• Work with what you have.
• If you have to re-factor, confer with at least two others on the team
• Don’t break what already works unless everyone on the
• Modify for re-use in small chunks.
• Always question mock-ups created in MS Paint. These are suggestions, not things to replicate exactly.
• Ask yourself constantly if there is an easier way.
• Talk about your challenges, there is always an easier way

Subversion an engine upon which Trac draws, but it has equal power in other areas.

It’s Wiki for example. Or the RSS feed provided by the timeline…which means filthy integration potential for IDE plugins for which a number have already established footholds for Eclipse and Visual Studio.

Human connection and sense of belonging power the interest.
Web 2.0 finds root in the human interest to communicate and share experience. Advances in technology allow us to connect to the Internet and computers in more and more ways. We connect and interact, weaving information sharing into our lives. Not just because it’s increasingly easy.

Developers on the backs of giants: AJAX, DHTML, CSS, HTML, XML
With the widespread realization that JavaScript has server and DOM access at the same time, innovations in web applications are like comparing telephone to telegraph.

User experience getting deserved attention.
Because of these innovations, adherence to standards, and in part, the open source movement, user experience is getting deserved attention because developers don’t have to start from scratch. With so many competitors, user experience and content become the discriminator and strategic advantage for securing attention and interest online. These same innovations provide developers new ways to observe and improve the human-computer interaction.

We are learning from each other.
As data is gathered and studied about how people interact with others online, patterns and behavior similar to communities and social systems are finding ground where there isn’t one. As people with similar interests and information needs discover and invent ways to share perspective, opinion, and thought, technology is there recording it all. Everything shared online, explicity or incidentally, becomes part of a vast miscellaneous collection of data ready to be searched, categorized, tagged, and studied in nearly infinite ways.

Look beyond the social ramifications of Web 2.0 and you see a pattern of  potential. Focused and goal driven organizations should be jumping at opportunities to understand and tap Web 2.0 principles of collaboration, sense of community, and involvement. These are matters of behavior people!

Who doesn’t want a strategic advantage? That advantage can be gained by recognizing the importance of online involvement, investment, and sense of self cultivated through interest and curiosity.

So first, who are the people that blog? We can assume that the people that blog are those that have access to a reliable (and usually high-speed) Internet connection. They also have a certain understanding of computers, surfing, and can read. Like you.² We can also assume that for the most part, they have a reason for blogging because let’s face it; it’s an intentional act. You won’t hear, “Oops, I just blogged about blogging again…my bad folks…my bad. I’ll be more careful.”

The people that blog are not people. They are persons. Blogging is an individual endeavor and each blogger is likely to offer you a list of ever changing (but with a fair share of persistent) reasons. Let’s consider the how Nardi et. al look at this.³

To let other people know what’s going on. Maybe you’re writing about the wine industry in Northern Michigan, maybe your writing about your experience in graduate school, maybe you write about your business as an accountant.

To seek an opinion or feedback. Maybe you blog about consumer devices, new technology, or politics. There are many areas of interest that actively seek to get others involved in the dialogue. Discussions boards meet this need better but blogs are a good place to light the fire.

To think by writing. There are many blogs by people that use the opportunity of writing to sharpen their thoughts. Writing is a serial process and requires bringing together, into these short sentences, coherent thoughts that others can understand. Read what you write if you’re doing this as that is part of the thinking process too.

Sometimes to release emotional tension. Sometimes venting can be good. Dangerous to the feelings of others at times, but some amount of healthy and intelligent venting can act as a release valve to keep from building up too much internal pressure.

And sometimes it is for all these reasons at the same time. Writing and reading what others write is one most effective ways to share one’s thoughts. And if you think about it, sharing thoughts, however you do it, is fundamental to society.

Image: This was originally used in my blog on moonlighting as a student but it seemed fitting to this entry. This is a picture of my step-mother reading a blog post of mine where I was demonstrating “focus + context” on my phone using my blog as the site.

1. And how can you know who is reading your blogs? Like, what information is available? We’ll consider that in the technology part when I cover logging and analysis.
2. After all, you’re hear reading my blog.
3. Nardi, B.A., Schiano, D.J., & Gumbrecht, M. (2004) Blogging as a social activity, or would you let 900 million people read your diary? In Proceedings of CHI 2004. New York: ACM. Pp. 222-231.