Find us now at http://www.gerrykirk.net.

Find us now at http://www.gerrykirk.net.

The following editorial is my first entry as a temporary columnist on SooToday, a local online newspaper here in Sault Ste. Marie.

People of Ontario, this might be the most important vote you’ll ever make.

On October 10, we the people of Ontario will be given a historic opportunity to change democracy for the better, for our province and ultimately for our country. On that day, in addition to voting for your elected representatives and for a new government, you will choose the voting system for future elections.

Why should I care?

Why does it matter, you say? What’s the big deal?

I believe our voting system is the root cause of much of what is wrong with democracy and governance here in Canada. Really.

But don’t take my word for it, listen to why the members of the Ontario Citizens’ Assembly voted for change, and why they chose MMP.

October 10 is Decision Day

So what will you do?

Will you stick with the current 200 year old model, known as First-Past-The-Post (FPTP)?

Or will you choose the voting system chosen by the Ontario Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform, known as Mixed Member Proportional, or MMP?

Can’t Sit Still

I’m no different than you. I’ve got a busy life, especially with a 3 yr old girl and 9 month old twin boys. Spare time is more rare than spare change. Despite that, I’ve decide to coordinate the local Vote for MMP campaign, because I believe a proportional system will finally make democracy work for the people who mark the X’s, and darned if I’m going to sit back and let this opportunity pass me by!

For the next 5 weeks or so, you can expect to read:

• In-depth analysis of the two voting systems.
• An article from David Viitala, our local representative on the Ontario Citizen’s Assembly.
• What’s going on locally
• Ways you can get involved in the campaign. The government and media aren’t doing enough to spread the word, so it’s up to us to make it happen.
• Opinions from prominent individuals on both sides of the debate.
• Your thoughts! Let’s have a healthy debate on this topic, using the Response option at the bottom of each column. The more insightful comments will be mentioned in future postings.
• Obligatory bad jokes about democracy and voting (I’ll try to be gentle)

–

Vote for MMP web site – www.voteformmp.ca

MMP supporters Facebook group

Technorati Tags: democracy, electoral reform, MMP, referendum

I don’t get out of the house much these days, but for those of you who travel to sprints, conferences or fun exotic locations, Web Worker Samuel Dean has some tips for using Kayak.com and Farecast.com to get the best deal on your travel options.

In a nutshell: use Kayak’s slider tool to quickly adjust departure and arrival times to find additional options and check Farecast’s price trend on your chosen fare to make sure today is a good day to buy.

Click-and-Drag to Save Travel Dollars and Avoid Hassle [Web Worker Daily]

Technorati Tags: money, productivity, shopping, travel

#plone is the online chat room where people hang out to learn, help and talk about their favourite CMS Plone. There are always lots of people online and it’s a great resource for anyone new to Plone who needs some immediate help. And if your brain is slowly turning to cheese on a Friday afternoon, hop into #plone for some low powered entertainment. Here are some samples for you:

andym : lol UndoError: Undo error None: non-undoable transaction

[3:20pm] PloneUser684958: sdfjdlskfljk

[3:20pm] PloneUser684958: slkfjsdlkfjlskfjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjsd

[3:20pm] PloneUser684958: jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj

[3:20pm] PloneUser684958 left the chat room. (“Bye bye”)

[3:21pm] gkirk: a keyboard streaker!

[3:21pm] darci|lunch: LOL

[3:21pm] ErikRose: Good, I was almost out of j’s!

[3:21pm] limi: ErikRose: that’s Perl

[3:21pm] ErikRose: Oh.

[3:21pm] limi: or, hang on

[3:21pm] limi: ^T$@(*#)^* is perl

[3:21pm] andym: limi: no its readable

[3:21pm] limi: my bad

MatthewWilkes: andym: Did you remember to uninstall plone.app.randomlyfuckupmysite? It removes the requirement to specify yes_really_i_didnt_call_this_api_for_amusement

[3:41pm] runyaga_: do we need a reality check?

[3:41pm] runyaga_: is it a CMS ?

[3:42pm] runyaga_: is your adapted result a CMS?

[3:42pm] runyaga_: or a nuclear powered semantic web engine?

[3:42pm] runyaga_: Plone is a CMS

[3:42pm] runyaga_: if you try to make it a semantic web engine or a ERP system you are going to hate your life

Do you have a favourite quote / conversation from #plone? Add yours to the comments.

