05.03.08

BarCamp Portland so far - it’s keeping me awake

Posted in Conferences at 1:44 pm by elizabeth_grigg

1) Utilakilts. I have sen more utilakilts here than anywhere else. Interesting footwear choices ranging from aquasox to combat boots. I have yet to ask what the guys wear under there to address chafing issues. Is chafing just a girl-thigh thing? Don’t answer that.
2) Portland has good coffee
3) Most people here are developers
4) Most of the women here are supporting the event, not attending it. This makes me sad. Not sure why.
5) There’s a nice feeling of “belonging,” of being able to bring my life experiences to a conversation in a not-too-much-TMI type of way

So far I was supposed to attend 3 sessions but really I just want to count it as two. The earliest session was in the largest space, and was pretty free form, with the topic of How to do what you Love / How to turn your Hobby into Full Time. It got pretty technical and jumpy pretty quick. Perhaps a question better suited to an interview than to a large group format.

The next session proposed the idea, which apparently was thrown up on twitter and got a huge response, of a coworking space that also had an adjoining daycare for small families. We had a small room of men and women, all of us in the critical years, discussing the trifecta of work, daycare/school, and home. A fourth place due to a broad child age range, or two parents working two places, is completely untenable. Manging just three locations requires a disconnect from work at 2pm to accomodate 3pm pivots, or a disconnect from work at 4pm to accomodate 6pm pivots. What if two of the locations were combined? Architecturally buildings either support the child or the parent. Trips to chuck e cheeze or the zoo can exercise the kids but will exhaust the parent. How to combine two spaces into one that does not compromise? We don’t have a great record for this. Apparently Portland has 2 toddler discos, but may not have the bunk bed nap places like I envisioned. We mentioned grocery stores with daycares, and Ikea with the ball room as being major pulls, examples of balance. There’s an architectural imperitave to meet the needs of the functionaliy of the three places, there’s a community question that needs to grease the wheels to keep everything going, but also there’s a psychological element to overcoming the tension between these three places. We all feel guilty for disconnecting at whatever pm, and then at night we log back in to compensate. Another trifecta, the fridge sink and stove when designing your kitchen, lots of times we have that set up perfectly then we plunk down an island right in the middle. From a psychological perspective, that island is guilt. Lots of problems to solve. One last subtlety is when you set up rules with your kids “Daddy has to work until 5pm” if you get done at 4:30 one day you stall until 5, don’t want to let your kids get into the habit of jumping the gun. I have this same experience with my Thursdays, some days I don’t have my conflict that adheres me to the westside, but I’ve gotten all my coworkers used to being gone on Thursdays, and I don’t want to make exceptions. Very cool session.

The next session I attended proposed the question, since we do so well with collaboration in a multiplayer game environment, how can we bring that to the workplace? We talked about companies that are buried under 1 line e-mails because they don’t allow IM and see it as a waste of time. Then some great points were brought up between WoW (World of Warcraft) and I think it was Eve (have to look this up). Wow I have never played, apparently there is a guy like a concierge who tells you what to do for your first mission, you return to him when done to pick up more. The rush is that all the quests feel different. The phrase was that the quests may be the same mechanically, but the story behind it is different so it feels like a different thing you’re doing. Very rewarding. The phrase was “different blinking lights” and “casino effect.” It was then I realized most of the people in the room were developers. My own experience at work I get handed quests quite often, and sometimes I even pass them to others. This is not done in a hugely hospitable way, but rather mysterious and haphazard. I work towards smiley faces under the radar, knowing that people support what I do if they do something as simple as agree with me, or support a direction I propose. Meanwhile, it’s hard to tell a quest from a nonevent. A consumer variant on a product is released. This product is safe. Are we concerned? Actually, yes, the existence of this product represents a new quest for me. I have to figure out whether the product has unsafe cousins or siblings, make sure I know the technology it’s based on, and that there are procedural and technical checkpoints along the way to ensure safety in the future should that product spawn imitators. How are we rewarded in the workplace, and what can we learn from gaming? While listening to the mostly developer group, I realized that lots of the “grind” in my own position is disappearing. My specs are getting shorter, requiring less maintenance, and most of my time is spent making the right decision so a spec is not needed. I spend a lot of time trying to learn things from reluctant teachers (similar to old text games), and convincing people to do X when either they have never heard of X or they would rather be doing Y. Good session.

Anyway, we’re having lunch now, I don’t think I’ll see my family today, I hope they’ll let me back in the house tonight.

Permalink