Three challenges of rapid social change
In 2008 anthropologist Dawn Nafus delivered a short talk at OSCON on rapid social change and how the tech industry can jump ahead and be the leader in this industry. While I see action by the environmentalists to use more open source tech, I don't see a lot of action within the open source community to look at environmental problems. Am I not looking hard enough?
Here are three challenges Dawn identified:
A little bit creative
I have a lot of crafty things at home. The hardest part of packing is deciding which of those crafty things I'm going to bring. I almost always have knitting with me and a couple of crochet hooks (although I don't think I've ever crocheted on the road). After the Learn to Draw class I took last fall I've also started carrying my little watercolour set and some drawing pencils. I didn't draw anything on my December road trip though.
I made myself a hand made notebook thinking this would help inspire me. I wrote some notes in it but haven't really been inspired to open it (or carry it around in my shoulder bag for that matter). About half the book is filled with fantastic background pages that I made in an art class several years ago. I thought the colours and shapes and textures would be inspiration to fill up the pages. Most of the time I end up looking for a blank page so that I don't wreck my pretty background. This isn't quite what I had in mind when I made and packed the book.
What's up next?
I've had a great week wandering around Wellington. I've picked up a couple of weather-appropriate, locally made garments including a skirt by Chalkydigits and a merino sweater from Untouched World. On the one hand it's completely blown the budget, on the other hand I'm really quite in love with both purchases so I think that makes it ok. The sweater is thin enough that I can wear it in the full sun and not have to wear sun screen (which I typically react to). And the skirt is reversible...and who doesn't love a reversible skirt!?
Round and about
I've been on the road now for a little over three weeks. I don't miss the snow. Right now I'm in Wellington, New Zealand soaking up the rain (and today quite a few rays of sun according to my face). Last week I spoke at LCA and then DrupalSouth. Both conferences were spectacularly organized. My extreme thanks to the organizers of both events for making me feel like a champion. Over the course of the week I delivered five presentations on topics ranging from my history with free and open source volunteerism through to documentation and version control with a little bit of PHP thrown in too. My slides are up on slideshare.net and the videos from LCA will eventually be available online.
As a bonus: I'm three weeks on the road, have shaken hands with more people I can shake a stick at and have *knock on wood* yet to get sick. I think this might be a first for me.
New theming workshops
Over and over again the Drupal community has lamented the lack of workshops for designers and very novice themers. Based on feedback from designers and novice themers I am offering two new online workshops. They start next week and are designed to fit your busy schedule and small training budgets. They will teach you the skills you really need to know to succeed in theming Drupal:
- Design to Theme in Five In this workshop you will learn how to convert graphic files to completed themes. Perfect for designers who've yet to create their first theme, and those who are looking for best practices and a few more tips. An understanding of HTML and CSS is required; no PHP experience necessary.
- PHP for Designers By the end of this online course participants will be using PHP and creating Drupal-specific functions to customize their themes.
Front End Drupal Intensive January 11 in Vancouver, Canada
Sometimes the only way to write a proper announcement is to write it in the third person. This way I can say things about myself that I'd never say in real life and you don't have to dig through my charming Canadian modesty to figure out why my mother thinks I'm awesome. So here we go a third-person account of what I'll be doing on January 11, 2010...
For the first time ever Emma Jane Hogbin, co-author of Front End Drupal, is going to teach a whole-day workshop on the guts and glory of how to theme Drupal. Using student-centric, outcome-based instruction, designers and themers will learn how to convert their imagination into themes that dreams are made of. The workshop will include sample code, tips and tricks not available anywhere else.
Using Front End Drupal as a spring board, participants will leave the workshop able to:
- create new themes with custom regions and context-aware design elements;
- customize Drupal page, node and view templates;
- generate context-sensitive templates based on taxonomy, content type and URL;
- dissect and re-create complex Drupal 6 theme functionality;
- create custom theme variables using preprocess functions;
- apply sustainable theming techniques that save time and future-proof designs;
- find and apply useful community-contributed PHP theme snippets.
Time will also be available to tour through Front End Drupal and ask additional questions about topics that are covered in the book.
Front End Drupal is the best-selling book on theming Drupal 6. It has ranked top-1000 out of all books on Amazon.com and moved to its second printing within six months of its release. Praise for the book includes:
- "Drupal has always been a developer’s platform, even with the many designers in our ranks. It’s about time those designers had a great book. In fact, this book is valuable not just to the designers we have, but to the designers we want…." Dries Buytaert, Founder of the Drupal project.
