But first - let me see if I can put the conference in context.  Let’s start with the few days leading up to it.  For those not playing along at home let me refer you to this post wherein I tell the story of how our only car went on the fritz two days before having to leave for the conference. In that post I also mentioned having our master bath worked on while gone and how it would be done by the time we got home”‘barring any issues lurking under the floor”.

Jumping to the few days since getting home from EECI now - you’ll not be surprised to hear that issues were indeed lurking:

A slow water leak has damaged the bathroom floor. Our hopes were that it was minimal but it’s looking probable at this point that the tub will have to come out (with a sledgehammer) so that the floor issues can be dealt with correctly.  While most of the house projects have been DIY affairs this one we hired out in hopes of it being less of a hassle.  Now we’re on someone else’s schedule -  and it won’t be done for a while.

While we’ve got a nice 5th wheel trailer sitting in the driveway with a bathroom and shower, I don’t yet have the truck to pull it with.  This means we can’t use the facilities in it since I won’t be able to pull it somewhere to empty the waste storage tanks. The upshot is that this is now our showering facility - thank goodness for a fully fenced in backyard:

The master bath is in a location where it’s impacting us more than just not having an indoor shower - it’s also next to our (freshly repainted) master bedroom.  The access to the bath plumbing is through the closet - which means the dust and mess have passageway into the bedroom.  At this point it’s just easier to cover everything up and not use it:

MsBoyink and I are now sleeping in the trailer in the driveway - and I’ve moved my clothes out there so at least I can get dressed in one place. 

The master bath is also directly over my office - so I’ll only be able to use it when the contractor isn’t here, otherwise I’ll be subjected to a shower of drywall dust and debris.  I do have enough leash on all connections to at least be able to use my desk when he’s not here:

The contractor has also taken over my workshop with supplies:

Anyone who knows me knows that I tend to be a bit of a fussbudget about my work environments - I just can’t work in a mess.  My garage usually has everything organized and in it’s place with workbenches left empty.  My office is the same way - no clutter or stacks of paper.  I do make messes but they always get cleaned up first thing. 

My need for organization is so bad that—in that pic above?  That’s after I straightened up the supplies just to get them more organized.  It’s not even my project and I can’t help it…

So my office is out of whack, my workshop is out of whack, we’re showering in the back yard, the house is in general disarray, we’re on someone else’s schedule and still using a borrowed car.

And the interesting thing?

I’m OK with it.

Oh - I’d rather this mess all go away so I could get settled back into life.  But underlying that immediate frustration is just a sense of calm and peace.  And even - oddly - a bit of excitement.

There’s a couple of reasons why.

First - it’s hard to be upset with things after coming back from the ExpressionEngine & CodeIgniter Conference that took place in San Francisco.  Prepping for both a 8 hour class and an hour-ish presentation took a lot of time - but once we got there I really wasn’t that stressed.  I mentioned to a couple of people that for me it was less a conference than it was a family reunion.  I got to hang out in person with many of the folks I hang out with online.  I got to see several former Train-ee students who continue to crank out EE based sites and be involved in the community, and even now giving back. I had some great conversations that should prove to be the genesis of some cool EE-oriented “stuff” down the road.  I had a number of people seek me out to tell me how Train-ee had helped them learn EE.  The class and presentation seemed well-received. 

I came home with this overwhelming sense of “rightness” - in that I feel like I’m in the exact place in life that God wants me to be in, doing the work I’m designed to do, with people I respect, providing value to others, using software I love from a company staffed with people I consider friends.

And somehow, miraculously, getting paid for it. 

Considering all this—it’s hard to be too upset with a bathroom remodel gone bad.

And then - there’s our roadtrip plans.  It continues to amaze me the amount of interest this trip has gathered.  MsBoyink and I joked that we should have had T-shirts made that said:

• September
• Someone will be living there
• We homeschool
• Still being planned
• Some client work but some training events as well

But - aside from the interest in the trip and the ties to the EE community that it will have, it struck me today that—these obstacles at home?  These are training runs.  We’re being tested to see how we - as a family - handle challenges being tossed at us from every angle.  Anything that we depended on and took for granted is being taken away or reshuffled and we get to practice responding.  And—we get to practice while still having the safety of a house, a stable internet connection, beds to sleep in, and friends/family close by.

