Or, to simplify the question, are people able to work without having someone to supervise them? It is very difficult to answer such a question.
Everybody turns to wikipedia someday. But, how many really write something in Wikipedia? Judging from myself, although I have been using it for a couple -or more- years, only a month ago I actually contributed by editing a minor detail about a Ferrari (that I don’t even remember right now). And that was the only time I ever contributed to such a well known open project.
Yes, I take part to some other kind-of open projects but I am not 100% devoted as I would have been in one of my personal projects. If it was just me, then I would believe that the problem is mine. But, as it seems, some of those community projects are not so active. Although the idea is pretty great, nobody cares enough to develop it. But, why is that?
I guess because in the community projects a very small amount of people really want -or have the free time- to participate and help it develop.
However, the exactly same project, if it was a personal, or team, project, it would have already reached the public. People are doing what they are said to do and, let’s be honest, if there is no one forcing you to do something (and by forcing I mean “motivating”) chances are that you are going to give it up for something more interesting.
My point of view? Simple.. As long as there are millions of users, a community project will be a huge success (Linux, wikipedia, etc).. Otherwise, there is better to be a “boss” in the small community. A leading-personality is more than necessary for the other group members to work efficiently..
The last two weeks have been extremely busy and with millions of things to do. I wake up at 9:00 in the morning (without using an alarm) and I can’t manage sleeping before 3:00. I don’t feel tired. Having so many things to do, keeps me happy and motivated.
Every night, just before going to bed, I check my next day’s schedule in iCal. It’s the last brainstorming session of the day. And the most creative. How to get “this” task done, what to do in my 1-hour break between classes, etc. Also, that’s the time I am trying to sum-up the day and realize what I did wrong, what I should improve in the future and where I should have spent less from my *extremely valuable* time.
However, I can’t wait for Saturday. I try to keep my weekend free of “to-dos”. Quality time is my first priority. Probably some coffee with friends, maybe a lunch but sure there will be time for my favorite things to do. Watch all the new episodes of TV series that I had no time during the week, cook my favorite food, maybe some shopping.. Everything that does not allow my mind to think of next week’s obligations.
Don’t get me wrong, I love having an extra busy schedule during the week with things that I love, but I also love having enough personal time in the weekend! That’s the only way I can really appreciate both busy weeks and free time. Having only free time or everyday a busy schedule doesn’t make you productive, it just doesn’t let you see the difference and the pros and cons of each situation.. So, try keeping some days for yourself, it will only help you.
[photo via flickr.com, user: Lisa Brewster]
OpenCoffee Athens XV took place in the 7th of October. Guest star was Jason Calacanis, the guy behind Weblogs Inc and mahalo.com. He talked to us completely informal, just a small notebook, no powerpoint, not even a laptop. Although I have seen many people talking on stage, Jason’s keynote was absolutely stunning.
He talked about his experience, his mistakes and his view. But most important, he motivated everyone in the room. I left the Open Coffee and I went home with a desire to do things, to work. There is no excuse such as “I have to make some money, I don’t have time to do what I want”. Nobody works 24/7, there is always some free time. In that free time, you can work on your side projects.
As Jason said, there is only one difference between entrepreneurs and wanabe-entrepreneurs: Entrepreneurs dared to start something! Failure is part of the game, nobody is mr.Perfect. But, as I already have stated, there is always something to gain, even from your biggest failures. Jason decided not to sell his first company for 20 millions and 9 months later he shut it down. Although he was back in square one, he managed to come back and built Weblogs Inc. He dared to do things, he worked hard and nothing was given to him for free.
However, motivation is one piece of the puzzle. One other piece is getting organized. He suggested that we create groups specializing in specific topics, like graphics design, Amazon EC2 etc. Sharing the knowledge will make everybody better, greek start-up community will improve and, who knows, maybe next year there will be some greek start-ups in TechCrunch 50..
PS. The day after the OC event, some of us had breakfast with Jason. Great speaker, great guy to hang out with, he even talked about greek basketball and he promised to be in Greece again real soon.. Nice meeting you Jason!
[photo via flickr.com, user: nsyll]
My university informed the students that classes are about to begin in the 1st of October. As it seems, somebody forgot to inform the professors. This week, I had 5 classes. Guess how many did actually take place. Two, only two.
The other professors though that they should not start this week. Why? Because.. And that would have been fine, if they had decide to let students know on time. Going to university, while there is a rain out there, is not my favourite thing. Realizing that there is an announcement posted in the board saying “Classes will start next week” is really frustrating.
It would be easier if they could send a very simple e-mail. For God’s sake, we are a Computer Science department, please, start using your e-mail account. Why they waste MY time? Why nobody seems to respect me? After all, behaviour breeds behaviour.
Don’t waste your time, but most important, don’t ever waste somebody’s else time..
[photo via flickr.com, user tonivc]
Some days ago, I decided to create a new blog for my upcoming podcast but there was only one MySQL database. So, I had to use it for 2, or even more, blogs. The solution came, as usual when it comes to programming, from my friend Panagiotis.
In fact, it is a real simple solution.
- Create a new subdomain
- Unzip wordpress inside the new subdomain
- Copy from the first blog the file “wp-config.php” locally
- Edit it by adding “$table_prefix = ‘new_db_name_’;”
- Upload the edited file to wordpress folder
- You are done
As some of you may know, I am an editor at pestaola.gr, a Greek blog with thousands of visitors every day. Like every other blog, pestaola.gr gives the ability to users to comment on a blog post. In fact, many people do and that’s great because it shows two very important things. First, it proves that the blog post is really interesting and second, it proves that your readers are not bored and are trying to get more information about something.
What really confuses me is the questions that sometimes are asked. And I will explain that with an example. Let’s suppose that there is a blog post about a new car. The article makes clear that the car is just a concept and it won’t make it into production. However, there is a user asking what the price will be.
So, either the user wants only a small part of information that he is too bored to search for (by reading the article) or, even worse, he is unable to proccess what he is reading.
In the first case, I don’t really believe that there is a solution. I mean, blog post are not THAT long, most of them are approximately 200 words. Reading these 200 words, won’t take more than a minute. However, writing a comment will take you less than a minute. But you will have to wait until someone else will read the whole blog post and the comments and then decides to spend some time for something that is, at least, obvious. That, will definately take more than a minute. So, the person who wrote the comment will lose much more time than reading the post in the first place. Plain logic that, as it seems, some people don’t have.
In the second case, I think that there is a solution. And it is very simple in fact. Read carefully. By that, I don’t mean reading ten times a simple blog post, it may don’t even worth reading it second time. But once you decide to comment on it, make sure that you have completely understood what is written. As it seems, you are interested on that topic, so pay the attention you think it deserves the post and read it carefully. By reading an article and finally not understanding or realising what you have just read, you only lose time..
[photos via flickr.com, users p-m-m and margolove]
