Matthew Oliphant's usabilityworks.org — Design, Usability, Life, & Sagan

I decided rather abruptly to leave off any sites which were “social” in nature for a week to see how I got along. I did this last Tuesday. Why that day? Because all good things start on Tuesdays.

I reorg’d my bookmarks and put all of my regular hangouts into a folder named NO and that was that. I’m not swearing off email or IM. Even though you could make an argument that they are social media outlets, for my purposes I don’t view them that way.

Below you’ll find my diary, journal, blog post if you will of my week without: SOCIAL MEDIA!!!!

Day One — Tuesday

Technically just a half day. I didn’t look back at any site once I made the decision to take the week off.

Day Two — Wednesday

It’s odd. I haven’t been to Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, and all those other sites I frequent minutely for about 12 hours now. I don’t really miss them much at all. That’s the odd part.

I also installed Rescue Time today. Not surprisingly the activities tagged work are most of what I’ve done so far. I did get a lot of work done today. More than usual? Perhaps a little, but that could be because I am paying attention today to what I am doing and when.

When I got home, I really wanted to go on Y!Live to chat… but I resisted. Let hope tomorrow gets even easier.

Day Three — Thursday

OMFG!!!!!!!!!!!!1!!!

I’ve had a bunch of questions today that I’d normally just ask on Twitter, but I can’t! FUCK. I actually had to use Google a couple of times. Srsly!! Luckily Google still works pretty well and I could find the answers, but damn it was difficult to even force myself to do the work. I am SO out of practice.

I broke down a bit today and loaded up some muxtapes. Okay, maybe that isn’t a total breakdown. Once I loaded it I could easily go back to my work and just have the music in the background. But I felt a bit like I was cheating. And, to be honest, I did upload a picture to Flickr. And I did go to Flickr to see how the picture looked. But I didn’t look at anything else. Difficult, but I was proud of myself.

Day Four — Friday

Today was a bit easier as I got to experience some “social media” without the media. Well, some media, but since I don’t have a DS it wasn’t a big deal.

I hung out in the afternoon and evening with Patrick Haney, Jenna Marino, Dan Rubin, Shaun Inman, Ryan Sims, and for a short time Leslie Jensen-Inman (she had to go to a conference though and couldn’t hang out with us cool peeps).

Granted, I did upload some pictures of our night out, but I swear didn’t tag any of them at the time.

Day Five — Saturday

On the one hand, weekends make it easier to avoid anything computer-related. On the other hand, consuming all things computer-related helps me avoid my family. Granted, I get 40+ hours a week to avoid them (why else does one work but to avoid one’s family), but frankly it often isn’t enough.

Regardless, or if you are me and want to annoy Claire… irregardless, I was able to avoid the computer and spend time with the fam damily, only hyperventilating once. It also helped that we went to buy a new car. Shiny, drivey things are good to soothe the SMS.

Day Six — Sunday

Laundry. Cleaning. More avoiding. Ahhh, the life. I checked out a couple of pictures on Flickr, but didn’t feel at all anxious about it. I was able to walk away from the computer after only two minutes of listening to my daughter yell at me that the bathroom was on fire.

Day Seven — Monday

Last day. I did go out of bounds a bit by responding to a DM from Whitney Hess as to my whereabouts. But I just sent my update from last week explaining I was taking time off. An update she should have seen in the first place. Honestly, you’d think CMU would be churning out a brighter crowd.

I also uploaded a screencast to Viddler. I couldn’t help myself. I went to Shaun Inman’s site and immediately hurled. No, it doesn’t look bad. It’s just all the movement at the top of the page, and frankly I’d been drinking. Drinking, amazingly, also chases away the SMS.

What Did I Learn?

Biggest takeaway is I need to get some friends that live near me. Relying on the residuals of friendship I get from SXSW that are paid virtually via social sites isn’t enough. Last Friday was so much fun. Must repeat as necessary.

I also learned that I am just a wee bit addicted to the computer. That is probably true about most box-shaped electronic devices. That too must change.

I am not going to go cold turkey on everything just to kick a habit. I am not that addicted. What I need to do is scale back what I get involved in and ask myself, with every interaction, is this creating something positive? For me? For others? If I am not creating something positive I am just wasting my time and in some ways, yours.

I don’t expect to be creating positive things 100% of the time, but I suspect if I begin to ask myself that question I’ll re-adjust my approach to things and the percentage will increase from where it is today.

In the future, I’ll be much more selective about the betas I get involved with. If you’d like to invite me, please do so, but with the idea that I’ll be assessing your app/site for ways to make it better. Not just securing “matto” as MY username everywhere.

WTF Did You Get All, Like, Serious, Yo?

Because all good things come to an end, and all good things end on Mondays.

Yesterday was the official start of SXSW. I registered and it was surprisingly easy and smooth. So much less chaotic than years past.

I got my badge and my bag.

