highlights, what I think about them, and what you might look at when you’re reviewing your own statistics.

Browsers and operating systems can give you a clue about what people are like. For the top four browsers people use, non-mainstream browsers are twice as popular as they would be considering the whole Internet. We’re definitely geeky over here. I used to see a lot of browsing from Emacs w3m, which is why I looked into source-ordered stylesheets and I minimized the need for Javascript. Looks like people have shifted (or have changed their user agents). 49% of visits came from people on Microsoft Windows, 24% from Linux, and 19% from Macs. Hi to the iPhone, iPad, Android, iPod, SunOS (really? cool!), Blackberry, *BSD, UNIX, and Symbian, and Playstation users, too! Take a look at your visitor statistics to see what people are using. Then you can decide if the average screen resolution will let you play with a wider layout, if you can take advantage of Flash, and so on. Looking at your most popular pages can tell you what people want to read about. The most popular pages in November weremy blog homepage, a blog post from 2008 on outlining your notes with Org, my Emacs-related posts, and a post on recording ledger entries with orgcapture. Orgmode.org is the top referring site, beating Twitter, Facebook, EmacsWiki, and Drupal.org. Emacs rules. ;) Use your popular pages list to learn more about what you’re currently doing well, and do even better at it. If you’re surprised by the results because your favourite pages aren’t on it, look for ways to make it easier for people to find and link to your content. Your traffic sources tell you if you should focus on links, searches, or direct traffic. On my blog people come in fairly evenly from referring sites, search engines, and direct traffic (28-31% each). Aside from my name, other keyword searches tend to be fairly technical: error messages I’ve written about, and Emacs and

Drupal-related questions. Some people come looking for visual notes, though, so that’s fun. =) Other people might get different results. If you see more searches, you might consider writing more about that topic and working on being easier to link to. If you don’t see a lot of direct traffic to your blog homepage, think about whether your domain is easy to spell. I registered LivingAnAwesomeLife.com and sashachua.com to make it easier for people to get to me, as my name is hard to spell. Domain names are not free, but I think of it as an investment in potential conversations. Do people return regularly? 40% of visitors in the last month have been to this site before, and they spend twice as long on the site than new visitors do (3 minutes instead of 1.5 minutes). I think that’s encouraging. 112 people have been to this site more than 200 times. (Hi mom!) 20% of visits were after another visit on the same day, so I might look into increasing my posting frequency from once a day to twice a day. Do you have regular readers, or do people leave and never come back? Think about whether you meet the promise your site makes. All the search engine optimization tricks in the world don’t matter if people come, get disappointed, and leave. Do people come more often than you post? Consider posting more often, so there’s something fresh for people when they come. Even if you’re writing a personal blog and not doing it as a business, you can learn interesting things from your statistics. Don’t let the numbers stop you from writing about whatever you’re interested in, though. Get that knowledge out of your head and into a form you can work with. And if you’re just starting out and your numbers are small, don’t worry. Everyone starts somewhere. =) Being boring, making missteps, and experimenting with doing better are all part of the process. Add analytics to your blog, and then start using the data to help you experiment!

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Weekly review: Week ending December 10, 2010 http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21949 December 11, 2010 - Categories: weekly I fell off the wagon of early-morning wakeups. Ah, Angry Birds! I’m going to try a few things to make it easier to go to bed, such as using a timer to limit potentially engrossing activities, reminding myself of my reasons for going to bed early and staying up late, and making a list of fun and productive things I could be doing instead of playing. Yes, playing a game that W- and J- are also into is fun for social bonding (“How did you get past that level?”), but there’s so much more awesomeness to be done.

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Work o

[X] Finish blog post for Dec 10 launch

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[X] Help with Slideshare IBM network

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[-] Drupal: More Drupal work – build tricky parts of project M

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[X] Write more posts for conference toolkit [-] Work on PDFA for level 4 IT Specialist

Life o

[-] Design my own grocery list / tracking app for the Android – started sketching, wrote some of it

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Installed timer on Android

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Experimented with tracking time

Plans for next week

From last week’s plans •

Had a wonderful cooking session with the Hattoris

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Work o

[ ] Build tough parts of Project M

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[ ] Continue to refine Project S

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[ ] Meet Anna Dreyzin for Lunch

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[ ] Have PDFA mentoring chat

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[ ] Illustrate networking tips

Relationships o

[ ] Go to gaming night with Linda and Tim

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[ ] Send more cards

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[ ] Buy fleece

Life

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[X] Discuss social media and telecom over lunch

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Helped Jean get started on project S

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Wrote project onboarding documents

XKCD, tic-tac-toe, and fractal goodness

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Helped Elena get started on project M

http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21952 December 11, 2010 - Categories: geek

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Sent ITSC details

Relationships o

[X] Help with homework

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[-] Buy fleece for making throw

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[ ] Work on MobileOrg

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[ ] Experiment with timing

I was delighted to see an analysis of Tic-tactoe on XKCD. Here is a small part of the remarkable graph format XKCD uses to show all the possible outcomes. It shows all the possible moves and the

optimal responses for games that start with X in the top left corner and O in the center. Tic-tac-toe is a good game for computer science. The rules are easy to code. Unlike chess, go, or poker, it’s possible to write a simple program that plays the game perfectly. Games finish in at most nine moves, so it’s easy to test. By considering similar states (starting with X in the top left corner is similar to starting with X in the bottom right corner, and so on), you can learn about the tradeoff between efficiency and complexity. You might start out creating a interface for playing Tic-tac-toe, and then move on to building a system that plays it against you. A few years ago, W- was active in a LEGO group that organized occasional contests. They were thinking about competing to build a robot that could play tic-tac-toe using a marker and paper. I played with the idea of making a similar graph of all the tictac-toe possibilities so that I could encode it into a program, but I never considered anything close to this brilliant format. The compactness of this graph is amazing. The recursive fractal goodness of it all warms the cockles of my geek heart. And yes, on first look, it seems really complicated and confusing, but if you can figure out enough to find the first few steps, everything will fall into place and you’ll be able to follow it all the way down. I love it like I love iterations of the Peano spacefilling curve, the Koch snowflake, and theSierpinski carpet. What I like even more is the fact that the community has been debugging the graph, discussing optimal strategies that start with non-corner moves, sharing complete computer-drawn graphs and other sources for similar diagrams (including books). Ahh, geekery… Image excerpt © 2010 Xkcd – Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial 2.5 License

Happy Holidays, Eh! First edition greeting card giveaway http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21958 December 12, 2010 Categories: drawing, experiment, kaizen, sk etches

Skip my VistaPrint review and go straight to the giveaway Last week, I thought: hey, what would a Canadian Christmas card look like? After a few quick sketches, I ordered a set of thirty cards from Vistaprint. It was an inexpensive experiment that complemented our ongoing project to be more social. Even if they arrived late, I could always use them for holiday cards next year. Who knows, the experiment might even help me get into making geeky greeting cards and other things. After a bit of coupon maximization, the 30card set was CAD 24.47 (with the picture upload and linen upgrade), shipping cost CAD 11.62, and HST was CAD 4.69, for a total of CAD 40.78. This worked out to CAD 1.36 per card (including shipping) and an incremental card cost of CAD 0.82. The box arrived this Saturday, even though I chose the lowest-cost shipping method. Yay! Early Christmas indeed. The print quality is great. The red scarf is vivid. The lines are crisp and clear. The image is centered, too. Next time, I’ll remember to remove the border line before uploading. The linen is a bit lighter-weight than most cardstock I use, but it isn’t floppy, and the pre-creased paper is easy to fold.

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VistaPrint includes a small ad on the back of the card: Exclusively from Vistaprint, www.vistaprint.ca. I think you can pay extra to replace the back with your own design, which presumably includes a blank page.

December 13, 2010 Categories: conference, connecting, highligh t, networking, tips

The free photo Christmas cards I ordered weren’t as awesome, but that could be a combination of low-resolution photo files and me being fascinated by the novelty of seeing my drawings printed in full-colour.

Think about your objectives. What do you want to learn? What will be useful in the long-term? If your organization is sending you to the conference, it’s a good idea to confirm your priorities, objectives, and session selections with your manager, and to be clear on what you should bring back from the conference.

Would I order future designs of greeting cards from Vistaprint? We don’t have a colour printer, so I’m happy to order from them if I have a design that needs colour. Alternatively, I might look into getting an inkjet printer, or trying local print shops. I want to experiment with printing black-and-white designs onto cardstock with our laser printer first, though, because black-and-write drawings can be quite expressive as well. (And I can always break out the crayons!) I can’t wait to send these out. I’m resisting the temptation to redo some of the other cards in my outbox, and to send seconds to people I’ve already sent cards to. Although I’m going to send second cards to my family, so that they can show it off to others. ;) Whee! GIVEAWAY In fact, let’s share the wealth. I’ll give away five cards so you can use them to send to your other friends. Leave a comment on this post suggesting other geeky greeting cards you’d love to see. I’ll pick a random commenter by next Friday (December 17),get the mailing address through e-mail, and send the cards by express mail. No guarantees on when you might get it, but I hope it’ll be in time to send this year! =)

Conference tips: planning your attendance http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21959

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Make the most of your conference by planning which sessions to attend.

Look speakers up. You can often get a sense of how interesting a speaker might be with a quick web search. Does the speaker blog? You’ll get a sense of their speaking style and depth. Does the speaker share presentations on sites like Slideshare? You may even find presentations similar to the one you’re planning to attend, which will help you make better decisions about whether you want to attend the session in person. Consider the alternatives. Do you want to attend a presentation, or can you learn just as effectively from blog posts or articles? Depending on your learning style, you might find yourself fidgeting as a presenter explains something that you could’ve just read. Look for sessions on topics that haven’t been written about yet, or topics where you have plenty of questions. Keep an eye out for sessions that promise plenty of discussion time instead of taking up the entire session with a lecture. You’ll get more from your conference experience if you can ask questions and learn from other people’s questions. Coordinate with others. Do you know other people who are planning to go to the conference? Coordinate your schedule with others so that you can maximize your coverage by exchanging notes. If your coworker is attending a session on one topic, you can attend a different one. Identify Plan Bs. Plan alternative things to do or backup sessions to attend just in

case a session finishes early, is rescheduled, or is a bad fit for you. (See my tips on the hallway track at conferences.) Share your agenda. If you have a blog, consider posting your session choices and objectives there, omitting sensitive information as needed. This might lead to conversations with other people who are interested in the conference, other people who are planning to attend, and speakers who can help you figure out if a session is the right fit for you. Speakers might even modify their sessions based on what they read.

What am I working on being able to do with my Android? •

Retrieve contact data from BBDB: I’m most of the way to being able to show records from the Emacs Big Brother Database in my Android contacts. Mwahaha! I’ve figured out how to parse the records with StringTokenizer, interpret the alists, add information to records, and add records to visible groups. I just want to set up a new account manager for BBDB, and then group the items using mail aliases. It took me a while to piece things together from bits of documentation and tutorials. I’m looking forward to applying for permission to share my BBDB stuff as open source, too.

•

Improve Org interface: I’m also most of the way towards making the MobileOrg capture interface close to the MobileOrg iOS capture interface, which I had been quite happy with. You

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Check my Toodledo tasks: None of the Toodledo clients I’ve tried are as slick as Toodledo for iOS. Who knows, this might just push me back into using Emacs Org to manage everything, with my org-toodledo for syncing to the Web.

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Get better at using a timer: Not quite Pomodoro technique, more like a timer just to remind myself to stop doing something. =) The open source Tea Timer is a decent fit, and I’ve kludged it on my phone to make it easier to add multiples of five minutes.

•

Track my time in more detail: Maybe with task-level tracking, or finer categories for the things I care about?

Android life so far http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21960 December 14, 2010 Categories: android, emacs It’s been three weeks since I bought my Android phone, and I’m having lots of fun hacking it. Here’s what I’m doing with it now: •

Tracking the time I spend on various activities so that I can (a) get better at estimating time for travel and other things, (b) log my work hours, and (c) find out where my time really went. Experimenting with grocery tracking systems so that I can organize my shopping list and track prices. GTracker seems okay, although there are a bunch of features I still want, so I might build my own someday.

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Synchronizing my files with Dropbox, reviewing spreadsheets, and using the files in various applications.

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Mindmapping with ThinkingSpace, which understands Freemind files I’ve downloaded with Dropbox.

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Taking pictures and sharing them on Facebook and Picasa.

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Capturing notes, mostly with MobileOrg. Still tweaking this.

What am I learning? Looking at my preliminary stats from a little over two weeks of tracking, I’m pleasantly surprised by how much time I spent on social interaction – more than I thought I

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did, looking back. I also get a decent amount of walking and other exercise into my schedule. It takes me about 13 minutes to walk to the subway station, and the subway ride to work takes an average of 19 minutes – a little over my estimate of 30 minutes travel time. I’ve been putting that time to good use, listening to podcasts while walking, and writing Christmas cards if I can get a seat.

playing contributes to social bonds with Wand J-.

I might shift our preparation routines around so that I can move more noncomputer things into weekday evenings. I want to do more blogging and Android development in my personal time. Even though I take frequent typing breaks to avoid those pangs of incipient RSI, a long day of working on the computer is probably still a bad idea. ;) Most of our weekend preparations involve laundry or cooking. Both are more efficiently batched on the weekends – cheaper electricity, too. Tidying up and folding laundry can be done as a break that separates work from evenings. Drawing might exercise different muscles (and different parts of my brain). Investing time into training speech recognition might pay off, too, although I get self-conscious about dictating when other people are around.

The game is set up as a long series of puzzles much like the screen above. When you finish a puzzle by destroying all the green pigs, you see one to three stars depending on your score, and you can either replay the level or move on to the next one.

Definitely like my Android.

Android Tasker: Setting time limits for Angry Birds and other timesucks http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21965 December 15, 2010 Categories: android, highlight, screenshot

Angry Birds is our new household obsession. Jplays it on her iPod Touch. W- plays it on his Nokia N8. And me, I caved in and installed it on my Android phone. It’s a physics-based puzzle game with amusingly Rube Goldberg-ish levels. I tell myself that

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Angry Birds is easy to learn and very engaging. I’m often tempted to check out the next puzzle even when I really should be going to bed. I tried using Tea Timer to give myself five-minute limits, but that took too many taps to set up. Solution: Use Tasker to automatically set up a five-minute time limit for Angry Birds. That way, the timing is built in. I created a quick task that started whenever I launched Angry Birds, waited five minutes, and then returned me to the home screen. It’s enough to snap me out of the timesuck haze and remind me what I should be doing, and Here’s how: 1. In Tasker, click on New and set up a profile. For the context, choose Application. Choose the application(s) you want to limit, such as Angry Birds. Click on Done. 2. Click on New Task. You will be prompted for the task name. You can give the task a name if you want, or leave it anonymous. Click OK. 3. Click on the + sign to add a new action. Choose Tasker > Wait and set it to the duration you want. Click on Done. 4. Click on the + sign to add another action. Choose App > Go Home.

This should keep the applications running, but return you to the home screen so that you can decide what to do next. Instead of returning to the home screen, you might want to have Tasker bring up your task list, your calendar, or a note from your saner and more productive self.

30 Angry birds 9999 Angry Birds com.rovio.ka3d.App com.rovio.angrybirds 21 1.0.13m

I really like Tasker. =) It takes some getting used to, but it’s powerful. It’s like being able to defadvice Android applications. defadvice is an Emacs-ism that lets you specify code that runs before, after, or around other code, and it’s one of the reasons why Emacs is amazingly programmable. In addition to context-sensitive settings (like the way I automatically turn WiFi when I leave the house), Tasker lets me specify actions and settings that are active before, after, or around other things on my Android. I wish my apps exposed more functionality to Tasker. Here’s the XML version, if you want to import it. tasker_angry_birds.prf.xml 21 25 5

More MobileOrg hacking on the Android http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21973 December 16, 2010 Categories: android, emacs, org, screenshot I’ve gotten IBM’s permission to contribute my changes back to the MobileOrg project, yay! (Disclaimer: I’m doing this as myself and not as an employee of IBM, and all the usual disclaimers apply.) Code and issuetracking at https://github.com/sachac/mobileorgandroid. Before and after:

There are still bugs to work out, but whee!

Test-driven development and happiness http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21968

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December 17, 2010 Categories: coding, development, drupal, ge ek

From last week’s plans •

Me: Happiness is a test suite that passes. @philiph: Do you practice test-driven development for your happiness? Me: Why, yes, actually, I do. It gives me a tangible sense of accomplishment and minimizes my mouse-clicking. =)

Developers find their own balance of how much project structure works with them. Some people like seat-of-their-pants coding. Others want detailed architecture diagrams. Me, I’m getting the hang of agile development practices, and I really enjoy using them. Test-driven development, for example. Yes, I could just plunge ahead and write Drupal code, and I could test it by clicking on buttons and typing into forms. I don’t particularly like using the mouse or doing repetitive actions, so I write tests for functionality and occasionally for web interaction. Tests also mean that I can check small pieces of functionality before I have to build a web interface. And when something breaks – not if, but when – tests help me narrow down the error.

•

•

It’s so satisfying to see the tests pass, too. There are tests that exercise functionality, and tests that set up test data just the way we like it so that we can demonstrate features or try things out using the web interface. One of my team members showed me a wonderful technique for repeatable, well-structured test data by using a spreadsheet to generate PHP code. I’ve been extending the pattern for other things.

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http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21975 December 18, 2010 - Categories: weekly

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o

[X] Build tough parts of Project M

o

[X] Continue to refine Project S

o

[X] Meet Anna Dreyzin for Lunch

o

[X] Have PDFA mentoring chat

o

[-] Illustrate networking tips

o

Sketched master plan for world domination with IBM

Relationships o

[X] Go to gaming night with Linda and Tim

o

[X] Send more cards

o

[-] Buy fleece – didn’t find nice black or white fleece at Fabricland

o

Baked lasagna and brownies, mmm

Life o

[X] Work on MobileOrg

o

[X] Experiment with timing

o

Tracked most of my activities

o

Built much of a BBDB importer for the Android

Plans for next week

Drupal + Simpletest is awesome. It can’t handle everything, but it makes my Drupal life better. Happy developers write happy code!

Weekly review: Week ending December 18, 2010

Work

Work o

[ ] Work on Project M and Project S

o

[ ] Post year-end reflections

o

[ ] Plan Idea Lab?

o

[ ] Work on networking tips

Relationships o

[ ] Bake more

o

[ ] Send cards

o

[ ] Post year-end update

[ ] Attend family gettogethers

about what I can add or subtract from my day.

o

[ ] Get MobileOrg Android patches into mergeable state

o

[ ] Review and revise plan

Reflecting on life as an experiment, gender gaps, and privilege

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Life

http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21976 December 19, 2010 Categories: highlight, quantified, tracking, women

Time analysis Dec 10 to Dec 16

Sleep

50 hours

~ 7.1 hours per day

Work

47 hours

Some overtime handling non-project requests

Personal

17 hours

Android hacking, etc.

Preparation 16 hours Social

14 hours

Writing

9 hours

New posts (not cc:world mail)

Travel

8 hours

Includes some time wandering around downtown Toronto

Break

2 hours

Exercise

2 hours

~ 4 hours untracked More time spent on formal work this week than last week. Good work, but feeling a bit stretched. Lots of Android hacking during weekends and one of the evenings. I’m happier when I go to bed early and wake up early than when I go to bed late and end up hitting snooze in the morning. Might look into mood tracking so that I can quantify this. It would be a good opportunity to learn more

Is there a gender gap for selfexperimentation? Maybe. I’m not sure. But I can tell you about the things I take for granted that might be making it easier for me than for other people, and how some of the barriers might be correlated with gender. 1. I have the privilege of time. It takes time to reflect. It takes time to track. It takes time to analyze. It takes time to be curious. I know lots of other people struggle with work-life balance issues. W- and I share household responsibilities fairly (if anything, he does more work), so we both have the time to hack. Many women bear a disproportionate burden of household and child-rearing responsibilities, which cuts into the time needed to reflect and experiment. 2. I have the privilege of asking my own questions. It means I can ask my own questions. Many people struggle with questions and goals posed from the outside. People are under pressure to ask themselves: "How can I lose weight?" "How can I get out of debt?" "How can I have more time for myself?" "How can I deal with other people’s expectations?" I’m lucky that I’m not under pressure from these questions, so I can ask my own. Women receive a lot of this self-image policing, wellmeant or not. 3. I have the privilege of experimenting with and building tools. I’ve saved up an opportunity fund for things like my smartphone. If I have an idea for something I want to track, I can prototype something using spreadsheets, customize my Emacs, or develop an

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application for it. Many people aren’t as comfortable with technology as I am, and many women have less exposure to technology for a variety of reasons. 4. I have the privilege of enjoying math. I like tracking my finances and my time. I like analyzing my trends. I like seeing the numbers and the graphs. Many people are uncomfortable with math, and many women haven’t had opportunities to discover how much fun it can be. 5. I have the privilege of a network. I know people (male and female) who geek, who track, who hack. They inspire and encourage me, and sometimes they help me figure things out. Many women aren’t as connected with other technical people. 6. I have the privilege of confidence. It’s not easy being the odd one out, being one of a few women in a room or in an online space. It helps to know I can hold my own, that no one’s going to patronize me because of my gender or perceived inexperience. Many people don’t have that experience, and women run into those subtleties more often than men do. 7. I have the privilege of understanding the big picture. To an outsider looking in, self-tracking or selfquantification might seem like a lot of work for little benefit. Why would anyone want to track when they wake up, or how much they spend on things, or what their mood is? It really helps to understand the bigger picture. For example, I track my finances because I like knowing when I can afford to grab an opportunity, and because I want to make sure my spending lines up with my priorities so that I can live a better life. We geeks often talk about the trees without showing people the forest, so many men and women don’t see why it matters. Knowing the privileges I take for granted, then, I can think about ways to reduce the barriers that other people run into. It’s hard to solve other people’s work-life integration

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issues for them, but it might be possible to inspire people to learn more and grow. It’s hard to fight advertising and culture, but I work on counteracting common messages. It’s hard to get everyone into programming or math, but I might be able to help early adopters with tools and blog posts, and that can ripple out to others. I can’t help everyone get connected or become confident, but I can share stories and help people come in. I’ll periodically lapse into jargon and geeky delight over obscure details, but I can also share my big picture. What privileges do you take for granted when it comes to experimentation, selftracking, technology, or other areas? What can you do to reduce the barriers for others?

Yearly review: 2010 http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22003 December 20, 2010 Categories: sketches, yearly What a year for major life changes! My cat Neko and I officially moved to Canada this year when I got my permanent residency in January. After wrestling my unhappy and rather pointy cat into the soft-shell carrier, I stowed her under the seat in front of me. Not a single meow or yowl out of her during the long flight, although there was a moment in airport security when I had a cat on my head. Neko seems to to be getting along quite fine. She has discovered all the warm spots in the house, and has claimed the top cat position at home even though Luke and Leia are both twice her size. Me, I think I’ve figured out the secret to dealing with winter, too. Flannel pajamas, soft and warm sheets, plenty of thermals, and the renaming of winter to

"baking season". Good thing we biked a lot during the warm months. I got a promotion and a new manager at work. I’m doing a lot of Drupal development again, which is tons of fun. I’m starting to get the hang of this, I think. There are topics that I feel comfortable being "the expert" on in workshops, although really it’s more like doing the background research and being ready to brainstorm and ask questions. J-’s in grade 7. The alternative school she’s going to now is interesting because the subjects are integrated, so she’s learning about, say, world hunger in mathematics and geography and all her other subjects. She’s hitting that growth spurt, too. Her feet are bigger than mine, and she’ll grow into them soon enough. We picked up and deepened a few interests, too. We all learned woodworking this year, building our own Adirondack chairs. (Yes, even J- built one, with our help!) I’m still amazed that I can have a chair that actually fits me, as most lounge chairs are a bit too long. The chairs were a great vantage point for viewing our garden, which has yielded lots of ampalaya(bitter melon) for pinakbet, plenty of herbs for pasta sauce, and peas and cherry tomatoes for snacking. We’re looking forward to growing even more fruits, vegetables and herbs in next year’s garden! W- and I got married in Toronto City Hall. To keep things sane and introvert-friendly, we celebrated with just family and a few practically-family friends. Everyone flew in, and it was fantastic having family gathered around the kitchen table. The poor photographer was probably intimidated by all these people with better cameras and tons of photography experience, but he survived. Tita Gay was a force of nature, practically bringing along a wedding in a suitcase. She surprised us with bubbles and wedding favours. She and my

sister Kathy catered the whole thing, and they conspired with Ching and John to spring a wedding cake on us. We ate pretty much constantly during the week my family spent in Canada, and really good food too. We just finished the very last lumpia from our stash from Tita Gay and are looking forward to making more. Inspired by how my mom and dad built these great friendships over time and distance, we’ve been working on being more social: giving home-made kitchen gifts, writing Christmas cards and letters (hi!), and going to and organizing get-togethers. It’s surprisingly fun! We’re looking forward to learning more about building relationships over time. What a year! 2011 promises to be amazing. We’re looking forward to celebrating Kathy and John’s wedding in the Netherlands and the Philippines. We’re also looking forward to learning more about woodworking and getting even more out of our garden. Me, I can’t wait to do more writing, drawing, and programming, and I’m excited about opportunities to develop my communication and consulting skills. Please help us with our project of building relationships. =) How was your year? What are you looking forward to in the next one? What are your stories? You can find our past yearly updates at http://sachachua.com/blog/category/yea rly . Looking forward to hearing from you! Updates from last year: In last year’s learning plan, I said that my key priorities were:

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1. Share as much as I can at work and in life. I want to share as much as possible so that other people can build on that foundation. At work, this means creating enablement material, blogging, organizing the shared content, and helping communities and individuals. 2. Learn more about drawing, animation, and video. I want to get even better at thinking things through and communicating what I’m learning. The better I get at sharing, the more I can help people learn. 3. Continue living an awesome life! I can’t wait to explore the experiment opportunities that are sure to come up. I’m looking forward to further building my relationships with W- and J-, family, friends, communities, and the world, too. And I’m definitely looking forward to bringing my cat to Canada as I complete the permanent residency process. I miss her! =) Although I didn’t get as much into animation and video as I hoped to, I’ve had fun learning about everything else, and I think I’ll continue to focus on writing, drawing, sharing, and connecting in 2011. =) Links: •

Yearly: 2009, 2008

•

Monthly reviews: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, Septe mber, October, November

Code and consulting http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22009 December 21, 2010 - Categories: geek @bugsbane observed that I seem to be much happier when I’m deep in code. It’s not as simple as that, and that’s worth exploring.

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I’m more confident with code then with consulting. I’m in my element. If I were a fish, code would be water. Consulting is still intimidating. I’m starting to be able to ask and answer the right questions, but there’s so much more to learn. And Ican’tdon’t yet know how to write unit tests for an organizational process to make sure I’ve got things right. (Thanks for the reminder, Torsten!) I could probably build a life with awesome code and do well. There is much to learn there too, and it’s a great way to make a scalable difference. I have many role models who show that this works. But I’m curious about what better collaboration looks like, and what people and organizations could do if we experimented with better ways to work together. If I want to work towards that, consulting skills may be a big help. There are lots of paths to this destination, and many possible journeys are worthwhile. I could focus on development and build apps, letting others focus on consulting. I could learn about consulting and work with people on implementation. I could switch between one or the other, or bring in something completely new. But on a list of things that I would do if I had all the time, money, and energy I wanted, coding is there, and consulting isn’t. I enjoy learning about systems. I enjoy building tools. I enjoy hacking. I enjoy answering questions and giving people things that they can use to make their lives better. I know that consulting might be more generally useful skill, enabling me to make bigger changes, but coding lets me make a difference on my own, too. With consulting, you need the cooperation of many others. With code, you can learn more and make things happen almost at your convenience. I’m so tempted to focus on coding, which I enjoy and which I do well, instead of investing the time in developing consulting skills, which seem a lot fuzzier and harder to

learn. But consulting is worth a try, particularly if I can alternate it with projects that give me geek happiness.

bzr, we now have a way to pull updates using M-x vc-update (also known as M-x vc-pull). There’s also a M-x vcmerge command. Looking forward to git support for both of these.

What’s coming up in Emacs 24

Miscellaneous

http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22004 December 21, 2010 Categories: emacs, highlight UPDATE: Emacs 24 has not yet been released. Developers can get it from the version control system (git/master, for example). Alpha/nightly builds are available for Windows and Mac OSX. This is still a bleeding-edge version. Expect much breakage, even from popular packages like BBDB. See C-h n (view-emacs-news) for all the details. Some highlights:

Emacs packages M-x list-packages to browse and install

packages, which are enabled by default. If you’ve installed a number of packages but you don’t want them to all load at startup, customize package-load-list. Not that many packages yet, but I’m sure people will add more.

Emacs themes and user-interface changes M-x customize-themes lets you choose

color themes or create your own. There have also been a number of user-interface cleanups (scrollbars on the right, smoother antialiasing, that sort of stuff), but nothing radical.

Bidirectional support Big one for international support.

Clipboards x-select-enabled-clipboard is now true

by default, which means Emacs newbies in Linux won’t get confused by an inability to copy and paste between applications.

Version control With the increasing popularity of distributed version control systems such as

There is a create-animated-image function. Interesting.

More reflections on code and consulting http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22010 December 22, 2010 Categories: career, consulting, geek, reflecti on, work I catch myself talking and writing about consulting as if that’s the way for me to help organizations be more collaborative, as opposed to coding, which is productive and fun but which might have limited effect in terms of changing most people’s experiences of a company. In a way, I’m right. Other people are more likely to seek out and listen to consultants for ideas that they wouldn’t ask an IT specialist or web developer about, and the experiences and skills of consulting would help me understand the complexities better. Sometimes, when I’m frustrated by internal hurdles to organizational flexibility, I envy other people’s roles. For example, Anna Dreyzin, Luis Suarez, and Rawn Shah get to work on improving IBM and sharing insights full-time. Isn’t that awesome? People tell me I help make a difference too, but it feels small compared to the difference I’d like to make. But then there’s the joy of coding, the rightness of it, the value of it. Who’s to say that I’m not helping improve the organization’s capabilities, even from here? If I connect, collaborate, and share what I’m learning along the way, then I show what a possible future could be for organizations and the people in them. My work might not directly advance the goal of helping people work together better, but my work might be towards another goal I haven’t recognized

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and articulated, and there’s value in indirect contributions towards collaboration. Maybe the model I’ve been using to think about the fit of work has been hiding something from me. Seeing fit as the vector projection of the organization’s objectives and of mine, to see what value we can capture and what value we waste, I can see the directness of contribution, but neither the value of indirect contributions nor the multiplicity of goals. This realization matters to me because it hints at another goal, which might be to help people make a difference from wherever they are in the organization. That’s one of the things social media changes. I have a soapbox that isn’t circumscribed by my role. In the process of reconciling my love of development with my urge to more directly work on organizational culture, I’m learning things that can help me talk to and about the everyday evangelists of collaboration: those whose roles might not directly relate to helping their organizations be more collaborative, but who transform the way they and other people work by experimentation and example. And as Torsten Wagner pointed out in email (thanks!), bringing the tools and insights of one field to another (say, programming to consulting) can lead to something awesome and even revolutionary. So I can guiltlessly enjoy building systems and mentoring developers, confident that this also fits into my big picture. =)

Using Simpletest and spreadsheets to populate Drupal with data http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22011 December 23, 2010 Categories: drupal, geek, highlight, simplete st SCHEDULED: 2010-12-23 Thu 08:00 One of the challenges of testing views or custom Drupal code is generating the right Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 154

kind of data. Devel can generate hundreds of random nodes, but you might need more than that. For example, on our project, we need to have test users, their content profiles, and nodes that follow a certain node reference structure. By creating a class that extends DrupalWebTestCase and provides convenience functions on top of drupalCreateNode, we can easily create test data as part of our test cases. Copying the code from drupalCreateUser and making our own version that uses roles and content profiles helps us set up the right users, too. We wanted our tests and changes to use the same database tables used by the web interface, so we overrode the setUp methods to use the actual database. This not only makes the tests faster, it also makes them more useful for the web testing and demos. Many of our test cases create the data they need. However, some test cases need even more complex structures that are similar from one test to another. Instead of creating and recreating them on each test, I’ve written another test case for populating the data. For example, PopulateTestUsers sets up about 30 users with different characteristics. I can then write other tests that assume PopulateTestUsers has been run and the sample users and nodes are available. How do we generate the users and nodes without getting tangled in lots of PHP? Here’s a technique I picked up from Stuart Robertson, an IT architect with lots of good ideas. He fills in a spreadsheet with the values he wants test data to have. He then uses other columns to generate PHP that set the individual fields, and another column that generates PHP based on the generated PHP. For example, a formula to set a CCK value might look like this: =IF(B3<>"",CONCATENATE("'field_widget _doohickey' => array(array('value' => '",B3,"')),"),"")

which turns a value of “foo” in B3 to

'field_widget_doohickey' => array(array('value' => 'foo'))

users and nodes in little time. Well worth investing time to learn and use. SCHEDULED: 2010-12-23 Thu 08:00

which is then something you can pass to the node creation function. To figure out the syntax for other node attributes, use var_dump or your favourite debugging tool to look at a node that has the information you want.

Reflections on mentoring new developers in Drupal

You might have the final generation like this:

UPDATE: Fixed formatting. Thanks, Brock!

=CONCATENATE("$this>createWidget('",A3,"',array(",E3,")) ;")

where createWidget is a function you’ve defined to make things more readable. It would be a wrapper around drupalCreateNode that sets the type and does other things. This spreadsheet makes it so much easier for us to work with our test data because we can refer to it to find test data matching criteria when designing our tests or trying things out using the web interface. Adding new test items is easy: just fill in the rows, copy the equations, and then copy the generated code and paste it into the test case. Naming tip: Using a different naming convention makes it easy for me to use our custom-coded Drush testre command (run tests matching a regular expression) to run just the tests that populate data, or just the tests that assume data is there. Likewise, test cases that use SimpleTest’s web client ($this->get, etc.) have a different naming convention so that I can avoid running these slower tests when I just want to do a quick check. Simpletest is a powerful tool. I’ve used it on every Drupal project I’ve worked on, even when I was the only one writing tests. Combined with a spreadsheet for generating structured test data, it’s a great help for development and demonstration, because we can set up or refresh complicated sets of

http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22012 December 24, 2010 Categories: drupal, geek, mentoring

Two developers recently joined our team. Johnny has worked with Drupal before, and needs a little help getting used to Drupal 6 and Views 2. Elena is an IT architect who is new to both IBM and Drupal. She needs a lot more help getting started, because she doesn’t know what things are called yet and she isn’t yet accustomed to the Drupal way of doing things. For my part, I work on Workflow, node access, and other requirements that require deep Drupal hacking. I’m learning to check on Elena more frequently and to help her break down tasks. Otherwise, she might get lost or stuck, because she might not yet know where things are or whether she’s getting closer to an answer. I’ve made good progress on the things we’ve planned for this iteration, and I can invest the time into helping our new team members be more productive and learn more effectively. Both Elena and Johnny have set up their debuggers in Eclipse, so they don’t have to figure out the right places to insert var_dumps. Instead, they can trace through the relevant pieces of code, learning more about the structures and the flow of Drupal websites along the way. Although I occasionally struggle to explain things I take for granted, I enjoy helping someone who’s new to an area. It helps me remember the things people need to learn. For example, Elena’s work on surveys requires her to learn about nodes, getting values from the$_REQUEST, loading nodes, working with CCK, altering forms, adding Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 155

new form fields using the Form API, and using Drupal functions for links and text. We broke down the task into the following steps:

•

1. Create a CCK node type. 2. Use hook_form_alter to add some text to the form. 3. Load a node and fill the information in the form.

•

Relationships o

[x] Bake more

o

[X] Send cards

o

[X] Post year-end update

o

[X] Attend family gettogethers

o

Made gift for Micah

Life

4. Get the extra node ID from the URL.

o

5. Adapt form_alter for the case where you’re editing the node.

[-] Get MobileOrg Android patches into mergeable state

o

[X] Review and revise plan

o

Started on blog analysis (10 years!)

We’ve managed our planning well, so I don’t feel overcommitted or stretched with the additional mentoring I’ve taken on. The time is an investment that will pay off both in the short-term as well as the long-term. If I can slow down and write more, then the investment can benefit to other people too.

Plans for next week •

I like this. It’s certainly much better than leaving developers to flounder and work things out on their own, and I learn a lot in the process of helping. Maybe that will be one of my specialties: projects where other people are learning a lot on the fly.

Weekly review: Week ending December 24, 2010

•

http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22013 December 25, 2010 - Categories: weekly

From last week’s plans •

•

Work

Work o

[] Work on Project M: Make sure users have permissions to do things

o

[] Work on Project S: Clean things up

o

[] Idea Lab: Process responses

o

[] Illustrate networking tips

Relationships o

[] Hike or bike with W-

o

[] Write more cards

Life o

[] Get MobileOrg Android patches into mergeable state

o

[] Review and revise plan, outline 2011

[X] Plan Idea Lab?

o

[] Tidy up

o

[-] Work on networking tips

o

o

Helped Johnny Patterson with Calendar and calendaradditems

[] Tidy up my computer, too: backup, reorganize, clean

o

[] Plan garden

o

[X] Work on Project M and Project S

o

[-] Post year-end reflections

o

o

Talked to Pawan Khera about Web 2.0 lecture, referred him to Rawn Shah

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 156

Time analysis Dec 18 to Dec 24

Sleep

52 hours

~ 7 hours per day

Work

47 hours

More overtime working on functionality and preparing my IDE

Personal 18 hours

Hacking around

Social

17 hours

Includes Christmas party

7 hours

I’ve been using some of this for writing time, too

Travel

which, despite its name, actually overrides the items displayed. Yourhook_calendar_add_items($view) sh ould return an array of an array of items, which is also confusing, because the receiving function (template_preprocess_calendar in calend ar/theme/theme.inc) doesn’t actually do anything with the outermost array, or indeed with multiple entries – it simply takes the last array and sets the items to it. Each item should be something like this:

Routines 5.5 hours

$item = new stdClass(); $item->node_title = t('Hello world'); $item->calendar_start_date = $date; $item->calendar_end_date = $date; $items[] = $item;

Exercise 5.5 hours

and at the end, you do this:

Writing

Your hook_calendar_add_items gets the $view, but not the existing items, so you’ll have to recalculate things using $view->result. Remember: if you return anything, your results will replace the items instead of being added to them.

3 hours

11 trips on the subway. I should pull back a little on work. This holiday week is a good time to reset that. I really want to be able to deliver a good, working system the client can build on, so it’s easy to get lost in working on this. I’ll shift the time to more writing and more preparation.

Drupal fixes: Modifying the entries in Calendar http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22014 December 26, 2010 Categories: drupal, geek The Drupal Calendar module is great. You can show view results in a decent-looking calendar easily. However, if you want to show more than what’s provided out of the box, you need to do a bit of undocumented and confusing hacking. Let’s say that instead of displaying the items, you want to display the number of items. You need to implementhook_calendar_add_items,

return array($items);

Because hook_calendar_add_items doesn’t actually do what it advertises, there are probably bugs in this area of code, and this behaviour might change in future releases of Calendar. Be careful when using it. However, it seems to be the easiest way to change Calendar behavior. Caveat developer. Also useful: http://drupal.org/node/412418 2010-12-24 Fri 10:19

The great washing machine adventure http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22016 December 27, 2010 Categories: highlight, life There’s this odd little holiday called Boxing Day right after Christmas. In Canada, it seems to be primarily celebrated through sales. It’s a mad rush I’ve managed to avoid for the past few years, but this time, we

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ventured forth. Our washing machine needed fixing, and we thought we’d replace it on our terms instead of waiting for it to give. W- spent yesterday afternoon taking apart the old washing machine. The bearings were shot and the shaft was pitted, so most of the drum assembly would need to be replaced. After checking for parts online, we calculated that it would cost more to repair the old Frigidaire than to buy a new washer. The dryer had been making weird noises, too, so we figured we’d check out the Boxing Day sales. With three cats and weekly laundry loads, we knew we wanted a front-loading washing machine that could handle duvets. For front-loading washers with more than 3.5 cubic feet capacity, the washing machine industry had standardized on widths of 27″. Problem: the basement stairs offered 26″ of space – and that was after W- removed the door and knocked all the trim off. We seriously contemplated removing drywall, but it would only get us a little bit more space. Still not enough. Then we looked at real estate listings. Briefly. (For want of a nail…) Then we went back to looking at washing machines and figuring out which ones we might be able to disassemble enough to get them downstairs. It came down to a choice between a Samsung and an LG one. The Samsung washing machine had better features, but we didn’t know if we could disassemble it far enough. We found a service manual for a similar LG washing machine with part diagrams and troubleshooting guides, so we ended up choosing that instead. Future Shop didn’t have the machines in store and we wanted to get the washing machine before their delivery date of January 8, so we decided to pick up the machines at the delivery center in Caledon. The machines wouldn’t fit in the Subaru. We looked into renting a van from the

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nearby Home Depot, but the service clerk gave W- a hard time about renting the van for the plywood he bought as a pretext. So we rented a cargo van from U-Haul, picked up the washer and dryer, and brought them home. We weren’t sure if we could muscle the machines into the house on our own, so I had baked some thank-you brownies just in case. With a dolly and J-’s help, though, we managed it. The front door of the washing machine got dinged in the process because we forgot to take the door catch off (and to orient it for possible scratching), but it’s okay. It’s just stuff. Now we’re disassembling it to see if we can get it to fit down the narrow staircase. I cut myself on one of those razor-sharp internal edges (who knew!), but W- patched me up with a Band-aid. I found the service manual for our model (including disassembly instructions!) so that should help us find out about the screws that are hiding. This isn’t how I saw myself using the Christmas break (I was thinking about organizing and drawing), but it’s good work, and this is a better time to do it than a hectic weekend. I can always draw after work. Laundry, however, is laundry. Here’s to hoping that everything will still work when we put it back together again! 2010-12-27 Mon 06:21

Ten lessons learned from disassembling and rebuilding our washing machine http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22017 December 28, 2010 Categories: geek, highlight, love, wThis wasn’t how I thought I’d spend the holidays. I planned to write, draw, and reorganize the house and my digital life. Instead, I found myself deep in washing machine parts, disassembling the LG WM2140CW so that the 27" washer could fit through our 26" staircase. It was the first time I’d disassembled anything brand-new,

much less a major appliance. Here’s what I learned. 1. A great relationship transforms hard work into lots of fun. W- and I worked on disassembling and reassembling that washing machine all afternoon and into quite a bit of the evening. Because I was there, he didn’t have to do it alone. Because he was there, I not only discovered more of W-’s amazing skills, but developed my own. We worked more efficiently together than he could have on his own: another pair of hands to keep things steady or pass a screwdriver, another set of eyes to spot the spring holding the gasket in place, another person to find a free online copy service manual for our exact model (you wouldn’t believe how many ad-spam and link-spam sites there are for service manuals)… W- and I joked that even if our gamble failed and the washing machine didn’t turn back on, it would’ve been worth it as the tuition for skills and the prevention of future couples’ therapy costs. ;) So it was exercise AND social time AND preparation time, and now I need to find a better time-tracking system that takes into account perfect days like that when everything comes together. Not multitasking, but combination. Even if you don’t have a significant other who can turn things like this into wonderful bonding moments, you might be able to share your hard work with friends. For example, I once held an IKEA assembly party, which was lots of fun and which resulted in a kitted-out apartment. =) 2. Before you move large things, look for anything that might scratch it, and disassemble more than you think you need. Orient it based on risky areas, too. We forgot to take off the door holder (part 1), and it scraped and dented the front part of the washer instead of the back (part 2). Learning from our mistake, we disassembled it and took the dryer through without any problems. W- hammered the dent out. The scratches can be touched up with paint (yay white washers, no colour-

matching like the red ones would’ve required), but it would’ve been nice to avoid that in the first place. 3. Don’t be afraid of taking things apart. Particularly when you’re working with an electrical engineer who gained experience by taking apart the previous washing machine, and when you’ve got enough of an emergency fund so that messing up is annoying but not catastrophic. I now know way more about washing machines than I learned from How It’s Made or from the exploded parts diagrams. 4. Service manuals rock. I can understand why they’re not just part of the package (after all, most consumers won’t need them). I’m glad we found them, though. Although we were willing to pay a little extra for the features of the Samsung washer, we found the LG service manual for free, and that decided it for us. ‘Course, now that I’ve done some more digging, I’ve found a Maytag Technical Institute service manual for a Samsung washing machine we could probably have used, but ah well. =) I like the LG service manual a bit more because it uses clear diagrams, although the photos in the other one are good for general orientation. Retailers or sales representatives who sell appliances could keep a copy of the service manual so that they can answer questions from people about how far the machines can be disassembled in order to get it through a narrow opening, although I suppose that’s a very niche thing. ;) The service manual’s disassembly guide pointed out screws we might’ve taken a long time to find, the spring holding the bellows closed, and the sequence in which to take off the panels. It didn’t go as far as removing the drum, but we figured that part out easily. 5. Watch out for sharp bits on the interiors of machines. Yes, the washing machine was all rounded corners and smiles on the outside, but boy, there were some sharp edges on the inside. Move carefully.

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6. Keep track of your screws by screwing them into the empty places. Make rebuilding easier by returning screws to the proper location after detaching whatever needs to be detached. It’s hard to label everything correctly or to remember where each type of screws go. Let the machine remember for you. If you don’t rattle things around too much and the screws are fairly secure, you probably won’t lose any screws when you move the machine. 7. Use magnetic screw-holders to keep your other screws together. If you can’t leave the screw in, you can keep it in a magnetic screw-holder. This is generally a good idea, and almost a necessity if you have cats who like chasing loose things around. I’m looking at you, Luke. 8. Keep screws from old projects. If you have left-over screws from other projects (say, reassembled items that mysteriously had more screws than you started with, or optional parts you didn’t use), keep them organized. You never know when you’ll need to replace a screw after searching under the couch and all the other usual Bermuda triangles for cat toys. 9. Resist the urge to snap the plastic bits. If connectors appear to be stuck together, it could be some kind of latch you can find and open instead of snapping various plastic bits until the connectors can be eased apart. ;) Patience. 10. Celebrate. If you can’t celebrate successfully rebuilding a washing machine and hearing the sweet, sweet sounds of it turning on without any leaks or explosions, what can you celebrate? Even though we had lots of food in the fridge (such as a turkey we’ve been chipping away at since Friday), we headed out to Pho Hung for some delicious bowls of pho. Perfect wrapup for a perfect day. See pictures on Picasa

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Blogging and conference networking tips http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22019 December 29, 2010 Categories: blogging, conference, connectin g, highlight, networking, networkingforgeek s, tips I promised to put together tips for networking at conferences. While sketching out my ideas, I realized that my conference experiences have probably been very different from other people’s. I had a blog before I started going to conferences, and it was perfectly natural for me to use that blog to share my conference notes. I’ve also spoken at most conferences I’ve attended, which really makes it easier to connect with other conference attendees. All the other tips I can share (custom nametags, easy-tospot outfits, business cards, notebooks, etc.) are icing on the cake. If I can get people to make the big change to writing or speaking (or both!), that will do far more for the value they get from conferences than any little tip I can share about where to wear the nametag. (On your upper right, if possible, near your shoulder, so that people can see it when shaking hands; barring that, close to your neck, even if it looks a little weird, so that people can see it in their peripheral vision instead of having to obviously glance down.) Blogging and speaking are probably the two most intimidating things I can ask people to do in this context. Speaking seems like the harder one. There are only so many slots, and people have such hang-ups around public speaking. But we’ve also terrified most people out of posting on the Internet because of all this fuss about personal branding and the infinite memory of search engines. I’m very annoyed about this, because I think so many “social media experts” have done us all a disservice by telling people they have to present a perfect image. But this is what I have to work with. People might like a few connecting tips (conference conversation openers: don’t go for the deadend “what do you do?” that requires

creativity or coincidence to get the conversation going; instead, use conversations as a chance to learn about other sessions and other people’s experiences, and create excuses to follow up by promising to share notes or follow up on ideas). How do I get people to the point where they can make more radical changes, such as starting a blog – even if it’s only for conference-related things? Here is a list of conference-related blog post ideas:

write down what inspired you or made you think, what questions you want to explore, and what you want to do based on what you learned. •

What have you learned from the conversations you’ve been having? What are the other sessions you want to look into later? What experiences have other attendees shared? What actions have you promised for following up?

•

Who else has shared their conference notes? Link to them and share what you’re learning from them.

•

What’s working well for this conference? What could make it even better?

Before the conference: •

•

What sessions are you planning to attend? Why? What do you hope to learn? Post titles, session descriptions, speakers, and your thoughts. Who are the speakers? Have they shared any presentations or blog posts related to what you want to learn? Post links and what you’ve learned. This might prompt you to revise your plans.

•

Can you find other attendees? Link to their plans and connect with them beforehand.

•

How can you share your thoughts after the session? Share any plans for post-conference presentations or conference reports.

•

Is there a backchannel for connecting with other conference attendees, like a Twitter hashtag you can search for and use? What are the best ways of discussing what’s going on?

During the conference: •

What have you learned from the sessions you’ve attended? What were the key points, and what are your next actions? You can do a few bullet points or paragraphs per session, and organize your posts by day. If you have detailed notes, you might post one entry per session. You don’t have to take notes on everything, but

After the conference: •

Overall, what did you learn from the conference? What were the most important insights and actions you took away?

•

What value did you get from the conference? Was it worth the time and effort you invested into it? If your conference attendance was sponsored by an organization, what value did that organization receive? (This is a good thing to include in your post-conference report so that you can increase your chances of attending future conferences. ;) )

•

What actions are you planning to take based on what you’ve learned?

•

Who else has shared conferencerelated resources? Link to them and share what you’re learning.

•

How did your post-conference sharing go? Share your consolidated report or your presentation notes.

•

What new sessions would you like to attend at the next conference? What would it take for you to learn and present those sessions yourself?

•

What were the results of the insights and actions you had because of the conference? What new things did

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 161

you learn when you put them into practice? •

Now that you’ve acted on what you’ve learned from the conference, what new value has your conference attendance given you and your organization?

•

What are you learning from your ongoing conversations with the people you met at the conference?

•

What worked well for you? How would you make your next conference attendance even more worthwhile?

See, there are tons of things to write about that don’t involve trivial things. I can’t think of anything that’s a better fit than a blog. Twitter and tumblelogs are a start, but they’re not going to cut it. Too short, too dispersed. Facebook updates are too protected. You want these notes to be picked up by search engines so that you can connect with attendees, speakers, organizers, people from your organization, people who are interested in the topic, and so on. A blog is an excellent way to do this, and it’s easy to start one on a site like WordPress.com. You might have two sets of notes: a fuller set of notes for personal or internal use, and a set of notes without confidential information that you can share on your blog. Bonus: If you share your notes through blog posts, you’ve got an instant excuse for following up with anyone you met at the conference. Something like “Hi! Just a quick note to say that it was great to see you at CONFERENCE NAME. In case you find these useful, here are my notes from the conference: LINK.” And if they like what you’ve written and they want to keep in touch, you don’t have to rely on the fragility of e-mail communications that can stop if one person forgets or doesn’t reply. People can subscribe to your blog and keep up with your future updates, even if the next post is

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only when you share your plans for attending another conference. See? Blogging and conferences make perfect sense. But I still have to figure out how to get people past that instant reaction of “Oh, I could never do that, I’m not a blogger, I’m not a public sort of person, I don’t have the time to do this,” and it’s hard because I’ve never had to get over that hump myself. Yes, there was a point in my life when I wasn’t a blogger, and I’m still not a very extroverted sort of person. But because conferences are a weird combination of energizing and draining for me, and because I can’t bear to waste all that time listening without doing and learning and sharing, and because I hate imposing on conference contacts by trying to build the relationship through personalized e-mails instead of just starting it off with a gift of notes and a low-key way to stay in touch if they want to… I can’t help blogging and sharing. I’ve promised to put together this collection of tips on connecting at conferences. I’m going to keep trying to figure out how to explain this blogging thing, because I want people to learn a lot from conferences and make great connections. Onward!

Thinking about time tracking http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22020 December 30, 2010 Categories: geek, quantified One of the insights I liked from “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” was on getting more out of your time by combining different needs or goals. Instead of keeping exercise and socializing separate, for example, you can combine them by jogging with a friend. It’s like the way the negotiation book “Getting to Yes” reminds me to focus on interests rather than positions, opening up creative possibilities that combine different aspects. A lot of what I do is like that: interests that support more than one goal, activities that build on each other. The straightforward

time tracking I did with Time Recording (Android) allows me to capture one category for each time segment, but it doesn’t capture those subtleties. Time to take a step back and think: •

What questions do I want to ask about how I want to spend my time?

•

How do I want to shift the time I spend?

Here are some things I’m working on learning: •

•

How much time does it take me to accomplish common tasks, such as getting ready for work, getting to work, or doing my daily routines? Am I spending too much time on formal work activities or other tasks? Can I shift the time to things that are important but may not be urgent?

•

How early can I push my wake-up time while staying in sync with other people?

•

Am I getting enough exercise each week? How can I build in more consistent exercises for strength?

•

How much discretionary time do I have? Am I happy with the way I spend it? Can I get more value from that time?

•

What are the little things that make me happy or unhappy?

OPTIONS: 1. Continue to use Time Recording. Use the tasks to track the primary category and the notes to track any secondary or tertiary categories. Use fancy spreadsheet wizardry to generate reports. 2. Find another time tracker that keeps separate category timers and exports data as CSV. Possibly write my own numbercrunching program. 3. Track only one thing at time.

I like the first option the most, because it works with my existing system and it’s flexible. I may write a short program for doing a little bit more analysis once my reporting settles down, because I’d like to see how often I get to creatively combine goals. Option 2 is more work, and option 3 won’t let me easily see other shifts while I’m tracking. So Time Recording it is, but with a slightly different way to use it.

Thinking about housework http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22021 December 31, 2010 Categories: life, productivity I’ve been thinking about the ideas in the book “168 Hours”, which strongly recommends personal outsourcing as a way of freeing up time that you could spend on goals or core competencies. On one hand, I agree with it: delegation can help a lot. On the other hand, there’s something here I need to explore further. I’m not sold on the idea that maximizing life is the way to go, or that this is the best fit for us. It helps that I can compare the experiences. I grew up with maids and a cook. Laundry was whisked away, ironed and folded. There was a hot buffet at lunch in the company dining room, and dinner was sometimes business, sometimes family-style. My mom cooked a bit, and she taught us how to wash dishes. In the Philippines, having household staff isn’t that big a deal, and it really helped my parents with their business. In Canada, Wand I do all the work of maintaining the house. It’s not that bad, actually. Fifteen minutes of exercise bringing the laundry down and sorting it; half an hour to fold the laundry, which is really social time + movie time; a good weekend afternoon’s work preparing a month of lunches and a week of dinners, also social time; half an hour of tidying up each day and more organization during the weekends, which is really a working meditation.

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We could trim our “preparation time” further by ordering groceries and household goods online instead of heading out, I suppose, or hiring out laundry or cooking. I’ll try keeping a more detailed time diary to see if I can identify big chunks of time that I can recover. What would I spend the extra time on? Writing and coding, probably. Spending more time with W-. Learning how to drive, draw, or play the piano. Sewing, so I can learn how to make things. Cooking. (Yes, I return to that; it’s fun.) But it’s not a straightforward money-fortime swap. It’s not just a matter of paying ~$25/hour to reclaim time for personal use. It’s really a time-for-time swap, because money is time, too. I’d be trading time now for time later, considering after-tax expenses now versus the compounding growth of investments that might enable early retirement or more opportunities. The things I’d want to do with that time – writing, for example – mature with age and experience. Squeezing out more discretionary time to work on writing might result in improvements, but a lot of it is really just a matter of living more and learning more so that I can share more. Doing things ourselves isn’t drudgework, either. We can save, learn, exercise, and build our relationship, all at the same time. If I ever run into tasks I truly despise, I might outsource those, but W- and I are easy-going and have so far managed well. (In fact, cooking all that food leaves me with a warm glow of accomplishment and productivity, and I learn a lot along the way.) I don’t feel starved for time. I feel that there’s enough time to do the things I want to do – perhaps not all of them, but that teaches me to prioritize and be efficient. And of course, there’s my resistance to lifestyle inflation. ;) The longer I can live a simple life, the more I can resist the hedonic treadmill and sock away savings I won’t even miss.

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I might dust off my experiments with virtual assistance and try out cooking and cleaning services. Some frugal bloggers I read have said wonderful things about housekeeping. We might see if it’s a good fit. Shifting time around to have more discretionary time would be nice, but am I close to the point of diminishing returns considering the other factors, or are there other things I might discover if I keep at the experiment? Hmm…. Have you experimented with this? What have you done with your newly-freed-up time? Or how have you made household work even more productive?

January 2011

Weekly review: Week ending December 31, 2010 http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22022 January 1, 2011 - Categories: weekly

From last week’s plans •

•

•

Work o

[X] Work on Project M: Make sure users have permissions to do things

o

[X] Work on Project S: Clean things up

o

[X] Idea Lab: Process responses

o

[-] Illustrate networking tips

Relationships o

[-] Hike or bike with W-

o

[-] Write more cards

o

Had Maira’s family over

o

Had New Year’s Eve dinner with W-’s family

Life o

[-] Get MobileOrg Android patches into mergeable state

o

[X] Review and revise plan, outline 2011

o

[X] Tidy up

o

[-] Tidy up my computer, too: backup, reorganize, clean

o

[X] Plan garden

Plans for next week •

•

Work o

[] Work on Project M: Documentation, tidying up

o

[] Work on Project S: Clean things up

o

[] Idea Lab: Run Idea Lab

o

[] Illustrate networking tips

Relationships o

•

[] Look into cooking or cleaning assistance

Life o

[] Get well

o

[] Hire a virtual assistant again

Time analysis Dec 25 to December 31 Time totals messed up because I didn’t track as much over the holidays, but here’s a guesstimate:

Sleep

53 hours

~ 7 hours per day

Preparation

23 hours

Including disassembling washer and dryer

Work

19 hours

Routines

16 hours

Social

8 hours

Took some sick time

Writing

2.5 hours

Travel

2 hours

Break

2 hours

Exercise

1.25 hours

Learning

0.75 hours

Driving practice

0.75 hours

Untracked

39.75 hours

I’ve been using some of this for writing time, too

Tweaking my time-tracking… A terrible cold has put a crimp in my productivity and my holiday celebrations, but W- has been totally awesome at taking care of me. He’s been shaking his finger at me for having insisted on spending Friday working when I should have been in bed. “You’ve been working feverishly,” he said, “and now you’ve come down with a fever.” That explains why I was shivering underneath all those covers. Fortunately, it’s nothing W- hasn’t dealt with before, and aspirin soon sorted that out. (Thank you, mdern medicine.) Definitely time to break out the ginger tea. (Hello, salabat!)

Sick days http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22023 January 2, 2011 - Categories: life, sketches Still sick. Flush with a fever, congested with a cough and a cold, voiceless, and all around under the weather. Not the best of ways to spend a holiday, but a worse way to spend a workweek, so this is okay by comparison.

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To soothe an irritated throat, in a mug, combine: •

Juice of half a lemon

•

Tablespoon of honey

•

Hot water

(Do not give honey to babies under a year old.) W- has kept me on a steady infusion of chicken soup, cuddles, and Pride and Prejudice – several different versions, in fact. I like BBC’s Lizzie and Lost in Austen’s Darcy the most. Heresy, I know. Colin Firth in the BBC’s 1995 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice is the definitive Darcy, of course. Lost in Austen’s Fitzwilliam Darcy (Elliot Cowan) does more of a transformation from utterly disagreeable to totally awesome. Ginger tea (salabat): The powdered form is very convenient, of course, but you can make up a batch by crushing ginger and boiling it it in water. Add brown sugar to sweeten it. You can’t do much with a cold except to try to not make it any worse. Definitely a good time for relaxing.

Momentum and holidays http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22026 January 3, 2011 Categories: life, productivity, sick Monday: I don’t do “relaxing holidays” very well. My idea of a perfect holiday is one where I’m all wrung out at the end and ready to go back to work. Building a chair. Bottling a gazillion jars of jam. Taking apart and rebuilding appliances. Hanging out with family and friends. (If you’ve met them, you know what a whirlwind they can be.) This New Year’s holiday must have been the quietest holiday I’ve had in a while. It’s

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weird! I’m half-dreading the abrupt change in pace when I get back to work tomorrow, particularly as I’ve managed to commit myself to some rather high-intensity days coming up. (Fortunately, the world works in mysterious ways. It could have been crazier, but it isn’t.) It’s hard to write about anything other than being sick when you’re sick. Actually, this is not true. I snuck in some work this afternoon and I made a lot of progress writing a developer’s guide for the system we’re building. It’s hard for me to write about life or productivity or connecting at conferences when my nose is stuffed, but I can talk about node access records and workflow transitions, no problem. Maybe that’s what I should do next time I’m sick and feeling lethargic. Never mind the mid-day naps. A good round of coding or documenting is a great antidote for the doldrums. Being sick is great for all sorts of realizations, actually. I have the free time to do whatever I want to do (within reason). I don’t have the energy or the inclination to do many things. Granted, a lot of that is because of the cold, but if I don’t get around to doing something even though I have an unencumbered day, what are the chances of my getting around to it with an extra half hour? Here’s what I’m learning: Writing and coding boost my energy, and are a great way to cheer myself up if I’m feeling unproductive. Playing the piano is fun, too. I’m slowly getting back into it (compensating for the time I couldn’t speak?). I like the slow development of fluency. Plus, my playing nudges J-, and she ends up teaching herself a bit too. I’ve been teaching myself Schumann’s “Von fremden Ländern und Menschen” (the easy version

from http://www.freescores.com/download-sheetmusic.php?pdf=8153) because of its appearance in McDull, but it’s also a pleasure re-encountering old friends like Für Elise. Drawing and preparing for presentations are pretty low on my radar. I should think about how to tweak that. Fortunately, I’d written a number of blog posts from when I was presenting more, so I can remember what it’s like. Sewing has a bit more of an activation cost than it could. When work settles down again, I’ll set aside some time to see if I can fix this. Tomorrow is going to be a busy day. I still have a bit of a cough and some sniffles, and I’ll probably work from home, but my voice is back and I can focus on work. (More easily on work than on other things, even.)

Sketches: If you want to make the most of your next conference, you should blog http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22029 January 4, 2011 Categories: blogging, highlight, sketches, tip s

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Marking up books http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22030 January 5, 2011 Categories: book, highlight, reading I’ve been rereading Adler and van Doren’s “How to Read a Book”. I always get tripped up by the advice to mark up one’s books (p48-51). I’ve experimented with this on and off – wild sallies into the world of underlined passages and marks in the margins of books that I own — but I always recoil, returning to furtively dog-eared pages (and even this, when done to library books, earns me a teasing frown from W-). But Adler and van Doren spend two and a half pages arguing for the value of writing in one’s books and giving tips on how to do it effectively. Their reasons: •

It keeps you awake and concentrating.

•

It makes your reading active.

•

It helps you remember the thoughts of the author.

Maybe I can get the same benefits by writing my thoughts down elsewhere, but not on the printed pages. Ratchet up my book-blogging, perhaps, as a life-long project to build a personal, digital syntopicon? W- has started a fresh new professional notebook for 2011. In this, notebook he writes down ideas and lessons from his work and from the books he reads. He’s been taking notes on another book I’ve browsed and dogeared – Visual Meetings. I sporadically keep paper notebooks. They can be much more convenient than typing on a laptop, especially when one is propping a book open to the right page. Perhaps the tablet will make it easier to keep my handwritten notes? What would my ideal book notes system be like? Decades later, I’d like to be able to say – ah, if you’re interested in that, here are

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the books I’ve read about it, and this is how they’re connected to each other, and the arguments they made, and how my personal experiences have supported or contradicted them, and what I’ve done with what I learned from those books, and what else I could add… Margin notes can’t contain these, but maybe I’ll figure out my own system over time – searchable, hyperlinked, backed-up, personal, and social. In the meantime, I keep my notes in an Org text file, organized in an outline, tagged with keywords, and (occasionally) published on my blog. What’s your system for book notes? ISBN:0-671-21280-X How to Read a Book Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren

Moving my book notes online http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22033 January 6, 2011 Categories: emacs, reading I moved more of my book notes online, reasoning that a braindump is better than occasional whining about the lack of a good system. ;) Fellow Emacs geeks who use Org will probably get the most out of this, as they can open it in Emacs and work with the hierarchy, but someday I may figure out a neat little hyperlinked solution that will make it easy for everyone else. Or I’ll pull more and more of these posts into my blog, where they’ll be individually linkable and commentable. Compare: http://sachachua.com/blog/categ ory/book/ , which wins points for being graphical and highlighted and commentfriendly, but loses topical organization, overview, search, and offline access. It’s a start. Here’s what’s working well: CAPTURE: Using Org + Remember to capture book notes uses the same process as my other notes. Diagrams can be scanned in and attached to files. I used to scan and OCR dogeared pages, but typing or dictating

them in is okay, and it helps me review. The capture part of my process is fantastic. ORGANIZATION: org-refile or copying and pasting are easy, so this part of the process is fine. REVIEW: I might schedule times to refresh my memory of certain books. I can do that with Org agenda fairly easily. SHARING: Here’s where the process breaks down a little. org2blog-post-subtree is great, and I’ve used that a number of times to post the relevant subtree of book notes. That adds the notes as entries in my blog, storing the post ID in my Org file so that I can get back to the post afterwards. org2blog also makes it easy to edit entries, hooray. Once it’s in my blog, people can use the categories to find other entries. However, my current blog layout doesn’t highlight the categories, and it’s not easy to browse the different book-related categories. Maybe it’s worth tweaking a “reading” or “book” category layout page. Aha! How’s http://sachachua.com/blog/booknotes/ ? It’s a manually-edited list at the top (thanks, Org!), followed by an automatically-generated index. I’ll gradually move my other notes into this system – text notes in my Org file and blog entries for linkability/commentability. Progress…

Emacs, BBDB, and getting your contacts on the Android or iPhone http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22034 January 7, 2011 Categories: android, bbdb, emacs Want your Emacs BBDB contacts on your Android or iPhone? The easiest way I’ve found is to export your contacts to CSV, then import them into something like Google Contacts. You can export your BBDB contacts using bbdb-tooutlook.el, which is available in the BBDB Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 169

package in the bits/ directory. Download bbdb-to-outlook.el from Sourceforge if you can’t find it in your BBDB directory. To use:

From last week’s plans •

Work

1. Load bbdb-to-outlook.el and use M-x eval-buffer to load the code.

o

[X] Work on Project M: Documentation, tidying up

2. Use M-x bbdb to open your BBDB records, and search for . to show all the records. Alternatively, search for a subset of your records.

o

[X] Work on Project S: Clean things up

o

[X] Idea Lab: Run Idea Lab

o

[X] Illustrate networking tips

o

Learned how to hack Drupal messaging and notifications

o

Found out my Lotusphere 2011 session got accepted

o

Had team lunch with Jennifer Nolan, Johnny Patterson and Elena Neroslavskaya

3. Type O to run bbdb-to-outlook and choose the file. Tada! Step one done. Review the file and delete anything you don’t want to include. To import the contacts into Google Contacts, go to Google Mail and click on Contacts. Click on Import and choose your file. After some time and some fiddling, you can get that synchronized onto your Android or iPhone.

•

I haven’t thought about syncing, but I’m trying to keep my BBDB as The Master File for Contacts anyway, as it’s so much more flexible than any other contact database I’ve tried. (Although gist.com is pretty cool and I do like the Android’s merging of photos, contact info, and updates…) There was some work on synchronizing BBDB with the Palm, so that might be a possibility. •

Enjoy!

Weekly review: Week ending January 7, 2011

Relationships o

[-] Look into cooking or cleaning assistance

o

Watched Bride and Prejudice with W- and J- (hooray library DVDs)

o

Read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls

o

… and in general, enjoyed all sorts of things Austen

Life o

[X] Get well

o

[X] Hire a virtual assistant again

o

Watched Bottle Shock, also from the library – that was fun

o

Started teaching myself the piano again

o

Sketched my goals for 2011.

o

Posted my book notes and improved my book workflow.

o

Posted a Kijiji ad looking for a piano teacher

http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22035 January 8, 2011 - Categories: weekly Relearning the piano. It’s interesting. I can remember playing better than this. Now I’m re-learning how to play these pieces, going, “Ahh. That feels familiar. And then there should be this bit over here – yes, that’s right.” On the other hand, I read notes a little bit faster now than I did before. Getting well. A persistent cough and some sniffles, but definitely better than last week.

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Plans for next week •

•

so that I wouldn’t get others sick

5.9 hours

Jan 1-3 had hole-y records, but Jan 4 – 7 was all tracked

Work o

[] Finish up on project S

o

[] Start testing project M

o

[] Fix my Lotus Notes

o

[] Look into Lotusphere

Untracked

Once my categories settle down, I might do some between-week analysis…

Relationships o

o •

hours

[] Get around to hosting a get-together, maybe a game night [] Plan May trip

Life o

[] Get back into sewing: work on black dress

o

[] Post more book notes

Time analysis Sleep

Work Break Writing

73.6 hours

~ 11 hours per day, thanks to good weekends

33.5 hours

A little overtime, but it’s good

22 hours

Recuperating

Outsourceable 4 hours

Social

1.5 hours

Travel

0.5

J- answered, “Pride and Prejudice.” Simultaneous jaw drop from uncle and aunt, grins from W- and me. “Pride and Prejudice?! Are you reading that for school or for fun?”

We’ve been on an entire Pride and Prejudice kick this past week. We watched the 2005 movie, the Lost in Austen miniseries, Bride and Prejudice (the Bollywood version; quite a few laughs); read “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls” (the prequel to “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies”); quoted and joked and improvised.

5.5 hours

2.5 hours

We celebrated J-’s birthday at Korean Grill House last night. During a lull in the conversation as people digested the vast quantities of food we’d just consumed, she took out her iPod and started flipping through an e-book.

“For fun!”

12 hours

Exercise

http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22037 January 9, 2011 - Categories: life

Her uncle asked, “What are you reading?”

Piano practice 7 hours Routines

Snippets from life

Yes, we’re geeks. —

Worked from home

We spent a very agreeable afternoon in the kitchen. We chopped up vanilla beans for making extract. I made pandesal. Wdiscovered a good combination: egg tarts (3 whole eggs + 3 extra egg yolks), coconut

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macaroons (4 egg whites), and oatmeal cookies (the recipe we use involves 2 eggs and an extra egg yolk). All in all, nine eggs and no extra parts languishing in ramekins in the fridge. Of course, now we will need to find coworkers and friends willing to take some of these baked goods off our hands (and away from our waistlines)… Life is good.

Work on the business from the outside, not in it – Book: Effortless entrepreneur

business owners find it hard to make that jump. How can people practice this now? After all, even if you work for a company, you work for yourself, too. It’s kinda like what Trent (The Simple Dollar) writes about in “Who is your real boss? Some perspectives on career success”: My belief is this: the people that succeed are the people who invest that energy and time and patience and thought a little differently. What do I mean? •

Option A: Let’s say you go to work each day and leave it all on the table. When you leave work, you’re so drained you can barely make it home. You sit on the couch, vegetate for a while, eat dinner, vegetate a bit more, then hit the sack. Or perhaps you’re a parent and you leave work with just enough energy to get through your parental requirements in the evening.

•

Option B: On the other hand, let’s say you go to work and intentionally keep half of your energy for yourself. You give the company 50% of the gas in your tank. After you leave, you spend that 50% improving yourself. You go to night classes. You go to the gym. You go to the library. You go to meetings of professional growth groups, like Toastmasters.

http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22038 January 10, 2011 Categories: book, entrepreneurship, reading One of the key points of “Effortless entrepreneur” is that you need to create systems and delegate work so that you can free up time to improve your business. p38. Work on the business from the outside, not in it. A great entrepreneur builds systems to run the business as if it were a machine, and stands over it instead of being part of its inner workings. A business owner should sell that machine to clients and perfect its functionality, but not sit in the gear room. How many times have you seen a local store owner answering phones, doing paperwork, and assisting customers all at once? This business owner works IN the business, not ON it, and hasn’t identified the different positions within his business, such as receptionist, salesperson, and cashier. Instead, he does all those jobs himself. Creating manuals and training maps for each position from the get-go forces you to evaluate what needs to be done and helps identify tasks you might not think of right away. That can mean fewer unpleasant surprises down the road. At first, you’ll likely have to work IN your business and do most, if not all, of the work for each position. That’s common when you start out. But create a system that allows you to just work ON it as soon as possible. Once that system is operative, a business gains its true value.

Work on your business, not just in it. It makes sense, although lots of small-

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Well, maybe not 50%. If you can do your work with 80% effort, and then invest the rest into building skills and processes, then it’s like a savvy entrepreneur investing time into building systems, not just fighting fires. Sometimes it’s more like a full-energy work and 20% extra, but I enjoy the work and the learning along the way. At work, I’m learning about the way we work on projects: the processes, the templates, the questions and conversations. I like making systems, processes, and tools, so I’m learning how to improve things. I’m working on applying this idea of “working on the business, not just in it” in personal life as well. Hence the household optimizations: batch cooking and a chest

freezer, tweaked routines, relationshipbuilding. Capacity-building for future adventures. I’m looking forward to do even better. At work, I want to to learn more about Drupal 7, consulting, and the processes we have. I’m also looking forward to writing up more notes and coaching others. In the rest of life, I’d like to experiment with delegating again, invest time into becoming a better writer, and continue building wonderful relationships. How about you? How can you not only work in your business, but on it? Effortless entrepreneur: Work smart, play hard, make millions 2010 Nick Friedman and Omar Soliman Three Rivers Press ISBN 978-0-307-58799-2

Today I attended a call with my resource deployment manager. Her role includes matching people with projects. She shared some tips on how to make the most of our tools, some things we might invest time in if we have some downtime between projects, and upcoming projects we might be interested in. Here are some things I’m looking forward to doing if I have some time between this and my next project: •

As I wrap up on this project and get ready for future ones, I can’t help but think how working in IBM Global Business Services helps me learn about different parts of consulting. We can help with proposals for new projects. We have an internal marketplace that lists openings and required skills. We can submit our resumes and set up interviews. We need to do a little marketing on our own, and we always have to work on keeping our skills up to date.

Compile case studies

o

Estimate Drupal projects

o

Prototype?

write up and share my Drupal notes

•

Create and compile assets (Drupal case studies, Web 2.0 overviews, etc.)

•

Learn more about Drupal 7, AJAX, information architecture, mobile development, project management, and other interesting things – discuss priorities with manager

•

Maybe work on a conventional skill set – J2EE?

•

Work on paperwork: project assessments, certification, etc.

•

Improve the Lotus Connections toolkit

Wrapping up projects and preparing for the next one

We’re in the final phases of our two Drupal projects. We’re writing test scripts, fixing bugs, and loading production data. In a week or two, we’ll finalize the source code and save a copy of the database. I’ve really liked working on these projects, and I’m looking forward to working on similar things in the future.

o

•

Book: Effortless entrepreneur 2011-01-10 Mon 19:27

http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22039 January 11, 2011 Categories: career, ibm, work

Help write proposals for Drupal and Web 2.0 projects

Just like independent consultants need to always be building their pipeline, I should see if I can balance my future project work so that I’m always working on the pipeline for the next thing: helping out with bids, learning a new skill, and so on. Fun!

