There's more to social media than Facebook

I quit Facebook on the weekend. For real. For good. And you know what?

Nothing happened.

Well, Facebook gave me a guilt-trip, but other than that, nothing happened.

No one called me in a panic, asking where I was, and what I was doing.
I didn't get an email pleading for me to come back to Facebook, and help them find red gems, or a lost cow, or a home for some virtual furry pet.
I didn't have a notice breathlessly exclaiming that someone had tagged me in a photo, or in a post.
No one sent me a message about all my friends who were having birthdays this week, or who had just 'changed their relationship status', or who were feeling lonely and unloved and needed me to 'reconnect with them'.

Instead, I went outside for a while. I read a book. And then I came back inside and updated my Twitter account instead.

You see, there's a lot of self-proclaimed "Social Media Douchebags Experts" out there, and they're all in a lather about Facebook, and telling you how to set up a fan page, and put a 'like' button on your blog and all that. Most of them know Twitter exists as well, but many of them downplay it. It's not the latest big thing right now.

Unfortunately for the so-called "experts", they've found themselves behind the eight-ball again. What is the next big thing is quitting Facebook. All the cool kids are doing it, as the rash of stories from Crikey (and Gizmodo), Wired, Boing Boing, TechCrunch, Read Write Web, and the the EFF would indicate. And they're just the ones I've come across myself.

Mark Zuckerberg, once the poster child of the Social Media Billionaire's club (the generation that came after the dotcom kids), is learning something that every Web 2.0 entrepreneur must learn. When you give something to the public that they want, they'll embrace it. But start taking too much from them, and they'll drop you faster than you can say "Where's the delete button?".

What this all means is that there's a huge amount of commentary around now, ranging from "what does a perfect social network look like?" to "I want to quit Facebook, but I don't know what to do with myself now". Well, there's some simple answers. First of all, a better Facebook will come along (and the smart money is on these guys if you ask me. You heard it here first). Secondly, you don't need to wait for the next Big New Shiny Thing to take off. Go sign up at any of the squillion or more other social media sites, and work out what else is out there. There's more to social media than Facebook. Get out of your comfort zone, and explore.

Lest We Forget ... But who have we already forgotten?

As ANZAC day approaches, and my bugling duties are again requested, I thought it would be apt to draw attention to the post I wrote on the topic this time last year. The last paragraph mentions this:

This ANZAC day I'd like to remind you all to think about not just the white Australians (and all the members of other nationalities) that have died during war, but to remember the original owners of this land who died in other, non-glorified, and unremembered battles.

When you stand up and say "Lest we forget" this ANZAC day, please think of those who history has already forgotten. There were around 500 Australian Aboriginals and Torres Straight Islanders who served in World War I, and around 5,000 serving in World War II. Aboriginal and Islander men and women have served in every major conflict that Australia has ever been involved in. Many of them never came home.

Those who did return were refused pensions, land grants, and other benefits offered to white servicemen, and were barred from entry into the Returned Serviceman's League (RSL). They were denied the recognition, honour, and respect that their mates in the trenches received. And now, over sixty years since the end of World War II, we are still refusing to give them that honour.

This ANZAC day, spend two minutes in silence for those who history have forgotten, Lest We Forget also. If you are in Canberra, please consider attending the the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander commemorative ceremony after the dawn service at the War Memorial.

-=oOo=-

The information for this post was drawn mostly from The Anzac Day legend & Coloured Digger Anzac march


The image is part of the The Coloured Digger set, uploaded to flickr by Findo and is shared under a Creative Commons Licence. 


Information about the various services (including the Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander commemorative ceremony) can be found on the Australian War Memorial website. 


The AWM website does not include directions to the Aboriginal Memorial Plaque. Directions can be found here, or on the The Anzac Day legend & Coloured Digger Anzac march.


I won't make comment on how far removed the plaque is from the memorial itself. I'll allow these links to speak to that.

-=oOo=-

Lest We Forget.

FOSS Training

I was privileged enough to be able to attend linux.conf.au in Wellington in January. While there, I caught Bob Edwards' and Andrew Tridgell's talk on "Teaching FOSS at Universities" (video of which can be found here). It intrigued me.

