Creative Communications

24/7 Information Saturation Hurts Productivity

Sean Canton — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 19:29:52 +0000

I was going through my routine this morning, awoke, ran, about to have breakfast, but my computer turns on at 11am, so I stopped to check email. Some link opened my browser and here I am, faced with a plethora of options!
It’s like walking down the checkout isle at the grocery store and having all those shiny candy wrappers teasing the child-like part of your mind. Still on auto-pilot, I clicked on Google Reader.

Then I stopped. Wait a minute. I had all these plans and ambitions for the day. There’s a ton of stuff I have to do, including eat breakfast, and checking the latest news and information is more of a priority? Really? Chances are, it will diverge into an hour long browse / email / forward session.

I really think I’m much better off, since I’m not in the cutting news industry, to leave my feeds until the end of the day and treat it as a reward, not a necessity.

Here’s a little stanza regarding how I feel about the issue.

My book in the morning is like a cup of joe
Gets me up and ready and willing to go
Information Saturation is what I need
with over 1000 items on my RSS feedsTechnorati Tags: information overload, google reader, rss feeds, shiny

New Job, New Approach

Sean Canton — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 19:41:16 +0000

Joy of joys, I’ve found myself another full-time job. (Why oh why can’t I find fulfilling part-time work while I pursue larger objectives?) My fundamental idea here is to approach the situation as openly and honestly as possible, to avoid the mutual fallout 6 months in.
In every relationship in our lives, we have set expectations from ourselves and the other person. It’s what goes along with the label ‘friend’ , ‘boyfriend’, ‘girlfriend’, ‘wife’, ‘husband’, ‘boss’, and ‘employee’, is an inherent set of assumptions that governs both our behavior and our reaction to the behavior of others. There’s nothing much you can do to CHANGE these assumptions, as they seem to be pretty hard wired.

What you can do is to bring these assumptions to the table. Not during the interview, but after you’ve been offered the job, and ideally, before starting work. For instance:

My idea of being an employee involves working hard and being constantly challenged with a rising line of difficulty. I expect to be well compensated for my time and expertise, to be given the appropriate opportunities to learn and grow, and that any feedback regarding my work performance will be communicated instantly to me, instead of during a yearly review. I choose jobs based on being interesting and full of possibility.

My idea of being a boss involves providing leadership, then delegating decision-making authority and responsibility to the appropriate parties. I expect that people will do what they say they’re going to do, and to give them fair compensation for their work and dedication. I expect clear, honest and open communication regarding any progress, problems, questions, criticism or concerns. I choose employees based on how we get along and what they bring to the table in terms of what I do and don’t know about.

Do this exercise for yourself, and bring it to the table when starting your next job. I’m going to try this for myself today. I’ll let you know how it goes.

UPDATE: The meeting seemed to be very well received. Putting everything on the table helped me understand the challenges of the position. Basically, my boss needs to know when I don’t understand what he’s talking about, and not to be a mindless yes-man. I can do that. I’m the most critical employee you’ve ever seen.

Rebranding for Focus

Sean Canton — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 19:51:46 +0000

So, I’m going to follow my own advice, and focus the purpose of this blog into experience oriented creativity.

The creativity brand is good enough for Apple and Amsterdam, so I don’t have any problems in jumping onto that particular bandwagon. I’m not going to tout the latest macbooks, unless I’m given one, I’m not going to promote cheap hotels in the Netherlands, but the Abba Hotel gave me a large closet to sleep in for 25 euros.

Creativity incorporates all of my interests together into one lively whole. I’m a polyglot programmer, a multi timbral / modal musician, a multimedia magician, a dabbling writer and visual artist. My point is, I love creating experiences and telling engaging stories. I don’t make ’stuff’. I don’t like the idea of making more ’stuff’. The world has enough ’stuff’.

Writing about creativity can any topic. I suspect there will be anything from musical iPhone apps to neuroscience. From organizational systems to Processing swarms. And oh the books, Fiction and Non. (I should really review Anathem)

Anything which strikes me as interesting in this regard, I will post here. A big part of my experience is trying to get creative in the workplace, and meeting innumerable amounts of conflict. I aspire to offer solutions for this.

My objective is to offer more resources then my words alone, but, lets see, there are many things to do.

