johnwilker.com

A lesson in 2008, Don’t F with Community

So last night I saw a very powerful example of not doing business like it’s 1980.

I remember as a kid, and even as a young adult, saying, “Wow, I had no idea a Wal-Mart/Starbucks/McDonalds/You name it, was going in there.”

Those days are no more. The internet has changed that, forever. Builders and land barons can no longer simply build something and slap a sign on it, and move on, not caring whether the community approved or not. It was easy, once built it’s hard for the community to stop something that’s already built.

Last night, hopefully taught Focus development that very lesson. They’ve signed a lease with 7-11 to put up a store at Broadway and Larimer, where the old auto repair shop building is. They did this without ever mentioning it to the Ballpark Neighborhood (where I live). Normally that’d be fine, I’m all for business, especially business coming to my neighborhood.

Unfortunately my neighborhood is a bit teetery. We’ve got 2 homeless shelters a block apart, and about 1.5 blocks from the proposed location of the 7-11. The concern isn’t just bringing the homeless further into our neighborhood; they’re already here, lots of them near my house. It’s the crime, the traffic, the impact on the residents of the lofts immediately next to the 7-11. It’s a lot of things, that Focus Development seems to have chosen to ignore.

The alleyway behind the lofts, apparently is frequented (nightly from the sounds of it) by homeless, drug dealers and takers, and apparently prostitutes. Currently a call to police allows the police to take the offenders, or at least drive them away. However with the 7-11 there, the offenders simply have to say they’re on their way inside or have just left, keeping the police from making that area safer.

So where did Focus go wrong? They never told the community, the community that is directly impacted by this 7-11. They seemed to have thought that they could simply set up this 7-11 regardless of the community’s opinions. Sure that’s how business would like it to be, but that’s simply not the case. Not these days. Business owners and residents alike all vowed to do whatever they could to stop the 7-11, and even more so, every future endeavor Focus Development undertakes in the Ballpark Neighborhood. That can’t be good. And How did this all go wrong for Focus? The Internet. Skabber twittered a blog link, that was an Email from someone else. I twittered the event, and blogged it. Word spread fast. In the ‘old days’ word didn’t spread, fast or if at all. Business should keep that in mind. I suspect there won’t be a 7-11 at Broadway and Larimer, just a hunch, but I’m guessing it’s not gonna happen.

Side note. the only two people “for” the 7-11, 1 that lives in Cherry Creek where the 7-11 there is completely nice and there’s no problems. DUH. And the President of our Association (will have to see how long that tenure is) who lives in Congress Park.

Tags: community, neighborhood

O’Reilly first victim of the economy?

iPhoneLive might be the first event to fall victim of our troubled economy. They announced that the first iPhone Developer conference, has been postponed.

We’re sorry to announce that we’ve made the difficult business decision to postpone the O’Reilly iPhoneLive conference, which was to take place November 18 in San Jose.

We are grateful for the support of those who had agreed to participate in the event, particularly program co-chairs Raven Zachary and Bill Dudney, and sponsor Catapulley.

O’Reilly will continue to explore the mobile space, including the possibility for a future version of the conference.

I can’t say I’m super surprised. IIRC it wasn’t a very low cost event, couple that with the economy, and well…

Maybe Tom and I can do something about the lack of an iPhone developer conference ;)

Tags: iPhone, O'Reilly

New and improved johnwilker.com

After tapping one of my good friends for some of his mad SQL skills, as well as dusting off more of mine than I intended to, I’ve now successfully moved johnwilker.com over to a hosted wordpress blog site.

Same Domain, same feed (assuming you’re using the feedburner feed, sorry Sim, but you can use this one)

A few comments got lost :( No posts did though (I think). It turned out to be much more manual than I expected. I’m still re-categorizing old posts, I’ve done 5 of 23 pages of posts in the admin, sheesh!

There’s a few reasons for the change. As much as I love BlogCFC, it was time for something a bit more robust and widely used. Mainly from the third party options stand point. Twitter updates, and other plugins, themes, etc. Using third party tools like Ecto or Marsedit to post. Or posting from my phone, consuming Flickr feeds, etc.

