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Posts Tagged ‘Web Work’

2010 New Year’s Resolutions from the RWW Geeks & Friends

Forget losing weight or finding the perfect life partner: All we want to do is make 2010 the biggest geek-out year ever.

The ReadWriteWeb crew have collectively planned to take over the world next year by honing our nerd super-powers. From programming in Python to building AI houses, we’ve resolved to be smarter, more curious, more technical and way geekier than we were last year. Read our resolutions, and definitely let us know what you plan to do to be the best geek you can be in 2010.

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The editor-in-chief himself, Mr. Richard MacManus, is known for his fascination with machine-to-machine communication via the Internet of Things. This year promises to be an interesting one at the MacManus residence if Richard’s resolutions hold true.

“One of my goals for 2010,” he said, “is to experiment with Internet of Things in my own house and life, using tools like Pachube and sensors. We’ll see how that goes…”

We wish you lots of luck, boss! If all goes well, you’ll be a prime candidate for the first episode of Geek Cribs, and we’ll all be very, very jealous.

Our own ReadWriteStart warrior, Dana Oshiro, is going to be a busy bee this year.

“I’m finding that the coolest ideas come out of academic institutions and enthusiast groups before they’re ever thought of as business-related products. In 2010 I plan on attending more hackathons, dev camps and emerging tech conferences like SIGGRAPH.”

In addition to all that conference-hopping, Dana’s going to be doing some web work of her own. “Honestly, I need to revamp my personal website Villagers With Pitchforks. I haven’t changed the design in years.”

Alex Williams, our resident enterprise expert, is also known in certain circles as an experienced podcasting pro. His resolution is something the ReadWriteWeb team would all love to see happen.

He told us that he wants to use 2010 to “make an informative and entertaining podcast for ReadWriteWeb Enterprise that is lively, smart and fun.”

What do our friendly readers think? Would you like to listen to awesome news about what companies and people are moving and shaking in the world of enterprise technology? What folks do you most want Alex to talk to, and what topics would you find most interesting? And where would you be most likely to listen to a RWW podcast? At your laptop, in your car, while walking your dogs? Let us know in the comments!

Our newest startup blogger, Chris Cameron, said he wants to use 2010 to press the flesh and put faces with names, so to speak.

“Since I’m the new kid on the block and fresh out of J-school with my M.M.C., my new year’s resolution is to get acquainted with as many people as possible in the web/tech/startup industry and develop a healthy amount of sources.”

As seasoned journos, it’s our sworn duty to protect cub reporters from no-account rabble rousers, so we asked Chris who he specifically wanted to meet this year. He replied, “I’d love to develop some contacts from the bastions of the Web (Twitter, Facebook, Google, Digg, etc.).”

You’re in good company, kid. We’d like to meet those guys, too. Just kidding! As a RWW blogger, you’re sure to have Kevin Rose and Biz Stone on speed dial in no time. We wish you luck.

Another ReadWriteNoob is Abraham Hyatt, our intrepid Production Editor. He’s got a full slate of resolutions this year.

He told us he wants to have more one-on-one time with “the bloggers I read every day, the people whose tweets I look forward to, the friends who surprise me with what they post.”

He also said he’s going to start paying attention to things outside the tech sphere and his geographical scene. “I want to change the fact that I have no idea what’s changing in journalism in China.”

And finally, Abraham let us in on how he’s keeping his finger on the pulse of technology. “I want to learn from my 5-year-old niece as she begins using the Web. I just hooked her up with her first kids browser and the way she interacts with the Web will be a hint of what’s to come for all of us online in the next decade.”

Add in learning how to code and blogging more, two of his other resolutions, and Abraham’s got a full dance card for the rest of the year!

As for me, I plan to learn Python this year. I’ve realized in 2009 that it’s harder to be a tech writer when you don’t have a hacker-esque depth of understanding about APIs and web apps. After talking to Leah Culver, Mark Jeffrey and a bunch of other really smart programmers, I think Python is a great place to start learning about programming languages. So this year, I’m tackling a 900-page O’Reilly book, and I’m not giving up until I have a working web app of my own! Next up, Haskell.

Via Twitter, we heard from a few of our friends, including entrepreneur Renato Valdés Olmos, who pointed us to this pretty web app for those without resolutions who yearn to start small. And everyone’s favorite O.G (that’s “original geek” in these parts), Chris Pirillo, just couldn’t resist the opportunity to get sassy. “My geekiest new year’s resolution,” he said, “is 2560×1600.”

So, what great and glorious plans have you got for 2010? Will you be hacking your way to entrepreneurial greatness by starting your own web company? Will you be building hardware? Are you resolving to start a new career path, go to a new conference or meet a lifelong tech hero?