Three tips for cheerful chores http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22040 January 12, 2011 Categories: life, productivity

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I’ve been taking a closer look at household tasks that I could outsource or simplify. Groceries, laundry, cleaning, cooking… … but really, they don’t take that much time, and I probably get more value from doing them than I would from a few extra hours of writing or work. Here are three tips I’ve found that help me enjoy what I’m doing. Maybe you’ll find them useful, too! Many hands make fun work. Turn the chore into an excuse to build a relationship. For example, W- and I love cooking. Our batch-cooking marathons are an excuse to break out the knives, chopping boards, and stacks of food containers, and we have great conversations while slicing and dicing. We also enjoy the walk to the supermarket (which often involves a side-trip to the library, and you know how I enjoy that). Folding laundry is a good time to watch a movie (borrowed from the aforementioned library), which leads to more shared experiences and in-jokes, which helps cultivate a relationship. Turn chores into social bonding time, and the time will fly. Use the time to reflect and improve. Cooking is a great time to learn new recipes or improve my skills. Tidying up reminds me where things are and gives me an opportunity to simplify. Spend a little extra time making things better for the next time you do something. Eliminate or delegate things that really sap your energy. Speaking of cats: scooping out four litter boxes was not fun. So W- did a bit of research and ordered a Litter Robot. The spaceship-like contraption now commands a corner of the living room (next to the toolchest, actually). It’s been worth it not just for convenience, but also for entertainment value. Our cat Luke loves to watch it, but when he steps on it for a closer look, the Litter Robot stops rotating. This confuses him and always makes me laugh. We could cut back on savings and hire some of these tasks out – but we’d probably

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replace them with time spent taking long walks together, learning new skills, or improving the flow of life. Which is basically what we would’ve been paying someone else to handle, so we might as well do it ourselves. What do you do to make chores cheerful? 2011-01-12 Wed 19:38

Book: Let’s Get Real About Money: Profit from the Habits of the Best Personal Finance Managers http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22041 January 13, 2011 - Categories: book, finance Let’s Get Real About Money: Profit from the Habits of the Best Personal Finance Managers (c) 2008 Eric Tyson FT Press, New Jersey ISBN: 978-0-13-234161-5 My expectations were low. The subtitle “Profit from the Habits of the Best Personal Finance Managers” made me think of celebrity-focused “secrets”-type books with more fluff than content. But hey, it was on the library bookshelf, so I picked it up anyway. I’ve found all sorts of gems in unlikely books, and I’ve skimmed my way through seemingly-solid books that proved to be disappointments. It’s easy to take risks on books when they’re free. ;) I was pleasantly surprised by what I found. The book has a lot of practical advice on money and relationships, family, raising savvy kids, spending plans, frugality, investment, insurance, and learning more. Well worth a read, and possibly one of my new recommendations in this area. I’ve been thinking about whether I’ve got the right balance of saving for near-term expenses, investing for the future, and enjoying the present. The book has an entire chapter on this (pp.103 to 112). I particularly like the section on reflecting on

whether you’re postponing achievable dreams, and the quote: It is very well to be thrifty, but don’t amass a hoard of regrets. •

French poet, Charles D’Orleans (quoted on p.118 of Let’s Get Real About Money)

I’m reminded of Ramit Sethi’s story about how some people set aside money for meeting interesting people. Might be a fun experiment, although perhaps not to that scale. Ditto for learning and experimentation, which I do explicitly save for, and which has paid off quite a bit in terms of interesting life experiences. So I’m not doing too badly in this area, and I’m continuing to learn. There are useful tips on p131 on keeping saving in proper perspective. Here’s the summary: •

Understand the standard of living that can be provided by the assets you’ve already accumulated.

•

Get smart about investing your money.

•

Go on a news diet.

•

Regularly buy something that you historically have viewed as frivolous but which you can truly afford.

•

Buy more gifts for the people you love.

•

Go easier on yourself and family when it comes to everyday expenses.

This year’s probably going to be pretty easy to plan for, actually, because we’ve got the two big trips planned (Netherlands and the Philippines), and we might look into improving the insulation of the house. We’re also saving up for other adventures over the next year or two. Big rocks. It’s easy to plan other things around those: perhaps piano lessons, sewing lessons, gardening experiments, and woodworking projects. Anyway… “Let’s Get Real About Money” is a good read. Try the self-test in front, and check out the chapters on insurance and managing risks. Have fun!

2011-01-13 Thu 21:22

13,705 steps and counting http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22042 January 14, 2011 Categories: android, exercise, health, life, tr acking 13,705 steps in two and a half hours of leisurely walks spread out over one day, encompassing three not-entirely-necessary strolls involving two libraries, a drugstore, and one supermarket. But it was worth it: several bags of books, a package of dental floss, a pantry restocked with instant noodles, and the satisfaction of seeing what it’s like to walk the recommended 12,000 steps. I headed out for the second half of my walk right after we wrapped up a project. The euphoria was making me buzz too much to write, so I decided to take good long walk. The streets here are wide and well-lit, and our neighbourhood is wonderfully walkable. The largest park in Toronto is a few blocks from our house, although I more often walk to the library and to Bloor West Village. Near work, underground passages let me wander about while hiding from winter. I enjoy walking. Even when winter’s giving me the sniffles, it’s still fun. Sometimes I think of Elizabeth Bennet walking from Longbourn to Netherfield (three miles, or a mile less than what I walked today), except in better shoes and more comfortable clothes (but not anywhere near as awesome a hat). Tracking has certainly influenced my behaviour. I’ve taken to using Walttend Lite to track my steps because it can correctly track on my Google Nexus One even when the screen is off. None of the other pedometer apps I tried could do that, so Walttend it is. Once I was out there, it was easy to talk myself into going just a little bit further so that I could check off my 12,000 goal. After all, when you’ve gotten to the vicinity of 10k with another trip to the

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library (and another armful of books), you might as well keep going.

o

[] Wrap up project M

o

[] Document case studies

Do you use a pedometer to track your walks? What are you learning?

o

[] Write about lessons learned

Photo (c) 2009 Tambako the Jaguar – Creative Commons Attribution No Derivatives

o

[] Apply to open seats

o

[] Follow up on Lotusphere

o

[] Draw networking guide for conferences

Weekly review: Week ending January 14, 2011

o

[] Chat with Vikram Kalkat regarding Web 2.0

http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22043 January 15, 2011 - Categories: weekly

•

Relationships

From last week’s plans •

•

•

Work

[] Have get-together

o

[] Help with J-’s Little Big Planet party

o

[X] Finish up on project S

o

[X] Start testing project M

o

[X] Fix my Lotus Notes

o

[] Get through busy week

o

[X] Look into Lotusphere

o

[] Post more book notes!

o

Outlined talk on learning on the network

Relationships

•

Life

Time analysis Category

Hours Notes

Sleep

61.1

Average of 8.7 hours – typically around 8 hours during weekday, and longer during weekend Lots of good work

o

[X] Get around to hosting a get-together, maybe a game night

o

[-] Plan May trip – read lots of guidebooks

Work

40.7

o

Picked up microscope slides for J-

Routines

18.4

o

Helped J- with homework on bullying/harrassment

Break

16.5

Relaxed weekend

Social

13.2

Spent time with Maira, and celebrated J-’s birthday

Life o

[] Get back into sewing: work on black dress – postponed

o

[X] Post more book notes

Writing

7.2

o

Enjoyed a week of pandesal

Exercise

6.6

o

Achieved small goal of walking 12k steps in one day

Travel

2.8

Learning

0.9

Plans for next week •

o

Work

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 176

Outsourceable 0.3

Long walks

Piano

Mostly tracked, yay! I took the TTC 9 times, using tokens. Next week, I plan to stick more closely to my alarm settings (no hitting snooze!) and gradually reduce my sleep back to 7 hours a day. Still recovering from a cold – I cough less now, but I still have the sniffles. I also want to break “Routines” down into more detail, so I can see where my time goes.

Emacs 24 and the package manager http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22045 January 15, 2011 - Categories: emacs By default, the Emacs 24 package manager (M-x package-list-packages) points to a small repository of Emacs packages. Want more? Phil Hagelberg added support for multiple repositories to package.el. There’s the original ELPA at http://tromey.com/elpa, and there’s a community package source called Marmalade that anyone can upload packages to. Add this to your ~/.emacs and evaluate it: ;; Add the original Emacs Lisp Package Archive (add-to-list 'package-archives '("elpa" . "http://tromey.com/elpa/")) ;; Add the user-contributed repository (add-to-list 'package-archives '("marmalade" . "http://marmaladerepo.org/packages/"))

You should then be able to call M-x package-list-packages to browse and install Emacs packages. If you don’t have Emacs 24 yet (and you might want to wait for the official release if you use things like BBDB), Phil suggests downloadingpackage.el from the Emacs development tree. This version includes support for multiple repositories.

For even more Emacs goodness outside the package system, check out the Emacs mirror, which lists more than 2,900 packages available through Git. Thanks to: •

Phil Hagelberg for the post about ELPA

•

Jonas Bernoulli for the post about emacsmirror

2011-01-15 Sat 10:31

Switched my Fido plan http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22046 January 16, 2011 - Categories: phone I switched my Fido plan to the $35 “Unlimited Joy” plan they were advertising. For $3.70 less than I was paying for my current plan (not considering taxes), I could make the following changes:

Old plan

New plan

No included outgoing text messages

Unlimited texts to Canada and international numbers

1000 evening/weekend minutes

Unlimited evenings and weekends

100 anytime minutes

150 anytime minutes

Last month, I used 6.5 minutes on evenings/weekends and 5 minutes during the day. I do like the security of knowing incoming calls aren’t going to cost me a lot, though, especially as I sometimes use IBM’s VOIP systems to call people and have that connect to my cellphone. I sent seven text messages, which cost me $1.05 (compared to text messages in the Philippines! =( ). I made one long-distance call of less than a minute. It would have cost me eight dollars in prorated charges to switch to the plan immediately, but I’m fine with waiting until the next billing cycle.

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What do I plan to do with the changes? The change I care about the most involves unlimited texting, which will probably lead to lots of Twitter updates while I’m out and about, and more frequent contact with family and friends in the Philippines. =) I can probably get a cheaper or more featureful plan with WIND Mobile, but since I can easily switch my Fido plan without locking myself into another contract, I don’t mind changing to a better Fido deal while considering the decision to switch. Over the holidays, WIND advertised a pretty sweet unlimited voice/text/data plan for $40, but I’ll wait until the reviews settle down a bit. They seem to have coverage and customer service challenges. I’ll keep an eye out for future promos, though. My Google Nexus One is compatible with the WIND network (thanks to W-’s wonderful research), so that should be okay. Tip: Check your cellphone plan – your choices might have improved!

Batch baking for fun and awesomeness http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22047 January 17, 2011 - Categories: cooking

What can you do with two pans of lasagna? You can keep half a pan in the fridge, divide up the other half into individual portions, and share the other pan with family or friends. We took the second pan to Morgan and Cathy’s along with the potato-rosemary rolls I baked yesterday, and we had an excellent dinner. =) Yesterday’s batch of potato-rosemary bread worked out really well. I formed them as individual rolls instead of a loaf. Loaves are more space-efficient, but rolls are easier to share and eat. It was satisfying to see the bread rise properly, especially as my Friday batch of pandesal didn’t rise at all. (I’m switching to a pandesal recipe that calls for proofing the yeast, as the recipe I’ve written down doesn’t have that step.) I enjoy baking. It’s even more efficient when we’ve got several recipes lined up to use similar oven temperatures, because then the oven can keep on going. This is the first time I’ve done a double batch of lasagna, and I liked the flexibility of sharing or freezing the second pan. I think I’ll do that with future batches, too. I’m planning to gradually clear the freezer of most of the raw ingredients we’ve stored so that we can make more room for individual portions. We like stocking up on frozen fruit, raw shrimp, and other ingredients when they’re on sale, but there’s something to be said about turning fresh ingredients into convenient frozen meals. Maybe someday we might get a bigger chest freezer. We’re certainly making the most of ours! Here are some of our freezer favourites. Oven Stove • Lasagna • Chili

It takes just a little bit more time to make two pans of lasagna instead of one, and it works out to be slightly cheaper per serving, too. (90 minutes of preparation including making pasta sauce and cleaning up; < $2 dollars per serving for us.) Batch cooking is a great way to save time and money.

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 178

•

Baked beans

•

Curry

•

Roast turkey

•

Rice and beans

•

Roast vegetables

•

Pinakbet

•

Adobo

•

Roast chicken

•

Pasta sauce

•

Shepherd’s pie

•

Meatballs

•

Turkey pot pie / chicken pot pie

•

Shake-and-bake chicken

Do you cook in batches and freeze individual portions? What are your favourites?

Sketchnotes: Gretchen Rubin, Happiness Project book tour http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22049 January 17, 2011 Categories: happiness, highlight, sketches, s ketchnotes Full-size version of my sketch notes from Gretchen Rubin’s talk and book signing of the Happiness Project, Chapters Indigo Bay/Bloor Toronto, January 17. (You can also click on the image for the large version.)

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 179

Of recipes and memories http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22052 January 18, 2011 - Categories: cooking

sometimes we’ll swap recipes if the produce or other ingredients don’t look good. I keep lists in my Org outline too, so that I can easily review our batch cooking recipes or my list of recipes to try. There are so many blank pages to go. Looking forward to filling them up!

Fun and rational economic theory: reflections on the book “The Logic of Life” Kevin Waite asks, “What format do you use to keep your recipes? Do you use Freemind or Org Mode?” W- and I write good recipes down in a notebook. Using paper instead of the computer means that both of us can easily add new recipes, we can draw or use graphical shortcuts, and we don’t have to worry so much about spilling things on our notes. Using a bound notebook instead of individual recipe cards means that we don’t have to worry about losing any favourites. W- started out by keeping it as a food diary, complete with luscious descriptions and fountain-pen ink. Now it’s more of a recipe stash, but even the sparse notes evoke sensations. Because cooking is such a part of our lives, each page brings lots of memories. Even the blank pages near the end tell a story through the splatter from the time that the pressure cooker exploded when W- was cooking too large a batch of beans. We get many of our recipes from the cookbooks in the house, and we frequently refer to the two editions we have of the Joy of Cooking. We also turn to the Internet for other recipes, like the recipe for home-made vanilla extract. We copy recipes into our notebook for ease of reference and recall. Flipping through the pages reminds us of things we should cook again. W- and I also keep electronic lists and copies of some recipes, just in case we need to change our plans at the supermarket. We almost always shop with a grocery list, but

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http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22053 January 19, 2011 Categories: book, fun, highlight, life, reflecti on What do you do for fun? Why do you do it? Do you want to shift your patterns? I was surprised to hear Gretchen Rubin (The Happiness Project) say at her book talk that most grown-ups don’t know what they would do for fun. I can easily list things I enjoy doing. I can probably even explain why I enjoy doing them and how I want to change or improve. Sometimes knowing what you would do for fun isn’t easy. It forces you to confront the fact that you do not do some things for fun, that the intrinsic enjoyment of it is dormant or gone. For example, I realized that making or giving presentations had dropped off the list of things I enjoy doing just because. Are there activities you would like to enjoy more? What about activities you’d like to enjoy less? I’m like that too. Rational economic theory to the rescue! If you look at what you enjoy doing, think about the costs and incentives of different activities, and work on ways to change those costs and incentives, you can make it easier for you to do the kinds of things you want to do and avoid the things you don’t. In this blog post, I’m going to see if this geeky way of looking at fun actually works. The relevant quote from The Logic of Life: The Rational Economics of an Irrational World ( Tim Harford, 2008)

p4. Rational people respond to trade-offs and to incentives. When the costs and benefits of something change, people change their behavior. Rational people think – not always consciously – about the future as well as the present as they try to anticipate likely consequences of their actions in an uncertain world.

cost of reading by planning to ask questions and write book notes for books that come in. I can increase the benefits of reading by sharing book notes and life experiments. I can shift to higher-value reading (new subjects, question-driven research).

What do you do? What are your behaviours? What are the benefits? Let’s take a look at fun. Here’s what I do (roughly in order of preference), why I do them, and what I’d like to change.

Baking or cooking. I enjoy trying new recipes or making our favourites. Pay-off: Yummy food, new experiences, and closer relationships with W-, J-, and friends. Cost: Time and freezer/fridge/bread-box space. Change: Good balance here, no change needed. (Although it’s interesting that I’ve been procrastinating working on open source in favour of making bread, probably because the pay-off from appreciative family / friends makes me feel warmer and fuzzier.)

Spending time with W-. This is an easy one. Pay-off: Richer relationships, more injokes, and quite a bit of learning along the way. We like cooking, discussing books, going for walks, and picking up shared hobbies, although we occasionally watch movies (mostly borrowed from the library). Cost: Time. Change: This part has good balance, so I don’t need to increase or decrease it. Writing. I love writing down what I think and what I’m learning. I’ll even write as a way of procrastinating other things I need to do. Pay-off: The immediate benefits of understanding, the medium-term benefits of recall, and the long-term investment in a knowledgebase. The insights people share with me through comments and the insights they pick up from me through reading are icing on the cake. Cost: Time. Change: I think I spend a good enough amount of time on this and that I get great value for the time I spend on it. I might try spending less time on it. Reading. I read voraciously. Fortunately, Toronto has one of the largest library systems in the world. Pay-off: I pick up new words and ideas that I can use in life and writing. Cost: Time and space. Change: although taking book notes and doing life experiments based on what I’ve read help me make sure I get more value from the time, I probably spend more time reading than I should. I get diminishing returns from, say, the Xth personal finance book I’ve read, and I suspect I sometimes read things to feel smug. ;) (Like the way people watch reality TV shows?) I can increase the

Walking or biking. Pay-off: Satisfaction of knowing I’m getting some exercise, longterm health benefits, and often shared time with W-. Cost: Wearing winter-friendly clothes when I’m working at home; making time for a walk when I’m at the office. Change: More of this, maybe at the expense of some writing. (Or maybe I can use walking time to think about what I want to write…) I can lower the costs by changing into going-out-friendly clothes when I’m working at home, and blocking out time for walks. Planning and reviewing my finances. Yes, I actually enjoy doing my books and reviewing my plans. I’m weird. Pay-off: Satisfaction of knowing things are going well; confidence in being able to plan for purchases or goals. Cost: Time. Change: This doesn’t take a lot of time, but I should probably spend less time on this. Organizing. Pay-off: Investment into being able to find things again, reducing frustration. The satisfaction of having a neat-ish place. Appreciation from W-. Cost: Time. Change: This is currently reasonable, although I could invest some time into simplifying and improving systems so that I can avoid even more clutter. Playing the piano. Pay-off: Satisfaction from learning and from listening to music

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 181

I’m playing. Mental exercise. Appreciation from W- and J-. Cost: Time. Change: I think this is okay. I might look into piano lessons if that will help me learn faster. Gardening. Pay-off: Yummy food. Satisfaction of self-sufficiency (at least in small parts!). Experiences with nature. Shared experiences with W- and J-. Cost: Time and some money. Change: I want to do this more efficiently next growing season, working my way to a better yield. Building furniture. Pay-off: Shared interests and shared time with W-. Custom items. The satisfaction of making things. Cost: Time, money, and risk. Change: More of this during the summer! =) Sewing. Pay-off: Satisfaction of making things that fit my preferences. Cost: Frustration, time, some money. Taskswitching cost – have to set up. Change: I’d like to do more of this. I can do that by starting with small projects, practising and improving my skills (so that I can reduce frustration), and attending lessons (formally blocks the time off, makes it easier to task-switch). Working on open source. Pay-off: The buzz of solving problems; the convenience of programs that fit the way I work a little bit better; the appreciation of other people; improved technical skills. Costs: Taskswitching (loading the relevant programs, remembering where I am and what I’m working on, getting into the swing of things); occasional bit of paperwork. Change: I’d like to do more of this, maybe by creating blocks of time where I can focus on open source. — Things that I would like to enjoy more: Drawing. Pay-off: New skills; satisfaction from creating things; improved ability to communicate. Cost: Not entirely happy with drawing on my tablet yet; switching cost if I use the tablet downstairs. Change: If I get better at drawing through practice and learning, and I get used to drawing with one

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 182

of the programs on my computer, then I’ll find this easier, more natural, and more enjoyable. GIMP? MyPaint? Paint? OneNote? Inkscape? I should pick one and learn it inside and out. Making and giving presentations. Payoff: Improved understanding. Helping other people. Connecting with others. Passive networking. Cost: Time. Risk of boring-ness. Obligation. Stress. Change: If I write more, I’ll have more to harvest for presentations. If I ignore the fear of being boring and just get something out there, that will help me deal with the stress of creating something for public use. Meeting people. This includes meeting new people as well as hanging out with friends. It’s much too easy for me to go into introvert mode and get out to meet people only once in a while. Pay-off: Potentially interesting conversations. Opportunities to help others. Aha! moments myself. Friendships. Cost: conversations that don’t go beyond news, sports, and weather. Change: I should do more of this. Maybe if I focus on remembering how fun it was to hang out with my friends in the Philippines, that will motivate me to build more friendships here too. Simplifying my gettogethers might lead to my actually having regular monthly get-togethers. Setting aside specific blocks of time to be social will also help me work around my introvert tendencies. — Looking at this, I suppose I could scale back on reading, baking/cooking, planning, and reviewing my finances. I can integrate organizing into my daily routines better. I can work on remembering or increasing the pay-offs for meeting people and making presentations. Then I can set aside blocks of time that I can use for drawing, sewing, or making presentations, and another regular block of

time for meeting people or investing in relationships. When summer comes again, gardening can take the place of some walking, and biking will take the place of my subway commute. Woodworking/building furniture is also spending time with W-, so that should be okay.

sketchnotes, networking tips, Emacs news, and career reflections, too. •

Plans for January: o

Thinking about this and writing things down helps me tweak the balance.

o

Work

How about you? What do you do for fun? What are the costs and pay-offs? What would you like to change? o

[] Finish Project M

[] Finish Project S

[] Start new project

Relationships

—

The Logic of Life: The Rational Economics of an Irrational World 2008 Tim Harford ISBN 978-0-385-66387-8

[] Host get-together

[] Send delayed holiday cards

[] Get into the habit of meeting people

Life

[] Improve my routines: set aside time for drawing, sewing, and making presentations

[] Post goals

2011-01-19 Wed 06:20

Monthly review: December 2010

•

Reviews

http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22054 January 20, 2011 - Categories: monthly

o

Weekly review: Week ending December 3, 2010

Update: fixed year, thanks!

o

Weekly review: Week ending December 10, 2010

Forgot I hadn’t done one of these for December. Good thing I’ve been getting my to-do capture system sorted out again. In November’s review, I said:

o

Weekly review: Week ending December 18, 2010

o

Weekly review: Week ending December 24, 2010

What will December look like? Lots of good work, more productivity experiments, maybe some Android hacking, a few social gettogethers, and onwards to another great year.

o

Monthly review: November 2010

o

Yearly review: 2010

We did most of the work on Project M and Project S, both Drupal projects for nonprofits who had received grants from IBM. I experimented with changing what day my week starts on, making taho, illustrating cards, and Android use. Lots of Android hacking, too. Oh, and we disassembled and reassembled a new washing machine and dryer, and both worked! Boy, did we ever learn a lot from that. I posted more

•

Development, work, and geek stuff o

XKCD, tic-tac-toe, and fractal goodness

o

Android life so far

o

Android Tasker: Setting time limits for Angry Birds and other timesucks

More MobileOrg hacking on the Android Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 183 o

o

Test-driven development and happiness

o

The great washing machine adventure

o

Code and consulting

o

o

More reflections on code and consulting

Ten lessons learned from disassembling and rebuilding our washing machine

o

Using Simpletest and spreadsheets to populate Drupal with data

o

Thinking about time tracking

o

Thinking about housework

o o o

•

•

•

Reflections on mentoring new developers in Drupal Drupal fixes: Modifying the entries in Calendar

•

Writing and blogging o

Writing about lots of different kinds of things

o

What if sharing knowledge could make a difference between life and death?

o

Understanding analytics for personal blogs

What’s coming up in Emacs 24

Tips o

More thoughts on week beginnings: it’s about being proactive

o

Sometimes you have to work at being happy

Sketchnotes from Quantified Self Toronto meetup #3

o

Making the most of the conference hallway track

o

Conference tips: planning your attendance

http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22057 January 21, 2011 Categories: highlight, quantified, sketches, s ketchnotes

o

Blogging and conference networking tips

Sketches o

Quantified Self Toronto: Second Meetup

o

Happy holidays, eh!

o

Sketchnotes: The Science of Blogging: Dan Zarrella (Hubspot)

Life and experiments o

Taho

o

Happy Holidays, Eh! First edition greeting card giveaway

o

Reflecting on life as an experiment, gender gaps, and privilege

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 184

2011-01-19 Wed 08:28

Click on the image for a slightly larger version.

Topics: neurotropics, step counting, tracking through low-cost devices (mylifestracks.com doesn’t seem to work – correct URL?) I also shared my time tracking, grocery tracking, and price book. People found the batch cooking stuff interesting. =) Here are the slides I used: Quantified Self Toronto #3: Sacha Chua – Tracking time, groceries, prices, etc. View more presentations from Sacha Chua. See past notes: second meetup, first meetup. Check out more sketchnotes, more sketches, or more things about the quantified self. Learn about upcoming Quantified Self Toronto events on Meetup – see you at the next one!

Weekly review: Week ending January 21, 2011 http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22058 January 22, 2011 - Categories: weekly Oh boy. Between the M and S projects wrapping up, Lotusphere preparations, and general scrambling, life is going to be pretty busy for the next three weeks. Must make time to get plenty of sleep.

From last week’s plans •

Work o

[X] Wrap up project M

o

[X] Document case studies

o

[-] Write about lessons learned

o

[X] Apply to open seats

o

[X] Follow up on Lotusphere – I’m going!

o

[-] Draw networking guide for conferences – more progress

o

[X] Chat with Vikram Kalkat regarding Web 2.0

Registered for Lotusphere; booked hotel and flight Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 185 o

•

Relationships o

[-] Have get-together – postponed to Feb

o

[X] Help with J-’s Little Big Planet party

o

•

Baked lasagna and shared it with Morgan and Cathy

Life o

[X] Get through busy week

o

[-] Post more book notes!

o

Attended Quantified Self meetup. Shared my grocery tracking and time tracking experiences. Posted sketchnotes.

o

Posted rational economic theory analysis of things I do for fun ;)

o

Started using Keep Track on the Android to track values (productivity, energy, happiness)

o

•

Time analysis Category

Hour s

Last wee k

Sleep

61.6

61.1

8.8 hours of sleep a day; the constant battle of the satisfaction of waking up early, the need to avoid sleep deprivation, and the interestingnes s of evening life

Work

46.4

40.7

Overtime dealing with project wrapup

Routines

16.0

18.4

Cooking: 1.6 hours, tidying: 0.5 hours

Break

12.0

16.5

Mostly eating-related; will break this out separately

Social

10.1

13.2

Quantified Self meetup, hanging out with W- and J-

Work o

[] Finish deliverables for Project M

o

[] Get my Lotusphere plans together

o

[] Prepare Lotusphere BoF resources on working with the Lotus Connections API

o

•

[] Book a massage for some time after I get back from Lotusphere?

Downloaded pre-certified StudioTax 2010 (keener!)

Plans for next week •

o

[] Finish pre-conference networking tips slides

Relationships o

[] Connect with coworkers

Exercise

7.7

6.6

o

[] Be extra-wonderful to W-

Writing

7.3

7.2

Travel

2.9

2.8

Learning

2.7

0.9

Life o

[] Survive even busier week

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 186

Notes

Category Outsourceabl e

Hour s

Last wee k

0.8

0.3

Notes

I’m going to try limiting my writing time further, and cutting a little bit back on sleep. Also experimenting with breaking routines down into more detail.

Sketches: What index cards are teaching me about drawing

But then, an afternoon later, I found myself drawing.

http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22063 January 23, 2011 Categories: highlight, presentation, sketches I resolved to spend less time writing and more time drawing. Today was difficult. I had too many stories to tell, too many thoughts to catch.

Most of the time, I even managed to concentrate on a project I’d been procrastinating for a while. Here is one frame that will probably become a slide:

My thoughts flitted about, escaped. Drawing was frustrating. I felt inarticulate. And yet, slowly, I started to be able to breathe with it.

Another figure takes shape under my fingers. I draw a conference badge and write down some tips. I relax by drawing a cat. Another tip or three. Another cat. The next steps. A

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 187

personal goal. A networking tip. A metareflection.

There’s more to draw and more to learn. Maybe I’ll throttle my writing further by coursing it through drawing, letting the frustration of pent-up stories drive me to increase my visual vocabulary and my drawing skills. It’ll be interesting. Index cards. Try them out. =)

Unbaffled http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22067 January 24, 2011 - Categories: sketches

I love drawing on the computer because of the colours, the ease of revision, the cleanliness of the lines, and the infinity of space that I can draw on. Today I discovered the joys in the greys of pencil on card, the smudges of erasures never completely gone, the roughness of lines, and the constraints of a 3×5 card. And something else about the way I draw– In snatches, in non-linear frames, like the way I hear snippets of future speeches in my imagination– Jumping around, going where curiosity takes me. It’s like I dip in and out of watching this presentation, but it’s all jumbled up. I might say, oh, there’s a nice idea. That one too. Let’s see… oh, yes, that makes sense. And yet there’s me in this too, saying, hmm, what if there’s this? And then this? Oh, then that would mean that this would be good for this part. Now that will need revision. I’ll draw a new card. Ah, it’s slowly coming together. I spent eight hours drawing. I can draw hands better than I did before. And bicycles. And conference tips. It was fun.

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 188

W- hung up a bird-feeder, suspending it underneath a baffle (here a repurposed metal plate supposed to block squirrel access) and dangling it from a far branch. The squirrels have been undeterred, raiding the seed supply for food to get them through another winter. No birds in sight. They’re all hanging out near the warmer parts of this neighbourhood, no doubt. So much for fairweather friends not easily bribed with a handful of seeds. We once checked out a book declaring war on squirrels. It contained reviews of different “squirrel-proof” bird-feeders, concluding that there really is no practical way to foil this ingenious and nimble animal. (Well, maybe the chicken-wire cage we built to protect our plants – but then the birds can’t get through the mesh, either…) That’s okay. Let them eat the seeds. Winter is winter. And isn’t it fascinating how they persist, how they contort, how they dangle and leap like Cirque du Soleil acrobats in order to get what they want? We scatter peanuts on the snowy deck so that our cats can watch the squirrels grab

them. Some squirrels are cheeky enough to tease the cats, safely separated by solid glass. The cats chatter, little hunters gnashing their teeth and twitching their tails. We have fun watching the cats watching the squirrels.

or the number of words I can write to the length of exercise or the number of steps (divided by a suitable number, of course). This probably means going back to evening pages, although exercise would go well with morning pages.

I’m having more fun drawing on index cards now. I can carry more shapes in my head. And I drew all the pieces I needed for a standalone presentation I’ve meant to put together for a while. We’ll see how well it works!

Decreasing the cost of drawing: Achieved by settling in for a good afternoon of drawing with pencils, index cards, and cats willing to provide creative breaks. Result: I drew the networking tips presentation I’ve been procrastinating. I’ve sent it off for review, and will post it when approved.

Tweaking fun and nudging myself out of procrastination http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22069 January 25, 2011 Categories: highlight, kaizen, life, productivi ty Using rational economics to analyze what I do for fun seems to have paid off. By changing the costs and benefits of different activities, I’ve managed to nudge myself out of (excessive?) reading and writing, finally tackling some projects I’ve been procrastinating for a while. Increasing the cost of reading: I decided to be pickier about the books I read. Instead of skimming books looking for nuggets or interesting turns of phrase, I now check the table of contents, head straight for the chapters with the most promise, and evaluate whether or not to continue. This means I spend less time reading on autopilot. While I’d love to be enthused about Mortimer J. Adler’s collection of essays and references on the Great Books, it’s just lower-priority at the moment. Increasing the cost of writing: Switching to a “draw first, then write” procedure is working well for me. Not every blog post is going to be illustrated, but it will be fun drawing more. I might also experiment with requiring myself to work on a non-writing, non-reading personal project (sewing, for example) before I can sit down to write a blog post. Or maybe walking, and even tying the length of time

Decreasing the cost of sewing: Making the time to watch the instructional videos helped me learn how to use the serger, which meant being able to finish the pants I’ve been meaning to hem. Next: Hmm, maybe I can apply the same process in order to become more social… 2011-01-25 Tue 20:45

Cross-posting between Lotus Connections blogs and a personal blog http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22068 January 26, 2011 Categories: blogging, connections, ibm I confess: I sometimes forget to update my internal blog. I want to reach as wide an audience as possible, and my personal blog is a way of making ideas and thoughts and insights searchable and public. While I update my personal blog every day (and still have plenty of stories I want to share), my IBM blog occasionally languishes. I post when I have something specific to say about IBM, but otherwise, I forget. New resolution: cross-post more – who knows who might find it useful? Here’s something I want to share which will definitely help me, at least two other people, and possibly others too. =) Delphine Remy-Boutang and Anna Dreyzin asked me how to cross-post Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 189

between blogs. I don’t know of an automatic way to do this yet, although I keep being tempted to write a tool that periodically checks my external blog for posts tagged “ibm” and crossposts them to my Lotus Connections blog. There’s a manual way to do it, though. Use a desktop blog editor that makes cross-posting easier.

Draft Lotusphere BoF on working with the Connections API

How: I’ve set up Windows Live Writer to publish to both my WordPress blog (http://livinganawesomelife.com) and my Lotus Connections blog (http://w3.ibm.com/connections/blogs/sac hachua , accessible only within IBM). After I publish a post, I click on the blog dropdown in the top left corner to select another site, choose new categories, perhaps edit the body of the post, and publish the post again. It takes a few extra clicks and opens up a whole new world of serendipitous conversations.

My birds-of-a-feather session got voted into Lotusphere 2011, so I’m preparing some conversation starters. Lotusphere BoF – Working with the Lotus Connections API View more presentations from Sacha Chua.

Now why: Why cross-post between blogs?

http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22071 January 27, 2011 Categories: canada, highlight, philippines, ti ps

I see my personal blog as an archive of things I’ve learned. If something can be publicly shared, I’d like to share it there. If not, I can copy the information into my private notes for ease of reference. Cross-posting to an internal blog makes it easier for people to come across potentially useful posts through our internal search engine as well as through browsing the recent updates. For example, I really should go back and cross-post my Drupal-related posts. Cross-posting to an external blog makes it easier to keep those blogs up to date and to engage a different audience. Kaizen (continuous improvement): I’m this close to either writing a Java tool or hacking org2blog.el to support crossposting. ;) The Java tool will probably be easier to share with other people. I might give it a try. What do you do to make cross-posting easier?

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 190

http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22070 January 26, 2011 Categories: conference, connections, ibm, lo tus, presentation

What should we add to this? What should we remove? #ls11

A braindump of tips for other new immigrants from the Philippines

For Anna Simbulan (welcome to Toronto!) and others this can help along the way. =) •

Winter and clothing Toronto can be cold. Dress in layers. Long underwear, sweaters, gloves, and hats can help you keep warm. Thinsulate is better than knit when it comes to blocking out wind. Layers are better than a big coat because you can adjust the warmth depending on changes in weather, physical activity, etc. Winter can also be pretty grey and depressing. If you’re finding it hard to get through the day, get plenty of sunlight. Sometimes colourful things can be helpful, too. Things might look pretty expensive, particularly if you do the CAD-PHP conversion and think about how much cheaper you could get things at ukay-ukay or bazaars. Check out

second-hand stores like Goodwill, Salvation Army, and Value Village. You can usually find perfectly good clothes, coats, and household items for much cheaper than the retail price.

can buy balikbayan boxes). Seehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litt le_Manila#Toronto •

The Toronto Public Library is amazing. Sign up, get your library card, and use http://torontopubliclibrary.ca to get books delivered to the branch closest to you. It even has a number of books in Filipino. Check out the ebooks, movies, music CDs, and graphic novels as well.

If you need to walk around downtown Toronto, check out the underground PATH. Find something to enjoy about winter. I’ve learned to think of winter as a season for cooking, baking, hot chocolate, and early(ish) bedtimes. •

The library has many seminars for newcomers and job-seekers. There are many other newcomer organizations, too. Take advantage of the services and training they offer, such as networking events and free training.

Home and society Be prepared for homesickness. It’s a natural part of moving. Be prepared for cultural differences. Avoid making jokes or statements that are racist, sexist, homophobic, or otherwise politically incorrect. It can feel pretty lonely when your barkada and social support networks are half a world away. Check out classes, go to activities, meet people, make new friends.

Public transit works pretty well. You can even use maps.google.com to plan your route. •

There aren’t that many Filipino restaurants downtown, though. Definitely worth learning how to make things at home. You may find some neighborhoods with Filipino stores (including places where you

Work If you’re applying for a job, it’s worth reviewing your resume and using the Canadian conventions. For example, people here don’t indicate their age, marital status, height, or weight on resumes.

Free video-calling programs like Skype and social networking tools like Facebook help you keep in touch with old friends. If you want to cook recipes from home, you can find many of the ingredients in Chinatown or even in some of the larger supermarkets. For example, you can find Skyflakes, ampalaya, bagoong, and halo-halo ingredients in Chinatown. The No Frills supermarket in Dufferin Mall has Skyflakes, too.

Resources

If you get stumped by employers requiring Canadian experience, consider volunteering or working in a different position for some time in order to pick up that experience. •

Finance If you’re having a hard time getting a credit card, get a secured credit card first, then use that to build your credit history. When I started, I got the TD Green Visa card. I deposited some money and that deposit was used to secure the card. Once you qualify for a better card, you can switch to something like PCFinancial

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 191

Mastercard (equivalent of 1% rewards) or MBNA Enrich (3% cashback on groceries, 1% on regular purchases).

Weekly review: Week ending January 28, 2011

Compare prices online. Buying textbooks or other things? Check ebay.ca and other sites before buying things in person. You can often find significant discounts online, too, and shipping is reliable. Look for free or cheap stuff on craigslist.ca or kijiji.ca, or join a Freecycle group.

I’m typing this weekly review outside an empty meeting room at the Walt Disney World Dolphin Hotel, where Lotusphere will be held this year. It’s definitely conference season.

Keep some savings in a checking account as an emergency fund / buffer and the rest in a high-interest savings account. Don’t overload yourself with credit card debt. Pay off your credit card every month, if you can, and plan your spending so that you don’t have to live paycheck to paycheck.

http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22073 January 29, 2011 - Categories: weekly

I’d been taking a lower-key approach to presenting this year, so I don’t have too many conference commitments planned. I had fun sketching pre-conference networking tips for ITSC using index cards. Definitely an early bed time tonight. Plenty of work this week.

Plans for last week •

Enjoy life. =) There will probably always be things and people you will miss, but maybe Toronto can become a second home. —-

Work o

[X] Finish deliverables for Project M

o

[X] Get my Lotusphere plans together

o

[X] Prepare Lotusphere BoF resources on working with the Lotus Connections API

o

[X] Finish pre-conference networking tips slides

o

Helped build Drupal site for internal coordination of marketing materials for AIS Canada – yay for being able to quickly build things using Drupal!

o

Talked to two groups about Idea Labs

o

Booked travel arrangements for Lotusphere

What other tips would you add?

Pre-conference networking tips for the Instructional Technology Strategies Conference http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22072 January 28, 2011 Categories: conference, connecting, highligh t, networking, sketches, speaking, tips Instructional Technology Strategies Conference: The Shy Connector’s Guide to Getting Ready for Conference Awesomeness View more presentations from Sacha Chua. This is for http://itsc.oetc.org . Thanks to Darren Hudgins for the nudge to make this!

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 192

•

Relationships o

[X] Connect with coworkers

o

[X] Be extra-wonderful to W(taking off for a week)

o

•

Accepted accommodation plans for Kathy and John’s wedding in the Netherlands

Social

12.8

o

[-] Book a massage for some time after I get back from Lotusphere?

Drawing

12.8

o

Connected with Toronto newcomer from Philippines

Routines – general

8.7

13.9

Routines – cooking

3.7

1.6

Routines – tidying

2.5

0.5

Prep – planning

0.7

Work [] Help at Lotusphere as a room monitor

o

[] Potentially host a BoF on the Connections API

o

[] Learn from Lotusphere presentations (content and technique)

Relationships [] Connect with IBMers, partners, and clients at Lotusphere

10.1 Maybe half of this counts as work

Prep – laundry 1.7 Prep – general

5.1

Break

9.0

12.0

Exercise

4.0

7.7

Sewing

3.6

Life o

o

Notes projects

[X] Survive even busier week

o

•

Last week

o

o

•

Hours

Life

Plans for next week •

Category

[] Do time analysis of conference time

Can I still get ~8 hours of sleep a day?

Travel

2.8

2.9

What’s exercise like?

Writing

1.8

7.3

Learning

1.2

2.7

[] Eat salads. See if I can order half-portions.

Outsourceable

Time analysis Category

Hours

Last week

Sleep

55.3

61.6

7.8 hours of sleep a day

Work

40.4

46.4

Some breathing time between

Notes

4 days with at least 10k steps

0.8

What have I learned? Rational economics is useful for modifying your own behavior. If I spend my weekend afternoons or weekday evenings drawing or sewing instead of writing, I can get into the flow and make a lot of progress.

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 193

It’s satisfying to check off things I’ve been procrastinating.

•

[X] Brainstorm and share insights

•

On the other hand, it’s hard to resist writing, because thoughts are buzzing around in my head. Drawing helps a little with that.

[X] Show my appreciation for the cool work people do

•

[X] Learn more about conferences and presentations

•

[X] Fulfill my room monitor responsibilities

Maybe I’ll try doing only one day of alternate focus each week. That might give me some space. Although I’m not sure if it’s the confounding effect of a conference – I always get a little buzzy around conferences. It’s like adapting to a new time signature or tempo. Hmm…

February 2011

Lotusphere 2011 wrap-up http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22074 February 4, 2011 Categories: conference, highlight, ibm, lotus , notes

This was my first Lotusphere, and it was a blast. Lotus has such an active, passionate, experienced community around it. Heading to the conference, my goals were: •

[X] Learn more about Lotus Connections adoption and APIs

•

[X] Learn about IBM’s strategy and innovations

•

[X] Get a sense of the ecosystem around Lotus (partners, clients, etc.)

[X] Meet people and make personal connections Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 194 •

Here’s what I took away from the sessions and BoFs I attended: Clients are interested in collaboration and have lots of adoption insights. We’re starting to see interesting case studies from clients. In addition to reporting excellent returns on their investments, clients shared qualitative feedback, such as stories of pilot groups who couldn’t imagine giving up the tools. Successful clients used executive support, communication plans, mentoring, metrics, incentives, role models, and other techniques to help people make new forms of collaboration part of the way people worked. sketchnotes from the birds-of-afeather session on adoption LotusLive is awesome. LotusLive currently includes web conferencing and parts of Lotus Connections. LotusLive Labs includes a technical preview of LotusLive Symphony (collaborative document/spreadsheet editing), Slide Library, and Event Maps. (I wish I’d seen Event Maps when I was planning my Lotusphere attendance!) Granted, Google Docs has been around for longer than LotusLive Symphony, but I’m curious about the ability to assign sections for editing or review. Activity streams and embedded experiences are going to change the inbox. I don’t know when this is going to go into people’s everyday lives, but the idea of being able to act on items right from the notifications will be pretty cool – whether it’s in an enriched mail client like Lotus Notes or a web-based activity stream that might be filtered by different attention management algorithms. It’ll be interesting to figure out the security implications of this,

though. It’s already a bad practice to click on links in e-mail right now, so full embedded transactions might encounter resistance or might open up new phishing holes. Project Vulcan is worth watching. People are already doing interesting things with the Lotus Connections API. Embedding Lotus Connections content / interactions into other websites, adding more information to Lotus Connections, using different authentication mechanisms… people are rocking the API. The compliance API that’s coming soon will help people do even more with Lotus Connections interactions, too. The next version of Lotus Connections will be even cooler. I’m particularly excited about the idea blogs and the forum improvements, which seem tailor-made for the kind of collective virtual brainstorming we’ve been doing in Idea Labs. Idea blogs are straightforward – a blog post or question with comments that can be voted up or down – but they’ll go a long way to enabling new use cases. Forums will also have question/answer/best answer support. Sametime Unified Telephony rocks. I need to find out how to get into that. I like click-to-call ringing everyone’s preferred devices, easy teleconferences, and rules for determining phone forwarding.

Lotus geeks are a world of their own. It’s amazing to spend time with people who have immersed themselves deeply in a technology platform for almost two decades. There’s a depth and richness here that I don’t often find at technology conferences. There’s also a lot of tough love – people like IBM, and they’re not afraid to call us out if we’re not clear or if we seem to be making mistakes. =) Notes from conversations The hallway track (those informal encounters and chance connections) resulted in great conversations. For me, the highlights were: •

Being adopted by various groups – so helpful for this Lotusphere newbie! Special thanks to @alexzzz, @belgort, @billmachisky , @branderson3,@ericmack, and @notesgoddess for bringing me into fascinating conversations.

•

Andy Schirmer walking me through his task spreadsheet with eight years of task data summarized in some very cool graphs. I want to have data like that.

•

Talking to Hiro about crowdsourcing and sharing the cool things we’ve been doing with Idea Labs.

•

Seeing all these people I met online. Finally getting to meet Tessa Lau, Bruce Elgort, Julian Robichaux, Mitch Cohen, and other folks, too! It’s great to be able to connect with people on a personal level, thanks to blog posts and Twitter. (How do people manage to keep up to date and remember all of this stuff? I felt all warm and fuzzy when people congratulated me on the recent wedding, and I wished I remembered more tidbits about them. Working on that!)

•

Being reminded by David Brooks and other early adopters that I’ve been around from the beginning of Lotus Connections. (Okay, David did that in a BoF.) It seems Lotus

Lotus Notes and Domino are getting even more powerful. XPages looks pretty cool. I’ll leave the rest of the commentary on this to other bloggers, as my work doesn’t focus enough on Lotus Notes and Domino for me to be able to give justice to the improvements. The Lotus ecosystem is doing well. Lots of activity and investment from partners and clients. Analytics + research = opportunity. Interesting research into attention management, activity streams, social network analysis.

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 195

Connections has always been around. •

•

Joining the geek trivia challenge. The questions about television and comics went way over my head, but it was good to spend time with other folks, and I had so much fun. Well worth needing to figure out how to get back to the Port Orleans hotel after the conference shuttle service ended.

have shared, though, and I’d love to do more work in this section. Here’s what I need to do for postconference wrap-up:

Talking to Jeanne Murray and Rawn Shah about a personal maturity model for social business. Some ideas: control of recipients, trust, transparency, conflict resolution techniques, asymmetric knowledge of others, persona separation/integration, acceptance of change; overlap with leadership maturity models; context dependency of decisions…

•

Talking to Bonnie John about the politics of writing about process improvement. Interesting thing to untangle. More thinking needed.

•

Swapping tips on Gen Y life with Julie Brown, Alexander Noble (@alexzzz), Brandon Anderson (@branderson3), and others

If I get to attend Lotusphere again, I’d love to be able to stay at the conference hotel. It would be much more convenient and I’d be able to go to more of the evening gettogethers. The chances of my being able to attend again probably depend on how much of the Social Business adoption consulting we’ll get to do over the next year, and I hope we do a lot. I’d also make time to check out the showcase. I missed it this year, thanks to all that chatting.

•

[X] Go through my index cards and write additional notes

•

[] Contact people I met and follow up on conversations

•

[] Catch up with work mail

•

[] Catch up with personal mail

•

[] Write further reflections

•

o

[] Time analysis

o

[] Appearance and bias

o

[] IBM and women in technology

o

[] Reflections on careers, loyalty, story, and alternatives

o

[] Presentation reflections (time for questions, presentation style, rapport, morning sessions?)

[] Plan my next steps

Other Lotusphere 2011 wrap-ups you might like: Chris Connor, David Greenstein, Luis Benitez (Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5), Andy Donaldson, Marc Champoux (… where are the female bloggers’ writeups?) See also: Lotusphere social aggregator, Planet Lotus, Twitter search for #ls11, Twitter/blog archive 2011-02-04 Fri 16:04

A story of pi

Next actions for me

http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22076 February 4, 2011 - Categories: geek

For work, I’ll probably focus on external Web 2.0 / social media site development while other groups figure out the structure for social business adoption consulting. I’m looking forward to learning from the case studies, insights, and questions that people

A trivia question related to pi and my teammate’s subsequent recitation of pi to ten digits reminded me of this memory which I may not yet have shared here.

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 196

—

It was an evening get-together with several friends in the roofdeck garden of our home in the Philippines. After dinner, the conversation turned to geek superpowers, the little specialties and quirks we’d developed over time. The friend on my left started reciting the digits of pi. To my surprise, the friend on my right joined in – the same pace, the same digits, and I in the middle entranced by this melody of tenor and baritone. They went to about 100 digits head to head, then one dropped out; the other continued to 200 digits or so. It was as sublime a concert as I have ever listened to. — If you’re curious, you might want to check out the Wikipedia page on piphilology – the creation and use of techniques for remembering pi. — Like the way beauty often brings pleasure to viewers, my reaction to intellectual displays is closer to “Oooh, that’s awesome” than to “You have way too much free time.” W- and I have tons of geek moments, and I’m lucky to meet so many people who relish being geeky. Life is good. 2011-02-04 Fri 21:52

On appearance and bias: thoughts from the Nerd Girls panel at Lotusphere 2011 http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22077 February 5, 2011 Categories: highlight, reflection, women

One of the topics of great interest during the Nerd Girls panel at Lotusphere 2011 was that of appearance. How important is grooming? What about first impressions? People shared the usual advice: Dress appropriately. Be yourself. Neatness counts. Like the way I skip fluffy guest posts full of cliches, I try to avoid sharing the same thoughts you’ll find everywhere else. So I found myself thinking about one of the points raised, which you don’t encounter that often. One of the participants had observed that “booth babes” at a tech convention can drive people away. My take-away from that is that *you should make sure that what you communicate with your appearance supports what you want to communicate.* Too much attention to appearance can conflict with your goals. You can dress to blend in or you can dress to stand out. Suits help you build rapport with people who are more comfortable with suits. Jeans and a geek Tshirt help you build more rapport with people who are more comfortable in jeans and T-shirts. Tweaking convention can support your goals, too. I’ve turned up at technical get-togethers in brightly-coloured ethnic clothing to make several points along the way: a. it’s okay to bring personal interests into the tech world, b. it’s okay to be a girl, c. there are people here from different cultures, and d. it’s good to have fun. That this made me easier to spot in a

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 197

crowd was an excellent bonus, and it worked really well. Know what you want to say, and make sure your appearance supports it. Rethink what you want to say, too. For example, if the path towards becoming an executive requires expensive suits and other status symbols, it might not be for a person who disagrees with dry-cleaning, at least until people create better washable suits. (Or you can pick a different uniform: black mock turtlenecks and jeans totally works for Steve Jobs.) I dress for minimal thought during most days, for either blending in or standing out during get-togethers, and for practicality when travelling. Slacks, blouse, sweater/blazer, and scarf give me a good uniform for the workweek. If I’m speaking at a conference, I might dig out my cream suit. If I’m attending a crowded event, I might wear a red top or bring a hat. If I’m travelling, I pack my Tilley’s Endurables businesswear: hand-washable slacks, blazers, and blouses that will dry overnight in a pinch. I wear flat shoes for comfort and boots for warmth. These routines mean that I need to spend very little time thinking about what to wear. There’s a limit to how much time, money, and energy I want to spend on appearance. I’m not going to spend on make-up, cosmetic surgery, or designer items. I suppose going to a dermatologist or having frequent facials could help my face clear up, but it’s no big deal. I won’t experiment with body ink, piercings, or hair colour. The gradual onset of gray hair won’t be dyed away, and the wrinkles will be welcomed. (I do invest energy into making sure I get the kind of wrinkles I want: more smile lines than frowns! =) ) This is partly because I have other priorities, and partly because I want to help build a society where these things matter less, where we don’t shame people for appearance or age or lifestyle choice. —

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Thinking about this further, I realized that I’m not really interested in the conventional approach to thinking about appearance. This topic usually focuses on: “How can I get other people to think better of me? How can I increase my chances for a raise or a promotion? How can I project more status and confidence?” For that part, my questions are more along the lines of “How can I stay true to my values? Are my goals in line with those values and priorities?” And there’s another, much more interesting question for me: *”How can I correct my biases?”* Our biases around attractiveness reduce the quality of our decisions. People get dinged for being too fat, being too old, being too plain, and even being too attractive. Women are more harshly judged than men, and are the target of much body-policing from advertising, media, coworkers, friends, and even themselves. I’ve received plenty of privileges. I’m young, female, enthusiastic, and easy to get along with, and that has almost certainly helped me do what I do. I have plenty of mentors while other people (perhaps less cheerful, perhaps less “cute”) It sometimes works to my disadvantage. There are areas of consulting that I probably won’t focus on until I have more gravitas, if ever. I also carry biases. There’s that preference for people who are cheerful; people with symmetric, angular features; people who are trim; people who carry themselves with confidence. I work against these preferences, pull my attention away from that so that I can focus on other factors, try to separate seeing from thinking. (I indulge this bias with my husband, though, whom I think is very handsome, and with whom I have the license to look at as much as I’d like; but I always make it clear that I love him for much greater reasons.) Likewise, there’s dealing with that reactive judging of people who frown a lot, people with weaker postures, people

who are overweight, people who dress inappropriately… I work to separate negative perceptions and reality so that I can make better decisions. There’s ableism, sexism, ageism, racism, and a million unnamed stories we tell ourselves without examining them closely. You can eliminate the visual aspect through teleconferences, but that doesn’t solve the problem. We joke about everything sounding smarter when said in a British accent, but accent stereotypes do influence judgment. I’m glad that accents are getting more mixed up now, what with people mixing cultures and people getting cross-trained in different accents. It helps challenge that bias. Then there’s confidence and pitch and vocabulary and fluency… Paying attention to and adjusting for all these biases is partly why I like the move towards virtual connections, particularly during the beginning. If I can’t see or hear people, I can more easily focus on what they say. However, the Internet replaces one set of biases with another. Instead of being influenced by appearance, I’m biased by how articulate someone is – and that’s tangled up in class and education and culture and the availability of leisure time and the ability of people to access this technology.

success. Wouldn’t it be interesting to build a society where this matters less? Colander photo (c) 2010 Ben Hosking – Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0 2011-02-05 Sat 08:40

Weekly review: Week ending February 4, 2011 http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22078 February 5, 2011 - Categories: weekly

Plans from last week •

•

Work o

[X] Help at Lotusphere as a room monitor

o

[X] Potentially host a BoF on the Connections API

o

[X] Learn from Lotusphere presentations (content and technique)

Relationships o

•

Life o

It isn’t easy to separate all these factors, and I may never be able to do it completely. There’s a bit of shame in it too, when I realize how many of society’s messages I’ve internalized into these quick impressions of other people. I want to make better decisions. I want to be able to see the best in people, unclouded by the preconceptions I carry. I might never be able to eliminate my biases, but I can recognize them and slow down when they might be in play. If I slow down and understand, for example, how my first impressions colour my decisions, then I can clarify my reasons and reject invalid ones.

o

[X] Do time analysis of conference time

Can I still get ~8 hours of sleep a day?

What’s exercise like?

[-] Eat salads. See if I can order half-portions. – Mostly, but I really like having hot meals. Buffet was okay because I could eat smaller portions.

Plans for next week •

Work o

You’ll find plenty of books about how to groom yourself for particular kinds of

[X] Connect with IBMers, partners, and clients at Lotusphere

[] Start on new project involving Facebook and Rails

[] Work on ITSC blog post, keynote presentation Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 199 o

o o

o

o

•

•

[] Post more Lotusphererelated reflections

Category

Hours

[] Work on Deeper Insights presentation on social learning [] Work on Remote Presentations that Rock presentation [] Possibly sign up for consulting course

Relationships

Last Notes week with Lotusphere folks

Routines – general

7.8

8.7

Prep – general 4.0

5.1

Break

3.8

9.0

o

[] Catch up with tasks at home

Writing

3.6

1.8

o

[] Give Maira some of the spices

Exercise

0.5

4.0

o

[] Organize get-together

Life o

[] Share more reflections from Lotusphere

o

[] Open up investing TFSA with Waterhouse

o

[] Review my goals and upcoming projects

Time analysis

Drawing

12.8

Routines – cooking

3.7

Routines – tidying

2.5

Prep – planning

0.7

Category

Hours

Last Notes week

Prep – laundry

1.7

Sleep

53.8

55.3

Sewing

3.6

Learning

1.2

Conference sleep length: 8:25, 7:45, 6:25, 6:08, 6:51, 6:53; catch-up 12:43 on Friday

Work

59.9

40.4

Lots of conference time

Travel

19.6

2.8

Two flights, a number of hotel shuttles

Social

14.8

12.8

Hanging out

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 200

A lot of walking got filed under work

Outsourceable Observations: I got a decent amount of sleep during the conference. As expected, work expanded into the time I normally spend writing or hanging out with W- and J-. I spent most of the travel time writing, listening to audiobooks, watching movies (RED, The Social Network), and napping. I walked around 16k steps a day (up from my 12k goal; there was one day I walked over 20k steps). My shoes weren’t the best for walking. They’re flat, but they didn’t have the padding of tennis shoes or hiking

boots. The cushioning insoles helped, though. No blisters. Still looking for officeready flat shoes with good support.

•

[] Work on new project

•

[] Put together talks for Deeper Insight, Remote Presentations That Rock, and the ITSC

Monthly review: January 2011

•

[] Mentor more people

http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22079 February 6, 2011 - Categories: monthly 2011 was off to a great start. Lots of Drupal work, a conference, and a new project lined up. I started an internal project using Drupal 7, which is pretty cool. I got into the rhythm of making bread every week and of baking larger batches of food to share. I made time for some things I’d been procrastinating, and I had fun. I’ve been reading more books that analyze everyday life, and I’ve been having fun using those perspectives to examine my life. Good stuff. Plans for January: Work •

[X] Finish Project M

•

[X] Finish Project S

•

[-] Start new project – Finished the month with Lotusphere, lined up a project for return

Relationships • • •

Relationships •

[] Organize get-together

•

[] Get visa and arrange travel details

Life •

[] Write up more reflections

Reviews •

Weekly review: Week ending December 31, 2010

•

Weekly review: Week ending January 7, 2011

•

Weekly review: Week ending January 14, 2011

•

Weekly review: Week ending January 21, 2011

•

Weekly review: Week ending January 28, 2011

•

Monthly review: December 2010

Sketches

[-] Host get-together – Postponed to February

•

[-] Send delayed holiday cards – Oops!

Sketchnotes: Gretchen Rubin, Happiness Project book tour

•

Pre-conference networking tips for the Instructional Technology Strategies Conference

•

Sketchnotes from Quantified Self Toronto meetup #3

[-] Get into the habit of meeting people – Must work on this

Life [X] Improve my routines: set aside time for drawing, sewing, and making presentations

•

•

Sketches: If you want to make the most of your next conference, you should blog

[-] Post goals – Wrote goals, haven’t posted them

•

•

Sketches: What index cards are teaching me about drawing

•

Unbaffled

Plans for February:

Reflections

Work •

Moving my book notes online Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 201

•

Tweaking fun and nudging myself out of procrastination

•

Fun and rational economic theory: reflections on the book “The Logic of Life”

•

Work on the business from the outside, not in it – Book: Effortless entrepreneur

Geek stuff •

Emacs, BBDB, and getting your contacts on the Android or iPhone

•

Wrapping up projects and preparing for the next one

•

Emacs 24 and the package manager

•

Cross-posting between Lotus Connections blogs and a personal blog

•

Draft Lotusphere BoF on working with the Connections API

Life •

Sick days

•

Momentum and holidays

•

Marking up books

•

Snippets from life

•

Three tips for cheerful chores

•

Book: Let’s Get Real About Money: Profit from the Habits of the Best Personal Finance Managers

•

13,705 steps and counting

•

Switched my Fido plan

•

Batch baking for fun and awesomeness

•

Of recipes and memories

•

A braindump of tips for other new immigrants from the Philippines

2011-02-05 Sat 17:44

Disagreement and the road to trusting yourself http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22080

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 202

February 6, 2011 Categories: argument, highlight, kaizen, life I’m glad whenever I find myself disagreeing with someone. Sometimes I change my mind, learning more in the process. Sometimes I understand my own reasons better, and learn more about why I think what I think. As long as I disagree well – in an argument instead of a fight, clearly presenting reasons and understanding alternatives – then I grow in the process. Henry Will sent me a link to this Harvard Business Review blog post on teaching yourself to trust yourself. …take the time, and the quiet, to decide what you think. That is how we find the part of ourselves we gave up. That is how we become powerful, clever, creative, and insightful. That is how we gain our sight.

It reminds me of this slim book I tucked into my library haul: Anna Quindlen’s Being Perfect. Here are some excerpts: p.12: Trying to be perfect may be inevitable for people who are smart and ambitious and interested in the world and in its good opinion. But at one level it’s too hard, and at another, it’s too cheap and easy. Because all it really requires of you, mainly, is to read the zeitgeist of herever and whenever you happen to be and to assume the masks necessary to be the best at whatever the zeitgeist dictates or requires. … But nothing important, or meaningful, or beautiful, or interesting, or great, ever came out of imitations. What is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.

Connect that with this excerpt from Everyday Ethics by Joshua Halberstam: p109: We live our lives within a changing moral climate, and the temptation to adapt can be overwhelming. … The moral nonconformist, however, pays little attention to the popularity or unpopularity of his moral positions. He is– it’s embarrassing to talk this way in our cynical world–after truth, not applause. Genuine moral nonconformity is difficult to achieve and difficult to maintain. Don’t be too quick to assume you’re already there.

It isn’t easy to figure out what one thinks. For me, writing and drawing are the best ways to sneak up on myself. In conversation, I’m sometimes too malleable. I catch myself listening for approval. Even when blogging, I catch myself refreshing the pages, looking for comments, looking for validation. Because the feedback for writing tends to be slower and more in-depth than the reactive cues of conversation, though, I have more time to think about my reflections and develop them. I can also slow down and untangle the feedback on my message from the feedback on my way of delivering it. When I can form a tentative understanding of a topic, then test it in discussion with other people or in contrast with other positions I read, then I gain a little more confidence that my reasons are rooted in more than the urge to agree or disagree. Running into the imperfections of my understanding is part of the adventure of becoming myself. Tying it all together into tips for myself and for other people this might help: Feedback might be about your message or about your delivery. Be clear about what kind of feedback you’d find the most helpful – usually feedback on delivery, if you want to keep your message authentically you, although content-related feedback can also help you recognize what you resonate with. Don’t be limited by the idea of perfection or the need for agreement. Test yourself and learn how to trust your thoughts. — How are you teaching yourself to trust yourself? 2011-02-06 Sun 21:16

Working on estimates http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22081 February 7, 2011 Categories: geek, ibm, learning Today I sat down with my manager to sketch my learning plan for 2011. I’ll start

off with skills for IT architecture: defining scope and estimating effort for projects, designing and implementing systems, and leading the development. For development, I’ll focus on rich user interfaces, modernization, and integration. Next, I’ll learn more about solution development. In the second half, we’ll see if I can learn more about leading teams. I spent most of the afternoon working on documents of understanding and estimates for upcoming projects. It’s interesting work, although I don’t trust my numbers quite yet. I’ll get better at estimating the more I do it, and I plan to prototype something quickly to check some of the numbers for the riskier parts. It’s actually quite fun doing this number-crunching. It’s like balancing my books. (Yes, I’m weird.) It’ll be even more wonderful when I’ve gotten the hang of doing these things. Yay learning on the job! 2011-02-07 Mon 21:52

Things to write about: questions for your blogger’s block http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22082 February 9, 2011 Categories: blogging, highlight People often tell me they’re worried about finding enough material for their blogs. The truth is, there’s so much you can write about. Here are four questions that can help you think of things to share. What do you want to learn more about? When you write about something – whether it’s completely new to you or something you’re puzzling out – you can understand it more deeply. Write about what you’re figuring out. Write about how you’re figuring it out. Write about what you’re learning along the way. (Sharing is an excellent way to learn even more – people often comment with better ways to do things!)

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 203

What do you want to change? This is like writing in order to learn more, but with commitment and action. Do you want to change the way you spend your time? Think about what you do, why you do it, and how you’re going to change. Want to save more? Write about your goals and your progress. Writing helps you understand more, identify ways to improve, and publicly commit to growing. It also gives you a record of progress, which can be useful for motivating yourself. What do you want to share with other people? Have you solved a problem that other people will probably run into? Save people time by sharing your solutions. Do you have a tip that will make it easier for people to do things? Share that. Do you have a passion you’d like to teach others? Share that. What do you want to remember? Write about the memories you want to be able to revisit. Write about the feelings and reasons you may want to review. Write about tips and solutions you’re likely to need again. Write for yourself. It’s okay. I tend to write posts that combine these questions. For example, my reflections on what I do for fun help me learn more, change, and remember why I want to change. If sharing the process inspires others, that’s a neat bonus. How about you? What do you want to learn more about? What do you want to change? What do you want to share? What do you want to remember? More tips on how to have tons of topics 2011-02-09 Wed 06:01

Thinking about personal random moment studies http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22083 February 9, 2011 Categories: geek, productivity, quantified

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 204

John Handy Bosma (Boz) proposed a personal productivity random moment study. His goals are: •

Find out how he’s spending his time in terms of the proportion between important and unimportant task

•

Show the connection between what he’s working on and the business priorities

•

Improve his productivity

•

… and do all of that with at most 5 minutes of tracking a day.

The interesting thing about randomness is that it might have a different effect on behaviour. If you can’t anticipate when you’re going to get polled and you’re honest about your responses when you do, would that help you focus on more important things so that you don’t catch yourself goofing off during the polling time? What are good questions to ask during the sampling moment? Boz has: •

What are you working on?

•

Who are you with?

•

How important is this?

•

How is this related to the business objectives?

These questions also helped Boz stay focused – immediate benefit. Questions/ideas related to tracking: Is the effect of uncertainty worth the added effort required to build a custom tracking solution (or buy one), or will fixed time intervals be acceptable? If fixed time intervals are okay, then off-the-shelf apps can be stitched together for this functionality. Is there value in full randomness (ex: five reminders randomly set for one day, even if those reminders all come in the morning) or is it more about moment-to-moment randomness (ex: a reminder set randomly in each 2-hour period)?

In which circumstances would interruptdriven methods like this be better than time tracking or time-and-motion-type studies? Boz shared that he never quite got the hang of time tracking, so it might be about enabling a different set of people to explore this class of experiments. Does measuring time (either through sampling or through time-tracking) offer significant benefits over, say, tracking quantity of tasks completed in different categories (like Andy Schirmer does) when it comes to measuring alignment with priorities? Hmm… I might give it a try. I like my time-based analysis, though, so I may increase the granularity of my time-tracking (track at the task level whenever possible). I can then simulate work-sampling based on that data. I might also try fixed-interval sampling using KeepTrack on the Android, although I tend to skip interruptions. Related: •

•

http://www.unifr.ch/psycho/applied /deutsch/publications/Klumb_Perre z_SIR_04.pdf http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/a rticles/PMC1069965/

2011-02-09 Wed 10:58

Hackbuzzbuzzbuzz http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22084 February 10, 2011 - Categories: geek, life It’s a little scary how much you can do with focused days of hacking. After waking up early and revising some documents of understanding, I started working on a Ruby on Rails prototype for one of my projects so that I could get a better handle on how much time it would take me to implement the client’s requested features. When I decided to stop for dinner (or really, the cats decided for me), I found myself shaking – low temperatures, low

blood sugar, perhaps both. Easily fixed, although I really should get back into the habit of walking around and nibbling on healthy snacks throughout the day. I’ll look into making my regular breaks more intrusive so that I actually remember to take them. Ah, that’s right; fresh install of Linux, no Workrave set up yet. It’s hard to resist the pull of flow, but I need to if I’m going to develop other skills and enjoy life. It’s so much fun to plunge back into fluency, though. I haven’t done Ruby on Rails since 2007. I skimmed a Rails book during one long commute and then hit the ground running. It’s easy to get back into the language, the platform. It helps that I do a lot of Emacs Lisp – lists and macros make me happy. I’ve built some of the core features of the site, and I’m excited about the next components I’m going to work on. I should keep detailed task logs so that I can use that for estimates in the future. It’ll be useful. I’m tempted to adjust my current estimates downwards, but I shouldn’t – I need to leave space for things that might come up. (Or go down.) What can I do to make tomorrow better? There’s a meeting, so that will be good non-coding time. I’ll try to stick to that take-a-quick-break-every-hour thing, too. Extra time spent working is usually time pulled away from things I should also pay attention to, like my upcoming presentations, so I should block off more non-coding time tomorrow and this weekend. Maybe tomorrow afternoon I can walk to the bank and set up my investing TFSA. I’ve actually worked close to 40 hours already and it’s only Thursday, so I should probably scale back tomorrow. Tempo’s still a little too fast. I’ll post this and tidy up. If I’m still buzzing after I tidy up, I might go to bed early. Or I might play the simplified Pachelbel’s Canon on the piano for a bit – that’s great for slowing down.

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 205

2011-02-10 Thu 19:07

•

Work Better Together: an Individual’s Guide to Collaboration Tools

http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22085 February 11, 2011 Categories: plans, writing

•

The Shy Connector’s Guide to Social Networking

•

Sketch Notes: Visual Notetaking

My mom celebrated her 65th birthday this week. One of her goals for her 70th birthday is to put together a book.

•

The Bright Side of Life

•

Photography with a Difference

•

Take the First Circus

It made me think of the books I want to write. If you take away the intimidation of a book–final drafts, agents, publishing, marketing–and see it instead as a coherent, clear, worthwhile collection that helps people get from point A to point B, then writing a book (or a book-wiki) is a wonderful thing. It’s about organizing knowledge in a way that many other people can use.

•

Bookworm: Making the Most of Reading

•

Sharing What You Know

•

With My Own Hands: Adventures in Cooking, Gardening, Sewing, and other Domestic Arts

•

Sharing to Learn: How to Write, Draw, and Speak Your Way to Understanding

Here I’m reminded of Joseph Sestito’s “Write for Your Lives: Inspire Your Creative Writing with Buddhist Wisdom”:

•

Lunch is in the Freezer: Batchcooking Tips and Recipes

•

The Happiness Habit

p112. With this motivation, you can develop what I call “the lifeline of books” concept. Mortimer J Adler developed a list called Great Books of the Western World. If you examine these books, you will find that most of them begin with extensive outlines. For example, if you read Aristotle’s Ethics, you will see that the outline is five or ten pages long, depending upon the translation – it is extremely detailed. As a creative individual, you will generate more ideas for writing beneficial books than you could have time to even begin in this lifetime; yet, you may have just enough time to write their outlines. Therefore, when you leave this life, in addition to leaving behind your body, possessions, friends, family, and everything else, you can also leave your own lifeline of books. These are the outlines for the beneficial books that you did not have the time to write in this lifetime, so that others can put their minds to work on the creation of these books.

•

Remote Presentations That Rock

•

May and December

•

The Written Life

•

More than a Number: Creating a Happy Career in a Big Company

•

Being Real Online: How to be a Person, Not Just a Brand

•

Worth It or Not: Analyzing Your Decisions and Improving Your Plans

•

The Elephant and the Bee

•

Persuasion: Using Rhetoric, Argument, and Negotiation in Everyday Life

•

How Wonderful Can It Be?: A Life of Continuous Improvement

•

On Fire: Bringing Passion to Work and Life

•

Still Life with Cats

•

Geek in Love

•

A Classic Education

Books to write

What are the books and book ideas I want to leave behind? •

Livin’ la Vida Emacs: More than a Text Editor

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 206

•

Life, Limited: Freedom, Creativity, and Happiness through Limits

•

It’s All Part of the Story

•

Ineluctable: A Life of Words

•

Living by the Numbers

•

Most Things Right

•

In Between Worlds: Stories of Immigration

o

[X] Catch up with tasks at home

•

A Few Pages Ahead

o

•

Becoming Sisters

[-] Give Maira some of the spices – will do that today

•

In Your Back Pocket: The Benefits of Plan B to Z

o

[X] Organize get-together

o

Celebrated my mom’s 65th birthday

o

Looked for some experiences to share with people (movie, opera)

•

Stoic Optimism

•

The Abundance of Time

•

o

Worked on newsletter tool

o

Estimated and scoped projects, yay!

o

Got back into Ruby on Rails, prototyped a project

Relationships

2011-02-11 Fri 06:10 •

Life

Weekly review: Week ending February 11, 2011

o

[X] Share more reflections from Lotusphere

http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22086 February 12, 2011 - Categories: weekly

o

[-] Open up investing TFSA with Waterhouse – will do that on Monday

o

[-] Review my goals and upcoming projects

o

Experimented with lower-key daily routine; need to mix in more social interaction or shared experiences?

o

Brainstormed books I would like to write/read some way

From last week’s plans •

Work o

[-] Start on new project involving Facebook and Rails

o

[-] Work on ITSC blog post, keynote presentation

o

[X] Post more Lotusphererelated reflections

o

[-] Work on Deeper Insights presentation on social learning

o

[-] Work on Remote Presentations that Rock presentation

o

[C] Possibly sign up for consulting course – skipping this for now

o o

Plans for next week •

Work o

[] Clarify scope and prepare estimates for other Drupal or Rails projects

o

[] Work on Facebook/Rails project

Learned how to use estimating worksheet

o

[] Work on newsletter tool – fix bugs, implement requests

Talked to Boz about productivity

o

[] Look into AIS IP address bug with simpleaccess

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 207

o o

o •

•

[] Put together ITSC presentation and blog post

Category

[] Sketch Remote Presentations That Rock revision [] Outline Org-mode talk

Last Notes week dinner with W-’s family

Writing

11:03

3.6

Assorted reflections Some commuting

Relationships o

[] Give spices to Maira; cook Louisiana-style shrimp

Travel

3:24

19.6

o

[] Watch The King’s Speech with W-

Routines – general

7:49

7.8

o

[] Possibly get people together for opera

Exercise

5:39

0.5

o

[] Prepare paperwork for Dutch visa

Break

5:12

3.8

Routines – tidying

5:08

Learning

1:49

Routines – cooking

0:43

Drawing

0:33

o

[] Go to Dutch embassy

o

[] Meet Mike Nurse

o

[] Chat with David Singer

Life o

[] Write about things I’m working on improving

o

[] Get through busy week

Time analysis

Prep – general

Tried new routine: wake up early-ish, have breakfast, do personal stuff or work, switch to work, have lunch, work, have dinner, tidy up, go to bed. This meant not doing anything that required a lot of thought or creativity in the evenings, and moving those activities to the morning instead.

Prep – planning

Category

Last Hours Notes week

Sleep

62:36

53.8

8.9 hours average

Work

47:17

59.9

Got carried away prototyping and estimating

Social

Hours

13:00

14.8

Chinese New Year

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Walking around

4.0

Sewing Outsourceable Observations: I slept more than expected because I gave in to the temptation to snooze. W- simultaneously shifted to a latenight routine, so he woke up later in the mornings, which influenced the snoozing bit too. I think I’ll try this again, but with activities blocked off for morning hours so that (a) I don’t fill it with work by default, and (b) I have a clear reason to get up and get going. It was a quiet week, which was a good way to recover from the buzz of Lotusphere. I suspect a good balance may be more towards the social side, though, and I spent

some time focusing on developing relationships (finally answered my e-mail, for example!). Next week is going to be pretty busy on the social front. Something in the middle, perhaps. Maybe one occasion planned each week. I have a feeling that it would be worth spending time developing friendships. I miss that sense of knowing other people that I had with my friends, and the extra richness of shared experiences. I have to consciously reach out and be interested in people to deal with the asymmetry of knowledge. It’s generally easy to know what I’m thinking about because I write about it, but other people tend not to. Hmm…

On friendship and getting better at it http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22087 February 13, 2011 Categories: friendship, kaizen, life, reflectio n A quiet week led me to thinking about friendship and how I can learn more about it. W- and I are both introverted and we spend most of our time at home. I need to make a deliberate effort to get together with people. Otherwise, it slips off my radar. Why am I thinking about this? I see the close friendships my mom has developed with my ninongs and ninangs (godparents) and with people throughout the world. I think about the laughter and openness of my barkada (clique of friends) back home. I reflect on Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics and what he shares about friendship. It’s a good thing. It enriches life. I plan for the long-term when it comes to finances. I can certainly invest the time and effort into developing something deeper and more important than that. I know that if I’m left to my own devices, I’m probably not going to make much progress, so deliberate action is worthwhile here.