So - I’m taking a deep breath, remaining calm, and welcoming the coming week with a bit of excitement about figuring out how to get through it.  We asked for adventure and we’re getting it.  Already - without leaving home.

As my wife will enthusiastically support, I’m just not wired to remember special days that well.  Other people remember my birthday for me - so that one is no problem. I seem to do OK with our wedding anniversary, wife and kid birthdays - at least I can tell you the day they happen on.  Actually doing anything to celebrate it always seems to be just a bit beyond my grasp.  The local grocery stores have - at times - benefited from last-minute dashes in PJ’s and slippers to purchase cheesy flowers and cards.

In looking back through my blog entries it appears that historically I’ve posted the anniversary of Boyink Interactive roughly two weeks late.  How I knew that at the time is now eluding me - as I can’t seem to dig up the actual date that I filed a DBA form locally to legalize the company name.  I think it was May 10th - so I’m posting the announcement now a bit early so at least my average will be closer to true.

Eight years.

Eight years.

That’s twice as along as I’ve ever held a job working for someone else.

That’s the time during which my kids went from toddlers to teens.

That’s the time during which responding to a request in the ExpressionEngine forums became a book which grew into a second business - and that second business has eclipsed the first in terms of brand recognition and potential.

That’s the time during which I somehow, inexplicably, went from a grunt-level corporate project manager to being invited to speak at conferences. 

That’s the time during which I went from working with people my own age to becoming one of the “seniors” among my peers - which is all at once humbling and mystifying (someday I’ll figure out where the other tecchies my age went).

That’s the time during which the economy in general - and West Michigan in particular - went south but (by God’s grace) we’ve always made the mortgage payment and put food on the table.

That’s the time during which I’ve worked with some amazing clients—and no matter on which end of the good or bad scale they were amazing at they’ve all taught me so much.

That’s the time I wouldn’t trade for anything in the world.  What an amazing, exciting and surprising ride it’s been. 

And now I can’t wait to take this show on the road.

Content
The home page gives an overview of us and what this crazy adventure is all about via the slides that change out.  We’ve been blogging our pre-trip research and thinking for some time - and that content is all there in the pre-trip section.  In the About section I’ve added some family bios for those who want to get to know us a bit more (note that we did choose to use online nicknames for our kids as a measure to protect their privacy and security).

That only represents about 1/2 of the content that the site will eventually hold however.  I’ll have other sections of content to add as we move closer to our launch date and have other things to talk about. 

Design
The design is Woo Theme’s Postcard.  While Woo sells it for Wordpress, of course I had to run it via ExpressionEngine.  Woo Themes are more than just HTML starter templates so the best way to to get the HTML was to install WP locally, then install the Woo Theme, and then render pages out where I could grab the HTML to bring into EE.  It wasn’t as straightforward as other templates that I’ve purchased to use with EE - but doable.  A hat-tip to Marcus Neto from Blue Fish Studio for alerting me to the theme. 

Logo
The logo, favicon, and Twitter/Facebook icons were done by Ray Brown.  Ray can be found at (@bitmanic on twitter and Bitmanic.com on the web.

Implementation
I started with installing EE’s Multiple Site Manager - so Boyinks4Adventure.com runs off the same EE install as Boyink.com and our family extranet.  The pre-trip content actually still resides in the Boyink.com install and is just pulled across to the new site.

From the implementation of the currently-visible content is pretty straightforward. One of the sections I have waiting to go live is the travel blog where we’ll post once actually on the road.  Since I wanted these posts to be able to include photo galleries, video galleries and a map it made more sense to create this all in a new blog vs. working in the current pre-trip blog.

