Ben Balbo

So, I promised to write some more on StixCamp this morning. StixCampNewstead will be the first StixCamp ever. It will be held in the sticks and they will be Victorian sticks!

So what is this StixCamp I speak of? The first ever BarCamp in Australia was BarCampMelbourne 2007, and it was held at Lake Eppalock. Given two people got lost and there were complaints that no GPS coordinates were supplied, this very definitely meets the requirements of “in the sticks”.

Last year’s BarCampMelbourne was held in the city, and very great it was too. 70+ participants who all thoroughly enjoyed themselves (or at least didn’t hate it enough to tell me).

This year, we’re returning to the sticks. StixCampNewstead will be held at a beautiful winery in Newstead, Victoria.

So, in addition to letting people know about this upcoming event, we’re also looking for sponsors. The event will cost around $50 per head, and there’s space for 60, so $3,000 we need. We already have one sponsor, but need plenty more. We’re looking for a number of sponsors for smaller amounts, rather than one for the whole lump. If you’re interested in supporting this awesome grass-roots event, please get in touch with the organisers. We’re also happy to take sponsorship in kind by way of prizes to give away, providing the catering or any other in kindness you can think of.

In return for supporting this event, you’ll have your logo and link on the StixCamp Victoria, Australia web site and the BarCampMelbourne web site, receive verbal thanks and recognition during the opening and closing speeches, and in any communication with reporters and be welcome to advertise your support in any way you like (we will assist wherever possible). You can also offer schwag/literature/etc for dissemination and signage for display at the event. See the Sponsor StixCamp Victoria, Australia page for full details.

I’ve just realised I haven’t written anything here for almost 3 months, and yet I don’t feel I’ve been out of touch or not been updating “followers” with my activities and news. The number of phone calls and emails I’ve made hasn’t increased dramatically, so what’s happened?

Could it be that more frequent microblogs on Identica and Twitter are to blame for the drop in frequency on this site? Or was it just a busy time of year? I’m not sure.

So what’s been happening with me in the last three months? Sandrine and I moved house for the third (and final?) time in one year, and are now finally living in Portarlington on the Belarine Peninsula, 8 minutes from the beach. I still live and work in Melbourne, but I also get a holiday every weekend now!

Sandrine and I also went to Strathbogie; as some of you know, we used to own a bush block up there. We helped them develop a requirements document for a new community web site and portal, and after a few teething issues, they finally went live in November. The Strathbogie Tableland web site describes itself as a new way for residents and landholders to stay in touch and communicate with each other, and has really taken off with residents and others alike. Their community message board is possibly the most used area of the site.

In other news, I went to both RUXCON and the 5th Open Source Developers’ Conference, presenting at the latter on mobile streaming solutions for the open source community.

I’ve also been trying to fit in work on a new community driven web site that I started in October, but have had little time to spend on lately. Hopefully I’ll have more about that soon. Then, of course, there’s the work on the next BarCampMelbourne, which will actually be a StixCamp – more on that in a soon-to-follow post.

I think that’s about it. Of course there have been other things, but perhaps to minor to mention. You could always follow me on Identica or Twitter to hear the day-to-day stuff. If you like. No pressure!

This email came to the Melbourne PHP Users Group today:

Hello Ben
I am trying to urgently locate someone who could assist my son with a web programming Uni assignment, which needs to be finished by Friday. The person would be well remunerated.

I look forward to your reply.

Annette

To which I responded:

Hi Annette,

As a former University tutor, I’m abhorred by your request. Please don’t take this the wrong way, I’m not trying to be rude or insulting, but your son’s University project is designed to test his ability to meet the requirements of his course, and I cannot condone offering assistance in this regard.

Please note that my views might not reflect those of the Melbourne PHP Users Group, but, as a group that promotes learning, I doubt any member would feel differently.

I wish your son the best of luck with his assignment.

Ben Balbo

Outrageous!

Update: 2008-10-16 16:16

Reply from Annette:

Hi Ben, thanks for your email. But, as you should have seen, I was asking for assistance ­ tutoring and mentoring ­ not asking for someone to do his assignment for him. There are times when we all need help, and while he left it a little late to seek assistance, I am trying to help him. Don’t kids get outside tutoring at all ages these days, from primary school to university level…

My Response:

[Re: misunderstanding the request]

I’m afraid your original email didn’t carry the sentiment you were
striving for. Asking for someone to:

Assist [your] son with a web programming Uni assignment, which needs
to be finished by Friday

sounds very different to asking for someone to tutor your son in PHP.

[Re: extra tuition and running out of time]

Absolutely, extra tuition is not uncommon. I think the problem here is the lateness, as you point out. I don’t begrudge you trying to help your son, but if he’s not able to make adequate use of the, in my experience, extremely accommodating support network of his lecturers and tutors and identify issues in his time management then there are larger issues at stake.

University courses are not solely designed to teach skills to students; there is as much of an emphasis on self learning, time management, communication skills, issue resolution, risk analysis, and so on. Universities teach people how to operate in a working environment. Employers consider University degrees to denote a person has the ability to work independently (whether by themselves or in teams) – something that is not assumed of high school graduates that enter the workforce without a degree.

I say all of this not to assume some position of authority or to be condescending, but to hopefully assist your son in completing his degree and benefit to the fullest extent possible. On a more personal note, I didn’t discover or fully comprehend any of this until the final year of my University degree and believe it would have helped me enormously if I had worked on the non-academic skills I should have developed in the previous years.

Regards,
Ben Balbo

I’m surprised I haven’t blogged about this yet, but as some of you know, I have this “vanity folder” in my RSS reader. It’s an idea I got from elsewhere quite some time ago, but essentially you search Google News, Google Blogs, Technorati, etc, for your name, domain name, company name and so forth. Each of these result sets are available as an RSS feed which you then add to your reader.

Every time someone says something about you or related to you (according to your search conditions) it’ll appear in your reader. One instance this came in useful is when someone misspelt my name in their article and I was able to be notified, notify them, and have it fixed.

Yesterday I noticed Glen Stansberry’s article, 10 Principles of the PHP Masters, quoted me. It seems his article has been really popular, as it’s now also available in Spanish and Bosnian!

So while it might feel a bit egotistical to check out who’s talking about you, sometimes it can help you rectify small, or even large, errors about you, your company or your brand. It helps you find out who’s interested in what you’re doing which could help you expand your professional or social network.

And sometimes it just shows you an interesting trend, like the Spanish and Bosnians are interested enough to translate the 10 Principles of the PHP Masters – I haven’t found (or looked especially hard for) a French or German version yet.

In related news, Twitter has acquired Summize, a service that allowes you to track words and phrases across the public twitter timeline. I’m currently using TwitterSpy with my jabber account and every time someone mentiones my name, company name or keywords of interest to me (i.e. streaming) I get a jabber message. This allows me to find other Twitter users that have similar interests, and I’ve already started following a couple of “strangers” after finding them through TwitterSpy!

How do you track yourself on the Internet? Have I missed some great tool? Drop me a line in the comments section!