I have friends. I’m also aware that I don’t get to see those friends very often. There’s a bit of asymmetry, too, which I thought about again at Lotusphere. It’s easy for people to know about the significant events in my life, and even the day-to-day details. I don’t have that same sense of awareness about a lot of people, and I’d like to develop it. There are so many people I’d like to get to know further. I want to help make their lives a little better. I want to help them ask interesting questions. I want to learn from what they’re learning along the way. It gives me pleasure to think about them and to hear about their lives. Even focusing on people I already know will give me plenty of opportunities to learn about friendship – and then there are all these fascinating people I have yet to meet. In other words, it’s not you, it’s me. =) I can work on me. Thank goodness many people use Twitter and Facebook to share what’s going on. The fragmentary nature of these streams mean that I get glimpses into other people’s lives, but they’re interleaved with other updates. I sometimes find myself flitting from update to update without a deeper sense of each individual person. So I’m thinking of working on this from two aspects: online and in-person. Online, I’m trying out tools like Gist that give me a social dashboard which aggregates news, organizing it by person. I set aside time to think about other people, learn more about what’s going on in their lives, take notes, and reach out. I set aside some money for the little differences I can make in people’s days. I switched to a phone plan that includes international text messages, too. I’m also going to more regularly check and respond to personal mail (hi!). In person, I’m deliberately looking for experiences I want to share with other people, and for opportunities to learn more about people’s interests. This is a bit more of a stretch for me because I like spending time at home and I hardly ever eat out. (I

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once attended a New Year’s Dinner and found myself thinking I could host a decent party for the cost of my meal.) I’ll probably start with movies and opera, and maybe look into setting up lunch or coffee with people. Have you worked on learning more about friendship? Have any thoughts to share?

On presenting, anxiety, and moving forward http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22092 February 14, 2011 - Categories: speaking I have four presentations on my calendar, spread over the next two months. They’re all on topics I’ve written about: two talks on networking, one talk on presentation tips, and one talk on Emacs. I should prepare the presentations over the next two weeks. I catch myself procrastinating. And if I’m going to procrastinate by tidying or writing, I might as well turn my reflections to why I’m procrastinating, so I can figure it out and fix it. The advantage of having a blog is that I can review what I felt and thought before. For example, in one of my earliest blog posts about public speaking, I wrote that I wanted to become a professional speaker. This was why: I love sharing ideas with people. I love bringing my enthusiasm and my passion to a hall and infecting as many people as I can. I love learning about presentation techniques and fascinating ideas. I love getting people to think. Besides, speaking is a great way to get to meet other fascinating people. I’ve made friends and learned about opportunities at post-conference dinners. Reading that, I feel something dormant stirring. There’s something about sharing my passion and being inspired by other people. There are more posts in my archive. I wrote about reaching people in the back row.

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I wrote about dealing with stage fright by turning presentations into conversations. I wrote about keeping things fresh and shared the feedback I’d gotten from presentations. I can also see myself changing. In October 2009, after an occasion that really showed me the contrast between face-toface presentations and the reach of online ones, I started thinking about how and when to decline invitations to speak. In March 2010, preparing for another presentation, I found myself reflecting on what I was missing from face-to-face presentations. Maybe I can find a new equilibrium. I think it’s a combination of factors, and I’m going to think about them for a bit because it’s useful to understand a challenge before you use its force against it, turn it flat on its back, and tickle it into submission. Higher costs lead to higher standards. With the shift of many presentations to virtual channels, the rise of blogs, Slideshare, and recorded presentations as alternative ways of sharing information, tighter travel restrictions at work, and a flourishing life at home, I’m much less inclined to travel to conferences myself. The relative opportunity cost has increased. I project my higher standards onto other participants, and become more anxious about delivering enough value to justify the time and expense. As I get better at writing and occasionally illustrating my thoughts, I become more impatient with presentations. Presentations take more time to prepare and more time to deliver. They are not as searchable or as linkable as text. Their main benefits are that they are more engaging than plain text or static illustrations, and they can reach a different audience – people who prefer listening to reading, for example. Unlike blog posts or stand-alone slide decks, presentations have deadlines, expectations, and potentially mixed

reception. I can postpone writing about something, but I can’t back out of a commitment to speak. I promise something with the abstract and I’m not sure if I can deliver. If I write a blog post that offers little value to people, they can simply move on. If I give a presentation that people are too polite to walk out of, I not only take an hour of their life but make them miss the opportunity to hear a better speaker. Then there are changing comparisons. In a world filled with TED and Ignite and all sorts of great talks available through Youtube, beautiful slides on Slideshare, and whatnot, it’s hard to put together something without feeling like a nattering newbie. And now that I’ve got that all written down, I can see that it doesn’t make sense. The thing that trumps all of that hasn’t changed: I’m moved to speak and connect with other people because I want to help them make a change in their life and because I’m curious about what I can learn from them too. I tell myself sometimes that I come up with presentations because other people ask me to, or because I want to learn about something myself. But even the things I already know–have struggled with, have come to understand, still continue to explore– those are already worth sharing. I’ll experiment with a few changes. I’m going to try speaking with minimal or no slides, which will force me to be more vivid and memorable in speech. I may choose some topics to focus on, and see if invitations and speaking opportunities can align with those. I might illustrate if inspiration strikes, but not by default.

Writing about all of that seems to be working. I could hardly get to sleep last night thanks to all the presentation ideas running through my head…

More about getting 27″ washers and dryers down 26″ hallways http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22093 February 14, 2011 Categories: highlight, life Flora writes: found your blog googling ’27″ washer dryer 26″ hallway’ and am in awe of your story about disassembling and reassembling your LG washer and dryer. We’re currently dealing with a similar situation. I won’t bore you with the details but basically, we decided to buy a Samsung laundry pair because, in the store, both machines measured 26 ¾ inches and our staircase is 26 3/4 inches at most. We tried getting them delivered and met some very rude and condescending delivery people who were not cooperative at all. They wouldn’t even try getting the machines through the first door which was 27 1/4 inches wide. They took the machines back and now we’re faced with the decision to get them redelivered or returning them and beating our dirty clothes on rocks (or something). I was wondering if you could tell me a bit more about your experiences with disassembling your machines. Was it really difficult? Do you know if there are professional technicians who would do that kind of work for people like me? Did you find the service manuals really helpful? I imagine that this isn’t the first time this has happened to people so I wish there was more of a support system out there for those of us with horizontally challenged hallways and stairways.

For my upcoming presentations, I just need to dig deeper and find the core message I have to share. With that, all the rest of the words and images will flow.

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Take care when lifting the machines. A dolly can be very helpful. Lift it with another person. Gloves can help, too. You may need to take it out of the box in order to get it through the door. If so, look at your doors and corridors for anything that might get in the way, and remove them if possible. (We scratched the front of our washing machine with the door closer we’d forgotten to remove.) Think about the more scratchable sides when planning how to carry the machines in, and make sure that the path to your intermediate disassembly area is clear.

From Appliance adventures

Oh dear. Yes, that is a challenge. As you can imagine, disassembling a machine and squeezing it down a narrow hallway will void your warranty and rough up the hallway, so it can be a tough decision to make. We decided to go for it because we had the budget for an experiment like that and we preferred to take the risk instead of spending time and money on either coin laundry or plumbing renovations, but your mileage may vary. This is not professional advice, so always exercise your judgment. When we were thinking of doing this, we didn’t know any appliance repairers, but you might want to call around. Surely there must be people who are happy to do this for a fee. =) If you need to do it yourself: Look for the service manuals for the washer and dryer you want to get or you want to buy. This may take some digging around because there are plenty of sites that will charge you a fee for the service manual, but you may be able to get it for free. If you don’t find the one for your exact model, you might find one for a similar model. Make sure you get a service manual that shows disassembly, not just a user’s manual that describes how to operate the machine. Also make sure you have a pair of work gloves with good grip, lots of things you can label and put screws into, and all the tools you’ll need, such as screwdrivers, clamps, and wrenches.

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Confirm the machine turns on before you disassemble it. If your machine is dead on arrival, you want to know before you void the warranty. Follow the instructions for disassembling. Read and understand all the instructions before you start. Make sure the machine is unplugged. Take lots of pictures. Label all the containers you use for storing screws. Label any wires you unplug. We used plastic containers for screws and masking tape for wires, writing down positions with a black marker. Wear the gloves whenever possible. There can be lots of sharp edges inside a machine, where they don’t expect anyone but trained technicians to poke around. You can bring parts down separately. This also makes it easier to move the machine down. You may need to squeeze the chassis in order to get it through your narrow hallways. Remove trim that might get in the way. Consider taking out drywall. Expect that the paint will be scraped, and that the machine will also get a bit scratched. If it’s no longer square once it gets to the laundry room, hammer or nudge it into being square again. Reverse the instructions in order to assemble the machine again. Hook everything up. Plug in the machine and see if it starts up. If it doesn’t, you may have an expensive paperweight. Sorry. Run a small load or run through the test cycle in order to confirm that

things work. Look for signs of leaks or missed connections, and be ready to turn the machine off just in case.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Webinar: Energy, Interaction, and ROI http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22094 February 15, 2011 Categories: highlight, presentation, speakin g, tips I’ve been invited to re-do my Remote Presentations That Rock presentation this February. I can’t resist improving presentations every time I give them. What do you think of this?

From Appliance adventures

W- says that it really helped that he disassembled the broken washing machine in order to get it out of the laundry room. The service manuals I found online were fantastic, too, with clear, step-by-step instructions and diagrams. Sometimes it was hard to find the part they were referring to because we didn’t know what it looked like, but going back and forth between close-up diagrams and the exploded parts list solved the problem. Plan for this taking at least a weekend, and keep kids and pets away. The good news is that if you successfully manage to get your laundry pair through your hallway and down your stairs, laundry becomes a whole new experience. We laugh about the laundry adventure whenever we do a load, and I still can’t get over how quiet the new machines are compared to the ones we had before. Is it weird that laundry is one of my favourite parts of the weekend? Good luck! Related: •

The great washing machine adventure

•

Ten lessons learned from disassembling and rebuilding our washing machine

This presentation and speaker notes will be available at URL. (If giving this remotely: Please feel free to use the text chat to ask questions and share your thoughts throughout the presentation.) Remote presentations are harder than in-person presentations, but they can also be more powerful. Yes, you’re limited in terms of body language and delivery. Yes, you have to compete with e-mail, Sametime, and a million interruptions. But if you know how to work with the strengths of remote presentations, you can reach people more effectively and more intimately. Let’s talk about the biggest challenge for remote presentations: the fact that it’s so easy for people to get distracted or to walk away. In real life, most people won’t walk out the back door. They’ll stick around long enough for you to make your main points. Online, if you lose people’s attention, it can be very hard to get it back. And it’s doubly tough because you can’t read people’s body language. You can’t see if people are interested or if they’re off checking mail, and you can’t pull them back by saying something interesting if they’ve already hung up. You’ve got to offer people something they can’t get from reading your the slides or listening to the recording. Why is it worth paying

2011-02-14 Mon 08:28

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attention to you? For me, that comes down to two things: energy and interaction.

Energy Why should people attend your presentation? People aren’t going to come just to hear the facts or numbers. They can get that from the slides. If you’re a leader, they want to hear your confidence, maybe get a better sense of who you are as a person. Even if you’re not an executive – even if, say, you’re an IT specialist presenting a technical topic – you’ve got to bring your energy to your presentation, to show people why it matters to you and why it matters to them. A huge part of this is your voice. You need to sound like you, and you need to sound like the presentation is worthwhile. If people give in to the temptation to multitask, your voice is going to be the only thing that can bring them back. Emphasize your key points by changing your pace, changing your pitch, pausing, repeating things. Let your message come through in your voice. Energy. Urgency. Confidence. You’ll be surprised by how much little things matter. Get a phone headset so that you can breathe properly and so that you don’t get a crick in your neck. Stand up if that helps you get into the “presentation mode”. Have pictures of people around if that helps you remember that you’re talking to real people so that you can make that connection. Turn off the conference entry/exit tones so that you aren’t competing with (or distracted by) beeps. Another, powerful way to share your energy is to add video. Now you might be thinking, “I don’t look good on video.” While we may never look as polished as Sam Palmisano with a video crew, it’s actually easy to look decent. Get a webcam. Even if you pay for this personally, it’ll be worth it. Find a quiet place – no coworkers on conference calls, no dishwashers going whrrr. Find a clear background and good lighting – maybe a blank wall near a window. If you have glasses, dim the light from your laptop screen so that they don’t Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 214

reflect off your lenses. White shirts make it easier for your webcam to pick the right colour-balance and exposure. Practice. It’s a good idea to tell people when you’re going to be on video. I know someone who found this out the hard way. She was giving a presentation, and then her husband walked past in the background… in his underwear! So make it clear that you’re going to be on the air, and close the door. Then you can make a much better–and more professional–connection with people. Video can bring you much closer to people than most in-person presentations can. Sure, you probably won’t be able to do as many gestures, but people can see your facial expressions. Use them. If you step back a little, you can do some gestures. How can you bring all these tips together? Figure out what you want to say, but don’t stop there. Figure out why it matters to you and why it matters for other people. If you can’t figure out why something is worth giving as a presentation instead of as an article or a set of slides, don’t do a presentation. Just send the information. Save presentations for where presentations can make a difference – when you want to persuade people. End on a high note. If you’ve done a good job at convincing people for the need for action – and you’re always doing this with a presentation, even if you’re just presenting information – make it easier for them to take action by showing them what they need to do next. Don’t fade out with just Q&A. Wrap up with a quick summary and maybe a memorable tip, and make sure people know what the next actions are. If you’re doing a remote presentation, think of websites people can visit to learn more or actions people can take to commit to doing something, while they still have the buzz and energy from the presentation. This means you need to plan your time well. People have back-to-back meetings and commitments. Plan to end a little early so that they have

time to act on your message before they get distracted by something else.

Interaction This also means you need to get people’s buy-in along the way, so that when you get to the end of your presentation, people are where they need to be. This brings us to the second part of making remote presentations that rock: Interaction. Q&A. I’m not talking about the five minutes near the end that you think you’ll have for questions. You know that hardly ever happens. You run into technical difficulties. People start late. People take a while to think of their answers. Don’t leave Q&A to the end of your presentation. Make it part of your presentation. If I have an hour for a presentation, I’ll typically plan between seven to twenty minutes of content, with the rest of the time for Q&A and about five minutes at the end to summarize and send people off with actions. This works really well. It forces me to fit my key points into a short attention span, and leaves room for the interesting part: the conversation. How do I make sure things fit? I figure I should talk at about 160 words per minute. (I actually talk faster, but I try to slow down to 160.) If I’m planning for 20 minutes, then that’s roughly 3,200 words. If I write down what I want to say and I’m over 3,200 words, then I have to cut and simplify. Don’t start with the slides. Start with what you want to say, and make room for what’s important. If you’re trying to say too much, split it up into multiple presentations or refer to additional information that people can use to learn more. Q&A can be much more powerful in a web conference than it is in person. In person, you’re usually limited to three or four questions. In person, people have to remember their questions and wait for the Q&A period, then line up for the microphone, say their question, and wait for your response. In person, you don’t really get a choice about which question you want to address first. Online, if you ask people to share their questions

throughout the presentation using the text chat, you not only get an instant feel for where people are curious or confused, you can also pick the most interesting questions–or the easiest ones–to answer first. You don’t have to read people’s body language – they can tell you what’s on their mind. When you’re starting out, you might want to have a moderator watch the text chat for you. If you find that you can occasionally glance at the text chat without getting distracted from what you want to say–and this takes a lot of practice–then you can even start weaving those questions and answers into the flow of your presentation. It’s fantastic when you can pull this off. Q&A is good for people and it’s good for you. You can learn so much from Q&A. You can find out what’s important to people, and what you should include when you’re following up. If you’re lucky, you’ll end up with lots of questions, some of which you might not even know the answers to yet. Great. That not only gives you opportunities to learn more, but also to share those lessons with others. We’ll talk about this again when we talk about radically increasing your ROI from presentations. You can still have people ask their questions over the phone. Now this is important: you should wait at least seven seconds for questions before you move on. Maybe wait even longer. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been on a conference call where the speaker said, “Any questions?” and then after a very short silence, says something like “Thank you, goodbye!” and I’m thinking, “I’m still coming up with questions I want to ask!” As a speaker, you should wait until the silence becomes uncomfortable, and then wait some more. It takes time for people to absorb what you’ve just shared and think of what else they want to learn. If you need to fill the silence, share some questions other people have asked you, or share some questions people might be thinking about. When you’re speaking to an international audience, Q&A might be

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harder. People in some cultures aren’t comfortable with asking questions during presentations. You can get people used to the idea by starting off with typical questions people might ask, and encouraging people to share their questions through a text chat if they don’t want to use the phone. If you really don’t get any questions, then you can share more examples and backup material. Flexibility pays off, and it shows that you know your stuff.

Radically increasing your ROI Now you might be thinking that it takes time to prepare good presentations like that. It takes only a few minutes to throw together slides if you’re going to figure out what to say on the fly and you don’t mind if people forget or tune out. It takes time to plan your presentation so that you have a clear, concise, engaging core message. It takes time to prepare for Q&A. It takes time to learn how to use web-conferencing tools. But it’s a bigger waste of time if you don’t. Presentations are surprisingly expensive. There’s the time you put into preparing it: maybe half an hour for a quick update, maybe four hours for a regular presentation like this, maybe days for a high-stakes presentation. There’s the time you spend giving the presentation. And then there’s the time people spend listening to you. Now I’m in Global Business Services, so utilization is always in the back of my mind. If I’m talking to a group of 35 people for an hour, I probably need to offer you more than $100 in terms of value, and I need to create more than $4,000 of value for IBM and our clients. Is it worth it? I want to make sure it is. So let’s talk about radically increasing your ROI for presentations. When you’re preparing and giving presentations, how can you get even more leverage on the time and effort you’re investing? There are two parts to that: before and after your presentation. Let’s talk about what you can do before your presentation. Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 216

First: Figure out if you can get more people – and more of the right people – to get value from your presentation. It takes the same time to give a presentation to 20 people as it does to give a presentation to 200. Remote presentations make this even easier, because people don’t have to be in the same area and they don’t have to arrange for travel. They just have to dial in. This depends on the purpose of your presentation, of course. If you’re planning a small-group collaborative meeting, go ahead and keep it at six people. But if you’re sharing something of general interest, open it up. Post it on Inviter, which is this IBM service for sharing calendar events. If you’ve got a blog, write about your upcoming presentation. Post it on your Profiles board. Tell people about it. Make it easy for people to find. Second: Share as much as you can while preparing. See if you can share your outline, your slides, your draft speech. If you’ve got a blog, write about your presentation there. I’ve been blogging my speaker notes and my slides on a blog. You’d think that would mean that people can skip the presentation because they already know the key points, like the way you might skip a movie if you already know how it ends. Instead, what happens is that people suggest ways to make the presentation even better, and then they come anyway for the energy and interaction. Result: better presentation, better interaction (because people have been thinking about things deeper), better reach, and better ROI. Share whatever you can share. The same goes for after your presentation. When you’re giving a presentation that’s not confidential, make sure you record and share it. That’s one of the benefits of giving a remote presentation – they’re easy to record and share. It’s a few extra clicks using LotusLive Meetings, and then you can share your presentation with other people. Share your slides. Figure out if your presentation or a subset of your presentation can be shared externally. Take the extra five

minutes to scrub it and share it on a site like Slideshare.net. Share your speaker notes. Share the questions people asked and your answers to them. It takes a few extra minutes and greatly improves your reach. When your presentations are shareable and searchable, they become a very powerful networking tool. And they’ll save you lots of time, too. I can’t tell you how often I refer people to my past presentations in order to help them learn something I’ve shared. And this is where remote presentations can really help you rock. Work with the strengths of the webconferencing tools that we have, and you can really connect with people. Invest a few extra minutes to share your presentations and recordings, and you can radically increase your ROI. Use remote presentations to reach more people than you can bring together in a room, and that will pay off for you in professional and personal connections. Here are seven small things you can do to improve the energy, interaction, and ROI of your remote presentations: •

Get these slides or my speaker notes so that you can review them going forward. (URL)

•

Make your life better by sharing these tips with other people who give remote presentations.

•

Volunteer for a remote presentation if you don’t already have one on your calendar. Practice will help you learn.

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Take a good look at your upcoming presentations and practice putting some energy into them. Make sure they’re worth listening to.

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Get a webcam and learn how to use it well. Figure out where in your workplace or your home you can do a good presentation.

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Cut your next presentation in half so that you can leave room for questions and answers.

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Review your past presentations for things you can share, and share them.

We’ll come back to these tips five minutes near the end of this session so that they’re fresh in your mind. I want you to be able to walk out of here with a clear understanding of how you can apply these tips and how they can transform the way you present. What’s holding you back from giving better remote presentations? What do you want to learn more about? 2011-02-15 Tue 07:58

From zero to hero: a newbie’s guide to learning and building a reputation along the way http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22095 February 16, 2011 Categories: blogging, highlight, learning A friend of mine is a new IBM consultant who wants to learn more about and develop a reputation in social analytics. I thought I’d share some tips on how to learn and build a reputation along the way. Pick your field carefully. Another mentor of mine said that emerging technologies offer the best opportunities. In a new field, it’s easier to not only catch up, but even distinguish yourself. In mature fields, it’s hard to compete with people who have years of experience. Even in mature fields, though, you might be able to find niches where things are rapidly changing. Read. Read everything about that topic that you can get your hands on. Learn how to speed-read if you don’t already do so. Don’t worry about words you don’t understand or concepts that are too complex. Gradually, as you absorb more information, more of the things you’ve read will make sense to you. Stay up to date. Find the key players in the space that you’re working on. Check out their blogs, their presentations, their tweets – whatever you can get that gives you more information. Set up searches and alerts so that you can find new material as it gets published.

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Use bookmarks to organize your research. You’re going to immerse yourself in a flood of information. Use social bookmarking systems like Lotus Connections Bookmarks or Delicious to keep track of interesting things you’ve read, and to organize resources into your own categories. That way, when you need to find something again or if you want to send someone a link, you can quickly get it along with related resources. Collect examples of ideas being been applied to real life. If you’re interested in Web 2.0 and financial services, you need to be able to tell stories about innovative companies and the results they’re seeing. If you’re interested in social analytics, find case studies where analytics has led to increased collaboration and productivity. Learn about pitfalls and challenges, too. There’s no substitute for experience, but awareness is a good start – and that can help you brainstorm opportunities for you to get involved. Write notes and look for ways to explain ideas in simpler terms. Summarize what other people have said. Link to resources people might find useful. Share examples and the principles they demonstrate. Share your notes on a blog. Make presentations and volunteer to speak. This helps you understand a topic deeper and build the beginning of a reputation. What can you write about? Write about what you’re learning and why. Write about the mistakes you made and how you solved them (or are trying to solve them!). Write about how you’re learning and from whom. Write about the resources out there. Write about the things you’re finding out. Write about the connections between your topic of interest and other things you know about. Write about what you want to learn next. There are plenty of things you can share, even as a beginner. Experiment. Can you try things out yourself? Apply the ideas to your own life and share the results. As you build credibility, you might be able to convince

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your team to give a new practice a try. Share those results, too. Come up with ideas and try them out. Use these experiences to convince people to let you work on projects. Volunteer and expand your responsibilities. Make sure your manager, your mentors, and your coworkers know what you’re interested in learning or doing. Volunteer to help with projects or presentations that need to be done. Ask your manager to help you structure a way to learn on the job. Learn. Share what you’re learning along the way. Experiment. Volunteer and expand your responsibilities. You can go from being a newbie to being known in surprisingly little time, but you need to get out there and make things happen. Good luck!

Imagine success for social media http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22096 February 16, 2011 Categories: blogging, connecting, conversati on, kaizen, networking, story, web2.0, writi ng I was talking to an independent consultant who wanted to get better at using social media to expand his network. I suggested that he put together articles and presentations that he can share with his contacts (mostly executives) that are useful and that they would probably share with the right people in their companies. Thinking about this, I realized that imagining the ideal scenarios can help people recognize the value of investing in sharing knowledge or building a social media presence. You can say that sharing is important, or you can imagine a story that goes like this: CEO of small business: Oh! It’s an e-mail from __. He always sends me useful information, so I’ll take a look at this one. Hmm, this whitepaper looks like something our company could learn from. Let me send it to the director in charge of that.

Director: Hmm, an e-mail from the VP, I better read it. Ah, an article that looks like it will help with one of the challenges I’m currently working on. Hey, this guy has some great tips. I wonder… Oh, he has a website with other articles and presentations! Great. I’m going to flip through the presentations that look immediately useful. I should probably bookmark this site so I can come back to it later. Hey, he’s on Twitter. Let me check out what he posts… He’s got an upcoming seminar – that looks interesting, maybe I’ll attend. I think I’ll follow him on Twitter so that I can hear about other updates. Hmm, maybe he can do some consulting for us for this project – that would save me a lot of time, help me get the results I need… (and if he’s as good as he seems to be, I’ll look like a star).

happens. … Yup, that works, and here’s how I can make it even better.”

Someone else searching on the Net: Hmm, I need to learn more about ___ if I’m going to be able to deliver those results. Oh, here’s an article that might be useful. Those are good points. Let me save this. I wonder… ah, he has other articles and presentations. Those are useful too. Let me read them… I wonder if he’s available to do some consulting. Oh, look, he’s in Toronto too. That makes it easier. I should give him a call.

What are the stories you imagine, and what do those stories help you learn about what you can do to make them happen?

Think about what success looks like. Tell yourself a story about what could happen. It’s probably less about just increasing the number of your followers or posting at least one blog post a week, and more about actions and results. What’s that story? Walk through it in your head, check if it’s plausible, and identify the pieces you need to build in order to make it happen. Doesn’t investing in those pieces make more sense now that you can see how they’re related to your end goals?

I’ve been talking to people about my project of becoming more social, getting better at connecting. It makes sense. I get to practise and pick up tips at the same time. =) Sometimes people say, “Sacha, aren’t you already pretty social? How big is your network, anyway?” But it’s not about that, and I think I’m starting to figure out what it’s about.

That led me to think about the ideal stories I tell myself. When I write for my blog, this is what I hope will happen: Me: “Ah! Now I understand things a little better. Let me go try that and see what

Someone: “I need to figure out something. Let me search… Hmm, that look interesting, let me try that. Hey, that works. Oh, that looks useful too. And that one! And that one! I’m going to add this to my feed reader. … Oh look, another post from Sacha. She reminds me that it’s possible to be cheerful and have fun doing awesome things. =) Hmm, I know someone who might find this useful too…” Someone: “Can you help me with __?” Me: “I could’ve sworn I’ve written about that around here… Ah, there it is! Here’s the link.” Someone:“Awesome. Thanks!”

On friendship and becoming more social http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22098 February 18, 2011 Categories: connecting, friendship, philosop hy

There are so many interesting people. W-, of course, is gosh-darn-awesome. And there are all these wonderful people I’ve gotten to know: my family, my barkada, my ninongs and ninangs, my friends in Canada who helped me get the hang of those first few winters, my friends at work and in various clubs, my friends through this blog and Twitter and all these other networks, and people I have yet to become good friends with. So the limiting factor Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 219

isn’t the lack of people to develop friendships with, but my ability to do so. What does it mean to be friends with someone? In the Nichomachean Ethics, where he devotes a book of fourteen chapters to the topic of friendship, Aristotle distinguishes between friendships of utility, friendships of pleasure, and friendships of good character. Of these, I’m interested in friendships of good character. In this kind of friendship, you appreciate the goodness of other people and they appreciate yours. You wish them good, and they wish you good as well. One can’t have many friends at this level. In W.D.Ross’s translation of the Nichomachean Ethics: But it is natural that such friendships should be infrequent; for such men are rare. Further, such friendship requires time and familiarity; as the proverb says, men cannot know each other till they have ‘eaten salt together’; nor can they admit each other to friendship or be friends till each has been found lovable and been trusted by each. Those who quickly show the marks of friendship to each other wish to be friends, but are not friends unless they both are lovable and know the fact; for a wish for friendship may arise quickly, but friendship does not.

And also: Now there are three grounds on which people love; of the love of lifeless objects we do not use the word ‘friendship’; for it is not mutual love, nor is there a wishing of good to the other (for it would surely be ridiculous to wish wine well; if one wishes anything for it, it is that it may keep, so that one may have it oneself); but to a friend we say we ought to wish what is good for his sake. But to those who thus wish good we ascribe only goodwill, if the wish is not reciprocated; goodwill when it is reciprocal being friendship. Or must we add ‘when it is recognized’? For many people have goodwill to those whom they have not seen but judge to be good or useful; and one of these might return this feeling. These people seem to bear goodwill to each other; but how could one call them friends when they do not know their mutual feelings? To be friends, then, the must be mutually recognized as bearing goodwill and wishing well to each other for one of the aforesaid reasons.

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That makes me think of several things. First, to wish good for other people, you should know them beneath the surface. It’s easy to say that I wish my friends to be happy, but knowing the specific things they consider pleasurable or good means I can share good experiences, find good gifts, or help people grow. I’m probably an outlier in terms of writing and making it easy for people to get to know me through my interests. If I’m going to get to know other people, then I’m going to need to take the initiative and reach out, maybe slowly getting a sense of a person over time. I can get better at this by also, say, compiling notes on people’s expressed preferences. (Yes, I’m a geek.) Second, friendship is reciprocal. I can feel goodwill towards many people, such as the people I’ve gotten to know through blogs. Some may even feel goodwill for me back, without my knowing. Friendship, I think, is when we both know it and that mutual understanding influences our actions. I think that people are rather better at caring about me than I am at caring about them. This doesn’t mean I don’t care about other people as much. It means that I think other people are more thoughtful and are better at making a connection, and that there’s plenty of room for me to learn. Add to that the occasional asymmetry of knowledge and it can be a little awkward, but I’m getting better at getting past the awkward bit and just focusing on getting to know people more. One of the things I’m particularly curious about is developing friendships online. When I listed people I might call if I needed a favour or I needed someone to talk to, I realized that there were some people I’ve never actually seen in person. I’d like to get even better at cultivating friendships online. From literature and other people’s examples, it’s clearly possible to develop deep connections beyond your geographic reach. With many of my friends outside Toronto – or infrequently met even in the same city – it’s something worth learning more about.

A lot of this is a matter of time: time to learn about people, time to share experiences, time to build trust, and so on. I can’t do much to speed things up. But it’s also equally a matter of attention – if I don’t invest that attention, then that time will pass without much effect. Of course, reflecting on the Ethics, I need to be careful that people and friendship don’t become means. It’s not about checking off a little checkmark on my list of things to learn, or dissecting people and finding out what makes them tick, or chasing the pleasure of making someone’s day. So that’s what I’m talking about when I say I want to get better at connecting or I want to be more social. It’s not about making sure I’ve “got my dance card filled”, or that I go out to at least one get-together each week, or even that I remember to host tea. I think it’s more about knowing people more so that I can appreciate their goodness and wish them good, and about building deeper connections. 2011-02-18 Fri 06:50

Book: Daddy Long Legs, and letters http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22099 February 18, 2011 Categories: book, reading, writing A chance remark by the turtle about Daddy Long Legs led me to request the 1955 musical from the Toronto Public Library, and then to read the book online. Fred Astaire’s dance sequences (particularly the first one where he makes drumsticks dance better than most people do) and a couple of good lines, and a nice ending made me smile. Yes, the age gap’s bigger in the movie than it was in the book, and it must’ve been hard for Astaire to perform that with what was going on in his personal life, but it’s still a good one. The book, on the other hand, was an unexpectedly delightful find. It’s written as a series of letters from this orphan-turnedaspiring-writer, with vivid descriptions and

general cheer. I’m half-inspired to do more letter-writing myself, or to bring that kind of vivacity to my blog. (Will you put up with descriptions of life? In any case, it is my blog, and I would like to be able to remember. =) Prepare for more adjectives!) Now I am on the lookout for other epistolary gems. I have requested “A Woman of Independent Means” from the library, remembering my mom’s recommendation. Do you have any favourites?

LinkedIn tip: Customize your profile URL http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22100 February 18, 2011 Categories: connecting, linkedin, tips, web2. 0 This tip’s for Mike Nurse and other people who are looking for small things that could make LinkedIn more useful for them… =) Did you know that you can customize your LinkedIn URL to make it more memorable, writable, and professional? 1. Log on to linkedin.com. 2. Click on Profile – Edit Profile. 3. Click on Edit next to your Public Profile URL. 4. Click on Edit next to Your Public Profile URL. Choose a short, memorable URL. Click on Set Address. 5. Optionally customize what people see on your public profile. 6. Click on Save Changes. If you want to make it easier for people to connect with you on LinkedIn, put your new URL on your business card, your e-mail signature, your website, and other social network profiles. Little things like that help make it easier for other people to connect with you.

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Decision review: Limiting my blog to one post a day http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22105 February 19, 2011 Categories: blogging, highlight, kaizen, refle ction, sketches, writing In 2009, I decided to limit my blog to around one post a day. I wrote as many notes as I wanted in a private text file, and selected only one or two to share each day.

spending days without writing. While there were days that I welcomed the extra time, it was throwing off my routines. I felt like I was binge-writing: gorging myself on writing, then putting it off until the need to write and think drove me back to the keyboard or the pen. There were very few dull days that passed without a story, a lesson, or an idea I wanted to share, so although I was trying to keep to one post a day, I itched to write more, and new items often pre-empted things in the backlog until

People liked the new frequency. They found it more manageable. Instead of getting three or four e-mails or feed items a day, they got one or two. I liked the new frequency too. I started shuffling blog posts around depending on how useful I thought they would be to others. This was generally a good thing, as I put off publishing slice-of-life posts whenever I had tips to share. Sometimes, though, I ended up with “stale” blog posts that I wanted to share but didn’t. In a medium as current as a blog, it seems weird to write about something that happened three days ago. After a few tries at keeping a scheduled queue of posts in my WordPress blog, I turned to keeping the posts in my Org file instead because it was easier to choose which post to publish than to keep shuffling dates around in WordPress. Sometimes I’d post more than one blog post anyway. Looking at my doubleand triple-post days, most of those posts followed up on conversations, and I’m glad I posted them when I did. If I’m writing something that I think might be generally useful, I’d rather blog it than keep it in email. Whenever I tried to stick closely to my one-post-a-day rule, I found myself postponing responses instead of, say, copying and pasting the relevant tips into an HTML mail. Postponing responses didn’t help with Inbox Zero or quick conversations, so I often decided to just go ahead and post. Rhythm can make or break an asynchronous conversation. Rhythm affected my writing, too. Whenever I had plenty of many scheduled posts lined up, I found myself Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 222

those things were no longer relevant. It’s a tradeoff among different people’s needs. On one hand, posting short tips frequently would benefit conversational partners as well as searchers. On the other hand, posting too frequently would give subscribers negative value. I guess the chart looks a little like what’s on the right – but what were the numbers? Would subscribers get impatient with two posts a day? At what point would searchers get diminishing returns from posts that were too sparse and quickly written? And what about what I wanted from my blog – a way to remember and share life? I found myself posting more generally useful posts about writing and blogging instead of ephemeral memories, glimpses of life – but I loved the chance connections I had when I wrote about things like burning pancakes or planting in the garden. I’d hate to become yet another generic blogger writing bland, inarguable, and impersonal tips, or to write for what I thought might be the widest use when there might be interesting things to explore in the nooks and crannies of life.

It’s a trade-off between other factors, too. Should I write fewer posts, but longer ones? I like sticking to one thought per blog post, though. Maybe I should do “reader mailbag”-type posts, but that probably still requires more of a weekly routine, and I do like posting people-related updates within a day or two. I’d like to spend some time revisiting old posts or sharing my reflections on other people’s posts. How do I fit that in around the new things I want to write about? And I’ve been meaning to move time away from writing to other activities. Perhaps I’ll be more ruthless about prioritizing what to write about, and leave other unfinished ideas as drafts in my private notes – or maybe I’ll drop hints about things I’d like to think about, in case other people can point out things they’d like to learn more about as well. Data can help explore decisions things like this. Before I put a lot of time into figuring out whether I can set up a separate “firehose” category in my blog that gets excluded from e-mail notifications and feeds until I promote posts into the regular stream, I can find out how often I might need it, what effects it might have, and whether it’s worth looking into. Instead of thinking about this in a vacuum, I decided to conduct a little post-analysis. I wanted to know: •

How often do I post more than one thing a day?

•

Am I more consistent in the number of posts now than before? Consistency is good for subscribers; you want to know that I’m not going to suddenly overwhelm you with mail/items. (Well, aside from that mail snafu I had, but things should be working smoothly now.)

•

Am I writing longer posts?

•

How is that related to, say, the number of comments people leave on my posts?

A little number-crunching, and voila:

The red line shows the number of posts. As you can see, I’ve gone from really spikey to a somewhat more consistent line hovering at around 30 posts a month. This means you can subscribe without fear, or check back roughly every morning. The blue line shows that my average post length (in terms of characters) is somewhat spikey, and it seems to be increasing. So, yes, I’m writing longer posts. It’s plotted on the secondary axis (0..7000) so that the other lines aren’t drowned out. The green line shows the number of comments. My spreadsheet doesn’t show any strong correlations with either my post length or the number of posts, so it doesn’t look like I’m scaring people off with long posts or too-frequent posts. As it turns out, I’m actually pretty good at keeping to around one or two posts per day. This year’s had an average of 1.1 posts per day, well within reason (and subscriber patience, I hope). Knowing this means I don’t need to spend a lot of time fiddling with this decision, although I do want to find the rough spots and figure out how I can smooth them over. So here’s what I’m going to try next: •

I’m going to change my “normal” level to one or two posts a day instead of just one, which means I can feel less guilty when I post two or even three blog posts on one day.

•

If I have multiple conversation follow-ups, I’ll combine them into a mailbag-type post instead of sticking to the one-thought-per-post

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guideline. This means I can get responses out in a timely way without ending up with three or four additional posts. •

•

•

Rails projects – Current pipeline handled o

[-] Work on Facebook/Rails project – waiting for paperwork

o

[X] Work on newsletter tool – fix bugs, implement requests

o

[X] Look into AIS IP address bug with simpleaccess

o

[X] Put together ITSC presentation and blog post

o

[X] Sketch Remote Presentations That Rock revision

I’m going to try to show more of those here-and-now moments instead of just keeping them in the backlog. It’s probably inconsequential that I feel happy about the grass peeking through the patchy snow. I like it, and I want to get better at writing not only about tips, but about life. =)

o

[-] Outline Org-mode talk – will work on next week

o

Added standalone wiki support to community toolkit – for Debra Johnson

o

Added generic newsletter support to community toolkit – for Darrel Rader

I’ll channel the rest of my darnI-want-to-write-about-that-too frustration into drawing and other communication skills I want to practice.

o

Added template file support to community toolkit – for Darrel Rader

o

Did some quick illustrations

o

Finally sent in Lotusphere expenses

I might build in more revision into my writing routines, so I can get better at writing and I can express things even more clearly and concisely. This could be the second post in a day if I don’t have any conversation follow-ups. If I’m disciplined about limiting my writing time and just doing quick descriptions of other stories/ideas I want to write about, then this could also be the time I spend reviewing those and fleshing those out.

Sounds like a plan. Have you come across this blog through a search? Do you read this blog regularly? Do you subscribe to updates (thanks!)? What would make it work better for you? What have you seen working on other personal blogs?

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Relationships o

[X] Give spices to Maira; cook Louisiana-style shrimp

o

[X] Watch The King’s Speech with W-

o

[-] Possibly get people together for opera – postponed to next week

http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22106 February 19, 2011 - Categories: weekly

o

[X] Prepare paperwork for Dutch visa

From last week’s plans

o

[X] Go to Dutch embassy

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[X] Meet Mike Nurse

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[X] Chat with David Singer

Weekly review: Week ending February 18, 2011

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Work o

[-] Clarify scope and prepare estimates for other Drupal or

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•

Life

o o

[X] Write about things I’m working on improving [X] Get through busy week – not actually that hectic, yay!

Plans for next week •

•

•

Work o

[] Sketch ITSC keynote by David Zach

o

[] Give ITSC keynote on networking

o

Catego ry

Thi s wee k

Las t wee k

Delt Notes a

Break

4.8

5.2

-0.4

0.6

-0.6

Drawin g Exercis e

4.7

5.7

-1.0

[] Learn about ECM and web services

Learnin g

0.6

1.8

-1.2

o

[] Follow up on documents of understanding

Prep – general

0.4

o

[] Put together Idea Lab resources

Relationships

Including trip to Dutch embassy

0.4

Routine 1.8 s– cooking

4.4

-2.6

Routine 6.3 s– general

7.8

-1.5

5.1

-1.3

o

[] Go to Second City with recent hires and friends

o

[] Host tea get-together 1pm our place Saturday Feb 26

o

[] Watch Die Fledermaus (http://toronto-opera.com)

Routine 3.8 s– tidying

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[] Watch Madame Butterfly (http://toronto-opera.com)

Sleep

65.3 62.6 2.7

o

[] Send birthday cards

9.3 hours average

o

[] Try making a beet smoothie or Tex-mex lasagna

Social

25.9 12.0 13.9

Skype, Starbucks, and e-mail

Travel

1.5

Some commuting

Work

40.4 47.3 -6.9

Writing

12.5 11.1 1.4

Life o

o

[] Enjoy extended weekend: spend focused time revising, drawing, presenting, cooking, and tidying up [] Experiment with giving presentation through Zipcast (Remote Presentations That Rock, Monday?)

Time analysis Experiment for the week: more social stuff. Met people, had mentoring chats, reached out through e-mail, etc.

3.4

-1.9

Proposals, CommunityToo lkit, presentations

Still hitting snooze in the mornings. It’s hard in winter and a warm bed. I’ve asked W- to help me stick with my resolve to get up in the morning, and may experiment

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with returning to the other week’s routine of having a very light evening. Lots of time invested into building relationships, following up on my previous reflections on friendship. Good use of time – instead of doing extra work in the evenings, I used that time to reach out instead. Looking forward to doing more drawing and cooking over the next few days.

Waking up: looking at my data http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22109 February 20, 2011 Categories: geek, graph, life, quantified, sket ches Whenever I manage to wake up early a few days in a row, I feel great about it. But I don’t do it consistently. I spend a couple of days waking up before 6 AM and enjoying a good spurt of writing, and then I find myself slipping back into later bedtimes and later wake-up times (~ 7 AM) or hitting the snooze. Clearly there are some things I still need to tweak about my system. Time-tracking means I’ve got a way to see what my current sleep patterns are like:

Here are the questions I’m thinking about: •

Is it a matter of getting to bed earlier?

•

Would it help to disable snooze entirely?

•

Is it a matter of setting my alarm clock even earlier? (Ex: Set it for 4 AM so that I eventually get out of bed at 5 AM.)

•

Would it help to set our programmable thermostat warmer in the morning, or promise myself a hot cup of tea when I get up?

•

Would it help to set my snooze interval to 5 minutes instead of 10?

•

How about if I find a way to turn my Android into a light clock? (Using Tasker to bring up a bright app, maybe…)

•

What if I give up on waking up early and instead shift to more of a night owl schedule? Advantage: can sync up with W-. I’ll need to figure out how to give my personal pursuits the creative energy they need, though.

Hmm. More things to hack…

ITSC guide to conference awesomeness http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22111 February 21, 2011 Categories: conference, connecting, event, n etworking, presentation, sketchcast, sketche s, speaking

•

Average sleep length when waking up before 6 AM: 7:09

•

Average sleep length when waking up after 6 AM: 8:47

•

Average sleep time for wake-up times before 6 AM: 9:45 PM, which is a bit of a stretch but is doable.

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Darren Hudgins liked my Shy Connector presentation a lot, so he asked me to put together some quick tips to share with the ~400 people at the Instructional Technology Strategies Conference. Here’s what I came up with: ITSC Guide to Conference Awesomeness

They’re going to play it live at the conference at 12 PST. =) I’ve kept it short so that I can share a few quick tips and then get out of the way of all that awesome networking. It sounds like a great crowd.

If you’re here from the ITSC, you might also be interested in my sketchnotes from David Zach’s keynote. Click on the image to see the full version.

Here are other pre-ITSC conference networking tips I’ve shared: Instructional Technology Strategies Conference: The Shy Connector’s Guide to Getting Ready for Conference Awesomeness View more presentations from Sacha Chua. For more networking tips, check out: The Shy Connector View more presentations from Sacha Chua.

February 22, 2011 - Categories: sketches

New recipes: chapati, curried chickpeas, vegetable biryani (from sauce), Tex-mex lasagna Lots of time spent putting together presentations. Worth it, though! Looking forward to improving my workflow further.

Kaizen: Thinking about presentations

(Also see my full notes for the Shy Connector presentation and other blog posts about connecting)

http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22115 February 22, 2011 Categories: kaizen, life, speaking

I made the video with the guide to conference awesomeness using Microsoft Onenote, Microsoft Powerpoint, a Lenovo X61 tablet PC, Camtasia Studio 7 (which doesn’t get along perfectly with the Windows 7 on my tablet). I’d love to go back to the free Inkscape drawing program for drawing if someone can help me figure out how to get it to smoothly digitize. =) Thanks to IBM for sponsoring this effort!

I’ve just finished a presentation (The ITSC Guide to Conference Awesomeness) and I’ve got a few presentations coming up:

Follow me on Twitter (@sachac) for more updates. I’ll be around from 12 PM to 1 PM PST to answer questions or share other tips. Use the #itsc11 hashtag or mention me by adding @sachac to your tweet. If you’re here after February 21, feel free to leave a comment on this blog post for Q&A. Hope this helps!

How I spent my Family Day weekend

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Remote Presentations That Rock (Feb 28 in person at IBM, plus virtual sessions at IBM)

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Braindump: Note-taking in Org Mode (GTALUG, in person)

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Learning on the Network (virtual, IBM)

I also plan to experiment with Slideshare’s Zipcast feature, maybe doing “Remote Presentations That Rock”, “Six Steps to Sharing”, “The Shy Connector”, and other presentations. There’s always room for growth. Thinking about that last presentation, what worked well?

http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22114

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 227

•

The tech check turned up some problems communicating with the hotel conference room, so I decided to go with a recording instead. Not as fun or as interactive as a real-time presentation, but if I’m not going to be able to listen and react to people anyway, I might as well record it.

•

Sketching the presentation was fun.

•

EasyPrompter was a great teleprompter. It was much better than scrolling through a document myself. I put the webcam in front of it. I might look a little cross-eyed, but it does speed up the production of recorded presentations quite a bit.

•

It was a good idea to record the video and then use Rehearse Timings to capture the slide times. Saving slide transition times meant that I could change the slides (move the graphics around, for example) and re-record the presentation using Camtasia Studio without listening to everything again and again.

position it in front of my laptop. That should be easy to build. •

I can look around for a better “studio” location. Maybe the spare room upstairs? I can cover the wall and the door with fabric, and set my lights.

•

I can try using my lapel microphone, or spring for an array microphone.

•

I can try using Windows Movie Maker for chroma-key or picture-inpicture, if I can’t get Camtasia Studio to behave the way I want it to. I got a black preview screen possibly due to hardware acceleration, but there doesn’t seem to be a way for me to disable hardware acceleration in Windows 7. Also, I couldn’t get the picture-in-picture to show up in the top right corner, so I had to settle for the top left.

•

I can buy or build a proper teleprompter. (Ooooh.) But I’m going to try building a rig for my webcam and laptop first – maybe this summer, when we get our woodworking tools out again. Can’t wait!

How can I make things better? •

I can work on relaxing my eyebrows when I give presentations. They tend to go up even during nonemphasized parts of the presentation.

•

I can add more pauses when teleprompting.

•

I can get dimmers for the lights we have, or better yet, construct some softbox-type light sources. They’re ordinary daylight-balanced house lamps from Home Depot and they can be pretty intense. I’ve draped ripstop nylon over them to create a softer light, but it would be better to have a good setup. If I can figure out how to mount them easily on the light stand (they currently use clips which can be hard to position), then I can use our light umbrellas.

•

I can use something like Blu-Tack and a tripod to position my webcam more firmly. Or maybe find/make a stand for my webcam to allow me to

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Things I’d like to grow into: •

I’d love to animate my sketches instead of using picture-in-picture video. That might mean starting off with video (to help establish personal connection) and then switching to animation or sketches. If I get the hang of drawing in a single screen instead of on an infinite scroll of paper, maybe I can do it as a screen capture or whiteboard video.

•

I want to learn how to do chromakey video (or frame-by-frame sketching if I absolutely must). Imagine being able to combine video and sketching in ways that make sense…

•

I should organize my past presentations so that it’s easy for people to see the different topics and resources.

•

Maybe I can make a routine of presentations so that they’re a smooth and regular part of my life instead of being a bit bursty (it never rains, but it pours).

•

Posted revised “Remote Presentations That Rock” presentation http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22118 February 23, 2011 Categories: presentation, sketches, speaking Next week, I’m giving Remote Presentations That Rock in person at IBM 3600 Steeles Avenue on Monday. I decided to hold off on theextensive revisions I’d been thinking of doing. Instead, I re-drew the slides and I changed a few points. See http://sachachua.com/blog/remote for full notes / discussion. Remote Presentations That Rock (2011)Click on Menu – View Full Screen to see this in full-screen mode. The older version, for comparison: 7 Tips for Remote Presentations That Rock and the "e-book"-type presentation: Remote Presentations That Rock (v2) View more presentations from Sacha Chua Some speakers are very consistent when it comes to content and delivery. I keep working on my material, gnashing my teeth over titles I want to reuse, because I’m still learning so much. I’m consistent about a growing number of things, though. I’ll have a blog post up with the resources, I’ll probably bubble over with energy when I give the presentation, and I’ll record and share as much as I can.

Get More Value from Blogging, part I: The Immediate Benefits of Thought http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22119

February 24, 2011 Categories: blogging, life, reflection, tips, we b2.0 Paul Gillin invited me to do an #infoboom tweetchat on the professional and personal value of blogging on March 3, 2011 (2pm3pm EST). When I brainstormed some of the things I’d like to talk about, I ended up with a big list: not just the value I get from blogging, but also tips for how you can build that too. I hope you enjoy this blog series! People often ask me: Why do you blog? Where do you find the time to do it? How can you find all these things to write about? I tell people I don’t have the time to not blog. It’s a tremendously valuable practice. Lifechanging, even. In this blog series, I’m going to explain how blogging helps me both personally and professionally, and I’m going to share tips on how you can get that kind of value too.

Part I: The Immediate Benefits of Thought I write for selfish reasons, among which are the benefits of the process of writing. Even if no one read my blog, it would already be worth the time. Here are four ways to get immediate value from writing about life.

1. Clarity I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.

Joan Didion, author Writing helps me think more clearly. When I struggled with homesickness and doubt, I wrote down what I was thinking, what I was afraid of, what I hoped for, and what I wanted to do. When I puzzled through a bug in my code, I wrote down the symptoms, the approaches I tried, and the solution I found. Writing forces me to slow down and find words to express myself. Strand by strand, I can untangle the mental mess and turn it into something coherent.

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Tips: Next time you’re thinking about something complicated… •

Use mindmaps to write down key ideas in a loose structure. See if that helps you understand your reasons and your alternatives.

•

Use lists, tables, and other idea organizers to think through a problem. For example, you might make a list of pros and cons for alternatives.

•

Write your thoughts down in a journal (private, if necessary) so that you can take a step back and understand them.

metaphors can be launching pads for your own. Writing about life also helps me appreciate it better. When I write about the things that make me happy, I pay more attention to them in life, and grow even happier. When I write about things I can improve, I get better at recognizing opportunities to do so. Like the way that sewing helps me see clothes in a new light and woodworking teaches me more about furniture, writing helps me learn about life. Tips: Next time you struggle to describe something… •

Give it a try, even if you don’t feel your description is adequate. You can go back and revise or build on your previous notes.

•

Read what other people have shared and look for words or phrases that get you closer to the idea.

•

Try a metaphor. Sometimes they can lead to surprising insights.

•

Use writing to learn about life, and use life to improve your writing.

Examples: •

On presenting, anxiety, and moving forward

•

On appearance and bias: thoughts from the Nerd Girls panel at Lotusphere 2011

•

More reflections on code and consulting

2. Recognition

Examples:

The human mind has first to construct forms, independently, before we can find them in things.

•

Tweaking fun and nudging myself out of procrastination

Albert Einstein, physicist

•

Fun and rational economic theory

•

Momentum and holidays

When you can name a thing, you understand it better. If I spend an hour getting to the roots of my procrastination and realize that it’s because I don’t value the results enough, I can recognize that feeling when I encounter it in life, and I can do something about it. Writing helps me get a grip on strong emotions or confusing puzzles. Understanding something lets me work with it. Reading voraciously helps me with writing and with life. Books and blog posts help me learn how other people describe their experiences and find words that resonate. Other people’s phrases and

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3. Size Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.

Albert Einstein The brain can hold only so much in thought at a time. It’s like a computer with limited memory. This limitation frustrates me. I might be thinking of interesting things while walking around or while doing dishes, but my mind flits from thing to thing without depth, and that the older thoughts fade quickly and are hard to recall.

Writing gets ideas and information out of my head. This external memory allows me to not only work with bigger things, but to work without the fear of forgetfulness or loss. This also allows me to "chunk", improving both my memory and my ability to work with ideas. By moving complex ideas out of my head and into a form where I can get a handle on them, I can work with larger combinations. It’s like the way that a pianist playing from memory doesn’t think of individual notes but of patterns, and the way that chess grandmasters don’t think of individual pieces, but of configurations of attack and defense. Writing these detailed posts on the value of blogging allows me to use the highlevel summaries as building blocks for other thoughts. Tips: Next time you’re working with a large, complex idea… •

Write down parts of the idea, then summarize your thoughts and use the summaries to build the next level of thinking. Repeat as needed.

•

Try using an outline to break the idea down into smaller ideas, and continue until you get to the level of detail you want.

practice helps you understand yourself better and improve the way you work and live. I find it very useful to observe myself and ask questions. After giving a presentation, I think about how I did it and how I can improve. When feeling strong emotions, I ask myself why I feel that way and what that reveals about me. I think about how I want to spend my time and how that matches up with reality. Writing reinforces that routine of reflection. Writing helps me identify things I want to build on, either when I read it back or when other people share their insights. Writing helps me work around the temptation to lie to myself or to gloss over factors. When I write things down, I have a better chance of figuring out when I don’t make sense, and when I do. Tips: Build some time into your schedule for regular reflection so that you can… •

Ask yourself: What am I doing well? How can I do things even better? Write your thoughts in a private journal or on a blog.

•

Review your reflections occasionally to see what else you can learn from them.

Examples: •

This series!

4. Reflection and improvement There are three principal means of acquiring knowledge… observation of nature, reflection, and experimentation. Observation collects facts; reflection combines them; experimentation verifies the result of that combination.

Examples: •

Kaizen: Thinking about presentations

•

On friendship and becoming more social

•

Decision review: Limiting my blog to one post a day

Denis Diderot, philosopher Writing is a way of having a conversation with yourself. Through that conversation, you can look at what you’re doing, why you do it, and how you can do things better. You can talk about what you feel, why you feel it, and whether that helps or hinders you. This reflective

More posts in this series: Get more value from blogging Tune in tomorrow for more tips. You can also subscribe using a feed-

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 231

reader or subscribe by e-mail to get updates. Hope this helps!

usually turn up what I’m looking for, and that’s good enough to keep me writing. Tips:

Get More Value from Blogging, part II: The Compounding Value of an Archive http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22120 February 25, 2011 Categories: blogging, tips, web2.0, writing Paul Gillin invited me to do a tweetchat on the professional and personal value of blogging on March 3, 2011 (2pm-3pm EST, #infoboom). When I brainstormed some of the things I’d like to talk about, I ended up with a big list: not just the value I get from blogging, but also tips for how you can build that too. I hope you enjoy this blog series! You can also see other resources in this series. Update: Added quote from Donald Knuth, thanks to Mohamed! The value of blogging: Part II: Archive Blogging provides value immediately and in the long run. Blog posts are saved in a chronological archive that can be browsed, searched, and organized into categories. The more you write, the more valuable this archive becomes.

1. Search But men are men; the best sometimes forget.

Shakespeare What did I ever do before writing? I’m not sure, but it probably involved reinventing the wheel again and again. My blog archive saves me time that I would’ve wasted re-solving problems. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve searched my blog for notes. I’ve even come across answers to things I’d completely forgotten solving. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s better than nothing. Sometimes I don’t remember the words I used. I have a sneaky suspicion that Google might not have indexed all of my blog’s pages, too. But I can Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 232

•

Whenever you solve problems that took you a lot of time to figure out, spend a few extra minutes to write up your notes.

•

When writing, think about whatever keywords you think you might use when searching. Use as many of them as you can, either including them in the text or using them as categories/tags for your post. That increases your chances of finding information again.

Examples: •

Drupal-related posts

•

Book notes

2. Review What is past is prologue.

Shakespeare Where did all that time go? If you’ve ever asked yourself that question or struggled to fill in the boxes during annual performance reviews, you might find a blog useful. I use my blog for weekly, monthly, and yearly reviews. My archived notes make it easy to remember what I was working on and what I achieved. As a result, annual reviews are more fun than painful. This helps set a rhythm for my life, too. Regular reviews keep me on track. I can review my plans and see how I’m doing, or change them if my priorities have shifted. I can tell when I’ve been procrastinating something for a while (it shows up on multiple reviews!) and I can think about whether or not I really want to do it. Tips:

•

•

Build a habit of weekly reviews, then include monthly and yearly reviews as you get the hang of it. Use your review time to reflect on your past and plan your future.

3. Growth Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning.

Benjamin Franklin Writing about my decisions helps me review them later. For example, I wrote about limiting my blog posts to one a day. A year later, Irevisited that decision to see if it still made sense for me. I’ve got notes about what I want to do with IBM and some of the reasons why I love my husband, and I add to those regularly. Being able to read through my blog archive makes it easier to remember the reasons for my decisions and to detect when things are changing. Written accounts allow me to compare my past selves with the present. How have I improved my skills? How have I changed my mind? What have I lost and what have I gained? I can trace my stick-figure skills from my first such presentation in 2008 to my most-recent presentationthrough the evolution of my sketches. (I’ve gotten better at drawing quickly, but I don’t draw with many colours as I used to.) Tips: •

Write down your reasons for a decision. Set a reminder to review your decision and see if it’s worthwhile.

•

Write about your feelings and experiences to help you revisit them.

4. Overview The very act of communicating one’s work clearly to other people will improve the work itself.

Donald Knuth How do you know what you know? If you were to make a list of things you could teach other people, you’d probably be able to quickly list some recent items, but you might forget to mention things you learned several years ago. Blog archives can help you remember what you know so that you can build on it, combine it with other ideas, or share it with other people. My archive helps me get a sense of what I know about a topic and how to organize that logically. I can see the gaps that I need to learn and document. As I revise, I improve my understanding. By looking at what I tend to write about, I can get a sense of where I pay attention and how that attention changes over time. I can also use my archive to slowly build resources for summary posts with links to details. Tips: •

Use categories to organize your posts so that you can view them by topic.

•

Review your posts by category to see if you can write a better summary.

•

Plan what you want to learn, write about the details, and then review your archives for the overview.

Examples: •

This series!

•

My life as a 25-year-old

•

Refuse to Choose: or life is a manysplendoured thing

4. Value A good blog archive’s value goes beyond the value of its individual posts. When people come to your blog because of a search result or a referral, they can explore your archives to learn more about the topics they’re interested in and about you as a person. This is the compounding value

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Tips: •

Make it easy for people to discover related posts. Use a plugin that lists similar posts, or include links to relevant posts when you write. Encourage people to use categories to browse your archive.

•

Keep writing, even if it’s one tip at a time. Over the years, your archive can become a valuable resource.

Trying out Slideshare’s new Zipcast feature http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22125 February 25, 2011 Categories: presentation, speaking

5. Rediscovery I’ve written enough that I don’t remember what I’ve written, and I enjoy rediscovering myself. It’s weird, isn’t it, getting to know yourself like that. I enjoy flipping through my past posts and hearing my past self. She’s very much like me: perhaps a bit deeper into open source (time and the ability to freely participate), less confident in the kitchen, but cheery and reflective all the same. I don’t flip through my archive frequently, but it’s fun to bump into my old self through random posts or "On this Day" posts. Tips: •

Write. Yes, even about the everyday things, the little memories. You never know what might make you smile in the future.

•

When you have more posts, try plugins like Random Posts or On This Day to help you bump into older posts.

•

Consider printing out a paper copy of your posts for easier flipping through. I do this every year.

See other resources in this series. Tune in tomorrow for more tips. You can also subscribe using a feedreader or subscribe by e-mail to get updates. Hope this helps!

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 234

I gave Slideshare’s new Zipcast feature a try today in order to learn more about it and rehearse for my upcoming presentation of "Remote Presentations That Rock". I announced it on Twitter a few minutes before I wanted to present. Around 12 people turned up to say hi, learn, and share. I was a little nervous with excitement (and lack of water nearby), but I relaxed as I got into the swing of it. Zipcast has the usual web conferencing system features, with more in the works. Attendees need an account with either Slideshare or Facebook. You can flip through slides, broadcast video from your webcam, and use the text chat for discussions. Where it shines is in its ease of sharing: no unusual plug-ins or software downloads, Twitter and Facebook announcements built-in, and no meeting limits. People can flip through slides on their own, too, which could be either useful or distracting for people. You may want to avoid slide-based jokes with lots of lead-up, considering that people can flip ahead and see your punchline.

You can’t point to specific things on the slides or record your presentations, but I hear those features are in the plan. You also can’t get the list of attendees yet, so you might want to ask someone to track that for you. Don’t look for screen-sharing in this system yet, but who knows what the future will bring? Zipcast’s an interesting entry in a crowded web-conferencing space. The ease of presenting and attending will probably win over many users of other conferencing systems, and the price is hard to beat: free at the moment, no matter how big a web meeting you have.

session. Try schedule your presentations with a bit more warning time, or build it so that you regularly recap throughout the presentation. •

Check out http://sachachua.com/blog/rem ote for more tips for remote presentations.

Things that would make this even better for me: •

Message box for details like communication instructions, URL for further resources

Zipcast’s a promising way to reach lots of people on the Internet, and I’m going to experiment with it more. I’ll still use LotusLive for my IBM web conferences. I like the features of LotusLive, including the ability to draw on my slides in real-time and the ease of inviting people without requiring accounts. (Besides, LotusLive is IBM!) But Zipcast is a nifty (and currently free) way to reach people online, so it’s worth a try.

•

Participant list and stats: when joined, when left (and on which slide, if possible)…

•

Way to easily save the text chat

•

Pointer. Pen too, if possible, for annotating slides.

•

Download link for presentation?

•

Easy tweeting from within presentation

Tips on using Zipcast:

•

Raise hands / polling interactions

•

People need Slideshare/Facebook accounts to attend, so give people time to sign up if needed.

•

You can broadcast audio using your computer – no need to dial in. The audio conference information for Pro users can be confusing, though, so you may need to tell people they don’t have to log in. (Slideshare: It would be great to have a small place where speakers can post persistent messages: useful URLs, notes about communication, etc. Maybe right under the video or under the conference info?)

•

Encourage people to ask questions and share their thoughts in the text chat.

•

The drop-in nature of the presentation can be disconcerting as people filter in throughout the

Here’s an interesting thought: How would you structure a presentation to take advantage of the sharing capabilities of Zipcast,including the “post to Facebook” checkbox in the text chat? Maybe you can sprinkle “Twitter/FB/Q&A” breaks throughout your talk. If you get someone (or program a macro) to paste in retweetable or repostable soundbites, that would be a way of sharing ideas with people’s networks. Hmm… I’m thinking of doing presentations every Saturday in March, from 12 noon to 1pm EST, at http://slideshare.net/sachac/meeting. My planned lineup: The Shy Connector, Remote Presentations That Rock, Get More Value from Blogging, and Six Steps to Sharing. It’ll be good to share tips and learn from others. Anything you’d particularly like to see from my past presentations or blog posts?

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 235

What’s a good way to plan these upcoming events so that you can easily save them to your calendar and receive updates? Eventbrite and other event-management systems seem a little heavyweight compared to the ease of Zipcast’s sharing. Any suggestions?

o

•

Put together resources for the value of blogging

Relationships o

[X] Go to Second City with recent hires and friends – treated Linda Ristevski

In other news, I think I’ve figured out my studio setup: bounce the daylight-balanced lamps off the ceiling (low setup) or use umbrella reflectors (fancy setup), position the folding background in front of the cabinet to hide the My Little Cthulhu doll and other distracting things, and broadcast away. Now if I can figure out where to put a small hairlight…

o

[] Host tea get-together 1pm our place Sunday Feb 27 (actually part of next week’s review)

o

[-] Watch Die Fledermaus (http://toronto-opera.com) – Postponed to next week

o

[C] Watch Madame Butterfly (http://toronto-opera.com)

Weekly review: Week ending February 25, 2011

o

[X] Send birthday cards

o

[X] Try making a beet smoothie or Tex-mex lasagna

o

Had salad with Gabriel Mansour

o

Worked on connecting with blog commenters

http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22126 February 26, 2011 - Categories: weekly

From last week’s plans •

Work o

[X] Sketch ITSC keynote by David Zach

o

[X] Give ITSC keynote on networking

o

[X] Learn about ECM and web services

o

[X] Follow up on documents of understanding

o

[X] Put together Idea Lab resources

o

Exported Social Business Jam discussions into spreadsheets and did a lot of data analysis – collaborating with Brandon Anderson, Michael Muller

o

o o

Accepted invite to tweetchat with Paul Gillen (#infoboom) on the value of blogging Got started on blogging presentation Revised Remote Presentations That Rock

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•

Life o

[X] Enjoy extended weekend: spend focused time revising, drawing, presenting, cooking, and tidying up

o

[X] Experiment with giving presentation through Zipcast (Remote Presentations That Rock, Monday?)

o

Upgraded to 512MB web server for my blog, tweaked blog text

Plans for next week •

Work o

[] Deliver “Remote Presentations That Rock”

o

[] Work on ECM project

o

[] Get things going with Drupal project

o

[] Prepare other presentations and resources

o

o

•

•

[] Do IBM #infoboom tweetchat on how to get more value from blogging [] Post the rest of series on getting more value from blogging

Category

This Last Delt wee wee a k k

– tidying Sleep

55.7

65.3

-9.6

Social

27.0

25.9

1.1

Travel

0.6

1.5

-0.9

Work

37.4

40.4

-3.0

Writing

7.1

12.5

-5.4

Relationships o

[] Host tea get-together

o

[] Reach out to new blog commenters

Life o

[] Experiment with fixedtime wakeups

o

[] Draw more

o

[] Write monthly review

Notes

Going to bed when I feel tired

Family Day holiday, ITSC presentation

Time analysis Experiment for the week: more social stuff. Met people, had mentoring chats, reached out through e-mail, etc.

Category

This Last Delt wee wee a k k

Break

3.7

Drawing

4.7

Exercise

3.3

Personal

1.7

4.8

-1.1 4.7

4.7

Notes

Remote Presentation s, ITSC

-1.4

0.6

-0.6

Preparatio 5.0 n

0.4

4.6

Routines – cooking

8.9

1.8

7.1

Routines – general

10.5

6.3

4.2

Routines

2.4

3.8

-1.4

I’m going to try that again this week, this time picking a time to wake up and sticking with it. Aside from a really early wake-up on Monday, I should be able to keep a regular wake-up time. Good week!

Get More Value from Blogging, part III: Sharing Makes the Blog Go ‘Round

1.7

Learning

This week I tried getting up whenever it felt natural to wake up, and going to sleep whenever I felt tired. The result was a gentle introduction to the day, and a lot of good, focused work in the evening.

http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22127 February 26, 2011 Categories: blogging, tips

Big batch of lunches, vegan appetizers

Paul Gillin invited me to do a tweetchat on the professional and personal value of blogging on March 3, 2011 (2pm-3pm EST, #infoboom). When I brainstormed some of the things I’d like to talk about, I ended up with a big list: not just the value I get from blogging, but also tips for how you can build that too. I hope you enjoy this blog series! You can also see other resources in this series. Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 237

After two posts on the individual value you can get from blogging, you might be thinking, “Sacha, you can get those benefits from a private journal too. So why blog?” Now we get into the social benefits of blogging: how you can use it to create value and connect. Even if no one reads your blog but you, you can get started with sharing, and then go from there.

1. Direct How do you get people to read your posts? Sometimes it’s just a matter of telling them about it. If you’re starting out, you might be worried that no one will come across your blog posts. Even if you’ve got regular visitors, people might miss out on posts that you know they’ll find useful. If you know people who may be interested in a post, go ahead and send it to them. Move your conversations online. I often write blog posts to answer people’s questions or follow up on conversations, so it’s natural to share those posts directly with people through e-mail, Twitter, or other means. I post answers on my blog as often as possible, saving e-mail for information that’s confidential or of limited value. Send people you know links they might find useful (but not spammy). In addition to directly sharing posts with the people who inspired them, I also frequently send posts to other people who might find them useful. During a conversation or a Twitter exchange, someone might ask a question about public speaking, Drupal, or any of the other topics I’m interested in. Instead of explaining everything from scratch, I can send links to relevant blog posts where people can learn more. Tips: •

Whenever you answer a question or share a tip that could potentially help other people, consider taking a few extra minutes to post it on your blog.

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 238

•

When you post an item on your blog, think about specific people who might find it useful, and share it directly with them.

2. Search One of the advantages of a public blog archive is that it’s searchable. You can write a blog post about a solution to a technical problem, and other people who run into that problem can find your post without knowing you. This is a great way to save other people time. Making your knowledge searchable saves you time, too. If people can find answers for themselves, they may spend less time asking you questions that you can easily answer. You can use that time to develop your skills further and solve more challenging problems. Tips: •

Include details that people might use in their searches. For example, if you’ve solved a technical issue, post the error messages and your solution.

•

Increase the chances of people finding your post by using the kinds of words they would use to search.

3. Browsing Not only can people find your blog posts by searching, they can also browse at their own pace. Encourage people to explore by organizing your posts in categories and by linking to relevant posts from other posts in your blog. When people can learn from you and get to know you on their own, you can scale up beyond the number of people you can help or get to know in real life. It’s okay to write about many things. Cross-pollination can lead to fascinating conversations. I often hear from people who discovered my site because of the technical resources I shared. They browsed around, found my sketches and my

stories about cooking and life, and got a better sense of who I am as a person. Make it easy for people to find posts on topics they’re interested in, and create opportunities for them to discover other things if they want.

people to comment on your blog posts with questions and tips, and you learn so much in the process of sharing. Make it easy for people to send you e-mail if they have something they would like to share more privately.

Tips:

For example, when I posted yesterday’s tips on the compounding value of an archive, Mohamed suggested improving it by adding a quote from Donald Knuth. I hadn’t come across that quote before, but it made the post better. People have shared their thoughts on waking up early, doing Lotus Notes mail merges, connecting with people, and so on. Share, and you might learn something from people you wouldn’t have thought of asking.

•

Whenever you write a blog post, think of relevant posts and resources you can link to in order to help people learn more.

•

Use post titles that are clear, informative, and interesting to encourage people to click on them.

4. Referrals To grow even further, make it easy for people to share your thoughts with others. Encourage people to think of other people who might find your blog posts useful. Add Twitter, Facebook Like, or other social sharing services to your blog posts. By making your content easier to share, you help your readers create value for other people, and you reach out to your network’s network. When someone e-mails a friend link to your post, that’s a great referral not only for your content, but also for you. People can also share your material with a wider audience by posting it on Twitter, Facebook, or other sites. They might even write a blog post going into more detail and linking to your resources. Tips: •

Add social sharing buttons for Twitter, Facebook, and other sites, and encourage people to share.

•

Keep an eye out for when people share content, and thank them.

5. Learning from others Sharing your questions, ideas, experiences, and lessons learned with other people is a great way to learn from other people’s insights. When I share what I’m learning, people often share even better ways to do things. Encourage

Tips: •

Enable comments unless you have a strong reason not to do so. If you’re concerned about spam, you can moderate comments, use spamblocking plug-ins, or review your comments regularly. You might not get many comments in the beginning, but as you build your network, you’ll find a lot of value in the conversation.

•

Ask questions. Ask people for suggestions, experiences, and tips. Invite people to participate, and show your appreciation when they do.

•

Make it easy to send you mail, either by using the contact form or sharing an e-mail address. If you’re concerned about e-mail spam, create a special e-mail address that you can then filter.

See other resources in this series. Tune in tomorrow for more tips. You can also subscribe using a feedreader or subscribe by e-mail to get updates. Hope this helps!

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Get More Value from Blogging, part IV: Connecting with People http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22128 February 28, 2011 Categories: blogging, connecting, highlight, tips Paul Gillin invited me to do a tweetchat on the professional and personal value of blogging on March 3, 2011 (2pm-3pm EST, #infoboom). When I brainstormed some of the things I’d like to talk about, I ended up with a big list: not just the value I get from blogging, but also tips for how you can build that too. I hope you enjoy this blog series! You can also see other resources in this series. A blog is an incredible way to connect with people. It helps people get to know who you are, what you’re interested in, what you’re good at, who you know, what you’re working on, and any entity till they got to share. Reading a blog, people can find out what you have in common with them, how you can help them, and how they can help you.

1. Introduction People like getting to know people. When you make a new acquaintance, you might look them up on the Internet to find out more about them. Likewise, people look you up to find out more about you. A blog can be like your selfintroduction. Your about page can include a short biography, and your blog posts can provide further details for people who want to know more. Make it easy for new acquaintances to find your blog by adding it to your e-mail signature, business card, and social networking profiles. That way, people can read your blog to build on a brief introduction. As a result, a prospective client or new acquaintance might discover common ground with you. It speeds up the process of introduction, and simplifies getting to know people.

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Don’t count on being anonymous or obscure. If you have a blog that you’d rather people didn’t read, you might have a problem in the future. Even systems with privacy controls can disclose data through programming errors, accidents, or malicious use. Before you post something, think about whether you can deal with the consequences of sharing it. Don’t let that scare you away from sharing, though! People are generally good, and they probably won’t hold minor mistakes against you. Tips: •

Add a short biography to your about page. Keep in mind that this may be seen by both professional and personal contacts.

•

Add your blog URL to your e-mail signature, card, social network profiles, and other places people might check.

2. Deepening the connection How do people go from being acquaintances to colleagues or friends? How can you develop a chance conversation at a networking event into a partnership that last years? Shared experiences and personal knowledge go along way to deepening that connection, and you can help that along through your blog. I find this aspect of blogging really helpful. It’s difficult for me to e-mail people to stay in touch, because I don’t want to waste people’s time. I’m often pleasantly surprised to hear from people who have kept in touch with me anyway by reading my blog. I appreciate being able to read other people’s blog posts and status updates as a way of finding out more about them without getting in their way. The conversation might grow in this low-key way until it becomes a friendship. Tips: •

Post regularly to give people reasons to come back.

•

Make sure that it’s easy to subscribe to your blog through feeds or e-mail.

•

Keep an eye out for people who regularly comment on your blog or talk to you about what you’ve written, and invest time in learning more about them.

3. Appreciation A thank-you note is good; a public thankyou, done well, is even better. When you share what you’ve learned from people and your appreciation for how they’ve helped, that builds your relationship with those people, inspires others, and reflects well on you. It also helps people confirm what they’ve helped you learn and to share that with others – a great way to pay mentors back. Tips:

you can even ask a question, and maybe people will share a quick answer. It can pay to ask. Tips: •

Show your interest, but don’t be creepy. Yes to admiration, no to stalking.

•

If you reach out to people through email, you can mention your blog post about them as a way of sharing what you’ve been learning from them.

•

Look for something of value that you can bring to the conversation, even if it’s a really good question. Don’t reach out just for the sake of getting an e-mail from an A-lister, and don’t beg people for a link back from their blog.

5. The great conversation

•

Use your blog to show your appreciation for people. Be positive – don’t use it for passive-aggressive "appreciation"!

•

When someone takes the time to mentor you, share your lessons learned if possible. That way, your mentor can check it and share it with others.