The more complex content required using some 3rd party tools.  I know you can’t see them in action on the site yet - but imagine if you will:

• Per-entry photo galleries using Brandon Kelly’s FieldFrame with FF Matrix and the nGen File Upload plugged in.  Images are run through the Image Sizer plugin from David Rencher. Photo galleries are presented using the Galleria jQuery script (I’m so over lightbox-effects for photos).
• Per-entry video galleries using another FF Matrix feeding content to the FLV Media Player from John Henry / 5Pieces.  Template conditionals show a player with playlist if there are multiple videos.
• Per-entry Google Map using SL Google Map.  Map points will be aggregated to one master map that will show all our travels.

Other Credits:

• The Tweet-stream for the road trip is pulled in and displayed using Erik Reagan’s ER Tweet Me wrapped by the first-party Twitter Timeline.
• The Entries Number from Laisvunas saved me from having to write a custom query to get per-category post counts on the weblog archive page.
• MD Page Type from Masuga Design helps route multi-entry and single-entry requests through a single template for nicer URLs.
• A bunch of guys on twitter including @mcdavis, @ChrisMBarr, @thinkclay, @joelbradbury, @james_evans and @lukerumley for some crowdsourced jQuery troubleshooting.

Many thanks to all the 3rd party developers - who even updated some of these tools per my needs.  I’m really looking forward to getting on the road and pushing some content through this site - I think it’ll easily be one of the better sites of its type out there.

More exciting stuff to come - but we’ve got a trailer to finalize the deal on and get delivered.  And a truck to buy.  And a route to put together. And…....

Harrison is now 13 - so age-wise it’s right about when you might start to consider a go-cart or minibike, but we have miles of bikepaths around our house and this way there is no fuel costs or noise, it’s environmentally friendly and promotes exercise besides.

I found plans for this quadcycle online at http://www.americanspeedster.com/.  I won’t say they are the most detailed or well-written instructions, but instead will say they provided many opportunities for problem solving, reverse-engineering, and the value of re-work..;)

We did buy the kit of the more specialized parts - probably a good decision based on the amount of time it took us even with the hard stuff done.  The cycle has 5 speeds, brakes, and took two donor bikes for all the wheels.

Here’s a quick video of the process and result!

Who
Currently I’m responsible for doing most of the legwork – with EllisLab helping out when and where it makes sense.  Throughout the development of this program I’ll be looking for other members of the EE community to have involvement so that the program reflects a fair and accurate view of the EE ecosystem.

What
What the program will be, how it will be created, how it will be delivered – these are all questions I’m in the process of researching answers to.

Where
The goal is that the program will be available to all ExpressionEngine developers without restriction - regardless of location.

When
No set date yet.  The parties involved in this project so far are similar in one respect - we’ve never done anything like it before.  So for now just know we are working on it.

Why
The availability of a certification program is one sign of a healthy marketplace around a given technology. My goal is that it benefits everyone involved with EE:

• For developers - a way to qualify themselves for EE-related jobs and projects, a way to mark progress towards defined training goals.
• For end clients - another way to review potential developers and gain higher-quality results.
• For EllisLab/ExpressionEngine.com - a more reliable/defined referral channel.

How
My research starts here in West Michigan where I’ve scheduled some brainstorming time this week with some local peers. Represented in the group are heavy EE users, more casual/infrequent users, and developers who’ve never used EE. The group has also expressed a wide range of opinions on the subject of certification programs from negative to positive.

From there I go to SXSW with an agenda of speaking to as many people from the EE community about the topic as possible. If you’ll be in Austin make sure to hit me up via email or Twitter – and I’ll make every effort I can to meet with you to talk about this.

After SXSW will the the EE Meetup in Chicago where I’ll propose the skeleton of a program based on input received so far, and open it up for discussion and review.

After the Chicago meetup I’ll be looking to schedule some Skype chats with the some non US-based EE folks for additional perspective.

Questions?
We’re not ready to discuss this publicly, but when we are there will be announcements both here and over at the EE Blog. So for now, comments are off. But if you have questions, concerns, or want to schedule a chat about the project please feel free to contact me directly.

