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Fuzz Kitto, Sydney-based consultant and international speaker, has teamed up with The Work of the People and To Be Told to produce a series of film clips on Christian faith.
Worship and Mission
It’s not about making worship more exciting. It’s more about connecting worship with an all-week lifestyle of mission. In the past I’ve been involved in introducing new technologies for worship, including the visuals Fuzz talks about. But I strongly relate to the questions Fuzz raises here.
The Work of the People
Does your theology come from a system or from Jesus?
I much prefer working in Excel 2007 to Excel 2003. Despite the issues with backward compatibility, there are a lot of advantages and benefits to using the new version.
Some little things that have been changed are
The previous limit on nested brackets in formulas from 7 has been increased to 64. I used this today
The number of columns and rows has increased. I used this today.
I had to develop a file for a client that involved a complex work roster arrangement to calculate days off in repeating 2, 3 or 4 week cycles for the next 20 years.
Here is the nested formula that got me the logic for a roster.
=IF($X5>=AJ$4,$X$4,IF($Y5>=AJ$4,$Y$4,IF($Z5>=AJ$4,$Z$4,IF($AA5>=AJ$4,$AA$4,IF($AB5>=AJ$4,$AB$4, IF($AC5>=AJ$4,$AC$4,IF($AD5>=AJ$4,$AD$4,IF($AE5>=AJ$4,$AE$4,IF($AF5>=AJ$4,$AF$4,$AG$4)))))))))
I then used one formula to generate over 600,000 cells and create a map that looks like this.
=INDEX(data,MATCH(C$1,codes,0),(IF(MOD($A3,VLOOKUP(C$1,Rules!$AH:$AI,2,FALSE))=0,VLOOKUP (C$1,Rules!$AH:$AI,2,FALSE),MOD($A3,VLOOKUP(C$1,Rules!$AH:$AI,2,FALSE))))+2)
I used the VLOOKUP formulas because this was a quick and dirty application, not one that needed to stand the test of time. Also the speed of the calculation wasn’t an issue on my development machine. I would have built more robust formulas if this application was going to see regular use.
From here I needed to generate a list of the “weekend” periods from their start date to end date.
It needed to look like the table to the right as this was going to be uploaded into their enterprise system.
Given the large number of cells this had the potential to go below the 65535 rows allowed in Excel 2003.
In the end I only used 58471 rows so was comfortably inside the limit. However if they add more rosters this could break.
I cannot display the code here as it is the intellectual property of the client – as they have paid for it.
The result for the client is huge. Entering 230,000 odd pieces of data into a system manually would have been very tedious.
Generating the 90 odd rosters manually and then uploading them would still have been very tedious and needed to be repeated if there were any problems or errors or new rosters.
This application including the initial consulting, logic development and code writing (there’s only 57 lines including all commenting) took a little over 2 days. You do the math on how much it saved! The code runs in about 15 seconds on my system. Probably a little more on a less grunty PC. This is the power of Excel and VBA automating repetitive tasks and what we make a lot of money doing!
Since initially posting this I am sorry to see that Shay is wrongly getting all the credit for this inspired song!
This past Saturday Austin and I went to the 11th annual Jack-O-Launch in nearby Aurora. We saw frustrated engineers try their pumpkin throwing machines of all varieties. Some were pneumatic, others were traditional trebuchets. Check out this video - it is a catapult powered only by counterweights. The pumpkin goes close to 1/2 mile.
Check out this cute little spider that hit my desktop this morning when Jude brought it round to me. I got a couple of good photos of it but it wouldn’t sit still until i got it out onto a tree.
Anybody know what sort of spidy it is?
Matthew 22:1-14
Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. Again he sent other slaves, saying, ‘Tell [...]
A surly Declan says, while in mid-air in his father's arms:"You know what, Daddy? It's hard to be angry and spinning at the same time."
Simian Farmer
Tomorrow in our shared life we’ll remember Matthew Shepherd, a young gay man who was beaten to death ten years ago on October 12.
He was at a bar in Laramie, Wyoming, shortly after midnight when two young men offered him a ride home. On a rural back-road, the young men stopped the truck, [...]
Time to clear the tabs in Google Chrome.
SBS2008 news is buzzing with the wrap up of the conferences stateside. Here is some important stuff.
Robin Good’s Sharewood guide has a list of the Top 25 screen sharing tools.
Sonia Coleman has 208 free Microsoft PowerPoint templates.
I am now using Tweetdeck to manage my twitter conversations – its great!