Open source software development is very different to developing software in a more traditional, closed source environment. The aim of the course is to teach students how to go about working within the open source community. It covers the practical aspects of checking out code from a repository, submitting patches, and undergoing code approvals and reviews. It also looks at some of the less tangible aspects, like what's accepted and expected within the community, the motivation behind project development, and governance. The course also goes into some detail about documentation.

Documentation for open source projects is not quite the known quantity that it can be in many proprietary software environments. I once had a developer I was working with describe it as "we live in the Wild West out here", and - at least to an extent - he makes a good point. While writing for an open source project may not be as wild and exciting as that sentence makes it sound, it can sometimes be unpredictable and, at times, incredibly frustrating. Frequently, a book has been written and reviewed in preparation for a release, only to find at the last minute that a feature has been pulled from the version, a component has suddenly been renamed, or the graphical interface has had some kind of redesign. All of these things happen to open source writers on a regular basis, and frequently the only solution is to pull an all-nighter, get the changes in, and have the document released on schedule. And that's only if you were lucky enough to find out about the change with enough time to spare before release!

So how does a writer plan for and write a documentation suite when there's so much unknown in a project? The answer is - perhaps ironically - to plan ahead. You can't plan for every contingency, nor should you. But if you have a plan of any description, you're going to be better off when things start to go wrong. Pin down the details as best you can as far ahead as possible. But don't leave it there, continue to review and adapt your plan. Keep your ear to the ground, and constantly tweak your schedule and your book to suit. If something comes up in a mailing list about a feature you've never heard of, don't be afraid to ask the question - "Does this need to be documented? Will it be in the next version? Where can I get more source information?". Another trick is to make sure you build in 'wiggle room' to your schedule, in case you suddenly discover a new chapter that needs adding, or a whole section that needs to be changed. If you're consistently a few days or a week ahead of schedule, then even a substantial change should not throw you too far off balance.

Just like a ballet dancer, technical writers need to be disciplined, structured, and organised. But you also need to have grace, poise, tact, and - most importantly - flexibility.

Thanks to Bob and Tridge, I'll be lecturing the 2010 FOSS course students at the Australian National University later this week. I'll also be contributing the textbook that is being developed for the course. True to form, it is being built by and for the open source community, using open source tools (including Publican which has been developed in-house by some of my esteemed colleagues). Watch this space for more information.

Cross-posted to FOSS Docs

Ada Lovelace Day 2010: Unicorns

Often, when a woman joins an all-male technical environment, they will look at her strangely. They might try and pretend that she's a bloke, that she's just 'one of the boys'. They might ignore her. They might make a few distasteful jokes and then get on with the job. But mostly, what happens is that a woman is noticed. She'll be whispered about, she'll feel eyes watching her, she will notice her work being held to scrutiny. There might be a few gentle put-downs, all in the name of 'humour' ("can't you take a joke?"), and there might be some bolder individuals who will make life uncomfortable. But, generally, the overwhelming sense is that of being different.

Imagine, if you will, that you were at work, and suddenly, a unicorn walked in. How would you react? Now imagine the unicorn is that woman.

This situation has given rise to what is now known as the Unicorn Law. It was created by Emma Jane Hogbin. Emma Jane is a Canadian technical writer, and one day I will write an Ada Lovelace Day post about her. Not this year, though (sorry Emma Jane!).

This year, I want to nominate my fellow LinuxChix unicorns in Australia and New Zealand:
Aeriana
Brianna Laugher
Claudine Chionh
Donna Benjamin
Jacinta Richardson
Joh Clarke
Mary Gardiner
Melissa Draper
Pia Waugh
Sara Falamaki

Every one of these women know what it's like to walk into a room and be stared at as though you were a complete novelty. Every one of these women now what it's like to be held to a higher standard than your male counterparts for the same recognition and acceptance. Every single one of these women have been asked "are you here with your boyfriend?" (and worse!). Every single one of these women amaze me, inspire me, and support me, every single day.