Thanks!

I needed that time to catch up on sleep, re-connect with my family, and just sort of let the experience sink in before I could begin to gather my thoughts for this post. 

Even now I can’t quite figure out how to summarize, analyze or synthesize anything out of the weekend because all I keep doing is shaking my head and wondering - “Did that all really happen?  And in roughly 48 hours?”  Amazing!

Why Do This?
I read about Startup Weekend somewhere on the web and just immediately thought it sounded like something West Michigan should do.  The economy here sucks and we all know it because it seems like it’s all the media wants to talk about.  And if it’s not the economy then it’s the less than respectable actions by people downtrodden and run over by the economy.  And look - I know it’s true.  I know right now for many people living in Michigan just sucks.  Jobless. In debt. Under water.  Lacking skills relevant in a non-manufacturing based economy.

But while that’s true it’s not the whole truth.  In the tech community I’m part of I keep hearing little stories like “we’re hiring”, “we’ve added 3 people last year”, “we had a great year”.  For me 2009 topped 2008 as our biggest year ever in 8 years of being in business.  But it seems like we don’t hear those stories unless we’re speaking directly to the business owners behind them.  Adding 3 people just isn’t, evidently, newsworthy. 

I was convinced that we had, in West Michigan, the ingredients that an event like this would need.  Thanks to our office furniture industry we’ve got some great spaces with great furniture.  We’ve got skilled people in all walks of life. And - maybe most important - we’re all just a bit hungry.  If not in the literal sense, hungry for change. Hungry for to see the positive things already happening get some notice.  Hungry to see our home state do better, and make news for something other than the nations worst unemployment.

So I contacted Marc Nager from Startup Weekend asking how to get the process of getting Startup Weekend to come to West Michigan.  His answer—“You just did.”

The Planning
Emails started flowing, and somewhere along the way I mentioned the idea to Aaron Schaap of ElevatorUp.  This might have been a bit of a ploy on my part as Aaron is well-known as being a startup junkie - and thankfully he was immediately behind the idea and offered The Factory as a venue. The Factory is well-outfitted for an event like this with a variety of furniture, whiteboards, electricity and and just overall a great creative vibe.  It’s also nicely located in downtown Grand Rapids with plenty of bars, restaurants and parking close by.

Another benefit Aaron brought to the project was people - both Dayna Beal and Sara Hogan from his staff joined the project to help organize and promote.  Amanda Chocko from Lakeshore Advantage also joined the planning crew.

Overall the needs we had were simple: people and money.  We initially estimated the event would require roughly $7K - to cover our food and beverage cost and also the overhead cost of Startup Weekend.  I’ll spare you the details of all of that work save for two - just in case you are reading this with the idea that you want to do one of these events in your area.  We did two things right:  we scheduled a weekly planning meeting and we scheduled a volunteer “town hall” meeting.

I know right now - especially fueled by the recent release of the new 37 Signals book there is a popular notion that “all meetings are evil”.

This just isn’t true.

Startup Weekend would not have happened without the regular meeting.  But I did notice that the meeting worked much better when the purpose was action rather than creating a to-do list.  Wonder if a particular person would like to speak?  Don’t create a to-do to follow up on later.  Pick up the phone and call. Now.

The Volunteer Town Hall was also crucial to the success of the event as it brought out some volunteers that just plain got some stuff done that we were having trouble finding time for - talking to restaurants about food, coordinating t-shirts, getting some press for the event etc.  This group is also where we found lodging for Marc to save him the costs and indignity of a hotel room.  Great bunch of folks - and it was very humbling and not just a bit amazing to have people jump behind an idea and help carry it out. Thanks to John Rumery, Stephanie Stenberg, Jonathan Ward and others for coming out and jumping right in.

Along the way we realized we had overestimated our financial needs and revised them down to around $5K which greatly eased the fund-raising stress.

The Event - Friday
I will admit - the last few days before the event I found myself wishing I had kept my mouth shut.  I have two businesses going - between client work and some other opportunities cooking I was starting to wonder if I had chosen a poor use of my time and found a good way to kill a weekend.

