300 not out - and four to go

It's 2012. But you knew that already. Or maybe it's not and you are reading this from the future. Welcome back.

Welcome, in fact, wherever you are on the space-time continuum.

As I mentioned yesterday, I'm soon about to reach the end of my 365 project over on blipfoto.com/eightthirty. The idea behind the project was to take a photo every day at either 8:30am or 8:30pm. I started on my birthday in 2011 and it's soon to be my birthday in 2012.

A few weeks ago, I decided that while the discipline of taking a photo and writing about it was something I was really enjoying, the original intention had morphed into something else.

I want to write more about faith, hope and love. And the journey of discovering more about these three things. And the tension that exists to live in the light of what I hold to be the eternal nature of these truths.

So my intention is to keep writing. And to keep taking pictures. I'll aim to keep going with eight-thirty. But I will be doing more writing here. On the old blog, 300 posts and counting. I'll be tagging entries with 13-13 (a reference to 1 Corinthians 13 v 13, in case you missed that!).

It's coming towards my new year, and this is one of my goals.

What are yours? Can I help you work towards them?

Why I don't update the world like I used to

Despite posting over 10,000 times on twitter and having a fairly active Facebook stream, I know that I am sharing less online. Or at least less frequently.

Is it fear of giving away too much? Nope

Is it fear of spam? Nope.

Is it boredom or falling out with the people I have connected with? Nope.

Some stats would speak for themselves:

30 new blog posts - compared with 179 in 2010. 47 visits to the blog in 2011, 1,380 in 2010.

However, my focus shifted from sharing as many little pieces on twitter and facebook, to my eight-thirty project on blipfoto. Which has been viewed over 32,000 times. Which is astounding. And I've been using Instagram.

So maybe I've moved away from the smaller updates, to longer form. A real shift to photographs as well as words, albeit my flickr stream hasn't been quite as busy. It's nearing my birthday again and I'm considering what to do with eight-thirty, and with this blog.

More news as it breaks...

Where has he gone?

Wow, this blog is looking neglected.

Mainly because my attention has been focussed on creating the 8:30 blipfoto log everyday. So I am writing, but just over there.

I have got a few longer-form thoughts on the way though. Just need to make time to get them out.

Do you miss me?!

;->

Back (again)

A wee hiatus from bloggage for a few days. All that election *stuff* got me in a right state.

Not really, but a more normal service is on it's way...

Housekeeping

Evening/Morning/Afternoon.

Hi.

Hope you are well.

I've had a wee bit of a housekeeping moment and if you are reading this on an RSS reader, or in Facebook it might not appear here much longer.

Subscribe in a reader

That's where it's at.

Grace & Peace,

W

shifting sands

There's been plenty of coverage of the news that Facebook has a smidgen more pageviews than Google. The first time in the history of everything that has happened. Big. Deal.

Or is it?

I might not be a classically trained marketer, but I think it's amazing how the ability to self-publish, share and interact though these new digital channels is changing our culture - and the way we consume (products and ideas). Mostly for the better, I reckon. How about you?

So what about Facebook & Google then? For a long time, Facebook was a walled garden - that's all changed now. Much more of what's happening on that platform is now available to those outside of it. (cue rush to check privacy settings).

My thinking here is not that platforms are what it's all about. It's about being where people are - and interacting where they are. Facebook might be winning the social platform race for now, but nothing in this world is a certain.

When I set up my blog here, I plumbed it in to publish into Facebook Notes automatically. The idea was to share the content with people who might not be into reading blogs frequently. Then I noticed something about a year ago. People started to comment. Which was great. But there were two places with different comments - Facebook and the blog...

Which can lead to two different sets of conversation. I remember Mitch Joel deciding to stop publishing into Facebook and pulling people towards the blog so that the conversation happened there. But may folks just won't follow the link as they like the convenience of doing it all in once platform. Not saying that's right, but it's what happens, isn't it?

So, what would I like? Some way of aggregating comments between publishing platforms. There must be a way to pull the comments for a post into Facebook!

Anyway, it's all sand and it's all shifting. Don't build your house on it.

Just Be It.

Two quotes that came via Seth Godin.

Contribute:

Arianna Huffington: "Self expression is the new entertainment, We never used to question why people sit on the couch for seven hours a day watching bad TV. Nobody ever asked, 'Why are they doing that for free?' We need to celebrate [this desire to contribute for free] rather than question it."

Focus:

Tim Cook at Apple: “This is the most focused company I know of, am aware of, or have any knowledge of... We say no to good ideas every day.” Cook then pointed out to analysts that every single product the company makes would fit on the single conference table in front of him. “And we had revenue last year of $40 billion".

Ties back to two thoughts Chris laid out nearly two years ago:

1) What are you here to do.

2) Just Be It.

(my paraphrase)

Temporary Interruption

...normal service is on it's way.

I've not written as much this past 8 days as I'd hoped. Sorry about that. I don't like to let me reader down.

There's loads of ideas rolling around, just not got them into any kind of shape yet. It's coming though. Normal Service.

but what is *normal* anyway.

theWhat?

JL recently asked me why I use the moniker "theWeir".

My first response? Because when I registered for twitter around 18 months ago, the username AndyWeir was taken. As were more sensible variations on the same. So I thought "theWeir" would work. Especially as there can be only one Weir. Yeah, right?!

But this wasn't the only possible reason why my online interactions (particularly outside of Facebook) are under this identity.

Curiously, some people at work who've caught up with me online outside of work are known to use that moniker is person. Which is fine, good and proper, but still feels a bit strange. Maybe a bit like a recently married lady hearing her new surname being read out?