TwitterAgency is a Virtual Advertising Agency on how to use / not use Twitter.
Brisbane mountain bike riders, check out Bushranger. They also run adventure tours in New Zealand. And if you are into horse riding the Mountain Lake Adventures crew look as if they provide a pretty decent trail riding experience just west of Brisbane.
Haven’t blogged in a while but one of the things that really gets me riled is injustice. The whole Moneygall Obama link has been given a shot in the arm by the inspired music and lyrics of Hardy Drew and the Nancy Boys who penned the iconic song “There’s no one as Irish as Barack Obama”. The lads aka the Corrigan Brothers, Ger, Brian and Donny hail from Limerick and have performed their song in Moneygall, Co. Offaly the Irish home of Barack Obama.
However, after all their hard work and artistic expertise someone else is gaining all the credit. Shay Black who is based in the US wrote a few additional verses and has been inadvertently credited with writing the tune. In an election where so much is at stake don’t let the lads from Limerick be dispossessed of their contribution to the success of Barack Obama. Every vote counts and the lads deserve the credit for this potential classic.
Check out their video below:
Dear (erstwhile) readers,More content and a new banner coming soon to this space. Honest.But first, for your edification, a thorough understanding of the cause of the financial crisis plaguing the US and affecting all the rest of us. Reading this linked article will only take you two minutes, and it's written from the perspective of Pokémon as explained to a 14 year-old girl.I feel smarter already, and it's not even 9 am.Financial Crisis Explained
Simian Farmer
I am so over it – and it hasn't even happened yet. Not that I care.
I'm going to predict some things.
- Obama will become president – he talks better and doesn’t want to kill everybody - (or so he says)
- He will not withdraw the troops from Iraq. Simple point in fact - he cannot.
- There will not be a decisive military victory ever in Iraq (unless they kill everybody in Iraq (McCain’s plan)
- The us economy is totally screwed – has been for 20 years – been hanging on by the eyeballs to an ever expanding inflationary money supply. I did predict this before the most recent “correction”.
- US gas prices will get to over $5 a gallon – live with it – that is still about half what we are paying.
- Racism is alive and well in the USA as is stupidity. A new president will not fix the totally screwed legal system, health system, financial system, public education system, and a whole lot of other systems that are biased against the poor, the black, the disadvantaged etc.
- Most US citizens still wont realise that there is anything outside the 48 continental states or if they are vaguely aware of that fact still won’t be able to locate anything on a map. (I learnt to draw a rough map of the world freehand when i was a teenager and fill in most of the major countries.)
My apologies to the intelligent readers of SpyJournal – but then if you had the brains to come here most of the things above don’t apply to you.
Hurry up and vote in the screwed political system that does not equal one man one vote and let life get back to normal please.
And as happens once a year I look back and forward. Back to the first year of being 40 and realising that it wasn’t the beginning of the end at all. Playing AFL again was great, the cycling and running is still happening, though not quite as hard as before and I can still show the youngsters a thing or two there, and coaching basketball and volleyball has been fantastic.
I think part of the reason I am hanging out with the young guys and girls so much at the moment is because there is virtually no one my age keen to have a go. Most of the Dads and people I know round my age are sedentary. Sad really. I am organising cycling trips, rock climbing and hiking events, playing basketball and volleyball and these guys just sit there and say things like”Where do you get your energy from?” and “I wish I could keep up with you”. Well the answer is – You can! join me – if you dare. I have a couple of mates who comes when they can and go as hard as I can push them. Dave is one of those. He hates me and loves me at the same time. Here is a video of him finishing a very punishing ride we did on Monday.
Before looking forward to the future the present is pretty cool too. We did my birthday dinner and presents last night as tonight I will be at indoor soccer. I got some cool presents – and the awesomest of cards.
Here’s a pic of the presents from my daughters.
Mercedes gave me a socket set, Erin gave me a crystal angel, Jadeen a new belt – much needed – and Miranda gave me a whistle with a compass and thermometer built in.
The cards the three younger girls made were awesome.
Mercedes drew me some mice and birds.
Erin drew me flowers and I Love My Daddy.
Jadeen drew me hearts and roses and a message of love. Miranda made me baklava! Yum. That girl knows the way to my heart. She copied her mum who made the yummiest fried chicken and cheesy mashed spuds ever (no plastic fantastic instant stuff here Doug!)
