Dopp Juice

Coming up on a year of working with Cerado. First time I’ve let a tech contract last that long. And still in love with them.
(via twitter)

Putting together my October invoice for Cerado this morning, I realized this month will mark a year with them.  I’ve been building websites for ten years and living in the Bay Area for four, and this is the first tech contract I’ve let last more than 6 months.

For the last however-many years, I’ve been clinging tightly to the philosophy that if I stay uncomfortable, I’ll grow faster. And I’ve found that shifting jobs every few months is an excellent way to stay uncomfortable. (So is avoiding monogamous relationships, but that’s a can of worms I’ll save for another time.)  I tend to do something for just long enough to learn it, get good at it, and it to my repertoire. Then I arrange for someone else to take my place, and I move on. Why stick around for things to get easy?  I’ve got too much more growing to do.

I’ve been told by various people that at some point, I’ll want to settle down and keep a steady job.  I’ve also been told that I’ll want to get married and have kids.  And that I’ll wish I had my degree.  And that I want to stop working when I’m 65.  And that Pluto’s not really a planet.

That’s nice.

Anyway, my point is: I prefer change to consistency, growth to comfort, and flexibility to structure.  And that’s why I’m still at Cerado.

We do cool stuff, and it’s different every month.   Since being there, I’ve taught airplane mechanics how to use social networking tools; redesigned BlogHer.com; created a monthly newsletter; built a viral online quiz; and managed the development of a new product that’s so fascinating, I’m still not sure I understand it yet (but it works).  It’s kind of like changing jobs every month, only without the “changing jobs” part.

I get to wear all of my hats.  I manage, I write, and I build.  Most firms would probably prefer that I pick one of those and do it consistently. Cerado, on the other hand, thinks it’s pretty cool that I jump around and do whatever I want to do on a project.  When I get to a spot where I need more help, I pick the thing I’m least experienced with and ask Chris to go hire someone for it.  So far, this strategy seems to be working just fine.

I get to do all my other cool stuff, too.  I’m not quite sure how I pulled this one off, but I seem to have landed in a company that thinks the more I do outside of it, the more valuable I am.  So I travel and go to conferences as often as I can, and I just take my work with me on the plane.  Even more miraculously, though, they’re incredibly supportive of my adventures in queerdom and sex geekery, and I’m getting lots of encouragement to make Genderfork, Queer Open Mic, and Boffery successful. This blows my mind.

I get to work with amazing mad geniuses. Hanging out with Chris Carfi and Mark Resch (and all of the other mad geniuses they tend to attract for lunch meetings) has created frequent surges of brilliance and a constant reminder to think.  Example: In the middle of a meeting one afternoon, Mark made a casual comment about something that would make his life easier.  He and Chris immediately jumped on the idea and started working out all the details for how they could design that product and bring it to production within a month.  Five minutes later, they were back on track with the meeting.  I blinked a few times, shook my head, and carried on.

So in case you were wondering why I’m still hanging out with this strange posse, it’s because they’re a perfect fit.

When Katie Green shot this, I had just been fixing blogs and ranting about better marketing practices for about 5 hours straight. So I was a little manic in the moment. Enjoy!

I’m stepping off my soapbox now.

Correction: I misspoke on one point in this interview: I haven’t “been to all of the major BlogHer conferences except for the first one” — I’ve also missed the BlogHer Business conferences. Sorry about that.

The BlogHer Geek Lab in Washington, DC was loaded with questions about how to improve a blog and increase its reach.  I ended up on my soapbox more times than I expected, ranting about misinformation and imploring bloggers to rethink their strategies.

I’m summarizing most of my rants below because I think they’ll be helpful to some people.  Please keep in mind that I’m coming at this from my own experience.  I’m not an “ad revenue” blogger, and there are plenty out there who can give you tips on what they’ve done to be successful. I encourage you to go talk to them, too.

The Goals Rant

If you ask me, “How can I make my blog better?” I’m going to ask you what “better” means.  What are your goals? If you don’t know, stop whatever you’re doing right now and figure them out.  Here are some common ones:

I want to…

• express myself in a creative, positive way.
• vent my frustrations in a safe and constructive way.
• work through some challenging issues.
• document a process or experience.
• create a space for myself that’s separate from my daily life.
• establish a certain kind of reputation.
• convey a certain tone and aesthetic.
• serve a certain community in a certain way.
• build a community that supports me.
• make money with ads and affiliate revenue.
• find new work/jobs/clients/customers.
• maintain my existing work/jobs/clients/customers.
• give friends and family a way to keep track of me.
• keep track of my thoughts and the interesting things I’ve found on the web.

