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This is a belated announcement about Barcamp Manchester 2008, the free self-organizing tech conference spearheaded by uber-networkers and buddies Ian and Kelley Muir. It's happening Dec 6th, 2008 at UNH Manchester at 400 Commercial Street. That's thiscoming Saturday, starting at 9:30AM and finishing up at 5:00PM. Lunch is provided for registered attendees.
I'm not sure what to expect this time around, as I haven't been involved at all with it this year. Nevertheless, this Saturday I'll be breaking my hermitage to check out the local technology / internet / social media scene here in New Hampshire. There should be a few Barcamp Boston people there too. I'm looking forward to a mellow, informative time (and trying out my newish 50mm lens).
WHAT IS BARCAMP?
If you're not familiar with the Barcamp concept, it's a kind of informal gathering of people interested in the same topics. The organizers provide the venue and food, the costs are picked up by sponsors, and everyone else gets to attend for free. At the beginning of the conference, a big sheet of paper is put on the wall and people write in what they'd like to talk about during blocked-out times, and then people go to the ones that interest them. Usually there's places to hang out and talk or do things, which is part of the great appeal of events like this.
WHO'S COMING & REGISTRATION
You can get an idea of who's attending by looking at the Barcamp Manchester Registration Wiki Page. I see a bunch of web developers, some designers, a few senior technology people, and some bloggers right now. You can also check out the Upcoming.Org and Facebook Event Listing. Free lunch, meet a bunch of people in the area who are into creative and entrpreneurial uses of technology...not a bad way to spend a day.
Also, people from Massachusetts can take advantage of New Hampshire's sales-tax free shopping :-)
It's that time of year again for all good builders, geeks, and DIYers in the Manchester, New Hampshire area to gather for BarCamp Manchester (USA). It's coming up this very Saturday, July 28th, at the Amoskeag Business Incubator on S. Commercial St. It's the second barcamp ever, and I'm looking forward to remeeting the friends I made last year.
Cost? FREE! There will even be free food for lunch. You just need to register on the Wiki. I'm not sure what the limit is this year, probably about 120 or so, so make sure you get on the list. Last year's BarCamp was a lot of fun; it's amazing to see how a self-organizing conference bootstraps itself up into a full-fledged event.
This year I'll just be there as an attendee. Hopefully I'll remember everyone's names. :-)
I'm actually on something of a regular waking schedule, getting up around 8AM and then heading to the coffee shop around 10AM. Ostensibly, the reason behind my daily coffee shop routine is to plan the day; the new version of the Emergent Task Planner arose out of a couple months of drawing it every morning over chai as part of the planning process. Another benefit has been seeing people I am getting to know every day. The staff is starting to see me as a regular, and that is an oddly comforting feeling. Although I have to pay the $3.00 Chai Latte Tax every day, it's a pittance compared to what I get in return: a cross-section of life, told through unguarded expressions and incidental overheard conversations. I have been surprised at what stories can be gleaned from just fragmentary observation; for example, I recently got the impression that one of the staff members had been promoted, which was later when we were chatting during one of her breaks. I had guessed this based on one observed 1-on-1 meeting between the staffer and another woman who seemed more senior, a glimpse of what looked like a form being returned, and the elevated sense of energy in the shop over the following days. It's been moments like that, plus the opportunity to connect with people, that has made my morning routine successful. As a result, I've been waking up naturally at around the same time every day out of habit for the past couple weeks.
It occurred to me last weekend that this regular routine could now be used to anchor another activity like going to the gym. Anchoring is similar to what television networks do with their programming; once they are lucky enough to have a hit show, they "bracket" it with other shows they hope will also be popular because people are already going out of their way to tune in. A general engineering principle also applies: if you have a process that you can reliably predict, you can use it as the basis for some kind of system function. In my case: I'm up, I'm already looking forward to going out, so why not hit the gym for 30 minutes before I have my coffee shop fix? I know I want to be stronger, and even just 30 minutes of some kind of muscle conditioning will be good for me.
