Cam Findlay

Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category

Not long to go now and I will be moving up to Wellington, NZ Capital.

What is most interesting is that I will continue to work in my current job, but remotely from my home office as I mentioned in an earlier post.

I have spent a bit of time working out all the finer details, now I have in place a pretty robust system and have schooled up the rest of the team at Rock Star Recipes on the finer points of digital communication to make sure we all keep in touch.

For any one interested in putting together there own Remote/TeleWork proposal and making a case for why it would be a good thing for you company to let you work remotely either part or full time check out all these links to blogs and articles I came across while researching to put together my proposal (and I even went as far as making a power point presentation!).

• http://www.businessweek.com/managing/content/sep2007/ca20070918_304769.htm?campaign_id=rss_null
• http://www.readsolutionsgroup.com/2007/08/remote-leadership-when-you-cant-just.html
• http://webworkerdaily.com/2009/08/11/what-is-remote-leadership/
• http://www.worldatwork.org/waw/adimLink?id=34865
• http://telecommutect.com/employees/approval.php
• http://www.mannaz.com/mail.asp?mailid=62&topicid=583
• http://www.v3.co.uk/computing/features/2072443/vodafone-moved-mobile-environment
• http://www.workingfromanywhere.org/

I will post some more on a few of the key points I looked at in my proposal as well as an outline of what I included and maybe even a cut down version of my power point which might be of help to anyone looking into moving their role and presence into more 1’s and 0’s.

On another 1’s and 0’s note I have just started a pilot project looking into RackSpace’s Cloud Environment (which has become affectionatly know at work as “Cam’s House”). All going well I will post some of my findings and reccomendations if your looking to make your web hosting and delivery of content more cost effective!

Check out Pranav Mistry at TED demonstrating his Sixth Sense personal augmented reality device! A paper computer, taking photos with your gestures, a phone call on your hand?… wow pretty amazing ideas.

Part 1

Part 2

Welcome back to 2010, it has been a while since I last posted anything Techy or Samurai related it reminds me how quickly we can go from leadership thinking to management thinking when one gets very busy (My company re-launched our flagship Guitar learning product Jamorama at the end of 2009 which didn’t leave me much time for blogging, a poor excuse I know!).

As it happens it looks like Julia (my partner) and myself are moving to Wellington! (NZ’s Captial City) for a change of lifestyle and a lot more Film and Television work for Julia.  So I am putting together a proposal to keep working at Rock Star Recipes but remotely!

Remote work and more interesting, remote or distance leadership is something I have become very interested in, how can we in 2010 with all the technology easily available to most businesses lead from a distance?  What are the challenges? How does communication, face to face time, company culture and atmosphere differ? I suspect a culture of great communication, trust and respect is key.

I’m hoping to document as much as I can while I learn more about this and also put my proposal forward to actually experience and work as a remote staff member and remote leader…

Perhaps we are coming to a point where there is no real difference whether someone is in the office or not as long at the end results are met and accountability is key. In the 80’s they called it “Tele-Communting” more recently it was dubbed “Tele-Work” (Perhaps to make it sound more like working for those managers who could not let micro-management go?) but I think going forward it will just be “work” as the technology and easy constant contact and communication from anywhere in the world becomes the norm.

More to come…

Oh, and for those who need their Technology and Ninja fix… check out the new Nexus One powered by Google Android.

Just a quick update, lecture for my uni paper have finished up for the year… I’m currently on some study leave to prep for the exam… wish me luck.

So whats next for the blog? Well I have planned a series of posts with some great info on how to become more independent from your computer and make use of some of the great cloud computing tools available out there.

Also before I forget a big shout out to Simon Waterhouse a great photographer and designer here in Christchurch for his help on the photos and design of my personal development plan(PDP) assessment. Be sure to check out his great photography here www.simonwaterhouse.com

Another shout out to the great guys at Silverstripe CMS… i used this to power my PDP website… once I had the design I was able to integrate and drop in the content in just under 4 hours work! A killer speedy content management system for anyone looking to jazz up their website.
My final big thank you goes out to Juliette Powell, Author of “33 Million People in the Room” who sent me a signed copy of her book… made my day! A great read if you are interested in social media, co-creation, and where things are headed online. I was lucky enough to meet her at a conference this year and really enjoy her contributions online through twitter and facebook.