If you have a lot of these goals (and hopefully some others I haven’t named yet), that’s great!  Now you need to prioritize them. Which ONE do you care about first and foremost? How about second? Third? Fourth? Lay them all out in order — NO TIES! It’s fine if your priorities change in the future, but you need to be honest with yourself about what they are right now.

Once you’ve got that, you’ll know what “better” means. And you’ll probably be able to brainstorm about 20 answers to your original question without any help from me now, too.

The Money Rant

So you want to make money from blogging, and you’ve heard that ad revenue is the way to go.  That’s great and I completely support you, but let’s talk about it for a minute.

Read the rest of this entry »

Technorati Tags: blogher geek lab

We had a steady stream of conversations and template hacking in the Geek Lab at BlogHer Boston yesterday. Here were some of the major questions that came up (and my quick-version answers, for those hacking at home):

Q: How can I find photos that are okay to blog?

A: Here’s a trick: go to Flickr’s Advanced Search page and scroll to the very bottom. Check the box that reads “Only search within Creative Commons licensed content.” If you’re planning to use the picture on something you’re selling, also check the “commercial use” box. If you’re planning to edit the picture, also check the “modify, adapt” check box. Then scroll back up to the search term box and run your search as usual. All of the photos that come up will be ones you can legally use on your blog. Most will require “attribution”, which means you should clearly display the username of the person who originally uploaded it and include a link back to the Flickr page the photo lives on.

Q: What’s RSS? What’s a blog reader? What should I be doing with these?

A: I’m just gonna cheat right now and show you the Common Craft video:

Q: How can I give my readers a way to receive automatic updates about my blog posts by email?

A: There are a few different ways to do this, and today we used Feedburner. Go to Feedburner.com, create an account, and follow their instructions to create a Feedburner RSS feed for your blog. Then go to the “Publicize” tab, click “Email Notifications,” and activate it. Follow their instructions to put the subscription form (or a link to it) on your blog. (Hint: we figured out that if you’re using Wordpress.com, you have to use the link instead of the subscription form.)

Q: How do I add a link or an image to a blog post?

A: If you’re just starting to blog, creating posts that look the way you want can be a pain. So before you go any further, get to know the toolbar at the top of your text box. It’s usually a series of buttons, starting with bold and italic, and moving on to lists, text alignment, links, images, and other nifty bells and whistles. Just poke around and figure out what they all do. The one for creating a link is usually a picture of a metal chain link, or a globe, or both (I know, it’s weird and non-intuitive, but they were trying to be metaphorical…). The option for adding an image will usually give you two options: upload from your hard drive or enter the URL to a photo that’s already somewhere on the web.

Q: How do I add stuff to my sidebars? What if I have to work with code?

A: If you’re using Wordpress, try going to Presentation -> Widgets. If you’re using Blogger, try Layout -> Page Elements. If you’re using Typepad, try Design -> Select Content. Assuming your template supports it, you can usually get away with simple drag-and-drop customizing that will let you do really neat stuff.

You may find yourself needing to use HTML and/or CSS to make it work the way you want it to, though. This can get tricky, but don’t worry, it’s not the end of the world. If you’ve used HTML before, refresh your memory by checking out the HTML Cheat Sheet. If you’d like to learn some new skills from scratch, check out some of the tutorials available for HTML and CSS — they’re free. If you want do some deep customization but you don’t want to touch any code, consider hiring someone who knows what they’re doing to help you. And if you don’t want to touch code and you don’t want to spend money, it’s probably time to switch to a better free template.

Q: I want to customize my blog more! How do I switch to Wordpress software?

A: Great! First, make sure you really want to do this. It’s a lot like moving into a new house — you’re going to feel discombulated for a while, but if it’s worth it, it’s worth it.

To get started, you need a domain name and a hosting account. A number of attendees highly recommended Bluehost.com as a place to get both of these, but there are many options. (Sidenote: a good place to research a hosting company’s reputation is the Web Hosting Forum.)

Once you’ve got that all set up, go to Wordpress.org and download the most recent version of the software. It’ll be a large file, and you should unzip it and upload it to your new hosting account via FTP (your host can tell you how to do this). Then go to the URL where you think your blog should now be, and you’ll probably see an installation page. Follow the instructions and pay careful attention when it asks you about importing content from an existing blog. That’s the holy grail. After you’ve got your content loaded in, the resources available at Wordpress.org will help you start customizing things. This is also when you should start searching the web for free Wordpress themes, which is hands-down one of most exciting searches you will ever do.