Technorati Tags: community, funny, irc, plone

Now that I have a number of people in my Twitter circle, the social utility is improving. It’s interesting to find out what other people are working on and learning about. Here are some tips and entertaining bits that have been shared in the past couple of weeks via Twitter (what is Twitter and why should I care?):

• Install multiple versions of Internet Explorer easily on Windows
• Encyclopedia of business cliches
• Install tinyurl service on your Mac to preshrink urls
• Jazkarta makes front page of Boston Globe
• Why plastic and food should never meet
• Generating human readable ids in Python

And most important of all, Rob Porter got engaged! How it all happened is an entertaining story in itself.

Want to join the circle? Sign up at twitter and then choose to follow some of the Plone people using Twitter.

Technorati Tags: community, plone, twitter

I found this funny captioned photo (original at LOLnptech.org), taken at the recent Plone4Artists / Multimedia sprint. Hint: the sprint was held at the Christian Science Monitor.

Technorati Tags: funny, jazkarta, plone

What is Twitter and why should I care?

From Wikipedia: “Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send “updates” (text-based posts, up to 140 characters long) via SMS, instant messaging, email, the Twitter website, or an application such as Twitterrific.” Anyone who has signed up to follow your account gets your updates as part of their Twitter feed.

Twitter is a lot more fun once you have a group of people you know twittering as well. You can also sign up to feeds from high profile politicians, news services and metropolitan fire departments.

How to get started

Create an account on twitter.com, it’s free. For Mac buffs, download Twitterific. Trust me, you’ll be glad you did.

Find some people to follow, including some of the plonistas mentioned in my earlier post, friends who are already using Twitter or search Twitter for other people who have similar interests. You can invite others to join as well.

Most twitter posts, I’ve noticed are about what people are doing as they go through their day. While some of that can be entertaining, I’m mostly interested in Twitter as a shared learning tool, so I try to post one entry a day about something I have learned or done.

Use tinyurl.com to include links, since you are limited to 140 characters.

Twitter as a Plone marketing tool

Mr. Topf provided some excellent suggestions as a comment to my earlier posting about Plone and Twitter. I’ve added a few of my own as well:

• Post interesting stuff about what you learn about Plone to your twitter feed (like “reading nice howto on X: http://…“) and the like. Just look at what sort of posts your friends do
• Talk about projects you are using Plone for
• Provide tidbits on Plone, including new releases, how much fun the community is, when the next Plone event is, interesting Plone screencasts (or do them yourself) and so on.
• Point people to http://twitter.com/plone naturally

Over time, you’ll reach more and more people who don’t know about Plone. Imagine that, people who have never heard about Plone before!

Technorati Tags: plone, marketing, twitter

Mr. Topf just finished creating a Plone twitter feed so now you can get tasty bits of Plone news and information throughout your day. Head to http://twitter.com/plone, or subscribe to the RSS feed.

There are also a number of people active in the Plone community who are twittering as well. Here are their twitter coordinates:

• Gerry Kirk (gkirk) – http://twitter.com/gerrykirk
• Alex Clark (aclark) – http://twitter.com/aclark4life
• JoAnna Springsteen (jluvsu2) – http://twitter.com/jluvsu2
• Nate Aune (natea) – http://twitter.com/natea
• Christian Scholtz (mrtopf) – http://twitter.com/mrtopf
• Rob Porter (robzonenet) – http://twitter.com/robzonenet
• Eric Steele – http://twitter.com/esteele
• Christian Vinten-Johansen – http://twitter.com/cjohansen
• Erik Rose – http://twitter.com/ErikRose
• Mike Halm – http://twitter.com/mikehalm
• Scott Paley – http://twitter.com/spaley
• Dave Wave – http://twitter.com/davewave
• Jean-Sébastien Mansart – (en français) http://twitter.com/jihaisse
• Farida – http://twitter.com/farida
• Tom Lazar (tomster) – http://twitter.com/tomlazar
• Kai Diefenbach – http://twitter.com/diefenbach
• Frank Cohen – http://twitter.com/fcohen

Are there any other twitter plonistas out there? Please raise your hand by posting your twitter url as a comment.

Updated July 30, 2007: added other Plone people who are using Twitter to the list above.
Updated August 2, 2007: added two more people to the list.
Updated August 7, 2007: Germany has two more representatives
Updated August 16, 2007: one more twit, er twitterer

Technorati Tags: plone, twitter

Starting this month, I am back to working self-employed, something I haven’t done since I first came back from Bangladesh in 2002. My first attempt was only a few months and not very successful, but this time around I am more hopeful.