Ray’s done a damn good job, and my wife’s blog is still blog CFC. My Personal blog (which will be closing down in favor of a single point of contact (this blog), is still BlogCFC as well.

I also use Wordpress for the EffectiveUI blog, so having a single admin to master is kinda nice.

There were also some small annoyances with BlogCFC that crept up during the last update I performed; inserting a link was a multi step process. the first time I inserted a link, it would use some weird javascript thing, with a string of numbers. I’d have to go back to the link and edit it re-pasting the URL. Very likely a PEBKAC thing, but still annoying, and with my new and varied responsibilities, digging around in CF isn’t likely to be a priority for me :(

Future dating of posts was very frustrating. Ray and I worked on it for a good couple weeks, and I think it just comes down to not being a big part of BlogCFC. When possible I write blog posts days in advance. That worked pretty well with BlogCFC, however, if for some reason I had to change the post date, all hell broke loose. Unfortunately, that’s a common occurence, as I sometimes blog about things that won’t be public until a certain date, and sometimes that date changes (despite my frustrations, LOL). Inserting rich media like youtube, etc was hit and miss too.

Like I said, most if not all of these hassles could be solved by tinkering, but I just don’t have that leisure now. the Wordpress community is huge, godzilla huge!

Writing for the Denver Metroblog, the various 360Conferences blogs, and the EUI blog, I got used to working with Ecto. It’s nice to have a native mac app to do my blogging through. However I couldn’t use that tool with BlogCFC.

So here I am, on Wordpress. Let me know what you think :)

Tags: BlogCFC, Wordpress

I’m internet famous!!

ok well Kinda!

The Brightkite iPhone app demo that made the rounds yesterday, boom tadow, I’m in it! :)

Techcrunch has a great write up.

Tags: Brightkite, Techcrunch

I can haz a feedburner feed

I’m contemplating moving to WordPress, the first step is to make sure everyone has a feed that won’t vanish. So if you’re using my direct RSS link, update.

It’s now this

Even if I don’t switch, at least now it’ll be all in one place. Also look to have both of my blogs combined into one, since my job is now code and other stuff, the other stuff makes sense to be in the same place. I’m not sure yet since there’s plenty of non code posts, I’m torn on that one still.

Tags: Feedburner

Finally selected my new laptop bag

I’ve been on the look out for a while now for a new bag for a while now. I’ve got a few; A targus bag with more pockets than a mutant kangaroo, but that’s heavy and hurts my back/shoulders no matter how I hold it. The Macromedia Man Purse from Devcon ‘01 (I think it was), which is great for my Macbook Air, but has no padding whatsoever, since “laptop bags” weren’t as en vogue as they are now.

Neither of which really “did it for me”

I had only a few requirements.

1. Rolly luggage pass through

2. good shoulder strap

3. enough pockets to hold my shiz

4. doesn’t weigh 3-4 pounds, empty.

I did a lot of googling, asking friends, etc. The most helpful site I found was someone else on the hunt for a bag.

I narrowed my search to what he had found since his requirements very closely matched mine, at least in part. The bag he chose wasn’t a good fit for me. I need a few more pockets and storage. I don’t need to carry a home office, but since Tom and I travel a fair bit, I like to have all my cords, cables, adapters, etc. so I need some room. But don’t want one of those laptop bags that requires wheels.

Once I narrowed my search to the manufacturers he had selected, i expanded beyond messengers. The Tom Bihn Zephyr fit the bill!

The Tom Bihn site while attractive could use some work, as far as UX. Most bag sites, don’t give enough information really.

Pictures of the pockets, as well as the main compartment, etc would defintiely help in narrowing the search.

One thing I really liked was that the rolly pass-through, has a zipper allowing it to become a back pocket, which is nice, since when not traveling, a rolly pass-through isn’t super useful, LOL.

Tom Bihn defintiely charges a premium on bags, which is understandable, they’re very nice. One thing I don’t so much dig, is that everything is an ‘optional add on’. Like shoulder straps, main compartment dividers, special laptop sleave, etc. Kinda weird.

