bookmark_borderFirst World Problems

I’ve been in my flat for just over a week now, I’ve unpacked as much as I can until I purchase more bookcases and it’s starting to feel like home. The living room is a wonderful big space with lots of light, the kitchen is way bigger than my simple needs but allows me to eat at a table every night and the location is wonderful. But, there is one thing missing.

No, not the cat.

An internet connection!

It’s getting installed at the end of the month and whilst I have missed it I’ve gotten by quite well using my iPhone, although it’s fair to say any ‘smartphone’ would’ve done and it’s definitely saved my arse several times this past week as I’ve been organising new direct debits, checking addresses and names, not to mention the myriad of phone numbers I’ve had to contact.

I have gotten so used to having a permanent connection to the web that I’m still finding myself thinking “I’ll just check…” or “I’m bored I’ll see what’s online…” or any other of the many and plentiful (and usually pointless but entertaining) reasons for using the internet that it still catches me out. Suffice to say that, when you include the fact that for the best part of the first week I didn’t have any more than the five terrestial channels, the whole thing has been a bit of a culture shock.

It’s not like I didn’t have anything to do mind you, those boxes didn’t unpack themselves (and I won’t even START on the fiasco that actually selling the house has turned into… I’ll save that for another time), but did mean that my entertainment was largely confined to listening to some music, reading a book, watching a DVD or firing up the PlayStation.

Or tidying and cleaning and unpacking and building furniture and shuffling the last possessions between the house and the flat and far too many trips to charity shops and the local dump and lawyers offices and so on.

All in all it’s been an odd and jarring experience to have my access to the internet, and all the TV channels that I used to get on Sky, removed so abruptly.

Jarring but also quite liberating.

I’ve found myself much more productive without all of those distractions. I’ve hardly read any books yet as they are still packed in boxes, and I find gaming wears on me after a while, most terrestial TV is complete dross and so I either commit to watching a movie or spend 30 mins sorting through a box, or shuffling items between rooms. That 30 mins soon stretches to an hour or two and before I know it I’ve finished unpacking the kitchen.

I built my new desk and got my PC up and running and, despite having a fair amount of video content on there I found myself more inclined to pop some music on and do some writing (most of it complete tosh but I still enjoy the process).

All in all I’ve quite enjoyed that lo-tech week.

I’ve got freeview now, and a nice wee PVR system which uses the PlayStation (Play TV if you are interested), so at least I can record shows I want to see which should open up the TV a bit more, but I’m hoping that I’ll hold true to my plans and stick with a more considered approach. I’ll always be busy, it’s in my nature, but I’m hoping to keep the focus I’ve developed over the past week.

Mind you, I am looking forward to spending a weekend on the sofa soon. Yes. All weekend. Nothing but me, some movies and several boxes of Jaffa cakes.

bookmark_borderISTC West of Scotland meetup

The next ISTC technical communicators’ meeting in Glasgow will take place on Monday 8th November 2010, from 7.30 pm onwards. Come along to talk about latest news and trends in communication, or just to meet other communication professionals.

The event is free and open to anyone interested in technical communication, such as technical authors, information architects, internal communication professionals, report writers, marketing writers, web content writers and graphic designers.

Venue: Waxy O’Connors pub, 44 West George Street, Glasgow, G2 1DH. Please make your way to McTurk’s Room on the middle level.

For more information, contact westscotland_areagroup [at] istc.org.uk.

bookmark_borderThe last weekend

Sunday night will be the last night I spend in the house in Hamilton (trying to get out of the habit of calling it ‘home’). Removal van arrives on Monday morning and, by the afternoon, everything will have been moved into my new home.

So, barring a final visit to give it a quick clean at some point during next week, from Monday I’m officially moved.

Now we just need to finalising the paperwork for the sale of the house and we are done.

It’s still a bit weird at times, and as I’m spending most of my time either working, or making sure I’ve not forgotten to pack something, or complete a form, or make a phone call, I’m bloody knackered and a bit prone to mood swings. So I veer from being hugely tigger-bounce-excited about getting my own place, which I love and will bore you all with photos of at some point, to being a bit maudlin about missing the cat and generally the habits and patterns which we had.

