Dopp Juice Archive

So, there’s this little thing going on this weekend called BarCampBlock. Liz Henry from Socialtext is co-planning it, and sent me an invite a few weeks ago. When I signed up, there were less than 25 people on the list. I figured we were looking at WoolfCamp-style intimate gathering for discussions about new trends in technology and its social implications.

As I write this, there are now 583 people registered for the event. Holy Cow, people. Check out all these fancy folks.

So what the heck is BarCampBlock? It’s a BarCamp, of course. On a Block. Duh.

Okay, no, seriously. BarCamp is one of those renegade grassroots un-conference phenomena that pulls a whole bunch of brilliant independent socialtech-minded thinkers together into the same space for a day or two and lets them organize their own discussions. It’s free to attend (although you can buy a donor ticket for $100 or $300 if you’re feeling philanthropic), and it’s guaranteed to inspire the heck out of you. You can read more about the concept here at its wikipedia entry: BarCamp.

And the Block? The block is the Center of the Tech Universe in Palo Alto, including such office as Social Text, IDEO, Searchspark, and maybe Facebook… BarCamp is spilling out into the streets.

And I will be there.

Come along!

I’m an independent contractor at my current job, which means I get to set my own hours. No one holds me to a schedule, and no one is concerned if I stroll in at noon some days (or don’t stroll in at all). More often than not, though, I show up to work at the exact same time every morning. I do this regardless of how I’m feeling — whether I want to or not. This means I’m more likely to be productive, and less likely to fall into that “later and later every day” temptation funk. The rest of my team may be less consistent, but they’ve learned to trust my schedule, and have naturally started to align theirs around it.

So what’s my magical secret? I meet my neighbor for coffee at the same time every day, and she has to be at work by 9am. It’s a standing date; if I want to cancel, I have to do extra work to let her know I won’t be there, lest she wait around for me and be late to work. I know that if I’m only answering to myself, I can control the expectations and make adjustments for my own comfort levels. But if I arrange my life so that I’m answering to someone else, at least on a simple but consistent level, I’m held accountable enough to be reliable. And then everything else can fall into place around that.

Lifehacker had an article recently about Jerry Seinfeld’s Productivity Secret: To accomplish something consistently every day (for him it’s writing), put up a big calendar on your wall and draw a red X over each day that you accomplish the task. Soon a chain will development, and you will enjoy adding to it. Your motivation becomes simple: don’t break the chain.

It’s the same concept as the morning coffee (although, i think mine is better). We need a backup motivation for those days when “this matters” just isn’t enough of a reason to get us out of bed. It’s the same reason as why ambitious New Year’s Resolutions tend to fail. We are too sensitive to our own needs to be our own strict disciplinarians.

I’m sure there are more tricks for self-imposed consistent action out there. I’d love to hear what’s working for you.

What color would you say my eyes are?

My driver’s license says “brown,” but it’s a lie. My mother taught me my eyes were “hazel,” but over the years I’ve learned that “hazel” just means “a hard color to describe in one word” and actually carries no consistency across faces. One of my close friends in high school gave up on trying to answer this question and just started calling me “the girl with kaleidescope eyes.” But let’s not cop out here. I’ll give you a hint: my eyes are green and amber with red flecks and brown highlights.

I make an effort to look people in the eye when I talk to them, and I’ve been noticing lately, that I’m not so alone in my kaledescopiness. I’m seeing my own eyes show up on more and more people, and more often than not on creative professionals — those rebellious independent folk who create their own careers and answer first to themselves. So I’m now asserting a theory: green/amber/red/brown kaleidescope eyes are a sign of a creative, ambitious individual who probably has issues with authority.

This theory will likely be proven absurd and fall by the wayside, as my silly theories often die. (For years, I’ve been trying to prove that everybody named Amy is a lesbian and that no one actually lives in Montana.) But, regardless, I am collecting evidence now. If you have some, please send it my way.