Ben always talks about how recruiting is now about building a magnet. You need to draw people in. Love that! I’d add another simple one, you have to get out of your office!! No one cares about your company and your product so while I love the ‘build a magnet’ model, it’s rarely done well. A simpler approach is to just get out of your office and start interacting with the existing community. If you aren’t the person to do it then hire someone or encourage a developer you currently work with.

A few real examples?

I can guarantee you Leila and Corey are hiring some of the best developers we have in Canada. How? They not only get out of their office, they get out and create real things like HackDays for developers.

No, they didn’t create HackDays with the sole intent of building a hiring pipeline but that’s besides the point. They are creating meaningful ways to contribute to developers. They’re not just participating, they’re creating. Start by giving before you worry about taking. You’re owed nothing simply because you can pay someone a salary. Give, help create and support our talent and always work on giving, and creating, more talent than you take. Obviously we can’t all create something like HackDays but you can sponsor an event or ask a local organizer what you can do to help them with their event.

Another example of late? I’m amazed that we didn’t have a lineup of local employers loitering around ThreeFortyNine coworking while The Guelph Seven were here. Here you have seven local students skipping school and organizing themselves to build seven applications in seven days. The same employers who aren’t showing up to mingle with these guys are busy paying to post jobs to job boards so they can read fictional resumes. I could care less if any of the Guelph Seven ever write a decent resume, I’d jump at a chance to hire any of them.

Things have changed folks. Stop reading resumes. Start getting involved, give more than you take. As Howard Lindzon says foreplay, foreplay, foreplay!

Oh you’re so gullible. No, no, rest assured I’m still living the caveman life with no data plan or SMS. It’s been over a month and so far I have no regrets and highly recommend it to anyone considering the leap. Combined with a kindle I find myself reading a lot more and wasting time much better. By wasting time better I mean I work when I work, I goof off when I goof off and I’m more focused at each.

Not allowing myself to be so easily distracted from important work, like staring at the wall or playing mini sticks with my boy, is dreamy. So much so that I want more. I’m considering moving to a more strict email diet. While I’ve dabbled with this in the past, you’d be surprised how difficult this really is.

Some interesting myths related to this experiment…

Receiving more phone calls will make me less productive

I share my phone number everywhere I can, my intent is to be highly available by phone. It’s in all my email signatures, on websites etc. As well, I intended to reply to emails demanding urgent replies with a polite “I don’t have a data plan, please phone me if it’s anything that demands an immediate response”.

When I explain this approach, people’s initial response is “oh, that wouldn’t work, all those phone calls would be distracting”. The reality is there is no increase in phone calls. All that’s really happening is that I’m able to better manage expectations. People expect frequent responses over email from me, but not immediate, and they always know they can reach me with a phone call.

Your phone will not ring off the hook. You will not be bombarded with calls. Trust me.

Phone calls in general are more work, take longer

How many times has this happened to you in the past month over email, IM, skype, SMS, etc? You go back and forth until you realize you’re both having your own damn conversation and getting nowhere. You give up, pick up the phone and within a minute realize they were being sarcastic when they said “you’re mean” and you explain that you really meant it when you said “let’s sell them”.

Now, when was the last time you were on a phone call and said “let’s just switch to texting and sort this out as we’re past the point where voice based…..”. The answer is never.

The reality is that as you move down the list below, you’re dealing with less and less information. Face to face communication includes voice, smell, touch, subtle twitches, cringing, etc. Remote video has less but you can see some facial expressions. Audio includes all the audible subtleties but you lose everything else. By the time you’re down to text only, you’re at the bare bones.

1. Face to face
2. Remote video and audio (skype video)
3. Audio only (phone calls)
4. Text based

While I realize everyone else is headed in the other direction from me, texting all the time, and the carriers are quite pleased about it, you will have a hard time convincing me that’s it’s actually better for us. Let me know what you think below. As always, phone me if you need an immediate response.

I haven’t looked back since diving head first into digital tether land. Sure I’ve dabbled with cutting the cord on occasion but beyond the odd sabbatical I’ve been fully connected to web, email, phone, twitter, etc all my waking hours. While I’d love to report on my unwavering self control with respect to this connectivity, the reality is quite the opposite. When there’s the slightest pause in the real world I inevitably reach for the digital tether and dive into a virtual world. Almost immediately my mind is back in the office instead of watching my son play hockey. Or I’m reading something useless on twitter instead of saying hi to someone who walks by, right in front of me.

I’m not going to pretend for a second that mobile devices and the associated connectivity are going to do anything except continue to proliferate. We do, however, have a choice that is often hidden and that’s to be in control of how available and connected we are. This isn’t about keeping us from a promised land, this is about protecting what we already have, that being the space to think, grow, learn.

I love Windows Mobile’s new ad campaign in which they save us from our smart phones, however, I’m not sure the solution to being disconnected from the real world is a better smart phone.

What I loved, and miss, about not owning a cell phone was the ability to be unavailable. More importantly, to be more available to the real humans, and world, around me. I enjoyed being difficult to interrupt. I enjoyed being highly available to the people sitting in front of me. So I’m experimenting with a new setup and have no idea how long it will last. I withhold the right to come screaming back tomorrow with every iThing I can buy.

The experiment? I’ve ditched my smart phone entirely and moved to a voice only cell contract. I intend to combine that with a 3G enabled tablet soon, to allow me access to email, web etc. I am, however, waiting for the next round of android tablets before committing to a device. That will allow me to leave the tablet at home and venture into the world with nothing but a cell. I know it sounds scary but I’ve heard some people have lived through this.