4. Reaching out A blog gives you both a reason and a way to reach out to people. If you’d like to talk to people but you aren’t sure how to start the conversation, you might write about those people on your blog. For example, you could share what you’re learning from them her even from a distance, and what you might want to talk to them about. Many people regularly search for their name, and they might come across your post and start the conversation. It’s an interesting way to meet book authors, thoughtleaders, and other people active on the Internet. Don’t expect a response, but be ready in case people reach out. Who knows? Maybe

Around the world, lots of conversations are happening through blogs. Someone posts an idea. Others write blog posts linking to the first post and sharing their thoughts. Yet others write blog posts following up on those posts. Along the way, people comment on blog posts, share their reactions on Twitter and other social networks, and talk about posts in person or through e-mail. Participating in the conversation is so much better when you have your own blog. You can write longer posts in it, and you can build an archive of your thoughts. If people think your thoughts are interesting, they can explore your blog to find out more. If your thoughts are sprinkled in comments on different blog posts, it’s harder for others to get that sense of you. You’ll still want to reach out to other people through commenting on their blogs, of course. Many blogs can automatically detect blog posts that link to them, but it’s nice to leave a comment summarizing your thoughts and thanking people for the inspiration. Don’t make your comments all about you, though! When you’re commenting on people’s blogs, it’s

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like you’re chatting in their living room. You wouldn’t want to make the conversation all about you. Read comments on other people’s blogs to get a sense of the etiquette. Blatant self-promotion doesn’t work well. Focus on adding value to conversations on other blogs, and link to a relevant blog post if you’ve written about something in more details. Tips: •

When you read a blog post that inspires you to think about it, write a blog post and link

•

Look for blogs on topics you’re interested in. Read the comments for a while to get a sense of what the discussion is like. Try posting a few comments. When you find yourself wanting to say more, post those thoughts on your blog, and link to it. (But nicely!)

See other resources in this series. Tune in tomorrow for more tips. You can also subscribe using a feedreader or subscribe by e-mail to get updates. Hope this helps!

March 2011 Dealing with intimidating projects http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22129 March 1, 2011 - Categories: career, ibm, work I’m working on my first big IBM project, something that goes beyond Perl scripts and Drupal websites. My manager thinks it will be a good assignment for me. The component diagram looks like alphabet soup, and I haven’t worked with any of the pieces before. It’s intimidating. Open source projects like Drupal or Rails don’t scare me as much, even though they require a lot of figuring out and hacking as well. I think it’s because I’m confident that I can figure things out from the source or from the Internet, and because I can hold more of it in my head. This project will involve quite a few IBM components, and I can’t

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work with, understand, or even remember everything. It’s big. But I know this feeling of incipient panic, and I’ve dealt with worse before. It’s the same feeling I got as a teaching assistant at the University of Toronto, doubting myself because I was helping people learn something I was just learning about myself. I remember feeling uncertain. I remember feeling like an impostor. I felt like giving up. Then my department chair set me straight, and I made it through. I can deal with this. My manager thinks I can handle it. IBM has a great support network and I’ve got plenty of mentors. I’m learning a lot from the other people on the team. It’s going to be okay. And at the end of the day, I’ll learn how to work with a pretty decent-sized IBM software stack, integrate with lots of middleware, work with complex web services, and maybe even turn things that scare me into things that I enjoy. Here’s what I’m planning to do: •

[] Install Rational Software Architect and learn how to use it to view project designs.

•

[] Learn how to use Rational Software Architect for web services.

•

[] Figure out what I need to learn for Websphere Application Server or Websphere Portal to make the web services happen.

•

[] Stay sane throughout the process. =)

2011-03-01 Tue 16:26

Get More Value from Blogging, part V: Communication Matters http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22130 March 1, 2011 Categories: blogging, highlight, tips, web2.0, writi ng Paul Gillin invited me to do a tweetchat on the professional and personal value of blogging on March 3, 2011 (2pm-3pm EST, #infoboom). When I brainstormed some of the things I’d like to talk about, I ended up with a big list: not just the value I get from blogging, but also tips for how you can build that too. I hope you enjoy this blog series! You can also see other resources in this value of blogging series. You might feel awkward in the beginning, but trust me, all that writing practice from your blog will pay off. Blogging is a great way to figure out not only what you want to say, but how you want to

say it. Better communication skills will help you at work and in life! 1. Writing •

Blogging helped me fall in love with writing. I got frustrated in school, writing book reports and essays that didn’t really matter. When I started blogging, I discovered the joy of writing for myself and others. It turned out to be a lot of fun, and now writing is one of my favourite activities. It pays off at work, too.

Tips: o

Add something visual to your blog – either something you made, or a relevant image from the Internet. (Respect copyright.)

o

One way to get better at photography or drawing is to set a public goal of posting a photo or sketch regularly (ex: one photo a day). Give it a try!

3. Presentation

Tips: o

Practise outlining or mindmapping your blog posts. As you get better at planning your posts, you’ll be able to write them more quickly.

If you give presentations, a blog can be an incredible resource. You can use your blog to draft and share ideas, collect material, get feedback, share your presentation, and follow up with people.

o

Review your old posts and revise them. Figure out what you keep writing about, and summarize or update your posts.

o

Read lots of blogs to get a sense of the kinds of blog posts you enjoy reading. Emulate different styles and challenge yourself to try different techniques.

Many of my presentations have grown out of blog posts, and I’ve received a number of invitations to speak from people who’ve come across my posts. My blog gives me a place to try ideas out, refine them, get feedback, and put together presentations.

o

Don’t let perfectionism stop you from writing. Your blog posts may feel like rough drafts, but you’ll get better at writing over time.

2. Visual communication Whether you’re writing a professional blog or a personal blog, it can be good to add visual interest through photographs or drawings. You can develop an eye for images and visual communication by including Creative Commons-licensed photos or stock photos in your posts, appropriately attributed when necessary. You can also take your own pictures or draw your own illustrations, adding more of a personal touch to your blog while helping you develop your skills. My blog–and the presentations that grew out of it–helped me rediscover drawing. You can see the evolution of my sketches from scrawny stick-figures on a Nintendo DS to slighly-less-scrawny stick figures on a tablet PC. I’ve come to enjoy drawing, and sometimes people even ask me to draw something for them.

Tips: o

Post your presentations and share the URLs when you give presentations. This gives people a way to follow up.

o

Post your outlines and presentation ideas on your blog, and use your blog posts to draft presentations or collect material. This will make it easier to prepare presentations later, and you can learn from other people’s feedback along the way.

4. Conversation Blogs make conversations so much easier for me. When I talk to people, I often find myself thinking about or referring to things I’ve written. It really helps to have thought about some things and be able to express them clearly, and I love sharing additional resources. My blog posts have also led to all sorts of conversations I wouldn’t have had otherwise. I sometimes find it difficult to start a conversation. Fortunately, people

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read my blog and start the conversation with me, both online and in person. Conversations lead to blog posts, too. There, my blog gives me the opportunity to continue the conversation, reflect on things I’m learning, and share them with a wider audience. I get to show my appreciation for the insights people have shared with me, and I get to learn from other people’s perspectives. Tips: o

Write about things people might find useful, then blend these thoughts into your conversations where appropriate.

o

Follow up on conversations in your blog.

5. Avoiding the curse of expertise Many people don’t want to write about things they don’t feel are their expertise. Experts are experts because they’ve achieved unconscious competence; they’ve forgotten more than other people have learned. Experts often have a hard time explaining things to other people because they’ve forgotten the details that stump newcomers. So experts aren’t really the best people who can write about things, especially for beginners. It’s better to write along the way, while you’re learning, so that people can understand and so that you won’t take things for granted. Tips: o

Don’t wait until you’re an expert. Write while you’re learning.

o

Use your archive to remember what it was like to learn something complicated.

See other resources in this value of blogging series. Tune in tomorrow for more tips. You can also subscribe using a feedreader or subscribe by e-mail to get updates. Hope this helps!

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Questions and answers from #infoboomSC tweetchat on blogging http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22131 March 3, 2011 Categories: blogging, tips, tweet, twitter, web2.0, writing Paul Gillin invited me to do a tweetchat about blogging. I learned so much from it, and I hope others do too! Here’s what we talked about. On making the time to write Your output is amazing. I don’t know where you find the time to post daily. How do you do it? @infoBOOM Writing != extra work. Making it part of the way I work helps me be more effective. http://sachachua.com/blog/p/21845. Also, I think about ROI on my time. No TV; yes writing, reading, experimenting. http://sachachua.com/blog/p/220 53. How much time do you spend per blog? What time of day do you do it? @dgriess I’ve tried writing morning pages, but I usually just write whenever I’m learning or solving problems. Let me ask another way, about how much time goes into each entry? @dgriess Depends on topic. Usually 5-15 minutes extra, or 30+ if I’m braindumping tips for others / exploring something new. What would you recommend for those who try to blog on behalf of their company? How can they carve out time?@KevinMGreen It’s marketing, professional development, networking, and all sorts of good stuff. Great ROI. Makes sense to do it. Finding time always seems to be the biggest challenge. @KevinMGreen Try tweaking your workflow so that you write along the way. Check importance/efficiency of other things you do. On perfectionism and personal branding My question for this chat: What would help _you_ get more value from blogging? What are your challenges / goals? kurtisgriess: Hardest thing abt blogging for me is planning and perfectionism… takes me forever! pgillin: Hardest thing for me abt blogging is feeling I have to always be profound. Worried about wasting ppl’s time. (Sacha: Reading is optional, skimming is easy. You don’t have to be perfect, or profound, or even interesting. ;) ) KevinMGreen: likewise Paul #infoboomsc always trying to deliver can be intimidating Sacha: Me, I’m looking forward to writing about

more things (life! work! awesomeness!), and getting better at organizing for discovery. What are common mistakes you see/experience? @KevinMGreen Perfectionism and the related fear of having to publicly change your mind or admit room for improvement. ;) Partly our collective fault, because we scare people re: the unforgiving memory of the Internet. I disagree with that. You are never going to be perfect. You’re also never going to get better unless you try. ;) I wrestle with "perfecting" a thought. Probably thinking too hard on my individual entries. @dgriess It’s easier to work with a draft or post than with a blank slate. There will always be a better way to say things. I can imagine there would be some folks out there who may not feel comfortable about blogging their work. @elsua Blog transparency may not be for everyone just yet, but it’s surprisingly less scary than most people think. How can people bypass that risk aversion and dive into it slowly, but steadily? Don’t fear, just blog? @elsua Small steps can help people get over fear, experience immediate benefits: http://sachachua.com/blog/p/7316 … Ideally that people should understand how blogging is perhaps the most powerful trait for their personal brand@elsua I wish people worried less about "personal brands" and felt better about connecting as _people_. =) On finding ideas

questions: "Why? Why not? How can we make this even better?" On practices Do you write in your blog more for yourself or for others? What’s the balance? @kurtisgriess Mostly myself (can’t trust my memory). Often for (usually specific) others, just in case others find it helpful. What’s your thinking on comments? Do you try to respond to them all? @infoBOOM I reply to as many comments as I can. I’m sure some slip through cracks. Easier than e-mail. =) Also, warm contacts. How would you describe your voice? Or does that even matter to you? @infoBOOM My blogging voice? Me. I’m like this in real life. It makes writing much easier — and living’s easier, too. =) You don’t use gimmicks like "top 10" lists or "best and worst." Is that by design? @infoBOOM Can’t stand reading or writing generic blog posts with arbitrary rankings. I’ll use mnemonic structures, though. You post weekly review lists. What’s the reason? @infoBOOM On the practice of a weekly review: http://sachachua.com/blog/p/6946 In your opinion, what’s the ideal length of a blog post? Or does it depend on the topic? @elsua I try to stick to one clear thought per blog post, saying as much or as little as I have to say about that. Lengths vary.

Many people have trouble coming up with ideas for their blog. Any tricks you can share? @infoBOOM Write about everything (http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22082). Don’t worry about niche (http://sachachua.com/blog/p/7046).

What do you use to manage your editorial approach? I still send myself emails which is not really effective. @KevinMGreen I keep a big text file on laptop with rough notes and ideas, and I post snippets on a regular basis or by plan.

Can you share any tricks for what to do when you run out of ideas? Or does that ever happen? @infoBOOM Do you ever run out of things to learn, or things you can help other people learn? No lack of material.

When someone sends you a question by email, do you often post answer to blog and send them link? @infoBOOM Shift e-mail conversations to blog posts when possible. Widens the conversation, reaches more people, saves more time.

What’s the one tool/resource you rely on to create such compelling content? @KevinMGreen Best resource for blogging: Life. Best tools: the

You do write about a lot of topics. Do you ever worry that you lack expertise in these areas? @infoBOOM When you’re learning, that’s the best time to write.

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Don’t wait until you’re an expert and you’ve forgotten. Miscellaneous When you started your blog, did you set goals on spec. milestones (traffic, subscribers)? @kaeppler Early: class notes, Emacs snippets, things to remember. Didn’t care about traffic or subscribers, but happy I helped. Still don’t focus on traffic or subscribers, although honoured to see them. It’s not about numbers, it’s about people. […] Was "living an awesome life" your first blog at all? @kaeppler It’s actually just an alternative name for sachachua.com – livinganawesomelife.com is easier to remember/spell. ;) You’ve written that blogging has made you a better presenter. How? @infoBOOM Practice in figuring out what to say, how to say it. Archive of potential material. Better ROI and reach. Invitations. Also, feedback on content, delivery, and technology. Continuous improvement. Confidence. Connection. Many bloggers are too focused on the audience and less about the personal value they receive. @KevinMGreen Tons of immed. indiv. value.http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22119 New bloggers, take heart, even if no one reads you! #infoboomsc Can you tell one or two stories of remarkable things that happened to you because of your blogging? @infoBOOM Got job created for me (http://sachachua.com/blog/p/6456), found mentors (http://sachachua.com/blog/p/6928)…

you have any questions, thoughts, suggestions, or tips, please feel free to share them through comments, blog posts, and Twitter! Would you like to host a conversation about a topic I’m passionate about? Let’s talk about it!

Get More Value from Blogging, part VI: Let’s Get Down to Business http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22132 March 4, 2011 Categories: blogging, business, career, highlight, ti ps, web2.0, work, writing Paul Gillin invited me to do a tweetchat on the professional and personal value of blogging yesterday. When I brainstormed some of the things I’d like to talk about, I ended up with a big list: not just the value I get from blogging, but also tips for how you can build that too. I hope you enjoy this blog series! You can also see other resources in this value of blogging series. 1. ROI Blog your work to increase your return on investment or effort by remembering more effectively and by reaching more people. How much time do you spend solving problems similar to what you’ve encountered before, answering questions you’ve already answered before, or remembering information you need to solve new challenges? Take notes and save that time. How much time can you save other people if you share your notes with them? Are there other people in your organization, client base, or network who could benefit from your solutions? Share your notes.

Sacha, would love for you to share insights on how you use blogging to narrate your work @elsua Blogging is a great way to understand complex issues. It also helps shape culture of knowledgesharing – many benefits!

Tips:

Is there one blog post that stands out as particularly memorable to you? And why? @infoBOOM It’s like asking me what my favourite book is. ;) Lots of context-sensitive favourites. A recent highlight:http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22017, but that could be because I cut my finger in the process. ;)

2. Questions, updates, resources, and serendipitous conversations

We’re thinking of doing another tweetchat with #infoboom in three months. In the meantime, if

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•

Invest the extra minutes in taking and sharing notes in order to increase your ROI.

One of the challenges of blogging is that you don’t know who’s going to read it. That’s also one of the advantages. When you ask a question, you might be surprised by who answers it – perhaps someone you wouldn’t have thought of asking. When you post an update, you might make an unexpected connection with someone else, and learn about resources you might not have discovered on your own. When you talk about something you’re

working on, you might end up in a serendipitous conversation with someone who can make use of it or help you with it. It’s the online equivalent of the lucky hallway chat, except with a lot more people in the virtual hallway.

Use it to connect with people and ask them for help. Use it to reflect on where you want to go with your career and what kind of value you want to create. Tips:

Tips: •

Make it easy for people to discover your updates or even subscribe to them.

3. Connection If you add personal touches to your professional blog, you can make it easier for potential clients and coworkers to connect with you through common interests. Write about why you do the work that you do and what you love about it. Write about your other interests, too. Tips: •

Don’t be afraid of bringing your personality to your blog. Use it to connect with people.

Example: •

Maybe people really are generous with their wisdom

4. Reputation Blog your work to build your reputation. When people read about what you’re working on, they learn about your skills and get a sense of who you are as a person. The next time they come across a challenge that looks like it’s a good fit, they might think of you and refer the opportunity to you. Particularly if you’re starting out, sharing your knowledge will help you build your network and your reputation.

•

Don’t beg for a job. Use your blog to communicate strength, passion, and professionalism.

•

Build a network of mentors and friends. Connect with people and ask them for advice.

6. Accountability and transparency Blogging is a great way to make public commitments and hold yourself to them. You can use this for both personal and professional goals.. If you speak on behalf of a company, then you definitely need a fast way to respond to any issues that come up. With the speed of conversation on Twitter and blogs, you can’t wait for press releases. Establish this channel before a public relations crisis comes up. It’s better to admit a mistake and work with people on resolving it than to stonewall. 7. Culture Whether you’re an executive or a newcomer, you can influence the culture of your organization through what you share. When you share what you know through your blog, you encourage a culture of knowledge-sharing. When you add a personal touch, you contribute to a culture of human connection. When you show that you aren’t afraid of making mistakes and learning from them, you develop a culture of growth. This can have a powerful effect on your organization, both online and offline. Tips:

Tips: •

Use your blog to demonstrate your skills and your character.

•

Invest time into building thought leadership through blog posts, articles, and presentations.

5. Jobs and careers

•

Consider the fit between how you want to write and what the existing culture is. Be prepared for differences, and modify your approach accordingly. For example, if you want to shift your surrounding culture to share more, anticipate and address people’s concerns.

•

If you’re a leader, take the initiative in demonstrating the kind of company culture you want to encourage.

A blog can help you look for a great job or plan your career. Use it to explore your strengths and figure out how to communicate them. Use it to think about what kinds of companies would be a good fit for you, and where you would be a good fit.

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See other resources in this value of blogging series. Tune in tomorrow for more tips. You can also subscribe using a feedreader orsubscribe by e-mail to get updates. Hope this helps!

Presentation experiment: Shy Connector, Six Steps to Sharing, and other presentations in March! http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22097 March 5, 2011 - Categories: presentation, speaking Slideshare’s new Zipcast feature nudged me to experiment with giving more online presentations externally. I regularly give presentations inside IBM using our Lotus Live Meetings service. Because of the usage charges, though, I haven’t gotten around to offering many externallyavailable presentations. I accept invitations to speak, but I tend not to organize things myself. I think that’s worth experimenting with. Not only are web conferences a good way to get ideas out to more people, they’re also a great way for me to learn from the questions and answers people have. I’m going to organize weekly presentations, taking advantage of Zipcast’s beta and seeing whether this is something worth investing in going forward. Why come when you can get the content from my blog or posted presentations? •

Get extra energy from hearing and seeing me talk about things I’m excited about

•

Ask questions and share your thoughts in the text chat

•

Connect and help me and others learn

Here are the presentations I’m thinking of doing. They’ll be every Saturday in March, 12 noon – 1 PM Eastern Time, and I’ll see if I can hack a way to record and sharing the presentations. Feel free to share these events with others! The Shy Connector, March 5, 2011, 12pm-1pm EST, http://www.slideshare.net/sachac/meeting Are you an introvert? I am too! Use these seven tips to help you make the most of your introvert strengths and connect with people. Add to

Six Steps to Sharing, March 12, 2011, 12pm1pm EST, http://www.slideshare.net/sachac/meeting Want to get started in blogging, but don’t think you know anything worth sharing? Here’s how

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small steps can help you build the habit of sharing and learning online. Add to

Remote Presentations That Rock, March 19, 2011, 12pm-1pm EST http://www.slideshare.net/sachac/meeting Want to get better at reaching, teaching, and inspiring people through online presentations? Find it challenging to connect with people or continue the conversation? Use these seven tips to create and deliver remote presentations that rock. Add to

Get More Value from Blogging, March 26, 2011, 12pm1pm, http://www.slideshare.net/sachac/meeting How can you make blogging pay off for you better, personally and professionally? Pick up tips and ask questions in this session! Add to

Can you think of other people who might find these presentations useful? What else would you like to learn more about?

Weekly review: Week ending March 4, 2011 http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22134 March 5, 2011 - Categories: weekly From last week’s plans •

Work o

[X] Deliver “Remote Presentations That Rock”

o

[X] Work on ECM project

o

[-] Get things going with Drupal project

o

[X] Prepare other presentations and resources

o

[X] Do IBM #infoboom tweetchat on how to get more value from blogging

o

[-] Post the rest of series on getting more value from blogging – Almost done

o

Back into programming, yay! Got AJAX/PHP project started.

•

Relationships o

[X] Host tea get-together

o

[X] Reach out to new blog commenters – well, mostly old blog commenters Checked out Liberty Village Toastmasters

o

•

o

[-] Experiment with fixed-time wakeups

o

[X] Draw more

o

[X] Write monthly review

o

Helped with study group

o

Got my TD Waterhouse account sorted out (kinda)

Work [] Work on critsit involving AJAX and PHP

o

•

•

This week

Drawing

Last week

Delta

4.7

-4.7

Exercise

3.8

3.3

0.5

Personal

1.6

1.7

-0.1

Learning

Life

Plans for next week •

Category

o

[] Start building web services using Websphere Application Server

o

[] Shepherd the Rails project through legal approval process

Relationships o

[] Meet up with Cate Huston and Maggie Zhou

o

[] Help with study group

o

[] Book flights

o

[] Try more Zipcast experiments

o

[] Practise driving

o

[] Write about tweetchats and presentations

o

[] Work on plans

Time analysis Experiment for the week: more social stuff. Met people, had mentoring chats, reached out through e-mail, etc. Category

Last week

Delta

Break

1.3

3.7

-2.4

0

Preparation

3.2

5.0

-1.8

Routines – cooking

2.3

8.9

-6.6

Routines – general

7.6

10.5

-2.9

Routines – tidying

7.8

2.4

5.4

Sleep

58.5

55.7

2.8

Social

29.2

27.0

2.2

Tea party

Travel

7.5

0.6

6.9

Went up to office several times

Work

40.2

37.4

2.8

Writing

4.8

7.1

-2.3

Living off leftovers, efficiency yay =)

More time spent commuting, but it was with W-, so it was a lot of fun. =)

Monthly review: February 2011 http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22135 March 6, 2011 - Categories: monthly

Life

This week

Notes

Notes

February was an interesting month at work. Lots of presentations, for one – that’s the easy part. Lotusphere was quite an experience, too. I’ve started helping with estimates, scoping projects, preparing paperwork, and learning new platforms. This is the longest I’ve worked at IBM without being heads-down on one or two projects. Instead, I’m juggling the plans for several. My manager isn’t stressed out about this, so I’m not stressing out about it either. When it rains, it pours. If these proposals go through, they’ll probably sign at roughly the same time. Some of them are flexible and some of them have tighter timelines, so March and April promise to be full of learning experiences. This is great stuff, and exactly what I should be learning. Can’t wait!

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From last month’s plans:

•

Monthly review: January 2011

Work

•

Weekly review: Week ending February 4, 2011

•

[X] Work on new project

•

•

[-] Put together talks for Deeper Insight, Remote Presentations That Rock, and the ITSC: Did the second two, but not the first

Weekly review: Week ending February 11, 2011

•

Weekly review: Week ending February 18, 2011

•

[X] Mentor more people

•

•

Participated in Lotusphere

Weekly review: Week ending February 25, 2011

•

Learned how to estimate and scope projects

Communication tips: •

Disagreement and the road to trusting yourself

•

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Webinar: Energy, Interaction, and ROI

•

From zero to hero: a newbie’s guide to learning and building a reputation along the way

•

LinkedIn tip: Customize your profile URL

Relationships •

[X] Organize get-together

•

[X] Get visa and arrange travel details

•

Learned new recipes

Life •

[X] Write up more reflections

•

ITSC guide to conference awesomeness

•

Experimented with Zipcasts, tweetchats, and other ways to share what I know

•

Get More Value from Blogging, part I: The Immediate Benefits of Thought

•

Get More Value from Blogging, part II: The Compounding Value of an Archive

•

Get More Value from Blogging, part III: Sharing Makes the Blog Go ‘Round

Plans for March: Work •

[ ] Shepherd more projects to signing and work

•

Get More Value from Blogging, part IV: Connecting with People

•

[ ] Learn how to implement web services on Websphere Application Server

•

Decision review: Limiting my blog to one post a day

•

[ ] Create and deliver more presentations

•

Posted revised “Remote Presentations That Rock” presentation

•

[ ] Finish blog series on blogging

•

Trying out Slideshare’s new Zipcast feature

•

Kaizen: Thinking about presentations

Relationships •

[ ] Host another get-together

•

Imagine success for social media

•

[ ] Build a set of people to call once a week

•

Things to write about: questions for your blogger’s block

•

[X] Check out Toastmasters again

•

[ ] Practise driving

Life •

[ ] Refine my plans

•

[ ] Start seedlings

Weekly/monthly reviews:

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Other stories: •

Lotusphere 2011 wrap-up

•

A story of pi

•

On appearance and bias: thoughts from the Nerd Girls panel at Lotusphere 2011

•

Working on estimates

•

Thinking about personal random moment studies

crossdomain.xml and the resulting 404 (not found) helped me find out what was going on.

•

Hackbuzzbuzzbuzz

2011-03-08 Tue 08:01

•

Books to write

•

On friendship and getting better at it

•

On presenting, anxiety, and moving forward

•

More about getting 27″ washers and dryers down 26″ hallways

•

On friendship and becoming more social

•

Book: Daddy Long Legs, and letters

•

Waking up: looking at my data

•

How I spent my Family Day weekend

Can’t see cross-domain images in your Flash file? Make a crossdomain.xml http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22136 March 8, 2011 - Categories: geek My mom recently noticed that images weren’t loading in the Flash viewer on www.adphoto.com.ph, but they were loaded on adphoto.com.ph. A quick look at the Javascript console showed that crossdomain.xml was missing. The Macromedia Flash 10 plugin is stricter about this than previous versions were, so if you don’t have a crossdomain.xml set up, you might find your older sites breaking for new browsers. Here is a straightforward crossdomain.xml that allows requests from everywhere, useful for development:

Quick notes from Emacs Org-mode talk at GTALUG http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22137 March 8, 2011 Categories: emacs, presentation, speaking My Emacs Org-mode talk at GTALUG was a lot of fun. I had made a quick outline of things I wanted to cover, and the discussion took us to all sorts of places – really more like a romp through the world of Emacs. I kept my talk plan small and tightlyfocused – not even Org-mode, just note-taking in Org-mode – but I ended up talking about all sorts of things because they were cool and that’s where the discussion took us. This means that my outline isn’t much use for reconstructing the talk, but maybe whoever recorded it can share the audio and the video. =) Unexpected wow moments of the day, completely not in my outline: •

Someone’s question about my tablet PC led to showing off M-x artist-mode, drawing using my tablet, and the line and spraycan tools. (I’d never tried it before. It works!)

•

A conversation on the way to the talk led to my showing M-x snake.

•

Someone’s joking query about whether you can run vi in Emacs (following up on someone who mentioned the vi emulation mode, perhaps) led to my demonstrating vim in M-x term, which naturally led to running console Emacs within my Emacs.

•

Someone mentioned mail, so I showed Gnus, and another person mentioned adaptive scoring, and we talked about news-inspired techniques for dealing with e-mail.

•

People asked me how big my config file had gotten. The word count tool says 226k characters – ah, the process of accretion. You can learn Emacs and customize it a little bit at a time, though!

You can specify domains like this:

More information: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flash player/articles/fplayer9_security.html When debugging a website, it is often helpful to use Chrome or Firefox’s developer tools, such as the Javascript console. In this case, the request for

I’ve given two Emacs talks so far, and both of them had delightful audience interaction – among the best of any of the talks I’ve given. I think it’s because with Emacs, even people’s jokes give me a starting point to mention something I’ve learned about or come across or built. The energy of the

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 251

session is really something different. It’s almost like an infomercial-ish “But wait, there’s more!”, but everyone’s in on the joke, they’re part of what’s happening. It’s an adventure.

Emacs. More writing resources on the EmacsWiki. If you’re intrigued by it, check out the Emacs Newbie resources.) 2011-03-08 Tue 23:40

I don’t want to give the impression that Emacs is just about fun. ;) Of all the software I’ve ever used, I think Emacs has contributed the most to my productivity and my learning. Not only do I find the direct benefits useful, I also really appreciate the inspiration I get from all these other people who use and improve Emacs. So the key question I want to address with more thought is: where does one find the time to learn these things? I think you answer this the same way you make the time for things that matter – strategic optimization. Like in code, premature optimization doesn’t work. You need to figure out what actions are important and where improvements would have the most effect – where your moments of truth are. For example, it really pays to improve my abilities in programming, writing, and note-taking, because I do that a lot and it creates a lot of value at work and in life. On the other hand, I don’t stress out about typing even faster, because that’s not my bottleneck. And I also make sure to invest time into all sorts of other aspects of life, because those are important to me too. Back to Emacs and the presentation. My goal for the talk wasn’t to convert anyone or show people specifically how to set up their environment. I wanted to give people an idea of what my workflow looks like, expose them to some of the things Emacs can do, and perhaps inspire people to learn more about their tools. (I made sure to mention lots of cool things about vi, too!) We started at 7:30 and had a great discussion for two hours (two hours!) that flew by until the organizers suggested it was time to wrap up. Quite a few people came up to me afterwards and told me that they were inspired to learn more about Emacs. Whee! That was tons of fun. I’d do it again. It has to be an interactive group, somewhat casual (so that people feel free to interject questions) and technical (helps to have a few other Emacs users in the audience, and a general interest in tools). Voice is probably a huge component of it – both being able to communicate enthusiasm and for the conversational aspect of the discussion. Screensharing or projection is vital; this kind of talk wouldn’t have worked with slides. So it’s probably a talk I’d need to give in person, considering webconference interaction patterns and screensharing delays. Hmm… (Maureen: there is a screenplay mode for Emacs. Isn’t that amazing? Might be worth learning

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 252

Leveling up as a developer! http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22138 March 9, 2011 - Categories: geek, ibm, work It’s satisfying adding a bunch of IBM acronyms to my “marketable skills.” They’re not that intimidating after all! I spent the morning and part of the afternoon pairprogramming with Bharat Boddu on a timesensitive project involving an IBM software stack. It was a struggle in the beginning. Both of us were new to all of this, and the sheer volume of information available for Rational Software Architect, Websphere Application Server, DB2, and other parts of the stack was overwhelming. The simplest of things tripped us up because we didn’t know how to debug them. For example, we learned the hard way that adding the DB2 classes to the project’s classpath didn’t mean that they were part of the runtime configuration classpath when the web services were deployed to the server. I also spent what seemed like an hour trying to deal with this issue from the web service explorer: IWAB0135E An unexpected error has occurred. 302 Found (Solution: Check the endpoints you’ve defined in your WSDL, or define new ones. example.org won’t work.) Once we got over those roadblocks, things flowed smoothly. We used Rational Software Architect to define web services, deployed them on Websphere Application Server, and queried a DB2 database. We also figured out how to work with complex data types and lists for both input and output. We needed to figure out how to consume web services too, so I dug around until I found a web service defined by a WSDL that played well with our configuration. All these bits and pieces will come in handy when we start working on the real requirements. I can feel myself learning all sorts of new things. I love these moments: the magic of concepts snapping together, like the way you reach out and find things right where you’re looking for them. And I’m slowly inching my way into another area of developer awesomeness: dealing with

middleware, service-oriented architecture, and all sorts of other business-y things. Here’s what I do well, and what I’m learning to do even better. •

•

•

•

I’m good at breaking down tasks or ideas into small chunks that I can work on or test. This is really helpful when learning something new, because it helps me gain skills and confidence. It’s challenging when I can’t get enough of a grip on something to figure out what a good first task is, or sometimes what the intermediate tasks are, but once I get the hang of the internal logic of something, I can go pretty quickly. I’m getting even better at this by learning about more platforms and toolkits, and by learning bigger “chunks”. Similarly, I’m good at breaking down unknown quantities and figuring out how to test parts of them. I can apply the problemdecomposition skill I use in development to estimating and planning, too. The book I recently read (How to Measure Anything) had great tips on how to strategically reduce uncertainty; reading that gave me a way to recognize what I’m doing and to improve that. So, for example, I can start with an estimate with a wide range, and I can break it down into the risky parts and some ideas on how to get a better understanding of the numbers. I’m getting better at quickly prototyping applications. It’s fun taking a simple idea from a whiteboard sketch to a mostly-working prototype in a day. =D I’m doing surprisingly well at juggling multiple projects. I’ve got two projects that are time-sensitive, and we seem to be doing okay. There are several projects in the pipeline that I’m working on, too. I keep personal notes on what’s on my radar and what I need to do, and I’m good at keeping folks up to date. I can get even better at this by spending more time to communication and planning, and possibly setting up some filtering rules for my inbox.

I’m glad my manager took a chance on these projects, even though I did have to work through looming panic. ;) (It gets much easier to deal with intimidating systems when you get going!)

This is good. I like this feeling. And I can still fit in sleep, presentations, blog posts, homework help, and sanity breaks. =) Hmm… 2011-03-09 Wed 16:51

Trying MemoLane (social timeline) http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22141 March 10, 2011 - Categories: web2.0 Trying MemoLane on David Ing’s recommendation. It organizes blog posts, Twitter posts, Facebook entries, and other social information into a rather pretty timeline. This has been done before, but Memolane does have a pretty interface.

Wish it could pull in all of my old blog posts and tweets, though! =) Potentially interesting feature: collaborate with other people on a timeline. Hmm…

Math and energy http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22142 March 11, 2011 - Categories: learning, life, teaching We’ve been hosting math study groups over at our place every Friday afternoon, and occasionally on other days too. Today we reviewed the multiplication table, and adding and multiplying fractions (even mixed numbers!). We also snuck in a preview of dividing fractions (mindboggling!) and some letters from the Greek alphabet (with brief excursions into pi, trigonometry, and others). They had been practising! The kids rattled off the multiples of six, seven, and eight with growing confidence. They only needed a little reminder to handle addition and multiplication of fractions. After they told me how their teacher had sprung a brainteaser on them (24, 68, 101, 214, …), I shared this one: 31, 28, 31, 30, 31, 30, 31… They solved it after a hint, and looked very excited about the idea of possibly stumping their teachers. And then there’s this other one they left the house with: 3, 3, 5, 4, 4, 3, 5, 5, 4, 3, 6, …

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 253

“I didn’t know how a math study group could be fun,” one of the parents said, “but now I see how.” She had joined us a little early to find out what it was like. Her son was practically begging us for a chance to do the multiplication tables, so we did another round of them, with the grown-ups joining in too. =) What’s it like hosting a study group at our place? We aren’t like the tutors I remember from home: the quiet one who helped my sister with math and other subjects, or the ones who came to our house to help us with Chinese. W- and I have tons of fun teaching. We come up with examples and exercises, throw in all sorts of zany ideas, sneak in advanced material as well as confidence-building reviews. I really like the small group format. I can bring even more energy to that than I remember from my days of teaching computer science in university, and I can modify the lessons and exercises faster. It’s like the thrill of an especially interactive presentation, except that I get to actually see what people do with the ideas in the end. I can see the aha! moments happen, see progress week after week.

•

•

o

•

o

•

Relationships o

•

[X] Shepherd the Rails project through legal approval process

[X] Meet up with Cate Huston and Maggie Zhou

o

[X] Help with study group

o

[X] Book flights

o

[X] Work on plans

o

Gave GTALug presentation on Org mode

o

[ ] Work on critsit involving AJAX and PHP

o

[ ] Deploy web services onto Websphere Application Server in test environment

o

[ ] Create stub web services, maybe integrate with DB2

o

[ ] Sort out work priorities for April

o

[ ] Catch up with mail, networks

o

[ ] Help with study group

o

[ ] Make pie for Pi Day

o

[ ] Finish value of blogging series

o

[ ] Write about tutoring math

o

[ ] More Zipcast experiments: what if I treat them like office hours?

o

[ ] Write about tweetchats and what I want out of them

o

[ ] Make more bread

Life

[X] Work on critsit involving AJAX and PHP [X] Start building web services using Websphere Application Server

[-] Write about tweetchats and presentations

Relationships

Work o

o

Work

Weekly review: Week ending March 11, 2011 http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22143 March 12, 2011 - Categories: weekly From last week’s plans •

[-] Practise driving – it’s been very snowy and icy

Plans for next week

I’m so glad we’re doing this. I wonder how we can share more of what we’re doing, maybe help more kids and parents gain confidence too… 2011-03-11 Fri 20:56

o

Time analysis Had a focused week at work (critical projects plus lots of other things going on), but still managed to keep it within reasonable hours. Found some time to apply digital painting tips I picked up from the Web. Shifted travel time and social time to preparing for presentations. Category

This week

Last week

Delta

Break

3.0

1.3

1.7

Drawing

1.2

Exercise

2.2

1.2

Life o

[X] Try more Zipcast experiments

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 254

3.8

-1.6

Notes

Category

This week

Last week

Delta

Notes

Personal

6.1

1.6

4.5

Preparing presentations

Preparation

2.0

3.2

-1.2

Routines – cooking

3.2

2.3

0.9

Routines – general

14.8

7.6

7.2

Routines – tidying

1.6

7.8

-6.2

Sleep

59.0

58.5

0.6

Social

24.2

29.2

-5.0

Travel

5.1

7.5

-2.4

Work

40.8

40.2

0.6

Writing

4.8

4.8

0.0

Slightly more time for breakfasts Probably included tidying time

Presentation, study group

by reviewing your notes, reminding yourself of your goals and why they matter. Tips: Set a goal for yourself. Write about it. Write about why it matters to you. Write about your plans for achieving your goal. Review your notes when you need a burst of energy. 2. Connecting with inspiration The Internet can make it easy to connect with other people who have similar goals. Look for blogs that inspire you. If you share your reflections through blog posts of your own, linking to the posts or people who’ve inspired you, you can build unexpected relationships and learn from or even help your role models in surprising ways. Tips: Comment on inspiring blog posts. If you have more to say, write a blog post that refers to theirs. Share what you’re learning from people and how you’ve tried those ideas in your life. 3. Progress

Get More Value from Blogging, Part VII: Inspiring Yourself and Inspiring Others http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22144 March 13, 2011 Categories: blogging, inspiration, tips, web2.0, wri ting Paul Gillin invited me to do a tweetchat on the professional and personal value of blogging. When I brainstormed some of the things I’d like to talk about, I ended up with a big list: not just the value I get from blogging, but also tips for how you can build that too. I hope you enjoy this blog series! You can also see other resources in this value of blogging series. 1. Making your goals real

Change can be long, slow, and tiring. If you can look back at the progress you’ve made, though, you might find it easier to keep going. You can use your blog to keep track of your progress. If you’re trying to establish a new habit, you might write about how well you’re doing, or what you can do to make it easier to do what you want to do. If you’re working on improving your skills, your blog posts can help you keep track of your growth. For example, when I started learning more about drawing, I blogged my stick figures. Thanks to my blog, I can see how my drawing techniques have evolved over time, and I get less frustrated because I know I’m making progress. Tips: Write about your progress, and think about sharing examples of your work so far. Don’t beat yourself up if you miss a day, lapse into old behavior, or slide backwards. Focus on the positive, and keep going. 4. Inspiring others

Writing about your goals can be scary. You might feel that people will laugh at your goals, or that they’ll embarrass you if you don’t achieve them. You might worry about sounding over-ambitious, or not ambitious enough.

Inspire others? Yes, you can do that, even if you’re just starting out. If you share what you’re learning and how you’re living life, you might be surprised by how you touch other people’s lives. And it gets even better – you might learn a lot from the people you inspire, too.

But there’s a lot of value in writing about your goals, even if you start by doing so in a private entry. When you write about what you want in life, why you want it, and how you can get to that point, that path becomes clearer. When your goals dim and your willpower fades, you can inspire yourself

One of the things that makes it easier for me to think out loud – to share whatever I’m learning about or struggling with on my blog – is that I often hear from other people who’ve learned a little from what I’ve shared, or who are glad to find

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 255

someone else dealing with similar situations, or who are happy to finally have words for something they’ve struggled to describe. We’re all in this together, and it’s great to be able to help and inspire other people. Tips: Don’t be afraid of sharing what you’re learning, even the parts that are hard. Who knows whom you might help along the way?

And that’s the last item in this value of blogging series. Like this? You can also subscribe using a feed-reader or subscribe by e-mail to get updates. Hope this helps!

Coconut buns and the economics of home awesomeness http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22145 March 14, 2011 Categories: baking, cooking, family, life, love, refle ction Sometimes making things at home is cheaper than buying them. Sometimes it’s more expensive. For example, the batch lunches we prepare and freeze come out to $1-$3 per meal, labour included. They’re definitely worth it compared to eating out. The coconut cocktail buns (pan de coco?) I spent this weekend learning are cheaper at the store, but they were still very much worth making. We followed a recipe from an book that W- had bought from a pastry store in Chinatown a long time ago. It was a different way of making dough. The first step was to mix yeast, warm water, and flour. I was a little nervous in the beginning because it was more of a slurry than a paste. Once it rose and I combined it with the rest of the flour, it was beautifully dough-like, made smooth and elastic through kneading. After several rounds of rising, I filled it with the coconut mix, wrapped the dough around it, let it rest some more, then popped it into the oven for 15 minutes. The result:

The buns were scrumptious. Not too sweet. Complex taste. Yummy yummy yummy. I had a lot of fun making the buns with W-, playing around with the voice and mannerisms we’d picked up from a Julia Child video. I also made

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 256

some pie crusts for Pi Day (March 14). W- filled the first pie crust with lemon meringue. I sewed up some tea towels from the fabric that W- helped me pick out, and those passed their field test. We salvaged some wool scraps from one of my bins and repurposed an empty paper salt shaker into a dice roller for J-’s math study sessions. It was a great weekend for maing things. We spend a lot of weekend time doing things ourselves: cooking, baking, sewing, fixing things, even woodworking during the summer months. Some of things cost us more in terms of time and money than we might spend on functionally equivalent alternatives, but we get a surprising amount of value from these activities. For example, baking coconut buns results in yummy coconut buns (for which a reasonable equivalent can be bought for a little more than a dollar each), but the activity is also: •

intrinsically enjoyable for us

•

a way to develop skills

•

shared relationship time

•

an opportunity to create or build on injokes

•

an opportunity to strengthen other relationships (friends, neighbours)

•

a way to reinforce and express our shared values

•

a good reason for a blog post =)

So although baking buns takes time, it actually pays off better than many of the other ways I could spend weekend time, such as: •

reading

•

watching movies (borrowed from the library, but still passive)

•

programming or working (important to invest time into relationships; doing well in programming and working at the moment, I think.)

•

writing, even

There’s a reasonable limit to how much time I would spend on baking or making other things at home. I don’t want to mill my own flour (just yet). I think I’ve got a decent balance right now, and I look forward to picking up more as I get better and more efficient. Am I trading off, say, more brilliance at work, or racking up income through side-hustles, or becoming more famous through writing? Maybe.

But this is good, and all of those other aspects of life are pretty okay (even awesome!). Life is good.

•

PRO: It would be good practice in building an audience and creating more value.

•

CON: Slideshare Zipcast pricing could change soon. Shift to advertisingsupported Freebinar? (No webcam, but has screensharing and recording.) Webinars aren’t useful for me in terms of lead generation or revenue, so I won’t be going for the for-fee options. =) Really doing this more for fun and learning. Hmm, maybe if I think of it like

•

CON: I could spend the time and effort writing, recording videos, and helping people learn, and I would probably get better ROI from that.

Continuing experiments with Slideshare’s Zipcast web conferences http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22147 March 14, 2011 - Categories: speaking I did a quick presentation of Six Steps to Sharing on Slideshare’s Zipcast this Saturday. I haven’t done enough audience/list development to invite lots of people to sign up, as most of my internal and external talks are organized and promoted by other people. As an experiment, I decided to think of this more like informal office hours and the bonus of being able to review and think about some of the presentations I’ve shared. That worked out well. I’ve been using this to test video setups around the house, too. This time, I tried the kitchen, sitting on the floor near the back door. I got good light, a clean background, and the right height for the webcam – things that are more difficult to arrange when my laptop’s on the table. However, sitting on the floor made breathing slightly more difficult, and it changed the way I spoke. Downstairs is still my favourite setup, but it requires a bit of work – foldable background, three lights. The kitchen is the easiest to get up and running. I couldn’t get my hair to stay still, so I wore a hat. They’re handy for that. =) If I want to get better at this, here are the key areas for growth: •

Connecting with more people who might find these presentations interesting o

Mailing list?

o

Event registration system?

•

Figuring out a way to record the presentations: I’ve been having problems getting audio+video through Camtasia on the same computer, but I could record video and system audio if I can log in on a separate computer.

•

Developing material, of course

•

Doing this during the week

I think I’m going to keep tinkering around with this, but I might not spend the time right now to make the most of Zipcasts or other webconferencing tools. It’s good learning, though, and I’ll be around every Saturday in case people have questions or ideas.

Recipes: Coconut cocktail bun recipe http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22148 March 15, 2011 Categories: baking, cooking, cookordie, recipe As it turns out, ingredient lists are uncopyrightable, so I’ll try to post more of them when I write about our cooking adventures. (I’ve come quite a long way from the beginnings of Cook or Die!) Recipe steps might be copyrighted, particularly those that are creatively expressed, but that should be no problem – I’ll just write my own instructions. So here are the buns that have just come out of our oven. (Yes, another set of buns. The ones I made just two days ago have vanished. There must be a bun-monster somewhere in the basement…) After the success of this weekend’s coconut cocktail buns (gai mei bao), W- and J- suggested hotdog bao, Nutella bao, and some more coconut bao to use up the extra filling we had. Result:

Is it worth investing time into this? Considerations: •

PRO: Reviewing and presenting previous material is useful for confidence, flow, and constant improvement.

You will need a kitchen scale. This is actually good, because volume measurements of flour and other things can vary widely.

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 257

Gai Mei Bao – Chinese Cocktail Buns and flexible bun dough recipe Adapted from David Ko’s Yung Sing Dim Sum Recipes (A Chinese Snackbook):

•

168g sugar

•

56g melted butter

•

1 egg

Bun Dough

•

30ml (2 tbsp) milk

David Ko uses this recipe for practically all the buns in his book. It’s a white, slightly sweet bread.

•

1 tsp vanilla extract (fun to make at home!)

•

1/2 tsp baking powder

•

a few drops of coconut essence (optional; we didn’t have it in our pantry)

•

12g active dry yeast

•

495ml warm water o

•

340g sifted all-purpose flour o

o

In a large mixing bowl, pour yeast solution into flour. The original recipe says to knead the result for 5 minutes, but this paste results in more of a liquid mix, so just mix it until it’s smooth. Leave in a warm place for 2 hours. Or if you’re like us and baking season (winter) doesn’t leave you with an abundance of warm spots in the house, set the oven to 150′F for thirty seconds, then turn the oven off. Put the yeast mix into the oven and wait until it doubles in volume (around one hour).

•

60ml warm water

•

1 egg

•

225g cake and pastry flour (sifted)

•

560g all-purpose flour (sifted)

•

110g sugar

•

18g salt

•

125ml milk

•

3g lard

•

3g butter o

Mix all of the above with the yeast mix in a large mixing bowl. Knead until smooth and elastic, adding flour as necessary. Cover with a damp cloth (or cling wrap and a damp cloth; keeps your tea towels cleaner) and leave in a warm place for 2 hours, or until doubled in volume. You can use the oven trick here, too.

Coconut filling •

o

Dissolve yeast in water.

175g coconut flakes

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Mix well and put in the fridge.

We skipped the toppings because the regular coconut filling is awesome enough. Assembly •

Divide the dough into 24 portions. I tend to do this by cutting the dough in half three times, then cutting the resulting eight pieces into three pieces each.

•

Roll each portion of dough into a round ball. Arrange on a baking sheet, then cover and put in a warm place for 15 minutes.

•

Flatten the dough balls. I like using a rolling pin here for a nice, even look, although it does take more time than squishing the dough manually.

•

Spoon your filling into each flat piece of dough, wrap it up, and roll it into the shape you like. Try to make sure the buns are pinched closed, as the filling might leak out during baking.

•

Set buns aside in a warm place to rise further, covering the buns with a damp cloth or cling wrap. Preheat oven to 375F.

•

Do an egg wash or another wash if you want. Brushing the buns with a beaten egg (egg wash) gives them a beautiful golden colour, and also makes it easier for sprinkled things (seeds, etc.) to stick.

•

Bake buns in a 375F oven for 15 minutes, or until the buns are golden brown.

•

You can brush the freshly-baked buns with melted butter, if you want, but we skipped that step.

Other fillings we’ve tried: Hotdog Wrap the flattened dough around a hotdog. Brush dough with beaten egg and sprinkle sesame seeds on top. You can push the sesame seeds into the dough slightly to help them stick.

Nutella Spoon Nutella hazelnut spread into the middle of the flattened dough and roll it up. Brush dough with beaten egg and sprinkle almond slices on top. 2011-03-14 Mon 23:14

Thinking about a developer setup template http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22151 March 16, 2011 Categories: geek, ibm, kaizen, work Development on one of my projects has gone in fits and starts. It’s been particularly challenging because the information about server configuration has been incomplete and scattered, trickling in as the IT architects sort out what’s going on and find people who can answer questions. The other developer and I are both new to this software stack (Websphere Portal, Websphere Application Server, FileNet, Enterprise Content Manager, DB2, Rational Software Architect). This means that we run into all the things that experienced developers take for granted: where to find documentation at the right level of detail, which ports and URLs to use (or even how to go about finding them), how to deploy our code, and how to diagnose and troubleshoot problems.

step is to wire it all up with application-specific code. I’m thinking of organizing all the bits and pieces of information we needed into a template that I can share with server administrators and developers next time we’re on a project like this. It would make work a lot faster and easier. So, what do developers need? We typically need to: Set up our development environment software, licensing, config, source code control information, bugtracking, etc. Orient ourselves on different environments login/access/VPN details for integration, testing, and production environments; deployment procedure Confirm that the service is running correctly the full URL to the web-based administration console and to other web interfaces we can use, any hosts entries needed (for name-based virtual hosts, for example) Log on the server and look around VPN details, boundary firewalls, IP addresses, usernames, passwords, connection software (Remote Desktop? VNC?), file paths, location of log files Write code API documentation, software versions, ports, paths, usernames, passwords Deploy and run code file paths or upload interface, instructions on starting or restarting services Test that things are working web interfaces, ports, URLs, etc. This could be a lot of information, and it might not be worth doing if you’ve got a couple of developers who can pick things up quickly. On the other hand, if you’re preparing a demo image that could be used dozens or hundreds of times for development, or if you gradually build this document over time, that could be pretty handy.

Stoic philosophy to the rescue. It’s no use whinging about not having all the bits and pieces up front. =) Besides, the people who set up the virtual images are people too, doing the best job they can while probably being pulled in a million directions or afflicted with the curse of expertise, forgetting the kind of knowledge they take for granted. It’s okay. It is what it is. We’ve managed to figure most of the pieces out with a lot of poking around and experimentation. I’ve successfully deployed a web service, found sample code that can post a file to our Filenet object store, and written a web service client. We’ve previously been able to connect to DB2, so we should have all the major pieces now. The next

What’s in your developer setup template? Photo (c) 2009 Mecookie – Creative Commons Attribution License 2011-03-15 Tue 20:03

Decision trees and self-challenges: how my laptop’s recent battery failure is a great excuse to think http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22152 March 17, 2011 Categories: analysis, decision, geek, kaizen

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The battery on my Lenovo X61 tablet refuses to hold a charge, and there seems to be no way to fix it. The battery is no longer covered under warranty, so I’ll need to replace it on my own if I choose to. An easy algorithm for decision-making is be to postpone spending money until I can demonstrate really good benefits for doing so. (Or in this case, nine business days before I really need a new battery.) Because I’m curious about the way I might think about other choices, I’m going to think through some of the strategies I use to make decisions. =)

using the tablet practically every day, so drop-off should be noticeable. •

Decision trees I like breaking things down into decision trees, similar to the technique described by Ken Watanabe in his kid-friendly book Problem Solving 101. It’s useful to figure out what the options are and what their costs and benefits might be. I realized that I actually have two independent choices: what to do with the battery, and what to do with the laptop. Here is my current decision tree. •

CHOICE A.1: Buy a new battery for my Lenovo X61T o o

Will need this if I sell or give the laptop to someone

•

o

Longer battery life

o

12.5″ outdoor-viewable display, more horizontal resolution: 342 extra pixels, widescreen aspect ratio

o

3.9 pounds with 4-cell battery

o

Dual-array digital microphones – possible use for Skype, podcasting?

o

2.7 GHz processor option

o

Rapid Drive for faster bootup/access?

o

Instant resume for wireless (up to 99 minutes)

o

Warns when walking away from stylus (heh, nifty; haven’t lost mine yet, though)

o

Gorilla Glass – scratch-resistance could be useful

o

CHOICE B.1.1: Give X61T to J-

CHOICE A.1.1: Lenovo battery

o

CHOICE B.1: Save up for X220 tablet

CHOICE A.1.1.1: Lenovo.com – trustable but more expensive; $160-200

o

CHOICE A.1.1.2: Craigslist – potentially $80-100, risk of getting older batteries CHOICE A.1.1.3: Other Internet sources – risk of getting the wrong kind of battery

CHOICE A.1.2: Third-party battery $70-90 – risk of scams, unreliable batteries, hazards

•

May still need to buy a battery unless we want to treat it like a PC.

She’ll like the drawing bit.

CHOICE B.1.2: Resell X61T on Craigslist

Will need new battery anyway

Will need to sell at a discount because of wear and tear

CHOICE B.2: Stick with X61T until I reach the end of my two-year self-upgrade cycle, or until I have strong reasons to upgrade o

4.2 pounds, UltraBase, etc.

CHOICE A.2: See if I can get by without one

o

Doesn’t use new buttonless trackpad

o

Make my work laptop my main laptop for the moment.

o

Bigger wrist rest space

o

o

Draw with the power cord plugged in.

Could potentially scoop up X220T on secondary market, or wait for promos

o

Keep track of the instances when I’d like to plug in, and buy the battery when it gets on my nerves or when I notice myself using the computer much less. Currently

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I’m probably going to go with choice A.2 for the short-term choice, and we’ll see how my savings work out for choice B. We’re saving for a fair bit of travel this year, so B.2 is more likely than B.1.

4. Will I need the battery life often enough to make the extended battery life worthwhile?

Fortunately, I work with two laptops, so it’s fine. My basic choice is good. Here’s another technique I use to examine that more closely: Estimating option value Hmm. Well, I can still use my battery-less X61T for drawing, writing, and coding. I’ll need to properly hibernate it before transferring locations, or leave it mostly in one place. I just won’t use it out and about as much. I don’t spend that much time in cafes, so it’s really more the shift between the kitchen and the living room or the basement. So, what’s the estimated gap between the expected value of a fully-functional laptop and a battery-less one? In my case, probably not as much as it would be for other people, because I’ve got my work laptop in addition to this. The upper bound on value for me must be $5/day – definitely can’t be more than that, and is probably nowhere near that number. The cost is probably just a few more extra minutes starting up and shutting down, and a little less flexibility, which doesn’t translate into a large cost because I can use that time for something else. It might even be a net benefit if it encourages me to use a sketchbook during our upcoming trip. =) Worst-case scenario is that it might cost me an hour of work if I forget to save something, but that’s just about discipline. The value gap might be bigger for J-, but we’ll see if she can handle it. It’s going to be a big gap if we sell this, but then it’s okay to get a new battery closer to that day. Besides, I usually run my laptops into the ground anyway. This one was an exception. I replaced my Eee after a little less than a year), but that was mainly because J-’s need for a computer coincided neatly with my curiosity about tablet PCs. Setting up challenges Another way to find out if I’m sufficiently interested in something is to ask questions and set myself challenges. For example, if I want to double-check the potential benefits of the fancy new X220 tablet compared to, say, the lowerprices X220 laptop or my current X61T, I can ask the following questions: 1.

Will I draw often enough to make the tablet worthwhile?

2. Will I need more than 3 GB often enough to make the upgrade to a 64-bit OS worth the hassle? 3. Will I run into CPU processing limits often enough to make sense to switch?

Answers 2 and 3 seem to be “no” at the moment. VMs would be a good use of additional memory and processing power, but I’ve been doing fine with two computers. If I can cope with a batteryless life, the answer to 4 is probably not significant, unless I find myself going to way more conferences and meetings (and if my scanner proves unwieldy). The answer to question 1 is the most interesting. I’ve taken lots of sketchnotes, but I’ve done fewer illustrations than I’d hoped I’d draw with the X61T. The workflow isn’t as smooth as keyboard + Cintiq, but it’s (semi-portably) fun. I haven’t figured out how to stop GIMP and Inkscape from jittering so much, although MyPaint and OneNote make beautifully smooth lines. I tend to do my sketchnotes plugged in, but I have a few sketchnotes from meetings where power outlets were few and far between. If I use paper notes for the portable sketches (maybe index cards or notebooks?), then I’ll get a better idea of the incremental value of A.1 or B.1. I can set myself an arbitrary threshold – maybe fill a notebook full of out-and-about sketches and notes – and reconsider my decision when I’ve achieved it. Result: Better drawing skills, a habit of drawing, and an idea of how much I might benefit from the infinitely scrollable paper and the multiplicity of colours on a digital canvas. — I’ve exaggerated the level of thought I usually go to for something like this. There’s room in my “dream/opportunity/kaizen” fund for a new battery if it turns out I absolutely must have one. But it’s fun to think through the techniques I might use to decide something, and writing it down now for something that isn’t critical may help me remember it later when I need to decide something more major. And who knows, it might get you thinking about something… =) (I might end up getting a lot of value out of not having a battery for this notebook. Look, a blog post, and more reasons to draw/sketch on paper! Stay tuned for progress.)

Cats: 0, toilet paper monster: 1; also, ArtRage and Autodesk Sketchbook Pro http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22155 March 18, 2011 Categories: cat, drawing, family, life, sketches

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One time when I came home, W- showed me the picture he took of a toilet paper trail going to the laundry basket. The cats refused to testify, but this is what I think happened. W- says the other drawing I made of Neko(cat)’s favourite positions for sleeping might be too personal, it being set in our room and all. I said Cat versus Human does it. He said my blog isn’t Cat versus Human. Which is true, because Cat versus Human is awesome and even has a book coming out, but not inarguable. I didn’t break out the persuasive techniques we learned about in “Thank You for Arguing,” though. Instead, I’ll tease you with the captions: •

The Pillow Hog

•

The Balancing Sphinx

•

The Chaperone

•

The Heat-seeker

People who know Neko (our oldest cat) or who have cats of their own can probably figure out the rest. I’m playing around with Artrage Studio Pro to see if I like it. I think I get more value from it than from a new laptop battery. Putting my computer into hibernation mode before moving between the kitchen and the living room adds maybe a minute; not a big cost. Being able to draw with 16 million colours and infinite erasures – now that’s something real. It makes drawing a whole lot more fun. I might give the Autodesk SketchBook Pro trial another spin, too. It might be better for pencils and clean illustrations. Drawing is a great way to remember, particularly for things I’ve forgotten to take photographs of or for which I’ve lost the files. My stack of blank index cards is dwindling fast, and sketches pile up on my bedside table. This is fun. =) Quick comparison with SketchBook Pro:

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Smoothing is more controllable in Artrage, and I should check out the flood fills in that program too. I do like the pen gestures in Sketchbook Pro, though, and I’m sure they’ll be a lot more convenient with experience. I’m going to practise drawing in both some more. Who knows? I may even get both, if it turns out that they exercise my brain in different ways. =)

Spring! http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22159 March 19, 2011 Categories: gardening, life, sketches It was so warm on the walk back from the library that I shucked my coat. When I got home, I took my bicycle down from the wall hook. The warmth and sun made me think about biking, and gardening, and other wonderful springtime pursuits. I’ve started a set of bitter melon, basil, tomatoes, and peppers. We’ll see how they work out. When I was planting peas in the garden, I realized that last year’s parsley had self-seeded and the new sprouts were starting to come up. The Internet says that parsley germination can be a slow and difficult process, taking four to six weeks to grow from seed, so I’m happy that the parsley decided to get a head start. I took a picture, but it didn’t feel just like that, so I drew what it felt like: life reaching towards the sun. First game of lacrosse catch, first bicycle ride, first gardening session… Life is good. All the seasons take some getting used to. Winter is the big attention-getter, of course, but even spring, summer, and fall have surprises for immigrants like me. Planning around growing

seasons and frost dates? Dealing with super-long days? Raking leaves and staving off the anxieties of a looming winter? But it is what it is, and I’m where I am, so I’ll make the most of what I’ve got.

o

[X] Finish value of blogging series

o

[X] Write about tutoring math

o

[X] More Zipcast experiments: what if I treat them like office hours?

What do I want to do and learn this spring? •

Help celebrate my sister’s wedding. (Whee!)

o

[-] Write about tweetchats and what I want out of them

•

Grow more of our favourite herbs and vegetables.

o

[X] Make more bread

•

Pick up lots of skills at work.

•

Practise drawing, writing, teaching, etc.

•

Organize more get-togethers

•

Bike farther

•

Have more fun! =)

As I head into summer, I want to be even more comfortable on my bike, I want to have friends over more often, I want to have an even more productive garden, and I want to fill notebooks with drawings and photographs. Hmm…

Plans for next week Work

•

[ ] Sort out web services on Websphere Application Server

o

[ ] Figure out work priorities for April and May

o

[ ] Send staffing guidelines for project M

o

[ ] Catch up on work mail

Relationships

•

It turns out that it’s pretty easy to knock the power cord out of my laptop by, say, tripping on it or accidentally pulling it when drawing. I had to draw that three times!

Weekly review: Week ending March 18, 2011 http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22160 March 20, 2011 - Categories: weekly From last week’s plans

o

o

[X] Host pirate card game party

o

[ ] Catch up on mail

o

[ ] Chat with David Singer

o

[ ] Draw more

o

[ ] Update plans

o

[ ] Catch up on mail

Life

•

Time analysis •

•

•

Work o

[X] Work on critsit involving AJAX and PHP

o

[-] Deploy web services onto Websphere Application Server in test environment

o

[X] Create stub web services, maybe integrate with DB2

o

[-] Sort out work priorities for April

Relationships

Life

o

[-] Catch up with mail, networks

o

[-] Help with study group – moved to next week

o

[X] Make pie for Pi Day

Category

This week

Last week

Delta

Break

4.5

3.0

1.45

Drawing

8.5

1.2

7.27

Exercise

9.8

2.2

7.60

Learning

0.5

Personal

2.0

6.1

-4.08

Preparation

3.3

2.0

1.28

Routines – cooking

6.0

3.2

2.83

Routines – general

9.8

14.8

-5.03

Routines –

1.6

1.6

0.03

Notes

0.50

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Category

This week

Last week

Delta

Notes

tidying Sleep

60.1

59.0

1.07

Social

1.0

24.2

23.25

Travel

3.9

5.1

-1.18

Work

44.3

40.8

3.52

Writing

11.8

4.8

6.98

I spent most of last week focused on work, drawing, and writing, shifting time away from social gettogethers. In the evenings, I usually sketched while W- and J- played Lego Star Wars. I’ve been drawing and baking a lot recently, and I enjoy doing so. I haven’t spent a lot of time on mail, though, so I need to focus on that and catch up.

Pirate kitties http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22163 March 21, 2011 - Categories: cat, sketches One of the best things about drawing is that you can draw things that don’t exist. Somehow your world splits into all these different possibilities. Even if you can’t quite capture what you hold in your mind, it’s there. Your rough sketches remind you. And so: pirate kitties.

Drawing things you can’t see turns out to be surprisingly fun.

Learning more about Websphere and web service development http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22164

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March 21, 2011 Categories: development, geek, ibm, java So I finally figured out what was wrong with the way I was trying to generate my web services for Websphere 6.1. I’d been using “Generate Java bean skeleton” from the WSDL file, which worked fine for the 6.0 target, but which didn’t work for 6.1. The correct way to do it is to right-click on the service and choose “Generate – Top-down Service”. I also spent some time figuring out how to correctly use the XSD the IT architect sent me in order to use it for the data types in the WSDL. This is how: One of the pieces that was missing for me was dealing with namespaces, but once I got my head around XML again, I added some namespaces and got the referred types working. So I’ve retwiddled our web services and gotten them to work with the new data structures. My test cases pass again. Progress! 2011-03-21 Mon 20:03

Shanghaippy birthday, John Grimme! Recipe: Lumpiang shanghai http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22167 March 22, 2011 Categories: cooking, family, food, recipe, sketches John Grimme, my sister’s fiance, celebrates his birthday tomorrow. (Well, today already, given time in the Netherlands.) He gets this bad pun because of his deep love for lumpiang shanghai, and because I’ve decided to get lots more drawing practice. =) Makes me wish I thought of making birthday illustrations like this earlier! Oh well, I’ll just have to do some drawings for other family members on other occasions.

Make as many as you can until you run out of wrappers or filling. If you run out of wrappers first, you can turn the rest of the filling into meatballs or little patties. If you run out of filling first, you can use the wrappers for other fried goodies. If you want to freeze any of the lumpia, you can do so now. (When Tita Gay came over for our wedding, we made well over 300 pieces oflumpia. Everyone had all the lumpia they could eat, and we enjoyed the extras for almost a month afterwards.)

He probably doesn’t need this recipe, but here it is for other people who are curious. Lumpiang shanghai These ingredients can be changed quite a bit. Experiment! •

500g ground pork (fat is okay)

•

1 large onion, chopped

•

a few cloves of garlic, chopped

•

1 medium-sized carrot, grated

•

salt and pepper to taste

•

spring roll wrappers: look for packages with photos of golden-brown deep-fried delicacies on them if you need to be sure, as rice wrappers don’t work as well as the other kinds do

•

egg, beaten (for sealing)

•

plum sauce (for serving)

When you’ve made a batch of lumpia, heat 1-2 inches of oil in a frying pan until a piece of bread sizzles or until the oil smokes. (This is why we don’t make lumpia often – frying can be scary!) Fry the lumpia a few at a time, turning or rolling them so that they cook evenly. Avoid overcrowding them, and give the oil time to heat up again between batches. Lumpia is done when it turns crispy and golden brown. Let them drain on paper towels or in a strainer, and break one open to test if it’s cooked inside. If it is, eat the evidence. Stop yourself from eating more. Fry up another batch. Test those for quality, too. Remember to leave some for your guests. Serve warm, with plum sauce.

The three argumenteers http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22170 March 23, 2011 Categories: argument, rhetoric, sketches

Mix everything but the egg, the wrapper, and the plum sauce in a large mixing bowl. Test the seasoning by frying some of the filling in oil until the pork is cooked, then tasting it. When the filling tastes good, make the spring rolls. Take a spring roll wrapper and spread it on a plate or saucer. Put a teaspoon of filling slightly below the wrapper center, in a long finger-width line. Leave space on either side of the filling so that you can tuck the ends in. Fold the near corner of the wrapper over the filling. Fold the sides inwards. Moisten the far edges of the wrapper with some of the egg, then roll up your wrapper until you reach the end, rolling it as tightly as you can. (*Optional: Wash your hands, browse the Internet for a video on how to make it, then get back to making lumpia.)

(Or arguers, more correctly? But Argumenteers is a fun little reference.) Logos, ethos, and pathos. =) W- and I would like to help J-, her friends, and other people learn more about critical thinking, rhetoric, argument, and eventually negotiation. Someday I may even make a kid’s book about arguments so that kids (and grown-ups!) can get better at recognizing, identifying, and responding to arguments. First step: pick up more practice ourselves.

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 265

The sequence we might work with is: 1.

identify and break down arguments

2. classify arguments 3. identify fallacies and respond to them 4. identify figures of speech and rhetorical effect 5.

Hmm… There must be lots of ways to make rhetoric and argument fun and interesting…

Weekly review: Week ending March 25, 2011 http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22171 March 26, 2011 - Categories: weekly From last week’s plans

repair and respond to stronger arguments

So I’m going to try reading the opinion pages of the New York Times and other news sources and analyzing the arguments there. First up:Teaching to the Text Message, Andy Seslsberg, March 19, 2011.

•

Work

Argument: Short, Internet-focused writing assignments may be more effective than long writing assignments early in the college curriculum. 1. Long assignments don’t work. 1.1. Support: I’ve been teaching with long writing assignments for years, [so I know what I’m talking about.] 1.2 Support: Students’ long writing assignments are of low quality (“font-size manipulation, plagiarism, cliches”). 1.3 Implied: Teachers don’t have the time to check long writing assignments in depth. 2. Implied: Short Internet-focused writing assignments will be more interesting and more useful. 2.1 Support: Alternative formats get people interested. 2.2 Support: Real-life contexts for communication such as networking e-mails, tweets, or comments will be more relevant to students than essays or book reports. 2.3 Support: Alternative assignments are more like students’ everyday life. 2.4 Support: Writing concisely is useful and more in tune with the world’s needs. 2.5 Support: Great thinkers can pack a lot of thought into a few words. [Therefore students won’t be missing out, and there might be useful ways to connect the lessons to past thinkers.] 3. Support: Short assignments can help students develop better skills and teachers give better feedback. 3.1. Support: Short assignments force clarity and reduce waste. 3.2. Support: Teachers can give short assignments more individual attention. [Implied: More individual attention can help students learn more effectively] 3.3. Support: Short writing assignments encourage conciseness and creativity 3.4 Support: Moderation – colleges can still have long writing assignments later in the curriculum.

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 266

•

•

o

[X] Sort out web services on Websphere Application Server

o

[X] Figure out work priorities for April and May

o

[X] Send staffing guidelines for project M

o

[X] Catch up on work mail

o

Did first pass of estimates for project M

o

Drafted administration guide for project I

Relationships o

[X] Host pirate card game party

o

[X] Catch up on mail

o

[-] Chat with David Singer

o

Received lovely French rolling pin from W-

o

Helped with study group

o

Had fun playing LEGO Star Wars with W-

o

[X] Draw more

o

[-] Update plans

o

[X] Catch up on mail

Life

Plans for next week •

•

Work o

[ ] Work on Rails questionnaire project for client C

o

[ ] Talk to client U regarding Drupal

o

[ ] Finish administration guide for project I

Relationships

•

o

[ ] Plant lots of yummy vegetables

o

[ ] Chat with David Singer

o

[X] Learn how to cook dal

o

[X] Bake another batch of buns

o

[ ] Get through busy week

o

[ ] Order laptop battery

Life

Time analysis Category

This week

Last week

Delta

Notes

Break

17.6

4.5

13.1

LEGO Star Wars!

Drawing

11.7

8.5

3.2

Exercise

1.9

9.8

-7.9

0.5

-0.5

Learning Personal

1.2

2.0

-0.8

Preparation

0.6

3.3

-2.7

Routines – cooking

2.0

6.0

-4.0

Routines – general

6.7

9.8

-3.1

Routines – tidying

5.5

1.6

3.9

Sleep

60.8

60.1

0.7

Social

11.0

1.0

9.0

Travel

7.1

3.9

3.2

Work

40.1

44.3

-4.2

Writing

1.7

11.8

-10.1

Gardening

In our math study group sessions, we often find ourselves reviewing lessons that the kids briefly covered in school but hadn’t absorbed. For example, one of the kids was having a hard time with long division. “This is going to take a long time,” he said. He sounded hesitant, so I offered to help him review long division while W- gave the other kids additional exercises. I shared the mnemonic that helped J- learn long division: Dracula Must Suck Blood, which reminds people to divide, multiply, subtract, and then bring down the next number. We got through double-digit division, remainders, and decimal points, although he still needs to practise until he gets division down pat. J- has moments like that with her schoolwork, too, so it’s good that we have these study sessions. The kids had taken up algebraic expressions before, but drew blanks when I turned our straightforward price + tax exercise into an exercise along the lines of “Let’s say I want to sell a shirt for $30 after tax, which is 13%. What should the initial price be?” So we did a quick review of algebra, and we’ll do more next week.

Pirate party, study group

Lots of hanging out this week – hosted a piraterelated card game party, hosted math study group, and spent time playing LEGO Star Wars with Wayne. Work is plenty busy, too. =)

Filling in the learning gaps http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22174 March 27, 2011 - Categories: sketches, teaching

The kids’ classroom lessons are currently focused on a simulation of real life. They have jobs, and must balance their income and their expenses. Some are entrepreneurs, and some work at companies. They’re learning about business, advertising, accounting, and communication. They’ve even filed income tax returns. The teachers (also known as the Sometimes Benevolent Force in-game) occasionally shake things up. I think it’s an interesting idea. This integrated, real-life-focused learning does leave little time to review lessons or build a sense of mastery in basic skills, and J- sometimes has a hard time talking about the specific lessons she’s learning from the exercise. That’s one of the reasons why we’ve been stepping up our involvement, tutoring J- and organizing these study groups. The teachers are doing their best, and I think the program might be more useful than

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a plain-vanilla-teach-to-the-textbook approach. Filling in the gaps at home is much more effective than waxing nostalgic or wringing our hands in worry. It helps to understand that it’s normal for some things to be missed. No school is perfect, no teacher is perfect, and no student is perfect. It takes repeated exposure and practice to learn something – as I learn and re-learn myself, stretching with these projects and hobbies. =)

On typing in Dvorak http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22175 March 28, 2011 - Categories: geek, tips Stefan asks: I use the “normal” QWERTY-layout but I am thinking to switch over to Dvorak. I read somewhere that you are using Dvorak. Can you recommend it for someone who is not a programmer and just types some messages. I am at 54 WPM in QWERTY. What is your count in QWERTY and in Dvorak. I am really curious about it. Short answer: Try it out if you’re curious, but don’t expect miraculous speed gains – typing layout is probably not your bottleneck. One of my quirks is that I’ve switched my computer to the Dvorak keyboard layout – same keyboard, just different software configuration. I taught myself Dvorak on a whim during the summer of 2002, to see how easily I could reprogram muscle memory. It took a month of typing painfully slowly, and then things clicked. I currently type at about 90wpm on both Dvorak and QWERTY. I prefer Dvorak, though, because it feels like more even use of my fingers. This is partly because of the layout, which optimizes for alternating fingers when typing English. This is also partly because I learned how to type Dvorak using a computerbased typing program that encouraged me to use the right fingers to press each key. In contrast, I don’t remember ever learning how to type QWERTY. We must have had keyboarding exercises in school, but by then I typed faster than most people around already, and no one minded that I tended to hit keys with whichever finger was already in motion. Choosing the Dvorak keyboard layout has a few consequences. First, it certainly increases geek cred, as odd computer-related decisions tend to do. ;) It also means that I have to switch the keyboard layout on my computer if anyone needs

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to borrow it. I can switch layouts, although sometimes starting up – or alternating between computers with different layouts – takes a little more thought. I’ve changed some of my keyboard shortcuts to make them more useful on a Dvorak keyboard. For programs like Nethack, I switch to QWERTY because the shortcuts feel better that way. My inclination towards Dvorak is also dependent on the keyboard size and feel – too small or too big, and I’ll switch to QWERTY. There have even been times when I have most of my windows set to Dvorak and one or two windows set to QWERTY – mildly confusing because of the context-switching, but easy enough to sort out. Typing layout isn’t the limiting factor for me, though. At 90wpm, I can type about as fast as I need to type in order to write or program. If I want to do things faster, it’s more about thinking more quickly rather than just typing more quickly. My brain is the bottleneck, not the way the keys are arranged. (For example, this post was written at effectively 22wpm, not 90wpm.) When I’m picking up lots of passages from books, I find that dictating into Dragon Naturally Speaking 11 is reasonably fast, and it’s easier on my hands and posture too. So I don’t feel any particular urge to further improve my typing speed, just as my reading speed is fine. I still haven’t gotten the hang of dictating new text to Dragon Naturally Speaking, though. I currently find it faster and less distracting to type new content than to say it. So: Whether you’re on QWERTY or Dvorak, you might see a speed boost if you train yourself to type properly – pressing keys with the right fingers, keeping your fingers on the home row as much as possible, and using keyboard shortcuts and automation to reduce the amount of typing you need to do in the first place. Learning a new keyboard layout might be a way to break yourself out of bad habits. Aside from that, Dvorak, Colemak, and other layouts might be worth checking out as an intellectual exercise. Who knows, you might enjoy typing in one of them! 2011-03-28 Mon 21:47

Helping kids learn about automation http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22176 March 29, 2011 - Categories: automation, teaching J- shuffled in and out of the living room, listless and bored. As part of a 9-week simulation of real life in school, she and her classmates had been assigned jobs. Her job was to be an accountant, and the tedium of checking dozens of pretend tax returns had long sunk in. W- had encouraged her

to use a calculator, so at least she didn’t have to multiple all those figures by hand, but there were still so many numbers to verify. My geek sense tingled, as it does whenever there’s an opportunity for a quick win through automation. I coaxed her back to her homework. “Come on, let’s set up a spreadsheet,” I said. “That way, you don’t have to redo each of the calculations or worry about getting things wrong.” We brought up OpenOffice.org Calc. She was still lackluster, so I took the lead in creating the spreadsheet. I asked her which tax return we could use as a model, and she picked hers. We started filling in the formulas, checking her work along the way. (We found and fixed an error in her tax return, too!) Then we tested the spreadsheet on a few other tax returns she had manually done, and she used it to check the rest.

become more familiar with the tools and the process, I automate a little bit more, and more, and more. Eventually I might even create a tool that other people can use, like the way my Community Toolkit for Lotus Connections is off and running. The hardest thing, I guess, is knowing where to start. I run into that problem a lot, because I work with lots of different technologies and frameworks. It’s like looking for the end of a tangled piece of string. That can be hard to find in the confusion, but once you do, you can start unknotting the mess. I want J- to be able to think: ah, this has to do with calculations, maybe I can get a handle on it by using a spreadsheet, putting in manual steps if needed. How do you use teachable moments to encourage people to automate?