Ada Lovelace day is about remembering where we've come from, but it's also to remind us about where we're going. The women of the Australia and New Zealand LinuxChix chapters remind me every single day why I get up and continue fighting. Thank you.

(The Unicorn/RoboTux image used above was created by Lisa at pixellab and is shared under a Creative Commons licence)

Barbie's Next Career: Blogger Barbie?

The geek feminist establishment has spent so much time hating Barbie, that now it's a little hard to know what to think about the new Computer Engineer Barbie. I predict it's going to be yet another polarising factor, actually. There'll be those who think that Barbie is just mocking what we have tried so hard to achieve. And then there'll be those who'll think that this might actually help prove to little girls that a computing career is a possibility. The comments to this BBC article would indicate so, anyway.

When I was in high school in rural Queensland, there was the obligatory "what do you want to do when you leave school" conversations that had to be had in the run-up to matriculation. For whatever reason - and I don't really know whether to blame the school faculty, the rural sensibilities, or my own strange teenaged assumptions - I came to the conclusion that careers fell into one of two categories. You either did an apprenticeship, or you went to uni. The only apprenticeships I was aware of as being available for girls (all the boys were going to be fitters and turners, and I didn't even know what a fitter and turner was, let alone want to be one) were hairdressing apprenticeships. I didn't want to be a hairdresser. So I decided I'd better go to uni. How I chose my degree is another whole story, that might be best suited for another blog post, but suffice it to say that it took me six years and a lot of money (thanks HECS!) to finally graduate with something that I was proud to have, and that has eventually gotten me into a career I'm particularly fond of.

I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.

-- Douglas Adams "The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul"

I spent most of high school flitting between the library for lunch-time sessions of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, and the computer lab for marathon BASIC programming competitions with my friends. Christmas holidays were spent at my parent's old IBM compatible trying not be eaten by a grue. Yet the concept of studying computing was completely foreign to me. I loved making things do stuff, I loved destructing things to find out how they worked, I loved creating stories, and then having 2d10 decide the next plot twist for me. If something went wrong I wanted to know why it went wrong. Quite a lot of the time I broke things just so I could try to fix them (and that hasn't really changed much, I pulled apart my Roomba the other day). It wasn't until I got to uni and made friends in the computing lab there (you know who you are!) that I discovered that IT degrees even existed, I think.




I remember desperately wanting (and eventually getting) a Peaches 'n' Cream Barbie for my birthday one year when I was little. Perhaps if I'd been given computer engineer Barbie instead, my story would be different? I'm not sure, but it's my daughter's birthday soon, and I guess it can't hurt ...

 ------

News just in: you can pre-order Computer Engineer Barbie on the Mattel site, for delivery in December. Just in time for Christmas!

 ------

Update: ... but only if you live in the US. Bugger.

LinuxCon - Boston - August 10-12 2010

I've just put in my application to speak at LinuxCon in Boston in August. Their speaker lineup is pretty impressive, so it would be an incredible honour to be selected.

For posterity, here is the abstract I've submitted:

This talk is a look into why documentation is so important to open source projects. It explains how to create documentation that will empower your users, guide them through the often daunting learning curve of using new software, and in the process make your project look fantastic. Beautiful technical documentation might sound like an  unrealistic fairy tale, but it can make the difference between a successful project, and a wildly successful one.

The talk is aimed at anyone who is involved in creating open source software, and who doesn't know how best to approach the documentation process. No specific technical expertise is required.

And the bio:

Lana Brindley writes technical documentation for Red Hat. She works from her home near Canberra, Australia and is currently getting her hands dirty on middleware documentation. She is hopelessly loquacious, and enjoys writing presentations and speaking in her spare time for fun. She's also been known to wear a red fedora in public.

Lana has been writing technical documentation for open source projects for nearly three years. She has been speaking about Linux generally and technical writing specifically for the same period of time, although her fascination with these topics dates back over a decade. Most recently, she spoke at linux.conf.au in Wellington, New Zealand, the Canberra Linux Users Group, Girl Geek Dinners Sydney and Canberra, and a clutch of computer user groups.

