David Emery Online

Fridays

Ok.

I admit it.

I have a problem.

Fridays.

You might have noticed recently that I’ve become pretty lax at posting on Fridays. Admittedly, it’s not really something that matters in the slightest to anybody other then me; my self-imposed one-post-per-week-day rule is there purely so that I don’t end up not posting at all, which is what would inevitably happen.

The whole plan only works though by telling you, the reader, that I post every week day. For some reason it clicks something inside – an obligation, I guess – that means that I end up posting; so I don’t let you folks down.

My schedule is pretty hectic at the moment – let alone next week with the double whammy of BarCamp and Future Of Web Apps – and hence by Friday I’m pretty burnt out, and don’t quite make it to posting. I’ve even started posting on Saturday or Sunday, and dating it as a post on Friday, which is pretty weird now I come to think about it.

I do, however, have a plan to combat my inherent slacker attitude.

Posts on Friday are now going to be a quick roundup of links, gathered during the week. I’ve noticed that I don’t...

Storytelling

Diamond Geezer is one of the better and more widely read UK-based blogs. Normally, it deals with the reality of living in modern London; tube trains, museums the 2012 Olympics – always bordering on the boring but always coming out interesting (even if you’d be ashamed to admit it).

This week however, he’s doing something very interesting – something I’ve never seen done before, and something that really works.

Starting with this post Diamond Geezer has started posting from the future. Shod of the purely informative with a dab of editorial, he’s now moved straight into fiction with rather brilliant effect.

The story he’s weaving is a captivating tale of what appears to be a major terrorist attack on London, told in real time via the blog. Every few hours another post comes down the RSS feed, detailing his survival so far – first escape from a darkened tube train, then his fleeing from the power-mad authorities through the darkness of east London back to home and safety.

The format works so perfectly I’m sure we will see this repeated again (and I also assume that this isn’t the first, although I’ve not seen it before). The central character has so much...

Disruption

That’s what it’s all about.

Changing the norm.

Taking what is normal, established, run of the mill, day to day, obvious, traditional, straight forward.

Making them all look not only old fashioned, but ridiculous.

How did we ever think that was a good idea?

Don’t forget that most people won’t realise what you’ve done till after it’s too late.

Head in the sand.

Hands over ears.

Dead in the water.

Is there something new and popular that you don’t understand?

Too late.

You moved too slow.

Disruption ruins lives, and makes a better future.

TV Models

In an interesting twist to the ongoing change in TV broadcasting, Fox is bringing out a DVD of the first 4 episodes of 24 almost straight after they aired. It’s not too expensive – $14.98 – but seems to cement the idea that TV shows are something you charge for, as opposed to the traditional advertising subsidised model.

Obviously this ties directly in to digital downloads of TV shows; 24 is on the iTunes Store at $1.99 per episode, and is dominating the charts at #2, #4, #5 and #6. However, this obviously isn’t good enough for Fox for catching up people that missed the first episodes, hence the DVD.

It’s interesting to see that Fox are going down the pay-for-tv route almost exclusively – with the DVD being a stake in the sand declaring their intentions. This is in stark contrast to other US TV stations such as NBC, who are offering free, ad supported streams of their shows as soon as they air. Which of the two models is going to be more successful in the long term hangs on some key factors, chief of which is how people are actually going to watch these things.

With downloads from places...

And it rained all night

Rain is fascinating.

We’re all so used to it, but that doesn’t make it any less interesting.

Think about it; by some amazing natural coincidence little invisible bits of water float around in the air until they bump into other little invisible bits of water and get big enough then fall from the sky.

Just think for a minute what it would be like for something different to rain; earth or flowers or small bits of metal instead of water.

Stop.

Think.

Hope you all had a good christmas break, and a very merry new year. Your regularly scheduled programming will return tomorrow.

Ill (again)

I seem to have caught another cold.

Which is nice.

Maybe I need to chill out a bit; de-stress; stop doing quite so much.

That’s not really going to happen, though.

Oh well.

Hopefully I’ll be more coherent tomorrow.

BBC Backstage Bash

Yesterday was the BBC Backstage Xmas Bash and as far as I can tell a good time was had by all.

It made for a nice change at these sort of things that the venue was pretty much spot on – it didn’t get to hot, nobody insisted on turning the DJs up too loud (which always seems to happen, defeating the whole point of being there to talk to people…) and it never got too full. Sure, more free booze would have been nice (always), but we did get cake. Big props as ever go to Ian and all the other organisers – well done folks!

The conversation was diverse and interesting as it always is at these “geek” things, ranging from some more thoughts on personal content publishing, big city IT systems, how to move printing presses and whether the Wii is a good as it looks (short answer: yes). Good to catch up with Matt, Ben, Toby, Steve and Frances amongst many others.

Roll on the next one!

Oh. It seems to be on thursday.

Late

Sorry one and all – this is indeed Friday’s post, coming at you on Saturday evening. I only managed to get though Friday by almost continual top-ups of Lemsip Max Strength (which works wonders*), so a blog post was totally out of the question.

Of course, I would imagine that the vast majority of blog writers would not apologise for not posting for one day – a Friday at that. I do often wonder whether or not my self imposed one-post-per-weekday strategy is one that really pays off in the long run.

Fred Wilson over at A VC has been wondering along similar lines – how often is the optimal frequency to post on a blog? I think once a day works out quite nicely – it’s not too often that you get swamped by posts, but you always know that the content is going to be fresh. It’s also a fairly easy schedule to keep up, from the bloggers point of view – it’s normally not too hard to find 30mins – 1hr a day to update this site.

The only major problem I find with a strict policy on how often you update is that of content – having to...

Ill

I’m ill.

Not that good type of ill (the street slang meaning).

That bad kind – the kind that needs copious amounts of Lemsip.

Hence, no real post today – my brain is bunged up.

I’m going to leave you with a quick question:

Now that we’re nearing the end of the year, lets look back; have you had a good year? Has it been all you wanted it to be? If not, why not? Would you do anything different if could do it all again?

I’ve had a good year, all told – hope you have too.

Soon to come, my countdown of this years best albums – it’ll will hopefully start tomorrow if I can manage to string two sentences together…

Management Material

This week had been an interesting one for me personally, as we’ve taken on someone new at work which has put me firmly in the position of “management”. This is new thing for me – I’ve ordered people around quite a lot in previous jobs, but this is the first time I’ve had to do it officially.

First things first; it’s hard. Not hard as in difficult, but hard as in tiring. Going from a position of the delegated to one of the delegatee is actually quite a radical mind change – more then I had initially anticipated at least. My primary concern has changed from getting my work done to making sure that he’s got enough work to do; not having any problems; not got any questions needing answers.

It’s certainly given me a whole new insight into the field of people management – in all honesty I hadn’t considered it too much from the point of view of a manager that actually cared about their employee. This is mostly due to my abysmal outlook on the rest of humanity – I always assume the worst – but it really adds up when I compare against previous manager-underling situations.

It’s always fascinating...