maupuia calling

Celtics - NBA champions for the first time in 22 years. I guess I’m a believer in omens.

22 years ago, the last time they were champions was possibly the best year of my life …

I was 24, just finished an Honours degree in Philosophy. A good part of me wanted to carry on to, you know, academia and the PhD, but my grades weren’t quite good enough for a scholarship and …

A year earlier I’d picked up a cycling magazine. By chance, but it really was another omen. The cover story was about cycling across America. The cover photo was of a bike and rolling road stretching into infinity. It had haunted me for a year, the idea of doing that. I persuaded John, my friend, to join and we worked all summer and into autumn to save enough money. One day in early May a container ship - the Columbus Virginia - sailed into Wellington and a day later John and I were sailing to America, working our passage across the Pacific.

We arrived in Tacoma, Washington and watched the Celtics defeat the Houston Rockets in 6 games - Bird, McHale, Parish at their peaks - in various bars in Washington. Later that year I was in New England when their number one draft pick, Len Bias, died of a cocaine overdose the night he got drafted, and then when the Red Sox lost to the Yankees in the World Series finals. The end of one era and another never begun.

The states we cycled across are a roll-call in my mind - Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Virginia. Down the Pacific coast, through the high country of Montana to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons, across the Rockies and the plains of the midwest. The rollercoaster hills of the Ozarks and the mining hollows of Kentucky, to the coast on Chesapeake Bay.

Late that year I travelled across to London, moved into a flat out west, in Brentford. On New Year’s eve, 1986, in a pub on Gloucester Rd, I met Debbie.

So it’s 22 years later and the Celtics are again NBA champions.

And maybe, in a sense, I’ve just set out to cycle America again. I’m not sure what mountains and headwinds lie ahead, but I know I have that same sense of excitement and anticipation and feeling that good things lie just over that next rise.

The Celtics are NBA champions again and I believe in omens.

We had an egovernment BarCamp yesterday. It may be the first egovernment BarCamp worldwide? It certainly was the 2nd BarCamp in New Zealand. egovernment BarCamp, New Zealand’s second-best BarCamp :)

It rocked! I can’t imagine anywhere else in the world having something quite like this. There were influential government people there who totally get this stuff. There were vendors large and small, designers and geeks-at-large who I sit there in awe of at what they know.

I had in my mind that this was sort of like the un-Knowledge Wave conference. That is, it might actually be the start of something that makes a difference. It seems to me that this grass-roots stuff, combined with the “geeks do stuff” knowledge of people who were there, plus the “awesome power of social media” might just mean there’s a chance of small things talked about and decided upon developing into larger things that do make a difference. I went away with a feeling of community and hope. And that was before the first wine of the evening!

Some random-y thoughts. SSC is well-served by people like Mike Pearson, Jason Ryan and Hugh McPhail, and the public service benefits from people like Che Tibby, Pete McVicar, Jo McLeod et al. Wellington does community. Seeing so many erstwhile “competitors” not really giving a shit about that and just sharing, talking and connecting was awesome - by growing the pie together, everyone benefits. People are really excited about Webstock :) There are really smart people around.

It has been a tiring weekend though. I can’t believe I’m still awake at 11pm writing this. Deb and I took Nat out for dinner on Friday and talked about most everything. And then Nat and Tash come here on Saturday night after post BarCamp drinks and we talked about most everything else. And this afternoon we had a Webstock meeting and talked about publicity and Webstock Minis and speakers.

Still, with all that, a lazy morning today with kids and watching Dr Who together tonight is hard to beat.

So, finally, we launched!

I love the site. I love the lineup of speakers we have. I love all involved in making Webstock happen. As they say in “The Castle”, it’s all about “the vibe”, and I think we have that for Webstock. People seem genuinely excited about it.

My one regret? I wanted the tagline for Webstock to be - “Webstock. 4th best in New Zealand”, but they wouldn’t let me. And yeah, you either get the reference or you don’t!

There’s a song by Bill Direen called “America” that ends with the words, “heading to America, and beyond”. I absolutely love the song and when I first traveled in the US, in 1986, it was one I played a lot. It conjured up a promise of a new, different land. An adventure.

And so, we’re a week away from traveling to America again. It’s been almost a year since we first talked about it. A year seemed so far off, not real, not really even a dream. Just something always in the future. It’s crept up on me and now I’m started to get excited.

Deb and I always travel well together. We don’t fight or argue or even really stress. It may be that’s because our first trip together - three months cycling in France and Spain - we did that a lot! It’s out of our system or something. But since then, our traveling has been great. It will be different this time, with Matthew and Joshua coming. We really haven’t traveled anywhere together as a family before. I think it’s going to be wonderful, just the four of us, heading to America and beyond.