So looking forward. I was talking to a friend yesterday about planning for the future. That starts now in the present. I want to have awesome relationships with my daughters when they are 16-20 and as they mature into young adults and look for husbands. The planning for that starts now. “In fact we have been planning for that for several years now. By planning I mean we are using words and phrases, establishing family traditions, planting seeds of affirmation and love and encouragement in our daughters that we can fall back on when tough times come. We are pro-actively ensuring that the girls will want to hang out with mum and dad, ask for and listen to their advice when they go through those tough times that as young adults they will have.
As a husband I enjoy spending time with my wife and best friend Judith. Without her I would be less than the man I am. I want to grow old with her and watch her get all wrinkly and be able to laugh and enjoy watching her face crinkle with pleasure at me being with her and loving her.
In business I am working hard to ensure that what I am building can live beyond me. Numerous parts now can operate with minimal input and generate income. From 10 years ago when we had a single income to now when we have dozens of separate non related income streams I am working hard to ensure that my family will have money to live on after I die. (Not counting the big life policy!)
And last but not least spiritually. My growth the last 12 months has been very stimulating. I have definitely moved closer to God. I am actively working out strategies to be an anchorman in my families spiritual ancestry. I have had to rely more on Him in business and church life in the last 12 months than ever before. Looking forward I aim to become more like Christ everyday. Sure that’s an up and down process, but like to I think the overall direction is up. Time will tell.
I’ve been wanting to write an article for some time now about how the social (web 2.0) web works, and why there are so many different sites out there. specifically I wanted to explain the use of sites like FriendFeed, Profilactic and Ping.fm
I have built a small diagram that hopefully illustrates a small portion of this. It is not comprehensive, though it is accurate in the detail it does show.
The missing stuff includes a dotted line back from any of the sites in the 2nd or 3rd columns back to the first column.
Let me explain the circle of internet life and how Ping.fm, Profilactic and Friend Feed play a part.
You – the user – create content. This can be in the form of blog posts, comments on blog posts – yours or others, twitter microbloging, facebook status, what I’m listening to with MSN, Photos and videos that you upload to Flickr, YouTube or your blog etc. You update your work status on LinkedIn and join forums and debate or discuss things that interest you with others. You can use Ping.FM to send the same status message or microblog to all or any of the sites you are a member of.
Applications like RSS Feed Readers (Google reader, RSS Bandit etc) along with sites like Profilactic and FriendFeed consolidate this content. You can create life streams for yourself, or for others that you follow. Even if you don’t do this you need to realise that others are. Your family members maybe watching and following your internet presence, not in a creepy big brother way, but in a sharing caring way – because they want to know what you think say or do. This especially applies to friends nd families who are widespread. I find that most people’s facebook accounts are filled with friends who are
As an internet user you consume content. You read blogs, view Facebook pages, interact with your friends on MySpace and MSN, read news articles, follow the football and read political debates in forums and comments on blogs. You look at friends and family pictures in Picasa Albums and watch videos on YouTube. In short you consume a lot of content. Some of this is done easily (using RSS Readers for example) and applications like Facebook make it easy to find out what all your friends have been up to with the status notifications feature. Other stuff is found the good old fashioned way using search. See that section for more details here.
Sharing is a little more complex to explain as there are so many ways to do it. However the basic concept can be summed up with the question “Have you ever sent an email to someone with a web link in it?” This is sharing. You have effectively acted in the best interest of your friend and forwarded something you thought they may be interested in. Sharing is just that. Taking information that you think is important and relaying it. Digg, Delicious and StumbleUpon are all services designed to help you make that easy to to do, and not just for your friends that you can email – but to anyone. SocialMedian is a news compilation service that can be used to pull specific news items from the web and tailor them into a feed that can be consumed by you or others. Sharing can be done by sending links in Facebook, MSN or email, or by writing a blog article. This article is just that – me sharing what I know about this to you.
We are nearly completing the circle. Part of the consume process is searching, but it is important enough to warrant its own item. Plus I needed to put 5 things into the little diagram! Searching is important because this is how your circle of knowledge and information expands. You might be sent a link to a news article or find something out, and that may open a whole new world up to you. Searching for additional information brings you to pages of information you never knew existed. You are able to find out something new.
And this helps close the loop int he cycle, because you now have the opportunity to educate or inform your friends, acquaintances and completely random fellow net citizens by sharing the information you just learned. Maybe by even writing a whole article about the research you just did, or maybe just sending a one line tweet about it. but by doing so you start the whole cycle again.