I’ve been working part-time the last two months for Jazkarta, a company delivering Plone-based solutions. My primary role is project manager but I also moonlight as a sales guy, process improvement nut and irc joker.

<shamless plug>
Any other Plone companies out there looking for remote project managers are welcome to contact me at gerry_kirk AT alumni DOT uwaterloo DOT ca.
</shameless plug>

Everyone at Jazkarta is home-based, with home being in places across Europe, North America and parts of Asia. I plan to write more about the tools and processes we use to get work done.

Working from home has been a great experience. I love the flexibility of switching between work and family life, or just getting out to do other things when I want to. It’s a busy life at home with twin baby boys and a 3 year old girl, so mommy appreciates the extra hands when the fire alarms go off.

So, I’m not sure where the future road lies, but right now I’m happy to be focused on pm work using Plone as a technology solution. The Plone community is full of great people to interact with, and many of the clients I work with are non-profits working to improve our world by tackling social, environmental and science issues.

Now I just need to save up enough $$$ and get my passport in time to attend my first ever Plone conference, something I’ve been wanting to do since the early days. This year the conference is being held in Italy, and looks to be a great event. Most of the Jazkarta folk will be there, too, which would be my first time seeing them in 3D. Keeping my fingers crossed for now!

Technorati Tags: conference, jazkarta, plone, telecommute

The following is a posting I made on the DeoWeb discussion group, which reflects my thoughts on where online communications in the Diocese of Sault Ste. Marie needs to shift (and DeoWeb’s focus as a communications solution).

Have you been enjoying the discuss taking place? Have you been pleased to meet new people through this group, other people of faith who are interested in the same topic as you?

For myself, I give an enthusiastic “Yes!” to both of those questions.

You’ve now had a (small) taste, perhaps for the first time, of how online communications can help to draw people together, either to form new relationships or to strengthen existing ones.

We are so busy and so isolated nowadays that we don’t know who our neighbours are or the people next to us in the pew. Yet, we also have a need for meaningful and fun relationships.

Because of DeoWeb, I was able to find two people to help my busy wife with our two newborn twins and toddler. I did not know these people, and they did not know me. In a parish of 1100 parishioners, with 3 masses, the odds of us finding each other at church are slim at best. For Rowena and I, they are now a special part of our parish family.

Paul Falcioni, we really need to share the story of how DeoWeb is helping to revitalize your parish by re-connecting with schools. Perhaps I can get someone to write a story for you. I’ll get back to you.

This is just the tip of the ice berg. There are many more opportunities to build community using online tools.

Fact: More than 50% of time spent on the Internet is for social reasons, and not for research or buying another book at Amazon. My pastor spends more time counseling youth using instant messaging than in person. He has a profile on facebook.com.

Hence the proliferation of social networking sites like facebook.com, myspace.com, linkedin.com, mychurch.org.

Getting volunteers to input content for their ministry work has largely failed, and I am more convinced now that this won’t change, unless there is internal motivation to do so.

I think people are much more motivated to share about their personal lives, their hopes, questions and interests. Facilitating that kind of dialogue will bear much more fruit than say trying to get every CWL parish group to maintain a workspace. In fact, sharing the *personal* may spur the desire to promote the *pastoral*. When a lady shares what the CWL means to her personally, spiritually, others will connect with that and want to know more about the CWL.

I envision a revamped DeoWeb, where the focus is more on connecting people, where the information published is more personal and from the grassroots, and less from the established Church (parish and diocesan offices). A system that connects people who want to know each other, that builds meaningful relationships.

Paul Labelle, I hear your concerns about the people out there with extremist views that tear down rather than build community. There are very effective ways to avoid and mitigate a lot of that. We’ve just never invested much time on the people side of content… yet.

I also see a system that makes it easy to find quality faith-based content on the web, to nourish people on their spiritual journey. Some of this is being done already, but on a small scale. This would require the help of volunteers, to find those resources.

Who would like to see a Q & A section, where people could ask a hand-picked group of religious people from the Diocese questions about faith? There are already examples of this on the web.

We received last week a letter from the Ontario Catholic Bishops. What if there was a way to discuss it, and together come up with ways to live out the spirit of the letter, and then enable people to share what they are doing about it?

Jesus’ ministry was carried out through relationships, those intimate encounters that left people touched and loved. The woman at the well. The apostles in the boat. Martha and Lazarus.

If Jesus were physically present on this earth today, I think he’d be on facebook and in the chat rooms, while blogging about the challenges of following God’s path. Wait a minute. He is present now, through you and me. We’ve got work to do.

Peace,
- Gerry