Result: Not only could she verify a correct tax return in less than a minute, but she perked up and started having fun with it. She made a pile of correct tax returns and a pile of incorrect ones, with sticky notes pointing out the deficiencies. She still doesn’t want to be an accountant again, but at least she knows that tedious tasks might be automated away.

2011-03-29 Tue 21:09

The next time J- finds herself doing tedious calculations or verifications, I hope she thinks about how much faster, more reliable, and more enjoyable the spreadsheet was compared to calculating things step by step, and perhaps invest time into learning how to automate whatever she needs to do.

People often ask about the time analyses I do as part of my weekly review. My weekly time tracking reports go back to about December 11, 2010, when I started tracking my time using the free Time Recording app on the Android. I do it because of the following reasons:

More thoughts on time analysis: correlations and revealed preferences http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22177 March 29, 2011 Categories: analysis, geek, quantified

How do people learn how to automate? It’s such a time-saving skill, but it doesn’t seem all that common. Maybe people are intimidated by spreadsheets and programming languages, and that fear of losing more time keeps them from gradually building the knowledge they need to save lots of time. If we can show J- and other kids the benefits of automating, maybe that light at the end of the tunnel will encourage them to learn. If we expose them to the methods for automating tasks, such as putting calculations into a spreadsheet, creating keyboard macros, or writing short programs, maybe they’ll realize it’s not scary – and maybe they’ll start modifying or creating new tools.

•

I need to track my project-level time for work anyway,

•

I want to see where I spend my time and if that’s in line with my priorities,

•

I want to know how much time it takes me to do certain things, in order to improve my estimates and get better at planning,

•

I want to avoid burning myself out

•

I want to make sure I allocate enough time to important activities instead of, say, getting carried away with lots of fun work and flow experiences, and

In my experience, working with new automating frameworks is always slow and somewhat frustrating in the beginning. It helps that I don’t usually need or want to automate everything right away. I break things down into small things, small wins. I might start by figuring out the most timeconsuming parts and automating that 10%, or automating the most common operations. As I

•

I want to cultivate other deep interests and relationships.

Fatigue and burnout are particularly big concerns for developers. There’s always the temptation to be unrealistic about one’s schedule, either through over-optimistic estimates or through business pressures. However, sustained crunch mode decreases productivity and may even

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result in negative productivity. Sleep deprivation severely cuts into cognitive ability and increases the chance of catastrophic error. I like what I do too much to waste time burning out. Development is so engaging for me. I could keep writing code and building systems late into the night, at the expense of other things I could do. Tracking time helps me keep a careful eye on how much time I spend programming. Like the way a good budgeting system helps me make the most of my expenses and gives me the freedom to take advantage of opportunities, a good time budgeting system helps me make the most of my focused work time and allows me to also focus on other things that matter (the care and feeding of relationships, the development of new skills, and so on). So here are some new things I’ve learned from time tracking: •

I sleep a median of 59 hours a week, which is about eight and a half hours a day. This is more than I expected, but I manage to get a lot done anyway, so it’s okay.

•

I work a little over 40 hours each week, except for the occasional week of crunch time or travel. I don’t make a habit of 50hour weeks, and I get a little twitchy when I work too intensely several weeks in a row (46 hours or so). This means that when I estimate timelines or project my utilization, I should assume 38 or 40-hour weeks instead of 44 hours.

•

I spend most of my time sleeping (44%), working (31%), or connecting with people (11%). Regular routines take up 9% of my time, while my favourite hobby (writing) takes only 5%. I enjoy my work and I sleep well at night, so this time allocation is fine.

In economics, there’s the idea of a revealed preference, which is basically what your actions show compared to what you might say or think you prefer. I may think I’d like to sew or learn languages or do the piano, but if I spend time playing LEGO Star Wars III instead, then that tells me that sewing, Latin, and Schumann are lower on my priority list. (Rationalization: LEGO Star Wars is awesome and it counts as bonding time with Wand J-, so it’s not all that bad.) So, how do I really trade my time? Which activities are positively or negatively correlated with other activities? I made a correlation matrix to see how I spent my time. I used conditional formatting to make high correlations jump out at me. I found some interesting patterns in how I shift time from one category to another.

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Activity 1

Activity 2

Linear correlation coefficient (r)

Notes

Prep

Personal

0.87

Getting things in order means I can give myself permission to learn something new

Cooking

Prep

0.86

Makes perfect sense. Big chore days.

Break

Drawing

0.75

More relaxing time = more drawing time

Travel

Work

0.69

When I commute to work, I probably tend to work longer. Also, I needed to go to the office for some of the crunchy projects.

Sleep

Break

0.67

Relaxed days

Sleep

Writing

0.60

Nice to know writing isn’t conflicting with sleep

Social

Drawing

-0.50

The Saturday afternoons or weekday evenings I spend with people instead of sketching

Routines

Drawing

-0.65

Lots of chores = less drawing time

Personal

Drawing

-0.55

Learning other things = less time spent on drawing

Travel

Cooking

-0.60

Lots of travel = live off homemade frozen lunches

Sleep

Cooking

-0.62

Late weekend mornings = less cooking?

Sleep

Prep

-0.58

Likewise

Sleep

Personal

-0.57

More sleep = less time spent learning other things

I can guess at the causality of some of these relationships, but the others are up in the air. =) Still, I’m learning quite a lot from this exercise. For example, I thought I was giving up sleep in order to write more or draw more. It turns out that sleep cuts into cooking, prep, and other personal interests (sewing, piano, etc.), and doesn’t have much effect on work, writing, or drawing. I do sleep quite well, though, so it may be interesting to experiment with that. I’m also happy to see I don’t give up too much because of travel – a median of 3.4 hours / week, much of which is spent reading, brainstorming, or listening to audiobooks with W-. Travel time reduces cooking time, but that’s okay because we batch-cook in order to minimize weekday cooking. It’s good to see that it doesn’t affect my other activities a lot. The same dataset lets me analyze my sleeping patterns, report project-level breakdowns at work, and review quick notes on my day. I’m in consulting, so I need to track and bill my time per project. Time Recording makes it easy to do that, and I’m thinking of tweaking my workflow further so that I can use task-level times to improve my estimates. So that’s where I am, tracking-wise. It takes me a few seconds to clock into a new category, and the habit is handy for making sure I know where my phone is. Tracking my time also helps me stay more focused on what I’m doing. If you’re curious about the idea and you have a smartphone or other mobile device, find a time-tracking application and give it a try. Have fun!

little to do with your happiness), I wanted to think about what makes a fast programmer. People tell me I’m fast. I know people who can pull programs together even faster. We touch-type, for sure, but that’s the least of it. A huge part of development speed is experience. If you’re familiar with a programming platform, the error messages, the structure, the way things work and the way things are named, you can learn new concepts and write correct code much faster than a newbie can. What if you’re faced with a new framework? You’ll still get a speed boost if you can relate the concepts to other things you’ve learned. If you can figure out the control structures you need and the debugging techniques you can use, then it’s mostly a matter of translating to the new framework and picking up any quirks or local idioms. So let’s break it down further. What are small, specific skills that can help a developer get really fast? •

Touch-typing: Still practically a given. You need to be able to think about your code, not about typing code. If you aren’t yet a touch-typist, sit down and work on that.

•

Speed-reading: This comes in handy everywhere. Much of programming is reading: reading requirements, reading other people’s code, reading documentation, reading logs and debugging output. This is probably more useful than typing at a gazillion wpm. You need to be able to quickly spot the significant parts. Learn how to skim.

•

Working with complex structures: The better you get at understanding complex structures or logic, the faster you can come up with more effective solutions, and the less time you spend going back and forth. You don’t have to do it all in your head. Find systems that work well for you (notes? mindmaps? diagrams?) and use them.

•

Problem decomposition: Breaking big problems down into smaller testable steps can help you make quick progress and keep things manageable. This is also one of those skills that can give you lots of leverage on time. If you can get really good at spotting the core of the problem and figuring out the key parts of the solution, you can get something into place much faster. It’s also a useful skill for testing code thoroughly.

2011-03-29 Tue 21:54

Becoming a faster developer http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22178 March 31, 2011 - Categories: development, geek (NOTE: Becoming a faster developer isn’t necessarily the same as becoming a more productive developer. Becoming a more productive developer is better. Speed isn’t everything!) Following up on my post about typing speed, QWERTY/Dvorak/alternate layouts, and the idea that your keyboard layout probably has little to do with your performance (although it might have a

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•

•

Good development practices: Source code control, testing, and all sorts of other development hygiene practices means less time spent fixing avoidable mistakes. Collaboration: If you can get someone else to do the things you’re really slow at so that you can focus on the things you’re really fast at, the team can get much faster. This also includes documenting your work so that people don’t have to reinvent the wheel.

2011-04-01 Fri 12:21

Weekly review: Week ending April 1, 2011 http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22181 April 2, 2011 - Categories: weekly From last week’s plans •

Work

What would you add to this list?

Quid est nōmen tuum? Nōmen meum est “Sacha” http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22179 March 31, 2011 - Categories: Uncategorized

o

[X] Work on Rails questionnaire project for client C

o

[X] Talk to client U regarding Drupal

o

[X] Finish administration guide for project I

o

Wrote up descriptions of ongoing projects and shared them with other people who may be able to help

o

Helped with mail merge and Idea Labs

o

Connected with project manager for project M

Latīnum studémus. Monē mē! The Latin textbooks that W- ordered from the library have arrived, and we’re slowly making our way through both Wheelock’s Latin and an online copy of a Latin textbook from the 1880s. Writing is probably going to be painfully slow and ungrammatic for a while, but hey, it’s worth a try. =)

•

Relationships

Why Latin? Geek quirkiness. Secret languages for greater connection. Potential classical education. It will be interesting. Let’s see if my blog can handle the characters… •

April 2011 Running the Selenium IDE testing plugin with Firefox 4 http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22180 April 1, 2011 - Categories: development, geek Selenium is a web testing framework that allows you to test web applications involving HTML and Javascript. The plugin hasn’t been updated to indicate that it works with Firefox 4, so you can’t install it directly. You can use the Firefox Add-on Compatibility Reporter to install Selenium and other Mozilla Firefox plugins that have not yet been marked as compatible. After you install the compatibility reporter and restart your browser, you should be able to install the official version of the Selenium plugin. Props to the Mozilla support forum for the tip!

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o

[X] Plant lots of yummy vegetables

o

[X] Chat with David Singer

o

Started learning Latin

o

[X] Learn how to cook dal

o

[X] Bake another batch of buns

o

[X] Get through busy week

o

[X] Order laptop battery

Life

Plans for next week •

•

Work o

[ ] Finish first phase prototype for client C

o

[ ] Host Idea Lab for Japan

o

[ ] Make presentation “The Busy Person’s Guide to Learning from the Network” (for IBM internal conference)

Relationships o

[ ] Prepare garden

o

[ ] Learn more Latin

•

Life o

[ ] Take a look at my time budget

o

[ ] Sketch more plans

o

[ ] Practice drawing

Time analysis Category

This week

Last week

Delta

Notes

Break

11.2

17.6

-6.4

LEGO Star Wars!

Drawing

0.9

11.7

-10.8

Exercise

6.8

1.9

4.9

1.2

-1.2

0.6

-0.1

2.0

-2.0

Preparation

0.5

Routines – cooking Routines – general

8.1

6.7

1.4

Routines – tidying

1.5

5.5

-4.0

Sleep

54.9

60.8

-5.9

Social

12.8

11.0

1.8

Travel

4.5

7.1

-2.6

Work

56.9

40.1

16.8

Writing

6.8

1.7

5.1

The woman down the street has started her outdoor garden, turning the soil over, forming it into neat raised beds, adding planks for walkways to avoid crushing the aerated soil. She has more than 100′ square feet to play with, almost all in full sun. Our backyard garden is shadier because of all the trees, but we’ve got about 70′ square feet, plus the pathway sides that I used for cat grass and parsley last year. I’ve started our garden, too. Yesterday, I turned the compost over, consolidating the winter’s collection of leaves, kitchen scraps, and soil from three half-full bins to one and a half bins, appropriately layered (brown, green, brown, green) and liberally sprinkled with compost accelerator.

Learning Personal

transplanting seedlings and pulling up weeds. She knows I like her garden, and even waves hi to me when we encounter each other on the street.

We’re giving compost accelerator another try this year. W- brought it up because he was impressed by how quickly last year’s organic material turned into rich, dark, compost. Then again, that was also the year I started turning the material regularly, so I’d like to take some of the credit. (It’s good exercise!) We found it at Home Depot for $8– much better than the ~$20 we’d paid at Plant World as part of last year’s experiment. It’s worth a try. If we get enough organic material, I might do one bin with compost accelerator and one without. Study group, catching up

Starting up our garden http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22182 April 3, 2011 - Categories: gardening One of my gardening role models is the woman down the street who grows all sorts of vegetables in the front yard of an apartment building. I walk past her garden on the way to the library and the supermarket, and I’ve often admired how productive it is: rows of bok choi between the walkways, beans and peas trellised with twigs, even the occasional squash peeking out through the foliage. I regularly see her tending the garden, watering it by hand with a dipper and a bucket,

I also started a 5′ double-row of peas yesterday, and about 1.5 square feet each of bok choi and rocket lettuce. The seeds I started indoors still haven’t sprouted, although the cat grass from three weeks ago is now ready for consumption. It’ll be okay. Worst-case scenario is that we buy basil and tomato plants from the store. I do hope our bitter melon plants come up, though, as we can’t find those grown in nurseries here. “Do you remember the sugar peas? It was a lot of fun eating them off the vine,” said J-. “And the tomatoes!” W- added. “My friends are so excited.” said J- as she helped tidy up the garden yesterday. “Excited about our tomatoes?” W- asked. “I guess we’d better plan a summer tomato party, then.” I said. (Although that might be like counting your tomatoes before they’ve set.) That’s a great sign that gardening is paying off. One doesn’t get quite as excited about the plump sugar peas one can get from the supermarket, or

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the cherry tomatoes in plastic packaging that we pass by because of their premium pricing. But the thrill of checking for fresh strawberries, peas, tomatoes; the convenience of dashing out for some dill or some cilantro; the abundance of pesto picked from dozens of plants; the satisfaction of tasting the fruits (and vegetables and herbs) of your work–you can’t buy these things from the supermarket. And this summer we’ll get to enjoy it from the comforts of the Muskoka chairs we finished last fall! I’m so lucky. To be 27 and live in circumstances like this – a good-size backyard, walking distance to the supermarket, the library, and the subway station, biking distance to the Home Depot whose garden centre I will undoubtedly frequent (last year some of the staff said “Welcome back!”)… Life is good. 2011-04-03 Sun 08:54

The Busy Person’s Guide to Learning from the Network (a guide for IBMers) http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22183 April 4, 2011 Categories: ibm, learning, presentation, tips, work I promised to put together a talk on learning for an IBM virtual conference for new hires. Here’s a rough draft, just to get it out of my head and into a form I can work with. I’ll add URLs internally. The next steps I want people to take are: •

Find a mentor, or even several mentors.

•

Bookmark Lotus Connections so that they can easily search it in the future.

•

Learn to find people based on documents and other shared information.

One of my mentors told me that at IBM, it’s okay if you don’t know something. If you don’t ask for help and things get messed up, though, that’s when you get into trouble. So I want to share with you some tips I’ve picked up on how to learn as quickly as you can, from as many people as you can. I’ve been with IBM for almost four years. I know what it’s like to feel overwhelmed by all the different things there are to learn: working with Lotus Notes and other applications, dealing with technologies, working with team members and clients… It can be really intimidating. Fortunately, at IBM, there are plenty of people who can help – but sometimes you need to step up and ask. •

Mentors

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If you don’t have a mentor yet, find one. Even better, find several mentors. Mentors can help you figure things out: the specific technology you’re learning, the tools you need to work with, the processes in your team or business unit, even your career plans. How can you find a mentor? Share your questions with your manager and ask your manager to refer you to some people who might be good mentors for you. Look for people on Bluepages or Lotus Connections. Take advantage of the speed mentoring events that IBM Learning sometimes organizes and see if you can connect with anyone. Attend presentations and connect with speakers or other participants. Once you have a mentor, ask him or her for introductions to other people who might be able to help. Maybe you’re feeling shy. Maybe you think, “Well, I’m new to IBM. Why would anyone mentor me?” I found it hard to ask people to mentor me, too, but I was amazed by how generous people were when it came to helping new people. Many mentors help others because other people mentored them. Others mentor people because they learn a lot in the process. Mentors have lots of reasons for helping, so don’t be afraid to ask. Social networking tip: Look for mentors and role models who blog or post updates in Lotus Connections or on the Internet. That way, you can easily learn from people in between your meetings. You can even learn from people around the world, and people whom you might be too shy to reach to right now. For example, if you’re curious about what IBM Fellows do (they have the highest technical rank in IBM), or what vice presidents are like, or so on, you can learn from their blogs, tweets, and other posts. Maybe you’ll find something you can comment on or ask about! How to work with mentors: Talk to your mentors about your goals and figure out how they can help you. Take the lead in setting up meetings and asking questions. Show your appreciation through thank-you notes – and even better, show your appreciation through the results that come from taking your mentors’ advice.

•

Okay. You’ve got mentors. But you can’t go to your mentors for every little thing you need to learn, so you still need to figure out things on your own.

information other people have found useful, check out wikis to see what people have collaborated on, and read blog posts for people’s notes and articles.

Documentation, assets, and other sources of information

What if you still can’t find what you need, and the people you ask don’t know of any resources, either? This is where you might need to ask more people.

You’re probably already used to searching the Internet for information when you’re trying to learn something new. It can be harder to find just the right document within IBM. If you’re new to a topic, it can be difficult to find beginner-level resources, or even to know what and where to search.

•

Have a short question? Try posting it on IBM Answers. You’ll get an e-mail notification if anyone replies. While you’re there, see if you can answer any of the pending questions.

If you’re stuck, ask your coworkers or your manager for help in getting started. Take notes! Make a list of the resources you find useful as a beginner, and you’ll be able to share that list with other people who join the project. It’s a quick way to create value – and people are more likely to invest time into helping you if they know that your notes will help them and other people save time in the future. Don’t stop with the documents you find, too. One of the best things you can learn from a document or an asset is where you can go to find more information. Are there related communities? Can you look up other things the author has written? When you come across a useful document, look for any author information or lists of related experts. If you need help finding the right resources or you have a question that’s not answered by the document, you might be able to ask those people for help. (Look for communities or forums first, though – this helps avoid e-mail overload, and you can ask more people for help. We’ll talk more about communities later.) Okay. Formal documentation is great, but there’s often very little of it, especially for new tools and technologies. What do you do when you need to learn about something that doesn’t have a lot of articles or manuals yet? •

Files, bookmarks, wikis, and blog posts When I need to find out about something new, informal, or obscure, I often check people’s files, bookmarks, wikis, or blog posts. This is where Lotus Connections really shines. You can search people’s public files and presentations for new information, search bookmarks for

More questions and answers

Tip: Don’t just post your question on IBM Answers and walk away. Reach out to specific people to see if they can share anything. If you use Profile status updates, post your question with a link to the answer page. Regarding experts: If you have a question that needs deep expertise, you might want to give Expertise Locator a try. You don’t want to waste experts’ time, though, so if your request is non-urgent, it’s probably better to start at a lower level. People can escalate your request if needed. Sometimes it helps to ask many people instead of focusing on just a few. This is where Lotus Connections Communities and IBM forums come in. •

Lotus Connections Communities Whatever you’re looking for, there’s probably a community or forum related to it. Search Lotus Connections Communities to find groups related to the topic. IBM Forums has older groups, too. Many communities have discussion forums. You’ll need to join the community in order to ask a question. Look at other posts to see how people ask for help. Provide as much information as you can in your message, but don’t post any confidential information. Show that you’ve “done your homework” – describe how you’ve tried to solve the problem or where you’ve looked for information. That way, people might be more encouraged to help you. Important: Ask the community owners (see the Members tab) Some communities

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use the “Mail community” feature to handle questions, before mailing the community. Many communities have thousands of members, and too much community e-mail can make the community useless. •

Internet search engine. You’ll need to learn from the network.

Building your network What about all those questions that people haven’t answered before, and for which there are no active communities? This is where your personal network becomes important. When you’re faced with questions that need much broader or deeper experience than you have, or you have no idea where to even start learning, your network is essential. If you can’t think of anyone who would know the answers you need, try thinking of people who might know people who would know the answer. Ask them for referrals. You can also look for people in Lotus Connections Profiles or Bluepages and try reaching out to them. Social networking tip: Lotus Connections Profiles is a great way to ask questions and get quick responses from whoever’s available in your network at the time. You need to build your network before you can use this effectively, though. Look at the main Profiles page to see who’s been participating, and invite them to your network. If they agree, you’ll be able to see their updates in your timeline, and they can see yours. That means that if you post questions in Lotus Connections, people might see it and answer it.

•

o

Learn from managers, coworkers, mentors, and role models about things you might not even know to ask about

o

Follow the clues from people’s files and assets to find related communities and experts.

o

Search people’s files, bookmarks, blog posts, and profile updates to see the latest.

o

Check out Q&A sites for additional resources.

o

Reach out to communities and forums if you need help from more people.

o

Gradually build your network so that you can easily ask for people’s help when you have new questions.

Good luck! 2011-04-02 Sat 21:42

Setting up Ruby on Rails on a Redhat Enterprise Linux Rackspace Cloud Server http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22184 April 4, 2011 Categories: development, geek, rails, ruby, work 1. Compile Ruby from source. First, install all the libraries you’ll need to compile Ruby. yum install gcc zlib libxml2-devel yum install gcc yum install zlib yum install zlib-devel yum install openssl yum install openssl-devel

Why would people spend time checking out Lotus Connections and possibly answering questions? For many people, it’s like a quick break by the virtual office watercooler, a way to catch up with lots of people and to help out people if they can. Try it – spend a little time each day or each week building your relationships by reading people’s profile updates, answering other people’s questions, sharing useful resources, and posting notes of thanks or encouragement.

My particular application has problems with Ruby 1.9.2, so I compiled Ruby 1.8.7 instead. This can be downloaded from ftp://ftp.rubylang.org/pub/ruby/1.8/ruby-1.8.7-p174.tar.gz

Wrapping up

Unpack the source code for Ruby. Configure and install it with:

You’ll need to learn a lot at IBM, and you’ll need to learn it quickly. Not everything will be written down, and you might not find everything you need using w3 or an

./configure make make install

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Add /usr/local/bin to the beginning of your PATH. 2. Install Ruby Gems. Downloadcd the latest Ruby Gems package and unpack it. I got mine from http://production.cf.rubygems.org/rubygems/rub ygems-1.7.1.tgz . Change to the directory and run:

6. 7.

make make install

LoadError: no such file to load – readline yum install readline-devel

ruby setup.rb 3. Install Rails and rake gem install rails rake If all goes well, you should now have Rails and rake. Troubleshooting: *builder-2.1.2 has an invalid value for @cert_chain*

Change to your Ruby source directory and run the following: cd ext/readline ruby extconf.rb make make install (Code snippets) You can’t access port 80 from another computer.

gem update --system 1.6.2

Port 80 (the web server port) is blocked by default on Redhat Enterprise Linux 5.5. Edit /etc/sysconfig/iptables to allow it, adding a line like:

(Stack Overflow)

-A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -m state --state NEW -m tcp -p tcp --dport 80 -j ACCEPT

sqlite3-ruby only supports sqlite3 versions 3.6.16+, please upgrade!

Make sure you put it above the REJECT all line.

Compile sqlite from source:

Load your changes with

wget http://www.sqlite.org/sqlite-amalgamation3.7.0.1.tar.gz tar zxvf sqlite-amalgamation-3.7.0.1.tar.gz cd sqlite-amalgamation-3.7.0.1 ./configure make make install gem install sqlite3

/etc/init.d/iptables restart

Downgrade Rubygems to version 1.6.2 with the following command.

LoadError: no such file to load – openssl 1. 2.

Install openssl and openssl-devel. yum install openssl openssl-devel

3. Go to your Ruby source directory and run the following commands: 4. 5.

cd ext/openssl ruby extconf.rb

(Cyberciti) 2011-04-04 Mon 11:06

Helping kids learn algebra http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22185 April 5, 2011 - Categories: learning, life, teaching In the math study groups we organize at home, we’ve moved past fractions and percentages into the wild and wonderful world of algebra. Translating a problem into an algebraic equations is somewhat familiar to J-, but the process of solving algebraic equations confuses all the kids. I have a feeling that we’re either taking up the topic before the teachers have had a chance to adequately explain things, or the real-life situation (“Town”) leaves the students little time to focus on other lessons. Well, it is what it is (this is becoming

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one of my mantras these days), so we just have to do our best. The small-group format is still working well. We’re going to try it with four kids to see if pairing them up to help each other will help the kids learn more effectively and build more confidence. W- has also checked out an armful of books from the library. I’ve been paging through “Real-World Algebra” and similar books to find some ideas for exercises the kids can relate to. We try to liven things up with energy and amusing examples. They have to eventually become comfortable with abstract exercises such as 5n + 30 = 180, and it’s difficult to make that more interesting. I don’t want to just repeat the fake word problems of standard algebra textbooks, so I’m keeping an eye out for real-life situations in which I’ve used algebra myself. It can be hard to notice when you take math for granted, but math is everywhere, so I should be able to collect examples. In the meantime, there are small things we can do to help them keep their attention on math or to remember the concepts more vividly. I tried this example for distribution: 2 * (number of lions + number of tigers + number of bears) = 2 * number of lions + 2 * number of tigers + 2 * number of bears. I drew a lion, a tiger, and a bear instead of writing the corresponding phrases. =) Then J- said, “Oh my!” and everyone laughed. The kids often forget that whatever they do to one side of the equation, they need to do to the other. As a result, J- once ended up with the interesting equation 2 = 4. Looks like we need to review how to use the equals sign. ;) We might try the see-saw metaphor. If you have a balanced see-saw, you can keep it balanced by adding or removing the same amount from both sides. You can keep it balanced by multiplying and dividing from both sides. If you add, subtract, multiply, or divide one side without doing the same to the other, you end up with an imbalanced seesaw. We’ll see if that helps them remember. Because we’re discussing new material for them, we have to walk through the exercises together before they can try things on their own. When they try things out, progress can be slow and frustrating. We’re seeing if we can take advantage of group dynamics by posing a question and encouraging the kids to talk out loud about the strategies they might use. They help each other out, too. The group format definitely pays off – seeing other kids struggle or succeed helps a great deal.

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Do you have any favourite middle school group study resources or tips? =)

Why we use more than math textbooks and general-purpose resources http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22186 April 6, 2011 - Categories: learning, math, teaching For last Sunday’s study group, we focused on algebraic expressions. The kids were a little out of sorts at the beginning. “Math is boring,” one said. “The way it’s taught in school, maybe. But math is really useful in life, so it’s good to learn it,” I said. I shared a few examples of saving money with math, enjoying life with math. The group warmed up using a matching exercise, matching the word problems on the left side with the algebraic expressions on the right. Then we worked through some of the problems I’d prepared. In one afternoon, we talked about: •

cats and how much food they eat (1/4 cup, twice a day, 365 days, n cats…)

•

T-shirts, sleeping cat toys, and chopsticks that look like lightsabers

•

how much it might cost to eat onigiri for every meal, every day, for a year

•

how long you might be able to eat onigiri given a particular budget

•

Scott Pilgrim, Wallace, and Knives Chau

•

more cats, including Neko on my head

There are several types of exercises. Completely abstract ones (here’s an equation, solve for n) get lots of confusion and little engagement. Practical exercises (how much would this cost after tax?) get some interest. Outlandish exercises drawing on the kids’ interests get lots of laughs – and solutions. So we mix practical exercises and outlandish ones, one to show math in real life and the other to get the kids involved. It’s like improv comedy, but for education. This is where parents and tutors really need to step in and mix things up. Textbooks are written for everyone. They can’t take individual interests into account, and they can’t be revised each month to take advantage of pop culture references. When you make up your own exercises, though, you can do whatever you want. I know J- likes Scott Pilgrim, Fruits Basket, and cats, so they turn up in math exercises. It’s not hard to pick up some standard forms of exercises

stick with those decisions in the present. Use commitment devices to help you stick with your resolutions or good ideas.

from textbooks and translate them into more interesting situations. Helping someone learn? Make up exercises based on their interests and see what happens.

•

Spousonomics: Using economics to master love, marriage, and dirty dishes http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22187 April 7, 2011 Categories: analysis, book, love, reading, research

Bubbles: Non-bubbly married life is normal, so don’t stress out if you’re no longer infatuated. Beware of being unduly influenced by groups – just because everyone else seems to be doing something doesn’t mean it’s right for you, too. Don’t get overconfident.

•

Game theory: Don’t let the urge to retaliate or overcompensate lead to you to wildly polarized positions. Work together to get optimal results, not just individually-optimal results, and use commitment devices to help you stick with it.

I love research-backed books that help us understand why we do what we do. Paula Szuchman and Jenny Anderson’s Spousonomics: Using Economics to Master Love, Marriage, and Dirty Dishes was no exception. The book takes a look at common marital conflicts and situations, showing the underlying economic principles that influence our actions. For example: •

Division of labour: Splitting chores equally may not result in the most efficient or the happiest of marriages. Specialize, remembering that payoffs can change over time.

•

Loss aversion: People hate to lose, which can result in really drawn-out fights. The advice to “never go to bed angry” can backfire. It’s okay to have time-outs.

•

Supply and demand: If you want something to happen more often, don’t make it costly or risky.

•

Moral hazard: It’s easy to take good things for granted. It’s also easy to end up trying to avoid any sort of conflict. The sweet spot is in the middle, where you’re not taking your relationship for granted, but you’re not paranoid about your spouse quitting.

•

Incentives: Think about the incentives you use and if they’re really effective. Trust can be much more useful than nagging.

•

Trade-offs: Think at the margin: consider the costs and benefits of small changes. Ignore sunk costs when making decisions. Get over the “it’s not fair” fixation.

•

Asymmetric information: Communicate clearly. Don’t play games by hiding or withholding information. Figure out the essentials of what you need to share so that you don’t overload your spouse.

•

Intertemporal choice: It’s easy to make good decisions for the future, but hard to

The book goes into far more depth, and is an excellent read. It’s illustrated with case studies (problem couples who usually end up patching things up) and lots of research. Here are some thoughts I particularly like: If there are areas you care about but you feel helpless in, put in the time and effort to develop the comparative advantage in at least one of them. The authors tell the story of one economist who put the time into at least learning how to bathe an infant so that his wife wouldn’t end up with all the child-rearing tasks – and so that he wouldn’t get tempted to take advantage of that kind of a division. Looking for things to read? In terms of marriage research, I’d recommend “Spousonomics” and Susan Page’s “The 8 Essential Traits of Couples who Thrive”. What do you like?

Decision review: Battery http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22188 April 8, 2011 - Categories: geek After several days of accidentally unplugging my battery-dead laptop (knocking away the power cord, unplugging the wrong cable, etc.), I ordered a new battery. My laptop is still usable without a battery. I just have to put it into hibernation before moving it around. Power interruptions could result in hard disk corruption, though, and I’d rather not have to deal with two broken components. I decided to order an official battery from Lenovo.com instead of taking a risk on a thirdparty battery. It wasn’t cheap, but I figured that investing in tools is worth it. I regularly set aside money for tools and opportunities, so I used that.

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I ordered the new battery for full price. When I remembered that IBM has an employee purchase program with Lenovo, I crossed my fingers and sent Lenovo an e-mail to ask if I could cancel my previous order. They cancelled it for me, and I reordered it for about $30 less. Never hurts to ask! I was thinking about the new Lenovo X220 tablet, too. I really like my X61 tablet. The X220 promises a faster processor, higher resolution, and a much longer battery life. I think I can get away without that for now, though. Waiting for used X220s to turn up on Craigslist or similar sites could really reduce my costs. (Hmm, maybe I can ask work about my laptop refresh cycle…) My battery arrived today. I’m really glad I can unplug my laptop and move it from room to room now. Yay! =)

experiences and make it easier to remember whole chunks of life, fleeting sensations, elusive thoughts. Like the way that even rough drawings help me see and remember more clearly, words will be the white pebbles dropped by this Gretel to find her way back. And who knows? Memories trigger other memories. I’m sure I’ll learn from other people, and I might help other people along the way. 2011-04-09 Sat 22:09

Weekly review: Week ending April 8, 2011 http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22200 April 10, 2011 - Categories: weekly From last week’s plans •

Work o

[-] Finish first phase prototype for client C – lots of good progress!

o

[X] Host Idea Lab for Japan

o

[X] Make presentation “The Busy Person’s Guide to Learning from the Network” (for IBM internal conference)

I am going to write more about life.

o

Helped plan for project M

It took me a while to get used to this idea. I started blogging as a way of taking notes – source code, class lectures, and so on. That makes sense to write down. It’s useful. It might even be useful to other people. I’m comfortable with writing through decisions and sharing what I’m learning from life, particularly if I can geek out. But everyday stories? Should I write about those when I could, say, write tips or draft presentations instead?

o

Assisted with Get Social, Do Business event at work

o

Put together Idea Lab description, sent to manager

o

Helped Archie Trajano think about personal branding

2011-04-03 Sun 08:32

Writing more about life http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22189 April 9, 2011 Categories: blogging, decision, writing

Reviewing my print-outs of past blog posts, though, I find myself coming back to the memories. The tips I’ve written up for other people (or for myself) are handy. They’ll be the nucleus of a book someday. The technical notes I keep help me save time re-solving problems. The memories are the entries that improve with age, becoming richer and more layered over time. The friends I’ve made through writing about Emacs, Drupal, and other technical topics also have plenty of insights on life, education, crafts, and other things. The experiences and perspectives I bring to life turn everyday experiences into geek explorations. I think it will all work out. What it comes down to is this realization: These everyday moments are worth writing about, learning from, and sharing. I might think they’re ordinary now, but they anchor my

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•

•

Relationships o

[X] Prepare garden

o

[X] Learn more Latin

o

Helped with math study group: positive and negative numbers, algebra

o

[X] Take a look at my time budget

o

[X] Sketch more plans

o

[X] Practise drawing

Life

Plans for next week •

Work o

[ ] Doublecheck mail, implement feedback for project C

o

[ ] Follow up on Idea Labs

[ ] Finish paperwork for project M

o

Category •

•

Relationships o

[X] Make bagels and buns

o

[ ] Plan get-together

o

[ ] Make fresh cranberry bagels for J-

o

[ ] Make big batch of lunches

o

[ ] Write about math group study sessions

o

[]

o

Biked up to Dufferin/St. Clair library with W-

o

Started more dill and cilantro

o

[ ] Post book notes

o

[]

Life

This week

Last week

Delta

Notes posts

FAQ: •

Why do I do these weekly reviews? See on the practice of a weekly review.

•

What about the detailed time analysis? See more thoughts on time analysis.

On developing a reputation for project work http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22194 April 11, 2011 - Categories: ibm, mentoring, work Over lunch, Archie and I talked about one of his business goals for this year. He wanted to work on his personal brand. I asked him what he meant by his personal brand. “What would success look like?” I asked.

Time analysis Category

This week

Last week

Delta

Break

10.2

11.2

-1.0

Drawing

0.7

0.9

-0.2

Exercise

3.3

6.8

-3.5

Learning

1.0

1.0

Personal

5.5

5.5

Gardening

Preparation

8.6

8.1

Lots of planning

Routines – cooking

1.7

Routines – general

6.7

8.1

-1.4

So: How can one build a reputation for project work?

Routines – tidying

2.0

1.5

0.5

Sleep

60.6

54.9

5.7

Social

17.1

12.8

4.3

We figured that the best ways to reach the people Archie was interested in would be through managers and resource deployment managers. There are a couple of ways to do that: e-mail and presentations.

Travel

1.3

4.5

-3.2

Work

45.9

56.9

-11.0

Writing

3.4

6.8

-3.4

0.5

Notes

1.7

Tried batchwriting

Archie said that he’d like to be known more for troubleshooting, and that he would consider himself successful if more project managers asked him to troubleshoot their projects – both technical and non-technical issues. He’s been working at the company for 12 years, and he had plenty of war stories and lessons learned to share with me. He told me that his peers know about his skills, but he wanted to hear about more projects, expand the kinds of roles he took on projects, and go into projects with more authority and leverage. Now that was a much more useful vision than “improve personal brand.” We could work with that. It might not even have anything to do with wikis, blogs, or Twitter.

In terms of e-mail, one of the best things Archie can do is to make sure that the results that he’s getting turn up in the right people’s e-mail inboxes. As it can sometimes be difficult to get recognition or documentation of results from busy project managers, I suggested that Archie write up the problems he solves, the results, and tips for avoiding such problems in the future. If he sends

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this e-mail to the project manager and to our manager, they can forward it to other people as needed – if they hear of a project that has a similar problem, if someone asks them who can help with a troubled project, and so on. It’s important to keep one’s manager up to date on the kinds of things one is good at or interested in, because managers talk to other managers and can refer you to opportunities. In terms of presentations, Archie can summarize key tips from his experiences into a short presentation – maybe a top 10 list, or focused on a topic such as performance. This gives him plenty of opportunities to use and reuse the material. Speaking at a lunch-and-learn is one way to do it, and he’ll get extra exposure from the invitations going around. Speaking at one of our internal education events will let him reach even more people. The presentation can be shared internally, included with newsletters, forwarded to other people. What else would you recommend? 2011-04-08 Fri 20:40

Math study group: Positive and negative numbers http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22193 April 12, 2011 Categories: education, learning, life, teaching It was Friday, so J- and her friends were singing the Friday song as they hung up their coats and got ready for our math study group. It turned out that they had been so excited about coming home (to a math study group!) that they’d forgotten to arrange things with their parents, and V-’s dad had been waiting for her at school. Once everyone had called around and sorted things out with their parents, and everyone was well-fed, we got back to math. One of the benefits of hosting multiple kids in a study group is that you get more information about what people are learning in school. V- said she needed help with positive and negative numbers, so that’s what we started off reviewing. A quick review: 2 – (-3) = ? . Boggles all around. Okay. A step down: -2 – 4 = ?. Still boggles and some guesses. I drew a number line and labelled it with the numbers. “Imagine a cat standing on -2. Which direction does the cat go if you’re subtracting 4?” “Left!” chorused the kids. “-6!”

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I drew the cat ending up on -6. We did a couple of other exercises along those lines. Nods all around. Okay. “What about -2 + 3?” I drew another numberline. “Right! +1.” “What about 2 – (-3)?” I drew the cat on the numberline. “Okay, we’re starting on 2. And we’re subtracting, so we would normally move to the left, but we’re moving -3 steps… so the cat walks backward three steps.” “5!” said the kids. One of them asked, “Do your cats really walk backwards?” “They do more of this hopping backward thing, yes, but cats can walk backwards if they want to.” So we did a few more of those exercises, including things like -4 – (-5) and -(-(-2)). We also reviewed multiplying and dividing positive and negative numbers. The kids seemed comfortable with that, and answered our exercises with little prompting. As we wrapped up our review of positive and negative numbers, A- arrived. She’s in grade 6, a grade behind the other kids, so we modified our exercises. She said she was taking up decimals in class. I asked her how she felt about the multiplication table. “Bad,” she confessed, at which the other kids begged (begged!) to do multiplication practice. “But first, we’re going to talk about algebra very quickly,” W- said. He briefly reviewed what an algebraic equation really means, and the different parts of the equation: the constants, the variables, the operators, the assertion, and so on. We hope this will help them remember to keep their equations balanced, always doing operations on both sides of the equals sign. “All right, multiplication,” I said, and we headed outside to practise multiplication. The way we do it is good for building confidence and a sense of numbers: we go through sets of five multiples until the kids can rattle them off smoothly. For example: 6, 12, 18, 24, 30. 6, 12, 18, 24, 30. And so on, around the circle. It’s really more of an audio recall task than a calculation task, and it gets them used to what the numbers feel like. They catch themselves now, when they make a mistake. And they’re enthusiastic and run ahead of themselves, doing sets of ten instead of sets of five, or challenging themselves further by doing jumping jacks while saying the numbers. After multiplication practice, one of the kids piped up and asked, “Can we solve the equation in the breadbox?” Ah. Yes. Those. I’d spent some time

the night before writing up simple equations and hiding them around the first floor of the house – possible exercises for J- or the study group, depending on how things went. So we agreed that they could look for the five Post-It notes I’d hidden IF they solved the equations as well. I settled in to review decimal multiplication and division with Ato help her catch up, and W- reviewed the other kids’ work on the algebraic equations. Our Friday afternoon math study groups are a great ritual. Glad we stumbled into organizing them! I hope other parents can host study groups as well – it would be good for all the kids to see active involvement – but it’s probably easiest for us, logistically speaking, because we can often work from home and we both enjoy teaching. If you can, try it! 2011-04-10 Sun 12:05

Still cold? Wear a hat to bed http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22195 April 13, 2011 - Categories: life, tips I remember teasing W- about how he wears a toque to bed. (It’s a small, brimless hat also known as a beanie.) Several winter months later, I’m a convert to the cause. Wearing a hat to bed is an excellent way to keep your ears warm. This means less work tucking yourself in and fewer late-night struggles with blankets. A hat also doubles as a handy sleep mask that keeps the light out if someone else wants to stay up late reading. Just pull your hat down over your eyes. A little bit of light may come in on either side of your nose, but the reduction in light may be enough to let you sleep easily. A warm hat, fuzzy socks, flannel pajamas, and microfleece sheets – that should see me through the last gasps of winter and into spring. Slowly getting the hang of this!

manager thinks it’s a good opportunity to develop architecture skills. I like working above my pay grade, so I’m doing this even if it means stretching quite a bit. It’s interesting to see the applications of the behavioural economics principles I’ve been reading about in “The Upside of Irrationality.” For example, there’s a chapter on finding meaning in work. The perceived meaning of work greatly influences our motivation to do it. If you know there’s a chance your work will come to nothing (cancelled projects and so on), you might be less motivated to work on it, and more drawn to projects where you think you’ll make a difference. Makes sense, right? (Ah, that’s why school projects bored me…) Recognizing this bias means that I can understand my motivations and tweak them. It’s natural for me to want to spend more time on my other project. I experience flow on it – meaningful engagement. Although this proposal is riskier and I more often run into the limits of my understanding, it needs to be worked on. Here are some possible approaches for motivating yourself when working on risky, uncertain projects: Break it down into small wins and celebrate those. Don’t wait for that all-or-nothing decision. You might not even reach it. Instead, work in stages so that you can successfully complete and celebrate each step. Share as much as you can during the process, too, while you’re excited about what you’re accomplishing. It’s much harder to harvest assets when you feel like a failure. Exaggerate the odds of winning. Irrational optimism can be useful. Imagine that you’ve got a great chance of succeeding, and you just might. You’ll still want to have a backup plan in case you lose, of course.

2011-04-03 Sun 10:24

Focus on additional benefits. For example, whether or not you succeed on a stretch assignment, you’ll still learn a lot. Can you find meaning in the skills and relationships you’re building and the experiences you’re collecting?

Using behavioural economics to motivate yourself when working on risky projects http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22197 April 14, 2011 - Categories: analysis, career, work

Balance speculative or uncertain work with solid contributions. Spend some time working on things that make you feel happy and fulfilled. You’ll have the energy and confidence to tackle new challenges.

We’re scrambling to respond to a request for a proposal (RFP). We’re not sure if the RFP is a formality and the client is already planning to choose a different vendor, or if it’s a real request, but the powers that be say it’s worth exploring. My

How do you keep yourself motivated and focused when you’re not sure of results?

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 283

Three cat life http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22191 April 15, 2011 - Categories: cat, kaizen, life

Total time going to the vet and back: 2 hours. Definitely worth bringing the cats together.

We have three cats, which works out just right. Three laps, three cats, and two of them can play with each other if the third one’s hissy. So when it came time for their annual checkups, I figured I’d see what I could negotiate.

Weekly review: Week ending April 15, 2011 http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22202 April 16, 2011 - Categories: weekly From last week’s plans

The vet had an appointment slot open for a checkup, so I scheduled one. While I was on the phone with the receptionist, I asked if I could bring two cats. “Yes, you can,” the receptionist said. So I asked if I could bring three. All right by them. Okay! No multi-pet discount, though. (I had to check. ;) )

•

Work

We rounded up the cats, put them into their carriers, and put the carriers into the car. Leia and Neko were quiet, but Luke was doing his scaredcat meow. He’s usually the most easy-going of the three, but I guess he’s not used to travelling. At the vet, we shuffled the cats into the lobby and settled in for the wait. The vet saw us after about fifteen minutes. We decided to put Luke up first, as he was the most likely to behave. It was a straightforward examination for him – a cat in beautiful health, although with some tartar building up on his teeth. Luke didn’t give the vet any trouble when it came to the vaccine shots. Leia went next. She got all huffy when the vet was prodding her, but didn’t make a big issue of the vaccine. Neko turned out to have gained two pounds in the year that she’s been in Canada (when this is about 28% of your previous weight, that’s something!). She’s a little more than half Luke’s size and will probably never get to that weight, but she’s been filling out nicely – going from a square to a trapezoid, we joke. Neko’s been snoring and making strange noises while breathing in, but the vet didn’t find anything obviously wrong with her, so he said it might just be a respiratory virus she picked up that’s not life-threatening. Okay. Now time for Neko’s shots. The vet called in an assistant with thick work gloves that went past his wrists. “Just to make sure,” he said. We laughed knowingly, as we went through similar precautions whenever grooming Neko’s claws: leather gloves and long sleeves for W-, although I could generally get away with handling Neko with bare hands. On the way home, with the three cats lined up on the back seat, I turned to W- and asked, “Do you feel like a soccer dad yet?”

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 284

•

•

o

[X] Doublecheck mail, implement feedback for project C

o

[X] Follow up on Idea Labs

o

[X] Finish paperwork for project M

o

Followed up on migration plans for project I

o

Applied theme for project C

o

Learned tons about preparing use cases and responding to proposals

o

Learned tons about testing Rails: Capybara, Cucumber, and other awesomeness

o

Fielded many requests for Idea Labs

o

Put together instructions for external Idea Labs

o

Wrapped up Idea Lab for Japan recovery

o

Assisted Linux Jam community with exporting forum discussions

Relationships o

[X] Make bagels and buns

o

[X] Plan get-together

o

[X] Make fresh cranberry bagels for J-

o

[X] Make big batch of lunches

o

[X] Write about math group study sessions

o

Biked up to Dufferin/St. Clair library with W-

o

Started more dill and cilantro

o

Had fun hosting study group

o

[-] Post book notes

Life

Plans for next week •

•

This week

Last week

Delta

Travel

7.3

1.3

6.0

Work

48.7

45.9

2.8

Writing

7.4

3.4

4.0

Work

Notes

o

[ ] Work on more items for project C – Rails is so awesome!

o

[ ] Assist with proposal

o

[ ] Follow up on migration plans for project I

o

[ ] Prepare for code turnover for project I

Lots of work: juggling two projects plus lots of queries. Should scale back a little, perhaps?

o

[ ] Plan travel

FAQ:

Relationships o

•

Category

[ ] Pick up gifts for Kathy and John

o

[ ] Make gifts for Kathy, John, and Dan

o

[ ] Plan gifts for Linda

o

[ ] Host another study group

o

[ ] Plan cherry-blossom gettogether

Life o

[ ] Work on red dress

o

[ ] Read ahead: Latin homework

Time analysis Category

This week

Last week

Delta

Break

7.5

10.2

-2.7

Drawing

1.3

0.7

0.6

Exercise

3.8

3.3

0.5

Learning

0.5

1.0

-0.5

Personal

0.9

5.5

-4.6

Preparation

0.4

8.6

-8.2

Routines – cooking

5.4

1.7

3.7

Routines – general

6.4

6.7

-0.3

Routines – tidying

9.6

2.0

7.6

Sleep

61.0

60.6

0.4

Social

6.2

17.1

-10.9

Notes

•

Why do I do these weekly reviews? See on the practice of a weekly review.

•

What about the detailed time analysis? See more thoughts on time analysis.

Study group update: negative numbers, exponents, and awesomeness http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22201 April 17, 2011 - Categories: learning, life, teaching W- started the kids on a review of positive and negative numbers. They got the hang of those quickly, so they worked on fractions, exponents, scientific notation, and engineering notation. They multiplied numbers with exponents, divided numbers with exponents, dealt with negative exponents, figured out the two answers to x2 = 1… Whee! J- really wanted to review the Greek alphabet. We introduced it so that they can easily work with θ, α, β, and other characters when they encounter the letters in science and math. J- picked them up really quickly thanks to the flashcards we made. She used the same techniques to teach the other kids more of the letters, repeatedly cycling over small sets of letters, sharing original mnemonics (λ reminds her of “Mary had a little lambda” and a hill). Watching the kids teach themselves Greek letters – and have fun doing so! – I wondered what on earth we were doing correctly, and if we could help other people do it too. Maybe it’s really just providing a space where the kids can get together and learn, and some guidance and exercises to help them grow. J- says she learns more – and enjoys learning more – in our study groups than she does in school, because the study group is more fun, more focused, and easier to understand. It’s a happy middle between the intense focus and isolation of a oneon-one tutoring session, and the anonymity of a

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 285

large class. I’m glad we’re doing it, and I’m amazed at how the kids are doing. And they begged for more brainteasers! So now I get to dust off my collection of logic puzzles and go through them. Turnabout’s fair play, though, so they have free license to stump me with whatever they can throw at me. =) 2011-04-15 Fri 18:43

Learning from my mood data http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22205 April 18, 2011 Categories: geek, quantified, visualization One of the unexpected benefits of switching my phone plan to something that includes unlimited international texting is that I can participate in nifty things like Experimonth, which is a monthlong study about moods. I get regular text messages prompting me to rate my happiness on a scale of 1-10, and it graphs it for me. I can probably come up with similar graphs using KeepTrack and a bit of spreadsheet magic, but the convenience and the social data make this fun and interesting. Here’s how my mood data stacks up so far:

Making better use of travel time http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22198 April 19, 2011 - Categories: kaizen, life, travel I’m going to be in the office a lot more as I help with proposals or coach new hours. Time to think about how I can make the most of the time! As it turns out, I’m not a particularly audio kind of person. I’ve carried podcasts and audiobooks before, but I rarely listen to them unless I’m listening with another person. I might listen to instrumental music while writing, avoiding songs due to the verbal interference. If I’m going to the downtown office, I take my bike whenever I can. It’s good exercise, and takes about as much time as the walk and subway trip would’ve taken. With the subway’s occasional delays, biking is faster and more reliable. If I need to take transit, how can I make the most of that time?

I stay on a fairly even keel, with awesome happy experiences possibly any day of the week. Hmm, maybe I should track text notes too, so I can get a better handle on what causes the 10s or the 6s. It might also be interesting to combine the happiness ratings with my time analyses to see if there any correlations. Here are the results they’ve collected so far:

I like writing and mindmapping. I do a lot of both when I manage to find a seat on the subway. I almost always use my Android, as a full laptop feels out of place in the subway. The smartphone works well for one- and two-hand use, maybe even better than a tablet might. The small display forces me to be more concise – good! The 1.5 hour commute up to 3600 Steeles is enough time to flesh out a mind map and draft a few blog posts. Writing is my favourite travel activity. I think I get the most value from it. I nap sometimes, but this isn’t particularly restful. Maybe if I try using the nap timer so that I don’t get anxious about missing my stop…. Reading is fun. I can go through two, three books a day, especially if I get a seat. Carrying books is less fun, though. I’ve read books on my Android and on my tablet, but if I’m going to be

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 286

using either, I’d rather spend the time writing instead of reading. So I tend to save reading for when I’m eating, walking around the house, or going to bed. Sometimes I draw. This is a bit harder, and definitely requires a seat. I don’t want to stare at people on the subway, so I tend to draw from imagination or memory. Index cards and small notebooks are useful here. I think it would be interesting to track the specific results of my commuting time. Seeing X hours of travel in my weekly time analysis is one thing. Tallying up Y posts or Z books is another. It’ll be fun! How do you use your commuting time?

Compost magic and happiness http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22190 April 20, 2011 - Categories: gardening, life The compost heap steamed in the afternoon sun. “I’d never seen it do that before,” said W-. Neither had I. The compost heap was merrily breaking down organic matter. We knew the theory, but it was incredibly satisfying to see it in practice. I’d turned the compost last week, layering carbonrich and nitrogen-rich material and liberally sprinkling the compost accelerator W- had wanted to try out. The compost had been unremarkable last week, but now there were earthworms squirming through it – good-sized ones too, not just the baby earthworms I’d seen the other day. The compost pile smelled earthy but clean, even citrus-y, thanks to the grapefruit peels from our kitchen. It was a good pile, and it would be a great amendment to the sandy soil of our back yard. I probably don’t need to turn the compost heaps weekly, but I enjoy doing it when the weather is mild. It’s exercise, it gets me out in the garden, and it’s part of the cycle of life. It’s good to see our kitchen scraps return to the soil, and to know that the compost will support this season’s plants. But there’s more to it than that – there’s more value to it than simply the physical or horticultural benefits. It feels like such an improbable joy. It’s this awareness, I think, that makes it easy to be happy. Everyday activities become special because of the stories along the way. This compost heap has memories from kitchen, garden, and love, and it will take all of that and make something new.

Mr. Fluffers: Stray or not stray? http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22192

April 21, 2011 Categories: analysis, cat, decision, life I have a soft spot for cats. Our cats are all indoor cats, never allowed out except on a leash. There are a number of neighborhood cats who turn up on our deck for food or company. Some of them are definitely housecats let loose to run outdoors. Others, we’re less sure about. Housecat or stray? It can be hard to tell. We feed them some food, set out water, pet them if they’re amenable. Sometimes they even get dishes of warm milk. Of the cats who visit us, we think one cat is either stray or somewhat neglected. Mr. Fluffers (as Jhas named him) is a collarless gray tuxedo medium-hair domestic cat and a regular visitor. Medium-hair cats need a lot of brushing to keep their coats unmatted, and Mr. Fluffers obviously hadn’t been brushed in a while. W- combed away many of the mats in his fur, and even trimmed the most stubborn ones. But if Mr. Fluffers is a stray or neglected cat, it would be good to have that situation sorted out. We’ve been thinking of taking Mr. Fluffers to the vet or to Animal services to have him scanned for a microchip, but we need to think through the decision tree first. •

If Mr. Fluffers has a microchip o

If the registered owners are reachable

o

If the registered owners are not reachale

•

Hooray! Cat reunion, or at least clarity on the situation

See decision tree for nomicrochip case.

If Mr. Fluffers does not have a microchip o

Take him to Animal Services as a lost pet?

o

Owners who lost him may not claim him there, considering impounding fee

Check for spay/neuter and then release him back into the neighbourhood?

For Mr. Fluffers and other potentially stray cats, I’m tempted to try the first step of attaching a safety collar with a tag that says: Not a stray cat? Please call us at XXX-XXX-XXXX… =) 2011-04-10 Sun 11:18

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 287

Back in the garden, the perennials are coming back http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22196 April 22, 2011 - Categories: gardening, life While raking the pine needles and fallen leaves to prepare the garden, I found new sprigs of oregano and parsley growing by the path. The straggly bit of thyme I’d given up for lost had a few green leaves it didn’t have before. The sage that withered in winter is starting to perk up, too.

•

Life o

[X] Work on red dress

o

[X] Read ahead: Latin homework

Plans for next week •

Watching the perennials reestablish themselves in our garden will help me pass the time it takes for the annuals to sprout. •

Work o

[ ] Get Vijay up to speed on project C

o

[ ] Review code for project I

o

[ ] Make travel plans

Relationships

Isn’t that like life? Sometimes things take a long time. You can’t rush them. You have to fight the urge to tweak things, because you might make things worse. Give yourself something else to focus on. Find some quick wins to encourage you. What you’re waiting for might be ready before you notice.

o

[ ] Host tea party – home-made buns and bagels

o

[ ] Prepare for trip

o

[ ] Host study group

o

[ ] Withdraw USD, maybe convert some euros

o

[ ] Finish hem for red dress

o

[ ] Write some more! =) Maybe braindump marriage stories?

2011-04-03 Sun 16:23 •

Life

Weekly review: Week ending April 22, 2011 http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22211 April 23, 2011 - Categories: weekly From last week’s plans •

o

•

Time analysis

Work [X] Work on more items for project C – Rails is so awesome! Wrote tests, added a CMS using RichCMS

o

[X] Assist with proposal

o

[X] Follow up on migration plans for project I

Category

This wee k

Last wee k

Delt a

Break

8.3

7.5

0.8

Drawing

0.6

1.3

-0.7

Exercise

1.8

3.8

-2.0

0.5

-0.5

o

[X] Prepare for code turnover for project I

Learning

o

[-] Plan travel

Personal

14.7

0.9

13.8

o

Handled more Idea Lab requests Preparatio n

0.7

0.4

0.3

5.4

-5.4

Relationships o

[-] Pick up gifts for Kathy and John

o

[X] Make gifts for Kathy, John, and Dan

o

[X] Plan gifts for Linda

o

[-] Host another study group: Good Friday break

o

[X] Plan cherry-blossom gettogether

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 288

Routines – cooking Routines – general

6.8

6.4

0.4

Routines – tidying

1.9

9.6

-7.7

Sleep

60.4

61.0

-0.6

Notes

8.4 hours sewing

Category

This wee k

Last wee k

Delt a

Social

18.2

6.2

12.0

Travel

4.5

7.3

-2.8

Work

37.1

48.7

-11.6

Writing

5.02

7.4

Notes

Warmer weather means it’s time to get the garden going. We still get a bit of snowfall, but the forecast is looking up. Plenty of rain means free watering and no fussing about with hoses that could still freeze. From last month’s plans

About 5 hours over, considerin g holiday

Work

-2.38

Ruby on Rails is too much fun. I got carried away and spent Saturday working on it. That was a decent way to spend a rainy Saturday, particularly as I got as far as I could get in my sewing project. Tracking my time and noticing how much I’m over my targets does make me ask, though: where is that time coming from? What could I focus the extra time on instead? Can I be more awesome at work with just the target amount of time? Yes, probably, and more safely too – less risk of negative productivity. Friday was a holiday, so I spent the day sewing. I finished most of my red dress, and I might sew the hem in today or tomorrow. I also worked on simple gifts for my sister and for W-’s friend Dan. I think I’m starting to get the hang of sewing – hooray!

•

[X] Shepherd more projects to signing and work

•

[X] Learn how to implement web services on Websphere Application Server

•

[X] Create and deliver more presentations

•

[X] Finish blog series on blogging

Relationships •

[X] Host another get-together

•

[-] Build a set of people to call once a week

•

[X] Check out Toastmasters again

•

[X] Practise driving

•

[X] Refine my plans

•

[X] Start seedlings

Life

Plans for next month

FAQ: •

Why do I do these weekly reviews? See on the practice of a weekly review.

•

What about the detailed time analysis? See more thoughts on time analysis.

Work

Monthly review: March 2011 http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22210 April 24, 2011 - Categories: monthly I found this in my draft folder. Might as well post it!

[ ] Get a good prototype together for project C

•

[ ] Get the paperwork in place for project M

•

[ ] Prepare for training on project I

•

[ ] Help with other work

•

[ ] Assist with “Get Social, Do Business”

Relationships

Plans for March: Ah, March. Wrapping up the first quarter with several projects on the go and even more proposals underway. I’m starting to get the hang of this. I wish the paperwork was smoother, and that we had more people in IBM with whom I could share Drupal and Rails projects! =)

•

•

[ ] Put together more study group resources

•

[ ] Practise driving

•

[ ] Prepare for May trip

•

[ ] Start garden

Life

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 289

•

[ ] Write and draw a lot

•

[ ] Focus discretionary time on plans and experiments

sequences from en-US’s locale settings for Compose in /usr/share/X11, restarted X, and it worked. Now he’s off and typing!

Writing macrons in Linux for Latin pronunciation http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22212 April 25, 2011 Categories: emacs, geek, latin, learning, relationshi p Frustrated with the inability to search the scanned images of the 1822 Latin textbook we’re using (Albert Harkness’ An Easy Method for Beginners in Latin – get the PDF, the full-text version is badly OCRed), W- has taken it upon himself to recreate the public-domain textbook as a fully searchable TiddlyWiki (sans illustrations). This meant that he needed to type in a great number of macrons in the words, and that meant finding a better way than copying and pasting from KDE’s character map. Macrons turn up in many languages. In Japanese, you use them to indicate that vowels are doubled. can be romanized as Oosaka or Ōsaka. In Latin, beginner textbooks often use macrons (macra) to indicate pronunciation. (Why do we care about pronunciation for a dead language used mostly in church hymns? W- and I actually want to be able to use this conversationally, at least with each other. After all, if you don’t use it, you lose it.)

大阪（おおさか）

I suggested Emacs. In Emacs, it’s just a matter of using M-x set-input-method to choose latin-altpostfix. With that input method, you can add macrons to letters by typing – after them. For example, typing “a -” will result in ā. Not only that, dynamic abbreviations (M-/) make it easier to retype words you’ve already written before. W- wouldn’t hear of using Emacs, being almost as firmly wedded to vi as he is to me. ;) Instead, we spent some time figuring out how to set up KDE and gvim to make it easier for him to type in macrons. HTML character sequences were out of the question, of course. W- used KDE’s settings to map his unused Windows key and menu key to compose keys. That made it easier to produce ē, ī, ō, and ū using the key sequence “Compose + hyphen + vowel”. However, “Compose + hyphen + a” produced ã, not ā. This was probably a bug based on some issue reports we found on the Net, but the suggested fix didn’t work (im-switch -c to change to default-xim). I found a page describing an .XCompose fix, customizing the key sequences. He copied the relevant key

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 290

2011-04-24 Sun 23:21

Stuff or experiences http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22214 April 26, 2011 Categories: analysis, decision, finance, life, reflecti on Soha wanted to know what I thought about the differences between spending on stuff and experiences. This took me several drafts to figure out, and I don’t think I’m all the way to a clear understanding yet, but I’m trying to say something I haven’t really found in the personal finance books and blogs I read. Stuff or experiences? Neither. It’s a false dichotomy, and one that often starts with the wrong question: “What will make me happy?” If you aren’t happy, it’s very difficult to buy happiness. Probably impossible. “What will make me happier than I am now?” – is that a better question? Not really. What’s “happier”, anyway, but something that draws an ever-moving line between you and some ideal? I like this question instead: “What do I want to learn more about?” No guarantee of happiness, no pursuit of happiness, just curiosity. Happiness doesn’t have to be pursued. It just is. Happiness can be a chosen, developed response. So what I decide to spend money or time on is determined more by what I’m curious about. I confess to having a strong distrust for people trying to sell me ways to happiness. A designer handbag won’t make me happy (or happier). Neither will a three-week vacation of idle relaxation on a pristine beach. Quite possibly even an enlightening weekly course on meditation wouldn’t do the trick. My life will be a good life even if I never stay in the best suite in a five star hotel, see the aurora borealis, or learn to fly a plane (ideas from Richard Horne’s “101 Things to Do Before You Die”, which does have amusing forms). It will simply be different if I do, and that only matters if I can do something with the experiences and ideas I pick up and recombine. In fact, I’d rather spend on stuff – the raw ingredients of an experience – than on prepackaged experiences. I’d rather spend on

groceries for experiments than on a fancy meal at a restaurant or a cooking class with a famous chef. I’d rather spend on lumber and tools to build a chair, than spend on a cottage rental. Turns out this is based on sound psychological principles: we value what we work on more than what we buy. (For more on this, read Dan Ariely’s “The Upside of Irrationality.”) You can’t untangle good stuff from experiences. The bag of bread flour I buy leads to the experience of making home-made buns, the experience of enjoying them with W-, and the lasting enjoyment of developing skills and relationships. Fabric and thread become simple gifts accompanied by stories. Besides, it doesn’t have to be the question of what you want to spend money on. That’s just a matter of budgeting. Many things are possible, but you may save up a little longer for things that require more money. What it really comes down to is a question of time: do you want to do this more than other things you could do? (For example: yes to cooking and gardening; a theoretical yes to improv, but it’s not as high as other things on my list, so I focus on other things; no to the massage deals I see on dealradar.com when I wander by.) If yes, then budget appropriately. Don’t get distracted by low-cost, low-value activities or expenses. (Or worse: highcost, low-value ones.) If you feel you’ve made a mistake about spending, don’t beat yourself up over it. Learn and make better decisions next time. Not saddling yourself with consumer debt helps, as debt has a way of multiplying regrets. Stuff can be second-guessed more than experiences can, but it’s even better to break the habit of secondguessing yourself. Think of your sunk costs as tuition. You’ve paid for the learning, now go and use it. Money can be considered in terms of time, too. Is the incremental benefit you might get worth the opportunity cost of enjoying other things earlier, the compounding growth you may give up, or the corresponding days of freedom in the future? (For me: yes to some wedding photography in order to reduce friction, but no need to get the top wedding photographer; yes to a wonderful bicycle I feel comfortable with; no to the latest version of the Lenovo tablet, although I may reconsider in a year or two.) Stuff or experiences? Start with what you want, not what other people want to sell you. Treat it as an ongoing experiment. Evaluate your purchases and improve your decisions. Think about what you

want to spend your time on, not just money. Good luck! 2011-04-24 Sun 16:45

The enemy of your enemy is your friend: mnemonics and negative integers http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22229 April 27, 2011 Categories: education, learning, life, math, teachin g From April 26, Tuesday: J-’s studying for Thursday’s “in-class performance assessment” on integers. (In-class performance assessment? What happened to the good old word “quiz?” Too much anxiety?) We’re spreading the review out over the next two evenings. The test will cover adding and subtracting positive and negative numbers. J- and her study group are already off multiplying and dividing (which apparently don’t turn up until grade 8 – really?). W- made up a quick worksheet for J- to practise adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing integers. “The enemy of your enemy is your friend,” I heard her say as she solved the exercises, writing down the correct signs for all the products and quotients. I grinned. I’d taught them that mnemonic two weeks ago. It’s a way to remember the results of multiplying or dividing numbers. As I explained to the kids: you don’t have to stick to this in real life. Pou can certainly be friends with the friends of your enemy. But this might help you remember the signs for multiplication and division: •

The friend of your friend is your friend. Positive times positive is positive.

•

The friend of your enemy is your enemy. Positive times negative is negative.

•

The enemy of your friend is your enemy. Negative times positive is negative.

•

The enemy of your enemy is your friend. Negative times negative is positive.

A

B

Result

Friend +

Friend +

Friend +

Friend +

Enemy -

Enemy -

Enemy -

Friend +

Enemy -

Enemy -

Enemy -

Friend +

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 291

2011-04-26 Tue 20:05 Glad to see it stuck in her head! She answered all the exercises correctly (and quickly, too).

Remote training that rocks http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22230 April 28, 2011 Categories: ibm, presentation, speaking Some IBMers convinced me to share presentation tips with Lotus instructors. Here’s what I’m thinking about: You know what’s really difficult in training? Staying interesting – and /interested/ – session after session after session. I used to teach university, and I’ve also given lots of presentations as an IBMer. It can be tough to be energetic and engaged when giving a presentation that you’ve given many times before. Even if you’re giving a new presentation, if it’s your umpteenth lunch-and-learn this year, you might feel tired just thinking about it. I want to share some tips that help me when I’m giving presentations, and I want to hear from you what works for you and what you want to do even better. First (and probably the most important for people who give presentations a lot): If you’re bored by your own presentations – and admit it, this can happen – it’s very hard to avoid boring others. How can you stay interested? Let’s take the worst-case scenario: Your job is to present XYZ every week. Same presentation. Same slides. You could do it in your sleep. Instead of just going through the presentation, look for small ways you can improve each time. Experiment with your timing. Try different examples. Ask questions. Try different questions. See if standing up makes a difference in your voice. Experiment with the capabilities of your web conference. This is a great time to experiment, actually – when you’ve practically memorized the material and can recover confidently from anything Murphy’s Law throws at you. Would that help you stay interested? Yes. And other people will be interested because you’re interested. And you’ll be a better presenter at the end, too. So that’s a good start. Let’s say your work is better than that. Let’s say you can improve your training

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as you learn – make new slides, add more resources, and so on. Save time and create more value. Record your presentation. Share your slides and your speaker notes. Now you can give yourself a better challenge: How can you improve your training so that it’s really worth attending? What extra value will people get from you that they can’t get from recordings, slides, or speaker notes? … It’s a good idea to build plenty of room for interaction into your presentations. That’s because people can get everything else from the extra resources, but this is where they can really ask and learn. It’s also a great way for you to learn from people: what’s important to them, what else they want to learn, how to make your training better. Teach less, listen more. Attend other people’s training sessions. See what you like – and what drives you crazy. Take notes. It’s also a good idea to work on the next actions for your presentation. You should have a clear idea of what you want people to do after your presentation. What changes do you want them to make to the way they work? What resources do you want them to check out or bookmark? As you learn more by teaching people, build up those resources and refine those next steps. This is one of the areas where you can make a real difference as a trainer – you can help people get ready for and commit to change. You can do lots of things to make your next steps even better. Can you make a checklist that people can save and follow? Can you share recordings and other resources? Can you tell people about other training they’ll find useful? For example, after this presentation, I want you to pick one small, specific way you can improve your next training session, and practise using it until you get the hang of it. Let’s talk about some of those specifics. Here are three quick presentation tips that might help you make even better use of your web conference (and if you’re not using a web conference for remote training yet, switch to one!). First: You can use the text chat for Q&A throughout your talk. Why? It’s important to see when people have questions. It’s hard for most people to interrupt speakers on the phone. You can pause for questions, but you’re probably not going to pause for questions often enough, and it breaks the momentum. Some people might use the hand-

raising feature in web or phone conferences, which is good, but it’s even better to ask people to type their question into the text chat if possible. Why? You can prioritize questions, you can adjust your presentation on the fly, and you might even find that people are answering each other’s questions. If you find the text chat distracting, have a moderator or buddy keep an eye out for questions, or take a look at it every so often. Second: Make your summary your Q&A slide. I can’t tell you how many presentations I’ve seen that end on “Thank you!”, “Q&A”, or some other mostly-blank slide. This is probably the slide that will be shown the longest – make it count! Show a one-slide summary that helps people remember what they want to ask questions about and reiterates the next steps you want them to take. Don’t let your session trail off into Q&A, either. 510 minutes before the end of your session, summarize the key points and review the next actions so that people can remember them. Third: Consider adding video. Webcams are inexpensive and you can make your presentation more engaging. If you do use video, make sure your background isn’t distracting, and warn other people who might walk in! So that’s what I’ve got to share, and I hope you’ve found one or two ideas you can use to improve your presentations. Let’s talk about it! What’s working well for you right now? What do you want to improve? 2011-04-27 Wed 17:56

Giving a presentation using Autodesk Sketchbook Pro and a web conference http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22231 April 28, 2011 Categories: kaizen, presentation, sketches, speakin g

get away with. =) I’ll post a link to the recording when it’s up. It was much more fun and much more flexible than annotating in Microsoft Powerpoint. Here’s how I did it. I pre-drew my one-slide talking points on a single layer so that I wouldn’t have to count on thinking, talking, and drawing all at the same time. I used an idea from children’s activity books: instead of drawing, you can use the eraser to make content appear, like the way you would scratch off black paint to reveal colours. I created a layer on top of my "slide", and I flood-filled this layer with white. I set the opacity of this layer to 90% so that I could see the traces of the images on the layer underneath. That way, I could use an eraser to reveal the sketches below. I selected a large eraser to make it even easier. I also wanted to be able to draw new sketches or highlight items, so I selected a red ballpoint pen as my primary brush.Red goes well with black and white. Because my Lenovo X61 tablet pen has a pen tip and an eraser tip, I could easily flip between revealing pre-drawn sketches and adding new sketches. I drew on the the white layer that I gradually erased to reveal the underlying sketches. This meant that I could quickly remove accents or new sketches without disturbing my pre-drawn sketches. Just in case I needed to go into more detail, I added another layer on top, filled it with white, and hid the layer. That way, I could always unhide it (thus blanking out everything else I’d drawn), add a new transparent layer on top, and sketch away. I hid all the tools I didn’t need, and kept the layers window open on the side so that I could easily switch to another layer. Then it was time to share my screen, turn on the webcam, and give my presentation! Here’s how you should set up your layers, from top to bottom: 1.

White layer, so that you can easily add layers on top of this for new drawings

2. Translucent white layer with parts erased 3. Pre-drawn sketches 4. White background

I gave a presentation using Autodesk Sketchbook Pro and desktop-sharing in Lotus Live, and it worked out really well. I think I’ll do this for as many presentations as I can

The technique should work just as well with any drawing program that supports layers, a web conference that supports screen-sharing, and a tablet or tablet PC that lets you draw or erase easily.

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Try it out and share your tips!

Study group: Flashcards and the Leitner method http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22217 April 29, 2011 Categories: education, geek, learning, life, teaching

correctly answer five times in a row and lets you focus on the cards that you can’t consistently answer. I think the Leitner system is really cool. It’s an elegant algorithm with a physical implementation. Neat! 2011-04-24 Sun 14:16

Flashcards are great for memorizing. They break topics down into learnable chunks, develop random-access knowledge, and turn learning into a game with visual progress. Flashcards also make it easier for people to learn together, testing each other on concepts. We’ve been teaching the kids in the study group using flashcards for multiplication facts, fractions, and the Greek alphabet. We also teach them how to use cognitive theory to improve learning–well, perhaps not in those words. For example, when Jwants to help her friends learn the Greek alphabet (having handily mastered recognition herself), we encouraged her to cycle through letters in small sets (5 to 7 characters at a time) instead of running through all the letters in one go. It’s the same technique we used when they were learning the multiplication table. J- also shared the mnemonics she used to remember many of the Greek letters. For example, she described λ as “Lambda, like Mary had a little lamb, going down a hill.” They’re quickly developing in-jokes, too, like the way V- calls α Pisces, they call Μ big mu, and ω makes the kids laugh.