Finally, I should publicly thank Cyborg Anthropologist - Amber Case for the inspiration to work on my personal brand once again.

A Methodology for Approaching New Frameworks

Sean Canton — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 19:49:59 +0000

How many frameworks have I wrapped my head around, Symfony, Ruby on Rails, Joomla, Drupal, WordPress, and now, I’ve been tasked with porting a classified ad module from phpBB2 to phpBB3. In approaching a foreign framework and trying to understand it’s workings as a whole I almost gave up several times. Looking at it from the outside in, I find it overwhelming to try to understand how it all ties together from a big picture point of view.
That’s just my uninformed approach, because I feel like I have to understand all I can before jumping into the pool. This isn’t the right approach, and my hope is that by committing this to bytes, I’ll change it next time around and save myself some time. Maybe save you some time too.
The right approach is systematic, and involves a step-by-step understanding of how a single element is rendered on a page and interacted with.

1) After installation and basic configuration find the index file and it’s associated code, language files and templates.
2) Work your way backwards from a specific element in the body of the document. Title tags are part of the header and are often a level removed from the index template.
3) Find the template variables in the code, and where that information is pulled from.
4) Learning a new framework is akin to learning a new programming language, in that it’s not the function that matters. Loops, conditionals, and variables are the same idea no matter where you are. It’s the language you use to access these ideas. So pay attention to:

How template variables are set
How database calls are made
How are session variables handled

Basically, everything that has to do with the movement of information is worth paying attention to because the whole point of using a framework is because those pathways are already created for you to use.

5) Learn about custom functions. I find it’s useful to keep a untampered copy of a framework available locally to search through for functions.

6) Identify your global classes. Finally, we’re back to the bigger picture. Global classes are the super-objects used to pass information around and reference it easily within the code. For me at least, I had to see the classes ‘in action’ before I could begin to fully understand what their purpose was.

This might be phpbb3 specific, but that’s where my head is right now. I think the basic ideas could apply to other frameworks however.

That’s it, now I have to get back to porting.

Facing Frustration While Job Hunting

Sean Canton — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 00:27:08 +0000

I wanted to write a post that wasn’t complaining about the current economic woes that myself and many other people find themselves in at this time. I mean, what the heck, I’m not being foreclosed upon, I have a $25 balance on my credit card. And for the next month at least, I can pay rent.

So that’s the first step, acknowledge what is going well. There are a few things working for you in your situation, they often get overshadowed by all the negativity that keeps hitting the fan and getting everywhere.

Craigslist, monster, jobdango, indeed are all my friends, and I visit them often enough to keep a constant stream of work applications going out. It’s thankless work, I’m lucky to get an acknowledgment of the receipt of my materials, and once or twice, I was actually rejected! I try to forget about jobs I’ve applied to, it just makes things easier.

Second step, keep up the momentum, the biggest enemy at this point is stasis. This kind of stillness only allows depression inside. Don’t stop, don’t even begin feeling sorry for yourself, keep working on things. Set non work-related goals and accomplish little things.

Writing about all this stuff actually helps. I think it helps me more then it does you. Just voicing these fears and concerns, even to an audience of zero, helps the mind sort it all out. Bringing the intangible to reality offers a small measure of control.

Third, find some sort of expression for the frustration, notice I didn’t say ‘release’. Release is too often associated with self-destructive urges and non-productive actions. Expression is functional, release just puts the energy into the ether with no regard for where it lands or what effects it has. There’s a reason we’re feeling frustrated, lets focus on that.

Three years out of College, Making Less Money

Sean Canton — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 19:00:26 +0000

True story, in 1999, under Bill Clinton, I was working and making more money then I ever have since. Every job I had gotten up to that point was given to me as a result of my modest awesomeness. Apple stock barely peaked $10 a share, and life was good.
Fast forward to 2008. I have no job, a piddling income from various freelance gigs cobbled together, and even after two college degrees and 8 years of professional experience (worked through college), my high income level is still from the last decade.
It’s not that I’m exceptional at my chosen profession and I am entitled to more as a result of my god-given talent. Indeed, I’m more of a generalist, I’d rather be able to do many things then do one well. I get bored easily, you see, and tend to distraction.
Now you can write this all off as ‘it’s the economy stupid!’. I agree, but disagree at the same time. Things were this way BEFORE the current economic woes.
I’m sure you’re aware that Apple is coming out with a sub-$1000 notebook. Which for most internetzians, seems to be thrilling beyond belief. While the idea is appealing, I can’t believe anyone would spend that much money, in these times, on something that wasn’t a necessity, or even worse, put it on credit.
I’m just tired of being poor, and I would like to materially participate in this high-tech world once in a while.