So today, I went to check out two gyms: a Best Fitness and a Workout World nearby. I wanted to just get a "feel" for the places and what they offered, as I've never actually been inside a gym club before. What is deciding my choice is not the facilities (they were approximately equivalent) or the fees (they were also pretty much the same)...it was the sales approach.
I walked into Best Fitness and told the person at the desk that I was checking out gyms in the area, and they showed me around. I was assigned a staff member, and he walked me around the club. As we walked, he asked me some questions about what I was looking for, and I said I had once been on an exercise regimen and had liked feeling strong, but had gotten bored of it and was looking for some variety. He answered my questions about how I would get started, what kind of expertise was on hand, what their hours were, and so on, admitting that he'd just started there a week earlier, but had been a member himself. Seemed like a nice guy. After the tour, I was lead to a booth where I was obviously about to be sold. I told him I wasn't looking to join anything up front today, and he respected that. I learned, though, that in Massachusetts health clubs have 2-year contracts, but for some reason in New Hampshire it's limited to 1 year as some kind of protection measure. I asked him what the advantage of a club like this had over the YMCA, and he answered to the best of his ability without being disparaging. He didn't know if my health insurance would reimburse me for health club fees (some of them do, I believe, but I have a PPO that is only for big emergencies with a high co-pay). Since he wasn't sure, he lead me over to his manager, who was in another booth, and he gave me good advice on choosing a gym as I shopped around. It was an excellent interaction overall, and he told me to watch for flyers because their pricing changed all the time. Then I got a free one-week trial membership that I could start when I was ready, and was walked out the door. Low key, almost zero pressure, friendly, and genuinely helpful without being salesy. That is the way I like things.
Workout World is approximately the same distance away from my house, but has more traffic lights in the way, so it is a less likely final choice. Still, an acquaintance of mine said that he liked it for their machines, so I figured I should check it out. As I walked in, I saw a lot of enticing price-related promotions going on. My tour guide was a high-energy guy who had an engaging demeanor, showing me the machines and ticking off the advantages one by one. One thing I liked was how he got me on some of the machines to try them out. He pointed out the features that the gym offered, and the benefits they had. Everything was fine until the end, when he led me to the inevitable booth to sit down and go over pricing. The first thing he did was lay out the pricing, which was practically identical to Best Fitness. Then he told me how in Massachusetts you have two-year contracts, but TODAY he was authorized to give me just a ONE YEAR AGREEMENT (not a contract) for a signup fee of $299 plus $19.99 a month afterwards. Having just been to Best Fitness and having been told that New Hampshire doesn't allow more than one year contracts, I asked, "Isn't that just a NH state thing?" and he agreed yes, it was...his attempt to spin it as a "special deal for me" failed. After that it just got worse, with him going to get his manager and then I got the "professional" spiel full of plausibly-deniable promises and the "what can I do to get you to sign today" vibe. It was lame. I finally said, "I am 100% certain I'm not going to sign anything today. I'm just evaluating gyms, so thank you for your time, I really appreciate it." After shaking their hands and being walked back out to the door, I got the last bit of interaction with my original staff guide, and a card for a free day. I gave the guide a warm smile and handshake, as I genuinely was appreciative, and I got the same in return. However, just as he was turning away, I saw that smile come off as fast as a sandcastle being washed away by a fire hose. It was completely phony. While I had already been pretty sure, based on the poorly-executed sales tactics I'd just experienced and the traffic light situation, that I wouldn't be picking Workout World, it was this last interaction that clinched it. While they were higher energy than Best Fitness, I think I got an authentic interaction with people there, and that's the kind of place that I would rather spend my money.