I realise that the contents of the bag are part of what pays for SXSW, but what a load of waste. Realistically, SXSW organisers could provide giant recycling bins right next to the bag pick up area. The pile on the right in the picture above is what is getting tossed. I realise that there’s stuff in that toss pile that others may find valuable, but having those recycling bins could also help with the passive voting on the efficacy of each company’s advertising efforts.

I’ve also been meeting a lot of people. Some of whom I can even recall names. This is the haul so far:

I attended two panels yesterday: Career Rev 342: Dabble Dabble, Toil and Kick Ass, and Battledecks II.

The first panel was pretty good. I unfortunately missed the first half hour as I was hanging out with Abi Jones, but even though the timing of some of the humour was off, I thought the panelists did a good job. And what they covered is something everyone should think about once a week. Basically the premise was how to stay fresh.

The second panel… oy vey. All I can say (and I must digress for a moment to note this is not a statement that stems from any man crush, fanboyness, or attempt to win myself some cred with the cool people) is that Anil Dash rawks my w0rld. And I am comfortable with letting people know that.

To be very fair, yesterday, from other accounts too, was about having fun and not about substance.

Today, Day the Thirde as you might guess, finds me attending 7 or so panels. A couple of which are going on at the same time. And likely after the first panels that sched will go out the window.

I arrived in Austin, TX yesterday, a day before SXSW officially starts. I like arriving early. Got to have a nice lunch with friends I haven’t seen in a while and dinner was a lot of fun too. Even if 23 people showed up for a 12 person reservation.

I’ll spare you the weather and flight/airport accounts as there seem to be plenty of those. I do plan on writing up my time here, but if you want to know what’s going on faster than here, follow me on Twitter. Assuming Twitter doesn’t die under the weight of SXSW attendees and their handy iPhones.

Stoopid iPhones. I SO don’t want one.

Last night as I was going to bed I had an idea.

Knowing me, I had to write it down before I went to sleep lest I forget and since my computer was still on, I twittered it. To whit, I said, “thinking of doing an unpanel at SXSW. Anyone want to join? topic TBD. DM if you want to pontificate in public with me. :)” Most of the reaction was “un-what now?” Which makes sense. I’ve explained this idea to about 5 people today via IM. It just isn’t something that lends itself to being fully explained via Twitter, but I guess that’s why we keep our blogs around.

The Idea

Get 4 to 5 people to stand in front of an informal gathering of interested other people and talk about… something. Much like an unconference, this idea would have the topic of discussion driven by those who show up. I know those interested in speaking will come with a few ideas of their own, but I think audience participation makes for a more engaging experience. That would be the initial part of the unpanel. The second part would be an open Q&A, cleverly entitled “Ask Us Anything.” (Hat tip to Steve Marshall for helping me coalesce this part of the idea, based on his experience.) And by “anything” I mean anything. Likely the questions will stem form the conversation that preceded, but we all need to keep each other on each other’s toes, so anything goes. If you are offensive, expect to get back what you give.

Why?

A couple of reasons. Totally my reasons which you might share or completely disagree with.

I looked through the schedule of panels on the extremely helpful sched.org and was quite uninspired by the offerings. Some things I saw made me think, “Must. Get. Front. Row. Seat.” while most of them made me utter “meh” quite a lot. I also noticed a lot of the “same old names” cropping up. Most of those “same old names” I have a lot of respect for, but I’ve also heard them over and over and over again. And finally, having been to a couple of SXSWs (Westeses?), I know there’s a lot of smart people that attend who are not as well known as the “same old names” and potentially never will be.

Given all that I thought, why not see if those people have something to say? You are probably one of those people. In fact, most of the people who go to SXSW are one of those people. That’s a lot of people!

And Just Who Are These People?

So far I have received confirmed interest from Michael Montgomery, Julio Fernandez, the aforementioned Steve Marshall, Martin Ringlein, James Aylett, Alex Giron, Andrea Schwandt-Arbogast, and me. I think panels are optimal at 4 people so we’ll go for that as much as possible.

I’ve added: Lisa Brewster, Abi Jones, and Alex Hillman. So it’s very likely we will do 2 unpanels.

When?

The short answer is: no clue. Likely on Saturday and/or Sunday. Likely in the afternoon. Mostly it depends on the schedules of those who are going to speak and attend. I won’t be able to find the perfect time slot. If you want to know when it’s going to happen following me on Twitter is the easiest way to get updates. I’ll know more as the time approaches and will communicate what I know when I know it.

If you think this is a good idea, please pass the word so as many people as possible can chose to attend if they wish.

Unpanel?

I realize it isn’t the best name for it, but its what came to mind. I guess you could call it Impromptu Panel, Salon-o-rama, or Lawrence. I guess part of the thing about this is I think it’s something that could happen at any conference. Unconferences are all well and good (they really are) but I suspect there’s a lot of people who would benefit from an informal, lightly-structured session-with-a-session so to speak at any and every conference out there. Few conferences are 100%interesting for 100% everyone. So why not orgainze something like those meetings-between-the-meetings we are all so fond of saying are “when the real conference happens.”