So, working back in time, from twitter, I started my blog here in November 2008 (moving from my old iWeb blog here), I called it "weir online". See what I did there? So I was theWeir online.

But it all started back in early 2000s. I met the Mighty Quinn. Not the song, but the man. He signed his email & sms with a "Q". He was (and forever shall be) Quinn. I liked that. I liked his style. I like theQuinn.

At the same time, our good friend Mr Clive Parnell does a proper London boi accent. Mainly 'cos he's got family there. And when we played in a band together (IndigoEcho) it was around the time when speaking in a mockney accent was a bit cool, like.

And there was a phrase used (often) "easy for the [insert object here]". On seeing you, CP was often prone to hailing with "easy for theWeir" or "easy for theFrancis" (Bass player) and "easy for theQuinn". I guess it was *inspired* by Ali G being all over pop culture at the time...

And so, it just kinda stuck in my head.

theWeir

Apparently, there's a play called The Weir. There are a few resturaunts called The Weir. Infact, there's plenty of Weirs around the place.

But none of them are why I chose "theWeir".

At least that's my (not very interesting story) and I'm sticking to it.

Isn't it cool how these things weave together during our lives?

Do you have an Open ID?

You probably do and don't know it. If you have any account with Google, Microsoft or Yahoo (and a fair few other services) then you do.

Then why not follow this blog by joining the Friend Connect box on the right hand side.

It'll let me know you care ;-)

Not sure what an Open ID is? Here you go: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Openid

playing games around my feet

When I was on holiday, I'd get up with babyB and let Jenny get some more sleep. It's kinda normal for me to do that given the way the rhythms of our lives are running at the moment.

And mainly because I can often fall into the typical male stereotype of being unable to wake up when there's baby crying unless there's some significant amplifying of the audio level...

When at Center Parcs, I tried to get out for a run before breakfast - so would spend some time stretching in advance. There was something special about these times as babyB got involved in the process - pile on being one of the simplest games ever.

It reminded me of the song Turning Thirty I mentioned on this blog post at my birthday. And of being grateful for the grace we live in.

Who is this babyB character then?

When Jenny and I wanted to let our friends know that we were expecting a baby, I set up a blog using iWeb. It was a fairly handy way of letting the world know what was going on. I was kind of new to blogs and thought that a native application for creating & updating would be best. I realise now that this was not the wisest move on the planet.

However, you can imaging that I wanted to share with everyone once our wee girl was born. Beth Ann Weir. The announcement is here. That was 18 months ago. At the same time as we were adjusting life to being a family of three, I was learning more about the social (and sociological) nature of online interaction and reminded that "one it's online, it's always online.

One of the people that I've learned most from over the piece was Mitch Joel. Some time last year, his "significant other" (I can't find out if Mitch is married or not) delivered a baby. He doesn't really talk about the baby - at first I found this really odd. Especially when one of his co-participants (and another person sharing great ideas on new media), CC-Chapman shares so much about his family online (including helping his daughter put together an online video series.

When asked on his regular podcast why he didn't talk much about his family - it was through choice. It was all about letting his family choose how much they were online and hoe much they weren't. This baby had little influence over what would be shared online - but you can be sure that in 15 years time, they would have something to say about their toddler-days being on Flickr for the world to see.

Hearing this (and Jenny being a little concerned that *anyone* could see photos of Beth (or us) online made me think. How much do we want to share? How much do we want to keep private and what does that mean.

So, when I started using the babyB handle when talking about our wee girl. I talk about Mrs theWeir as "theWeir" is my twitter, friendfeed, identi.ca and bebo handle. We only let friends & family view picture on Flickr & Facebook. Pictures of babyB do not end up on Posterous. This can be restrictive when there's something very cute I might want to share (and I'm sure I'll come up with a way to make it work in the future), but for now it's working alright.

I do share tons of other photos on Flickr, Facebook and Posterous, but just not of babyB.

And that's why I use those abbreviations. It's not to be better than anyone else, just the way we're working it for now. All these self-publishing platforms are new ground and making informed, wise decisions is what it's all about for me.

What do you think? Do you share your family & photos with everyone?

back on the mic, this time on the blogger platform

Hello.

How's it going?  It's been a while, yeah, I know.  Sorry about that.  So, you've been well?  How about the rest of you keeping quiet at the back?

So following a great post by Mitch Joel, I'm getting my act together, staying up even later than intended and writing for you all.  How nice of me, eh?

A few months ago, in conversation with a friend while walking around the streets of Edinburgh at lunchtime, we got on the topic of the public/private *you*.  It stemmed from the age-old political argument that who we are in our private life is nothing to do with who we are in public.

That's rubbish.

That's what I said.

Politics aside, I'm really not sure that we can be true to who we are if we separate ourselves.  It's like the notion that you can separate the secular and the sacred.  If the public me is fearless and care-free, but the private me is fearful and consumed by caution then I must duplicitous - right? 

If the private you couldn't care less about your impact on the environment, taking 100 flights a year, not giving a moment of thought about the amount of resources you consume - but the public you is bleating about the number of trees, amounts of oil and harmful waste in the water systems, then you can't be genuine in either thing.  

D'you know what I'm trying to say?

I think we are meant to be connected.  Holistic.  I'll explain why another day (maybe even tomorrow).  We are meant to connect to each other, to connect the disparate and varying parts of our lives by being ourselves in all circumstances, without being arrogant or disregarding others or considering ourselves *better* than others.

What do you think?  Do you agree?