I was reflecting afterwards that this kind of sales approach had to come from somewhere, and I'd be curious to know how independently each facility operates. Best Fitness seemed secure in its operational model, and had nothing to hide or to prove. Workout World seemed to resort to used car salesman tactics, applying every trick to spin their offering into a "deal" for me, so I would sign. Both of the Workout World staffers seemed to be conversant with Salesman 101, though they had not been able to read me accurately enough to just tell me what I needed so I could get on with my evaluation. It may have been the very inexperience of the Best Fitness staff member (he was only on the job for a week) that allowed him to deal with me as just a regular guy talking to another guy. And it is interesting that the two experienced managers had different approaches:
At Best Fitness, the senior staffer told me what I needed to know and kept the conversation in the realm of the best decision for me, based on observations he had made of other people who were in my position.
At Workout World, the senior staffer tried to manipulate the conversation into a selling proposition, using half-truths and obvious relationship-building ploys to create a false sense of helpful opportunity. Ultimately, he cared more about making the sale than having a conversation with me. They put as much effort as the needed to to maintain the facade, and dropped it as soon as they thought I wasn't looking.
Fascinating.
[I should add: this is just my experience with two individual sales experiences. Could just be the luck of the draw.]
Several years ago I stumbled upon Gothamist, which is a city blog written by locals covering New York City. I really liked the local color of the reporting, and of course there's writeups about interesting food; this writeup of by Jen Chung about how she ran into Jeffrey Steingarten at a BBQ event is a good example. It's since grown into a urban blog network covering many major cities, Austinist being one of them. When I get home, I should check out Bostonist again to see if it's gotten livelier; when it first launched, it was a bit understaffed on the writing side I thought.
Anyway, I'm in Austin and I'm hungry, so I searched Austinist for recommendations and got last year's SXSW Chowdown Guide. Just what I needed. Now I have a purpose for getting out of the hotel room.
Today's Itinerary
Kill time until around noon, when I head over to the Austin Convention Center to get registered. Maybe explore the area a bit. Study the bus routes. Do some more research on places to go and see.
Noonish - head over to the convention center, check out the Interactive Playpen,
630PM - New England Dinner with Ian, Kelley, and maybe more, so we can start to form our first day scooby gang alliances. A quick cab ride!
830PM - Then I want to check out the BlogHer Meetup because I like the whole idea of empowerment that pervades the organization, and would like to talk to people about what it means to be a part of it. There's something very similar to what they do and what I want to do, but I can't quite put my finger on it.
Of course, all bets are off if I collide with anyone I know and get steered elsewhere...this seemed to happen a lot last year, and it was kind of neat to just go with the flow. We'll see how that goes.
I was just chatting with Scott at ZenLinuxNH, and he reminded me that a New Hampshire Ruby on Rails user group meeting is coming up this Tuesday, January 16, over at UNH Durham. New Hampshire represent, yo!
This Saturday, November 18, is Barcamp Manchester. I was in the vicinity of a Barcamp in Austin last year, but wasn't a participant. This will be my first time. If I can get a network connection, I'll try liveblogging it.
Doors open at 10AM. We're capping the attendees at 100. There's a little over 100 people registered on the Wiki, we're thinking we'll see about 70% turnout from people who've put their name down. We'll see how it goes.
FOLLOWUP
Here's the flickr pool tagged barcampmanchester.
The conference was a success! About 75 people showed out of the 100+ who'd signed up. We had enough food. I also discovered that (1) my hairline has eroded far beyond what I thought (2) it is time to hit the treadmill and (3) I hate interrupting speakers to remind them about time...next year I'm bringing kitchen timers.
I didn't attend full sessions, though I caught bits of several and am feeling energized. Tired, but energized.
Ian Muir has been busy organizing the first BarCamp Manchester for November 18, right here in Southern New Hampshire. It looks like people are starting to register, so that rocks!
Spread the word! Ian is also looking for corporate sponsors to cover the cost of food and other sundries like shwag.