All in all, it was an inspiring day and informative day. I especially loved connecting with (::deep breath::) Naked Anarchists, Lisa Williams, Beth Kanter, Alissa Kriteman, Suzanne Reisman, Dana Rudolph, Sassymonkey, Liz Henry, Kristy, Lisa, Elisa, Jory, and a bunch of others. What a powerful posse of brilliant women!

And now… onto Washington DC!

Technorati Tags: BlogHer, boston, geek lab

This Saturday and Monday, I’ll be organizing the Geek Lab at BlogHer’s Reach Out tour in Boston and Washington DC.

So what’s the Geek Lab? Here’s the official spiel:

Every city on the Reach Out Tour will feature a Geek Lab happening in parallel to the Blogging Basics track and each city’s Custom track. Part OpenSpace, part mentoring program, part hack-fest. If you’re an advanced geek, here’s your all-day Birds of a Feather opportunity. If you’re not an advanced geek, here’s where you’ll find them…and find answers.

Whoever shows up will either get help or give help, or — in the case of most people — both.  I’m going to ask you about your experience levels, remind you that the stuff you already know is immensely valuable, and find out what directions you’re trying to grow in. Then we’ll skip the rest of the small talk and dive immediately into making our blogs better.

Between a core group of traveling smart folks (like blog hacker extraordinaire Liz Henry) and your fellow conference attendees, the Geek Lab will have the resources to help you with pretty much anything you’re looking for.

There’s a palpable energy that builds in the air whenever you get a room full of mostly-women into brainstorming and creative problem-solving mode, especially when technology is involved. It’s exciting and inspiring, and it leaves you with a renewed motivation to hack and revise your entire world.

Here’s what I’ve found from other events like this:

• If you don’t know what you want help with, you’ll figure it out as soon as you start talking.
• If you don’t know how you can help other people, you’ll figure it out as soon as they start talking.
• Getting help is wonderful.
• Being helpful is one of the most satisfying feelings in the world.

So if you’ll be at the conferences and you’d like some personalized bursts of brilliance, just show up to the Geek Lab, find the woman with the shaved head, and say hello.  The rest will take care of itself.

Technorati Tags: BlogHer, geek lab, hacking

If you had unlimited resources (including a team of brilliant developers), and you were building a website that met following requirements, which programming language(s) would you use and why?

• Spider-web-style map visualizations with drag-and-drop capabilities (in AJAX, not Flash)
• A large database with lots of cross-references (tagging, stories, user accounts with different levels of connection)
• High traffic, needs to be fast
• Clear core requirements, but the expectation that lots of other features will be added in the future

Your answer will aid the widespread rehabilitation of sex on the internet.

Thank you all for the positive responses to my story about spending time with the guy I found by the ocean who was having a bad experience on too many drugs.

Even my mother, fortunately, responded with “I’m so proud of you”… which, I think, is a pretty big deal. Most moms I know would be inclined to scream, “WHAT ON EARTH WERE YOU DOING IN THAT DANGEROUS SITUATION?!”

I’ve gotten some responses, though, that put my actions up on some kind of superhuman pedestal, that’s a little weird to me.  (I got some of that after the
“homicidal drunk on the airplane” story, too)   When people need us (you, me, anyone), we help the way we know how to help, and we don’t think twice about it.  There’s nothing magical about that.  It’s just showing up.

But people can only respond to what I give them, so it seems misleading at this point not to disclose another piece of my history: I’ve gotten help for substance abuse.

Several years ago, I went through a period where I was severely depressed.  I leaned heavily on alcohol to survive it. Pretty quickly, my reliance on alcohol become more destructive than my depression.

There’s a long story here, and I’m going to give you the really short version.  I scared myself, I realized I needed help, and I went into an alcohol abuse recovery program (the famous one — the one you’re not supposed to name). I also started seeing a therapist.  I spent eight months battling my compulsive actions and the depression that caused them, until I finally got to the root of the problem:

I was queer and not accepting it.

(Ain’t that one a stinker?)

I worked through the depression, and then worked with my therapist to experiment with letting alcohol back into my life.  I drank lightly, socially, and didn’t enjoy getting drunk.  I wasn’t, by the program’s definition, an alcoholic.

The recovery program and I had a very sad breakup, in which I couldn’t really explain my story because it didn’t fit their model for recovery.  I’m still a huge fan of their program, though. I’ve seen it help lots of people — people who sincerely want to be helped — and I think, hands-down, it’s one of the best paths out there.  I know it helped me immensely.

