One idea; one vision; one method; some work; and many unexpected results

Frederick Giasson

I had one idea: a kind a meta-search engine that people would use to know who is talked about a story or a web site; a way to easily follow discussions that erupt in the Blogsphere.

I had a vision: discovering, following and participate to online discussions that go around some specific “root” online stories or web site.

I used one method: Ajax, an amalgam of already existing web technologies that enable developer to create web sites that act like real, standalone, applications. I had an idea of how I would like to see that system works and I used that method to make the idea a reality.

I worked: I spent near a month, full time, 7/7 to make the idea a reality. I had the time, I took it, and I used it to create something I think would be useful to me and the online community.

I had unexpected results: around 30 000 unique visitors in the last 2 weeks. Some people talk about a buzz around that “Talk Digger” system. I communicated with people that I had never thought to talk with; I had unexpected opportunities; I learn a bunch of new things unrelated to software development: the IT business world, the communication world, the public relation world, etc. Right now, if someone looks at me while I work, I would look like a jack-of-all-trades, someone that does a little bit of everything: definitely the more pleasant professional time I had in my carrier so far.

This summer I read three really interesting article by Paul Graham:

  1. How to start a startup
  2. Hiring is obsolete
  3. Why smart people have bad ideas

A month ago, my life’s situation permitted me to take some time to work on a personal project. Then I remembered what I read in these three articles, and then asked me that question: Why not me? Why I could not try to start something of my own, for my own? Then I take one of my ideas, I developed a vision, I used a method, I took my time and I developed Talk Digger.

Least than one month after, I have understood many things I read in these three little articles. I experimented it and the conclusion is fantastic: I learned so many things. This is not a question of software development, this is a question of process: the whole process involved in such a project. What I learned in the last month, and what I enjoyed, is all the new things I learned by talking with people from many different backgrounds; the discussions of 30minutes, 1 or 2 hours with someone that want to know more about what I am working on, on what he is working on, the sharing of ideas, etc.

This entire buzz in the last month has been only possible by the work I put into developing my ideas, evolving my vision and talking with people, many people.

Why I write this post? To tell you that if I have been able to do it, any body can do it; it is just a question of will. Do not fool yourself, the only way to learn, the only way to succeed is by trying; how do you think that you can succeed in something if you do not try to do that thing? Physically, logically and semantically impossible.

“Action is the foundational key to all success.”


— Pablo Picasso

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Talk Digger censored, banned, by Chinese authorities

Frederick Giasson

Talk Digger teaches me many things since I am working on it. I discovered many things: I found search engines bugs (I will come back on this in a later post), I learned many Ajax tricks, etc. However, today I learned a thing much more important: the situation of Chinese people and the state of the Internet in China.

I know that the Chinese government censors many, many websites. I also know that Chinese bloggers are even more censored. However, I never really question myself on that reality. This morning, all that ignorance slapped me into the face.

I opened Talk Digger to see who was talking about it and about my blog. Then I found that little post in German wrote by VanVan. I was astonished to see the name of Talk Digger beside the ones of Skype and Flickr. Then I immediately checked my logs: no one connection came from China during the night. She was right: the Chinese government censored Talk Digger. Awesome; I never thought it possible, but it is.

A few Chinese were able to access to Talk Digger via this address: fgiasson.com/td/. However, it seems that they also banned my domain name fgiasson.com today. Unbelievable and how sad. Many, many Chinese had tried Talk Digger in the first hours of online life. Around 24 hours after, the domain name has been put into the censored sites list.

So, could I do something to make Talk Digger available to them? Anyone have an idea?

I could probably build something like an email diffusion list of Talk Digger’s result once a day. Could it work? Probably, I would need to check the possibility. Then, if it is possible, how could I reach them if they can’t even read my blog? I do not have any idea yet. I will need a good night of sleep and hope to get a good idea.

So, many brains are always better than only one; so, you, do you have an idea? Leave it there and I will consider every of them.

Update: 4 august 2005: It seems that the Chinese government did not ban the domain name fgiasson.com… yet. So, if you look to use Talk Digger in Chine, use that URL to access it: http://fgiasson.com/td/

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Gravatar.com is down. What could we do if the worse happened?

Frederick Giasson

Update 20 july 2005:
Tom Werner contacted Lisa today, there is the result: “I left for vacation to China on the 11th, and it seems I forgot to renew the gravatar.com domain before I left. Now I have the rude awakening here in Hangzhou that gravatars have been down since the 15th. Curse my timing! I am renewing the domain right now but it might take a little while to go through and there might be other problems I don’t forsee. Could you to make a little note on your weblog informing the peoples of this misfortune? Tell them I still care!!!!”

Update 18 july 2005: Eliot pointed out that the Gravator site is always up and running. The problem is that the DNS take into account by the registrar. As he said, you only have to change the string “gravatar.com” by the string “64.124.231.223” and everything will work. Take a look at the Gravator’s website.

However the question persists: what happened to Mr. Werner? Is there always someone that manages the system?

Many people know this piece of news: Gravatar.com is down due to domain expiration. However, I just checked the Whois list and it seem to be on hold since some days.