Anyway, I’ve polished up my freelance business site: www.8isc.com if anyone want to take a look and give me feedback, that would be great.

Extremely Drug Resistant TB

Sean Canton — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 17:04:25 +0000

I can’t recall the last time I’ve posted a link to a story because of it’s importance, and the complete media blackout surrounding the issue. Somewhere in between these two extremes, I am prompted to take whatever tiny action I can take.

Of course, this presentation says it much better than I can. With a soundtrack too!

Custom Playlists From iTunes to iPod

Sean Canton — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 00:26:38 +0000

This was causing me no small amount of frustration. So, I have a number of items in a playlist that I want to play and navigate in order, when they’re on my iPod. Yet, the default listing equates to what order I imported the songs into my library. When you import entire folders, it makes the order more or less random, useless!

Yet, what you can do, is order a playlist to your liking, then right click on the play list in the display to your left and choose “Copy to Play Order”. Then the change will sync with your iPod.

Woo hoo!

A little bit of luck goes a long way…

Sean Canton — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 22:54:05 +0000

Wow, what can I say but wow, it’s been an exciting month. I’ve started freelancing again, got a few clients who need some web programming. This time is going much better then the last time I tried freelancing.
Last time, I only managed to land one client, and despite my best efforts, that dried up. I think the economy wasn’t feeling the pinch at that time, so there was not as much need for my skills. Or maybe I wasn’t all that great a year and a half ago? Who knows.

I think that a large portion of my current success is due to the business lessons I learned in the last place I worked. Business lessons meaning:

You can be an idiot and succeed if you have sufficient focus and resources. Intelligence can only take you so far, turning ideas into action is critical
Confidence goes further towards trust then knowledge. Talking to people from a place where you know what you are doing and where they are coming from is much more valuable than the latest arcane knowledge.
Social Capital is key. The people around you are your opportunities and limitations, take time to nurture these relationships.
Don’t be afraid of risk, doing nothing is a choice you can’t afford to make.

I went to GnomeDex 08, and had some wonderful interactions there. If anyone reading this wants audio of any of the presentations, I have them archived, just email me. One of the most interesting aspects of that show was the audience participation. The room was full of macBooks (i was rocking my iBook) and over twitter and IRC the most vibrant discussion of the material was taking place.

It was truly a revolution of what education could be. Instead of a one-way street, one person communicating to many, you had a many-to-many conversation surrounding a subject matter. What if THIS is how school was? Wow. What a world that would be.

Anyway, I don’t really have a point with this, except to keep google noticing my blog, and that I put some content on it with some regularity. ;)
Drop a line sometime. I’m on skype at sean_canton.

If anyone wants to see my (in construction and welcoming feedback) freelance biz site, please visit: www.8isc.com

No AC & Hot Weather? Got a Freezer?

Sean Canton — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 07:26:58 +0000

Here in Portland, Oregon, they’re predicting 104 degree temperatures tomorrow. This is not good. You see, buying an air conditioner in Portland is a terrible waste of money, 360 days out of the year. The weather is tolerable and tends towards the cold more often then the hot.

However, for those five days out of the year that the temperature tops 100, having a solution is critical. Probably the reason there are heaps of public fountains in the Portland Metro area, besides the pretty looks.

Swamp coolers are generally a good idea, except the weather is far too humid to support evaporative cooling.

My solution? Get a hand towel wet, wring it out and stick it in the freezer. Be sure to fold it several times, and place it flat side down, so it’s easy to remove once it freezes.

After an hour, you have a damp (not wet), very cold cloth. For maximum cooling, place over the top of your head, then drape around shoulders & neck when the center begins to thaw.

I figure that since most of your body heat escapes from your head, cooling off the area is a wise idea. I believe the greatest volume of blood flows through your neck, so cooling down your blood should cool down the rest of you.

The frozen hand towel stays icy cool without dripping for 30+ minutes. Works for me! Although it could be too cold for some.

Another argument for always having your towel handy.