As a footnote – this article can be considered as a lead into the question “How do we leverage internal knowledge in an organisation?” The process described above can be managed as business process within an organisation. The difficulty is in creating a culture of sharing and openness.
So what is it? Why do you need to keep reading this? Well you probably don’t, unless you work in an organisation with internet access and more than one person there. Well that’s most if us!
Did that get your attention?
How about this?
Has Facebook, MySpace, YouTube or Google videos been banned in your workplace? What about instant messaging or Skype?
I want to talk a little about why this has happened, and for the wrong reasons, and also how it will change in the very near future.
Organisations have been very jealous of their employees time (and they have a legitimate right to require their workers to be focussed on work not their social lives while in their employ. IT managers and CIO’s have seen applications like Facebook and messenger to be purely time wasting social applications with no business use. That is starting to change.
Lets start with what Web 2.0 is and work our way up to Enterprise 2.0.
The concept of Web 2.0 is very simple. According to Wikipedia, Web 2.0 is a term that “encapsulates the idea of the proliferation of interconnectivity and interactivity of web-delivered content.” What the! Ok a more normal explanation is web content that is not just informative (Web 1.0), but interactive.
So sites like Facebook are Web 2.0, because there is a multi-user, multi-application , multi-media interface that allows interaction between participants and can leverage that to create great interconnected content.
So how does knowing that change my world while I am at work, especially when Facebook is banned?
Good question. The answer lies in the knowledge inside your head. As a worker, you have information and knowledge, access to material and data that makes you useful. To the organisation as a whole, and also laterally to other workers with the same job or requirements for information as you. The concept of benchmarking is not new, but in a corporate sense usually applies to think tank brainiacs or the corporation as a whole, and is generally seen as an overseas junket for the few privileged to go on!
The internet changes everything. As businesses start to become more connected, their workers in particular also get more connected. Email address lists start to grow. Many knowledge workers spend many hours per day using email. 23% of my time on the computer is in Outlook. I have tracking software in place that tells me that. Much of this information that is being emailed is one dimensional, badly sorted and indexed and often duplicated many times. The wasted effort is huge. As organisations start to realise the untapped resource of workers email folders they will start looking for ways to leverage it.
Dion Hinchcliffe talks about Finding Web 2.0 and says this:
“Sometimes dubbed "Web 2.0", this new, more refined model for creating online software reflected an improved understanding in the way that large networks can provide their full value. Specifically it reflected how to make use of them when a lot of users can actively contribute to them, directly or indirectly. This left the linear concept of Web traffic behind forever…”
Enter Enterprise 2.0. The entry point for most organisations is with email simply because it is such a huge and easy target. Applications like Xobni give power back to the individual but still don’t help the corporation. Sharepoint is a major step forward because it can not only allow email to be managed in a database it also has the ability to turn the one dimensional network folders containing users files into multidimensional relational databases. Search functions now actually work and suddenly the version control features start to reduce the wasted time with emailing files around. Wikis and conversations about files and projects can be tracked and managed better. As enterprises start to value data for its intrinsic value and not just for its sheer volume the path to Enterprise 2.0 awakening starts to shimmer more brightly.
Some pictures can help here. Rod Boothby’s Enterprise 2.0 Communication Continuum was modified by Dion Hinchcliffe in his article about Enterprise 2.0. The concept of leveragability of the “conversations” that are held by staff in an organisation is the whole key to Enterprise 2.0. Without a perceived benefit to an organisation there is no need to use blogs, wikis, instant messaging, search tools or even email. It is the ability for an organisation to increase productivity, retain knowledge and leverage the untapped resources that will force businesses to adopt Enterprise 2.0 in some format.
Here are some excerpts from an internal research document a local government agency produced recently about the requirement to better manage their internal knowledge:
- The existing network storage system is clumsy and does not provide metadata about files
- We need to identify and foster subject matter experts, and knowledge champions
- We need to define a taxonomy by which to tag information and files with metadata
- We need to foster a knowledge sharing culture
- IS systems need to be aligned with and measured against the KM requirements of the business
- Additional KPI type measurements such as response time to customer requests need to be captured
- Employee learning must be actively encouraged and shown to be contributing to the organisation
These “pain points” are all great starters to help an organisation to start to see the value of Enterprise 2.0 As they stat to look for ways to address these issues, all the signs point to software that is web 2.0 based or similar. Applications like SharePoint, Instant messaging, Twitter, and the sundry services that surround them.
I have helped several organisations down this path toward Enterprise 2.0
- Accepting the value of the data in their business and looking for ways to leverage it
- Accepting the usefulness of workers viral networks – both internal and external to the organisation and facilitating use of those networks.