Weekly review: Week ending April 29, 2011 http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22234 April 30, 2011 - Categories: weekly From last week’s plans •

•

Work

Start with your flashcards in one group (group 1). Review the cards in a group. If you answer a card correctly, move it to one group higher. If you answer a card incorrectly, move it back to group 1. Repeat with each group of cards. When you answer a card in group 5 correctly, you can archive the card until you want to do a general review again. This weeds out the cards that you can

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•

[X] Get Vijay up to speed on project C

o

[X] Review code for project I

o

[X] Make travel plans

o

Got project I- sorted out, hooray!

o

More work on project C – lots of things to fix in user acceptance testing

o

Worked on Idea Lab offering

o

Sorted out my utilization

Relationships

W- and I have our own flashcards: Dutch, in preparation for our upcoming trip, and Latin, because we’re learning that too. Electronic flashcards offer convenience, of course, but paper flashcards are so much more fun. In this week’s study group, we plan to teach the kids about the Leitner system for flashcard efficiency. I found out about the Leitner system by reading the comments in the Emacs flashcard.el mode years ago, when I was learning Japanese. The Leitner system optimizes learning by reducing the repetitions for cards you know well and increasing the repetitions for cards you answer incorrectly. It works like this:

o

o

[X] Host tea party – home-made buns and bagels

o

[X] Prepare for trip

o

[X] Host study group

o

[-] Withdraw USD, maybe convert some euros

o

Made battery-powered USB charger using MintyBoost kit

o

Got a haircut

o

Helped work on typing in “An Easy Method for Beginners in Latin”

o

[-] Finish hem for red dress

o

[X] Write some more! =) Maybe braindump marriage stories?

o

Checked out Amazon Mechanical Turk – not worth my time, would rather write =)

o

Wrote future posts

Life

testing – I really should find a way to make it easier and more fun to do manual testing instead of relying on automated tests! ;)

Plans for next week •

Work [ ] Tidy up project C

o •

•

Looking forward to seeing my family again! FAQ:

Relationships o

[ ] Hang out with my family! Yay!

o

[ ] Celebrate my sister’s wedding!

o

[X] Tidy up the strawberry and blueberry plants in the garden

o

[X] Start some bitter melon

[ ] Draw! =)

Time analysis Category

This week

Last week

Delta

Break

1.0

8.3

-7.3

Drawing

0.5

0.6

-0.1

Exercise

2.7

1.8

0.9

Learning

13.5

13.5

Personal

0.9

14.7

-13.8

Preparation

1.5

0.7

0.8

Routines – cooking

Why do I do these weekly reviews? See on the practice of a weekly review.

•

What about the detailed time analysis? See more thoughts on time analysis.

"An Easy Method for Beginners in Latin" and macron-insensitive search for Tiddlywiki http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22225 April 30, 2011 - Categories: geek, javascript, latin

Life o

•

Notes

Lots of Latin and hacking

10.7

6.8

3.9

Routines – tidying

2.6

1.9

0.7

Sleep

57.6

60.4

-2.8

Social

19.3

18.2

1.1

Travel

2.7

4.5

-1.8

Work

43.9

37.1

6.8

Writing

11.0

5.02

5.98

Here’s what we have so far: An Easy Method for Beginners in Latin, Lessons 1-9 We’re starting off using Tiddlywiki because it’s a wiki system that W-’s been using a lot for his personal notes. He’s familiar with the markup. It’s not ideal because Google doesn’t index it, the file size is bigger than it needs to be (0.5MB!), and it’s Javascript-based. It’s a good start, though, and I should be able to convert the file to another format with a little scripting. My first instinct would be to start with Org Mode for Emacs, of course, but we already know what W- thinks of Emacs. ;)

0

Routines – general

As previously mentioned, W- and I are re-typing parts of Albert Harkness’ 1822 textbook "An Easy Method for Beginners in Latin", which was digitized and uploaded to Google Books as a PDF of images. The non-searchable book was driving W- mad, so we’re re-typing up lessons. It’s a decent way to review, and I’m sure it will be a great resource for other people too.

Most of the text was easy to enter. Harkness is quite fond of footnotes, numbered sections, and lots of bold and italic formatting. We’re going to skip the illustrations for now. Study group

Saving up posts

Wrapping up loose ends at work. Project I is wellsorted out, project C slightly less so. I let a few embarrassing bugs slip through to user acceptance

Typing all of this in and using it as our own reference, though, we quickly ran into a limitation of the standard TiddlyWiki engine (and really, probably all wiki engines): you had to search for the exact word to find something. In order to find poēta, you had to type poēta, not poeta. That’s because ē and e are two different characters. We wanted to keep the macrons as pronunciation and grammar guides. We didn’t want to require people to know or type letters with macrons. Hmm. Time to hack Tiddlywiki.

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TiddlyWiki plugins use Javascript. I found a sample search plugin that showed me the basics of what I needed. I considered two approaches: 1.

Changing the search text to a regular expression that included macron versions of each vowel

2. Replacing all vowels in the Tiddler texts with non-macron vowels when searching The first approach was cleaner and looked much more efficient, so I chose that route. If the search text contained a macron, I assumed the searcher knew what he or she was doing, so I left the text alone. If the text did not contain a macron, I replaced every vowel with a regular expression matching the macron equivalents. Here’s what that part of the code looked like: s = s.replace(/(.)/g, "['/]*$1"); if (!s.match(macronPattern)) { // Replace the vowels with the corresponding macron matchers s = s.replace(/a/, "[aāĀA]"); s = s.replace(/e/, "[eēĒE]"); s = s.replace(/i/, "[iīĪI]"); s = s.replace(/o/, "[oōŌO]"); s = s.replace(/u/, "[uūŪU]"); } That got me almost all the way there. I could search for most of the words using plain text (so poeta would find poēta and regina would find rēgīnae), but some words still couldn’t be found. A further quirk of the textbook is that the characters in a word might be interrupted by formatting. For example,poētam is written as =poēt”am”= in Tiddlywiki markup. So I also inserted a regular expression matching any number of ‘ or / (bold or italic markers when doubled) between each letter: s = s.replace(/(.)/g, "['/]*$1"); It’s important to do this before the macron substitution, or you’ll have regexp classes inside other classes. That’s the core of the macron search. Here’s what it looks like. I was so thrilled when I got all of this lined up! =)

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And the source code: // Macron Search Plugin // (c) 2011 Sacha Chua - Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License // Based on http://devpad.tiddlyspot.com/#SimpleSearchPlug in by FND if(!version.extensions.MacronSearchPlugin) { //# ensure that the plugin is only installed once version.extensions.MacronSearchPlugin = { installed: true }; if(!config.extensions) { config.extensions = {}; } config.extensions.MacronSearchPlugin = { heading: "Search Results", containerId: "searchResults", btnCloseLabel: "Close search", btnCloseTooltip: "dismiss search results", btnCloseId: "search_close", btnOpenLabel: "Open all search results", btnOpenTooltip: "Open all search results", btnOpenId: "search_open", displayResults: function(matches, query) { story.refreshAllTiddlers(true); // update highlighting within story tiddlers var el = document.getElementById(this.containerId); query = '"""' + query + '"""'; // prevent WikiLinks if(el) { removeChildren(el); } else { //# fallback: use displayArea as parent var container = document.getElementById("displayArea"); el = document.createElement("div"); el.id = this.containerId; el = container.insertBefore(el, container.firstChild); } var msg = "!" + this.heading + "\n"; if(matches.length > 0) { msg += "''" + config.macros.search.successMsg.format([matches .length.toString(), query]) + ":''\n"; this.results = [];

for(var i = 0 ; i < matches.length; i++) { this.results.push(matches[i].title); msg += "* [[" + matches[i].title + "]]\n"; } } else { msg += "''" + config.macros.search.failureMsg.format([query]) + "''\n"; // XXX: do not use bold here!? } wikify(msg, el); createTiddlyButton(el, "[" + this.btnCloseLabel + "]", this.btnCloseTooltip, config.extensions.MacronSearchPlugin.closeResul ts, "button", this.btnCloseId); if(matches.length > 0) { // XXX: redundant!? createTiddlyButton(el, "[" + this.btnOpenLabel + "]", this.btnOpenTooltip, config.extensions.MacronSearchPlugin.openAll, "button", this.btnOpenId); } }, closeResults: function() { var el = document.getElementById(config.extensions.Macr onSearchPlugin.containerId); removeNode(el); config.extensions.MacronSearchPlugin.results = null; highlightHack = null; }, openAll: function(ev) { story.displayTiddlers(null, config.extensions.MacronSearchPlugin.results); return false; } }; // override Story.search() Story.prototype.search = function(text, useCaseSensitive, useRegExp) { var macronPattern = /[āĀēĒīĪōŌūŪ]/; var s = text; // Deal with bold and italics in the middle of words s = s.replace(/(.)/g, "['/]*$1"); if (!s.match(macronPattern)) { // Replace the vowels with the corresponding macron matchers s = s.replace(/a/, "[aāĀA]"); s = s.replace(/e/, "[eēĒE]"); s = s.replace(/i/, "[iīĪI]"); s = s.replace(/o/, "[oōŌO]"); s = s.replace(/u/, "[uūŪU]"); } var searchRegexp = new RegExp(s, "img"); highlightHack = searchRegexp; var matches = store.search(searchRegexp, null, "excludeSearch");

config.extensions.MacronSearchPlugin.displayRes ults(matches, text); }; // override TiddlyWiki.search() to ignore macrons when searching TiddlyWiki.prototype.search = function(s, sortField, excludeTag, match) { // Find out if the search string s has a macron var candidates = this.reverseLookup("tags", excludeTag, !!match); var matches = []; for(var t = 0; t < candidates.length; t++) { if (candidates[t].title.search(s) != -1 || candidates[t].text.search(s) != -1) { matches.push(candidates[t]); } } return matches; }; } //# end of "install only once" To add this to your Tiddlywiki, create a new tiddler. Paste in the source code. Give it the systemConfig tag (the case is important). Save and reload your Tiddlywiki file, and it should be available. It took me maybe 1.5 hours to research possible ways to do it and hack the search plugin together for Tiddlywiki. I’d never written a plugin for Tiddlywiki before, but I’ve worked with Javascript, and it was easy to pick up. I had a lot of fun coding it with W-, who supplied plenty of ideas and motivation. =) It’s fun geeking out!

May 2011 Negative productivity and learning from oopses http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22221 May 1, 2011 Categories: geek, productivity, tips, work So I accidentally blew away my self-hosted photo gallery because I overwrote the directories by copying them instead of using rsync. I attribute that to being slightly out-of-sorts, but the truth is that I might’ve made that mistake anyway bright and early on a well-rested weekend. As it turns out, I back up my WordPress blog, but not my Gallery2-hosted photo album. And I hadn’t enabled server-wide backups before. You can bet I turned that on after I realized that.

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It’s no big deal. The key thing I wish I hadn’t deleted was the sketch I’d made of the highlights of 2008, but that’s in my paper backup of my blog, and the rest of my sketches are probably somewhere in my files too. It’s just stuff. The trick to dealing with negative productivity is to catch yourself – ideally, shortly before you mess up, but shortly afterwards is fine too.Do not make things worse in the process of trying to fix things. It’s better to detect your periods of negative productivity on non-critical operations than to, say, accidentally corrupt the source code repository for the project you’ve been working on. In addition to remembering this general feeling of out-of-it-ness, it might be a good idea for me to come up with some small test for full attention/alertness before doing anything possibly irreversible. Then I would need to make it a habit, because it’s precisely when one’s tempted to cut corners and go ahead that one shouldn’t. Hmm, checking for patterns… Sleep

8.8 hours per night – normal (if not a little over)

Work

10.2 hours per workday so far – well above normal, and pretty high-intensity work, too

Work pattern

current, 45.9, 56.9, 40.1 – current week is third of more intense period

Anyway. Dealing with oopses. Instead of beating myself up about it, I’d rather fix what I can fix, learn what I can learn, and then get on with a restful evening so that I can prepare for more awesomeness. Why beat myself up over a mistake? Better to figure out how to minimize the chances of making a similar mistake in the future, and to get on with life. =) (Well, after wringing a blog post out of it first…) 2011-04-13 Wed 20:36

Thoughts from marriage: Learning together http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22218 May 2, 2011 - Categories: learning, life, marriage Learning can be so much more fun when you learn with someone. Learning something with your spouse can be even better. W- and I enjoy learning things together. Last summer, we taught ourselves woodworking. We checked books out from the library, spent hours at

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Home Depot looking at tools and picking out lumber, figured out how to get 16′ planks home without renting a truck or becoming a traffic hazard, and built deck chairs that actually fit us. Having a second pair of hands to hold something in place, having a second pair of eyes to check before you work – that saves a lot of time. W- also helped motivate me past the necessary-butslightly-annoying parts, such as remeasuring the chair slats so that they fit properly. I probably would never have tried it without him, and now the chairs sit on our deck and provide an ongoing trigger for happy memories. We’ve been teaching ourselves Dutch in preparation for our trip to the Netherlands for my sister’s wedding. W- made flashcards and has been helping me learn. Even with our limited vocabulary, we’ve quickly developed in-jokes, like the delight with which we encounter the flashcard for “spek” (bacon) or “gebakken ei” (fried egg), and how I mock-shudder at “krentenbrood” (I’m not fond of currants or anything raisin-like). We’ve also been working our way through a Latin textbook as part of an Internet-based study group. We’re learning Latin together because we’re curious about a proper classical education. If kids of bygone eras could be well-versed in Latin, Greek, and French, why couldn’t we get the hang of it too? I’m inspired by books like The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home. While the rest of the world wrings their hands over the state of education, W- and I want to do something. This is not a bad place to start. Cooking provides many opportunities for learning. We’ve been moving further down the supermarket food chain: How do we make time for this? Avoiding financial pressure helps. A frugal lifestyle means that neither of us needs to work a second job, or gets stressed out about work. We spend most of our discretionary time at home because we enjoy doing so. A nearby library provides almost all the books we want, and Internet booksellers fulfill the rest of our learning needs. Internet videos, audio recordings, and websites also give us plenty of resources. Learning pays off in many ways. If we model this kind of curiosity and life-long learning for J-, she might be inspired to explore her own interests. It’s like the way I learned a lot from watching my mom teach herself about business and education and watching my dad learn about planes and photography. Who knows what J- and other kids will be able to do if they learn that learning is fun? 2011-04-24 Sun 09:07

Cucumber, Capybara, and the joys of integration testing in Rails http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22220 May 3, 2011 - Categories: automation, geek, rails Development is so much more fun with test cases. They give you a big target to aim for, and it feels fantastic when you write the code to make them pass. Tests also avoid or shorten those late-night “oh no! I broke something!” sessions, because you can backtrack to versions that pass the tests. (You are using version control, right?) So naturally, as I worked on my first IBM project using Ruby on Rails, I wanted to know about how to perform automated testing – not just at the unit level, but at the web/integration level. I like using Simpletest in Drupal. I love the testing frameworks available in Rails. You see, Cucumber for Rails allows you to write your tests in English (or something reasonably close to it). For example: Feature: Contributor In order to maintain security As a contributor I want to be able to edit existing submissions Scenario: Contributor should not be able to create or delete submissions Given I am a company contributor And there is a 2010 survey for "Company X" When I view the dashboard Then I should not be able to delete a submission And I should not be able to create a submission Putting that in my features/contributor.feature" file and executing that with =bundle execute cucumber features/contributor.feature gets me a lovely test with green signs all around. You’re thinking: Rails is awesome, but it’s not that awesome, is it? How can it know about the specifics of the application? Rails knows because I’ve written my own step definitions for Cucumber. Step definitions are simple. You can define them with a regular expression like this: When /^I view the dashboard/ do visit root_path end

Then /^I should not be able to create a submission/ do page.should_not have_button("Create submission") end You can also define steps that parse arguments from the string or call other steps: Given /^there is a ([^ ]+) survey for \"([^\"]+)\"$/ do |year,name| @company = Company.find_by_name(name) assert [email protected]? Given "there is a #{year} survey" end You can even take multi-line input, such as tables. Automated testing is so awesome!

On people changing companies http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22223 May 4, 2011 - Categories: career, work Over the past few weeks, several people I’ve had the pleasure of working with have left the company. I used to feel confused and a little disturbed by people’s departures, particularly if they’d tried to find other internal opportunities and the timing didn’t work out. Quite a few of my mentors left IBM, and one of my colleagues even lightheartedly teased me about it. I feel much less worried about people leaving now. I wish them luck on their next adventure, connect with them through social networks so that we can keep in touch, subscribe to their blogs or follow them on Twitter, set myself a reminder to follow up with them, and perhaps write them a recommendation on LinkedIn. Here’s what I understand now that I didn’t understand in the beginning: It’s okay. When people leave for other companies, they colonize those companies with the things they’ve learned in ours. They spread skills and ideas they’ve honed here, while learning even more from new cultures and new situations. New things become possible. The network grows. Now I might be able to easily reach out to one more company, one more industry. Now I might hear about interesting ideas and trends outside my usual areas of focus. Now I might connect even more diverse worlds. It’s not all an easy win, of course. People leave behind these gaps, these unfulfilled possibilities.

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They also leave new opportunities. What will their successors create? How will the organization adapt around them? How will everyone grow? I still work on helping IBM improve, in my own little way. But now I can properly wish people good luck on their new adventures, and be confident that things will generally work out. 2011-04-08 Fri 20:23

Tweaking married life for everyday happiness http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22219 May 5, 2011 - Categories: life, marriage One of the things that works really well for W- and me in marriage is that we invest time and effort into making everyday life enjoyable. It’s not about big vacations or escaping from life; it’s about making regular life awesome. Let’s take a closer look at that. Sleep takes up a third of our life. We make sure we get enough sleep, as sleep deprivation leads to general tetchiness and negative productivity. There’s no sense in doing more if you end up being unhappy, so we keep our schedule light and flexible. Work takes up another third of our life, so we also make sure work is good. I love learning, working on open source, and helping clients and coworkers make things happen, so I work with my manager to make sure I’ve got plenty of opportunities to do so. W- also puts the time into improving his processes and getting better at what he does. We invest in making chores enjoyable. A lot of this is mindset. For example, memories of the great washing machine adventure turn laundry into something that makes me smile. It helps that our washer and dryer sound so cheerful. (Really! Listen to someone else’s recording.) “Right, Sacha, but that took a lot of work.” you might be thinking. But it’s surprising how a story can add more enjoyment to a routine task. For example: doing the dishes. I feel warm and fuzzy about the yummy food we just made, and I enjoy remembering W-’s story about this Fisher&Paykel dishwasher. You see, when I moved in, W- had a regular dishwasher. He explained that he’d replaced his preferred dishwasher with a standard one because he had been thinking about selling the house. He kept telling me about how awesome this dishwasher was, and we joked that it was the kind of dishwasher that was accompanied by choirs. When we decided we were going to stay,

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we took a trip up to his parents to retrieve the dishwasher. After I saw how it was cleverly divided into two independent drawers and it had timedelay features, I became a convert. (It seems it really does go “Aaaah!”) I’ve shown W- some clever ways to use the dishwasher, too, like using the top rack as a temporary holding space when the handwashed items need more space than the dish drying rack. Tiny improvements make life more awesome. Sharing a task makes it fun, too. W- and I both enjoy cooking, and the L-shaped kitchen layout means that we don’t get in each other’s way. Cleaning up together makes that more enjoyable, too. Turn chores into social events to make the time fly. What about other routines, like eating or getting ready for work? Again, this is something that can benefit from continuous improvement. For example, we switched to batchcooking lunches and freezing individual portions. This not only simplifies mornings and saves us money, it also makes me smile whenever I have lunch. We tweaked our entrance workflow, and now it’s easier to take off our coats and put down our bags. Little things. So that takes care of sleep, work, chores, and routines. What’s left? Mostly discretionary time – time that we can spend developing interests, enjoying hobbies, learning, relaxing, and so on. We spend a fair bit of this time together: hosting study groups, learning Latin, playing games. Sometimes we spend it on individual pursuits, like my tea parties or his calculator. We use this time not just to rest and recharge, but also to grow, and we deliberately invest in capabilities that can make future everyday life even better. Is this kind of happiness a finite honeymoon-ish sort of period? Maybe. Who knows? But it makes perfect sense to invest that energy into strengthening the foundation and building good routines, and to enjoy the compounding benefits. It isn’t about big changes, just small and simple everyday happinesses 2011-04-23 Sat 11:32

Rails: Exporting data from specific tables into fixtures http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22215 May 7, 2011 - Categories: automation, geek, rails Rails is pretty darn amazing. There are plenty of gems (Ruby packages) that provide additional functionality. They’re like Drupal modules, except

with more customizability (not just hooks) and fewer pre-built administrative interfaces (you win some, you lose some). For example, the client asked me, “Can we edit the static content?” Now if I had asked about this as a requirement at the beginning of the project, we might have gone with Drupal instead–although the Rails Surveyor still feels cleaner than a CCKbased survey type, so we might’ve stayed with Rails. Anyway, we were well into Rails now, so I looked for a content management system that I could integrate into the Rails 3-based website. After some experimenting with Refinery CMS (looks slick, but couldn’t get it to do what I wanted) and Comfortable Mexican Sofa (looked pretty geeky), I settled on Rich CMS. I nearly gave up on Rich CMS, actually, because I’d gotten stuck, but the web demo helped me figure out what I needed to do in order to enable it. We’re still emptying and reloading the database a lot, though, so I wanted to make sure that I could save the CmsContent items and reload them. I didn’t want to back up the entire database, just a table or two. There were some gems that promised the ability to back up specific models, but I couldn’t figure it out. Eventually I decided to use the table-focused Rake code I saw in order to export the data to fixtures (seems to be based on code from the Rails Recipes book). task :extract_fixtures => :environment do sql = "SELECT * FROM %s" skip_tables = ["schema_info"] ActiveRecord::Base.establish_connecti on if (not ENV['TABLES']) tables = ActiveRecord::Base.connection.tables - skip_tables else tables = ENV['TABLES'].split(/, */) end if (not ENV['OUTPUT_DIR'])

data = ActiveRecord::Base.connection.select_ all(sql % table_name) file.write data.inject({}) { |hash, record| hash["#{table_name}_#{i.succ!}"] = record hash }.to_yaml puts "wrote #{table_name} to #{output_dir}/" end end end Being a lazy programmer who doesn’t want to remember table names, I also defined the following Rake tasks: task :save_content => :environment do ENV["TABLES"] = "cms_contents" Rake.application.invoke_task("myproj: extract_fixtures") end task :load_content do Rake.application.invoke_task("db:fixt ures:load") end Then I can call rake myproj:save_content and rake myproj:load_content to do the right thing. Or rather, my co-developer (a new IBMer – hello, Vijay!) can do so, and then check his work into our git repository. =) Now we can re-create the development database as often as we’d like without losing our page content! 2011-04-24 Sun 16:29

Condensing requirements into use cases http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22208 May 8, 2011 - Categories: ibm, learning, work (From April 23:)

output_dir="#{RAILS_ROOT}/test/fixtur es" else output_dir = ENV['OUTPUT_DIR'].sub(/\/$/, '') end (tables).each do |table_name| i = "000"

I’m helping out with a proposal at work. The team asked me to condense a 250+-page requirements document into a spreadsheet of use cases. I’m new to architecture, but I gave it my best shot, sending the architect quick drafts so that we could zero in on something useful.

File.open("#{output_dir}/#{table_name }.yml", 'w') do |file|

My first draft was too low-level, too detailed. My second draft was a bit better, but still too granular. My third draft was at about the right level, but

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some use cases were still too big. My fourth draft was workable. Hooray! When you’re learning something that’s hard to pick up on your own, figure out how you can iteratively improve with feedback. Even if an expert doesn’t have the time to walk you through the process, he or she might be able to quickly tell you if you’re on the right track. See if you can break your work down into small portions you can work on until you get them right, and apply what you learn there to the rest of the work. Good luck!

withupdate_attributes will fail. This meant adding a whole bunch of attributes to my attr_accessor list, too. If you’re using accepts_nested_attributes_for, you will also need to use attr_accessible there, too. Sharing the note here just in case anyone else runs into it. Props to Tam on StackOverflow for the tip! 2011-04-01 Fri 12:41

On kids and the learning of tangible things http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22228 May 9, 2011 - Categories: life “Treat her to a scoop!” said the man in the ice cream shop as we walked by. He waved us into the ice cream shop, where W- chose maple walnut and I chose butter pecan. Our orders were rung up by a 4-year-old, all eagerness and tiny fingers at the cash register, coached by her mom to punch in the buttons and wish us a good day. I thought it was delightful. That’s one of the advantages of a family business that deals with tangible things, I guess. I remember my dad teaching us how to transfer rolls of film in the darkroom. We didn’t help out regularly, but it was great to learn about how parts of the business worked. It’s a little harder to show J- the magic of building applications, so we focus on tangible hobbies instead: cooking, baking, woodworking, gardening, and so on. They’re good introductions to the joys of learning and accomplishment. 2011-04-25 Mon 08:40

Back from the Netherlands http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22235 May 11, 2011 - Categories: family, life We were in the Netherlands from May 3 to May 10 to celebrate my sister’s wedding. I still have to sort through all the pictures and sketches, but here are some highlights: Seeing Keukenhof again: My sister and her fiancé timed their wedding so that we could catch the spring flowers at Keukenhof , which has hectares and hectares of tulips and other blooms. My family and I had been there before, when I was in high school. W- had never been to Europe, so it was his first time for everything. Taking up gardening myself The wedding: We had a small civil wedding ceremony in the gazebo in Agnietenberg, a campsite in Zwolle. Kathy wore a white terno (fulllength dress with butterfly sleeves) beaded and decorated with hand-painted blue tulip appliques; a fusion of Philippine and Dutch cultures. John wore a suit. I wore the red dress I sewed myself. =) I’ll link to photos when they become available. Moments that made me laugh:

Rails: Paperclip needs attributes defined by attr_accessible, not just attr_accessor http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22224 May 10, 2011 - Categories: development, geek, rails I wanted to add uploaded files to the survey response model defined by the Surveyor gem. I’d gotten most of the changes right, and the filenames were showing up in the model, but Paperclip wasn’t saving the files to the filesystem. As it turns out, Paperclip requires that your attributes (ex: :filevalue for my file column) be tagged with attr_accessible, not just attr_accessor. Once you define one attr_accessible item, you need to define all the ones you need, or massassigning attributes

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•

Seeing the world’s tallest ringbearer get pressed into service (Mathew filled in for the actual ringbearer, who was late)

•

When they celebrated the end of the wedding ceremony with the Hallelujah chorus

•

When my dad got flustered reading the witnessing statement in Tagalog and ended up putting in all sorts of other things

Den Haag: We visited W-’s friend Dan in The Hague and we had a lot of fun catching up. In the evening, we rented bikes from OV Fietsand headed to the beaches near the North Sea. The Netherlands’ biking life made me so envious:

separate bike lanes going practically everywhere, rental systems, flat terrain, garages with grooves in the ramps, locks integrated into bikes, and the freedom to bike without worrying too much about opened doors or inattentive drivers… Geek: One of the advantages of being a geek is that most people appreciate getting tech support. We don’t do this on a regular basis for family or friends, but if we happen to be in the same country and we have some time on vacation, why not? =) Dan had warned her husband that we were both geeks and that we were not allowed anywhere near the computers or even the microwave, because we might reprogram stuff. We ended up looking into their WiFi router, writing down the password for them and their future guests, and setting the BIOS settings on one of the computers so that it could recognize the printer that was on LPT1. (Smart IO chipset for the parallel port! Gosh.) Most of the interfaces were in Dutch, but we figured it out. We also fixed up Auntie Katharina’s computer, but that’s the next story. Germany: We were hanging out in John’s house in Zwolle, and Auntie Katharina mentioned she’s been having problems with her computer. My parents had been planning to get Auntie Katharina a new computer for a while, so that she could talk to them using Skype. Day trip! After much backand-forth, we convinced Auntie Katharina to let us go on this adventure. (After all, W- had never been to Germany, and it would be so nice to visit Wiesbaden again, and…) So we piled into the car, rushed back to the camp, packed our suitcases and backpacks, and headed off to Germany. (Don’t you just love being able to take a day trip to a different country?) We bought a laptop from the Media Markt near Auntie Katharina’s house, visited her son and her grandkids, then headed over to her place to set it up. Then it was a long drive back to the Netherlands for a short nap before W- and I took the train to the airport. That was definitely cutting it close, but we made it!

Weekly review: Week ending May 6, 2011 http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22236 May 12, 2011 - Categories: weekly From last week’s plans •

Work o

•

[X] Tidy up project C

Relationships o

[X] Hang out with my family! Yay!

•

o

[X] Celebrate my sister’s wedding!

o

[X] Tidy up the strawberry and blueberry plants in the garden

o

[X] Start some bitter melon

o

[X] Draw! =)

Life

Plans for next week •

•

•

Work o

[ ] Catch up on work

o

[ ] Get ready for training trip for project I

o

[ ] Follow up on project C

o

[ ] Refile time for project M

Relationships o

[X] Hang out with family some more!

o

[X] Spend time with W-’s friend Dan in The Hague

o

[ ] Write and sketch stories from trip

o

[ ] Organize photos from trip

o

[ ] Catch up with mail

o

[ ] Plant more herbs and greens

o

[ ] Decompress

o

[ ] Write more for upcoming trip

Life

Time analysis Between timezone changes and vacation… what time analysis? =)

First foray into community-supported agriculture http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22237 May 13, 2011 Categories: cooking, food, kaizen, life W- borrowed In Defense of Food from the library. I read it with him, dipping in and out of the book when he read nearby. Now we’re tweaking what and how we eat: buying organic vegetables, checking out a nearby butcher, and preparing lighter summer fare.

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We signed up for a local spring share from Plan B Organic Farms. The way that communitysupported agriculture works is that you buy a share in a farm’s produce and you get a portion of whatever’s being harvested. Plan B Organic Farms works with several farms, so you can get a good selection of food (and your risk is probably lower, too). We signed up for a bi-weekly regular-sized share to see what it’s like. We’ll probably sign up for a weekly half-share for summer, as the garden will yield fruits and vegetables too. After much anticipation, we picked up our first box yesterday! It contained: •

lettuce

•

baby kale

•

living sprouts

•

pea tenders

•

apples

•

shiitake mushrooms

•

potatoes

•

parsnips

•

beets

•

apple cider (mmm!)

I rinsed and tossed handfuls of lettuce, baby kale, sprouts, and pea tenders with vinaigrette. I added dandelion leaves from the garden. (Mwahaha! It’s extra-satisfying to pull up weeds for munching.) A sprinkling of pine nuts on the greens, and tada! Salad. Meanwhile, W- cooked the sausages and prepared pasta with store-bought pesto. (Haven’t started our basil plot yet!) We added some sage, oregano, and thyme from the garden – just a bit, as the plants are still small. Yummy! Working with a random assortment of fruits and vegetables is a lot more fun now than it was back when I was a student cooking for myself. I used to get the Good Food Box (another organic/local produce subscription service) when I lived on campus. Identifying the vegetables that came and figuring out good recipes for them that wouldn’t result in too much waste – that was quite a challenge! I remember losing the list of the box contents and then flipping through the pages in my full-colour fruit and vegetable identification book (a gift from my family), trying to figure out if I had beets or rutabagas. (Beets, as it turned out.) Now, W- and I can bounce ideas off each other, we have more flexibility and a better-stocked pantry for quick meals, and we have the freezer space to handle odds and ends if needed. Yay!

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I’m still looking forward to getting our garden growing. The plants look promising. I’m learning how to pack the garden more densely and to grow more kinds of food. But it’s great to enjoy lettuce and all these other things while the garden gets started, and to get fruits and vegetables we won’t be growing ourselves. The community-supported agriculture shares will be a great addition to our kitchen, encouraging us to be more creative with our cooking and more diverse in our diet. It’ll be fun – and it will be good eating!

Cattus Petasatus http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22207 May 14, 2011 - Categories: latin, Uncategorized On a whim, W- and I are learning Latin. We figure that schoolkids used to learn Latin and Greek, so we should be able to hack it too. So we’ve signed up for an Internet study group, borrowed books from the library, and looked for other Latin resources. We were delighted to find Cattus Petasatus, a Latin translation of Dr. Seuss’ The Cat in the Hat. There are even translations for some of the other books, like Green Eggs and Ham. I like reading them in addition to our textbooks. They make Latin feel more contemporary. Learning Latin with W- is a lot of fun. He shares the ways Latin reminds him of French. He thinks I find it easier to say Latin than he does because of my background in Filipino, which also has a lot of short syllables. We review our study group homework together, laugh at the contrived examples, and look around for other resources. I’m so lucky my husband is a geek. =) We’ll gradually work our way up to Winnie ille Pu. Maybe we’ll even put together our own Latin projects!

Weekly review: Week ending May 13, 2011 http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22238 May 15, 2011 - Categories: weekly From last week’s plans •

Work o

[X] Catch up on work

o

[X] Get ready for training trip for project I

o

[X] Follow up on project C

o

[X] Refile time for project M

•

o

Prepare for upcoming presentations

o

Added status tracking feature to project C

Relationships o

•

[X] Hang out with family some more!

o

[X] Spend time with W-’s friend Dan in The Hague

o

[\] Write and sketch stories from trip – wrote a few

o

[-] Organize photos from trip – haven’t looked at them!

o

[-] Catch up with mail – answered some mail, but not yet all

o

Got first Plan B Organic Farms box. Had lots of salad. Yum! Plus dandelions, too.

Life o

[X] Plant more herbs and greens

o

[X] Decompress

o

[-] Write more for upcoming trip

o

[ ] Set aside writing time while on business trip, and actually write

o

[ ] Think about what I want to learn next – more sewing projects?

Rails: Preserving test data http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22216 May 16, 2011 - Categories: development, geek, rails I’m using Cucumber for testing my Rails project. The standard practice for automated testing in Rails is to make each test case completely selfcontained and wipe out the test data after running the test. The test system accomplishes this by wrapping the operations in a transaction and rolling that transaction back at the end of the test. This is great, except when you’re developing code and you want to poke around the test environment to see what’s going on outside the handful of error messages you might get from a failed test. I set up my test environment so that data stays in place after a test is run, and I modified my tests to delete data they need deleted. This is what I set in my features/support/env.rb: Cucumber::Rails::World.use_transactio nal_fixtures = false

Plans for next week I also removed database_cleaner. •

•

•

Work o

[ ] Conduct training for project I in Colorado

o

[ ] Keep an eye on project M

o

[ ] Sort out upcoming projects

o

[ ] Prepare for social media / Gen Y talk for client D

You can set this behaviour on a case-by-case basis with the tag @no-txn. Running the tests individually with bundle exec cucumber ... now works. I still have to figure out why the database gets dropped when I do rake cucumber, though… 2011-04-24 Sun 16:21

Relationships

Life

o

[ ] Catch up on mail

o

[ ] Write more about Netherlands trip

o

[X] Plant more herbs and greens – basil basil basil basil

o

[X] Make bagels

o

Helped hem J-’s pants – made a hair bow, ribbon, and brooch from the scraps

Finding the bright side of business travel http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22240 May 17, 2011 - Categories: travel, work I don’t like travelling. I’d rather be home: husband, cats, garden, library, home-cooked food, regular routines, everything I need where I want it to be. But we haven’t figured out teleportation and some clients want face-to-face contact, so I go if necessary. It’s a little hard to focus on the bright side of business travel, aside from the opportunity to meet people in person. Travel changes such a large chunk of personal time. Long days trail off into the temptation to spend evening hours catching up

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with work e-mail or flipping through the movies on the television. Restaurants overwhelm with choices and serve too-large portions. Laughter and meows are replaced by the white-noise hum of hotel airconditioning. But there’s a bright side there, somewhere, new opportunities that open up during every disruption. Here’s what I might be able to do this trip: •

Wake up earlier. There’s no one to disturb, and there’s more incentive to go to bed early and wake up early.

•

Spend more time writing and drawing. No meals to prepare, no dishes to wash, nothing else to do but work and write and draw.

•

Eat different kinds of food. Eat the kinds of things we would find difficult to prepare at home. Avoid the temptations. Focus on soups and salads – maybe that will help…

•

Listen to more music. I rarely do so at home. Here, it’s better than the constant traffic and weather updates on the lobby television that’s tuned to the news channel.

I could enjoy business travel more, I suppose, if I stayed an extra day in the cities we visit. Here loss aversion rears its behavioral-psychology head, I think; I’d find it hard to tear myself away from home a day early in order to walk around a city by myself. This is not completely true. I haven’t tried it, and I should give it at least one try. And for places I know we have friends in, I’d be happy to come a day earlier or leave a day later so that I can spend time with them. Perhaps the next trip. It’s difficult but essential to be where you are, not mis-placed. 2011-05-15 Sun 09:26

Walking outside my comfort zone – bike? push/kick scooter? http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22241 May 17, 2011 Categories: analysis, decision, kaizen, travel This walking-around-a-strange-city has its pluses and minuses. Plus: I got to see Denver’s downtown pedestrian zones and how they’ve set up the 16th Street Mall with plenty of trees and benches. Minus: My phone was dead, so I didn’t have GPS, and I hadn’t fixed and brought my MintyBoost yet, and I didn’t have a physical map. I missed my stop on the way back and ended up walking an extra

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4.5km. Easy enough to plan for next time. On my next trip, I’ll definitely bring a power supply! While walking around, I thought about what would make exploration easier. GPS and offline maps are definitely big ones, which probably means just making sure that I can recharge my smartphone on the go. The thing with walking is that if you make a mistake or you miss a stop, it takes a long time to get back on track. On a car, you can swing around quickly and be halfway across town in a few minutes. On a bicycle, you can still cover a lot of ground. Walking? Trudge trudge trudge trudge. In the dark, this can be a little scary. Walking also means I can’t cover that much ground. I know I can take a taxi, but I find it hard to shake the idea that taxis are a luxury. ;) Public transit is good, but the schedules can be tricky. CoPilot Live for Android shows me where the nearest bus stop is. As long as I keep the last bus times in mind, I’m pretty okay with asking for directions and waiting a bit at stops. Reasons why it might be worth hacking this: It would be really awesome to reduce anxiety. I get fidgety if I’m walking by myself and there are few people around. Public transit schedules tend to have gaps, and sometimes it’s hard to find a place where I can get a cab. (Which of these roads will lead to a hotel? Hmm.) If I’m on a bike, I can cover more distances myself, with the trade-off that I’ll just be worried about accidents. (Bright lights, reflective tape, road caution, helmets?) Even a push scooter might get me quickly from a silent patch to someplace with more light and/or people. It would be great to not take cabs to client sites. Yes, I know, it’s a business expense. But I still take public transit whenever possible, even if I don’t benefit from the savings. Part of it is being aware of the moral hazard of a company expense account (when you change your behaviour knowing someone else is footing the bill), and part of it is fighting the hedonic treadmill (when you get used to a level of consumption). It would be great to see more of the places I stay at. Might as well, I’m there already. I’m an odd sort of traveller, though. I’m not driven to take my picture beside famous landmarks. I don’t collect knick-knacks. I occasionally meet up with people, but I’m also fine connecting virtually. I do like checking out thrift stores. I can’t stand paying retail, and browsing through people’s donations gives me a little idea of what people are like.

I’m probably looking at two or three solo trips over the next year and some light use back home. No big deal – the null option (listed below) might still be cheaper.

and I don’t have to worry about different brake systems. •

How can I cover more ground and reduce the cost of making mistakes? What about renting bikes? Most cities have bike rentals. I’m not sure if I can generally take advantage of them – time, familiarity. Well, maybe a handlebar mount for my Android, and spare power in case I need to charge up? If the weather forecast didn’t call for thunderstorms this week, I might’ve borrowed a bike and used it to get around. What about a folding bike? Two of my friends take folding bicycles with them on trips. That might work, too, because then I won’t have to think about rental hours or availability. I tend to pack light. My travel clothes fit in my carry-on, which means I can keep the suitcase for the bicycle. A bicycle would give me better range and might come in handy if I can’t hitch a ride with a coworker. Would a folding bicycle be worth the investment? It will primarily be useful for solo air travel, and I don’t plan to take more than two or three such trips over the next year. (Note: Watch out for airline fees!) It may also be useful for subway or bus-assisted trips – not the one to work, but maybe when visiting friends. If it’s light enough, I might also use it for short trips in spring and fall, when my town cruiser is hung on the bike rack.

Taxi/bus: The null option is worth keeping in mind, given the few times I might want a bicycle. This is really about making sure I have emergency power for my phone, the phone number for local taxi companies, and enough cash in case they don’t take credit cards.

What about push scooters? Other people swear by them, as they fold up smaller and are lighter than even the lightest folding bikes. A folded-up scooter is less bulky than a folded-up bicycle, and many models can be rolled along like strollers or shopping carts. Pushing myself might be interesting given the flat shoes I typically wear, though – I might change into a pair of sneakers. A push scooter would primarily be useful for getting around town on solo trips in conjuction with public transit. It might also be useful for going to the library or to the grocery store for quick trips, and for getting to the subway station when I’m not biking to work (when rain is expected, or if my bike’s still up on the rack). I walk to the supermarket or library about twice a week, but this is usually a social walk with W- and J- too. How can I test this idea? •

Check out the push scooters in Toronto. Check prices, feel, etc. Rainbow Songs (Roncesvalles) sells the Xootr Mg Push Scooter with fender/brake for $243.78. It’s ~$229 in the US, so it looks like getting it in Canada will be fine, although the US will have more choice. There’s also the Razor A5, which Toys R Us sells. Advantage of being short: I can raid the teens’ scooter lineup, although the perks of grown-up scooters look tempting.

How can I test this idea? •

Bikeshare program: Cheapest, if available. Will need helmet and lock. May have a hard time adjusting bike height. Dependent on bike sharing locations – usually only downtown core.

•

Rentals: Inexpensive for trips shorter than 1 week. Dependent on bike availability, rental shop hours, and location.

•

Check scooter prices in the US. Plan to spend an extra day looking around, perhaps? Maybe I can visit friends and have stuff shipped.

•

Bringing bike over: $100+/trip + bike packing materials. May be difficult to get from the airport to the hotel with a bicycle and a suitcase. Larger van, more costly?

•

•

Shipping bike over: Some people ship their bikes by FedEx or UPS. This is a little scary, though, and requires that I find a mailing store for the way back.

Walking. The null alternative to a scooter would simply be more walking, maybe with extra power for my phone/GPS or a separate GPS unit with longer battery life. Extra power for phone seems like a better bet, so that I can call a cab if needed – and I’ve got the MintyBoost for that, I just need to fix the electrical short.

•

Folding bike: $400-500, maybe more? Might be easier to lug, though. Airline bike fees might mean that renting would be cheaper. Plus side: it will be my height,

If the forecasted thunderstorm lightens up, I’m going to take the bus down into Boulder tonight to check out some of their thrift stores and to try the dining options along Pearl street. While there, I

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can think about which of the options would have given me the most benefit.

May 20, 2011 Categories: geek, kaizen, shopping, travel

Hmm. Thoughts? Experiences? Advice?

From Thursday evening: Success! I spent late afternoon and evening wandering around Pearl Street Mall and thereabouts in Boulder, Colorado.

2011-05-17 Tue 14:37

Ordered a Kindle with free 3G http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22242 May 18, 2011 - Categories: geek, kaizen, travel After much consideration (and you know how I analyze my decisions), I ordered the 6″ Kindle with free 3G and WiFi. I chose the smaller Kindle instead of the DX because I have tiny hands, and the Internet said that the DX might get a little tiring to carry if you have small hands. I chose the Kindle instead of an iPad or Android tablet because I wanted a device for travel (decent battery life and the ability to search for addresses / public transit directions). Roaming data charges for iPad or Android use would be really expensive. Even if Amazon discontinues Whispernet (as it might – who knows?), it’ll be worth it if I can get a good couple of years. Books will actually be a nice bonus, not the key selling feature. I read a ton of books, and the Kindle can read the EPUB books I check out of the Toronto Public Library. It can also handle PDFs. You can bet that I’m going to try Albert Harkness’ “An Easy Method for Beginners in Latin” as soon as I get the Kindle unboxed and charged up. I might as well learn something on the way to the airport. =) It’ll be better than my Android, which has problems viewing PDFs with images in them. The Harkness e-book is all images (it’s a scan of an out-ofcopyright book), so I haven’t been able to read it at all on my Android. Of course, there’s actually buying books from the Kindle store and having them delivered on the fly… Tempting! I will have to set a book budget. I hardly buy books now – the library’s been enough for me – but I may get swayed by the new releases that will be instantly available. Here’s hoping that Amazon’s delivery mechanism goes without a hitch and I receive my Kindle on Friday! If not, I’ll have to figure out how to reship the package back home. Fingers crossed! 2011-05-18 Wed 22:09

Travel updates: GPS, Pearl Street, Vibram toe shoes http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22243

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I walked around a bit more, checking out Buffalo Exchange and Goldmine Vintage. I like browsing through second-hand stores. You get a more eclectic, more comprehensive feel for a place’s style, and you can often pick up some great deals. Both stores had smaller selections than Goodwill, but they had interesting items. I didn’t buy anything, though. Looking at clothes in general makes me want to get back to my fabric stash and my sewing machine. =) I did look around for inspiration, and I experimented with some colour combinations and silhouettes.

From Phone While walking along the Pearl Street Mall, I came across Outdoor Divas, a store focused on women’s sports clothing and accessories. I found some travel things I liked. Outdoor Divas also stocked Vibram, the toe shoes I remember reading about on a productivity blog. I’d been curious about Vibram for a while. It’s supposed to be a more natural way to walk, because your toes can go where they’re supposed to go instead of being confined and deformed by a narrow toe box. I have wide feet and I avoid shoes that squeeze my toes, but Vibram shoes would be taking that one logical step further. MEC occasionally stocks them in Canada, but it was somewhat cheaper to get them in the US considering currency values, foreign exchange fees, and taxes. Being able to fit them to find the right size for me was certainly helpful, and it was great having better shoes to walk through the rain with! I also picked up a pair of performance toe socks – wicking, fast-drying, and with a colorful pattern for extra fun. (Performance toe socks! By golly.) For dinner, I had udon topped with tofu at Hapa Restaurant. It was so delicious and so filling!

The soup was delicately flavoured and the tofu was just right. They’re justifiably proud of their udon, and it was the perfect way to round off a cold, rainy day. I made it back to the Boulder Transit Center with plenty of time to spare. The BOLT bus (Boulder-Longmont; the city has cute names for bus routes, such as HOP, SKIP, and JUMP) took me to the Twin Peaks mall (fare: $4), and I walked to the hotel. Being able to review my route using the GPS made me worry much less about missing my stop or walking around the outside of the mall. Thoughts: Neither a bike nor a push scooter would’ve been of much use for that excursion. It was all about walking – but then again, I stuck pretty closely to the pedestrian mall downtown. For pedestrian-oriented places, I might just need GPS and possibly 3G. For places that are spread further apart or that lack sidewalks, a bike might come in handy. CoPilot Live rocks. I set it to turn the backlight on near turns and to warn me of upcoming turns. This was great for walking around and for making sense of my bus ride while minimizing battery use. I also really liked the local search for points of interest, which is how I found my way back to Hapa. Sweet! I can save battery for GPS by skipping WiFi on my Android. With some discipline, I managed to avoid using my Android for WiFi browsing until I was safely back in my hotel room. WiFi drains the battery surprisingly quickly. I had run out of battery on Wednesday, when I had used my Android for lots of browsing before leaving for my adventure. With WiFi off, my phone battery lasted through a few hours of GPS navigation, and it still had about 50% left when I reached the hotel. Hey, this Vibram thing looks promising. I’ve just started wearing this funny-shaped shoe, but I think it’s more comfortable than my other flat shoes. I’m already plotting when I’m going to be able to wear them next. Unfortunately, not to the office, but I might head downtown again tomorrow to check out the Goodwill in Boulder. Besides, it’ll be raining. No sense puddle-wading with my leather shoes. I know the Vibrams can deal with puddles. I may buy gloves and legwarmers, though!

Waiting for my Kindle http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22244 May 20, 2011 - Categories: geek

I’m waiting for the delivery of my Kindle. Well, I’m not really waiting for it. I’m waiting for my coworker so that I can hitch a ride with him to the office. But my Kindle has made its way from Arizona to Colorado, with a brief stopover in Ontario. (What?!) It got loaded on a delivery truck at 7:27 AM this morning, and now we’re down to the wire and wondering if it’ll get here before my non-morning-person coworker gets his coffee. No big deal if it doesn’t. I can pick it up when I get back to the hotel. I’m this close to waiting for it and then just taking the bus to work, but that way lies temptation – even though it would be great to fully charge it before heading out later. Must. Resist. 7:56. My coworker has made an appearance. Oh well! I’ll see my Kindle later. =)

Presentation draft: Mentoring on the Network http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22245 May 21, 2011 Categories: mentoring, presentation, speaking Gail LeCocq asked me if I wanted to give a presentation for the Other-Than-TraditionalOffice (OTTO) group in Toronto. At the time, I was preparing The Busy Person’s Guide to Learning from the Network, so I suggested that. When she got back in touch a ew weeks later to confirm, though, I realized that I wanted to talk about a different topic instead. I suggested a topic on mentoring, which several people had asked me about. Here’s a rough draft. Mentoring on the Network View more presentations from Sacha Chua Why Mentoring. We all know mentoring is good for your career, but sometimes it’s hard to make time to find and meet with mentors. Here’s how mentoring can make a big difference in the way you work: •

Information: Mentors can help you learn complex tools or processes, review your work, and avoid or resolve problems.

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Advice: Mentors can share insights you didn’t even know you needed. Mentors can also help you understand your hidden strengths and weaknesses.

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Accountability: Mentors can help you commit to your goals and stay motivated.

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Stretching: Mentors can challenge you to grow and call you out if you’re slacking off.

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Connection: Mentors can help you navigate a large organization and find just the right people who can help you.

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Sponsorship: Mentors can help you find opportunities you may not hear about yourself, or convince people to take a chance on you. Mentors can also speak up for you when people are making decisions.

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Social interaction: Regular mentoring conversations can bring some of that social interaction back into remote work. Challenges and advantages

So mentoring is good, but how can you convince someone to invest the time and energy into mentoring you, particularly if you can’t make that face-to-face connection with them or develop familiarity by working together in a colocated office? Mentoring can be difficult if you’re a remote employee. In an office, you might bump into someone you admire and ask them questions, your manager might walk over and introduce you to someone, or you might buy someone coffee or lunch while picking their brain. When you’re remote, you need to be more creative about connecting with people. On the plus side, you can connect with possible mentors around the world. This means you can learn from very different perspectives. You can get a sense of what life and work is like in different business units and geographies. Finding mentors In IBM, you can use the Bluepages company directory system to find people who have volunteered to mentor other people. IBM Learning organizes speed-mentoring events where you can connect with many possible mentors, ask quick questions, and follow up for additional help or introductions. IBMers are also usually open to email requests or questions. Mentors can be older than you or younger than you, in the same business unit or in a different one, next door or around the world. Keep your mind open, and reach out. It doesn’t hurt to ask. You can build a mentoring relationship over time. Start by connecting with your potential mentor and asking for a small piece of advice. Act on that advice if it’s good. Send a thank-you note with the results. Ask for more advice, and share more updates. Share what you’ve been learning from other people, too. If it turns out to be a good fit for both you and the other person, you might ask if

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you can set up a regular monthly chat to learn more. If your potential mentor posts blog entries or profile updates, you can use that to build a relationship as well. Read what they post, comment, and share any updates on insights you’ve picked up from them and applied in your work or life. Send thanks – or better yet, post your thanks online too. Making the most of mentoring •

Have a clear idea of what you want to learn, how your potential mentor can make a difference, and why he or she may want to help you.

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Set up a regular time to connect with your mentor – once a month, for example. Meet in person if possible, or connect using a video-conferencing program like Skype.

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Talk about communication preferences with your mentor. Some people like having very focused meetings. Send them prepared questions before your conversation. Other people prefer e-mail or blog conversations over phone conversations. Try that out.

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Take notes. Mentors invest time into helping you, and you can save them time and increase the ROI by writing down what you’ve learned in a form that they can easily share with other people.

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Thank people! Helping others

Helping others is fulfilling, and you’ll learn a lot along the way. Even if you don’t consider yourself an expert, you’ve probably learned a lot of things you take for granted. You can help people get started, save time, and learn more. Give mentoring a try! Some ways to connect with mentees: •

Talk to your manager and other people about the things you can help people with. They can refer people to you.

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Give presentations and share your slides. There are many groups in IBM who organize regular conference calls, and they’re always looking for speakers.

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Attend virtual and real-life networking events. Ask people what they want to learn or what could help them be more successful.

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Post profile updates or write blog posts. This helps people learn what you’re good at and get a sense of who you are.

Don’t forget to mention your mentoring during the Personal Business Commitments (PBCs) review. It’s a way of giving back to the community and investing in others! Next steps Now we get to the networking part of this presentation, where you might find a mentor or connect with a mentee. You’ll probably want pen and paper for this one, so you can write down people’s names. Let’s go around and introduce ourselves. Say your first and last name, then answer these questions: What do you need help with? What can you help people with? Then say your first and last name again, in case people missed your name the first time around. (Spell your name if you need to.) If you’re listening to someone’s introduction and something interests you, feel free to connect on this call or through Sametime! What do you think? What would you like to share with other people looking for mentors or mentees? 2011-05-20 Fri 14:55

Notes from the airport: Missed my flight; not the end of the world after all http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22246 May 21, 2011 - Categories: travel, Uncategorized For the first time in my life, I missed my flight. I was in tears. I called American Express, and was on hold with them while they rerouted my itinerary through Vancouver. It will be an overnight flight and I’ll arrive Sunday morning instead of Saturday night, but I’ll arrive. Then I called W-, who told me things were going to be okay and helped me remember that I was strong. I don’t feel very strong at the moment – my fingers shake – but I can feel the storm of panic and frustration and self-pity pass. Denver International Airport has free wireless, but I can’t seem to connect to it. I used my Kindle to send him a Twitter direct message with the flight details the travel agent gave me. I may be frazzled, but I still turn to frugal workarounds for roaming charges. There’s a lesson in here about timezones, public transit, and triple-checking my departure time against my printed ticket instead of my copied itinerary. Better to learn the lesson this time than at a more crucial moment – that’s what I always tell myself when I make a mistake large enough to

throw me off-kilter. Better now than later. Better a small situation than a life-or-death one. Going home, with Monday a day off, on a US-Canada flight, a missed flight has much smaller ripples than an inbound flight on a critical business trip or an expensive personal trip halfway across the world–and I still get to distill from it whatever it can teach me about life and myself. That’s the second thing I tell myself during these hiccups: It all becomes part of the story, the rough watersas well as the smooth. I’m learning that after that initial flood of panic, I feel this preternatural calm sets in. I can’t change the past, so I don’t fret about it. No amount of worrying is going to change my short-term future. This nervous energy can be channelled into writing. Not too long from now, there’ll be a day when everything will be back to normal. Why stress out about things I can’t change and that won’t be permanent? Everything is going to be okay. The situation is not that much different from a hypothetical world where I’m sitting in the airport patiently waiting for my intentionally-booked flight to Vancouver with a connection to Toronto. I’ve done that before. After setting the wheels in motion, it is an easy thing to shift to that track, like rail lines that start at different stations and converge. I learn what I can from stress, then call up that feeling of purposeful waiting. Missing a flight, surprisingly enough, isn’t the end of the world. (Even if you miss said flight on May 21, the supposed day of the apocalypse.) Even though this is my first missed flight, the travel agencies and airlines have handled innumerable cases like mine before, and they know what to do. The American Express agent found another route to get me to Toronto. although it takes much longer than my original flight does, and arranges it for the change fee $150 plus the fare difference. Better than losing the full value of the flight, for sure! I don’t know if IBM will allow me to expense the increase in my fare, but if not, I can charge it to my experience fund – and thank goodness I have one, so that unexpected expenses don’t plunge me into more lasting troubles. I already know the process for paying part of my American Express card in case IBM policy doesn’t cover the itinerary change. Even though the flight lands early in the morning, W- will be there to meet me. Boy, will I be ever so glad to see him! Everything’s going to work out okay. Worst-case scenario, I pay for the fare difference myself, and it takes me a little longer to save up for my next goals. No big deal. W- is right. I’m strong. I bounce back almost involuntarily. Maybe this hiccup will help me become even more resilient, if I remember to take the right lessons from it, if a future crisis makes

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me think, “Aha, I know how to deal with this, I’ve survived something similar before” instead of “I’m such an idiot, I can’t do anything right, like that time I missed my flight.”

There are more thoughts for this list, but I’m at the gate waiting for the flight to Vancouver. Everything will work out. 2011-05-21 Sat 17:00

Things I am glad about: •

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•

•

•

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Amazon Kindle 3G connection. I’ve been talking about this so much on my blog and on Twitter, I know! But in areas without free, reliable WiFi networks, it’s been really really useful to be able to search for information and post updates. Travel agencies, airline personnel, and lots of other travellers. I’m glad I booked this work trip through American Express, because they knew how to work the system in order to get me home. For our personal trips, I’m going to make sure I write down the toll-free numbers for the airlines so that I can get to them quickly if I need to reroute. I’m glad that airline personnel have handled many other missed flights before, and I’m a tiny bit glad that other people have run into and solved these problems. Can you imagine being the first person to miss a flight in the Chocolate stroopwafels. As I headed out the door of our house, W- gave me two chocolate stroopwafels from our trip to the Netherlands. “For emergencies,” he said. I ate the first stroopwafel on the way out, cheering myself up after facing the prospect of a week-long trip. I saved the second stroopwafel. This counts as an emergency worthy of a stroopwafel, I believe, and I will have it shortly. The thought itself is comforting already. Air travel and computers. Isn’t it amazing that we can fly through the air? And that computers can link together different routes, different cities, different companies? Can you imagine what it might’ve been like to miss a steamship that runs only once a month? Writing. If you had told me in school that writing could be a comfort and a joy, I might’ve fallen in love with it then instead of getting bored by all the book reports and critical essays we wrote for teachers and never for ourselves. Writing will be my last and longest love, I think, even after time strips away friends and family, and hands and eyes fail. …

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Victoria Day weekend: back to the garden http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22247 May 22, 2011 - Categories: gardening Back home and back to the garden! The plants had been very busy growing while I was away. The oregano at the back has doubled in size. The peas are climbing up the twine. The blueberry bushes are flowering. The dill’s starting to sprout. Some of my spring onions have even made it, although a few had been dug up by squirrels who disagree with my landscaping. The Victoria Day long weekend practically marks the start of the main gardening season. The garden centres are open during the holiday, and the herb and vegetable starters have joined the annuals. People are out planting. W- and I walked around the neighborhood looking at people’s gardens. Down the street, Awesome Garden Lady’s plants are lightyears ahead of ours, and she’s already started harvesting herbs. We looked at the flowers in other people’s gardens, the way the perennials and annuals were arranged, the color combinations that caught our eyes. We identified fruits, herbs, and vegetables tucked into unusual places: mint slowly spreading across a front yard, alliums (onions, probably) with delicate bulb-like flowers, strawberries peeking out between hostas. I think we’ll plant the front yard for herbal teas and other edibles. =) That will be fun and useful! Here’s what I’d like to plant: Common name

Height

Sage

2-3′

Bergamot

2′

Anise hyssop

2-4′

Lemon verbena (potted/annual?)

4′, can be more compact

Catnip (potted)

3-4′

Stevia (not hardy)

2-3′

Peppermint (potted)

2′

Variegated common thyme

6-10″

Sweet woodruff

6-12″

German chamomile

12-24″

Lemon balm (potted)

12-24″

Curly spearmint (potted)

12-24″

Pot marigold (annual)

18″

Purple basil (annual)

18-24″

replanted the front yard as a herbal tea garden, with the sidewalk box planted as rows of colourful annuals (including one row of edible flowers, the petunias). We dug up the boxwood and juniper shrubs, placed the new plants, and chatted with neighbours and passers-by who complimented us on our garden. We even had an extended conversation with Awesome Garden Lady Down the Street, who as it turns out is Mrs. Wong, and who gave us extra vegetable seeds and plenty of advice.

Lavender

12-24″

Here’s what we planted today:

Golden lemon thyme

6-8″

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stevia

Marjoram

12″

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lemongrass

Cilantro (annual)

18-24″

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bergamot

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spearmint (in a pot, of course)

This is roughly based on http://www.countryliving.com/outdoor/garden -plans-finder/herbal-tea-garden-plan-2, with possible substitutions for things that are not hardy in Zone 5. I’ll probably arrange it in some kind of a circle, with the taller plants in the middle.

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peppermint (in the same pot)

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garlic chives

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curry

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tricolor sage

The library has a couple of books on herbal tea gardens. Exciting!

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lemon thyme

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chamomile

2011-05-22 Sun 19:13

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lots of basil

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lots of lavender

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miscellaneous flowers

Gardening: Horticultural investments, social dividends http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22248 May 23, 2011 Categories: connecting, gardening, introvert It started when we peeked through the bedroom blinds and saw our next-door neighbour cross the street to the house of the neighbour opposite us. He waved to them and took a wheelbarrow of triple-mix soil from the cubic yard bag sitting in front of the house, rolling it back down the curb, across the street, and up the other curb to his house. “They must’ve gone in together on a yard bag of soil,” W- said. It probably didn’t require much neighbourly coordination – a casual conversation, an offer of help – but we envied the ease and connection it implied. We knew our neighbours on either side of our house, but not so much the ones across the street. How could we get to know more people in the neighbourhood? Gardening, apparently, is an excellent way to meet people over here. Investing in perennials and annuals turns out to pay social dividends. We dug up and gave our front-yard irises to one of our neighbours – we made space for new plants, and he added some more colour to his garden. We

Weeding and cultivating the front yard will no doubt keep us busy throughout the season, and familiarity leads to conversations. I hope to get quite a few herbal infusions out of it too, and perhaps even a garden party. Our back yard garden is growing well, but is understandably limited as a conversation starter. If you’re an introvert with a front yard, you might want to give gardening a try too. It’s easier for both W- and me to talk to people when there’s an excuse to do so, instead of just chatting with people out of the blue. Gardening provides an excellent excuse – people talk to us, or we can ask about other people’s gardens as we walk around. Lawns might draw remarks if they’re well-kept, but a more diverse and colourful garden will probably be easier. Have fun! 2011-05-23 Mon 17:35

Experimenting with standing desks http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22249 May 24, 2011 - Categories: geek, kaizen, life

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(From May 12) People in IT tend to spend a lot of time sitting in front of a computer. Unfortunately, sitting is bad for you, so we’ve been looking for ways to improve the structure of our work. I came down one morning to find the router on the kitchen table – not the networking kind of router, but the woodworking kind of router that spins at more than 20,000 rpm. You see, W- built a benchtop router table last year. The router table houses the router and has a long edge that fits into the Workmate vise for stability. With the router lowered and the long edge set along the kitchen table’s edge, the router table turned out to be about the right height for a standing desk for W-. I’m shorter than W- is, so I needed a footstool to correct the ergonomics of our router-kitchen-table combo. This was inconvenient, but we found another option for me: the kitchen counters. With my slippers (Kaypee Islander flip-flops with thick soles and comfortable support; I’ve had them for years), I found it easy to type on my computer throughout the day. W- reported that the printer downstairs also provides a platform at the right height for a laptop. Once you start looking around for surfaces at about the right height, you find many. If standing works out, the next step might be to find a semi-permanent place, maybe even hook up a monitor for even better ergonomics. Doesn’t take a lot of money to experiment with standing desks. Just a little creativity. =) 2011-05-12 Thu 19:09

The flow of opportunities in a large company http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22250 May 25, 2011 - Categories: ibm, work Henry Will asked me how I got to work on such interesting projects. What worked particularly well: blogs? presentations? networking? Working in a big company is a bit different from marketing yourself outside. In a big company, it’s easier to establish and maintain large networks of people, and the organizational structure also helps pass messages up and down. When you hook in through a number of connectors (for example, my manager), figure out the tools for finding opportunities on your own, or build a reputation, opportunities can flow easily. Outside a large company, word of mouth is still powerful, but it

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can be difficult to build those relationships over distance and with an large number of competitors. I do a lot of work related to Web 2.0, social media, Gen Y, PHP, Rails, and AJAX. For consulting and strategy work related to Web 2.0, social media, or Gen Y, I find that most of the leads come in through the presentations I’ve given, or from people I’ve worked with in the past. Short presentations with catchy titles or designs can go a long way. I haven’t been proactively investing in presentations. I tend to create them on request. Presentations take a lot of time for me to prepare, so I try to maximize their ROI. In fact, I get a lot more value from the blog posts that I write before a presentation (full speaker notes, ideas, etc.) and after a presentation (questions, lessons learned). Many of my PHP/Drupal, Ruby/Rails, and AJAX work comes in through my manager, who knows about my different skills and interests. Sometimes I search our professional marketplace for upcoming opportunities requiring those skills so that I’l always have projects in the pipeline. I actually like this work more than consulting (which can be fuzzy and hard to define), so my manager and I try to pick development projects that will keep me busy and happy while still being flexible enough to accept consulting work. If you work in a company, it really helps if your manager knows what you’re good at and what you’re interested in. He or she may be plugged into streams of opportunities, and help the right ones flow to you. It also helps to invest time into sharing what you know and helping other people out. That way, people know what you’re good at, and they can keep an eye out for things that fit too. You might get to the point of having too many opportunities, which is a great problem to have. If so, build relationships and help others by sharing those opportunities. Good luck and have fun!

Taking a break while working on presentations http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22251 May 26, 2011 - Categories: speaking I’m taking a break from working on presentations. Not a long break – there’s still a lot of work that needs to be done – but I need to get myself back into the swing of preparing presentations after spending so many weeks doing development. This means stopping when I can tell my mind is resisting, figuring out why, and tweaking how I work until it works again. Many people would rather watch presentations or flip through slides than read blog posts or books or search results. for presentations. I really should

just become okay with slurping in tons of information, digesting it, and regurgitating a summary. The core of the resistence: I’d much rather build cool websites than talk about trends. Development is clear. You know what you know. You know when you’re making progress. You know when you’re correct. At the end of the day, things are better. Presentations are a whole lot fuzzier. There’s this entire Jacobian struggle with a topic, trying to get your arms around it, struggling to understand and be understandable. You’re never quite sure if people will actually change their lives (even a little bit?) after listening to you. I always try to influence people’s lives through presentations. Why spend time preparing or speaking for anything less? But then there’s more risk of rejection – or worse, apathy.

Developing a workflow with Autodesk Sketchbook Pro http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22252 May 27, 2011 Categories: design, drawing, sketches, speaking J- is digitally inking her writing assignment using Autodesk Sketchbook Pro on the Cintiq 12WX drawing tablet downstairs. I’d become a big fan of Autodesk Sketchbook Pro while working on it on my laptop, so I thought she might prefer it over GIMP. The pen-based controls are intuitive, and the feel of digital drawing is better than the frustration of redoing and reinking on paper. Now she’s off zooming in and out, adjusting her brush sizes, and working with a large and zoomable canvas. =)

I try to use presentations to change my own life, too. At least I learn something, try something, do something. Besides, all the ideas become part of me, raw material for unexpected combinations in the alchemy of learning. It’s a struggle to hold down the imposter syndrome that threatens to choke me. I remind myself that these rough presentations can be drafts for people to improve on, perhaps the spark that triggers something else. It’s okay. Maybe I should stop accepting presentation invitations for now, and focus instead on creating new presentations as a way of deadline-less deliberate practice. I can commit to giving them in person only if I’ve created and revised them already. Maybe I should do what Jonathan Coulton does: set the challenge of making a Thing a week. He’s brilliant and he writes funny songs. Maybe I’ll have more fun making presentations when I get better at making presentations through practice. Ways I can get better at making presentations: •

Research: Find sources, collect statistics and quotes, read extensively, keep notes.

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Organization: Experiment with structures, revise presentations, organize thoughts.

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Design: Experiment with graphic design. Try text again. Play with images. Don’t get boxed in.

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Delivery: Practise. Watch other people’s presentations for inspiration. Experiment. Find the fun in this again.

I’ve been using Autodesk Sketchbook Pro to do more and more of my presentation planning, too. The workflow is slightly different from Microsoft OneNote. With OneNote, I can draw storyboards, then scale up the storyboards without any loss of information and without jaggy lines. (The joys of vector drawing!) Autodesk Sketchbook Pro lets me scale up rough sketches, but the interpolation isn’t always smooth. Instead, I storyboard everything. Then I hide any layers I’m not working with, lower the opacity of my storyboard layer, add new layers on top, and draw each slide as a full-size layer. I do any colouring on a second layer below the ink, so that the black lines stay crisp. The finished layers are easy to copy to a separate presentation program. So how does my Autodesk Sketchbook Pro workflow compare to Inkscape? When I use Inkscape (a proper vector drawing program) for presentations, I usually set up an infinite canvas, and clone a series of rectangles for my storyboard. Inkscape makes it easy to sketch elements here and there, rearranging them on my storyboard, rotating and scaling them to fit. After I do a little masking and line adjusting, I import the finished slides into a presentation program. Simple shapes are easy to colour. If I need to shade things more, I can import the images into GIMP.

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I can still do text presentations, but they’re a little less fun. ;) Drawing takes time, but I like the practice. How do you do your presentations or drawings?

Plans for next week •

Work o

[ ] Finish Gen Y/Gen C presentation

o

[ ] Get started on project M

o

[ ] Wrap up on project C

2011-05-27 Fri 18:52

Weekly review: Weeks ending May 20, 2011 and May 27, 2011 http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22256 May 28, 2011 - Categories: weekly

•

Relationships

Things have been a little hectic around here. =) Over the past two weeks •

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•

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Work o

[X] Conduct training for project I in Colorado

o

[X] Keep an eye on project M

o

[X] Sort out upcoming projects

o

[X] Prepare for social media / Gen Y talk for client D

o

Booked flight to New York

o

Biked to the office twice

o

Presented “Mentoring on the Network” to 50 IBMers

Relationships o

[X] Catch up on mail

o

[X] Write more about Netherlands trip

o

[X] Plant more herbs and greens – basil basil basil basil

o

[X] Make bagels

o

Helped hem J-’s pants – made a hair bow, ribbon, and brooch from the scraps

o

[X] Set aside writing time while on business trip, and actually write

o

[X] Think about what I want to learn next – more sewing projects?

o

Found out what happens when you miss a plane (world does not end)

o

Lots of gardening! Redid front yard as a tea garden

Life

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o

[X] Help J- with homework

o

[X] Make cute cat soap holder

o

[ ] Fix this calendar bug: what can I do to make it easier to remember events and tasks?

o

[ ] Draw a presentation-style thing for myself =)

Life

Dealing with a bad calendar week http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22257 May 29, 2011 - Categories: geek, kaizen, life I’m having a bad calendar week. I don’t check my calendar often enough, and I miss things. The other day, I missed a Skype chat. Yesterday, I sprinted to the subway station in order to get downtown for a 4:30 PM performance of the opera Orfeo ed Euridice. I made it to my 5th-floor seat just before the lights dimmed. I’ve missed other things in the past – not many, but enough to point to a clear life-bug that I need to hack. What can I do to get back into the rhythm of having a solid, trusted system for calendar reminders and tasks? Put it in my way. I always check my Android in the morning. I can clean up my task list, add calendar entries to my lock screen (I’m trying out Executive Assistant on my phone), and get into the habit of checking those before I indulge in reading feeds. I added a calendar widget to my home screen too – I think that will help. Set up interruptions. I can set my calendar alarm to something I usually notice, such as my ringtone. When I combine this with using timed mutes instead of manually muting my phone, that should make it easier to let important things interrupt me. Here we go!

May 29, 2011: bagels, banana bread, bok choi, bath stuff, and books http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22260 May 29, 2011 - Categories: life, sketches

Today was a wonderfully domestic day. I did laundry, baked bagels and banana bread, helped Jmake a soap holder based on Nyan Cat, planted bok choi seeds, and sewed a bright orange cover for my Kindle so that I stood a better chance of finding it around the house. I’m starting to feel properly relaxed, slowly unfolding myself from the ack!stress!stress!stress! of travel. Not too relaxed – I’ve got another short trip coming up – but I’m beginning to feel normal again.

Made a kitty soap holder http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22263 May 30, 2011 - Categories: sewing I think I’m getting the hang of crafting. When Jsaid that she was thinking of sewing a stuffed-toylike soap holder for one of her school projects, I prototyped something along those lines to see how easy it would be to make. I liked how mine turned out:

It can act like a washcloth, and it can hold all those little scraps of soap that otherwise fall down the sides. =)

Seasons and salad days http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22264

May 30, 2011 - Categories: cooking The stove idles as we switch gear to salads. No heat. No cooking. Just the whirl-whirl-whirl of leaves in the salad spinner, a quick whisk-up of salad dressing, and whatever I can grab from the fridge. Today: chicken on top of kale and lettuce tossed with a lemon vinaigrette. Even the chicken was a kitchen shortcut, bought from the supermarket rotisserie. Salads don’t fill me as much as a warm meal would, except with a certain self-satisfaction. I tell myself that salad is better for me. This helps me ward off the temptations of rice and adobo, pan-fried bangus, spaghetti bolognese. Mmm. If I can eat those in the heat of Manila summer, I can certainly make them during Toronto’s spring. But we still have salad greens in the fridge, and they will go to waste soon enough. We’ve signed up for a summer share of a community-supported farm, so more vegetables will come in. No sense freezing the spinach, then, or saving the beets. May as well eat them. Behavioural economics in the kitchen: the loss-aversion approach to eating well. So I stock up on slivered almonds, olive oil, and different kinds of vinegar, thumb through recipes for inspiration, and talk myself into enjoying the fruits and vegetables that are harder to get the rest of the year. In the Philippines, where it’s warm all the time, my meals felt abstracted from the seasons. Here in Canada, nature’s influence is practically inescapable: what to buy at the supermarket, what I feel like eating, how I want to prepare it. Winter is baking season and soup season. Spring brings the first salads. Summer is a burst of colour and flavour, barbecue afternoons and ice-cream treats. Fall winds down with an abundance of root crops and the return to pies. I miss being able to eat whatever I like. No, I miss the constancy of those likes unshifted by the sun. I still like baked lasagna, but it feels odd to make it when the days are so long and the spinach is wilting. Basic Vinaigrette (adapted from the Joy of Cooking) About 1 1/2 cups, which is more than enough for two people’s worth of salad as a main dish 1 small clove garlic, peeled 2 – 3 pinches of salt Mash into a paste; the tines of a sturdy fork will do the trick 1/3 to 1/2 cup red wine vinegar or fresh lemon juice 1 shallot, minced – you can also use part of an onion; I didn’t have any

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1 teaspoon Dijon mustard (optional) Salt and ground black pepper to taste Whisk with the garlic and salt – use the same fork you used to crush the garlic, to cut down on the washing Add slowly, streaming it in with one hand while you whisk with the other: 1 cup extra-virgin olive oil – or really, however much oil you need; taste periodically to make sure it still tastes like vinegar or lemon juice instead of being too olive-y.

Learning from Mr. Collins: Practice, conversation, and what to do when someone says something mean http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22267 May 31, 2011 Categories: communication, life, relationship "You judge very properly," said Mr. Bennet, "and it is happy for you that you possess the talent of flattering with delicacy. May I ask whether these pleasing attentions proceed from the impulse of the moment, or are the result of previous study?" "They arise chiefly from what is passing at the time, and though I sometimes amuse myself with suggesting and arranging such little elegant compliments as may be adapted to ordinary occasions, I always wish to give them as unstudied an air as possible," [said Mr. Collins.]

someone. Deliberate practice makes perfect, after all. For example, if someone says something sexist, I know my response won’t be silence, it will be something like "That’s sexist!" in as joking a way as I can manage – and I’ve practised not taking it personally, so it bounces off me. (Kapoing!) I’m still figuring out what to do when someone says something mean. It happens to the best of us. I struggle to avoid saying mean things, too. I’m glad my first instinct isn’t to fight fire with fire, because that just makes things worse. I can recognize when something may be mean and stick up for myself: "That’s mean!" – not "That’s not fair!" or "That’s not nice!", which are a bit soft. I can separate what someone says in the heat of a moment from who they are and from what I think about myself, and I’m working on getting faster and more instinctive at doing so. The Internet suggests several ways to deal with hurtful words: •

Ignore it. It’s a gift, like praise is, and you don’t have to take it. (There’s a Zen story about that…)

•

Translate it. You can pick out the useful parts of hurtful words, work with them, and throw the rest away. People are human. We’re not perfect communicators. Somewhere in there, there might be something you can work with – or at the very least, an opportunity to step back, look at the person as a whole, and appreciate what you can about that person. Everything teaches you something.