It’s still unsettling for a lot of our friends, and family, that Louise and I are still on good terms and will remain friends, even if we fall out of contact with each other, but I just don’t know how we’d have gotten through the last six months if we’d fallen out and been fighting and horrid and nasty to each other.

The next post on this blog will be from my new home, but that’s dependant on when my broadband installation happens so, until then, be good, and if you can’t be good, be careful!

bookmark_borderWhere are we going?

As the end of the year starts to draw close, inevitably thoughts turn to 2011 and the challenges that may lie ahead. From a product point of view we are starting to get a feel of how the year will shape up, and so we can start to look at how our team negotiates the (still forming) landscape.

It already looks likely that our aim (alongside keeping pace with product development) will be to get to a point where we can correctly focus our efforts around structure, and ad-hoc document requessts. Given that we have access to outcome codes from the Support team, several of which are specifically around product documentation being either wrong, missing, or not read at all, and we will soon have a full set of analytics from our online product documentation, which should put us in a much better position to correctly prioritise those additional work streams rather than fall into the “whoever shouts loudest” model we are currently prey to.

The analytics are powered by Google Analytics and track visits to each topic of the documentation set. The numbers should help point is to areas of the documentation that, for one reason or another, need some attention. This works both ways of course, a high number of views indicates a lot of people using the information, but where are they going afterwards? If they head to the Support area of the website then can we presume the information isn’t correct? And those topics with little to no views, are they not used because they can’t be found?

I’m a little wary of spending too much time analysing the statistics and initially they will be used purely to direct us to the outliers, those topics that for one reason or another are causing anomalies in the reported numbers. Once we smooth those out then it will require a lot more deep-dive style root cause analysis which, as with everything else, will bring a fresh set of challenges and hopefully some new routes of communication with our customers.

bookmark_borderMiscellany

Random thoughts of a Sunday morning.

And yes, I’m sitting waiting to get through to buy my ticket for Glastonbury next year. No, the website won’t load, yes the phone line is constantly engaged.

You know you are bad at packing when you have several open ‘I’ll-just-take-them-in-the-car’ boxes.

Anyone else on WordPress seeing a lot more spam in their comments? Thank the lord for Akismet! By the way, does anyone pay for that? Is it like Xmarks, something you’d pay for but don’t?

Speaking of which, if you use Xmarks and want to, maybe, see if you paying for it would keep it going (it’s folding up), then go read this!

Sorting through boxes that have been unopened and in your loft for several years isn’t all that fun. The reality of what is happening is writ large in the memories we will always share.

I need to buy a new kettle. Must remember to write that down somewhere.

Music wise I seem stuck in a bit of a BBC Radio 6 place, all new bands, luscious sounds and the odd blast from the past. Where did all the rock music go?

Quite excited to go to Glastonbury next year though, never been and will need advice on what to take and what NOT to take. Also where the feck to sleep, in a tent? Off-site somewhere? And, of course, there will be endless rounds of “right, I’ll go and see them and then head there to see her, and then I’ll… ohh, wait no. I’ll go and see him, and then her, then I’ll go there to see… no… right. OK, this time… I’ll start here and…”

The cat likes boxes. Specifically, sleeping in them. Specifically, one that almost got taped shut as I presumed from the weight that it was as full as it could be.

You know how I have that other blog, well I wondered why I hadn’t had any comments on it and realised I’d turned them off. Only thing is, I turned them back on but they don’t work. I’ve decided this is for a reason and I’m leaving them off.

It gets really boring sitting watching a website NOT load, hitting F5 over and over and over and over…

Ohhh and applications that popup a dialog and steal focus, with OK set as the default button so, when I’m typing and glance down at the keyboard, the dialog pops up just as I hit the spacebar… in other words, I don’t even see anything except a brief blip on the screen then something starts up, or shuts down. Yeah. I DO NOT LIKE THOSE!