But back to why I’m telling you this: the moral of the story is that I’ve spent stretches of time in community with people who are struggling with self-destructive behavior and trying to help each other through it.  I learned strategies that allow me to be present for people without letting their pain and flailing get too close to me.  And after a few minutes of conversation, I can usually tell the difference between someone who’s really looking for help and someone who’s still trying to control the situation.

This complicated stretch of my life, by the way, is also where I learned that hanging out by the ocean is a good way to remember that I’m not in control, either.

Walking down to the beach last night after dinner, I noticed there was a young athletic-looking guy lying on his back on a platform, shirtless and in basketball shorts, staring at the sky.  It looked like a nice place to rest and look up. I walked past him.

Before I got to the water, I heard a loud yell.  Like an “AAH!”  Then a pause.  Then another one.  Then I realized it was coming from him.  No one else was close enough to notice it or respond.

For a minute, I rolled my eyes and shot an accusatory glance at the ocean. That’s nice, but I have to work tonight. Get someone else, okay?

Two more yells.

Okay, fine.

I walked up to him.  “Hey! Are you okay?”

He shook his head like he was trying to talk, and nothing came out.  I saw that he was shivering, and took a few steps closer.

“Hey.  Do you need me to call an ambulance?

He found my face and said, “No. No. No. Please.”

“Okay. No problem. What do you need?  Are you cold?  Do you need a blanket?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. I’ll see what I can do.  Did you take drugs?”

“Yes.”

“What kind of drugs?  Did you take LSD?”

“No.”

My brain ran out of other drug ideas.  “What did you take?”

No response.  I looked at his scattered stuff.  There was a backpack, a textbook, a book called Kama Sutra for Gay Men, a towel, and a jacket wrapped around his leg.  He couldn’t move.  I climbed onto the platform and wrapped the towel across his chest.  I pulled the jacket off his leg, lifted him up by the shoulders, and placed it underneath his back.

I ended up spending four hours with him.  The first two were just sitting there, in the cold, trying to get him to talk.  He passed out a few times and I shook him back awake.  His name was Joey. He was 31.  His parents were in Arizona.  He hadn’t seen them in a long time and they didn’t accept him. He was gay.  He was a massage therapist.  He wanted to join the military.  He loved to cook.  He was addicted to meth, and was in a harm reduction program. He was homeless.  He wouldn’t say whether this was a suicide attempt or not. Read the rest of this entry »

Sooo….. this week, we accidentally launched a startup.

We were quietly going about our business, scheming and building and testing our hearts out, keeping things nicely under wraps… when all of a sudden we ended up on Valleywag. And then CNet News. Um, hai.

So… you want to know what we’re building. That’s a great question. Here’s a hint: it’s a lot less scary and outlandish than the press is making it out to be.  But hey — why take the fun out of things?  Go ahead and keep pretending that we’re out to ruin lives. We think it’s funny.

Oh, and by “we,” I mean there are four of us.

We’ll let you in on the action soon.  Until then, we recommend using your twitter, tumblr, and flickr vision.

Happy boffing!

Technorati Tags: , boffery, crazy fear-based reporting

I heard a rumor that September starts tomorrow.  I’m certain this rumor is false and I fully intend to hunt down and interrogate whatever mischeivous internet prankster is trying to end summer early on us, so don’t worry.  But before I go do that, I just wanted to jot down a quick bulleted list of neat stuff that happened this summer which I would have blogged about if I hadn’t been so busy… you know… doing life.

• I managed the redesign of BlogHer.com (via Cerado and with the help of BlogHer’s awesome staff).  Here’s the before and after.
• I was quoted in the New York Times in an article about blogging.
• I launched QueerOpenMic.com (and I LOVE my new gig there as co-host).
• I secretly started working on an incredibly interesting new startup that I’m not going to tell you about for awhile.
• I joined the BlogHer Reach Out Tour, which will host conferences in six east coast cities in October, and I’ll be facilitating their Geek Lab.
• Genderfork (my androgyny photo blog project) received an excellent review in Coilhouse yesterday.
• I went to Burning Man.
• I’m going to be performing (a hillarious story that I’m not going to share on the Internet) in the Sept 13 show of Working for the Weakened. You should come!

And you already know about my grandmother.  So I guess I had a pretty full summer.  And yeah.  Okay.  I think maybe it’s alright for it to end now.

Hello, Autumn.  Missed you.