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Ask for clarification. Sometimes this is enough to slow things down and raise the conversation to a reasonable level.

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Respond positively or surprisingly. "I love you too" is a popular come-back, even when responding to strangers’ insults.

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Call a time-out or walk away, particularly if things are turning into a vicious circle. You don’t want to be drawn into a fight that throws you off your balance. This doesn’t mean ignoring the issue entirely. Hit the pause button, untangle the issues, and discuss them when you’ve got some distance.

Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen In Pride and Prejudice, Mr. Collins thinks up compliments and practises them until they flow smoothly. He comes off smarmy and supercilious, but the idea is generally useful. I have a confession to make: I practise responses. After I find myself tongue-tied or I respond to something with less grace than I want to, I rehearse it and similar situations in my mind so that I can figure out a better way to respond. I think about translations that help me get to what people might really mean, phrases to use, tones of voice to adopt, ways to bring the conversation back on track. It’s a little like the way a witty retort might come to you hours after an argument (there’s even a name for this: l’ esprit de l’escalier, staircase wit), but done deliberately, and for good and self-improvement instead of for scoring points or getting back at

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I want to get to the point of being able to respond with loving-kindness to whatever life throws at me. How do you deal with the occasional hiccup in people’s niceness?

Setting up Samba

June 2011

VMWare, Samba, Eclipse, and XDebug: Mixing a virtual Linux environment with a Microsoft Windows development environment http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22270 June 1, 2011 Categories: development, drupal, geek I’m starting the second phase of a Drupal development project, which means I get to write about all sorts of geeky things again. Hooray! So I’m investing some time into improving my environment set-up, and taking notes along the way. This time, I’m going to try developing code in Eclipse instead of Emacs, although I’ll dip into Emacs occasionally if I need to do anything involving keyboard macros or custom automation. Setting up a good Eclipse environment will help me use XDebug for line-by-line debugging. vardump can only take me so far, and I still haven’t figured out how to properly use XDebug under Emacs. Configuring Eclipse will also help me help my coworkers, who tend to not be big Emacs fans. (Sigh.) So here’s my current setup: •

A Linux server environment in VMWare, so that I can use all the Unix tools I like and so that I don’t have to fuss about with a WAMP stack

•

Samba for sharing the source code between the Linux VM image and my Microsoft Windows laptop

•

XDebug for debugging

•

Eclipse and PDT for development

I like this because it allows me to edit files in Microsoft Windows or in Linux, and I can use step-by-step debugging instead of relying on var_dump.

Samba allows you to share folders on the network. Edit your smb.conf (mine’s in /etc/samba/) and uncomment/edit the following lines: security = user

… [homes] comment = Home Directories browseable = no read only = no valid users = %S

You may also need to use smbpasswd to set the user’s password. Xdebug Install php5-xdebug or whatever the Xdebug package is for PHP on your system. Edit xdebug.ini (mine’s in /etc/php5/conf.d) and add the following lines to the end: [Xdebug] xdebug.remote_enable=on xdebug.remote_port=9000 xdebug.remote_handler=dbgp xdebug.remote_autostart=1 xdebug.remote_connect_back=1

Warning: this allows debugging access from any computer that connects to it. Use this only on your development image. If you want to limit debugging access to a specific computer, remove the line that refers to remote_connect_back and replace it with this: xdebug.remote_host=YOUR.IP.ADDRESS.HE RE

Eclipse and PDT I downloaded the all-in-one PHP Development Toolkit (PDT) from http://www.eclipse.org/pdt/, unpacked it, and imported my project. After struggling with Javascript and HTML

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validation, I ended up disabling most of those warnings. Then I set up a debug configuration that used Xdebug and the server in the VM image, and voila! Line by line debugging with the ability to look in variables. Hooray! 2011-05-31 Tue 17:37

Hungry hungry compost and other garden updates http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22277 June 1, 2011 Categories: gardening The compost bin chomps through all the organic material we give it. It’s nowhere near the smooth dark brown of finished compost yet, but when I turn it every week, my two full bins have mysteriously become two half-bins of compost. The Internet says it takes a ton of organic material (a literal ton, mind you) to make half a cubic yard of compost. To make two cubic yards of compost, then, you need about one Asian elephant’s weight in organic material. (Yes, I estimate tons in elephants, thanks to hanging out with my dad at the zoo.) So I’ll probably buy lots more cow manure (moo poo, as we call it) to amend the soil next year, instead of hoping that the compost bins will pull through quickly.

•

Cilantro: First true leaves emerging. Thoughts of stir-fries dance through my head.

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Dill: Starting to look all dill-like. Still small, though!

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Lettuce: Starting to go to seed. I may have a baby lettuce salad after all.

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Mint: I had my first cup of homegrown mint tea the other day. Mmmmm.

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Oregano: Thriving like anything. I must make pasta soon.

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Onions, garlic, and garlic chives: Growing around the garden. Quite easy to grow. I think I’ll pull up more perennials next year and plant those instead.

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Peas: More than two feet tall now, climbing up the strings like they’re racing the other seedlings. The ones in the unprotected box near the house are winning.

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Spinach: Probably growing. I think I might be confusing it with weeds, so I’m leaving that section alone for now.

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Strawberries: The new runners have established themselves and are even blooming, which is a pleasant surprise. All the plants are beginning to set fruit. Exciting times! Must pick up straw or some other mulch so that I can keep the berries off the ground. Also, it turns out you can make tea from strawberry leaves. Looking forward to trying that!

•

Tomatoes: Growing slowly, but getting there. I think we might have some kind of blight, though. =|

Other garden updates: •

•

Asparagus: Tall and ferny. This is their second year, so we’re leaving them alone to grow and store energy for next year. Four square feet of asparagus might be too little, though. =) We’ll give it a try anyway! Basil: Still getting established in the garden. Slow new growth.

Blueberries: Setting fruit. I’m going to put up some netting this weekend or next weekend so that we have a chance of tasting some berries, not like last year when the birds and squirrels had them all… Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 320 •

Casualties: a Thai basil plant, and the curry plant in front I planted bok choi last weekend, and I planted some edamame today. We’re more likely to take the time and effort to cook the edamame than the string beans I grew the other year. =) I also sprinkled a lot of lettuce and spinach near the borders, where I

pulled up the lilies of the valley. All those sprouts are coming up now that I’m home enough to keep the soil moist. (Note: Don’t plant lilies of the valley in your garden unless you mean it. They’re invasive and will take over. Ditto mint, which I keep in a pot.) Pity it’s no longer dandelion season. We pulled up almost all of ours and ate them as salads. If we have more next year, I may host a party. We do have a berry tree out back that will be fun to harvest. We missed harvesting it last year, but we caught a lot of berries on a tarp the year before that. I think it would be a good combination with pastry cream, tart shells, maybe some powdered sugar on top. By that time, the tea garden should be growing quite well, too. Garden party! J- said her friends are excited about our tomatoes and peas, so we should have them over to harvest too. Mmm…

It’s Bike Month in Toronto! http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22271 June 2, 2011 - Categories: biking While we don’t have anything like the awesome biking infrastructure of the Netherlands (oh, and all that flat land – envy!) or the widespread bikeson-every-bus mixed commutes of Boulder, Toronto is still pretty decent when it comes to biking. June is Bike Month here, so there’ll be plenty of events coming up! It’s a good time to take to the road and explore routes I don’t normally pass. Here’s what I’m thinking of: •

•

June 3: Friday Night Ride: starts near work, ends up near home, going all along the waterfront. Biking from work on a Friday may be tough (I’ll be bringing a laptop, maybe two) so I may skip this June 4: Saturday Morning Easy Roller Ride: starts near our place, goes to Port Credit in Mississauga,

and I can always stop if I get tired along the way June 18: Bells on Bloor: also starts near High Park (I love being near a common bike starting point!), goes to Queen’s Park

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Not biking-related, but may still get me out of the house: •

June 5: Catch Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides on the IMAX 3D screen downtown – maybe the 12:15PM showing, or the 3:30 one?

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June 12: Toronto Raw/Vegan Festival at 918 Bathurst Street

Anyone want to come along? 2011-05-31 Tue 17:53

Monthly reviews: April and May 2011 http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22274 June 3, 2011 - Categories: monthly Time flies! Travel throws me a little off track when it comes to reviewing, but that’s okay – I’m back on the ground and will probably stay home for at least the next little while. Based on March’s plans: Work •

[X] Get a good prototype together for project C

•

[X] Get the paperwork in place for project M

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[X] Prepare for training on project I

•

[X] Help with other work

•

[X] Assist with “Get Social, Do

Business”

Relationships •

[X] Put together more study group resources

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•

[-] Practise driving – eep!

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[X] Prepare for May trip

Life •

[X] Start garden

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[X] Write and draw a lot

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[X] Focus discretionary time on

plans and experiments

Mostly there, except for the driving bit! I may just register for classes again, or set up a training schedule with W- and stick with it. But it’s summer and I’d much rather bike than sit in a car. Excuses, excuses… =) Here’s what went on in April and May: April: Started learning Latin. Worked on Ruby on Rails project (yay!). Gave a presentation on training. Helped with math study group sessions. Sewed a dress. May: Celebrated my sister’s wedding in the Netherlands! Wore the red dress I made. =D Started the garden. Deployed a PHP site and conducted training in Colorado. Started with community-supported agriculture. Shifted to eating lots of salad and vegetables. Lots of learning. Some sewing, too. My favourite posts: •

Learning from Mr. Collins: Practice, conversation, and what to do when someone says something mean

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Developing a workflow with Autodesk Sketchbook Pro

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Notes from the airport: Missed my flight; not the end of the world after all

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Presentation draft: Mentoring on the Network

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Travel updates: GPS, Pearl Street, Vibram toe shoes

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Finding the bright side of business travel

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Back from the Netherlands

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Tweaking married life for everyday happiness

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Giving a presentation using Autodesk Sketchbook Pro and a web conference

How do I want June to add to my life? I’m looking forward to lots of gardening, lots of biking, and lots of fruits and vegetables. Some of my friends are getting married – hooray! Work is ramping up, too. Back on the development track, making useful websites… Yay!

Decision review: calendars, development, standing desks, toe shoes, Kindle, bike, CSA, Autodesk Sketchbook, blogging http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22278 June 4, 2011 Categories: decision, kaizen, review Calendar reminders on my Android: Working so far. I see the calendar reminders on my lock screen and on my home screen, so there are plenty of reminders. I’ve also started adding more events to my calendar, to increase the reward of checking it. Test cases: Yes, for code’s sake, yes! I’m returning to a Drupal project after several months’ hiatus, and one of the first changes we’re making is extensive: changing a field to a taxonomy, changing lots of logic along the way, making sure all the forms work again… I am so glad I wrote a lot of tests covering the parts I wrote, and I only wish that I got all the other developers to do the same. Laptop battery replacement: Replacing the battery on my tablet was a good idea. I’ve been getting tons of use out of it, particularly now that I’m back in development. Although W’s new tablet does look pretty tempting, I’m going to hold off buying new gadgets for a while.

Developer setup template: I added “Getting started notes” to our developer guide. Slowly getting there! And I’m glad to see that virtual-machine-based development is much easier now, too.

a day. Fine with you so far? If you find the e-mail frequency a bit too much, it might be a good idea to check out Google Reader or another feed reader. You can subscribe to my blog using that, too!

Standing desks: The kitchen counter is now my default standing desk. It’s well-lit, there are plenty of outlets near by, and I can easily refill my water glass or grab a snack.

http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22281 June 4, 2011 - Categories: biking

Vibram toe shoes: Comfortable as anything, and then some. I prefer to wear these instead of my flats when I’m walking around the neighbourhood. W- still thinks they look funny, but that’s okay, he loves me anyway. Kindle 3G: Awesome for looking up things on the go, and for occupying myself during subway rides. I’d still rather ride my bicycle than take the subway, but reading classic literature makes up for the fare and the missed opportunity for great exercise. Folding bike/push scooter: Still haven’t taken the plunge. No local need to do so – I don’t mind saddling up my bike for short trips to the library or supermarket. No travel plans ahead, either.

Bike ride in the rain

I’ve just come back from a bike ride organized by the Toronto Bicycling Network. The ride was supposed to go from High Park to Port Credit, but we stopped at the Tim Hortons near Alexandra Avenue and Lakeshore Road because it was raining so hard. The Tim Hortons we stopped at was just 3.5km from the destination, though, so I’d count that as mostly there. =) In total, I biked 33.7km in about two hours of constant rain, although part of that time was spent rather comfortably sipping hot chocolate inside the cafe. This is where we ended up:

Community-supported agriculture: We tried a bi-weekly spring share from Plan B Organic Farms, and that’s been working out well. I’ve been having salads I finished the last of the kale and the lettuce Autodesk Sketchbook Pro: While using Autodesk Sketchbook Pro for presentations doesn’t give me the overview, the infinite canvas, or the clean lines of Inkscape, it’s a smoother workflow, and I rather like it. I’ve been sketching more, too. W- has just gotten his own tablet, and Autodesk Sketchbook Pro (trial version) was one of the first things he installed. I’m looking forward to practising drawing with him. Writing more about life: I like it. I think of it as writing for my future self. Blog limits: I sometimes schedule my posts, and I sometimes post more than once

I’d never been that far west on my bicycle, and I haven’t biked in the rain for such a distance or length of item. It’s not that scary after all, although I wish I’d worn my rain pants and my gloves!

Weekly review: Week ending June 3, 2011 http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22282 June 5, 2011 - Categories: review, weekly It was very much a salad sort of week. I finished the last of the kale and the spring

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lettuce from the community-supported agriculture box, discovering along the way that I’m not particular about the kind of oil I use for salad dressing: regular olive oil, fancy-schmancy fruity olive oil, or expensive walnut oil. So run-of-the-mill olive oil it is. I do like tossing nuts into my salad, and the hard-boiled eggs I’ve been keeping in the fridge have been convenient too. W-’s new Lenovo X220 arrived, so we’ve both been busy drawing on our tablets. Getting the hang of drawing cubes. =) Baby steps!

o

what can I do to make it easier to remember events and tasks? o

•

•

Next week: the start of the summer CSA share, more gardening, more writing, more development, more awesomeness… =)

From last week’s plans •

Work o

•

•

[C] Finish Gen Y/Gen C presentation – no longer needed

o

[X] Get started on project M

o

[/] Wrap up on project C – getting there!

o

Set up Redmine for issue tracking, because of the git integration

Relationships o

[X] Help J- with homework

o

[X] Make cute cat soap holder

Life

[X] Draw a presentation-style thing for myself =) – practising drawing cubes, not presentations, but close enough

Plans for next week

Starting a Drupal project at work. It’s great to be back in the world of a gazillion community-contributed modules, although I miss the interactivity of rails console. (drush shell is helpful, but not quite as awesome as that!) Getting back up to speed. I hope my manager can keep my engagements sane. More demand than supply. It’s a good problem to have, but it’s still pretty crazy. Fortunately, he can sort all of those things out while I focus on code.

[X] Fix this calendar bug:

•

Work o

[ ] Get priorities and development responsibilities sorted out for project M

o

[ ] Continue working on development for project M

o

[ ] Bike to work to discuss project M with the information architect

Relationships o

[X] Watch “Thor” with Maira and Scott

o

[X] Prepare some meals in advance

o

[X] Review short-term plans

o

[ ] Prepare lots of salad

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[ ] Pick up summer share CSA box

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[ ] Make a list of summer meals

Life o

[X] Go on group bike ride (High Park to Port Credit)

o

[ ] Write about scenarios/planning

Plans for summer: Relationships, work, gardening, biking, drawing and photography, making, and finances http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22283

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June 6, 2011 - Categories: planning Cate Huston asks for inspiration: What are you focusing on in June? Work is straightforward: Drupal web development until September, at least, and probably similar work after that. Summer also makes it easy to decide what to do. Biking and gardening, yes. Baking and sewing, not so much. Social events, yes. But it’s a good idea to go beyond these vague categories and figure out what I’d like to explore. This blog post is not really about focus. It’s more of a list of things I’m thinking about, but at least it’s a shorter, more concrete list than just "stuff". =) Focus comes when I go through the different categories and focus on making one item for each category happen. Short-term thoughts for summer Relationships: I should take advantage of summer’s long days and warm weather by meeting up with people. It might be awkward in the beginning, but I’m sure it will get easier. I should nudge my friends to organize things more often. Maybe I just happen to be the most get-folks-togetherand-feed-them sort of person in the different groups I’m in. This is okay, although I’m curious about what it might be like to get a regular potluck going. Or a regular cookathon going. Hmm… Possible improvements: •

Shift us to salads and other yummy things to eat during summer.

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Think through upcoming decisions and scenarios, and write about them.

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Meet at least one person each week, possibly around events I’m interested in.

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Think about cool things to offer during get-togethers. Fruits and lemonade, mmm.

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Set aside social time and proactively reach out to people through the Internet.

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Set aside driving practice time, too.

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Schedule Latin-learning dates with W-, so we stop cramming our Latin homework on Saturday evenings.

Work: Development is the way to go for me, I think. I like it more than consulting. I like making things happen, and I like the way it continuously sharpens my skills. Yes, it’s a global marketplace, and the work may be tougher than consulting because it’s more easily virtualized. But that’s good, too – less travel. I can keep growing in this by learning more about Drupal and Rails, and improving my front-end skills. I would like to work on a Drupal 7 project and another Ruby on Rails project this year. I want to be the awesome backend developer or technical lead people like working with in order to make websites happen. Possible improvements: •

Get even better at automated testing (Selenium for web-facing tests?)

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Develop more patience for manual testing; yes, coding is fun, but testing prevents embarrassment and increases learning

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Figure out continuous integration, perhaps with Hudson

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Make sure I’ve got interactive debugging set up for both frameworks I like working with

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Learn more about working with other developers: managing projects, workflow, etc.

Gardening: I think it’s incredible. You put seeds in soil, you give them some water, and sunlight and nature do the rest. I want to take advantage of the sunlight to learn a little more about growing our own food. I love how the strawberries are starting to bear fruit, and how the peas race up the string-trellis I made. I want to grow more and more fruits and vegetables so that someday, we can grow most of the produce we eat. Possible improvements: •

Increase my trial rate (and perhaps success rate!) by planting new things weekly

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•

Implement drip irrigation again, or find other ways of keeping seedlings well-watered

•

Keeping a garden journal so that I can track my progress and plan ahead

Biking: I enjoy biking. It’s a great way to get to places. I would like to bike more as casual exercise and a way to get myself outdoors. I tend to bike as a way of getting from one place to another, instead of just taking a joyride. One way to bike more would be to just come to work more often, particularly when it’s sunny. Another way to bike more often would be to plan more events that get me outside the house, because I’d rather bike than take public transit if the destination isn’t too far. Hmm… Possible improvements: •

Plan more excuses to go biking.

•

Consider getting a lighter secondhand 21-speed bike? Not essential.

Drawing and photography: I’m slowly getting the hang of drawing, and now that W- has a tablet PC, we can make it a relationship-building thing too. Summer is a great time to sketch or shoot the outdoors, use bright colours, and have fun with drawing and photography. Possible improvements: •

Get into the habit of shooting and reviewing pictures. Shooting doesn’t count if I don’t look at the pictures again!

•

Take pictures of the garden. It’s convenient, personally fascinating, and I can leave the macro lens on the camera all the time.

•

Upgrade my hard disk. Then I might use my tablet PC as my main photo processing device.

•

Practise sketching those cubes! Maybe draw one thing a day, too.

Making: My wardrobe has settled, so sewing is lower-priority, although I like making gifts and accessories. We might

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make some shelves for the living room and for upstairs, but that’s also not urgent. Finances: Nothing special here, just saving up. We’re shifting our grocery patterns (lighter summer meals, organic and local produce), so I’m going to do some more price-checking to see if the communitysupported agriculture box is a better deal than, say, shopping at the Sweet Potato (a local health food store) or checking out farmers’ markets. I’ve been thinking about experimenting with dividend-focused stocks after I reach one of my savings milestones, but I’m not completely sold on it yet, and I’m fine just putting money into low-MER index funds for now. Plenty of good things to grow into.

Made a stuff sack for Jhttp://sachachua.com/blog/p/22287 June 6, 2011 Categories: life, sewing W- asked me if I could make a stuff sack for J’s sleeping bag, as it turned out she was going camping this week. These bags are handy for compressing loose items such as sleeping bags, jackets, clothes, and so on. You simply stuff as much as you can into the bag, and the bag keeps the items compressed. I had white ripstop nylon in my fabric stash, left over from the time we were thinking of making a fabric softbox. J- measured the compressed sleeping bag – 25” circumference, about 16” of height – and I started working on a simple tubular stuff sack. The project came together quickly, even the tricky part of sewing the circular base to the tube. My seams were mostly straight and neat, although I had some bubbling near the bottom. For the drawstring, we reused the free shoelaces that came with J’s new shoes. (Waste not, want not.) The stuff sack ended up just the right size for the sleeping bag. Hooray!

I think I’m getting the hang of going from idea to actual thing, and it’s a lot of fun. All the cat hair that got sewn into the seams along the way probably means I shouldn’t go into commercial production yet, though!

performance, because you just might be making your performance worse. ;)

Negative optimization

Thinking about our development practices

http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22288 June 7, 2011 - Categories: geek, rails Checking on one of my projects (a Ruby on Rails survey site), I realized that it was running painfully slowly, taking 30 seconds to render a page. The first thing I checked was memory. I was on a 256MB slice at Rackspace Cloud. Was the server running out of memory and swapping to disk? I put in the recommended settings for Apache+Passenger+Rails on 256MB: RailsSpawnMethod smart PassengerUseGlobalQueue on PassengerMaxPoolSize 2 PassengerPoolIdleTime 0 PassengerMaxRequests 1000 RailsAppSpawnerIdleTime 0 PassengerStatThrottleRate 5

The website was still crawling. I reviewed the logs and found that ActiveRecord was taking a while. The Internet had a few performance optimization tips, so I checked out the survey controller to see if I could improve performance by preloading information. As it turned out, I was already preloading information. So I tried turning off preloading by removing the :include directives for my queries.

Oh well. Live and learn! 2011-06-07 Tue 16:19

http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22289 June 8, 2011 Categories: development, geek, kaizen We’re gearing up for another Drupal project. This one is going to be interesting in terms of workflow. I’m working with the clients, an IBM information architect, a design firm, another IBM developer, and a development firm. Fortunately, the project manager (Lisa Imbleau) has plenty of experience coordinating these inter-company projects. I feel a little nervous about the project because there are a lot of things to be clarified and there’s a bit of time pressure. I’m sure that once we get into the swing of things, though, it’ll be wonderful. I’m used to working with other developers within IBM, and I’m glad I picked up a lot of good practices from the people I’ve had the pleasure to work with over the years. I’m looking forward to learning even more from the people I get to work with this time around. In particular, I’m looking forward to: •

learning from how Lisa manages the project, clarifies requirements, and coordinates with other companies

•

learning from the other developers about what works and doesn’t work for them

•

planning more iteratively and getting more testing cycles in

•

implementing continuous integration testing using Hudson and Simpletest

•

getting even deeper in Drupal: Views, Notifications, maybe Organic Groups

The system went back to a decent speed. You see, I’d been working with lots of associations, and eager loading had probably resulted in a gazillion rows in my result set. Moral lesson: Test your system before and after you put in something to improve the

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•

using a git-integrated issue tracker such as Redmine

•

… while knowing when to just use pre-built modules, of course

It’s also a good opportunity to figure out which of our practices are new to others, and to write about those practices and improve them further. Some things that have turned up as different: •

We organize our Drupal modules into subdirectories of sites/all/modules/: features, custom, contrib, and patched.

•

I use Simpletest a lot, and would love to help other people with it or some other automated testing tool.

Much learning ahead!

Drush, Simpletest, and continuous integration for Drupal using Jenkins (previously Hudson) http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22290 June 9, 2011 Categories: automation, drupal, geek One of my development goals is to learn how to set up continuous integration so that I’ll always remember to run my automated tests. I picked up the inspiration to use Hudson from Stuart Robertson, with whom I had the pleasure of working on a Drupal project before he moved to BMO. He had set up continuous integration testing with Hudson and Selenium on another project he’d worked on, and they completed user acceptance testing without any defects. That’s pretty cool. =) I’m a big fan of automated testing because I hate doing repetitive work. Automated tests also let me turn software development into a game, with clearly defined goalposts and a way to keep score. Automated tests can be a handy way of creating lots of data so that I can manually test a site set up the way I want it to be. I like doing test-driven

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development: write the test first, then write the code that passes it. Testing was even better with Rails. I love the Cucumber testing framework because I could define high-level tests in English. The Drupal equivalent (Drucumber?) isn’t quite there yet. I could actually use Cucumber to test my Drupal site, but it would only be able to test the web interface, not the code, and I like to write unit tests in addition to integration tests. Still, some automated testing is better than no testing, and I’m comfortable creating Simpletest classes. Jenkins (previously known as Hudson) is a continuous integration server that can build and test your application whenever you change the code. I set it up on my local development image by following Jenkins’ installation instructions. I enabled the Git plugin (Manage Jenkins – Manage Plugins – Available). Then I set up a project with my local git repository. I started with a placeholder build step of Execute shell and pwd, just to see where I was. When I built the project, Hudson checked out my source code and ran the command. I then went into the Hudson workspace directory, configured my Drupal settings.php to use the database and URL I created for the integration site, and configured permissions and Apache with a name-based virtual host so that I could run web tests. For build steps, I used Execute shell with the following settings: mysql -u integration integration < sites/default/files/backup_migrate/sc heduled/site-backup.mysql /var/drush/drush test PopulateTestUsersTest /var/drush/drush test PopulateTestSessionsTest /var/drush/drush testre MyProjectName --error-on-fail

This loads the backup file created by Backup and Migrate, sets up my test content, and then uses my custom testre command.

Code below (c) 2011 Sacha Chua ([email protected]), available under GNU General Public License v2.0 (yes, I should submit this as a patch, but there’s a bit of paperwork for direct contributions, and it’s easier to just get my manager’s OK to blog about something…) // A Drush command callback. function drush_simpletest_test_regular_expression($test _re='') { global $verbose, $color; $verbose = is_null(drush_get_option('detail')) ? FALSE : TRUE; $color = is_null(drush_get_option('color')) ? FALSE : TRUE; $error_on_fail = is_null(drush_get_option('error-on-fail')) ? FALSE : TRUE; if (!preg_match("/^\/.*\//", $test_re)) { $test_re = "/$test_re/"; } // call this method rather than simpletest_test_get_all() in order to bypass internal cache $all_test_classes = simpletest_test_get_all_classes(); // Check that the test class parameter has been set. if (empty($test_re)) { drush_print("\nAvailable test groups & classes"); drush_print("------------------------------"); $current_group = ''; foreach ($all_test_classes as $class => $details) { if (class_exists($class) && method_exists($class, 'getInfo')) { $info = call_user_func(array($class, 'getInfo')); if ($info['group'] != $current_group) { $current_group = $info['group']; drush_print('[' . $current_group . ']'); } drush_print("\t" . $class . ' - ' . $info['name']); } } return; } // Find test classes that match foreach ($all_test_classes as $class => $details) { if (class_exists($class) && method_exists($class, 'getInfo')) { if (preg_match($test_re, $class)) { $info = call_user_func(array($class, 'getInfo')); $matching_classes[$class] = $info; } } } // Sort matching classes by weight uasort($matching_classes, '_simpletest_drush_compare_weight');

foreach ($matching_classes as $class => $info) { $main_verbose = $verbose; $results[$class] = drush_simpletest_run_single_test($class, $error_on_fail); $verbose = $main_verbose; } $failures = $successes = 0; foreach ($results as $class => $status) { print $status . "\t" . $class . "\n"; if ($status == 'fail') { $failures++; } else { $successes++; } } print "Failed: " . $failures . "/" . ($failures + $successes) . "\n"; print "Succeeded: " . $successes . "/" . ($failures + $successes) . "\n"; if ($failures > 0) { return 1; } }

I didn’t bother hacking Simpletest output to match the Ant/JUnit output so that Jenkins could understand it better. I just wanted a pass/fail status, as I could always look at the results to find out which test failed. What does it gain me over running the tests from the command-line? I like having the build history and being able to remember the last successful build. I’m going to keep this as a local build server instead of setting up a remote continuous integration server on our public machine, because it involves installing quite a number of additional packages. Maybe the other developers might be inspired to set up something similar, though! 2011-06-09 Thu 09:51

Sketchnotes from Democamp Toronto 29, June 2011 http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22295 June 9, 2011 Categories: democamp, democamptoronto, geek, sketches, sketchnotes UPDATE: 2011-06-10: Made demo notes more visual. =)

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(Update: @truejebus says TitanFile is hosted in Canada.) What did you think about Democamp Toronto? Have you blogged about it? Please share your thoughts and links in comments! Also check out Tom Purves’ writeup.

Managing configuration changes in Drupal http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22300 June 10, 2011 Categories: development, drupal, geek, wor k Highlights from Social Leverage talk by Howard Lindzon. Keep an eye on the sentiment for your industry, figure out where there’s momentum, build domain expertise, and get in the game.

One of our clients asked if we had any tips for documenting and managing Drupal configuration, modules, versions, settings, and so on. She wrote, “It’s getting difficult to keep track of what we’ve changed, when, for that reason, and what settings are in that need to be moved to production versus what settings are there for testing purposes.” Here’s what works for us. Version control: A good distributed version control system is key. This allows you to save and log versions of your source code, merge changes from multiple developers, review differences, and roll back to a specified version. I use Git whenever I can because it allows much more flexibility in managing changes. I like the way it makes it easy to branch code, too, so I can start working on something experimental without interfering with the rest of the code.

500px, TitanFile, High Schore House, Vizualize.me, We are TO Tech, Alphaslides. (Click for bigger version.) I liked High Score House’s demo the best. They’d obviously tested a lot and had fun along the way. =) Sketched with Autodesk Sketchbook Pro on my Lenovo X61T. Sketchbook is my new favourite note-taking program. Even though it doesn’t have Microsoft Onenote’s handwriting recognition and search capabilities, it encourages me to draw more compactly and to use more colours, and it’s more reliable. See other sketchnotes if you want to explore!

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Issue tracking: Use a structured issuetracking or trouble-ticketing system to manage your to-dos. That way, you can see the status of different items, refer to specific issues in your version control log entries, and make sure that nothing gets forgotten. Better yet, set up an issue tracker that’s integrated with your version control system, so you can see the changes that are associated with an issue. I’ve started using Redmine, but there are plenty of options. Find one that works well with the way your team works.

Local development environments and an integration server: Developers should be able to experiment and test locally before they share their changes, and they shouldn’t have to deal with interference from other people’s changes. They should also be able to refer to a common integration server that will be used as the basis for production code. I typically set up a local development environment using a Linux-based virtual machine so that I can isolate all the items for a specific project. When I’m happy with the changes I’ve made to my local environment, I convert them to code (see Features below) and commit the changes to the source code repository. Then I update the integration server with the new code and confrm that my changes work there. I periodically load other developers’ changes and a backup of the integration server database into my local environment, so that I’m sure I’m working with the latest copy. Database backups: I use Backup and Migrate for automatic trimmed-down backups of the integration server database. These are regularly committed to the version control repository so that we can load the changes in our local development environment or go back to a specific point in time. Turning configuration into code: You can use the Features module to convert most Drupal configuration changes into code that you can commit to your version control repository. There are some quirks to watch out for: •

Features aren’t automatically enabled, so you may want to have one overall feature that depends on any sub-features you create. If you are using Features to manage the configuration of a site and you don’t care about breaking Features into smaller reusable components, you might consider putting all of your changes into one big Feature.

•

Variables are under the somewhat unintuitively named category of Strongarm.

•

Features doesn’t handle deletion of fields well, so delete fields directly on the integration server.

•

Some changes are not exportable, such as nodequeue. Make those changes directly on the integration server.

You want your integration server to be at the default state for all features. On your local system, make the changes you want, then create or update features to encapsulate those changes. Commit the features to your version control repository. You can check if you’ve captured all the changes by reverting your database to the server copy and verifying your functionality (make a manual backup of your local database first!). When you’re happy with the changes, push the changes to the integration server. Using Features with your local development environment should minimize the number of changes you need to directly make on the server. Documenting specific versions or module sources: You can use Drush Make to document the specific versions or sources you use for your Drupal modules. Testing: In development, there are few things as frustrating as finding you’ve broken something that was working before. Save yourself lots of time and hassle by investing in automated tests. You can use Simpletest to test Drupal sites, and you can also use external testing tools such as Selenium. Tests can help you quickly find and compare working and non-working versions of your code so that you can figure out what went wrong. What are your practices and tips? 2011-06-09 Thu 12:25

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Weekly review: Week ending June 11, 2011

o

http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22303 June 11, 2011 - Categories: review, weekly

From last week’s plans •

•

o

o

[X] Go on group bike ride (High Park to Port Credit)

[X] Get priorities and

o

development responsibilities sorted out for project M

[/] Write about scenarios/planning

o

Watched X-Men: First Class

[X] Continue working on

o

Posted Democamp sketchnotes, revised sketch

o

Biked a lot, yay!

o

Took pictures of garden

development for project M o

[X] Bike to work to discuss

project M with the information architect o

Did some more troubleshooting for project I

o

Shared more Drupal tips

o

Attended Democamp

o

Discussed Idea Labs with ibm.com/communities

o

Hacked together Profiles summary tool for Darrel Rader

o

•

Life

Work o

Plans for next week •

Work o

•

o

and Scott o

[X] Prepare some meals in

advance o

[X] Review short-term plans

o

[/] Prepare lots of salad

o

[X] Pick up summer share

CSA box o

[/] Make a list of summer meals

o

Sewed stuff sack for J-

o

Worked on Latin homework with W-

o

Hung out with Gabriel Mansour and

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[ ] Attend Linda and Tim’s

wedding

Set up continuous integration with Jenkins, yay!

[X] Watch “Thor” with Maira

[ ] Get started on development with Snake Hill for project M

Relationships

o

[ ] Make pesto

o

[ ] Maybe join Bells on Bloor?

Relationships o

Experimenting with doing more chores on Friday (laundry, compost, etc.)

•

Life o

[ ] Put in drip irrigation system

Getting things ready for the next week: cooking and gardening http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22304 June 12, 2011 Categories: gardening, kaizen Tired! Did lots of cooking and gardening today. We went into full process-thecommunity-supported-agriculture-box mode today. I made pesto from the basil in the box (supplementing it with basil from our garden) and another pesto from green garlic. Chopping up the green onions and

freezing them means more convenient soups later on. A quick stock made the most of the woody ends from several breakfasts’ worth of asparagus. W- prepared six packs of chicken leg quarters (shake and bake, jerk chicken marinade) and stirfried lots of vegetables. We packed maybe 36 lunches – a few in the fridge, and two neat columns in the chest freezer. I also put in the drip irrigation system for the backyard. Well, most of the backyard. There has been some attrition among the 1/4″ irrigation fittings, so I set up only the vegetable garden near the house. Home Depot didn’t have the parts I wanted, but Lee Valley has them, so I might pass by one of these days to pick those things up. After I put in the soaker hose, I mulched the strawberries to keep the fruits off the soil. I also put up nets around our blueberries to see if that will improve our chances of actually enjoying them ourselves. We’ll see – there are some serious-looking squirrels around here. Planted a few more square feet of beans and some lettuce. It’s been cool lately, so maybe the lettuce still has a shot. Saw my first pea flower! The tomatoes aren’t doing too well, though – they’re still scrawny. I’m sure we’ll get plenty of tomatoes in our summer share box. Tired, but happy. We’ve gone through most of our vegetable box, so I’m less worried about wasting it. We’ve got frozen lunches. We’ve got salad plans. Next week should be a little smoother, and the next week after that even better, and so on. Decision review: Packing lots of chores into Friday evening worked out. With the laundry finished, I spent Saturday downtown. Might’ve been a good idea to have my massage after the cookathon/gardenthon, though! And people wonder why I don’t dread Mondays… ;) 2011-06-12 Sun 21:01

This is what my blog looks like on paper http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22307 June 13, 2011 Categories: blogging, life, reflection, writing I’ve switched to printing out my blog archives monthly instead of yearly, so now I’m all caught up again. It’s surprising how it all adds up. Here’s my blog since just 2007, printed single-space, double-column, double-sided, with monthly indexes:

There’s more beyond that, as I didn’t print out my older posts. Here’s a visual summary from my reflection on 8 years of blogging:

I’m surprised that I quite enjoy reading my old posts. I find it difficult to listen to my presentation recordings – I get impatient, I want to move on – but I like reading, particularly when I come across posts I’ve forgotten writing. There’s a lot in here. It’s fun remembering what it was like to look for my first apartment, hanging out with friends, dealing with challenges. I like revisiting my questions, decisions, and plans. There are many things that spark ideas for new posts and sketches. This print-out is part of playing the long game with writing. I’ve got electronic backups of my blog. A paper backup further increases the chances that I’ll be able to

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revisit these ideas decades down the line. And it supports serendipity and reflective practice, too. Who knows what I’ll rediscover or review? Pretty cool. Thanks for sharing the journey so far. Looking forward to what’s ahead!

Decision review: Kitchen counter computing (ad hoc standing desk) http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22309 June 13, 2011 Categories: decision, geek, kaizen, review I switched to using the kitchen counter as my standing desk last month, and it’s working really well. I like working in the kitchen: natural light, plenty of water and healthy snacks, and the occasional cat-cuddling break. The kitchen counter is just the right height for typing. I don’t have an eye-level monitor, but if I keep good posture and take frequent breaks (to cuddle cats, for example), my neck doesn’t hurt. Standing up also keeps me from the bad habit of crossing my legs at the knees. I fidget more, too – do more stretches, take care of more little chores around the kitchen while thinking about code. Good for circulation. Not a bad experiment. I think I’ll keep on going. Now if only we had counters at the right height in the office. There’s a bar-height counter, but it’s a little too high for me to comfortably type on. Maybe two recycling bins upended on a desk…

Cook Or Die Season II: Community-Supported Agriculture http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22310

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June 14, 2011 Categories: cooking, cookordie My “Cook or Die” project started when I moved into an apartment-style dormitory shortly after university. My room was equipped with a small kitchen – really, just a hot plate, a microwave, and a toaster oven. Instead of always eating at the nearby KFC, I resolved to prepare at least one of my meals each day. Hence: Cook or Die. (Well, Cook or Starve.) I’ve come a long way since I discovered that pita pockets were called pita pockets for a reason. I hardly ever eat out now. I’d much rather eat at home, where meals are frugal, tasty, and just the right size for me. The kitchen is well-stocked. The garden’s full of herbs. I’ve got a decent collection of favourite recipes, and I’m always learning more about cooking. We’re heading into our second month of community-supported agriculture. W- has signed up for a weekly summer half-share from Plan B Organic Farms. Every Thursday, we pick up a box containing an assortment of vegetables, some of which I’ve never tried before. The box arrives every week, a relentless parade of perishables. (You can postpone for vacations and get a credit, but I think that would be cheating on our experiment.) I’m getting pretty creative about how to get through all of this plus the groceries we buy. The nooks of our freezer are filled with pesto in small Nalgene containers and chopped green onions in Ziploc bags. I’m also discovering new recipes. I’d never made green garlic pesto before, but the Internet thinks it’s good, so I gave it a try. Today I baked kale chips, although I oversalted my first batch; and yes, they do taste oddly like potato chips. We’ll see if I can get W- and J- to try them. We all like seaweed, and the texture’s not far off. I turned our ripening avocados into guacamole, mixing in my chopped-up frozen green onions from the vegetable box. I still had lots of guacamole after making myself an omelette. Turns out you can

freeze guacamole, but I figured it was more useful to just share it with our neighbours, as they were having a small party. So I rubbed the tortillas with olive oil, cut them into eighths, and baked them for about 8 minutes at about 400′F until they were crisp and light brown. After testing a few, I assembled the chips and the guacamole on a plate and carried it over. Win! Now we just have to finish the parsnip and the lettuce, and we’ll be ready for Thursday’s box. Cook or Die? More like Cook or Get Overwhelmed By Vegetables… 2011-06-14 Tue 19:27

Kaizen in the little things: The way the door opens http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22313 June 14, 2011 Categories: biking, kaizen, sketches One of my principles is kaizen: continuous improvement. If you can make your life 1% better every day, you’ll double your life’s awesomeness in less than three months. Even if you improve life by 0.01%, you’ll still do pretty darn well over time. Today was one of those 0.01% days. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before. You see, I often ride my bicycle to work. This means maneuvering my long-framed bicycle through the mudroom, out the door, and down the porch stairs. The door has two parts: the actual door, which opens inward, and the screen door, which opens outward. If I roll my bicycle near the door, then open it, the door often gets stuck in front of my bicycle. If I open both the door and the screen door, one of our cats usually slips out and starts exploring the porch. (I’m looking at you, Luke.) Today I had an epiphany. If I open the house door but not the screen door, then I can get out more easily and I don’t have to worry about the cats slipping past. This is what it looks like:

Yes, I know, obvious, but I managed to get through one whole year with this bicycle without having that aha! moment, because I always thought of door-opening as an integral operation: open the house door, then open the screen door. Close the house door, close the screen door. Even though we sometimes leave the house door open and the screen door closed to let in summer breezes, it didn’t click until I stopped and thought about why I was getting stuck in the bike room. Little things like that are the cruft of unconsciously moving through life, and it’s so much fun to fix them. So many opportunities for improvement everyday!

Make-ahead meals http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22314 June 15, 2011 - Categories: cooking Patricia wanted to know what sort of meals we like preparing in advance. We often make large batches of frozen meals so that we can take them to work or have them as quick, no-fuss dinners. Here are some of our staples: •

Shake’n Bake chicken: well, really, the generic equivalent of it; baked breadcrumb-style chicken with rice and vegetables

•

Jerk chicken: mostly W-, as it’s too spicy for me

•

Lasagna

•

Chicken curry

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•

Tomato sauce for pasta

•

Pesto

•

Rotisserie chicken from the supermarket

•

Roast turkey

•

Soup

•

Rice and beans

•

Baked beans

•

Home-made bagels or biscuits

•

Chicken pot pie or turkey pot pie

•

Shepherd’s pie

What are yours? 2011-06-15 Wed 20:33

Personal projects http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22315 June 16, 2011 Categories: decision, hobbies, kaizen, life, p roductivity I rein in work to about 40-44 hours a week so that it doesn’t run away with me. This gives me some time during evenings and weekends to work on personal projects. It’s a good idea to have clear personal projects in mind so that I don’t end up wasting the time mindlessly. “Do you want to spend your time productively or unproductively?” I asked J-. “That’s a leading question,” W- said. “No, I’m serious about it. Unproductive time is good too, as long as you choose it consciously,” I said. For example, I spend some time here and there playing LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean. I don’t do it just because I can’t think of anything else to do or I don’t feel like doing anything else. I play because I’m curious about how the game designers have constructed puzzles and all those little secrets that dot the LEGO world. That’s definitely not a project, though.

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What are the things I’m working on? Spelling them out will make it easier to pick a task that moves me towards them when I find myself with blocks of time. Latin: W- and I are slowly working our way through Albert Harkness’ “An Easy Method for Beginners in Latin.” We’re on lesson twenty-ish now. Most people are working off the scanned book in Google’s digitized collection, but because the scans are images instead of text, the file is a little slow and unwieldy. I bought the first edition (it’s now the oldest book I have) and we’re working on digitizing it properly, re-typing it in with all the finicky accents and footnotes. We’re less than a fifth of the way through the book, so there’s plenty of work to do on this front. Goal: Digitize the whole book and answer all the questions. Gardening: I want to get better at planning and growing the fruits and vegetables we like. That means getting more practice at starting seeds and helping them thrive. Gardening is relaxing, too. Goal: Grow, harvest, and measure the yield this year. Cooking: Our frozen meals get us through most of the week, but I also cook new things based on what we need to finish in the fridge. For example, today I’d like to do something with the asparagus stock so that it doesn’t go to waste. I’m also picking up the community-supported agriculture box today, so that will give me a new set of challenges. This helps me develop the eminently useful skill of preparing healthy meals. Goal: Experiment with and collect summer recipes, then put together other seasonal notes. Writing: I enjoy writing. I like reading my archive and remembering the steps. I like practising writing every day as a way to share what I’m learning, and it’s a good way to keep learning about content and style. Goal: Review, rewrite, and compile into an e-book. Drawing: I’d like to get even better at drawing. It’s fun, and I’m learning how to communicate through it. I want to feel more

comfortable using colours and drawing shapes. It’s all about practice. Goal: Draw a graphical review each week for a month. Photography: It’s good, and we’ve got all this equipment already, so I might as well. ;) Besides, I enjoy taking pictures of the garden. Goal: Post at least one photo a week for a month.

onions and added them to last week’s freezer bag; they’ll see us through many recipes. I made lentil soup with the leftover asparagus stock, the green onion ends, and some carrots we had in the fridge. I ground the Genovese basil into pesto and popped it into the freezer. I baked half of the bunch of kale as chips, making sure to go easy on the oil and salt. The results:

What are you working on? 2011-06-16 Thu 08:25

Getting the hang of community-supported agriculture http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22316 June 16, 2011 Categories: cooking, cookordie I’m starting to get the hang of working with our community-supported agriculture box: a weekly assortment of fruits and vegetables from farms in Ontario. I finished last week’s lettuce today, supplementing it with lettuce from our cut-and-come-again planter (which is actually working as planned!) and topping it with two eggs from last week’s share.

The kale chips came out just right. Kale chips: Preheat oven to 350F (175C). Wash, dry, and tear a bunch of kale into bite-sized pieces, removing the stems. Toss with a tablespoon of olive oil and a teaspoon of salt. Spread kale on a baking sheet covered with parchment. Bake for 8-10 minutes, or however long it takes for the kale to become crispy but not burnt. Munch away guiltlessly. Summer is short enough as it is. I might as well eat like it. =)

Gardening notes: Cut-andcome-again lettuce http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22317 June 17, 2011 Categories: garden, gardening Today we picked up baby greens, two kinds of lettuce, broccoli sprouts, two tomatoes, kale, basil, green onions, and a dozen eggs. I like processing the vegetables as soon as possible so that I can lock in their freshness and avoid waste. I chopped the green

One of my gardening goals this year was to have a cut-and-come-again bed for leafy greens. The idea is to grow lettuce and other greens for continuous harvesting instead of waiting until the head has fully formed. We’re using a self-watering planter from Rona perched on the deck rail. I can even harvest barefoot. (Well, in my slippers.)

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eating one of those Vietnamese sandwiches, except without the meat. Yum. Today I spent the morning chopping up the rest of the cilantro and packing it into our ice-cube tray for freezing. That way, we can easily add cilantro to stir-fries, soups, and other meals.

I started these plants from seed, which was another one of my goals. I’ve gotten two salad lunches out of this box already. The lettuce is starting to set seed and the leaves are a little more bitter, but they’re still good to eat. I’ve got bok choi and other plants starting there, too, and I tend to putter around and plant more every week. I should’ve considered the communitysupported agriculture box too, because we’re now swimming in lettuce. Today I changed my salad dressing by using tamari instead of balsamic vinegar, topping it with sliced egg. Bit more of an Asian taste. Next time, I’ll toss in some sesame seeds, too.

Many herbs freeze well, which is a good thing because they usually come in large bundles. In other news, look at what’s in the garden:

Salad greens are actually better in some shade than in the hot sun, so if you’ve been looking for things to grow on a balcony, consider growing your own salad bowl. With the cut-and-come again method, you could get quite a few harvests out of them.

An abundance of cilantro, now freezing in cubes; strawberries and peas http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22318 June 18, 2011 Categories: cooking, garden, gardening Awesome Garden Lady down the street gave us two large bunches of lettuce and a bag of cilantro, so I made an Asian-inspired salad yesterday: toasted sesame seeds, cilantro, tomatoes, hard-boiled eggs, and the rest of our bag of baby greens, dressed with tamari and olive oil. The cilantro made it feel like

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The first of many, I hope!

Weekly review: Week ending June 18, 2011 http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22320 June 18, 2011 - Categories: review, weekly Tired after lots of biking, cooking, and gardening, but it’s a happy sort of tired. New hack working well: leaving smartphone downstairs to avoid temptation of late-night browsing, then using regular phone as alarm clock set slightly before smartphone.

Plans for next week •

o o

•

development with Snake Hill for project M o o

o

•

o

[ ] Attend Linda and Tim’s

wedding

•

Helped Darrel Rader with Profiles summarization tool

[ ] Organize get-together

Life o

[X] Join Bells on Bloor

o

[X] Harvest compost

o

[ ] Spread compost in front

garden

Started thinking about possible presentations on Gen C and banking, Drupal development, career

o

[ ] Type in five chapters of

Latin o

Attended Dries Buytaert’s presentation on Drupal 8

[ ] Have soup and salad

every day in order to try to make a dent in the lettuce

Relationships o

[-] Attend Linda and Tim’s

wedding – this Sunday, actually!

•

Relationships

o [X] Get started on

[ ] Work on Generation C

and banking presentation

Work o

[ ] Smooth out session

creation form for project M

From last week’s plans •

Work

o

[X] Make pesto

o

[-] Maybe join Bells on Bloor? – also this weekend

o

Received lettuce and cilantro from Awesome Garden Lady

o

Shared home-made guacamole and baked tortilla chips with neighbor

Thinking about speaking topics http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22321 June 19, 2011 Categories: braindump, thinking Holly Tse invited me to speak at Lotus Blossoming, an upcoming virtual summit for Asian women. We’re negotiating what my topic might be. I’ve challenged myself to speak mostly about things that pass the following criteria: •

must be something I want to learn more about,

•

must be something I have experience in, and

•

must be something people will find useful (not just interesting, useful)

Life o

[X] Put in drip irrigation

system o

Typed in a few chapters of Latin

o

Had lots of salad

I’m picky because I’m not selling anyone stuff. No coaching services, no e-books, no here’s-the-secret-to-happiness. This means

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I’m not speaking to get exposure or to do marketing. It also means that speeches have to be worth the preparation time I’d take away from other things. Is the speech something I can’t wait to work on, or is it something I’m going to end up procrastinating until the last minute? Is it something that might result in a good blog post and a presentation I can share? Is it something that can help me grow in terms of content or technique? I invest time up front before committing to a topic so that I can enjoy the preparation and delivery more, and so that the talk will be more useful for people who invest their time in attending. I know I can be energetic and interesting even when I’m annoyed with the situation or when I have strong doubts about the topic, but I really don’t want to make that habitual. The great thing is that negotiation teaches me a lot about what I want to write about and explore. For example: •

I’d like to share more stories and tips for other immigrants, particularly people moving by themselves, but I need to do some more work in this area to clarify things that are still prickly for me.

•

I want to write about happiness in the corporate world. So many blogs and books treat corporations as desolate wastelands and portray selfemployment or startups as The Way.

•

I’m less interested in social media for personal networking and community building, and more interested in writing your life as a way to practise continuous improvement. I think the ability to connect with more people more deeply is icing on the cake-pop – it’s not the reason I blog, but it does help me learn a lot more.

Hmm, there’s an interesting thing there. You see, people often ask me to do social media presentations. I prefer to focus on individual behaviours instead of trends because I want people to be able to do something. I dislike all this emphasis

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on personal branding and social networking, because it’s so much like scare-mongering. “You MUST be on Facebook/Twitter and your own blog or else you’ll be invisible and irrelevant.” Social networking is fine, but I want to be really clear that it’s not about getting friends/followers/readers/comments. I’d rather encourage people to take these two approaches: develop their interest in other people and use social tools to make it easier to cultivate those relationships, and start that journey of self-discovery and find something they can share with other people. The first one is a bit harder if the people you care about aren’t active on social networks, but you can also learn a lot by looking for people who inspire you. When you find people you resonate with, you can learn a lot about them, life, and yourself. For me, blogs tend to be better than Facebook or Twitter for being inspired by other people, because people put more of their thoughts and their personality into their blog. For example, I love the way my mom tells stories and what I learn about her and our family. The way Mel Chua shares her passion for open source and life (we’re not related, but I’d have loved to be) teaches me more about how to let my enthusiasm shine through. I enjoy reading Roger Ebert’s journaland learning about culture and growing old, and I like Penelope Trunk’s vivid stories. People tell me they enjoy reading my blog, too – the way I practise continuous improvement and optimism, the joy I take in life, the things I learn along the way. As for finding something worth sharing with other people – that’s an excellent place to start, especially for introverts like me. Writing helps you learn a lot more effectively. It gets things out of your brain and into a form you can look at or share. Come to think of it, I take more of a selfcentered approach to social media compared to most of the other presentations or blog posts I’ve come across. It’s not the quick hit of here’s-how-to-makethe-most-of-Facebook-and-Twitter. It’s

more about becoming yourself and helping others. Hmm… Will flesh this out some more.

Hibernate doesn’t quite work, but I’ve been suspending the computer or shutting it down, and that works fine. Pretty cool!

Switching back to Linux as my development host

(500) days of salad

http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22322 June 20, 2011 Categories: development, geek, work I switched back to using my Ubuntu partition as my primary development environment instead of using Windows 7. I still use a virtual machine to isolate development-related configuration from the rest of my system. Linux makes better use of my computer memory. I have 4 GB of RAM on this laptop. My 32-bit Windows 7 can only access 3 GB of it, a limit I regularly run into. The resulting swapping slows down my development enough to be noticeable. I could switch to 64-bit Windows, but reinstalling is a disruption I don’t want to deal with right now. On Linux, my processes can access up to 4GB of memory each, which means there’s even room for future expansion. I’m at just the right level now – using 3.9 GB, but not swapping out. Using Linux also means that it’s easy for me to edit files in my virtual machine. Instead of setting up Samba + Eclipse, I can use ssh -X to connect to my virtual machine and run Emacs graphically. If I want to use Eclipse for step-by-step debugging, I can use sshfs, smbfs, or NFS to mount the files. The key things I liked about Microsoft Windows 7 were Autodesk Sketchbook Pro and Microsoft Onenote. I can draw a bit using the GIMP or Inkscape, although I really need to figure out my smoothing settings or whatever it is that would make drawing as fun as it is in those other programs. I don’t need those programs when I’m focused on development, though, and it’s easy enough to reboot if I want to switch.

http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22323 June 21, 2011 - Categories: cooking I’m nearly done with the communitysupported agriculture box’s haul of lettuce, although I still have Awesome-GardenLady’s lettuce to get through. This one is a grape and walnut salad. Next time, I’ll probably slice the grapes to make them easier to spear with my fork.

I’m learning that I like these in salads: •

Crunchy and nutty warmth: Toasted sliced almonds, toasted pine nuts, and home-made glazed pecans; walnuts not as much as the others, actually

•

Something sweet: strawberries and grapes so far; maybe apples or pears? (oh my)

•

A simple dressing, a bit on the sweet/sour side: balsamic vinaigrette, mostly, but I don’t need fancy oil

•

Maybe some additional protein: sliced eggs, nuts, or pairing the salad with a lentil soup

I just have to get through enough salads so that I can get back to writing about other things. I’m getting better at photography, though! =)

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Portal 2 and teachable moments in argument http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22324 June 22, 2011 Categories: argument, communication, life, teaching Portal 2 became an obsession in our household after W- shared with us the Youtube clips of the ending songs, Still Alive and Want You Gone. I downloaded the demo today, and J- flew through it eagerly. The final demo level came all too soon. Aha. Teachable moment. “Do you remember the three Greek words we have in the kitchen?” “Ethos, pathos, and logos.” “Right.” I wrote them down, with brief descriptions, under the title, “Why should we get Portal 2?” I read the title out: “Why should we get Portal 2?” “Umm… Because it’s educational?”

•

can create more interesting stories to tell others

Pathos: •

spend time together solving puzzles and getting a good laugh or two (bonding factor)

•

fun! (lolz!)

•

more inside jokes

Logos: •

hand-eye coordination

•

momentum

•

solve puzzles – helps make you better at solving puzzles

•

may help me with typing faster

•

can create inspiration for writing a book or drawing a picture

“Try thinking of reasons why we might say no, too,” I said. After some thought, she listed:

“How?”

•

might take up too much time

“Speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out, that’s all I have to say.”

•

too close to screen too often

•

may not play it as often, may be wasted

I look at her and do the you-can-do-betterthan-that smile. “I’m not good at this stuff.” “Try writing all of your ideas down. You can make your arguments stronger by editing them afterwards.” We’re still a bit fuzzy about the categories, but it’s great to see where she’s going. Here’s the list she came up with: Ethos: •

helps improve sense of humour

•

I will actually do my homework properly and thoroughly

•

can create a topic of conversation

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“Now think of ways you can address those concerns.” “Maybe I can set a time limit, like 30 minutes…” “That would take care of the first and second concern. How about the third?” “It’s like you don’t want to play it too much, but you also don’t want to play it too little…” she said. “Right. Because if you played only a couple of levels more, it would be a waste. But you played the demo and…” “… it was amazing…” “… so the rest of the game…”

“… will probably be ten times as amazing…” “… and you know you’ll enjoy it. There, see what happens? When you think of why someone would say no and you address those concerns, your argument becomes stronger.” “Oh, I get it now.” “Great! Would you like to take this further by organizing your arguments into a proper speech, like this”, and here I sketched out what the speech would be like, with English mixed with fast-forwarded gibberish and hand-gestures so that she could get the sense of it.

Spatial puzzles. I can do those typical unwrapping puzzles and things-fitting-intothings puzzles that you find in those Mensatype books. I have a hard time finding my way around a first-person game though, and I find maps really useful when navigating. I am so glad that GPS + maps showed up during my lifetime. Maybe this will help me get the hang of it too! Must make sure it doesn’t edge out th other things I want to do. =) Now starting coop split-screen mode with W-… =D 2011-06-23 Thu 20:15

She laughed. “Sure!” she said. Persuasion is a useful skill. Good to find opportunities to help people develop it! 2011-06-22 Wed 21:21

Portal 2 http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22325 June 23, 2011 - Categories: geek So we bought Portal 2 for the PS3, because you can unlock a PC version if you link your Playstation Network and Steam accounts. Turns out the PS3 version plays pretty smoothly, too, so J- is playing it now. The game has great spatial puzzles, is excellently designed, and entertainingly scripted and voiced. I’m looking forward to playing it myself. We don’t play many video games here. There’s so much we can do instead: cook, garden, sketch, write, read books from the library, watch the occasional movie (also borrowed from the library) while folding clothes or eating dinner… But there’s something to be said about the way games help people learn how to solve puzzles and enjoy mastery. A bit of gaming is like salt and pepper on a meal, perhaps; it sharpens the experience, as long as you don’t add too much. Also, Portal 2 is really cool.

Mindful spending, experiments, and living in line with your values http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22326 June 24, 2011 Categories: analysis, decision, kaizen A friend was thinking about splurging on an event that included an 8-course dinner for $95. He wrote, “I’d like to go, but that’s more than I’ve ever paid for a single meal. Thoughts?” He said that he had justified past splurges by telling himself, “Well, I’ve spent money on more frivolous things before.” He didn’t need to see me give him The Look to know that this was not the best way to go forward. I gave him plenty of advice, and here are additional reflections. I think about spending carefully. If I can spend on the right things, minimize spending on the wrong things, and learn as much as I can from getting it right or wrong, I’ll enjoy better quality of life than I would otherwise. One of the techniques I use is something I picked up from Your Money or Your Life (Dominguez and Robin, 1999) – there’s an excellent blog post series on The Simple Dollar for people who want to catch up. I calculate the discretionary value of my time and use that to see if things are worth the time it takes to earn the money for them. One way to do this is by taking your income, Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 343

subtracting taxes, fixed expenses, and workrelated expenses, and dividing it by the number of hours you spend working or preparing to work. I like an even stricter measure. I look at the discretionary part of my bi-weekly savings allocations – that’s after taxes, savings, retirement, and other categories. I divide that by 14 days, so that I can easily get an idea of how much of a typical week, month, or year I might be committing to a purchase. This is actually a small number, because I take so much off the top for savings – less than a dollar per hour, which is why I calculate by day instead. ;) Then I can easily get a sense of how large a part of my year something will take up, and whether I think it will be worth it. I often write down the options I’m considering and the costs, benefits, and consequences of each. For example, when I was thinking about replacing my laptop battery, I listed the options and estimated the value differences of each. I sometimes do this even for small decisions because I learn so much about my preferences and values along the way. I consider intangibles, too, and I use this technique for nonfinancial decisions as well. Sometimes I’m looking for a clear winner, and sometimes I’m interested in just writing my thoughts down and seeing what I’m leaning towards. I also review my decisions to see how things turned out and if I need to tweak things further in the future. For example: clothes from Value Village, yes; compost accelerator, no; watching movie in a theatre by myself, maybe (better if I get together with friends). If something turns out to be really worth it (or really not worth it), then I learn a lot. This also helps me avoid analysis paralysis, because even if I’m not certain about a decision, I’m sure I’ll learn something from it. In fact, the more uncertain I am, the more I’ll learn – a tip I picked up from How to Measure Anything (Hubbard, 2007), which defined a measurement as whatever reduces uncertainty. Your Money or Your Life also encourages people to review their monthly budget and expenses to see which categories they want to increase or decrease depending on what contributes to Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 344

their life. The practice of reviewing decisions is key to making better ones. I sometimes nudge myself towards action using the First Circus principle, a family favourite. Not only does this tend to lead to interesting experiences, but this also takes advantage of some psychological biases. We’re more likely to regret things we didn’t do more than ones we did, and we’re also more likely to notice the presence of something (in this case, joy or disappointment) than to figure out the subtler effects of deciding not to do something. Those are decision-making tactics. Strategy, on the other hand, involves getting a better idea of what I value, enjoy, want to become, want to support, and so on. That’s a great learning adventure, too. The more I learn about what I want in life, the easier it becomes to say no to the things I don’t want and to focus on the things that matter to me (and to the people who matter to me). It’s all about getting better at making decisions – with money, with work, with love, with life, with everything. You’ll make tons of decisions over time, so developing your decision-making skills pays off tremendously. Money is a good way to practise: a finite resource (particularly if you think of it in terms of time) that you can choose to spend in line with your values. How do you make spending decisions?

Weekly review: Week ending June 25, 2011 http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22328 June 25, 2011 - Categories: review, weekly

From last week’s presentation •

•

Work o

[X] Smooth out session creation form for project M

o

[-] Work on Generation C and banking presentation

Relationships

o

[X] Attend Linda and Tim’s

wedding

•

o

[-] Organize get-together

o

Gave Gabriel advice

o

Helped J- learn more about persuasion

o

Bought Portal 2

Life o

[X] Join Bells on Bloor

o

[X] Harvest compost

o

[X] Spread compost in front garden

o

[-] Type in five chapters of Latin

o

[X] Have soup and salad every day in order to try to make a dent in the lettuce

o

Made strawberry and rhubarb tarts

o

Made lots of salad

o

Reviewed old blog posts

o

Blogged more pictures

o

Returned webcam

Plans for next week •

Work o

[ ] Visit client U to help with

June 25, 2011 - Categories: baking, cooking Okay, I was wrong. I guess it’s baking season all year round. The strawberries from the garden are lovely, red and firm. I’ve baked strawberry shortcakes before, so I thought I’d give strawberry rhubarb tarts a try. Rhubarb is available so rarely – all the more reason to experiment. (I think we’ll plant it next spring!) Recipe from Joy of Baking: •

454g / 1lb sliced rhubarb – the recipe called for 1″ pieces, but I had big chunky field rhubarb, so 0.5″ slices might be better

•

454g / 1lb sliced strawberries – this one’s a mix of garden strawberries and local strawberries

•

1/4 cup (35g) all-purpose flour

•

3/4 cup (150g) white sugar

Mix all ingredients. Fill purchased tart shells or home-made pastry circles (see original recipe). Chill assembled tarts for 15-30 minutes in the fridge. Preheat oven to 400F (200C), with the rack in the center of the oven. Bake for 25-30 minutes until crust is golden. Cool on a wire rack before serving. (The original recipe suggests serving with whipped cream or iced cream, ooh.)

Drupal o

[ ] Work on user registration and profile editing for project M

o

[ ] Help team members on

board for project M •

Relationships o

•

[ ] Organize get-together?

Life o

[ ] Sleep earlier

Strawberry rhubarb baking http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22327

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 345

with my life?” variety. Comparing himself to other people or to where he had hoped he’d be at this point, he feels like he comes up way short. I shared some advice, and here are some other thoughts that came along the way. It’s a common feeling, right around birthdays and other yearly milestones. Where did the year go? Why does time fly so quickly? Look at all these people your age – or younger! – doing incredible things. What have you been doing with your life? Here’s how I deal with it: I write. That’s because no matter how good your memory is, your brain’s probably going to be bad at remembering the highlights, lowlights, goals and accomplishments of the previous year. You have to deal with a number of limitations. The recency bias means you remember the most recent items better. That leaves lots of fuzzy areas. And because the brain is optimized for associations, not linear access, you’ve got to have the right hooks to get back into some memories.

I liked spending my Saturday afternoon baking, trying out new recipes. It’s a little like going to a cooking class, except much cheaper. =) I shared some tarts with neighbours so that we wouldn’t have too much dessert in the house. (Particularly as we’re still planning to bake brownies too…)

Writing your way past “What have I been doing with my life?” http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22329 June 26, 2011 Categories: blogging, kaizen, life, reflection, writing One of my friends is dealing with a quarterlife crisis of the “what have I been doing

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Photographs are good, but they can only take you so far. There are a lot of important moments you can’t take pictures of: you don’t have a camera handy, you don’t recognize it at the moment, it’s intangible… Writing – even just a quick sketch, a private note – might help you remember. Write about your thoughts, your goals, your accomplishments, your experiences, your questions, your answers. This doesn’t have to be public. This doesn’t even have to be coherent, although it helps if you can read your writing afterwards. This gives you a record that you can review at the end of the year to see how far you’ve come. You don’t even have to wait until the end of the year. Use your writing to remember why your goals mattered to you. Use your writing to celebrate the little victories as well as the big ones. Use your writing to make everything in life part of the story you’re becoming – and yes, that includes the tough parts.

Use your writing to slow down life – not all the way, just enough to make it livable. Not too much. Writing about life means standing at a little bit of a distance from it, so that you can turn it over and look at it from different angles. Might not work for everyone. But for the people it works for – maybe you! – it could turn the quicksilver in that hourglass into something you can work with. Doesn’t matter if you haven’t been doing it before. Now’s as good a time as any to get started. Doesn’t matter if you keep stopping. Even a spotty trail of stones is better than breadcrumbs in the forest of Hansel and Gretel. Doesn’t matter if you feel inarticulate. Start somewhere. Don’t like writing for yourself? Tell people stories through e-mail or text messages and keep a copy for your notes. After conversations, jot down notes to help you remember. Ask people to help you recall. What have you been doing with your life? Probably more than you can remember. =) Make the most of each year, and that’ll help you make the most of your life.

Learning from the speeches of grade seven students http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22330 June 27, 2011 Categories: learning, speaking As part of the grade 8 graduation ceremony, J- and the other grade 7 students spoke about the students who were going on to high school. J- was initially unsure about her speech. She didn’t know much about her honoree beyond a few short facts and a couple of stories from her interview. Her speech reflected it: generalities like “nice” and “funny”, and two pieces from the interview that were strung together with little transition. We helped her edit her speech. She found ways to connect the pieces, trim unneeded words, and become more specific. Larger

fonts and more space between lines simplified reading. Slashes helped her find places to breathe and remember to make eye contact. It wasn’t perfect, but it had fewer filler phrases, and it flowed more smoothly than her first draft. She rehearsed with the cat-tree as an ad-hoc podium. She didn’t drill it endlessly, but she practised it enough to get a sense of how the words felt. When she delivered the speech, she got laughs – and high-fives, fistbumps, and compliments afterwards. There’s a beginning, perhaps – that feeling of competence, that “hey I can do this”, the way that the music notes of her favourite songs are beginning to melt into melodies and her writing is becoming more about thought instead of mechanics. One of the key things in helping people learn, I think, is to nudge people over that hump and into that “I rock” experience, so that they get to the point of being able to enjoy it. I wonder how more people can get over that hump and enjoy exploring and sharing ideas. Also, it turns out that you can learn a lot about speaking from watching students. A few of the other speeches drew on clear, personal experiences. Others were delivered confidently and capably. Many echoed a common outline – perhaps the suggested questions from the interview: How long has the student attended the school? What are some characteristics you would use to describe the student? What’s a memory you can share about the student? Students were described with generic adjectives: “nice,” “funny,” “athletic.” Stories were left in the air, with little connection to the beginning or end of the speech. But that’s okay, they’re still learning. (Aren’t we all?) Worth the time. 2011-06-27 Mon 21:36

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Drupal notes from helping a client improve her development environment http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22331 June 28, 2011 - Categories: drupal, geek Keeping a to-do list helps you keep sane. If you don’t have a full-scale issue tracker, use a wiki page, text file, or something like that. It’s really useful to be able to get the list of things you’re working on or waiting for out of your head and into a form you can review. *Drupal Features help you export configuration into code.* This is much better than creating an installation profile because you can update your features with new settings and apply them to existing sites. Invaluable when working with multisites that may need to be updated. You may need to clear your Drupal cache before you see changes applied. Version control is really handy even when you’re working on your own. The ability to go back in time to a working setup (code + database) can help you experiment more freely and avoid late nights spent recovering from mistakes. *Drush (Drupal shell) is awesome.* It’s a big timesaver. We use it to download and enable modules (dl and en), clear the cache (cc), run database updates (updatedb), launch a SQL console (sqlc), execute PHP (php-eval), run tests, and so on. I use it a lot because I hate clicking around. Even more powerful with a little bit of xargs magic so that it’s easy to run a drush command against all the sites. Like this:

Bash script to create or clone multisites makes tedious things a little bit simpler. Tasks: •

Create a database and give access to a user.

•

Create the site and files directory.

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Create the settings.php with the database settings.

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Copy the base database into the new database.

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Create a symbolic link.

2011-06-28 Tue 08:55

Meaning and acknowledgement http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22332 June 29, 2011 Categories: book, education, learning, teach ing J- brought home her report card this week. She did well in so many subjects that it’s hard to pick which strength to build on first. Her mathematics study group sessions and science projects paid off, as did her personal interest in music. To celebrate her work, W- and I made a colourful card. She likes making greeting cards for us, and it was fun making one for her. It’s important to acknowledge good work. One time, W- was reviewing J-’s answers to the math exercises he gave her. “Very good,” he said. He crumpled the finished piece of paper.

cat sites.txt | xargs -n 1 -I {} drush -l {} somecommand

I plucked it from his hands and smoothened it out. “Ahem,” I said meaningfully.

Design decisions: Multisite without shared tables; services or syndication for sharing content between sites; central authentication for admin users…

“Oops. I tossed the other one already,” confessed W-. I retrieved the previous paper from the recycling bin and uncrumpled it. W- made a point of scoring both papers and adding smileys. J- beamed. Ah, behavioural psychology at home. You can influence people’s motivation by

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acknowledging or devaluing their work. In The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic at Work and at Home (Dan Areily, 2010), I read about experiments that explored how motivated people were if they thought their results were meaningless. As it turns out, people are strongly affected by the immediate perception of the usefulness of their work. In a task involving assembling Lego figures, participants who completed figures and put them into a box did more and enjoyed the task more than participants whose figures were disassembled right after they finished completing them. Another experiment described in the book involved finding pairs of letters on pages, a small payment scheme that stopped at the 10th sheet, and three scenarios where: •

people wrote their names on the papers they completed, and they were positively acknowledged by the experimentr

without explanations, so J- can test herself?” I asked W-. “No, it’s okay. Besides, it shows her that I value this,” W- said. “If I give her a workbook so that I can do something else, it’s not the same.” We invest learning with meaning and value, and that helps.

Context-switching and a fourproject day http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22333 June 30, 2011 Categories: drupal, geek, rails, work Context-switching among multiple projects can be tough. I’m currently: •

working full-time on one project (a Drupal 6 non-profit website)

•

consulting on another (helping an educational institution with Drupal 7 questions)

•

people completed and submitted papers with no names and without acknowledgement

•

•

people submitted papers that were then shredded, unread, right in front of them

supporting a third (Ruby on Rails site I built for a local nonprofit, almost done), and

•

trying to wrap up on a fourth (PHP/AJAX dashboard for a call center in the US).

49% of the people who were acknowledged went on to complete ten sheets or more, while only 17% of the people whose work was immediately shredded completed 10 or more. Only 18% of the people whose work was ignored completed ten sheets or more. Verbal acknowledgment of good work is good, but could it be at odds with the physical message of tossing the paper into the recycling bin? Best to be coherent. So the paper is celebrated, labeled, and put into a folder.

I’m doing the Drupal 6 development in a virtual machine on my system, with an integration server set up externally. Consulting for the second project is done on-site or through e-mail. The Rails site is on a virtual server. The dashboard project is now on the company’s servers (IIS6/Microsoft SQL Server), which I can VPN into and use Remote Desktop to access. I’m glad I have two computers and a standing desk (read: kitchen counter) that makes it easy to use both!

W- reminds me of this principle too, when I forget. On the way home from work one day, I brought up how he spent some time selecting and copying items from the workbook onto a piece of paper for J-’s exercises. “Should we get a workbook

Today was one of those days. I helped my new team member set up his system so that he could start working on our project. He’s on Mac OS X. It took us some time to figure out some of the quirky behaviour, such as MySQL sockets not being where PHP

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expected them to be. Still, we got his system sorted out, so now he can explore the code while I’m on vacation tomorrow. In between answering his questions, I replied to the consulting client’s questions about Drupal and the virtual image we set up yesterday. That mainly required remembering what we did and how we set it up. Fortunately, that part was fairly recent, so it was easy to answer her questions. Then I got an instant message from the person I worked with on the fourth project, the call-center dashboard. He asked me to join a conference call. They were having big problems: the dashboard wasn’t refreshing, so users couldn’t mark their calls as completed. It was a little nerve-wracking trying to identify and resolve the problem on the phone. There were two parts to the problem: IIS was unresponsive, and Microsoft SQL Server had stopped replicating. The team told me that there had been some kind of resource-related problem that morning, too, so the lack of system resources might’ve cascaded into this. After some hurried searching and educated guesses about where to nudge the servers, I got the database replication working again, and I set IIS back to using the shared application pool. I hope that did the trick. I can do a lot of things, but I’m not as familiar with Microsoft server administration as I am with the Linux/Apache/MySQL or Linux/Apache/PostgreSQL combinations. I felt myself starting to stress out, so I deliberately slowed down while I was making the changes, and I took a short nap afterwards to reset myself. (Coding or administering systems while stressed is a great way to give yourself even more work and stress.) After the nap, I was ready to take on the rest. The client for the Rails project e-mailed me a request to add a column of output to the report. I’d archived my project-related virtual machine already, so I (very carefully) coded it into the site in a not-completelyflexible manner. I found and fixed two bugs along the way, so it was a good thing I checked.

