Hellloooooo, Austin!

We're at a codejam out here in Austin, TX. We'll be stopping in on some of the SXSW bruhaha this week. Give me a hollah via email, cell or twitter if you're around.

We're here at the Pop Century Resort, 50's style, for another Orlando CodeJam. Celly, Gavin, Mike and myself holding down the fort the best way we know how. It's just us this time around, which for coding reasons, can be pretty nice. Not that all our AOL friends aren't missed. Just.. yea. It's got an oldschool feel to it.

Links:

• Benjamin Franklin's advice for picking a mistress: Ben, you ol' dog you.
  
• OrganizedHome.com: Embrace your inner OCD
• 102 Personal Finance Tips Your Professor Never Taught You: You shouldn't be able to leave high school without knowing this stuff

CodeJam 7 is winding down, and most everyone has already left us behind. Gavin and I are in the "office" wrapping up and preparing to check out in the morning.

Lots of discussions, lots of new people, and a little bit of new code here and there.

Good times indeed.

I'm tired as heck though, and strangely looking forward to going back to sleeping on Gavin's futon. It's probably more of the desperate need to do laundry than anything else. 8 more days until my glorious return to DC.

On the Emurse side of the coin, our friends over at SolutionWatch.com gave us a shout out on their Web 2.0 for Students round up. "One of my favorite applications of the year." -- We're flattered, and thank you for the continued support!

Me, Mike, Gavin, and Celly at the bar outside of the Portofino. Missing from the picture is Brian Alvey, Puggles, Christoph, and all of our new AOL friends.

The world is an office. Or at least.. The bar is.

CodeJam Orlando: "About damn time."

We're out here near Universal Studios Florida gearing up for the Blogsmith CodeJam #i-lost-count.

We've got a ton of infastructure work to get done, a new kid to haze train, some AOL peeps to meet up with, and good times to be had. The room this time is a bit bigger than we're used to, which will be nice around day 6 or 7 when the stentch starts to kick up ;)

Off to Westchester for awhile. Hopefully by the end of the trip I'll finally be able to blog about the double secret project I'm on. It's killing me inside, pretty cool stuff going down. Anyway, here are some links to chew on. Not a single one of them has to do with Taylor Hicks.

Links

• The first 25,000 users are irrelevant - For the most part, it's on the money. At the same time, it's those first users who are the most involved, and generally the loudest. The techcrunch crowd is certainly not representative of the mass market, but they'll help spread the word.
  
• How To Be Silicon Valley - It's been said that the Valley is a state of mind, a way of life. This essay is about the different factors that go into making a geek-centric town. Reading it, all I could think of is that Orlando fits the bill, the town just doesn't know it yet.
• GOOOAALLLLLLLL!!!!! - June 12th, at noon, ESPN2. US vs. Czech. The World Cup just might be the most exciting sporting event outside of March Madness.
• Top Ten Mistakes Managers Make When Leading Geeks. - This is a great post. If you're working for a consulting company with high turnover, check to see how many of these items apply to your firm.. Just.. you know.. saying. We had to fight tooth and nail to get a copy of photoshop, that's all... ;)

There's really nothing DC related here, it's just a clever way to note that I'm back in town for a few days before turning around and heading to New York. I got my knee pads packed and an extra bottle of ketchup, Code Jam 6 here I come.

Links

• Add this to my Amazon Wish list - Here's the kicker though.. With Kathryn and I riding shotgun, it doesn't look like I can attach Gavin's silly little side car very easily.
• Best entrepreneurs wear jeans - See, I told you my fancy boy jeans were an investment. Too bad I work from home, and don't have to wear pants. (ahem)
  
• Digg is a marketing beast - 37 Signal's getting real. A real digg on.
• A cross between tetris and bingo?! - I no longer fear growing old.

Slashdot had an article yesterday talking about misunderstood e-mails. Working virtually, we're constantly dealing with email and IM, and naturally, miscommunication can sometimes happen. Usually it just takes an added email or im to clarify things, but still something that comes up now and again.

When things are moving quickly and there is a lot on the table, I tend to be pretty direct. It's not intended to offend or come across as gruff, I just state my case, sometimes a bit thoroughly, fire and forget. Gavin and I have worked so much together, we're able to just bark out needs and concerns, and go about our business as usual. I guess it just takes enough personal face to face interaction with someone to have that level of trust, where you know its nothing personal, it's just about getting things done. It's those types of factors that make our CodeJam's so worthwhile. We're able to get a better feeling for each person and their style of interactions. It really helps build our virtual team.

The article Slashdot referenced is at Christian Science Monitor, and is a decent (if not obvious) read. They do make some suggestions on how to better avoid these types of situations. Mainly to reread things and check tone and consistency. Read it sarcastically, read it serious, read it in different lights, and see if your message is still coming across. Sounds great (if not obvious), but also sounds like it would increase the time I spend in e-mail 300%. I'd imagine a great deal of the miscommunication happens (at least in my case) when someone is short on time to begin with...