- Recognising that social networks can contain invitations and introductions to other people or businesses that can add value to the corporate. Hiding them from workers is counter productive.
- Teaching employees to trust the organisation and allow mutual trust to develop – some form of privacy of personal data and connections while allowing interactions that can gain a benefit to the organisation.
The ongoing challenge for Australian businesses, and indeed business the world over, is to identify for themselves the place that “social software” has in their business as a tool for leveraging the powerful hidden data that resides in networks, non indexed email and IM messages, and to build and foster an environment that encourages their staff to value, add-to and share corporate knowledge.
I had a real great weekend. While Jude took herself off to art classes on Saturday morning I did some work while the kids played and cleaned. After locating a container with Chinese checkers marbles in it, I decided to make a Chinese checkers board. That’s harder than it sounds. After a bunch of maths and several false starts I finally had a board marked out with the correct number of spots. I then drilled all the holes using a countersink and then cut the board to an even square and routed the edges. Jude was home by this time so we all then played a game.
Sunday at church we sang the Michael W Smith song I’m desperate for you. The words in this are awesome. It made me think, about how we are desperate for air – so desperate we breathe all the time – try holding your breath and see how desperate you become when starved from air. the challenge for me is am I that desperate for God?
After church we headed off to Peter and Kitty’s engagement party. This was real blast! There are some photos on my facebook account.
Sunday night we had a mini party here and then I worked again.
I’ve just had the pleasure of hosting Tony Jones on his short visit to Queensland. Tony’s the national director of Emergent Village, a collective of theologians, artists, poets, philosophers based on friendship and honest engagement with emerging understandings of being church in the USA. He’s in Australia at the moment primarily to speak at Black Stump festival near Sydney.
I picked Tony up from the Brisbane airport on Wednesday morning and dropped him back there on Friday afternoon. We turned up together to a gathering of Baptist church planters, a couple of ecumenical gatherings in Brisbane, and a Uniting Church conversation on the Gold Coast. I got to hear four versions of the Emergent Village schtick, which Tony kindly varied each time for the sake of keeping my interest up.
Here’s a few of my impressions on the Emerging Church, which I wrote for Ashmore Uniting Church newsletter this weekend…
Freedom to Explore Questions
One of the most common questions I’ve heard people ask Tony is, “How would you know if you’ve become unorthodox?” That’s because a number of authors from the Emerging Church movement have challenged readers to reconsider what we mean by the Christian gospel? Is it all about God dealing with our sin? Or are there other ways to describe the good news of the kingdom of God? And what are our blind spots when it comes to the way we run our church?
Wells rather than Fences
One of the hallmarks of the emerging church movement is a tendency to be relaxed about who’s in and who’s out of activities run on behalf of the church. People are invited to connect with Christian community who may not consider themselves as followers of Christ. People are accepted as friends of Jesus rather than assessed on correct doctrine or behaviour. It’s a bit like the difference between keeping animals behind fences and attracting them to watering spots. Of course, as one of the Baptists pointed out, that concept has been around for a while and is not monopolized by the Emergent movement.
Relationships Count
Tony talked about the role we have as ambassadors of the good news of reconciliation. As Christians we tend to associate with people who agree with us. The easiest way to keep the peace is to choose a pre-determined set of beliefs and try and stick to those. When we start to get to know each other more we find that there’s a lot more variety in the way people think and act. And as a result we have a lot to learn about being honest and respectful with one another. I liked Tony’s response to a question about “testing the spirits”, in which he talked about assuming the best about God’s action in other people, as a way to avoid blaspheming the Holy Spirit.
Generations in Conversation
While there’s a higher number of Gen X leaders involved in the ‘emerging church’ movement, it’s become clear that people of any age are interested in exploring different ways of being church. The Emergent Village connection grew out of the Gen X leaders called together by the Leadership Network in the USA. The initial hope was that these young emerging leaders would show us how to attract the next generation. Conversations made it clear however that generational distinctives are dwarfed by the more significant changes that come under the “Postmodern Turn”. So while it’s a group of Gen Xers who bring the generational values of cynicism about authority and a search for authenticity over excellence to their conversation, there are many older and younger people who share their journey.
Solomon’s Porch
A number of people found it helpful to explore what ‘emerging church’ might look like in reality in one of the communities associated with the Emergent movement. We looked at Solomon’s Porch, exploring the connection between relational theology, liturgy and couches. I suspect some were quite pleased to find the occasional flaw in the methodology. These “Emergents” are human after all.