Ah, winning. Such an ephemeral concept. So eagerly sought after, so strived for, and yet in the end, so transient. And what does it mean to win? It’s such a relative concept, measured in so many ways. One might, for example, win on some spurious measure, some meaningless numerical counting, and yet lose in other, more important ways.

But I digress.

I’m here to pay tribute to the moral superiority, the intellectual acuity and the all-round web prowess of Philip Fierlinger, Brenda Leeuwenberg and Che Tibby. And the texting ability of Che’s partner - but, again, I digress. In a rollicking debate, the team of Philip, Brenda and Che did extremely well to negate the motion that “Web 2.0 is all fizz and no substance” against the superior charisma, humour and good looks of myself, Sandy Mamoli and Mark Cubey.

What can I say. Web 2.0 was the winner on the day and all credit to the opposing side. And special mention to the even-handed moderation of Rowan. I loved the evolution from “web debate” through “debatr” to “LOLdebate”.

It was a wonderful Webstock Mini. Opening speaker Leigh Blackall introduced us to a word of Second Life beyond that of Orientation island. I can see the appeal of hanging out online with friends, sharing an online space and interacting in real time. There’s potential to do things and develop relationships in different ways than other media. And yet, it seems a tad clunky and to come with a lengthy learning curve. Who has the time? Well, Leigh obviously, in between watching for his bosses to come see what he’s doing! :) I do take his point though, that this is all so very early days. We’re taking such baby steps, in Second life and on the internet, comparable with those early days of cinema. Ways of being are changing with online. Who knows, quite, how we’ll be relating to each other and the world in 10 or 20 years.

Robert O’Callahan is a really interesting guy. He did his PhD at Carnegie-Mellon university, worked in research at IBM, and has now come back to New Zealand inspired by the mission of the Mozilla Foundation. He wants to have more New Zealanders, in New Zealand, paid to be working on developing Firefox. How cool is that! I love talking to geeks (meant in the best sense of the word), and continually find it humbling that someone as untechy as me gets the chance so often.

There seems to be a buzz that’s developing more and more about these events. Seeing so many people from the industry there - private and public sectors, designers, developers, writers - all talking, drinking, networking, making connections and friends makes what we’re trying to do with Webstock worthwhile. The passion we have for Webstock gets fed and nourished.

It was also very cool to see Peter Griffin from the New Zealand Herald write 1, 2, 3 articles about Webstock Mini. Compare and contrast with the Wellington media who seem oblivious to what’s happening on their doorstep. Something that was apparent when we ran Webstock last year and hasn’t improved since.

We’re looking at running one or two more Minis this year. It’ll be fun!

So I’m 45 today. Almost assuredly half my life has gone. It seems only the blink of any eye ago that I was 25, living in London, having just met Debbie.

The blink of any eye. I can conjure up vivid memories of those days, so young. A whole life waiting, spread out before me.

And now I sit. 20 years later. The blink of an eye. Half a life trailing behind me. A life that still seems to have been spent waiting for something.

And in those 20 years? I’m studied, married, mortgaged and parented.

I was somewhere and they asked what’s something you’d bring back from the future to now. I said my great-grandchildren. I’ll never see them. I knew 2 of my great-grandparents. A chain stretching through time, through me, from my past to the future I had a hand in creating.

The blink of any eye.

Perhaps your children are the enduring legacy you leave to the world. Tomorrow my Dad is 70. It seems only the blink of an eye ago I was sitting on his knee listening to stories.

Continuing evidence. It’s always the grammar that goes first.

Sign in a lift at Kenepuru Hospital. Note the twinked out apostrophes after “certificate” and “service”.

Said Matt today as we were walking up the path home, “You’re the best Dad in the world.” Said Matt immediately after that, “Of course, you’re the only Dad i have!”

I’m not, of course, the “best Dad in the world”. I’m grumpy and impatient with the kids lots. I’m tired all the time. I yell at them more than they deserve. I never make enough time to play with them.

But I am the only Dad they have, so I guess they’re kinda stuck with me.

Ah, but we have such fun sometimes. This morning I was dancing round like a fool and making up songs about them - songs about Matt eating garbage and Josh eating cat-food. They’re of an age where that sort of thing is the most fun in the world. Although Matt is of an age where he can do the “I’m so embarrassed he’s my Dad look”. As this morning.

We had all walked up to school - well, Josh and I had walked up together and Matt had run on ahead of us - and Josh and I were in the corridor putting his bag away. Matt walked past with him friends, ignoring us. Josh pipes up, completely happy to see his brother, “Hi Matt!!”. I piped up, completely wanting to make Matt and his friends look, “Hi Matt”. Matt half-waved and grimaced and walked on. But at the end of the corridor, he turned back, and gave me this wonderful little smile. Like, yeah, I am actually his Dad and he’s pretty cool with that.

