The Blogo’Shawn

Heeeeey - I am back to posting in my blog after a lil silent spell - at least I think I am.  I really should update this more…and, yes, I realize how terribly cliché this is to type into a blog, ha!  Actually I really have plenty to write about regarding nightlife and multi-hued adventures experienced throughout the city…hmm, I really should be writing spicy exposés - the things I see and hear can be truly outrageous!

Well I went to Scott Beale’s bodacious Laughing Squid party last night and enjoyed myself mightily, so mega props to Scott for going to such exertion to throw a fantabulous soiree where we had plenty to look at and talk about!  Scott’s dedication to bolstering the SF tech and art communities is beyond commendable and it is such an achievement to be a prolific contributor for so many years!  Cheers to Scott!!

Now I must admit, I had to warm up a bit again to mixing with the Web2.0 world, because I’ve kept myself busy and out of it largely for the last many weeks.  Dunno, I think I overdid it going to so many functions and needed a breather, a break from swilling the collective Kool-Aid, and what a better time than when you’re focusing on a new endeavor and desirous of gaining a renewed, personal perspective upon online potential, one beyond what’s propagated in the midst of the bubble.  More and more, I recognize how essential it is to extend a service’s reach beyond the Valley and into the fabric of real peoples’ lives, the kind of people who don’t relish camping out all day on computers because they are leading staggeringly busy/intense lives with obligations.  Deliver a service to them that really enhances the quality of their spare time and you stand a chance of enduring.  And develop a business model that goes beyond unpredictable online advertising and you’ll be that much stronger in the long run.  Anyways feeling renewed and more inclined to join the fray again.

Anyone catch the “Live-in Startups” article in the SF Chronicle a few weeks ago? It’s worth a read!

I have mused over what it would be like to have a “Grunge Garage” reality startup show…as in, gather some geek types together to hash out and crank on a Web 2.0 startup idea. They’d be required to live and work together in a small geek abode, ala the Meetro commune, and given, say, $10K in seed money to survive on over the next several months. These would be people from disparate backgrounds rather than friends, who have the potential to either gel or clash mightily. Hopefully the result wouldn’t be as lackluster as O-Town…I propose adding an Entourage element of Silicon Valley celebrity into the mix by making sure the startup encountered the movers and shakers of Silicon Valley in their quest to propel their company into the limelight.

It would be the Silicon Valley’s version of must-see reality TV. My concern, though, is that the only essential component missing would be sex appeal. Most reality shows revolve around this at present, but, let’s face it, there’s a good likelihood that sex appeal would be wholly absent at a live-in startup with few, if any, women associated. Nor would there be a fancy-schmancy jacuzzi and pool with an infinite supply of liquor to melt away inhibitions.

But even if a reality startup show lacked broad appeal for a network series, I think it’s got plenty of potential for a podcast, non? The demographic would be just right for a show delivered via this medium. I think it’s a fascinating proposition. I’d love to be the Jeff Probst host of such a show!

Ay Caramba!  Second Life suffers a nasty blow.  Up until recently, the virtual world has fallen prey to inexplicable, sometimes goofy, in-world hacks that have temporarily compromised the grid’s integrity with the most widespread repercussion being residents bumped out-of-play.  However, last week, a more severe hack occurred as crucial user information was swiped — namely, the hush-hush data correlating in-world identities to real-world names and addresses.  (Linden Labs says that credit card information should not have been compromised…hmm, let’s very much hope not!) 

The threat then is not so much identity theft as identity revelation - the perpetrator(s) should now be able to correlate Second Life personas with real-word identities and thus the veil of anonymity could be breached…majorly.  In a worst case scenario, such information could be used for purposes of blackmail in the real world.  After all, bear in mind, that a goodly number of uninhibited Second Souls have engaged in cyber-sordid deeds, often unbeknownst to corporeal friends and family.  Although with cyber-authorities hot on the trail, as Linden Labs hints at in their response, we might hope to see some haggard hackers dragged into unpixellated daylight before long.

Honestly, I believe it was only a matter of time before something of this nature occurred, and all things considered, better to be aware of the danger earlier in the “game” rather than years down the line as stakes increase.  As cyberspace continues to grow in complexity, so too will the interactions that take place in it.  This incident brings realization that the persona projected into a virtual world could have ramifications for a person in the real world, no different than anything projected onto the Internet that can be traced back to a person…only last week, respondents to a Craiglist solicitation ad were blatantly outed, some of whom were identified by their, ahem, telling characteristics.  Outcry and ridicule proved fairly scathing online, and it’s not too hard to imagine that some of the participants’ real-life reputations were more than just tarnished; the prank may cost jobs and relationships.  In a karmic twist, the scandal even whiplashed right back into the Craigslist prankster when his blog was picked apart for juicy morsels of violated privacy.  I’m sure these hapless guys had little idea what was in store for them as they exposed unfettered versions of themselves online while also unwittingly providing revealing shreds of traceable information, like work emails, cell phones, true personal lives, and, oh my, those wild and wooly pictures.  Gah!

The hard lesson is that online privacy fundamentally does not exist.  It’s quite alluring to let yourself slip into a fantasy or imaginary world, though, and that’s where dreams can shatter if you don’t take care.  I can’t resist mentioning Warren Buffett’s Golden Rule as printed in Business 2.0:

 ”There can’t be two yous.”

…unless risk is your middle name

I thought it would be interesting and handy to compile some data regarding which programming skills are hotter than others, as evidenced by mention in job posts. Now certainly, the Bay Area tech community has been all abuzz for quite awhile in regards to relative newcomers Ruby on Rails, AJAX, OpenLaszlo, Flex, and so forth, but it occurred to me that their adoption rate might not be so readily reflected in job postings, which is the realm that affects me as a contractor at large. I used to pride myself on being up-to-date with the most current OOP languages and technologies, but programming has taken a backseat lately to strategy and design for my contract gigs. Yet, it’s a good principle of thumb to still be well-versed in the current prominent programming platforms and languages. The guts of which technologies should I be delving into thoroughly as based on numbers?