The poster is comprised of photos I took of stuff lying around my house, composited together quickly (and rather sloppily) in Photoshop before being dumped into Illustrator. The cool windows in the background were created by Joan, which helped get the whole poster rolling when I was stuck...thanks Joan! This part of New Hampshire is known for the old textile mills that still line the river. They have windows that are rather distinctive and tall, and most of the buildings have been converted into high tech office space.
I've been wondering where all the action is in Portsmouth. Back during the Bubble, there were dozens and dozens of interactive shops cropping up. The area was even given a new monnicker: The eCoast. Unfortunately, I'm not aware of where the eCoast is headquartered, or even if it's more than just a handful of dreams anchored by a few web pages. That's the trouble with organizations; oftentimes, there's nothing very tangible about them. I'd feel a lot better if, at any time I felt like it, I could drive to Portsmouth and visit some kind of artifact somewhere and be at the eCoast. Heck, it could even just be a physical bulletin board that someone nails to the side of a building. Put a small table next to it and a URL, and you've got a location. Bring some beers and you've got a party!
Anyway, I'm starting to hook up with people in the area, so we're planning on having some kind of regular lunch thing to see what happens. For me, it's an interesting experiment in being someplace else and seeing how that affects my social surface area; it's amazing what happens when you just make the effort to not be where you usually are. I suspect that's when the real magical things happen.
If there's anyone out in Portsmouth with an interest in chatting about productivity, design, freelancing, or just swapping stories, drop me a line! I'm going to be around there more often.
Last May my sister Emily had a tremendous idea for Memorial Day: relive the hot dogs of our youth. Actually, that's not quite correct...we wanted to relive the hot dog that our Dad remembers from his pastorin' days back in the '60s: the Rochester White Hot. Dad used to live in Upstate NY as an assistant pastor in Brighton before I was born. As it so happened, I went to both the University of Rochester and Rochester Institute of Technology for grad schoolin', so this bit of Americana overlaps both of our personal histories. I must have even been the same age as Dad when he was in the area...eerie!
Every time Dad visits, we ask him if there was anything he misses from living in the US. Without fail he says, "White hots. And good cheese." For a long time I thought this just meant any of the white hot dogs you can get in the refrigerated section of the supermarket, but Dad said these weren't quite right. We even went to a German deli staffed by authentic German frauleins and looked at the white sausages there, but even these were not the hots we were looking for. They were good, but they not the White Hots of Dad's memory. Not even close.
Em dug up this link to The American Museum of Natural History, which at one time featured a selection of ball park franks as part of their Baseball as America exhibition. Apparently, Rochester NY has a regional hot dog that's produced most famously by Zweigles. It's made of uncured, unsmoked pork, which is what gives it the white color. The American Museum of Natural History's description goes into a bit more detail on how the hotdog is served:
Split and griddled, this dog is served on a toasted bun and topped with a hot sauce (a meat chili made from a secret Rochester recipe), chopped onions, and any one of a variety of mustards.
Emily further recalled the joy of another Rochester brand, Nance's Sharp and Creamy Mustard, that she had once enjoyed at my house. It's one of my favorite mustards, though I wish I could remember who first recommended it to me. Em likes it too, so I was able to get a bottle of it at the local Hannaford's supermarket.
Dad was originally planning to visit this June (sadly cancelled), so Emily arranged to order a variety pack of Zweigles Hots from NewYorkStyleDeli.com. The prices are a bit high if you pick and choose, but the specials are actually pretty reasonable when you consider the hassle of shipping perishable food overnight. Our package arrived just prior to the Memorial Day weekend in a nifty red cooler with freezer packs all around it. NY Style Deli also included two paper Zweigles hats to wear while grilling...an unexpectedly awesome touch :-)
Here's a pack of genuine Zweigle's White Hots. Since they're uncured, they're highly perishable, so once you open the package you're pretty much committing yourself to eating them all or freezing them later. I don't really like to freeze hot dogs because it seems to do terrible things to their texture...I could just be imagining that though.