Personal Reflection
Tony and I quickly became fellow travelers, sharing the challenges of transition. We spent time chasing a missing suitcase (see photo above), left by the flight attendant on the tarmac in Sydney. We went to the gym together, spent time walking the beach, and shared a few meals. In that time, I observed humility and honesty along with a passion for exploring truth. I picked up a few new phrases and words, like “ontological superiority” (our obsession with clergy), and discursive (Tony’s tendency to keep talking when asked questions). Tony’s a provocateur (look that one up) who gets people thinking. Good on ya mate!
See Tony’s blog at tonyj.net for his reflections on his tour of Australia, and check out his latest book, The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier.
This week we are featuring computer programmer Maria from the the USA as our GGB, her survey is below!
Name: Maria G.
Screen Name: Goldie
Person Blogs: http://curiousgoldie.blogspot.com (English)
http://the_real_goldie.livejournal.com (Russian).
Social Networks: vkontakte.ru, LinkedIn.
Current Employment: Programmer at a small company.
Location: Ohio, USA
What is your reason/motivation for blogging?
Depends on my mood really. Sometimes I blog to vent or to express my opinion about something. I lived in Russia for the first thirty years of my life, and that, I believe, offers me a fresh perspective on many things I see around me living in the US today. Other times it is to share information with my readers. Some days I use the blog as a creative outlet for my writing, and there are times when I use it as a social network. I started out as more of a mommyblogger, but that changed as my two sons became teenagers and I suddenly found it not kosher for myself to discuss their lives in public. I still share my opinions on parenting, though. I have a rather unorthodox approach to parenting and am passionate about this subject. I still do have my sons in mind as I write, but in a different sense than before. I try to write something that they can later come back to and read. By "later", I mean that distant future when their mother is not the uncool old lady anymore!
What is it that you find yourself blogging about, mostly the same stuff or does it vary?
I am all over the place. Life stories, politics, discussions of something other bloggers posted, life updates. When my oldest son was diagnosed with Aspergers three years ago, I did extensive research and posted my findings in the Aspie Digest section of my blog (http://curiousgoldie.blogspot.com/2005/10/aspie-digest-table-of-contents.html).
It is a good reference on Aspergers syndrome that I recommend to anyone interested in the subject. Among what I posted there I have my notes from a Tony Attwood conference that I attended in 2006. He was in our area for one day. It was an amazing experience that helped me greatly.
Dr. Attwood is my hero and if I ever move to Brisbane, he will be the reason. I do blog about work. After 20 years in the field, I feel I have something to say on the subject. Of course, my work-related posts are either general observations or stories from my old jobs. As much as I want to share my hard-earned wisdom, I have to be careful.
What style of blogging do you do, short and regular, or not so regular but long, other? And is your blogging just text or do you also use audio or video?
Like my posts' subjects, this also depends on my mood. It is however also driven by demand. My posts used to be longer and less frequent, but then I noticed that I myself pay more attention to those bloggers that put out short posts and update daily. Another thing I noticed was that, with a few exceptions like Maddox, Violent Acres, Matt Baldwin and other bloggers of that calibre, I cannot finish reading someone else's long post. I get bored and lose focus. With that in mind, I try to keep my posts shorter now. This does not come easy, as I am long-winded.
How Maria became a Geek Girl Blogger:
I have always been a geek girl. School years were a challenge, I've got to say! I liked to write, and wanted to study journalism. It was not, however, possible for me back at the time in my home country. Journalism was considered a prestigious profession, and, because of my Jewish ethnicity and lack of connections, it would have been impossible for me to even be admitted to the school. I had to choose from something technical. I picked programming, because it involved languages, but was still a low-paid and not sought-after profession. I got my degree in CS in 1989 and have been working as a programmer since. I took four years off work when my children were born, and went back as soon as we came to America eleven years ago. I still needed a writing outlet, though. In 2000, I started posting on online forums. Five years later, I heard about blogs and switched to that medium. I do not have many readers, but I enjoy the writing process. I like tweaking the template as well, though I don't have much time for that.
Thanks for reading our latest GGB survey…
If you are a Geek Girl Blogger, or know that you probably are one even if you don’t consider yourself to be one, and you’d like to be featured in our series, then please contact us and we’ll get back to you. We’re currently on the lookout for some new GGB’s so don’t hesitate if you’re interested. We’d love to feature you!
aManda
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