I will say, the shoulder strap feels like they grabbed a cloud, stitched it to a nylon strap and sold it, it’s very cushy and comfortable. We’ll see how it does with travel later this week, when I head to New Jersey!

I could defintiely use 1 or 2 more larger pockets, for my power strip, eyeglass torpedo, and yo-yo. but I can make due easy enough.

Tags: laptop

My next new adventure begins

This week, at 360|Flex I accepted a job. Not just any job, what I believe will be THE job. No Tom and I aren’t quitting our day jobs to do 360|Flex, in all likely hood, that ain’t gonna happen for a long while, if ever, who knows.

Rather, I’ve accept a job at as Community Evangelist.

I’m really stoked! It’s something I’ve been looking at for a while now, as possibly my next step in my career evolution. I love writing code and don’t see that stopping really, though it will no doubt lessen, and be more along the lines of demos and POCs, etc. I’m really excited about this opportunity! I came up with what I felt was a good job description, and EUI, agreed, and we all shook hands, then Andy hugged me, then the rest lined up and hugged me.. kinda weird but hey, you know I might get used to it ;)

I’ll be helping take some of the pressure off the team to be at events, blogging, etc (thought they’ll certainly continue to blog and speak, etc, since they’re more interesting than me.) and to help be a public figure for EUI, in the twittersphere, blogosphere, real life-o-sphere, etc :)

I’ll be making sure the cool things that EUI is working on, are out there and being seen, since they (we, I guess now, LOL) are doing some really cool stuff that the rest of the world and Flex-dev-o-sphere should know about.

Wish me luck! See you at 360|MAX

I’ll also be offering my community building expertise (that sounds showy, I don’t think it’s the right word) to clients as they role out applications, and such.

Wait, what about 360|Flex?

If you’re wondering how this might impact 360|Flex, it doesn’t. EUI made it clear when we were talking, that they didn’t want anything special on that front, they’d earn and pay for sponsorships like any other company. Speakers will still be picked on the merits of their topic, same as always. Which is good since I had no intention of providing special treatment, or preference for speakers. I’m really proud and happy that they brought it up first, that says a lot to me, and certainly eliminates one potentially awkward employer/employee moment, LOL.

360|Conferences, inc. is a separate entity, run by Tom and myself and short of being purchased outright, it’ll remain independent and objective regarding sponsors and speakers. So for anyone worrying about that, don’t 360|Flex ain’t changing, well it actually is, all the time, but not in that bad, schilly kind of way. :)

I will say it’s great to have an employer that is actually even remotely interested in 360|Flex. I’m thrilled to work for someone that appreciates the efforts and supports them!

I’ll be starting with EUI on 9/2

Tags: 360Flex, EffectiveUI

Ignite Denver, open for business!

That’s right kiddies! The blog is up! the Email address is active. The fancy new logo straight from the O’Reilly presses is done (check it out, right there to the left!), and we’re good to go.

I went for drinks with my wife tonight to make sure Forest Room 5 would work, and I think it’ll do just fine. We may actually secure both rooms so we have plenty of space, w00t!

We’re taking submissions to present so if you got something to say, email us.

Mark your calendar Denver, Boulder, Highlands Ranch, Centennial, Casa Bonita! Ignite Denver is coming!

(Yeah I stole the Casa Bonita bit from 93.3, sue me)

Tags: Ignite Denver

The App Store cometh

Saw this on one of the apple blogs. if you install iTunes 7.7 and do a search for an app, you’ll see the whole app store and be able to browse. They say you can’t install yet, which makes sense since 2.0 ain’t out yet.

But I did try it and low-and-behold

Tags: App Store, iPhone

Salsa Rob’s wife on iTunes!

Just wanted to post a quick shout out, my pal Salsa Rob (Not sure if he knows I call him that) pointed me to a sweet iTunes link for none other than his wife.

Check it out!

You jazz folks will have to let me know what you think! I’m not a jazz person so her tunes would fall on unappreciative ears. :(

Tags: iTunes