Yea, I was wrong. Totally, completely, wrong.

Friday afternoon I made it over to the Factory, met Marc in person finally, and help with the preparations.  We knew we had roughly 40 people coming and it was great to meet and talk to them as the filtered in.  Lots of good networking was already starting to happen:

Food was running late - so we conferred and decided to start the pitches. Marc asked how many people had ideas to pitch and roughly 14 hands went up.  We numbered them off and gave them each 2 minutes.  This is where the excitement for me began to build.  There were some really good ideas here.  And not just good in the “West Michigan Nice” way - good in the “get that done and you can make money with it” way.

Marc kept track of the pitch people & ideas:

Somewhere during this time the food came - but during the initial pitches another 4 people had decided to pitch something to the crowd.  Burritos were consumed and the pitching continued.  Once done some additional networking time was allowed then came time to vote. 

How?  With dollars.  And no - not Monopoly money but real American greenbacks.  Pitchers were given envelopes, and everyone got 2 dollars to use as “votes”.

Once everyone had voted the accounting firm of Schaap and Nager tallied the results.

And winners of the vote were announced.  They were:

1. 24/7 Healthnet.com
   An online service that efficiently brings doctors and patients together by booking open appointments with local physicians.
2. MichiganFilmReel.com
   We’re just a couple of film and video geeks who get excited about making movies here in Michigan. We love this business and want to help you get involved and stay up to date on the latest news and industry chat.
3. Jaiplace.com
   JaiPlace’s mission is to offer the highest quality information, products, services, media, education and experiences that lead individuals and groups towards their highest potential.
4. PennyPlanner.com
   An amazing tool that helps people manage their expenses on a day to day basis. It is built as a platform that will allow various type of users to utilize in custom and convenient ways to help plan, project, and keep track of expenses. Will be launching April1st.
5. LocalGR.com
   The ultimate downtown Grand Rapids Guide. Eat, Drink, Shop Grand Rapids.
6. EchoTask.com
   Automate your life. Getting things done has never been easier.” A great application for managing tasks and coordinating them in any number of various ways with others.
7. LegallyBlog.net
   Customize your content. Connect with your clients.” Providing custom blog content for lawfirms that can’t afford not to use this service.
8. hu2m
   In 1962, President Kennedy challenged us to go to the moon. In 2010, we are using the Internet and social networking to crowd source going to Mars! One charismatic leader (old model) to NOW all of us together … (new model). Let’s go to Mars!!



Now the eight teams found a spot in the room and whiteboard.  On the whiteboard they listed what they needed to move forward:





At this point in the night it was around 9:00 - and an amazing thing happened.  The thought was that people would like to move from the space and walk to a local bar for another hour or so of networking lubricated by alcohol.

Friends - hardly anyone left.

I looked around and people were just too engaged, too animated, and too involved with already getting the work of the weekend underway to move. 

Well, that, and we had beer with no walk through a wet heavy snow required.

But I was still inspired. 

With a Startup Weekend there is no formal process for figuring out the team structures.  People just figure it out.  Some teams end up with more people, some less.  Some people choose to float from team to team offering more specific and timely advice, others plunge in and do anything it takes to get one specific idea launched.  It’s a bit of crazy randomness that somehow works.

Friday night ended around 11:00.

The Event - Saturday

Saturday found us back at the building at 8:30 AM, and the work began in earnest.  It’s hard to describe the vibe that was going on—the room was positively buzzing with energy.  I slept maybe 4 hours Friday night and fully expected to crash somewhere Saturday afternoon.  It never happened.  The naming of new businesses, the choosing of domain names, the flowcharting of business processes and refining of ideas - this is energizing work and Saturday was filled with it.







Saturday at lunch we had the first of 3 excellent speakers - Bill Oechsler of Xler Consulting who organized his thoughts around several “F-words” (all good!).  My favorite part was in the living “fast& furious” where Bill said how fun the creative process is like the delivery room - a place where things are born but it’s loud, messy, and stressful.  If you want things quiet, neat and orderly then that can be found in the graveyard.