To get me through my tablet-less days, I’m using a 3G Kindle and it’s free global 3G access. No it isn’t a tablet but yes you can browse, use email and web based calendars in a reasonable fashion. I have to admit, the kindle has impressed the hell out of me and the end result is I’m reading a lot more than pre-kindle but it’s early days still.

I’m a week into this and I’m really enjoying it so far. What’s painfully obvious is how much of my life was filled with reaching for a “smart” phone for no reason other than idle time. It’s surprising what you can do when you have that idle time back. I stare at walls, I see people, I think about stuff. It’s also surprising how I still reach for my ‘dumb’ phone only to realize there’s nothing to check on it. It demands little of me. What the hell will I do with myself?? Call me, we’ll talk.

I spoke about my recent journey to change the world. They shot video of the event which I’ve included here. Enjoy and let me know what you think?!

If you choose to ignore me then come say hi after I’m done torturing you.

So what does this do for you? Well you could buy an SSH account on a server located, say in France. Using that SSH connection you could then browse the web while sitting at home in Canada. As far as everyone knows, you’re in France because all your requests are being tunneled through, ie coming from, your SSH server located in France. Again, why would you do this? I have no idea and the answer doesn’t rhyme with sulu or fandora for those in Canada. As well, I’m sure there are much simpler ways of doing this, this is just how I do it.

What you need for this is some SSH skills and a program called tsocks. Everything I’ll show here works on a debian based OS such as ubuntu, using a bash shell.

First login to your ssh account using the -D option, see “man ssh” for more explanation. This option allows you to specify a port. All connections on your machine to that port will then be forwarded over the SSH connection to the remote machine.

ssh -D 8989 username@ssh_server.com

Next you need to install and configure tsocks, it’s in synaptic for ubuntu people. Once installed, edit /etc/tsocks.conf and remove or comment out all lines except:

server = 127.0.0.1
server_port = 8989

Now close all instances of any application that you wish to use for this. Then open them using the tsocks command which forces the program to tunnel all the applications connections through your SSH connection:

tsocks firefox
tsocks ping yahoo.com

Done. Now any site you browse to with firefox thinks you’re sitting at a cafe in France and yahoo thinks you’re pinging it from Toulouse.

A far more thorough explanation.

I still need to write emails, however, I don’t want to send them. The reason I want to wait to send is that if I’m sending emails throughout the day, it sets the expectation that I’m checking email and therefore ignoring responses. It’s difficult with most email clients to compose drafts without catching a glimpse of your inbox and having it’s unread total scream out at you for your valuable attention. If someone knows a simple way to write drafts, for sending later, without having to interact directly with your email client, let me know. I’m using plain old text files and cut and paste today, which is a pain.

Even if you’re not attempting to reduce how often you check email, here’s one tip I have for you. It’s not my tip, I’m sure I heard it from somewhere else. Never check email to start your day. We all do this. We start every freakin day by catching up on email. Subsequently we get lost in email hell until our stomachs remind us we’ve missed lunch and over 1/2 a day of actual work. Just try this, close your email client at the end of the day, then start everyday by tackling a real task BEFORE you even open your email client. Just try it, you’ll like it.

Just a note, I include twitter, facebook, laconica and other forms of messaging, networking, etc under this “email” category. The interesting thing that happens when you ball all these apps up and only check them twice a day is you quickly realize how much time they take to nurture and feed. You need to decide if they’re worth it to you personally.

If this topic sounds new and you’re looking for background, try this.

This isn’t the first time I’ve been bitten by this pattern of bug and it won’t be the last. My guess is you’d be hard pressed to find a developer who hasn’t ran into this. In an attempt to put this headache to bed once and for all, I added a test to the unit test suite that scrapes the version of all the required frameworks and validates they’re the ones expected. Hopefully I’ll spot this issue quicker next time it hits.

(trying syntaxhighlighter for the first time)

        # check elixir
        import elixir
        version = elixir.__version__
        self.assertEqual(self._elixir_ver, version,
                "Incorrect Elixir version, expected '%s', local is '%s'" %
                (self._elixir_ver, version))

I’ll admit I’m biased as I met with Evan recently and he lives here in our little country but I’d still tie my wagon onto laconica over twitter had I to choose. I’m also not the type to chase business models tied to selling people’s patterns and data so if that’s where twitter’s headed then god speed.

While it’s not the main point of the above article, there is mention about twitter and it’s use of open source technology. While it’d be lovely if everyone using open source was able to contribute back into it, that’s not a requirement and I’d be cautious about suggesting it should be. As well, it’s not always obvious how that contribution occurs. Maybe some of twitter’s developers contribute heavily to these projects in their off hours? If this return contribution was required then it should be in the license. If they aren’t violating any licenses then they’re good.

[Wow, am I actually defending twitter??]

If you’re involved in open source, do you really want businesses like twitter choosing NOT to use your projects simply because they’re business model, horribly flawed or otherwise, prevents them from contributing back in an equal and fair manner? I’d think not, you’d want anyone and everyone using it regardless. Sure the ideal outcome is twitter participates in OpenMicroBlogging and open sources lot’s of their technology. If that’s not possible what should they do? Certainly we’re not suggesting they have to use all commercial software are we?

“Join us at the #HoHoTo holiday party at The Mod Club Monday, December 15, 2008 at 7:00 PM (ET). Cash bar, DJ’s, and lots of twitterluvvin’ – what more could you want? It’s for geeks, phreaks, webheads, twitterfiends, techies, media, marketing, and PR types and all their friends. And everyone else! DJ’s, interactive media, and loads of holiday cheer, all for a great cause – The Toronto Daily Bread Food Bank”