Josh snuck into our bed last night. I woke to him curled up around me, his little leg draped over mine, both of us curled up on the edge of the bed. He wakes up in the morning, smiles and says, “I love you Dad”.

Moments like that, and Matt’s smile in the corridor and an unexpected comment walking up to the house.

They’re moments when they forgive you all your sins.

So, Jo, who made us all feel really old at Webstock Mini doesn’t know what life without the internet is. I nearly got up and did an impromptu 2 min speech. It would have gone something like this.

I’m 45 in nearly two weeks.

I was 17 before I used a computer - a mainframe, my first year at University.

I was 25 before I used a PC for the first time. And then only for two days before I got fired from my job!

I was 29 before I owned a PC and used one on a regular basis.

I was 31 before I heard of the internet. Someone showed my a copy of Wired Magazine. I had no idea what the url address meant.

I was 32 before I saw a website. My friend was involved in building one. I couldn’t comprehend what an anchor was.

I was 33 before I sent my first email. 33!!

I was 34 before I built my first website.

I was 43 before I downloaded my first mp3. Having said that, I was not much older than 43 when I downloaded my 6,000th mp3.

I was 44 before I downloaded my first video from YouTube.

My son, Matthew, is 8. He goes to www.wwe.com each day and keeps up to date with the latest wrestling news. He knows all there is to know about wrestling. Although he’s wrong thinking Batista will beat the Undertaker in at Wrestlemania. The Undertaker is a phenom.

My son, Johsua, is 5. His browser of preference is Firefox over Internet Explorer. He can’t read, but can navigate, play games, find his way around.

What amazes me is not so much how the internet has changed my life, but how it won’t change theirs.

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I need to shout-out, as they say, to Jo Eaton whom I met in person for the first time at Webstock Mini. I’ve only known her virtually for 7 or 8 years! She was of the very few New Zealand people who knew of my online journal back in the day.

And it was lovely to meet with Martha also. “Wanda Harland”, it seems, is her “porn name”. The name of your first pet, followed by the street you first lived in. Mine would be Henry Ironside. It has a certain ring.

I thought Webstock Mini last Tuesday was great! More than any other event we’ve run outside of the the main conference, there was a real buzz, a feeling of networking, and, most of all, a sense of shared community. Maybe it’s because people are recognising others from these events. Maybe it was the venue - the Paramount Theatre on a lovely balmy Wellington summer evening. Whatever, it was just plain fun to be wandering around during the breaks, talking and listening to over 110 like-minded people.

First speaker, Rod Drury, talked on “Interaction Design for Competitive Advantage”. I liked the examples, and especially the sneak preview of Xero, which looked stunning. The idea is essentially design-led development and it just makes complete sense to me. A focus on the experience of using a product, where experience is meant in the widest sense, has the potential to break open a market in the way the iPod has. Using MYOB, which Xero is directly targeting, is something I haven’t heard anyone say nice things about.

So it’s not just designing something that looks great. It’s not just making something that’s a delight to use. It’s not just developing something that is technically impressive. And it’s not just bringing something to market that fulfills or creates a need. It’s doing all of those at the same time, and at the right time.

Rod’s central point seemed to be that interaction design, used properly, allowed a lot of the things that needed to be designed, tested, refined, thrown away to be done early on in the development process. So that decisions could be made before it was too costly to change, and that development could start within the proper parameters. Like I said, it makes a lot of sense to me.

Peter Gutmann talked on the Digital Copyright Bill. I wanted to ask him whether the proposed wording of the bill was because of cock-up or conspiracy. It seems probably both. Cock-up because a lot of the issues involved are technical, and quite probably the drafters of the bill haven’t quite understand how some of these things work. Conspiracy because, well, content providers has vested interests and New Zealand’s membership of the World Trade Organisation no doubt carries responsibilities [where’s the HTML tag for “sarcasm” when you need it] as well as privileges. Peter was great. A geek in the best sense of the word - long hair and dressed in jeans and Windows Vista t-shirt. Who said irony is dead!

The final part of the evening was the “10 x 2″ session. Ten speakers for a somewhat loose 2 minutes each on a somewhat loose topic - “How the internet changed my life!” A variety of ages, experiences and presentation styles were all in evidence. And somehow it all worked. I liked Mark Cubey’s a lot. I’ve admired him ever since I arrived at Victoria University in 1980 and he was writing in and editing Salient, pumping out great concert reviews of the Fall.

So I’m already thinking up topics and speakers for the next Webstock Mini. I have no life!

On the subject of Webstock, Hustle for Russell is a great cause for one of our favourite people.