Saturday afternoon it was back in the trenches building businesses:





At suppertime we again took a pause to hear from Rob Stam of The Big Red Group.  Rob spoke of his history in the business world, hitting rock bottom of bankruptcy and court dates, and how it’s changed his outlook in life, personal finance, and his role in the workplace now.



Work continued on Saturday night - I stayed until around 10:30 when I finally had to kick out one of the teams so I could get home.


The Event - Sunday

We fired back up at 8:30 AM Sunday morning - with the teams trickling back in at a noticeably slower pace.  However by 10 AM or so it seemed like like everyone was back engaged in their project.  We made a concerted effort to get some media coverage for the event - putting the word out on Twitter, making phone calls, and when all else failed, talking to certain friends.  We received word that the local Fox news affiliate was sending someone over - and that definitely increased the fervor in the room.  I could tell teams were in the home stretch - wanting to have certain milestones in place for the presentations at 3 PM.

At this point in the weekend I was just so impressed with the people who showed up—truly creative professionals with a desire to make a difference.  I switched lenses and tried catching some of the faces present:













At lunch time we had Daniel Estrada of D.C. Estrada speak.







Daniel’s topic proved controversial - as it was around why business plans are unnecessary for so many startup businesses.  The controversy led to an active post-talk Q&A session.  After Daniel answered several questions the teams buckled down - by now 3:00 was just a couple hours a way.

Oh yea - at this point the Fox news guy showed up.  The level of excitement definitely went up a notch.  Ignoring my suggestions that the teams were the real story, he first interviewed yours truly and then took some b-roll around the room:



A few others from the community were also starting to show up - interested in seeing what the results of this madness were.

But wait - an unplanned presentation!  Dayna Beal (who is involved in getting Downstream advanced in it’s progress as a startup) took the opportunity to map out the overall process of starting up a business and the likely financing opportunities at different points in that process:



With that done - it was time. 

Final Presentations

Teams were given an order - and the early ones wrapped things up while later ones kept one eye on the presenting teams while continuing to work. 

The idea was that each team would get 5 minutes to present the problem they were trying to solve, their intended solution, and the progress made on that over this weekend. 








 
We didn’t stick to the rules well, but no matter—as each team went through their presentation, answered questions, and reported progress it was apparent to everyone that it’s pretty amazing what you can get done over the course of 48 hours. Business plans were refined, websites were ideated, wireframed and even created with new content.  Videos were shot and edited.  Applications with email, text messaging, and even text to speech integration were developed.  Marketing strategies were defined.  Legal ramifications were analyzed and discussed.  All with an energy and passion that I haven’t ever witnessed at any sort of professional event.  Ever.

Oh - and our timing here?  Presentations started at the same time as the “for the gold medal” hockey game between the USA and Canada that was serving as the grand finale to this year’s Olympics.  While I know some folks were kind of keeping an eye on the score via the internet it was by no means a focus in the room—it was quite surprising to see ideas and business win out over sports.

When I think just about the generosity of the event it’s astounding.  It cost $40 to get in - but if you took all the skillsets present, came up with an hourly rate for them acting as consultants, and multiplied it by the number of man-hour spent over the course of the 3 days, what would the value be?

Priceless.



THANKS!
This was truly an event to remember, and plans for a 6-month reunion and the date for next year were already being discussed before the pop cans and pizza boxes were cleared away.  I’m a bit sad that with our intended big RV trip we won’t be around for it next year.  I will be keeping an eye out for other Startup Weekends around the country that I can attend - I’d love to connect with this kind of energy again.

My humble thanks to everyone involved - sponsors, attendees, organizers, food providers, media folks, spouses, families, hosts, and the Startup Weekend folks.  Best of luck to all the companies & ideas coming out of the weekend!

(Note - you can view all of the photos from the event as a Flickr Set, and follow StartupWMI on Twitter for other news/photos/videos coming out of the event).