Let us know your resolutions in the comments!

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From SMCEDU: 5 Steps to Make the Social Web Work for Higher Ed

A new offshoot of Social Media Club, the Social Media Club Education Connection (SMCEDU) is a Chris Heuer-led organization intended to promote social media in higher education curricula.

At a kickoff event tonight in Richmond, Virginia, I got to participate in a panel discussion and hear questions from an audience of college students and professors. One of the questions posed was how those in academia can best put the social web to work for themselves. Far beyond Facebook and LinkedIn, how can this community harness the Internet to be smarter, more efficient, and more productive? Read on for our top five ideas.

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1) Use Twitter to find your network.

In almost any field of study, from sociology to physics to arts to media, educators and students can find a group of experts on Twitter, engaging in debate, posting relevant links, sharing their most recent work, and answering questions. With its asymmetrical follower model, this network allows you to keep up with leaders and organizations in your industry of choice without their having to follow you in return. There are lots of tools for finding topic-specific experts on Twitter. WeFollow and Mr. Tweet are two popular applications, and Twitter app store oneforty can provide even more resources for discovering an existing network and staying up to date.

2) Use feeds to stay informed about news, events, and conversations.

Once you’ve found your network, you may notice that a lot of these individuals and groups maintain blogs. Do a Google search, and focus on finding blogs that speak specifically to your field of interest. For every niche, no matter how obscure, someone out there is curating content. There are wind turbine blogs, turtle breeding blogs, biomedical engineering blogs, economics blogs – you get the gist. Staying updated in your field is as simple as spending 20 minutes a day online once you know how to use feeds.

For those users with a good grasp of RSS, feed readers such as Google Reader can bring clarity, organization, and efficiency to the formerly painful process of staying informed. But even if you don’t know RSS from a hole in the ground, there are sites that will allow you to simply put together lists of websites to track, or even bring you news feeds just based on a particular topic. We recommend checking out Lazyfeed and Guzzle.it for getting news by keyword or topic, and for the visually oriented, we also suggest these two dead-simple visual feed readers.

3) Build your website.

If there’s one thing students in particular need to worry about, it’s Google. Social accounts are fine and dandy to have, but prospective employers are searching for candidates by name when making interviewing and hiring decisions, as was made abundantly clear by a professional recruiter on tonight’s panel. Right now, Facebook might have a search engine monopoly on your name; unless that account is the best representation of you, a FirstNameLastName.com website might be a good idea. Here’s our list of four what-you-see-is-what-you-get website builders that don’t require much or any coding knowledge. You can also use some of the blogging resources mentioned in the next section. Once your site is up, link back to it from all your social profiles to help boost your site’s place in search results.

4) Create content.

Now that you know your network and its key players, you’re staying informed in your field, and you’ve got a decent start in representing yourself online, it’s time to start giving back. Whether you’ve got expertise to share or simply more questions to ask, you should be creating content. Tweeting is a great and engaging place to start; many professional and mentoring relationships have begun with a simple @reply. But you also need to blog, create videos, and/or post images or audio to your website.

Not only is this good for SEO, which will help when the aforementioned recruiters start Googling you; it’s also essential for deeper participation in the conversation happening all around you online. If visual arts are your thing, for example, a Flickr account is a must, and it’s probably a good idea to post any images you create on a separate blog, as well. Ideally, your content should tie in with your FirstNameLastName.com website. Depending on the type of content you choose to create, you might want to look at WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr, or Posterous. Post content regularly, and check out this Slate post with tips from some of the most famous bloggers online.

5) Be an early adopter and refine your digital toolkit.

Finally, once you’re comfortably participating in the conversation and you’re part of a very real community of experts, educators, and students in your field of interest, realize that your journey toward technological proficiency has just begun. The Internet is in a constant state of flux, and learning how to leverage the social web for academic benefit is an ongoing exercise. There are many resources for finding new weapons to add to your digital arsenal; we’re sure lots of helpful pointers will come from others in your community. But also, keep an eye on the techies, who are always testing and recommending new products and apps.

Check sites such as ReadWriteStart, AppUseful, and oneforty every now and then to see if there’s a better mousetrap than the ones you might currently be using. Stay open-minded and flexible; be willing to try anything three times.

The social web means so much more to academia than finding out which students were really sick on exam day and which just went to a kegger the night before. It also means a lot more than a static resume and a stagnant list of useless “connections.” Social web apps, when used intelligently, can make us all as brilliant and resourceful as the brightest stars in our networks, fostering real-world value and reinforcing learning.

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