- "I can't say enough good things about this book." Victor Kane, author of Leveraging Drupal
- Front End Drupal "does a fantastic job of describing the role of pre-process functions. There are countless examples of how to name, use, and extend them. Outstanding." Michael Anello, DrupalEasy
- "Front End Drupal is a book the Drupal world has needed for years..." Jeff Eaton, Lullabot
Emma Jane is known around the world for her crazy analogies and the human touch she brings to technical instruction. CMS Expo organizer, John Coonen, referred to Emma Jane a "power house" presenter in December at Drupal Camp Chicago. Amber Graner says of Emma's classes, "Emma Jane is patient, clear, knowledgeable, and understanding when it comes to any question you ask her on this subject and more." In addition to her international conference presentations, Emma has taught Internet technologies at Seneca College and Humber College in Toronto. She continues to work with Humber College as a program mentor.
Space is limited for this intensive Front End Drupal workshop. Emma has no additional workshops planned in Vancouver for 2010. If you want to learn hands-on how to make amazing Drupal themes you need to be at this workshop. Your registration fee includes: a free copy of Front End Drupal, a full day of instruction, take-home hand-outs not available elsewhere, a one-year membership in an exclusive graduate club and bragging rights. The event is hosted by Affinity Bridge and The Jibe Multimedia, Inc and generously sponsored by W2 Community Media Arts.
Register now for the Front End Drupal Intensive Workshop on January 11 in Vancouver, Canada.
Hand bound notebook
A few weeks ago I filled up the notebook I'd been using this fall with notes about marketing and business and things I needed to take notes on. I realized this week I needed a new notebook to take with me on my travels. I contemplated getting one of the mid-sized moleskins and then decided to go back in time a few years and make my own book. I had sheets that were already folded and ready to go. Tonight I added a cover and finished (a few minutes before midnight) a hand bound Coptic notebook.
The outside cover is decorated with hand dyed paper and a page from a Bobsy Twin book that I rescued from someone's garbage. The inner pages are decorated with various techniques from a class I took in 2004ish.
Introducing: Documentation strategy
Re-posted from Status.net.
No wait, don't leave! Documentation isn't boring! I promise! Hi, I'm Emma Jane Hogbin (@emmajanedotnet) and I'll be your Documentation Strategist (and tech author) for the 1.0 release of StatusNet. You may know me from such projects as the Drupal Documentation Team, the Bazaar version control system, Writing Open Source (the very first-ever open source documentation conference) and the Linux Documentation Project. I'm absolutely thrilled to be working with StatusNet.
Just in case you missed my talk at the Ontario GNU Linux Fest (video and slides) this fall, here's the plan: we're going to design our documentation to be usable, maintainable and translatable from day one. (We even have a plan.) We're putting developer documentation where developers need it; and user documentation where real people need help. Think of it as the "whistle while you work" approach. But it gets even better: the documentation will be reviewed per major release cycle to find areas where the code needs to be improved. The wiki edits to the documentation will be the canary in the coal mine for the StatusNet experience.
Most normal people think of writing documentation as being necessary, but not fun. Fortunately I'm one of those do-less-work kinds of people. I'm not into writing tomes of information that no one will read. I want only the Ikea instruction drawings in places where people actually need help. Here's where I need your help: whether you're a beginner, or a pro, I need to know the times when the StatusNet experience could have been made easier if we'd slipped in some instructions. We got the ball rolling at StatusCampMontreal and here's how it worked: Tell me, in less than 140 characters, what the pain points are (or were) for you. If you're on Identi.ca, tag your notices with #painpoints. If you want to add a little more detail, please add your pain points to the wiki, or drop me an email (emma@status.net).
I'm looking forward to uncovering some of your blisters and making the user experience even better in StatusNet 1.0.
Holding the torch that held the flame
Tonight Owen Sound was part of the torch relay. We stood in the bitter, bitter cold for nearly two hours. By the time the torch bearer, Jason Crone, wheeled up the shoot my fingers and camera were too cold to snap the action. But I watched the flame go by and it was pretty awesome.
Jason carried the flame up to the stage and lit the on-stage cauldron.
Dealing with travel backlog
I travel a lot. Not as much as some people, but definitely more than your average bear. The speaking page of this site lists most of the conferences that I've travelled to, but I've also tacked on a few extra days in various other places too to visit clients and colleagues. Even though I'm really bad at remembering to take photographs, I usually have at least a few for each of the places I visit (sometimes I even pilfer from Flickr for the conferences..shhh..don't tell). The photos have been piling up and now I've got trips booked to go to New Orleans, Chicago, Montreal, Vancouver, Wellington and Los Angeles.