So the upfront disclosure is that my little study isn’t nearly scientific, but I am confident that it sheds light on what companies are directly seeking. I turned to Craigslist job posts as a fair indicator of the job market pulse, and I gathered numbers across four metros: SF Bay Area, NYC, Seattle, and LA - I consider these metros the most forward-thinking for software development (and Craigslist jobs usage). Yesterday (9/7), I searched on individual programming language keywords to get a total number of all job postings listed and then I restricted the search to those jobs listed as “contract” engagements. Except for HTML+CSS, I didn’t run couplings of the keywords for search, because I only just had enough time to graze the pickings.

So the results proved telling. If you take a look at the data tables (metros are represented as tabs at the bottom), you will see that I highlighted in green the top two programming/scripting languages with the highest total jobs and percentage of that being contract work. The next two languages after that are highlighted in yellow.

Draw your own conclusions, of course, though I think it’s incontestable that Swing, the once popular Java UI API I knew so well, is going extinct. What I extrapolated was that the top requested contracting programming skills in my dataset and across metros are:

1. PHP
2. HTML with CSS
3. JavaScript tied with mySql
4. Java

This was a surprising outcome for me somewhat since I had thought, given the amount of sustained buzz, that requests for AJAX and Ruby on Rails would be stronger by now. Then again, these days, maybe such specific job postings are being routed to specialized opportunity areas like CrunchBoard or 37 Signals job board for targetted exposure. Another explanation is that AJAX and Ruby on Rails jobs may pass more so by word-of-mouth (blogs, forums, referral, specialized board ads), which is plausible considering the startup community in metros can be quite cohesive. Nevertheless, when technologies hit the big time and there exists a shortage of talent at hand, the need percolates to more typical job boards with opportunities posted for pay.

It would be interesting to see how numbers would compare using a vertical job search engine like SimplyHired.

I’ll tell you this, though, I had assumed that AJAX and Ruby on Rails would have already infiltrated more hiring companies’ vocabularies. It seems that is not so handily the case. After all, a search for “web 2.0” on SF Bay Area Craigslist only garnered 108 hits while “blog” scored practically the same at 99 hits. My, things move relatively fast at the vanguard of Boom 2.0!

I show two interesting events for the upcoming Saturday so I will be roaming the Peninsula in search of great people & ideas:

BarCampStanford - This event is part of the larger BarCamp Earth campaign with simultaneous BarCamps across the world, so you too can share in the concentrated brain waves sweeping the planet. Most of all, it’s a reason to get smart folk assembled at Stanford University for a pow-wow. I’ll be in attendance on Saturday. If you too intend to come, do sign-up and be accounted for.

Also Saturday, Women 2.0 and Meetro host a poolside party mixer. Since this is just the sort of thing I’ve been yearning for since the BlogHer conference, I figure I should check it out if I get out of BarCamp in time. After all, I now associate pool + sun + food/drink + majority of women with a great mixer occasion.

And speaking of women in tech. Yesterday, I attended an SFWOW function. SFWOW, which stands for “San Francisco Women on the Web”, is an organization I participated in when I first landed in San Francisco. Unfortunately that was when the new economy was slumping in 2001, so I caught the tail-end of the glory days and went to an SFWOW mixer or two. Since then, SFWOW has been largely a useful mail list and F2F events less seldom. Last night, I did mix and mingle though and got the sense that revitalization is underway with more upcoming events in the pipeline. So I’m going to help out by proclaiming the advance word better via the events channels I’ve grown fond of using. Like I said, I was so infused by the BlogHer spirit that I want to see more mixers oriented towards women in tech and women professionals who will speak about their experiences.

And thus the next meeting of SFWOW tech women will be coming up soon at 6PM on Tuesday, September 5th, in the Finiancial District of San Francisco with a panel focus on email marketing tips and tricks. The venue, London Wine Bar, is one I know very well and recommend enthusiastically since I have utilized it many times over for my own nefarious event purposes. It’s a great place to drink, mingle, and carry on conversation without competing noise, and the wines are terribly nice as well! I posted it as an Upcoming event so chime in there if you’ll be coming.

As an aside, let me state that I am seven days deep into the rather extreme Master Cleanse Lemonade Diet, or my special variation which still allows small quantities of wine and coffee for sanity’s sake. So put aromatic food in my immediate vicinity and I’m likely to bite someone’s head off. I don’t normally try this sort of drastic food restriction thing, but it seemed like an interesting experiment to undertake and so far, yes, my waistline has shrunk. Already I have foregone dinners and some food gatherings in this week but, naturally, this is shaping up to be a BBQ-centric, food and drink kind of weekend. I’m supposed to end this diet some time between Monday and Wednesday, though temptation beckons from every side! I must hold fast, yes.

And so a new personal blog begins - this time administered by me rather than parceled out to various services like LiveJournal, MySpace, etc.  Exposed to the world at large without a friends-only filter, oh my!  I have previously set up and customized Wordpress blogs for others, but this is the first time that I am developing a blog for my sole personal use. 

Bear with me as I ramp up please.  I want to keep this relevant and not cast words willy-nilly into the blogospace.  I will start warming up by covering some conferences and meetings I will be attending, and then get to more meatier subjects as they arise.    So that means impending talk of Web 2.0, user experience, collaborative community, startups, strategies, insights and so on, followed before long by topics related to work.

 It has begun!