Unrepentant FaceBook junkie that I am, I’ve got a photo album rolling for WPC 2008.
Come check it out and see if you, or someone you know, has been immortalized yet. Obviously, the patented Funcave Smart-Aleck-Captionator has been activated.
|| posted by chris under community, media, shoutout, travel || comments (0) || ||
E-Cycling Day was recently included as part of an Alabama Public Television feature on green initiatives in our state.
The entire show is available online from the APTV.org website. If you just want to catch the section on E-Cycling Day, start at the 26:27 mark.
And for the record…uncontrollable laughter.
That was the reaction from Running Antelope, Apple of My Eye, and Cute as a Button to the awesome Winter Hat of Justice I’m sporting.
|| posted by chris under community, freebie, hardware, media, rx || comments (0) || ||
Everyone in New Orleans last weekend who was in the final session about the community prolly heard me talk about the very real side that most people don’t want to hear about.
All most people ever hear about is how great, grand, and wonderful the community is.
And you know what? That can be true. It really can.
But in most cases, the wonderfulness occurs on a one-to-one basis. Direct interactions between 2 folks who have discovered, through some connection they have in common, that they can help each other out.
That is how business is done, folks. That’s exactly how you and your customers interact successfully. That’s how ANY successful business interacts with its customers.
Unfortunately, that is NOT how the community works. Or at least, not how it thinks it should be working.
Which, in my opinion, is where it stumbles, badly.
A whole lot of folks are spending a WHOLE lot of time, money, energy, and hair follicles figuring out how to get EVERYONE in lockstep.
WE MUST BAND TOGETHER ON EVERYTHING. ABSOLUTELY. IT IS EXPECTED OF YOU AS A GOOD LITTLE COMMUNITY MEMBER.
That’s a crock.
The secret to leadership? it’s so freaking simple people.
You decide what, generally, you want to happen. A goal.
You put together a kickass and diverse team with the skills to make that happen.
You give them the tools/funding/support they need to make things happen.
Then you get the H-E-DOUBLE-HOCKEY-STICK out of their way. You stand back and see how they are doing. If someone’s kicking ass, YOU TELL THEM THAT, AND OTHERS TOO!
If someone is struggling, you find out why. Get them the help they need, remove an obstacle, whatever.
And you do your primary job. Which is both super simple, and difficult beyond belief
Tell the story. Get the word out. Get NEW BLOOD excited and fired up about what you are doing! Doggedly. Persistently. Continually.
No matter who ridicules you or tries to tear you down. Because it will happen. Especially in our community, if you are in the US.
Despite whatever jealousy or spite or elitism you will encounter. Even to the point of people trying to steal or take over what your team is trying to accomplish. Because it will happen. I can tell you that from personal experience, ESPECIALLY in our community.
I can tell you…
Looking around our little biosphere that so many folks think is so all-mighty and all-important (which is also a crock) for some real leadership?
I’m not seeing any worth having.
None at all.
Despite that, during that session I pledged to resurrect Alabama SMB, which died a slow, horrible death thanks completely to my missteps at the helm.
I plan to keep that promise, but not steering the ship myself.
So this is also a call to IT Professionals in the state of Alabama. If you want to try to create something that will help you, and that you can be proud of, then you need to ping me within the next 2 weeks.
If no one shows up, ready to either lead or help, there will be no second chance.
And Alabama SMB will be fully dead and buried.
|| posted by chris under clueless, community, rant, rx || comments (16) || ||
A lot of interesting things happened in NOLA last weekend. Some of which I’m at liberty to discuss, some of which I’m not.
But by far, the most disconcerting had to be the number of people who said to me at one point or another during the conference…
Oh, I saw that you closed/killed the Funboard forum. I used that ALL THE TIME. I was sorry to see it go!
WHA…?
Ove the entire life of the Funboard, which was the Vanilla-based forum system used here at the Funcave, I personally accounted for over half the postings.
I simply couldn’t get anyone to talk at all.
And I just couldn’t understand why, either.
I thought I was posting intresting topics, especially for a starter board, etc. Open-ended stuff.
But two key stats from the Funboard tell a certain story.
There were 650+ members of the Funboard at the time of its closing.
But there were over 17,000 anonymous views. Now, that’s not accounting for multiple views from same computer, etc.
Still tho…that is a HORRIBLE conversion ratio.
No matter what, I chalk a good bit of the relative failure of the Funboard to a group of things I like to call The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly…
GOOD = Super strong content (which doesn’t generate discussion, simply lurkers/leechers)
BAD = No working notification module/plug-in for Vanilla
UGLY = The utter lack of support for it among my peers, including a few who were downright hostile toward it, ridiculing the effort to start a place where folks wouldn’t be, well…ridiculed for asking a simple question.
But even if that has been fixed, the simple fact of the matter is that if people don’t get off their own duffs, and support resources they find helpful…
Whether that support is monetary (FB was never a pay site, so this is not about a money thing), or simply posting a comment, question, a note of thanks, or whatever…
If no one takes the time to offer the kind of support that resource needs, then that resource will die.
That is a 100% stone cold guarantee.
R.I.P Funboard.
Evidently folks other than me miss you. Maybe there are more. Really tho…how would I know?
|| posted by chris under clueless, community, funboard, kma, thumbs down || comments (1) || ||
And with this being the big day for LT, I especially wanted to give a big shoutout of thanks to the LT Program Chair this year, the always amazing Pam Smith!
She and her team did an amazing amazing job with LT this year, and I know all of my classmated will join me in giving her a standing “O” this afternoon.
And yes, Pam got to play firefighter too!
I asked to join the LT team next year. I hope they will accept me. I have a couple of ideas that might help them streamline operations (*ahem* less paper!)
|| posted by chris under biz, community, shoutout, thumbs up || comments (0) || ||
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