I have a lot patience threshold. 45 minutes sitting waiting and I’m at the “you know, if it’s this bad getting tickets, what is it going to be like at the fucking thing? It’ll probably rain anyway… shall I even bother?”. Then I think of the alternatives… T in the Park, and decide, yeah, I’ll hang in there a bit longer. Note to T in the Park, up your prices! (in the hope of weeding out the dickheads).

Hmmmm yes, yes I am a snob. This fact doesn’t really bother me.

It’s amazing what you can achieve in one room whilst waiting on a website to load. That’s my little office ready to be moved.

And yes, this is what Twitter is like. Except those big long sentences obviously.

bookmark_borderSvetlana

Svetlana

She can’t remember much of her childhood, a life spent travelling from town to provincial town, her parents picking up jobs where they could until something, as it inevitably did, went wrong. She tries not to remember the shouting and yelling, the men fighting, the women cursing, the pointing, the stares, the hasty packing of meagre belongings and the jolt of yet another train carriage.

She has always been looked at, glances becoming stares. She is used to it now but it wasn’t always this way, she remembers moments of peace, childhood memories of dolls and quiet places.

She knows she was loved, that her parents understood her life and how she was seen by others, she knew why they looked on her so, a girl who didn’t belong, who didn’t fit. She was an outsider, accepted by some who understood that the world will always turn, shunned by others who thought it flat.

But all that is in her past, she keeps it close to her heart, refuses to deny it and uses it to drive herself forwards, day follows day, and her life will be her own, she will be happy. She is determined. Driven. Passionate. She knows her faults and lies, and holds her head high despite them.

As a teenager she took the time to learn of her ancestory, enveloping herself in the clothes and traditions of her mother’s homeland. The stories of the tribes and dynasties, passed down from generation to generation, are found in the soft curve of her dark eyes and the kindness of her nature. Her pale skin she inherits from her Scandinavian father, a gentle sheen that shimmers and glows, pulsing sunlight. She knows she is an odd mix from distant lands, she revels in exotic.

She is proud that she retains only the happy memories, taking comfort that she still prefers the solitude of the single child. She remembers days spent running through fields, dancing her way through stalks of wheat, swaying in time with the breeze, their feathery tops tickling her face as she spins and spins, dancing and falling to ground. Laughing, panting, happy to be in her moment, free from life, exploring her own being. The pattern was set back then, those moments of elation, the joy of letting go and the release of embracing her longings.

The final move was the hardest on them all. The cold winters of Sweden were. all too soon,  too much for her parents to bear. Alone she continued, happy to live under the gothic ancestry, adding yet another culture to her makeup, another twist to an already unique perspective. She was a definition only of herself, teasing what she wanted from her heritage, ignoring the rest and filling the gaps with anything she pleased.

She always knew she was different and her inner confidence, inherited from her mother, found her curious of everything in life, fascinated by cultures and religions alike, eager to experiment and understand.

Eventually, after many years of travelling, she found her way to Varmland, met the musicians and artists that congregate there and soon realised she had found her way home. All she had to do was follow her own desires.

She was in control, she was grace and beauty in her own eye, and soon everyone would see this to be true. She spent her days wandering the countryside, blissfully unaware of the world around her, lost in her thoughts, the memories of her childhood and the dances she led.

She remembers all of this, each glorious moment pinsharp in her mind. As she sits in the changing area backstage, quietly she closes her eyes and she is that beautiful child again, the soft eyes, and pale skin aglow, porcelain pure. As the languorous thump of the music echoes down the corridors, she stands and checks her appearance in the mirror, scantily clad, she runs her hand down and over the curve of her hips, she smiles. She is different. She is beautiful.

She pulls her gown over her shoulders, turns on a statuesque heel and makes her way to the stage.

As she pirouettes, fluid and sensuous in her movement, she forgets herself. The leering spotlight and shadowy faces disappear. Beyond the stage the room turns to her and once again, they stare.