Chris

The Hallowed Glow of Digital Distraction

The brain’s craving for novelty, constant stimulation and immediate gratification creates something called a “compulsion loop.” Like lab rats and drug addicts, we need more and more to get the same effect.

Endless access to new information also easily overloads our working memory. When we reach cognitive overload, our ability to transfer learning to long-term memory significantly deteriorates. It’s as if our brain has become a full cup of water and anything more poured into it starts to spill out.

I’ve known all of this for a long time. I started writing about it 20 years ago. I teach it to clients every day. I just never really believed it could become so true of me.

The first step in progress is acceptance. From Addicted to Distraction from the NY Times. ¹

A New Adventure

I’m taking a position with the Wikimedia Foundation as a Community Liaison starting in late January. This is a big opportunity that will be both challenging and exciting.

I’m leaving Mercy after 4.5 years and have enjoyed my time working as an Enterprise Architect, Solution Architect, Business Architect, and Business Analyst.² The people there have been nothing short of supportive and wonderful and I hope to stay in contact with many people who I call friends.

I’ve been involved in a tiny corner of the Wikimedia movement for a few years now and I’m excited to be able to spend more time on wiki stuff – especially when it comes to empowering people to share their experience and knowledge with nothing short of the whole world.

I also hope to work (on my own time) with the local community here in St. Louis and bring awareness to Wikimedia and the various projects we support. ³

As a liaison I’m assigned to a product team within the foundation. For me it’s the Discovery team – search, maps, and all the things that help contributors find things!

A big thanks to the folks in the MediaWiki Stakeholders’ Group for proving opportunities to learn more about the community. Thanks to the WMF for trusting and hiring me and for the individuals I interviewed with. They were honest in the details of the position and challenges in the work before us.

Thanks to those who offered to be a reference, you must have said something nice. 🙂

Most importantly, thank you to my wife Jackie and my family for making this decision with me. I’m glad we’re in this adventure together – wherever it may lead.

Explaining Hard Things to Humans – My Small Part to Make WordPress More Welcoming

Fred Meyer from WPShout gave this really good talk on writing for technical knowledge at WordCamp US earlier this month. It really resonated with me. I work with a bunch of really smart people everyday who are savvy with technology. Some of the concepts Fred talks about seem like common sense, but are so often overlooked (even by myself from time-to-time).

In one particular example, Fred calls out the language in the WordPress installer itself. Currently, once the installation is successful you see a message:

WordPress has been installed. Were you expecting more steps? Sorry to disappoint.

This could be interpreted many different ways, but the potential to sound flippant or snarky during the initial steps of an interaction with your software is a bad idea. Not to mention, not all software installations go as smoothly as planned. The individual using your program could be at their wit’s end; frustrated.

I was inspired by Fred’s talk and took action. WordPress is open-source, right? So I did what all folks should do, I submitted a patch to change the wording.

WordPress has been installed. Thank you, and enjoy!’

A Few Notes on Barcelona and SMWCon

My trip to Barcelona was an adventure that I’ll never forget. The city was beautiful and the people I met and made friends with even more so. The conference was rewarding and invigorating.

I don’t know if I have the language to put into words what I experienced. I’ve been trying to write this post for a while and continue to be fruitless. I can say, that for a person who hasn’t traveled internationally much (until this past year) it remains one of my favorite things to do. You can travel alone, but if you do it right you’ll never be alone.

So maybe I’ll just try to be as succinct as possible.

Travel. Do it often. Take photos, but not too many. Make opportunities. If invited to go out – Go.

I’ve put together some perfunctory notes on the professional aspects of the conference on the MediaWiki Stakeholders’ Blog. Again, it doesn’t do the trip justice.

Unsolicited Travel Tips

While waiting for my return flight from Barcelona (via Zürich) I jumped on Twitter to dump a few things I’ve learned in the last year of travel. Instead of leaving my thoughts there to disappear into the ether I thought I’d collect them here. ⁴ While by no means a travel expert these are a few things I picked up that serve as both a reminder to future me and might be helpful for you as well. YMMV and all that.

If you bring something to entertain you while hanging out in your hotel room (like a tablet) leave it behind. You’ll never have time to play with it.
If asked to go out into the city by instead of staying in the hotel – even if you’re tired – do it. Regret makes for a terrible story.
Don’t use your local phone service overseas. If possible, unlock your phone & get local SIM. On this last trip I paid $15 (Euro) for gb from Orange. AT&T, my home provider, wanted to charge me $120 (US) for 800mb.
Pack extra socks. Lots of socks. Change them midday. Your feet will thank you (and your nose too).
Travel light. Roll clothes. Don’t check a bag. Don’t take lots of toiletries. Unless traveling to the Sahara, just find a store. Being able to just get on/off a plane without checking/picking up a bag is amazing.
Go away from the city center. Use public transit. Ask locals for dining suggestions. None of this is that scary. It will make your trip even more unique and interesting.
iPhone users: Turn on Low Power Mode and keep it on. You don’t need push email/notifications when you’re on a trip! This means longer times between charges (more time to look up at the place you’re in and less time looking down at your screen) and no need to scramble for a charger.