~oOo~ 

Update: I did actually get accepted to speak. Unfortunately, work have declined to fund me to get over there. Never mind. Next year!

Some of my best friends are unicorns

Well, linux.conf.au has been and gone. It was quite a ride!

I flew in at about stupid o'clock on Sunday morning, and the fogged windows of the shuttle bus revealed nothing of the city I had landed in other than it was dark, wet, and very windy. Getting out of the bus confirmed these observations, and - dressed in my summery clothes from sweltering Brisbane - I hurried into the warmth of the Ustay dorm rooms. For student-style accommodation, the rooms are actually really good. But then, at 2am, just about any bed probably would have felt like heaven.

And so, a mere few hours later - the fun began. It started off with brunch in the Cuba Street Mall with some of the LinuxChix members who had already arrived, kindly escorted by Joh Clarke who is a local Wellington-ite (and chief organiser of the Haecksen miniconf). The afternoon brought a presentation workshop, which I eagerly attended, and was rounded out by the Newcomer's session run by Jacinta Richardson and Rusty Russell. Of course, there was a pilgrimage down to a local pub after the session had ended, and with that innocuous beginning, the networking started. I met so many amazing people, and discussed so many interesting (and fantastically geeky) things that my head spun with the awesomeness of it all.

Monday dawned with a crisp start, and I navigated my way down Willis Street where I was staying, and across to the Wellington Convention Centre. The morning started with a session covering conference administrivia, including an humourous introduction video to Wellington. And with that, it was across the hall to the Haecksen miniconf.

The miniconf started with an introduction and welcome by Joh, and then it was straight into the opening talk by the wonderful Emma-Jane Hogbin. Emma-Jane discussed versioning systems, with emphasis on Bazaar. She speaks very well, and she really got her point across that versioning can be easy to use, and vital to any project.

After that, Sara Falamaki stood up to deliver her talk titled "Happy Hackers == Happy Code". Sara's philosophy is that by creating a great environment for developers in the workplace, they will naturally start to produce better code. She called for ideas and suggestions from the audience, which were rewarded with lollies thrown from the front of the room. It raised a lot of laughs, and more than a few tweets on the back-channel about her pitching arm.

Just before the lunch break, the inspirational Elizabeth Garbee (Bdale's daughter) stood up to give us all an enlightening view of open source as looked at by a teenager. Elizabeth graduated from high school last year, and described some of her experiences with bringing open source to her school and friends.

After lunch, it was my turn. The title of my talk was "Creating Beautiful Open Source Documentation" or "Writing FOSS Docs that Don't Suck". The audience laughed at all the right places (which is always a relief) and I was gratified when afterwards a number of people expressed their enjoyment of my talk, and asked for further information. Unfortunately, there had been a mix-up in the talk schedule and, despite prior assurances that it wouldn't happen, I was rushed through the final half of my talk. Thankfully, a lot of people found me afterwards and we shared contact details, so the message wasn't lost.

Angela Byron then stood up to discuss how to 'get your feet wet' and start contributing to your very first open source project. This led to a fascinating audience-driven discussion about getting started in open source, and that overwhelming feeling that we all experience at first that everyone else knows so much more than us. This hit a real chord with me, and it's something that I'll probably explore further in another blog post.

Liz Henry rounded out the afternoon session, speaking about the work she is doing with BlogHer, and the different ways we can encourage and support other women in open source. She had some truly inspired ideas about hacker meets and other social events, and she spoke from a position of knowledge about the challenges women face in the IT industry.

Unfortunately, I missed the final talks (including Joh's security talk, which I am assured was awesome) but I will be catching up on them as soon as the video links go live on the linux.conf.au website.

Thanks must go to Joh who made the whole thing happen, and to all the Haecksen who turned up and made the day something to remember. Also, thanks to Sara for the use of some of her photos. If your photo is here, and you're not happy about it, just email me and I'll fix it up for you.


The complete Haecksen miniconf schedule for 2010 can be found here.

The next linux.conf.au is being held in Brisbane in 2011.