Our variety pack included some Red Hots, which we grilled for comparison. There were some skinless skinnier hot dogs too, but I didn't bother to take a picture.
Emily also found a recipe for the secret Rochester meat sauce mentioned by the museum. I don't have the link, but it was similar to this one on David Rosengarten's site. It's possible that this meat sauce is related to the "hot sauce" they put on the infamous Rochester Garbage Plate, a "specialty" that I never dared try myself when I lived in the area. I must admit I am curious now, looking at this picture. NewYorkStyleDeli.com sells a Hot Meat Sauce Mix for $2.99 too, but what fun is that?
With all our preparations complete, we had a problem: neither of us had ever seen or eaten an authentic Rochester White Hot. I wasn't even sure what one looked like. There was a small, low-resolution photo of the American Museum of Natural History site, so we used that as our model. Here are a few quick photos I took before eating. Unfortunately my indoor lighting setup is half-broken and I've been having some white balancing problems (my gray card may be too old), so the color is a little off:
I later re-read the recipe, and noted that pan-fried hots are split in half; not sure if that would have been more authentic. But they were still pretty darn good. If there are any Rochester natives reading this, send me a picture of the real thing!
Flavor Comments:
Nance's Sharp and Creamy Mustard, if you haven't had it, has a nice kick to it. It has a similar punch to that of wasabi, though not as overpowering as in the case of the really fresh stuff (you know, the kind that makes you think you're about to die). The mustard is also a little sweet.
The White Hots themselves I found rather mild. They're also not very salty compared to a lot of other hot dogs (Nathan's, for example), so the condiments you choose play a major part in defining the taste. Even when charred, the white hots stayed pretty mellow.
The meat sauce, as we prepared it, was also mild and fragrant. It's got a bit of cinnamon and thyme in it, and adds to the overall sweetness of the plate. It was not very meaty or flavorful by itself, but it added a welcome beefy taste to the hot dog that would otherwise be missing. I think even if the bits of beef were more charred, it would help; the sauce is simmered for a long time, so browing the ground beef very thoroughly might help next time.
I definitely wanted pickles and potato chips with this. It helps balance the slight sweetness. I reached for them immediately. I wonder what they use in Rochester?
For the bun, I probably would also choose a more neutral-flavored one rather than a sweetish one next time. I think for such a mild dog, the selection of bun would go a long way to making it "just right". We used some buns from the supermarket, and you know how those are.
For the Fourth of July, Em and I will be recreating bien dang, the taiwan lunchbox one buys when travelling. I remember these fondly from car trips and train rides we took when first arriving in Taiwan; they're also readily available for the lunchtime crowd in any town or city. I have been working on recreating the pork chop recipe so we can make these and maybe drive somewhere to eat them :-)
I like surfing the Internet for good design, but I like it even better when I find it close to home.
Case in point: A friend of mine, Stacey Kamen, has just finished her new website for 2006. Like me, she's an independent designer fighting it out in the trenches. Unlike me, she has no problem making a web presence that's colorful and snappy, striking just the right balance of design, approachability, and commercial intent. Everything is nicely fitted together, and I am not ashamed to admit that I want to lick those Flash buttons right off the page. Mmm...shiny!
And on top of that, she can write copy that matches the tone of her design. Her voice is active and insightful, and not afraid to toe the line with phrases like this:
"Your logo is like your spouse. Changing it can cost you big. Get it right the first time with a professional logo designed by Stacey Kamen."
Heh! The site fits her personality and professional standards, and that's totally awesome.
I'm impressed, and inspired, and I can see I need to inject some personality back into my site design...it's so subdued. That's not the way I want to present myself; I need less "um" and more "awesome!" in the mix! It's reassuring to be reminded that there's one more person locally who knows what they're doing. This kick-in-the-pants comes at exactly the right time.
Thanks Stacey! To a kick ass 2006!
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