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Context-switching between Drupal 6, Drupal 7, and Rails projects is weird. Even Drupal 6 and Drupal 7 differ significantly in terms of API, and Rails is a whole ‘nother kettle of fish. I often look things up, because it’s faster to do that than to rely on my assumptions and debug them when I’m wrong. Clients and team members watching me might think I don’t actually know anything by myself and I’m looking everything up as I go along. Depending on how scrambled my brain is, I’d probably suck in one of those trying-to-be-tough job interviews where you have to write working code without the Internet. But it is what it is, and this helps me build things quickly. On the bright side, it’s pretty fun working with multiple paradigms. Rails uses one way of thinking, Drupal uses another, and so on. I’ve even mixed in Java before. There were a few weeks I was switching between enterprise Java, Drupal, Rails, and straight PHP. It’s not something I regularly do, but when the company needs it, well… it’s good exercise. Mental gymnastics. (And scheduling gymnastics, too.) I like having one-project days. Two-project days are kinda okay too. Four-project days – particularly ones that involve solving a problem in an unfamiliar area while people are watching! – are tough, but apparently survivable as long as I remember to breathe. =) Here are tips that help me deal with all that context-switching. Maybe they’ll help you! Look things up. It’s okay. I find myself looking up even basic things all the time. For example, did you know that Ruby doesn’t have a straightforward min/max function the way PHP does? The canonical way to do it is to create an array (or other enumerable) and call the min or max member function, like this: [x,y].max. Dealing with little API/language quirks like that is part of the context-switching cost. Likewise, I sometimes find myself wishing I could just use something like rails console in my Drupal sites… =)

Take extensive notes. Even if you’re fully focused on one project and have no problems remembering it now, you might need to go back to something you thought you already finished. Slow down and take breaks. Don’t let stress drag you into making bad decisions. I felt much more refreshed after a quick nap, and I’m glad I did that instead of trying to force my way through the afternoon. This is one of the benefits of working at home – it’s easy to nap in an ergonomic and nonembarrassing way, while still getting tons of stuff done the rest of the day. Clear your brain and focus on the top priority. It’s hard to juggle multiple projects. I made sure my new team member had things to work on while I focused on the call center dashboard project so that I wouldn’t be tempted to switch back and forth. Likewise, I wrote the documentation I promised for that project before moving on to the Rails project. Breathe. No sense in stressing out and getting overwhelmed. Make one good decision at a time. Work step by step, and you’ll find that you’ll get through everything you need to do. Avoid multi-tasking. Singletask and finish as much as you can of your top priority first. I prefer having one main project, maybe two projects during the transition periods. This isn’t always possible. Programming competitions helped me learn how to deal with multiple chunks of work under time pressure, and I’m getting better at it the more that work throws at me. What are your tips for dealing with simultaneous projects? 2011-06-30 Thu 16:19

July 2011

Four-day weekend ahead http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22334 July 1, 2011 - Categories: planning Today is Canada Day. Monday is a floater day for IBMers in Ontario. (IBM uses

floater days to balance out the number of holidays across the provinces. Nice, isn’t it?) This adds up to a four-day weekend. You can get a lot done in a four-day weekend. I make lists of things to do so that I don’t give in to the temptation to spend the time working. Time to review my initial list of unstructured time activities (update focusing on evenings and weekends), maybe think about plans for the summer and longterm plans. Things to work on: Chore-day: – just get everything ready for more good weeks: •

Turn compost

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Wash clothes

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Tidy the house

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Prepare large batches of food

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Weed the garden, maybe plant another batch

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Return library books and check out new ones

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Reset the litter boxes

Other things I can work on: •

Write a detailed blog post about our experiences with communitysupported agriculture

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Organize files on our server

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Review old blog posts and write updates; organize thematically?

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Prototype photo database W- was thinking about

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Learn how to play Portal 2′s “Still Alive” so that I can help J- learn it

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Work on Latin digitization and homework

I was thinking about sewing, but I’m fine in terms of clothes, so I don’t particularly need it. Last year, we used these long weekends for woodworking. Shelves and cabinets would be nice, but again, we’re doing pretty well right now. Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 351

Organizing and writing, I think. That’s the key. And maybe some more Latin.

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Retirement: maximize RRSP room every year

2011-07-01 Fri 12:06

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Medium- and long-term investments: non-registered

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Charity

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Sabbatical: replace one year of income every 7 years

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Household

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Internet: web hosting and domain names

Mia is learning more about personal finance. She came across my post on my financial network map and virtual envelope system and wanted to know if I had a copy of the image. Unfortunately, I don’t seem to, but it’s as good a time as any to post an update.

•

Phone: cellphone service

•

Pet care: cat food, vet visits, longterm savings (self-insuring our pets)

•

Travel: visiting family

•

Personal care: clothing, supplies, health, massages, etc.

What’s changed in the last two years? What have I learned about personal finances?

•

Hobbies

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Dream: Larger expenses worth saving up for; experiences

One of the key things I think people should learn when they’re mapping out how they organize their money and how they want to organize their money is this:

•

Play: Miscellaneous expenses

How I organize my personal finances http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22335 July 1, 2011 - Categories: finance Update: I found the image!

The logical organization of your money doesn’t have to be limited by the physical organization of your money – which bank accounts, which jars full of coins, whatever. I make my logical decisions first: how much to save, what to save for, what levels of risk to accept. Then I use those decisions to guide how to organize my money: chequing, savings, GICs, investments; registered, nonregistered, tax-free, etc. I use a virtual envelope system to keep track of what I’m saving up for and how much I’ve budgeted for regular expenses. I like this more than a straightforward budget because of the flexibility. If I have a surplus in one category (say, I don’t sew as much), or if I need to spend more in a more important category, I can move money around. Current envelopes (no particular order):

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I track almost all my expenses, with miscellaneous cash expenses grouped together if I can’t categorize them properly. I keep my financial data in plain text files using John Wiegley’s awesome ledger tool. It’s very geeky. I use it because I can quickly answer questions like: •

How much do I spend on groceries each month?

•

What are the balances in my virtual envelopes?

•

At what prices did I buy my index funds?

•

How much did I make last year after tax?

I use more financial institutions now. It does take me a little bit of time to check on my accounts at all of them, but I think the benefits outweigh the costs. Here’s how and why I use each of them: •

ING Direct: I’ve been using ING for savings for a while, and I’ve also

shifted my payroll direct deposit to the chequing account I created. I use ING because of decent rates on GICs, the ease of creating sub-accounts, and instantaneous transfers between chequing and savings accounts. I don’t want to make it my only chequing account, though, because the bank machine network isn’t as wide as the other banks. •

PCFinancial: I used to use this as my main chequing and savings bank before I moved to ING. I also used to use this as my primary credit card before I moved to MBNA. I keep these accounts around mainly so that I can withdraw cash easily.

•

TD Canada Trust: I have a chequing account and a USD account here. The chequing account has the minimum balance needed to avoid fees. This account is mainly to make it easier for me to invest at TD (see TD Waterhouse).

•

TD Waterhouse: I switched from TD Mutual Funds to TD Waterhouse so that I could hold investments in my tax-free savings account (TFSA). I have three types of investment accounts here: my non-registered investments, my tax-free savings account, and my registered retirement savings plan. All of them currently hold TD e-funds, but I may shift to ETFs later on.

•

MBNA: The MBNA Smart Cash credit card gets me 3% cashback on groceries and 1% cashback on everything else, beating PCFinancial’s effective 1%.

•

Sun Life: Sun Life holds my defined-contribution pension plan from work. I maximize the IBM match, but I keep the rest of my long-term investments at TD because I get lower management expense ratios for similar index funds there.

Overall, I’m at about 6% cash, 20% GICs, 49% Canadian index funds, 9% US, 9%

international, and 7% bonds. 31% of that is in my RRSP. It skews a bit more conservative because of the GICs. Update: Here’s the old map:

Here’s what that map looks like now:

It takes me 15-30 minutes a week to update my accounts, reflect on my expenses, and review my goals. I like the steady progress. Good personal finance is boring. ;) It’s mainly a matter of time: saving up, adapting to changes, letting interest compound, learning more… The next thing might be to move money from index funds to ETFs in order to take advantage of the teensy difference in management expense ratios, but it’s no big deal. I’m on track to make my savings target this year. I can’t do anything about the markets, but I can do something about how much I save. We’re getting better at what we spend on, too, as we learn more about what we value and enjoy. What have you learned about personal finance?

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Getting a grip on a large database migration http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22337 July 2, 2011 - Categories: drupal, geek Michael is working on migrating a custom website with hundreds of database tables to Drupal, and he wanted to know if I had any advice for keeping track of table mappings and other migration tasks. I’ve worked on small migration projects before (including migrating my own blog from lots of Planner-mode text files to WordPress!), but no large projects like the ones Michael described. But if I needed to do something like that, here’s what I’d probably do. I’d love to hear your tips! I’d list all the tables and start mapping them to entities. What content types would I need to create? What fields would I need to define? How are the content types related to each other? An entity relationship diagram can help you get an overview of what’s going on in the database. Then I’d start untangling the entities to see which ones I can migrate first. If you have entities with node references, it makes sense to migrate the data referred to before migrating the data that refers to them. If I can get a slice of the database – not all the records, just enough to flesh out the different relationships – that would make testing the migrations faster and easier. I would probably write a custom Drupal module to do the migrations, because it’s much easier to programmatically create nodes than it is to insert all the right entries into all the right tables. I’d commit the custom module to source code control frequently. I’d write some code to migrate an entity type or two, test the migration, and commit the source code. As I migrated more and more of the relationships, I’d probably check them off or colour them differently in the diagram, making note of anything I’d need to revisit (circular references, etc.).

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I might break the custom module up into steps to make it easier to rerun or test. That way, I’m not reconstructing the entire database in one request, too. I’d take notes on design decisions. When you migrate data, you’ll probably come across data that challenges your initial assumptions. This might require redesigning your entities and revising your earlier migration code. When I make design decisions, I often write about the options I’m considering and the reasons for or against them. This makes those decisions easier to revisit when new data might invalidate my assumptions, because I can see what may need to be changed. How would you handle a migration project that’s too large to hold in your head?

Fifty kilometers on my bicycle http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22339 July 3, 2011 - Categories: biking Maira and Scott suggested biking along the Humber river trail, which stretches north-southish all the way up to Steeles. I’d never been along the north part of the trail, and it sounded like a great way to spend the Sunday afternoon. They originally wanted to meet up at 12. It was 11:30 by the time I left. It would’ve taken me too much time to get there through public transit, so I arranged to bike up and meet them at some point along the trail. The Humber trail is an easy ride with the occasional hill. The only tough parts are that you sometimes need to find the trail again. I got a little lost along the way, but GPS and other people helped me get back on track. My friends were running quite late, so I ended up leisurely pedaling all the way to the beginning of the Humber trail near Kipling and Steeles. I had my Kindle with me, so I passed the time reading. After we met up, we took the trail south. We overshot Bloor and circled back, emerging at Royal York and Bloor. We headed our separate

ways at Bloor, and I made it back home by 4:30pm.

pages of this easy-to-read book, I discovered a philosophy similar to the one I live.

I covered 50km, finished two bottles of water (and wished I’d brought a third), and snacked on one granola bar. When I got home, I had a refreshing shower, then read two books and took a short nap.

You see, Pollyanna’s life centers on the Glad Game that she plays – the game of finding at least one thing to be glad about in any situation. An orphan taken in by her stern aunt, she inspires the town and eventually her aunt into playing this game. Invalids are comforted, quarrels are patched up, life gets better all around. When she runs into her own challenges, the whole town pitches in to help her play the toughest Glad Game she’s ever faced.

So. Biking a long way. I think it’s the longest and farthest I’ve biked semi-continuously. I wasn’t winded afterwards, just a tad wobbly, and W- and I still got plenty of things done the rest of the day. I think it’s more like plugging away at this exercise thing, like perhaps you might on a stationary bike, except that the scenery changes, there’s the occasional breeze, and you really should put on sunblock (which I did). It’s not hard. It’s just being present and keeping your legs moving, and maybe not getting run over by cars on the stretches between the proper trails. I think it’s amazing being able to bike on a small paved trail clearly in much use – we saw lots of pedestrians and other cyclists – far away from the sights and sounds of the city, yet in the heart of it, and never too far away from help or the rest of the world. There are many other things I can do in five hours, sure, but this is pretty good too. 2011-07-03 Sun 20:25

Embracing Pollyanna http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22340 July 4, 2011 Categories: happiness, philosophy Happy people are sometimes derided as unrealistic Pollyannas, other people’s way of bringing them down to earth. I’ve heard it from people who don’t yet understand how I can be so optimistic. The dictionary defines “pollyanna” as an excessively or blindly optimistic person. Curious about this, I requested Eleanor Porter’s book Pollyanna from the library. In the

I play something like the Glad Game too. Grew into it unknowingly, took it as my own. It becomes easier – almost instinctive – as you do it. In the book, Pollyanna says: “Why, Nancy, that’s so! I WAS playing the game—but that’s one of the times I just did it without thinking, I reckon. You see, you DO, lots of times; you get so used to it—looking for something to be glad about, you know. And most generally there is something about everything that you can be glad about, if you keep hunting long enough to find it.”

The game I play isn’t quite the Glad Game, though. I don’t stop at being glad. I guess I play the Learn-Share-Do Game. What can I learn from this situation? How can I share what I’m learning? How will I respond – what will I do about this situation? This turns every joy and success into something greater, and every heartache into part of the story. It’s a blend of the infectious optimism of the 11-year-old Pollyanna and the resolute freedom of the Holocaust survivor Victor Frankl, who wrote this: Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

There is no shame in being a Pollyanna, on facing life with conscious optimism and deliberate gratitude. Optimism can be firmly rooted in reality, finding nutrients in its depths, using the rocks of life as anchors.

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I play the Learn-Share-Do game. What game do you play with life?

Organizing my digital life http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22342 July 5, 2011 - Categories: geek W- upgraded our file server to a RAID-1 configuration (mirroring without parity or striping) using two 1.8-terabyte disks. Now we can back up and reorganize our files, and set up regular backup routines too. It’s a good time to think about what I want from archives and how I can organize them to improve retrieval and serendipity. What would a good archive be like? •

[X] HTML and images of my blog, so

that I can browse it and recover even if I mess up my database or my images •

[X] Database backup of my blog, so

that I can restore it more easily – test by setting up virtual host •

[X] Backup of my whole website

•

[X] Backup of my personal files

(organizer.org, outline.org, ledger, etc.)

1. Copy files off the camera and put them in my folders. 2. Use Bibble5 to rate the photos and process them. 3. Export the pictures and upload them to Picasa and Facebook. 4. Order prints. Blog posts: 1. Draft posts using organizer.org in my Emacs, or use ScribeFire to draft graphical posts. 2. Illustrate them with sketches or photos (optional). 3. Publish to blog. 4. Save daily backups of database and monthly backups of HTML. 5. Print blog dump monthly. 6. Do a monthly or weekly review of unpublished drafts to see if I can build on them. 7. Review past years’ blog posts to see if I can build on any. What do I want to access from my laptop while I’m at home?

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[X] Presentations

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Personal files / documents

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[X] Photos, sketches, and book notes,

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1024×768 versions of sketches and favourite photos

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Presentations organized by topic?

organized so that I can browse/search by keywords and other criteria, maybe get statistics

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o

Inbox

o

Processed

o

Favourites?

[ ] Backup of Twitter/Facebook

activity, perhaps using ThinkUp •

[ ] Database of books I’ve checked

out from the library: title, author, ID, start date, end date, and maybe any notes I have (possible link to Goodreads if I can get that working?) What would good workflows look like? Photos:

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What do I want to be able to access offline or away from home? •

Personal files / documents

Hmm, might be worth saving up for a larger hard disk drive for my laptop, too… How do you get more value out of your archives?

Hacking Drupal views and taxonomy: looking for 100% matching of terms http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22344 July 6, 2011 - Categories: drupal, geek I’m working on a Drupal 6 site that helps match volunteers to speaking opportunities, or sessions. I use Taxonomy to keep track of the qualifications so that I can maintain the qualification hierarchy. Given a list of subject areas that a person is interested in, I need to find all sessions that match any of those subject areas. The quirk: the session must have at least one of the person’s terms, and the person must also have all the session’s terms. Let’s say that our volunteer is interested in speaking about biology and physics. I couldn’t use a straightforward AND search. If I searched for biology AND physics, I wouldn’t get sessions for just biology. It also means I can’t use a straightforward OR search, because I shouldn’t list sessions that require both biology AND another subject the person hadn’t listed, such as chemistry. Views didn’t seem to have a built-in way to do it. I couldn’t think of a standard-ish way to describe my challenge in order to find relevant posts on drupal.org. Content recommendation modules seemed similar, but I wasn’t familiar with any of them enough to know which one would be the closest to hack for my cross-type comparisons and 100% match requirements. So it was time to hack my Views query. After several attempts, I settled on the approach of precalculating how many terms were associated with each session node. I created a table with the information and used the following query to populate it in my install file. db_query("INSERT INTO {node_term_count} SELECT nid, vid, count(tid) AS term_count FROM {term_node} GROUP BY nid, vid");

I also used hook_nodeapi to update the table on insert, update, and delete operations.

Then I started experimenting through the SQL console. I used COUNT and GROUP BY to find out how many terms the session had in common with the person. Selecting from that MySQL subquery let me filter the list to the nodes where the total number of terms equaled the number of terms the session had. I ended up with a query that looked like this: SELECT nid, vid FROM (SELECT tns.nid, tns.vid, COUNT(tns.tid) AS match_count, c.term_count FROM term_node tns INNER JOIN node_term_count c ON tns.vid=c.vid WHERE tns.tid in (55, 56, 42, 39, 41) GROUP BY tns.vid) AS result WHERE term_count = match_count;

When I was happy with the query, I used hook_views_pre_execute to change my $view>build_info['query'] and $view>build_info['count_query']. With all the other filters I needed, it eventually looked like this: $view->build_info['query'] = "SELECT * FROM ( SELECT tns.nid, tns.vid, count(tns.tid) AS match_count, c.term_count, workflow_node.sid FROM node n INNER JOIN term_node tns ON (n.vid=tns.vid AND n.nid=tns.nid) LEFT JOIN workflow_node workflow_node ON n.nid = workflow_node.nid INNER JOIN node_term_count c ON tns.vid=c.vid INNER JOIN content_type_session session ON (n.nid=session.nid AND n.vid=session.vid) INNER JOIN node school_node ON (session.field_session_school_nid=school_node.nid) INNER JOIN content_type_school school ON (school_node.nid=school.nid AND school_node.vid=school.vid) INNER JOIN content_field_session_dates date ON (n.nid=date.nid AND n.vid=date.vid AND date.delta=0) WHERE (n.type in ('%s') AND workflow_node.sid=%d AND session.field_session_request_mode_value = '%s' AND (n.status <> %d) AND (DATE_FORMAT(ADDTIME(date.field_session_dates_value, SEC_TO_TIME(-14400)), '%Y-%m-%%d') >= '" . date('Y-md') . "') AND school.field_school_district_nid IN ($district_where) AND tns.tid in ($tid_where)) GROUP BY tns.vid ) as result WHERE term_count = match_count AND match_count > 0";

I used variables like $tid_where and $district_where to simplify the query. They use array_fill to create placeholders for the arguments. Result: I think it works the way it’s supposed to. It passes my unit tests and manual testing, anyway. If performance becomes an issue, I might precalculate the Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 357

results and store them in a table. I hope I don’t have to do that, though. Views 3 is supposed to have arbitrary data stores that let you write views on top of any sort of query or function, but I’m going to stay with Views 2 for now. Whenever I write about stuff we’re doing with Drupal, I often hear about even awesomer ways to do things. =) Is this one of those times? Is there a little-known module that Does the Right Thing?

It’s often easier to pick from a list than to think of something to do in the moment, so here are some ideas for things to do: Physical •

Swimming

•

Biking

•

Exercising

•

Running, playing in the park

Mental

Planning for summer

•

http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22345 July 7, 2011 Categories: education, life, planning

Reading a book (critical reading – maybe discussion at dinner?)

•

Working on reading exercises

•

Working on math exercises

•

Going to the library

J-’s now on her summer break. We’ve been thinking of ways to help her use her summer well. There’ll be time for unstructured play and for hanging out with friends, of course, but it’s also good to help her develop initiative and life skills, fighting the temptations of video games along the way. Both W- and I are working through summer because we’re saving our vacation days for Kathy’s upcoming wedding, so J- will need to be self-driven. She’s pretty good at dealing with the inevitable what-do-I-donow moments (and we all get those, if we’re lucky). She often practises piano or ukulele, reads a book, or hangs out with friends. We can help by setting some challenges, nudging her to work on mastery or life skills, and giving her feedback on how she’s doing (such as for writing or math exercises).

Creative •

Drawing (comics, sketches, etc.) – maybe put together a sketchbook or comic book

•

Writing notes, stories, and so on

•

Playing the piano or the ukulele

•

Visiting the AGO, the ROM, the science centre, etc.

•

Taking pictures

•

Exploring arts and crafts (ex: collage, sculpting)

Life skills •

Learning how to cook

•

Making life better: cleaning, tidying, looking for ways to improve, etc.

•

Volunteering (Free Geek?)

•

Learning life skills: taking public transit, biking, etc.

•

Negotiating/persuading

Overall plans for the summer: •

Read

•

Practise music

•

Hang out with friends

•

Prepare for next school year

•

Work on life skills

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Play •

Hang out with friends

•

Play video games (time-limited?)

•

Play board games

game s or surfe d the Inter net all day

We’ll encourage her to add to this list, too. We like the way her school uses rubrics to make it clear what excellence looks like. We’re not planning to use one to grade Jfor her summer work – grading summer! what a thought – but it might be useful to work out one with her so that she can selfevaluate how she’s spending her time and so that she can motivate herself to push her limits. W- and I thought about the process first so that we can guide her through planning her own. Here’s the draft W- and I came up with: Categor y

1

2

3

4

Physica l

Sat on couc h all day / staye d indo ors

Basic calisthen ics

Extended physical activity

Stretchin g your limits

Playe d video game s all day / watc hed TV all day

1 unit of work

No creati ve outp ut

Drew / wrote / practised piano/uk ulele / etc.

Memorized part of a song / New story/comic/d rawing to share

Discussi on of work

Mess

Cleaned up after self

Cleaned up after cats

Made life better / cleaned up after others

Mental

Creativ e

Life skills

Techno logy

Playe d video

presentat ions, etc.)

technology and shared it with us or others

your own / experim ented with tools

Thinking of ways to build scaffolds for J-’s learning through these lists of ideas and rubrics for self-evaluation inspires me to make some of these for myself, too. What would my discretionary-time activities look like? Physical •

Biking

•

Exercising

•

Gardening

Mental

2 units of work

3 units of work

•

Reading a book, maybe blogging notse

•

Improving development skills

Creative

Practised IT skills (typing,

Created something using

•

Drawing – sketches, presentations, etc.

•

Writing notes, stories, blog posts

•

Playing the piano

•

Visiting the AGO, the ROM, the science centre, etc.

•

Taking pictures

Life skills

Learned somethi ng on

•

Preparing a new recipe or experimenting with a familiar one

•

Making life better: cleaning, tidying, looking for ways to improve, etc.

•

Learning how to drive

What would a rubric for myself look like? Categor

1–

2–

3–

4–

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 359

y

minim al

acceptable

good

awesome

Physica l

Sat and worke d all day / stayed indoor s

Worked at standing desk / did some gardening

Turned the compost / exercise d

Exercised for hours

Did OK at work

Solved new problems or built new functionali ty at work

Read one or more books

No creativ e output

Blogged / practised piano

Created and shared pictures or sketches

Learned a new technique / memorize d part of a song

Mess

Cleaned up after self

Cleaned up after others

Made life better

Mental

Creativ e

Life skills

Worked on learning a new skill / Shared what I was learning

In an imperfect world http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22346 July 8, 2011 Categories: life, philosophy, reflection Quinn wanted to know how I respond to systemic injustice, wicked problems, and other things that are so far beyond individual scale that they tend to reduce people to helplessness. I used to be paralyzed by these thoughts. I fumbled with class divides, marked as privileged by language and accent and access. I avoided relationships because I worried about the statistics showing discrimination against married women and mothers. I felt torn apart by guilt over being part of the brain drain, tempted to think of what-ifs. I’m learning to pick my fights and focus on doing the best I can.

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So, yes to…

Even though it will probably be much harder to…

Pursuing my passion for code and writing, despite knowing that there are scary people out there

Deal with such people if they make me a target

Blogging about what I’m learning, sharing whatever I can

Contribute to open source code while at IBM (it’s doable, but there’s quite a bit paperwork ;) )

Both my husband and I Go with nonkeeping our names, and to patrilineal naming always phrasing it as for children decisions we both make for ourselves Promoting equality through avoiding deemphasizing motherhood and emphasizing parenting, valuing homemakers and caregivers, and appreciating people who choose not to have children

Deal with genderrole assumptions, subtle professional discrimination against mothers, and ageism in technology careers

Managing my finances myself and resisting the pull towards consumerism

get everyone to live below their means and manage their accounts reasonably

Microlending and encouraging entrepreneurship

Get people to selfstart, or solve systemic biases against the poor

Living as full a life as I can with W-

Deal with the occasional biases against and the certain challenges of a relationship with a large age gap

Making the most of where I am and helping other people get started

Move back to the Philippines and make a bigger difference there

Working reasonable hours at full capacity and investing in building a full

Change the worklife expectations for executives or

life as well

startups

It isn’t about solving the world’s problems. It’s about facing the world lovingly, finding unknown depths of energy in yourself so that you can keep on going even if life challenges you. Here’s something from people wiser than I am: The bodhisattva vows to save all sentient beings, but that is not a goal in the relative sense. The bodhisattva realizes that what she is saying in that vow is completely impractical. You can’t really do it. We see this from the mythical story of the great bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara. He had a literal mind in the beginning. He took that vow, “Until I save all six realms of existence, I will not attain enlightenment.” He worked and he worked and he worked to fulfill his vow. He helped beings, and he thought he’d saved hundreds of millions of them. Then he turned around and saw that an even greater number than he had saved were still suffering, and he had flickers of doubt at that point. At the beginning, when he took that vow, he had said, “If I have any doubts about my path, may my head split into a thousand pieces.” This vow came true at this time. His head began to fall apart. He was in tremendous pain of confusion, not knowing what he was doing. Then, according to the myth, Amitabha – a great buddha of compassion – came to him and said, “Now you’re being foolish. That vow you took shouldn’t be taken literally. What you took was a vow of limitless compassion.” Avalokiteshvara realized that and understood it. Through that recognition, he became a thousand times more powerful. That’s why the iconographical image of Avalokiteshvara often has twelve heads and a thousand arms. You see, once you take the meaning of saving all the others literally, you lose the sacredness of it. If you’re able to see that compassion applies to every situation, then compassion becomes limitless.

Sometimes it feels like the world rolls backwards faster than we Sisyphi can push it up. That’s okay. We get better and better at making little differences. We get better at making bigger and bigger differences. There’s no game over. There’s no happily ever after. There’s just the constant work and growth of being human. Sometimes I roll backwards faster than I can push myself up. I forget something. I ignore someone’s needs. I make mistakes. But if I can keep focusing on small things I can do to move forward instead of trying to keep score over the entirety of things, then it’s easy to find the energy to start again. The world also rolls forward, unexpectedly, through no effort of our own. Keep an eye out for those moments. The world is full of things that aren’t right, but it’s also full of things that are.

Thinking about activities to share with others http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22347 July 9, 2011 Categories: analysis, kaizen, life, list, reflecti on Over the past two weeks, I had been planning to go see Hugh Jackman’s concert with some friends. Apparently, he can sing quite well. I found myself hesitating even as I juggled coupon codes and RSVPs. With a week to go and seats selling out, I ended up deciding not to go. I realized that I’d rather spend a quiet evening with W- or by myself than watch a concert.

… The path is what there is to work with, and that work is there eternally, because sentient beings are numberless, and we have to work with them eternally.

One of my friends really wanted to go. He asked me if there was anything stopping Wfrom watching with us. I replied that it wasn’t really W-’s kind of thing. Come to think of it, concerts aren’t particularly my kind of thing either.

Trungpa, Gimian, and Kohn’s Work, Sex, Money: Real Life on the Path of Mindfulness (p73-74)

That made me think about what activities I might share with friends, and about introversion and friendship.

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 361

It’s easy to reflect on this because Jprovides good contrast. She’s on her summer break. At 13 years old, she’s independent enough to choose her own activities, such as sketching at home or walking over to friends’ houses. She’s comfortable spending time on her own, but she lights up when she hangs out with friends. Not a day goes by without a gettogether. I remember being a bit like that: enjoying lunch with friends at school, inviting people to our house for snacks, suggesting things to do and movies to watch. But I’m also really comfortable by myself or with W- and J-, so it takes effort to organize or go to gettogethers. Time to break out a tool that I sometimes use to help J- think of ideas: the list. If I think about activities I can share with other people, then it might be easier to get out there and do it, and it might make it easier for other people to share activities with me. Some ideas: •

Concerts and symphony performances: Probably not. They tend to be more expensive, too.

•

Musicals: Very rarely. I enjoyed “Evil Dead” and “Wicked” greatly, and sprung for the awesomest tickets I could get. Other musicals tend to be .

•

•

Opera: I like opera. Watching opera makes the music come alive for me. I prefer community opera by the Toronto Opera Repertory over the Canadian Opera Company. Maybe it’s the memories (the particularly awesome date with W- that kicked all of this off). Maybe it’s knowing that the singers are doing this on top of their other lives. Movies: Hmm. I watch some movies in theatres because I want to vote for them with my dollars or because I think the theatre experience will be worth it (usually great effects or decent 3D). Watching

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 362

a movie is a fairly passive sort of experience, though. •

Movies at home: I much prefer watching movies at home, actually – a cat or two on my lap, subtitles, the ability to pause it whenever, a comfortable couch, maybe laundry to fold… The library is awesome.

•

Exercise: Biking. Walking around. I’d be up for that, even if biking involves relatively little conversation unless there’s some sort of picnic.

•

Cooking: Definitely. I wish more of my friends organized potlucks, or were up to coming over for one. In the meantime, I host tea parties as an excuse to prepare interesting recipes. I enjoy the process of cooking, particularly when I’m sharing it with other people, and I like sharing the results.

•

Writing/reading/drawing/sewi ng: I think it would be really cool to share more of my learning activities with friends. I might be up for a book club, for example. Or a writing group with exercises. Or drawing lessons. Or sewing lessons, although I’m more keen on writing, reading, and drawing. =) I’d much rather develop skills than consume experiences.

It’s a little weird working on understanding this. J- plans the other way around: she calls people and invites them to hang out, and then they figure out what to do. I feel the influence of my introversion here. I often prefer to spend time writing (look! here I am) than hanging out. I suspect it’s good to put myself in the way of learning from other people’s lives, though, especially since many people share their lives in conversation and not online. Maybe it’ll come in time. (I’m starting to have parent-y conversations about summer enrichment!) What activities do you share with other people?

Weekly review: Two weeks ending July 9, 2011 http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22348 July 10, 2011 - Categories: review, weekly

o

Plans for next week •

Work o

Ah, holiday weekends. Forgot to do my review last week. =)

o

Work o

o

[X] Visit client U to help with •

Relationships

[X] Work on user registration

o

[ ] Host get-together

and profile editing for project M

o

[ ] Help mount new cabinets

o

[ ] Work on inventory app

[X] Help team members on

for mom

board for project M o

•

•

[ ] Project M: Implement

more reports Drupal

o

[ ] Project M: Tidy up user

registration, get clients to start testing

From the other week’s plans •

Backed up my photos

Also worked on project C – more small improvements

o

Got lots of stuff done for project M

o

Applied Drupal theme from design company

Relationships o

[/] Organize get-together? Tentatively planned for July 15

o

Biked along Humber trail with Maira and Scott

o

Helped J- with homework and summer planning

o

Started drawing exercises with W- and J-

o

Got back into Latin

o

Answered blog questions

o

Hung out with in-laws and J’s friends’ parents

o

Checked out Free Geek as a possible volunteer opportunity; looks interesting

Life o

[-] Sleep earlier: Ah, Portal

o

Organized my files

•

Life o

[ ] Do some more gardening

Monthly review: June 2011 http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22349 July 11, 2011 - Categories: review June was a good month for health-related experiments. The community-supported agriculture box meant that we had lots of vegetables in the house. I joined several long bike rides, getting plenty of exercise. Sun + warm weather = garden growing at full speed, although my lettuce has bolted. At work, I dived back into Drupal development. I’ve been working from home almost all the time because I really like the standing-desk set up I’ve got at home – our kitchen counter, which is conveniently close to water and snacks. Good things all around. July is shaping up to be a great month too. Summer’s heat means more ice cream and less baking. I’m fascinated by the way my social interactions are shifting: I’m growing more and more comfortable talking about grown-up things (what J-’s learning this summer; what W- and I are working on), and I get together less frequently with my old circles. Work is chugging along nicely. It’s a good month to practise managing the pipeline of opportunities, too, so that I can move from one engagement to another

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 363

without many hiccups. Onward and upward!

•

Hungry hungry compost and other garden updates

Blog posts in June:

•

It’s Bike Month in Toronto!

•

Bike ride in the rain

•

Made a stuff sack for J-

•

Getting things ready for the next week: cooking and gardening

•

This is what my blog looks like on paper

•

Cook Or Die Season II: CommunitySupported Agriculture

•

Kaizen in the little things: The way the door opens

•

Make-ahead meals

Geek/work •

VMWare, Samba, Eclipse, and XDebug: Mixing a virtual Linux environment with a Microsoft Windows development environment

•

Negative optimization

•

Thinking about our development practices

•

Drush, Simpletest, and continuous integration for Drupal using Jenkins (previously Hudson)

•

Sketchnotes from Democamp Toronto 29, June 2011

•

Getting the hang of communitysupported agriculture

•

Managing configuration changes in Drupal

•

Gardening notes: Cut-and-comeagain lettuce

•

Thinking about speaking topics

•

•

Switching back to Linux as my development host

An abundance of cilantro, now freezing in cubes; strawberries and peas

•

(500) days of salad

•

Drupal notes from helping a client improve her development environment

•

Strawberry rhubarb baking

•

Context-switching and a four-project day

•

Plans for summer: Relationships, work, gardening, biking, drawing and photography, making, and finances

•

Writing your way past “What have I been doing with my life?”

Monthly reviews: April and May 2011

•

Learning from the speeches of grade seven students

Weekly review: Week ending June 3, 2011

•

Weekly review: Week ending June 11, 2011

•

Weekly review: Week ending June 18, 2011

•

Weekly review: Week ending June 25, 2011

•

Decision review: calendars, development, standing desks, toe shoes, Kindle, bike, CSA, Autodesk Sketchbook, blogging

Life • • •

Planning/review

Meaning and acknowledgement

• •

Portal 2 and teachable moments in argument

•

Portal 2

Health/garden/hobbies

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 364

•

Decision review: Kitchen counter computing (ad hoc standing desk)

•

Personal projects

•

Mindful spending, experiments, and living in line with your values

On cherry tomatoes, frugality, and wanting http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22350 July 12, 2011 - Categories: life

We spent Saturday afternoon hanging out with W-’s brother and his family, as W- was helping them move the fridge. Over the post-fridge-moving barbecue, his brother Morgan and I were chatting about gardens. I confessed that I grew cherry tomatoes because I can’t stand paying the premium for them at the supermarket. Morgan pointed out that we make enough for me to buy cherry tomatoes if I want them. He said that when he craves steak, he goes out and buys it. I can always want different things, I said. If cherry tomatoes aren’t ripening in our garden or on sale at the supermarket, I can get regular tomatoes, or other fruits and vegetables. I generally don’t crave things. It’s great to dig into a freshly-baked pan of lasagna or munch a sweet strawberry, but I can eat whatever fits the season or circumstance. Moving to Canada from the Philippines helped me learn that, actually. I missed mangoes and cantaloupes like I missed colours in the desaturation of winter. No market here stocks anything like my remembered summer treats: green mango

shakes, ripe mangoes at breakfast, melons scraped into strips and made into juice. Now they are rare treats, something to look forward to on our infrequent trips back to the Philippines. Instead, I’m learning to like what I can get. Strawberries, then cherries and blueberries, then firmer fruits like peaches and apples. Sugar peas and cherry tomatoes when they’re fresh from the garden, basil and dill likewise. Now the blueberries at the front are starting to darken, and I can’t wait to see what they’ll be like. (Taking the risk that I might be convinced to never buy blueberries again…) With practice, it becomes easier to follow the seasons and sales. We find more recipes for making use of the kale and zucchini that show up in our agriculture box, get better at using up the bits and pieces, develop routines for filling up the freezer with ready-to-go meals. In fact, the communitysupported agriculture box is an interesting experiment: it removes choice and forces us to be even more creative. So here it is, and I wait for the first proper cherry tomato of the season. I can buy them any time I want, but I find that I want other things instead while waiting. =)

Love, web development, and imaginary friends http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22351 July 13, 2011 - Categories: geek There’s an interesting thing here I’d like to explore: love and web development. (If only because you’ll probably never see Joel Spolsky write about it from this perspective…) Not passion. Love. Passion gets all the press. Web development has plenty of opportunities for clever hacks and technical brilliance. This is a quieter thing. It has to do with why I develop and where I find the energy.

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 365

On all the projects I’ve had the pleasure of building with IBM, I’ve been able to build sites for friends. Well, not quite. Most of the time they don’t know they’re friends. There’s nothing stopping me from imagining they are. Sure, I’ll put my business hat on when negotiating requirements, but when I’m in the groove of development, I build for specific people. Sometimes it’s frustrating. This week I worked my way through a twisty, tangled bug in an app I’m building for a local nonprofit. It was one of those embarrassing “I can’t believe I didn’t come across this when I was testing it myself” bugs, too, of which I still have far too many. You know that feeling when you disappoint someone? It sucks, even if they don’t know it. I’m getting better at pushing aside the selfrecrimination and ignoring that feeling of being so limited, focusing instead on moving forward, holding on to this idea of friendly encouragement. One step at a time. I’m learning, too. It’s hard to be patient. I want to get things to people quickly. Sometimes I miss things. I’m working on getting better at placing myself on the other side of the screen, seeing any rough edges, then coming back out and sanding those off. When it rocks, though, it rocks. Then the work is also a gift, a little change in someone’s life. Maybe even many people’s lives. I’m looking forward to learning how to make it rock more. Another thing I’m learning: taking that energy and applying it to a team. I want them to do awesome. I want them to feel awesome doing it. I’m still learning a lot about planning and coordinating, but hey, it’ll probably only get better from here. Maybe someday code will just be code, but I hope not yet. The time is going to pass anyway, and the work will need to be done one way or another. It’s better for me to care than to not care. I’m moving past the imposter syndrome – hooray for experience – but there’s still

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 366

“wish I was even better than this; oh well, learning opportunity” to get through. Maybe sharing this will resonate with people, help you feel you’re not alone. When you look at code, do you see people too?

The first blueberries from our garden http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22352 July 14, 2011 Categories: garden, gardening

The blueberries are so shockingly flavourful that I wonder what the local supermarket has been selling us all this time. Another garden milestone: We’re growing and enjoying our own blueberries. The nets were a great idea. I can see why the birds and squirrels didn’t leave us any berries last year. Now I want to edge the backyard in blueberry bushes. Blueberry blueberry blueberry. The cherry tomato plants are hitting their growth spurt. I’ve got two that I bought, four that I started, and three that just volunteered in the garden. No flowers yet, but we’ll get there eventually. Blueberries, strawberries, tomatoes, basil, peas. I wonder what other garden joys I’ll discover.

A zucchini a day keeps the vegetable drawer okay http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22353 July 15, 2011 - Categories: cooking

I like zucchini pancakes more than I like zucchini fritters. This zucchini brownie recipe I’m trying needs some work, though. It’s a bit dry and crumbly. I hate to admit it, but I think it needs more zucchini. Then again, I didn’t quite follow the recipe for that one. The other two zucchini turned out to be cucumbers, so this batch has just one zucchini. I’ll try it again with the next CSA batch. (Because there’s always more zucchini…) This community-supported agriculture experiment has surprising benefits. I’ve eaten more zucchini in the past week than I have in the preceding year. It’s the combination of: •

loss aversion: powerful force in behavioural psychology

•

lack of choice: commitment device; also makes surprising contributions to happiness – people feel unhappy when overloaded by choice; I know I sometimes blank at the supermarket, and my lists are sub-optimal because they focus only on a small set of produce

•

thousands of Internet pages dealing with zucchini recipes: because lots of other people have been in the same boat

The other day, I made zucchini fritters. Today I decided to make zucchini pancakes. I mostly followed the recipe, except for the following moments: •

“Soy milk? I’m fine with dairy, so I’ll just use regular milk.”

•

“Ground flax seeds. Hmm, I can do that… ARGH, this is taking forever! I’ll just add some egg replacement powder.”

•

“Honey… Hey, that’s not vegan. Fortunately, we don’t have any dietary restrictions. I wonder if it works with crystallized honey…”

Result: W- woke up to a yummy and filling breakfast. He said, “Is it the weekend already? Did I sleep all Friday?”

Zucchini zucchini zucchini. Slowly getting the hang of this!

Cake was not a lie http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22354 July 16, 2011 - Categories: baking, cooking

Cucumber sandwiches. Chocolate cake. Burgers. Poutine. Free-flowing conversations that bring out all sorts of awesome things I didn’t know about my friends. Mmm. Cucumber sandwiches, roughly based on this cooks.com recipe: •

Peel 2 medium-sized cucumbers (or 1 large cucumber) and remove the seeds. Grate it.

•

Mix the cucumber with 1 tsp salt. Put it in a strainer, put the strainer in a bowl, and keep it in the fridge for at least 1 hour.

•

Mix a softened 8-oz package of cream cheese, 1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce, and 1/2 tsp garlic salt.

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•

Stir cucumber into the cream cheese mix. Spread on buttered bread.

•

Refrigerate until ready to serve.

The chocolate cake was roughly based on the Portal recipe, except I was out of whipped cream, so I didn’t do the white dollops with cherries on top, or the candle. So it was really more like Black Forest cake. I always stress out in the lead-up to these get-togethers. Is the house reasonably clean? (“I promise, this kitchen was cleanish before I started frosting this cake…”) But then people come, and the conversation gets going, and it’s awesome. Catching a break before I clean up the kitchen. Happy.

An elephant love story: Real stories of Manila Zoo http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22355 July 17, 2011 - Categories: life I retell this story for my dad, whose stories about Maali and the zoo are mostly on Facebook and harder to get to for people who aren’t already one of his more than 4200 friends. I’ve edited it for clarity and storytelling, but you can read the original thread if you connect with him on Facebook. I’ve also added a few editorial notes.

I am a photographer and I would rather have my photos speak for themselves, but I need to tell Maali’s story. I don’t own the elephant. I came to know Maali in 2001, when my daughter Kathy volunteered at the zoo. She loved animals and wanted to help. As a father supporting the dreams of his daughter, I went to Manila Zoo and helped convince the Zoo director to have these young people do their volunteer work. The zoo volunteers gave talks to students on field trips, cleaned enclosures([Editorial note: Kathy Chua has some great stories about cleaning the crocodile pens…]), and organized zoo outreach programs that brought animals to schools in order to teach kids about them. I helped out by riding a bicycle around the zoo to check on visitors, remniding them not to throw stones at the crocodiles just to see if they’re alive, or giving cookies wrapped in plastic to the giraffes. The volunteer group grew. We had bird shows and educational field trips. We were joined by volunteers from the International School, interns from La Salle and St. Scholastica, students from veterinary schools… One day, I noticed that the zoo keepers just threw food into the enclosures for the animals to eat. “Instead of throwing the food and just doing your job, why don’t we all get to know the animals assigned to us, and learn more so that we can take better care of them?” I asked. A zoo-keeper replied, Sir. Madaling sabihin iyan… Mahirap gawain. (Sir, that’s easy to say, but hard to do.)

Photo (c) 2010 John Chua – All rights reserved, used with permission From my dad, John Chua:

I looked straight into his eyes and said, “Watch me. I will show you how.” I don’t ask people to do things I wouldn’t do also. I looked for animals I could learn how to take care of in order to show them that it could be done. That crossed out several animals right away. Crocodiles: not only do they not speak

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English, they eat them. Tigers: also out. Snakes: Slimy and don’t show emotions? Molly, the giraffe: she just gets the carrots and leaves me. One day, when I was going around, I made friends with the old zoo keeper for Maali, the elephant. The zoo keeper told me lots of stories, and I became fascinated. I began to visit her everyday, just watching her. She was bored. She walked around, doing nothing. I asked the zookeeper what Maali’s favorite fruit was. Mangoes, he said. The next day, I brought a kilo of ripe mangoes. I went to Maali’s enclosure and gave them to her. The mangoes were gone in 60 seconds – everything including the seeds. Then I noticed that when I talked to her, her eyes looked at me so attentively. I knew she was listening. I looked forward to seeing her every time I went to the zoo – of course, with a kilo of mangoes each time. Then I got smarter. To extend my conversation with her, I started slicing the mangoes into smaller pieces. I started helping the old man carry the grass and clean the poo. I made sure the old man was beside me whenever I was inside the enclosure.

for Maali and the other animals. Kathy went to South Africa as part of Cathay Pacific’s youth programs, where she volunteered at Johannesburg Zoo and made friends with their behavioral enrichment program specialists. She learned a lot and planned all these programs for Maali. I got a pail and started splashing Maali with water. We brought in sand for her. We froze fruits in ice blocks. We hid food in tires for her so that she could find the food in them. We spread the peanuts all over her enclosure. I’d bring coconuts or watermelons, we’d play football, and Maali would eat them afterwards. The main idea was to get Maali to look for her food, work for her food. This got her to be active. One day, Kathy told me about an essay contest offered by Discovery Channel called “Postcard from the Wild.” The contest asked: In just fifty words, write down why you want to go to Sri Lanka. “Wouldn’t you like to go to Pinawala and see Maali’s cousins?” Kathy asked. She volunteered to help me tell our story. On top of 8×10 picture of Maali and me, we wrote: “I want to go to Sri Lanka to learn more about elephants so that I can make Maali’s life better.” It won.

I watched every elephant episode in Discovery Channel and bought all the books on elephants that I could find at the bookstores. I learned that elephants need to drink at least 50 gallons of water every day. I learned they love cooling their bodies with water and using sand to keep insects away. I learned that they could sense your FEAR by smell. I began to learn what made her angry or afraid. She didn’t like the low-frequency murmur of diesel engines idling. She hated red trucks, like the one that delivered Cocacola. She didn’t like horses. She didn’t like the Selecta Jingle played by the ice cream cart. Trombones or bands made her poop.

Discovery Channel called me to offer me a 10-day tour for two people. I was excited. The first thing I thought of was to bring Maali’s zoo keeper, because he needed to learn more about elephants too. Of course, my wife was disappointed. Why not her? But the zoo keeper declined, so my wife and I went to Sri Lanka to visit the Pinawala Elephant Orphanage. That’s where Maali stayed for a while after being rescued from a pit, before she was given by the children of Sri Lanka to the children of Philippines. In Pinawala, we met the mahoots and showed them pictures of Maali and me. They recognized me as one of them, and we became instant friends. We even found the mahoot who accompanied Maali when she came to Manila.

Together with my daughter Kathy, we developed behavioral enrichment programs

I felt sad for Maali. She was alone and in a small space. I wanted to know more about

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Maali, and the old man shared his stories. Before Maali came to Manila, there was a bigger elephant named Sheba. Sheba was a circus elephant who was sold to Manila Zoo after the circus went bankrupt. Sheba didn’t like Maali, so they had to be separated. The zoo built a smaller enclosure in the elephant space. While one elephant walked around, the other elephant had to be locked in the enclosure to avoid fights. It must have been a traumatic experience for Maali.

rectum and pull out all the poop that you can find inside.”

I’d been caring for Maali for several months when the Singapore Zoo director came to visit Manila Zoo. He saw me inside the enclosure with Maali. He called the attention of the Manila Zoo director and asked him to call me to the office.

“Good, I will teach you a couple of things about elephants,” Mr. Tan said. Every day for a week, I took the 5am train to Singapore Zoo and reported to Mr. Tan at 7am sharp.

The Singapore Zoo director asked me why I was inside the enclosure. I said I was a zoo volunteer. He told the Manila Zoo director that I should be forbidden to go inside the enclosure. If anything happened, the zoo would be blamed. I told the zoo director: “Sir, if I don’t do this, who can do it? Nobody. I am willing to sign a waiver, but let me continue my work.” The Singapore Zoo director was impressed with my sincerity. He said, “Mr. Chua. In case you visit Singapore, please visit me in my office at Singapore Zoo and let me find out what I can do to help you in learning more about elephants.” He handed me his calling card. Several weeks later, I was in the director’s office at Singapore Zoo. He introduced me to the head of the department and the other staff, and he asked me to see the chief trainer, Mr. Tan, the next morning. When I met him, Mr. Tan was giving a bath to an elephant lying on the floor. “Are you the one from the Philippines?” he asked. “Yes, sir,” I said. “Can you put those gloves on and come and help me? This elephant is constipated. I want you to put your hand inside the

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“Yes… sir,” I said. After half an hour of this, Mr. Tan said, “Good job. Come, let’s have a break for tea. What’s your name?” “Sir, John Chua, Sir. I take care of an elephant in Manila Zoo.”

All the mahoots in Singapore talked to the elephants in Singhalese, the native language of Sri Langka. They taught me the type of food that’s best for elephants. They taught me how to read elephant body language – the movements of ears, when elephants are faking a charge or doing it for real. They introduced me to a baby elephant male. He was so adorable, I hugged him. A mahoot said, “Hug him while he is still young. He is a male elephant, and later, he will be dangerous. Better to have a female elephant than male.” During lunch breaks, I roam around the night safari area on a bicycle. In broad daylight, it was so different. I saw a big bull elephant taking his daily stroll with a huge log in his trunk and long chains attached to him. I asked the mahoots why. They said that male elephants are dangerous and unpredictable. Carrying a log keeps the elephant’s mind busy. If the elephant goes berserk, the long chains can be thrown around trees to hold him. (Later that year, that bull elephant killed his mahoot in the frenzy of being in heat.) The mahoots taught me the weak points where they hit elephants whenever the elephants disobeyed orders. They gave me the metal hook that mahoots use to control the movement of elephants.

I learned so much from the trip and couldn’t wait to make Maali’s life better back home. I brought back photos of all the enclosures, and the use of open space inspired Manila Zoo. When I saw Maali again, I took the metal hook and all the things I had learned from Singapore Zoo. The first thing I did was to hook Maali’s left ear like the way the mahoots showed me. She followed, but I saw that she was hurting. I stopped. I said to myself, “This is not the way to go, John. You are not a trainer. You are not going to have a show. This is not a circus. You are not going to hurt Maali because you want her to follow you, John. You are not going to hurt MAALI.” I threw the hook away and hugged Maali. I said, “No, Maali. You can have your way. I am not going to hurt you.” So that was the end to my career of being the top-notch Elephant trainer. Sometimes Maali listens to me, sometimes she doesn’t, and it’s okay. I was afraid to get close to Maali. I knew that if I was close to her, I’d begin to love her and care for her. I’d begin to feel how she feels. When she was young, she met her cousins and relatives in the Pinawala elephant orphanage. She would have remembered them. You know how elephants remember. It must have been traumatic for her to be captured again. She must have been put in a red diesel truck – that’s probably why she gets so angry at red diesel trucks – as she was taken to the seaport. I’m afraid for her every night. No matter how big she is, she’s too weak to defend herself against people who can harm her: zoo visitors who throw plastic bottles and aluminum cans into her enclosures, disgruntled employees who might take their revenge, people who might poison her for their own greed in order to get Manila Zoo closed ([Ed. note: Manila Zoo sits on 5.5 hectares of great real estate in Manila]). I’m afraid organizations will just take advantage of her for publicity. I’m afraid I might lose her.

I have many dreams. I have made so many dreams come true. I dream that someday there’ll be a place for Maali. Not Manila Zoo, but stretches of open sugarcane fields. When I shoot on location in places like Pampanga or Batangas, I dream of Maali grazing among the sugarcane she loves. I often pay the workers to load sugarcane in my car so that I can bring the sugarcane to her. She loves them. Our weather, the climate, the greenery, the hospitality of the people… this makes it the best place for Maali. Have you seen how the children respond to Maali? I love each time I let the children help me feed Maali. Many elephant sanctuaries pale in comparison to what we have in our country. There’s one in Tennessee – but the climate is cold for an Asian elephant, the surroundings are dry, and the elephants don’t interact much with people. Have you seen how Maali plays with my shoelaces? She can untie my shoelaces with her trunk. We play tug-of-war with it. I always lose, so I need to buy new shoelaces every time we play. I never wanted publicity for Maali and myself. We enjoy life by ourselves. While I don’t own Maali and Manila Zoo provides most of the zoo, I do my share. I buy food for her. I provide a water spray machine for her showers, and other necessary things. I never complain. Even in the middle of a typhoon, I am always there for her to make sure she is okay. This one is for Maali.

Sacha here again. I tell this story because Manila Zoo has broken out into public consciousness thanks to an earnest but misguided blog post that’s calling for the zoo to be shut down. The cybersphere is abuzz. There are rumours that the elephant only eats one loaf of bread a day, and that the zoo keepers maltreat the animals. There are organizations putting together an online petition to shut down the zoo. You know how easy cyberadvocacy is. Just a few clicks and you can feel like you’ve made a difference. Strident blog posts are easy to retweet or reshare.

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But the real story is deeper and more inspiring than any sensationalist blog post or picket line. My family has so many stories about Manila Zoo because of the way my sister and my dad have taken it into their hearts. Ask my dad about Maali and children. Ask my sister about nursing a sick pony throughout the nights. Ask the zoo keepers about the names and stories of the animals they take care of. Ask the countless people whose lives have been touched. I’m glad people care about causes. Here’s one where you can make a real difference: not by calling for Manila Zoo to be shut down, but by volunteering and by being inspired. You can make a difference through such little things: picking up litter, giving talks, interacting with animals and people. Find my dad on Facebook and now on Twitter. Feel free to reshare this and get the real stories out.

Piano lessons http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22356 July 18, 2011 - Categories: life J- and I have signed up for half-hour piano lessons on Thursdays. The lessons are wellpriced and the studio is a short walk from the house. She’s been teaching herself lots of music – Fur Elise, Moonlight Sonata, Still Alive. No substitute for lessons, though, and it would be good for her to develop her technique and get better at playing both hands smoothly. Music is like math or programming or language: a game of practising seemingly disjointed pieces that slowly come together into fluency. She practises on her own, running through the melodies of computer games and classical music. She’s starting to get those experiences of flow, I think. Sometimes I take a break to help her through a difficult chord or play a sequence for her, and then she’s off again. Maybe that’s one of the reasons why people encourage kids to get into music – those early experiences of being good at something, being able to turn imagination into experience.

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Me, I wouldn’t mind brushing up on lessons and getting better at playing. I sometimes help J- with the tougher parts of music, and I do enjoy being able to play some of my favourites. Looking forward to sharing stories!

Dealing with web development and stress http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22357 July 19, 2011 - Categories: work So you know the Drupal project I was happily toodling along on? I thought I’d been pretty up-front about what we could realistically do in the timeframe, and the project manager was on the same page with me. Some wires must’ve been crossed somewhere, because today I handled the status update with the client and we had one of those difficult resynchronization conversations. Oh dear. It might be a bit of a scramble to solidify the additional components in time for the launch. The clients asked if anything bad had happened. No, it was perfectly normal developmental progress based on the requirements we discussed. It just took time. After the call, I had a quick chat with my manager. I told him what was going on, and we talked about some other projects in the pipeline. He asked me if I was stressed out. “I can’t be stressed out. Stressing out gets in the way of code,” I said. “I just have to knuckle down and get through it.” I worked on user registration some more and got that sorted out. Then I took a nap. Naps become even more important in crunch times. They help me reset my mind and avoid negative productivity. I worked on user profiles some more. Then I started writing this blog post. Writing is important to me. I can postpone reading books, playing the piano, or responding to personal mail. (I might be a little slow in responding; if so, you know why!) Writing is good, though. So is spending time with Wand J-.

It’s a good project, and I think we can make it all work – not by scrambling to work tons of overtime, but by being very clear about what’s needed for a minimum viable product. We’re going to focus on just the things needed to get them off the ground, and we’ll see what else we can do from there.

o

– Basil still growing happily in starter box, though

Plans for next week •

Work o

Future projects: I should definitely be there for status updates. We’ll get through this!

•

Relationships

o •

Work o

[/] Project M: Tidy up user registration, get clients to start testing – sent stuff for feedback

o

[X] Project M: Implement

[ ] Book Philippine tickets

Life o

Work is heating up and there’s lots of things to do in life as well. Reasonably fast and steady wins the marathon!

•

[ ] Start piano lessons with

J-

Weekly review: Week ending July 16, 2011

Plans for last week

[ ] Scramble to get Project M

closer to launch: user registration, session workflow

o

http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22359 July 20, 2011 - Categories: review, weekly

[-] Do some more gardening

[ ] Put together piano pieces

to learn

Dealing with a heat wave in Toronto http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22362 July 21, 2011 - Categories: life

more reports •

Relationships o

[X] Host get-together

o

[X] Help mount new cabinets

o

[X] Work on inventory app for mom – couldn’t show it to her this weekend; Patch(dog) passed away

o

Posted my dad’s story about the elephant

o

Helped nudge online conversations about Manila Zoo to be more constructive

o

•

Life

Got through most of the vegetables, yay

The weather forecast calls for highs of 37ºC (99ºF), with the humidity making it feel like 46ºC (114ºF). I look slightly enviously at the temperatures in Manila, with forecast highs of 32ºC (89ºF). Airconditioning keeps the house comfortable, but not cold. When Jcomes in from the outside, the heat almost visibly cascades off her. Here’s how we’re dealing with it: •

We minimize cooking: Summer salads, burgers, and leftovers make for low-fuss and low-heat meals. Well, burgers still call for lots of cooking, but at least it’s outside, so we don’t have to waste any airconditioning energy on it. We

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sometimes plug the rice cooker into the outside socket, but I haven’t felt like making rice lately. (Gasp!) In lieu of rice, I’ve been toasting bread to go with eggs, cooking couscous as a quick-and-low-effort carb to go with sauteed kale and chard, and enjoying the vegetable experiments that W- makes out of cabbage, potatoes, and other leftovers. •

We use fans to improve air circulation. The house’s air conditioning is fine, but it’s much improved with a few strategically placed fans. The fans often make it perfectly comfortable even without air conditioning.

•

We drink plenty of water. Well, I drink plenty of water. W- has the occasional Coke as a summer treat. =) Juice is my summer treat.

•

We wear hats when walking around. It’s amazing what a difference a good hat can make: it keeps the sun off your eyes, prevents squinting, and cools you down a bit. I really like my Tilley hat. It’s the same kind W- has.

How are you holding up?

Starting piano again http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22364 July 22, 2011 - Categories: learning J- and I have started piano lessons at a nearby music school. The teacher evaluated her as Grade 3-4, and has assigned her some pieces to work on. Me, I’m slowly working my way through Alfred’s Adult Allin-One Piano Course Level 2.

I was nervous. It was hard to remember to hit the keys and breathe. I’m sure I’ll get the hang of both over time. My homework: the first part of the overture from the opera “Raymond”. This is the part that sounds like this: … except I sound more like clompclompclomp-”How do I get my right hand to play a slur while my left hand is playing staccato!?”-clompclompslurclompWHEEZE-”Right, must remember to breathe”-clompclompclomp-”Oops!”– clompclompclompclomp. Well, everyone’s gotta start somewhere. =)

Rhetoric and the Manila Zoo; reflections on conversations and a request for insight http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22365 July 23, 2011 - Categories: manila-zoo UPDATE: So I decided to face fire with love. =) Check out Friends of Manila Zoo and share your stories! One of the best things I learned from “Thank You for Arguing: What Aristotle, Lincoln, and Homer Simpson Can Teach Us About the Art of Persuasion” is this: The basic difference between an argument and a fight: an argument, done skillfully, gets people to want to do what you want. You fight to win; you argue to achieve agreement.

I’m thinking about this now as I try to find ways to nudge the online conversation about Manila Zoo towards more of an argument that builds a better world instead of a fight that pits oversimplifications against defensive reactions. It’s difficult, but I believe it’s worthwhile. Here’s the situation: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and other organizations are trying to get Manila Zoo shut down. There’s ablog post with outdated pictures, an online petition, and lots of tweets and posts from people who get caught up in the cause.

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I know what it’s like to feel outraged and to help mobilize online opinion to beat down something. In 2005, I spoke up about a search for role models for women in IT that shocked me with its pageantry. With other people sharing their thoughts, it steamrolled into enough of a public relations mess that sponsors pulled out and the contest was cancelled – regrettably not just for philosophical reasons but also for safety, as some extremists had threatened to throw acid. I don’t stand for that kind of violence, and I’m sorry it came to that. Older now (and wiser, I hope), I wish I’d been more constructive than indignant. It can be more tempting to bring something down than to make it better, to resign something as being unsalvageable than to find the seeds of improvement in it, to be swept by the flood of reactions than to channel it into irrigating the fields of possibilities. So here is what I want to do about this outcry against Manila Zoo: I want to help shift the discussion from criticism to constructive action, and I want to help bring out the stories that flesh out the picture of the amazing place it can be. Here I confess my bias: It would probably take intentional, systematic cruelty from Manila Zoo custodians or a wonderful and funded plan for both transitioning the current zoo inhabitants to better sanctuaries and providing for reasonablypriced public animal-related education before I’d be convinced that shutting down the zoo makes sense. Having met the zookeepers, I doubt the first is possible. Being realistic about our chances, I doubt the second one is probable or that it’s even significantly better than the alternative of improving the current zoo. I’ve led a privileged life. We never had to worry about having enough money for the zoo’s PHP 40 entrance fee each. (That’s less than 1 USD.) I’ve been to some amazing zoos. But I can appreciate a zoo that public school kids can come to in order to learn that elephants aren’t just illustrations in books and that snakes aren’t actually slimy.

I can appreciate having a place where families can spend a frugal afternoon. I am much more in favor of helping the zoo instead of shutting it down. I care a lot about Manila Zoo. I’ve gotten to know it better than most people have because my dad and my sister have spent so much time there volunteering. I’ve fed bananas to Maali the elephant. I’ve marvelled at the stories of my dad and my sister of the animals they got to know: how Daktari the tiger would lick my sister’s hand, all raspy; how one crocodile rose up to block another that had been thinking of attacking the volunteers; and of course, all those touching moments between children and their parents as they discover the wonders of the zoo. I’ve seen the zoo’s sad side, too. I cried when the giraffes Sally and Molly died, and even more when I heard why – thoughtless visitors feeding them junk or littering in their area. I’ve tried to convince visitors to stop pestering the animals in the hope of seeing activity. (Please don’t throw anything at the tiger; yes, he’s sleeping, but that’s because it’s hot – wouldn’t you prefer taking a siesta at this time too?) I have to work on keeping cynicism from gaining a foothold. Having heard of PETA’s militant demonstrations and practice of euthanasia while similar organizations manage to achieve high adoption rates, I confess to being less than thrilled with them. When people argue that Manila Zoo’s 5.5 hectares should be put to better use and that the zoo should at least be moved far away from the city, I hear echoes of other people’s concerns that these reactions are being fanned by some commercial developer who desires that land. I’m trying to focus instead on the good things in this furor: that there are many people who care, and that maybe this is an opportunity to help people turn that caring into positive action. It’s easy to say, hard to do. Easy to fill out an online petition, harder to actually visit the place and look for ways to make a difference. Easy to blame other people or

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the government, harder to see how you can make things better.

you might be able to help make them happen.

Here’s what I argue: You can make a difference, and it’s not that hard. I think the biggest problems are that people litter and that people tease the animals by throwing stuff at them. The zoo has tried signs. Volunteers and zoo keepers have tried picking up after other visitors. What can we try next? Maybe emotionally intelligent signage. Maybe more trashcans around the zoo, perhaps sponsored by companies. It’s a behavioural change, and that’s what makes it difficult. Manila Zoo isn’t an island of trash in the middle of a pristine city; we’ve got a lot to collectively learn about taking care of our surroundings. It’s just that at the Zoo, there are real consequences to our misbehaviour, and it’s not as easy to amass a private army of cleaners. I can understand the zookeepers’ reluctance to go too often into the tiger’s den to clean up the juiceboxes people throw. (I wouldn’t go in there even once.)

So here’s where we are. On one hand, there’s an online campaign to shut down Manila Zoo. It has a clear, visible focal point. It has sensationalistic headlines and pictures. I try to believe that people are more likely to be earnestly misinformed rather than intentionally deceptive. I heard a PETA volunteer claimed in a press meeting that Maali was fed only one loaf of bread a day. My dad pointed out that if Maali can eat all those bananas and mangoes and coconuts, surely she could afford more than one loaf of bread. Perhaps the emphasis had been on only one loaf instead of trying to imply that that was all she ate; telling the literal truth while leaving things wide open to convenient misinterpretation? Ah, rhetoric.

Now, about this teasing animals by throwing stuff at them, and about the zoo animals being slow and bored-looking… Even in the best zoos I’ve been to, many animals rest in mid-day heat. The lions don’t actually sleep tonight; they sleep in the afternoon, then hunt when it’s cool. That’s why Singapore has a Night Safari. When you go to Manila Zoo, don’t expect to hear elephants trumpeting and tigers roaring. Let them sleep, and admire them from a (very safe) distance. And don’t poke the chimps, either, even if they’re doing things that may lead to awkward conversations about the birds and the bees later. Yes, part of it is because the animals could use more behavioral enrichment. The techniques for that are known – help animals play more as part of getting their food. It’s like putting Maali’s mangoes inside tires (being careful to retrieve the tire when she’s done playing with it) and freezing the tiger’s food inside ice blocks (ooh, tiger popsicles). Many of these ideas are surprisingly inexpensive. Volunteer, and

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On the other hand, there are volunteers – past and future – who are helping make a difference, and all the children and other people who have been touched by this upclose-and-personal experience with the zoo. I don’t have the skill to mobilize people in a show of support – what would it be, the “Actually, the Zoo is Okay; Yes, It Could Be Better, and Here’s Where You Can Start” campaign?” – but my dad does. He used to post a lot on the public forums of PinoyPhotography.org, but now he mostly posts on Facebook, so I’m here to bridge the gap and help get the word out. (My small contribution this week: sponsoring a Flickr Pro account for my dad and nudging him to use it so that he can share more pictures. ;) ) And it’s awesome that other people are thinking of re-forming the zoo volunteer group and helping make the zoo better. The real story is much more inspiring. I don’t want people to pick sides, I want people to make things happen: either an awesome plan for a zoo alternative, or a better Manila Zoo. So, how do we do this? We’re probably never going to be able to nudge the people who are firmly against zoos or Manila Zoo. It’s difficult for people to change what they say once they’ve taken a hard line on it, and

doubly difficult when there’s face involved. Ah well. How can we show there’s value worth preserving in the Zoo, and not everyone’s calling to have it shut down? How can we refocus other conversations on how to go forward from here?

After J- successfully navigated to Value Village, her music lessons, and the house of one of her friends, we celebrated by getting her the MapArt Pocket Toronto Atlas and a pack of Post-It flags. We also had ramen down at Kenzo near Dundas Square – mm! I think J-’s getting the hang of it, particularly with such good things waiting at the destinations. =) I use public transit a lot. W- occasionally takes it, too. The sooner J- can learn to independently use public transit, the more she can explore and do on her own. Exciting times! Photo (c) 2009 Danielle Scott, Creative Commons Attribution Copyleft License

Photo (c) 2001 John Chua – All rights reserved – Used with permission (Papa, you should totally think about releasing some of your pictures under the Creative Commons license – maybe Attribution, Sharealike, and/or Noncommercial…)

Public transit day http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22369 July 24, 2011 - Categories: life

Weekly review: Week ending July 24, 2011 http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22371 July 25, 2011 - Categories: review, weekly It’s been a busy week, what with all the hubbub about Manila Zoo. My dad and my sister have been doing brilliantly back home, and I’m supporting the Zoo the main way I can: by gathering and sharing stories. I think we’ve turned the corner. There are still negative reactions, but the positive responses are gaining critical mass. Work is going well too. Also busy there, what with my main project getting closer to user testing and launch, and the other I need to scope. I’m sure things will work out just fine.

Plans for last week Today was a day for buses, subway rides, and lots and lots of walking around. We’re helping J- learn how to navigate the city and use public transit. It’s a very useful skill, and she’ll need it to get to karate and piano lessons near our house when she’s staying with her mom. I tagged along with W- for the company. There were lots of things to do at home, but it was still a great use of time – company makes time pass faster.

•

Work o

[X] Scramble to get Project M

closer to launch: user registration, session workflow: Lots of bugs fixed, good progress o

•

Made some improvements for Project C

Relationships

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o

[X] Start piano lessons with

J-

•

o

[X] Book Philippine tickets

o

Helped organize Friends of Manila Zoo website and social media presence – I think we’ve turned the corner

Life o

[X] Put together piano pieces

to learn o

Started learning from a more interesting Latin book

o

Did lots of gardening

Plans for next week •

Work o

[ ] Get Project M ready for

user testing o

[ ] Work on scoping project

T •

Relationships o

[ ] Help people connect with

each other regarding Manila Zoo

We’ve left enough space for them to stand up and walk around on those cabinets. How did they get up there? Easy. They jump on the chest freezer, then up and across a series of shelves, then down to the pantry, and then up to the cabinet. I’ll see about posting a video sometime. It’s a system similar to this one. There are a lot of pet-related furniture hacks. We haven’t done anything nearly as serious – mostly just ready-made parts arranged to let the cats climb up and over our heads. Oh, except for the cat perch that we made using lumber, sisal rope, and leftover carpet. Even without any special arrangements, cats will often find some way to amuse themselves. One of our cats loves hanging out on top of our laundry sorter, which is a covered set of three compartments with a canopy like that of a four-poster bed. I don’t know why it has a canopy. Maybe the designer has a cat who also likes high places. Speaking of cat hacks, this video from Japan Probe (via Cute Overload) makes me think about breaking out the LEGO Mindstorms kit we have. legocat jpnprobe by peakfloods

•

Life o

[ ] Practise piano

Our cats are sweet and amusing, and they make us laugh much more often than they mess up. =)

Cats in high places http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22373 July 26, 2011 - Categories: cat Some cats love high places. With a little planning, it’s easy to give kitty a great view. Here are Luke and Leia hanging out on top of the new cabinets we installed in the kitchen:

Sketchnotes from Quantified Self Toronto meetup: Conferences, pollution sensing, and growing old at home http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22380 July 27, 2011 Categories: quantified, sketches, sketchnote s 14 people at hacklab.to today for the Quantified Self Toronto meetup:

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 378

To find out about upcoming meetings, join the Quantified Self Toronto meetup group!

Piano lesson week 2 http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22381 July 28, 2011 - Categories: learning I’m starting to get the hang of the first part of the overture from “Raymond” and this bluesy sort of piece from Alfred’s Basic Adult Piano course. It’s a bit mind-boggling, trying to figure out how to play staccato with my right hand while playing smooth, connected notes with my left. I find it helps to stop thinking about the music and start listening to it. Obvious, you might think, but I have to work on figuring it out. Or on not figuring it out, and going with the flow. J- is also learning how to play the piano. She’s starting in grade 1 so that she can practise reading the notes. J- plays the piano like I type QWERTY: untutored, we hit the keys with whichever finger is closest, which is fine for pecking things out, but which can be limiting. I fixed that on the computer keyboard by switching to Dvorak and going through self-paced training exercises. Since you can’t exactly re-layout a piano keyboard to rejig your mental connections, there’s nothing to do but to unlearn those habits and then learn new ones.

Stuff I’m going to do before the next meeting (~6 weeks?) •

Get back into tracking time so that I can check on hobbies and share what I’m learning with other people

•

Track community-supported agriculture box in more detail, crossreference with groceries

I’m working on dynamics, tempo, and getting the hang of thinking in these different keys. I play the piano like I program. I get carried away by the fun and easy bits, and then I slow down for the parts I have to think about some more. One of the tricks with piano is to slow down even for the parts that you’ve figured out so that you can play at a sustainable pace throughout. Hmm. Maybe that’s like life, too. Good mental exercise. Glad I’m doing it. Going for lessons (actual paid-for lessons that take up a chunk of my day, with exercises and homework I’m accountable for!) looks like it’s helping.

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Long weekend ahead http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22384 July 29, 2011 - Categories: sketches, work

fingers get tangled up or you hit the wrong note. Building stuff is relaxing, too. I just have to dig deep enough into it to remember that feeling.

Mornings at our house

The long-weekend fairy has snuck up on me again. (Don’t you just love it when that happens?) I’m tempted to scramble because there’s so much to do at work, but that’s when it becomes even more important to slow down. I like web development and the ability to build something that makes people’s lives better. I need to figure out a way to reduce the stress of having a high “bus factor” – the risk to a project if someone gets hit by a bus (or wins the lottery, in a more positive version). You might think that’s a risk with rare consequences – after all, I’ve gotten hit by a bus precisely zero times. (Ditto for the lottery, but that’s also because I don’t buy tickets.) A high bus factor means that if two or more projects go critical around the same time, things get tough. I liked working in a larger development team, but I haven’t been able to do that recently. I’m trying to prepare for the future by investing in training other people, but people shuffle in and out of teams, so it’s tough. But I’m picking up good skills in estimating, working with clients, digging into the possibilities of Drupal and Rails, and patiently sanding down the rough edges of the websites I’m building, so I’m making good use of the time. As it turns out, piano is like yoga for the mind. Playing the scales is relaxing. You can tell when your mind drifts, because your

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 380

http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22390 July 30, 2011 - Categories: cat, sketches Neko and Leia have taken to meowing us awake in the morning. When I stumble out of bed and pour some cat food into their bowls, they sniff, eat a few pieces, then wander off. Not hungry, then. They just want us up and out of bed. So I pick them up and cuddle them a bit, and then they go off to nap. One day, W- had an idea. We got revenge on the kitties by meowing at them while they were napping. The morning meows stopped for a while. Now they’re back again. I guess sometimes aloof kitties just want company.

Software and making pots http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22387 July 31, 2011 Categories: geek, sketches, work This is what software feels like. It’s squishy and floppy, and it falls over from time to time while you’re making it. It changes. And at the end of the day, we’d really, really, really like it to hold water. Or marbles, or

kittens, or whatever people want to put into it. I think I’m going to focus on slowing down and building things better. This idea of a minimally viable product fascinates me. What’s the essential part of a system? How can we make that solid before moving to everything else? Make sure the pot can hold water before you glaze it. There’s a teaching story I like about the importance of practice. Making lots of pots can be an easier and more effective way to learn than trying to make a single perfect pot, as long as you’re paying attention and learning from the pots you make. Well, that’s how the story goes. In real life, it’s more like “But I want to make sure this pot holds water, and why aren’t the sides straight, and I thought I plugged that leak, ooh, hey, look, that part’s all pretty now, well, here goes…”

freezer and the fridge freezer, separating different kinds of items using cloth and plastic bags: vegetables in the green bag, meat in the red, and so on. Then a big batch of cooking: two roast chickens stuffed with couscous for lunches throughout the next few weeks, stir-fried rice to use up leftovers. I’ll try scalloped potatoes and oatmeal cookies again sometime – more practice needed. Now we’re staying up late for baked beans, which will finish cooking at around 2. Tired, but it’s a great sort of tired.

Plans from last week •

Work o

user testing o

•

o

Bounced around ideas for an IBM comic

o

Put together update for my manager

Sunday was a kitchen sort of day. We took the pots and food containers out of the cabinets, separating them into keep-donaterepurpose piles. We reorganized the salad fixings and the spices. We emptied the chest

Relationships o

[X] Help people connect with

each other regarding Manila Zoo

I thought I’d feel guilty about being on holiday while other people on my team – clients and IBMers in the US – are working, but it’s been a weekend well spent, and the Civic Day holiday will be a much-welcome transition period (plus a chance for more awesomeness). In addition to taking care of our usual chores, we spent Saturday volunteering at Free Geek Toronto. The idea behind Free Geek Toronto is simple: help people learn computer skills and reduce electronic waste by refurbishing or recycling old computers, which can then be sold at a low cost or donated. They really need people to teach classes on how to build computers, so Wand I will start a series of classes next week.

[X] Work on scoping project

T

Weekly review: Week ending July 31, 2011 http://sachachua.com/blog/p/22391 July 31, 2011 - Categories: review, weekly

[X] Get Project M ready for

•

o

Volunteered with W- at Free Geek Toronto

o

Worked on cleaning up kitchen

o

Attended Quantified Self meetup

Life o

[X] Practise piano – 30-60

minutes daily o

Got back into the swing of drawing – sketchnotes, drawing for fun

Plans for next week •

Work o

[ ] Send mid-year update to manager

Sacha Chua – Life as a 27-year-old - 381

o

[ ] Work on Project M

issues/requests •

Relationships o

[ ] Work on Latin – 30

minutes daily o •

[ ] Help J- with piano

Life o

[ ] Practise piano – 30

minutes daily o

[ ] Draw – also 30 minutes

daily o

[ ] Track a complete week of

time

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