 

]]> Boyink Interactive News 2010-03-01T23:46:05+00:00 http://boyink.com/write/our-digital-heritage-blessing-or-burden/ http://boyink.com/write/our-digital-heritage-blessing-or-burden/#When:13:40:59Z

What you see above is the scanned-in image of a postcard mailed by my grandparents to one of my grandmother’s sisters while they were traveling in 1957 (interesting to note the lack of a house address or zip code).  I scanned it in because it’s one of the few samples I have of my grandmother’s “voice” and handwriting and I wanted my kids to be able to see it.  Scanning it was a great way to both preserve it, back it up, and not have to worry about storing the physical postcard.

In the same vein - over the past few years when my parents (Hi Mom!) send us emails I’ll sometimes copy and past them into a closed blog post so that we preserve a bit of their writings.  I’ll also blog bits and pieces of interesting conversations - stories from when they were growing up etc. 

My folks have a large library of slides - both from photos they took and from my grandparents, inherited when my grandparents passed away.  And they haven’t stopped taking pictures - they’ve had a digital camera for a few years now and have been busy recording their various travels and four-wheeling adventures.

Here at home we recently paid to have roughly 4 years of film pictures digitized - adding to almost 8 years of digital family photos.  I’ve also transferred 8mm video to DVD, and have started copying the DVD files onto our backup drive.  In addition to photos and video there are weblog posts going back to 2003 here on Boyink.com.

At some point in this process it struck me how much more digital content is being stored from each generation.  A few MB from my grandparents, hundreds of MB from my parents, and I just bought a 1TB drive to be able to store and backup both our current “digital heritage” and what we expect to add to it on our upcoming year on the road.  If you plotted these points out on a chart the curve would be exponential.

It brings up a number of interesting questions and issues:

• If cheap photography means we take more photos, does the value of each photo diminish?
• Will “green” thinkers start to worry that we’re storing too much information, much of it duplicated (how many photos of Big Red does the world need)?
• What happens when the storage technology changes and people neglect to convert? Old prints could be forgotten in a basement for 30 years and still be viewable - will your digital files last that long? Have we traded longevity for the low cost and instant feedback of digital photography?
• Will future generations even be interested in still photography from the past - assuming virtual 3D type experiences will exist?

But there’s another issue that’s been on my mind lately - and that’s how these digital collections will start to become an inheritance.  As digital photographers age and begin to pass away, their work will likely pass down to their children or other still-alive family members—much like how I came to own the postcard from my grandparents.  But as each generation is storing more, that digital heritage will become larger each time it’s passed down.  It will also likely to contain a large number of different file types, files compressed with different algorithms, and other digital assets like domain names—all increasing the complexity and overhead of managing it.

It gets me wondering - will this digital heritage start to become a burden?  Will siblings argue over who has to become the “keeper of the files” - always tending to them to ensure old formats are being converted?  We are already information-overloaded in this age - will future generations have the time/attention to plow through what would be hundreds of terabytes of photos/video/blog archives/life-streaming?  Will businesses emerge to handle this strain?  Will people or families declare “digital heritage bankruptcy”—like some of us do now with email - and just start over? 

Or will the file format issue solve this for us by essentially putting an expiration date on content because it will be forgotten or neglected - essentially the future equivalent of having a collection of 5.25” floppy discs now with no way to access them?  As I write this it strikes me that this has already happened to me - I kept a journal for a while in college but it was written in a now-defunct word processor and stored on a long-lost 3.5” floppy drive (all things considered - it’s probably best that it’s gone).

Lots of questions and I certainly don’t propose to have the answers.  The only thing I can do in the meantime is try to be better at culling out and storing only the good or important digital content.  Right now the easy way out is to just save it all—the storage space is cheaper than the value of the time required to sort through it - but in the long run my laziness is going to become a burden for someone.

]]> Boyink Articles 2010-02-20T13:40:59+00:00 http://boyink.com/write/frustration-with-foursquare/ http://boyink.com/write/frustration-with-foursquare/#When:13:42:14Z Over the last couple of weeks a couple of new site/service/apps have started getting popular on Twitter - and it’s causing me a bit of frustration.  Since 140 characters is too short to explain myself, a blog post was in order.