Domain Name: GRAVATAR.COM
Registrar: TUCOWS INC.
Whois Server: whois.opensrs.net
Referral URL: http://domainhelp.tucows.com
Name Server: NS3.POLARPHASE.COM
Name Server: NS4.POLARPHASE.COM
Status: REGISTRAR-HOLD
Updated Date: 16-jul-2005
Creation Date: 15-jul-2004
Expiration Date: 15-jul-2006

There are many possibilities that could explain what is happening with Gravatar. However, what is sure is that Tom Werner forgot, intentionally or not, to renew the domain name.

This is a sad story considering that thousands of web sites were using this beautiful little service. Many web site developers were relying on the service, and he fell apart. The problem with this type of service is that it needs to be centralized somewhere. Then when such a service stop to exist, everyone that where using it have nothing to rely on anymore.

So, what could we do? In the next days we will probably know what happened to Gravatar.com, the service we were using. If it happens that the service we once knew is dead, the only thing we have to do is to rebuild it from scratch. Ease? Ease, probably not, but not as hard as some could think. What I suggest? Trying to contact Mr. Werner to know what happens, but Phu tried without success. Another possibility is to rebuilding it under a new name. How? With my time. The only thing I need is the money to host the service for the next year.

So, if it appears in the next days that Gravatar.com is really dead and that I have some support from the community, I will take the time to rebuild it. If it happens, it could be up in the next 3 weeks.

Leave a comment here if you find what happened to Gravatar.com and contact me if you are willing to support me if we need to rebuild the whole system.

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Will communication networks eventually replace the social ones when will come the time to gather informal pieces of knowledge?

Frederick Giasson

Communication networks are spreading everywhere. The new trend is to include blogs and Wikis in these networks. The goal is to manage, archive and search conversations that two people or a group of peoples are exchanging.

However, the question is: will these communication networks, mainly supported by Internet technologies, eventually replace the social (see face-to-face) ones when will come the time to gather informal pieces of knowledge?

We will get the perspective of a project manager to see if it could. First of all, you need to have in mind that replacing it or not, these new communications networks emerging from everywhere help us archiving things that were not thinkable decades ago.

As a project manager, you will have to deal with working teams, clients, suppliers, etc. You will have an overview of the project to develop. You will be helped in your task by many sources of knowledge like, marketing requirements documents, vision/scope documents, specifications documents, or the knowledge that came from expert consultants, your workers, or anything else present in your working environment. Communication and social networks are just two other sources of knowledge in that environment.

The power of a project manager is that he is able to talk to every body that works on a project. He can talk with them about the things they are currently working on, or about more personal problems that will force them to go out of the city for a week. One of the non written tasks of this manager is to take into account all these parcels of knowledge that could help him managing his project. This sort of knowledge is gathered via informal discussions with people. With that knowledge, he will be able to re-plan his schedule to take into account that one of his employee is in trouble and that he will probably need take a week off. Without these informal discussions, it would be much harder to plan all these little irritants that could and will afflict the project.

What if these managers stops to walk around between the working teams members and only communicated with them via the latest communication tool that help him to have all the information he wants at the finger tip? Will this system will be able to give him that sort of informal pieces of knowledge essential for the good execution of the project? This is the question.

Personally I think that it could be done technically, but not practically. The problem would be that every employee would need to take time, many times, to write everything that happens in his job and in his personal live. It is impossible to archive. The employee will only talk about these essential informal pieces of knowledge if he entrust the person he is talking to, in our case, the project manager.

Have you another vision of the problem that could eventually appear? I mean, many companies develop such systems. If they develop them, they will also sell them. If they sell them, it is sure that someone will buy them (considering that some sellers are able to sell fridges to Eskimos). Do you think that these companies could expect some problems if they rely too heavily on these systems instead of the more conventional human relations?

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Taking the time to learn from the outputs of your GTD systems

Frederick Giasson

You have developed, used and digest many GTD systems over years. These systems produced a bunch of outputs that you put in the bin, or classified somewhere in a file cabinet. However, what about learning of these outputs? I mean, coming back at them and see what goes well and what goes wrong. Bellow is a little text wrote by Dale Carnegie that reported the sayings of the Wall Street bank’s president in years 1930. I think it worth reading and thinking about it.

“For years I have kept an engagement book showing all the appointments I have during the day. My family never makes any plans for me on Saturday night, for the family knows that I devote a part of each Saturday evening to illuminating process of self-examination and review and appraisal. After dinner I of by myself, open my engagement book, and think over all the interviews, discussions, and meetings that have taken place during the week. I ask myself:

“’What mistakes did I make that time?’
“’What did I do that was right – and in what way could I have improved my performance?’
“’What lessons can I learn from that experience?’
“’I often find that this weekly review makes me very unhappy. I am frequently astonished at my own blunders. Of courses, as the years have gone by, these blunders have become less frequent. Sometimes now I am inclined to pat myself on the back a little after one of these sessions. This system of self-analyses, self-education, continued year after yea, had done more for me than any other one think I have ever attempted.’
“It has helped me improve my ability to make decisions – and it has aided me enormously in all my contacts with people. I cannot recommend it too highly.”

You need to have in mind that that president had little formal schooling and was one of the most important financiers in America in that time.

Note: this excerpt come from the book “How to Win Friends and Influence people” by Dale Carnegie. I will write back on that really interesting work in the next days.

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