The two sites I’m targeting with this post are FourSquare and Gowalla.  I have not signed up for either of these sites - but looking at them quickly they seem to be similar.  Users sign up and using a mobile app on a smart phone that can also provide location information (geocoding) they make a visit to a particular location (businesses usually) and then “check-in” with the site.  There is a game element - allowing users to earn points, badges, and claim titles like “Mayor”.

Businesses with a physical location can add themselves to the sites which allows users to check in at the business.  Businesses then get promotion on the site plus being promoted on the users hooked-up social networks like Twitter or Facebook.  I’m hearing that some businesses are offering freebies if you show them that you’ve checked in with them while there - a restaurant might give you a free appetizer etc.

I’m a bit torn with these sites - because if I look out to our upcoming travel adventure we might be able to use services like Foursquare and Gowalla to find great places to visit and good restaurants to eat at.

But right now, today, the net effect of the popularity of these sites is that I’m starting to unfollow people using them actively.  Why?  Because if I follow you on Twitter it’s because you provide value to me.  You post witty, challenging or insightful comments.  Or—you’re interested in EE so we share that commonality.  Or I’ve worked with you either as a client, customer, or peer and want to maintain that relationship.

When a high number of tweets are nothing more than “I’m at Joes Taco Stand” or “I’m at Toms Health Club” or “I just became the Mayor of Jim’s Basement Refinishing on Foursquare” I have to start asking…“So what?”.  What does this information do to improve my day?  Is there really nothing more valuable you have to say or to add than simply where you are?  That information is really only important to me if I’m trying to find you to meet with you.  I’m not sure the information would ever be valuable on a 1:1: basis - only when aggregated (500 check-ins at the Taco stand over a day or two would tell me it’s a good place to eat).

It seems to me the net effect of these sites is to allow Twitter or Facebook users to earn freebies, giveaways, and status by whoring out their audience’s attention.  As a recipient I’m done with it already - I simply don’t care where you are.  As a user I value my audience far too much to spam them with inline Twitter ads for local businesses just for a free beer.

]]> Web Marketing 2010-01-21T13:42:14+00:00 http://boyink.com/write/startup-weekend-west-michigan1/ http://boyink.com/write/startup-weekend-west-michigan1/#When:00:23:54Z Huh…I announced this on Twitter a few days back but seem to have neglected announcing it here as well. 

So - I’m happy to announce that along with the ElevatorUp folks I’m getting the ball rolling on hosting Startup Weekend in Grand Rapids on February 26th - 28th. 

What is it?

48 hours of pure business-building madness.

There’ll be speakers, food, whiteboarding, coffee, ideation, creation, bootstrapping, networking, learning, teaching - and overall just a loud buzz of activity that will hopefully burst forth with new businesses, new relationships and some positive press for the West Michigan area.

Encouraged to attend are: techhies, marketers, lawyers, business folks, designers, doctors, dentists, linemen, bowling alley managers—anyone with a passion for business and a chance to have a great time.  If your business would like to sponsor the event please contact me.  I’ll be calling you anyway…you might as well beat me to the punch..;)

]]> Boyink Interactive News 2010-01-11T00:23:54+00:00 http://boyink.com/write/htaccess-help/ http://boyink.com/write/htaccess-help/#When:19:15:14Z This issue has been resolved -thanks to Eric Reagan and Fred Boyle for the help. 

Essentially I replaced this style of redirect:

redirect 301 /splaat/ssdutch http://www.boyink.com/cj6/ 

with this style:

RewriteRule ^splaat/ssdutch/(.*)$ /cj6/$1 [R=301,L] 

I’m sure I tested the former and had them working - why they stopped I don’t know.  It’s one of those things I don’t have the time to figure out—they seem to be working again and I’m moving on.

]]> Web Implementation 2010-01-05T19:15:14+00:00