On the leadership tip, I will leave you with some words of wisdom from the women herself, Juliette Powell, enjoy….

Just follow this simple flow chart! (Source: http://xkcd.com) Click the image for a larger view…

I had my first harddrive fail on me last week… the “click of death” I had heard about makes so much more sense now!

So there I was… my MacBook was dead as a mouse but through some power googling and having had fixed and built many PC systems in the past I ventured forth and completed the repairs.  Saving a bunch on parts and labour if I had have taken it to the mac repair shop…like any good sports car, a mac computer stings you for parts once they breakdown.

So here’s how I did it and hopefully someone can learn from this… on a side note… this just isnt for replacing broken hard drive but also upgrading to large ones. If you find you are running out of space this will be the ticket to some more digital storage freedom.

You will need:

About 15 mins

Size 0 Philips Screwdriver

Size 8 Torx Head Screwdriver

Coin

New 2.5″ 5400 rpm harddrive

You can click on any of the photos below for a closer look at the repairs.

Step 1: Is my MacBook really broken?…if you are hearing a clicking noise and seeing this srceen… then yes its time to replace your drive.

Step 2: Flip that over… you need to take out the battery pack using a regular screwdriver or coin.

Step 3: Unscreem the 3 small screws on the bracket inside the battery bay using a size 0 (zero) philips head and remove the “L” shaped bracket.

Step 4: Find the small white plastic tab, pull the lower end so that the tab flicks out from under the drive. Give this a pull and the old hard drive should pop out.

Step 5: Remove the hard drive caddy from the old hard drive using a size 8 torx head screw driver. There should be 4 small screws. Pay attention to the way around the SATA ports are when the drive is within the caddy.

Step 6: Put the new 2.5″ laptop drive into the caddy, making sure to have it the same way around as the old drive you removed, the drive label should be facing up and the ports at the opposite end to the plastic tab. Replace the 4 torx screws.

Step 7: Fold the plastic tab under the drive, put the drive facing label side down into the battery bay and slide the new drive back into place. Give it a small amount of pressure to seat the SATA ports into position.
Replace the L shaped bracket to cover the hard drive bay and RAM slots.  Tighten the 3 small philips screws on the bracket.

Step 8: Replace the battery and boot up into your OS X DVD or CD by holding down the option key and selecting the dvd as your startup disk.  Follow the instructions to get your operating system installed and running again.

There we have it… your MacBook now has a new or upgraded drive!

Becareful when choosing a replacement drive you can get 7200rpm drives but this will increase your systems runing temparature… I reckomend using a 5400 rpm drive like the Western Digital Scorpio Blue or any of the Fujitsu range. If your doing some heavy audio or video work run your scratch disks from a faster (7200 or even a 10,000 rpm!) external drive via firewire400 or USB2.

We had (at work) a great core values session with Kendall Langston from the Results Group yesterday to really nail down just what it is that we believe in and want to ingrain in everything we do at RockStar Recipes.

This is what we came up with…

• Curiosity – To learn new things, in the future, in our history, in people and relationship building, teaching methods.
• Embracing technology - Adapting and utilising new tech as it rolls out, being tech savvy and aware of what is new and finding best places to use it (or not use it) to augment our teaching, our delivery, our work flow and our lives.
• The experience to teach – building mentor relationships, being skilled in what we teach, having great communication, producing great content and resources, inspiring students – this is internal as well as external… that is we at RockStar Recipes learn as much as our students.
• Being a musician – Being active in your music community, being creative, expression through music, seeing music as a universal language.
• Being a “tight band” (or band member) - Being a “good dude”, team player, serving the band not just the self, having a friendly vibe, laid back & focused, supportive of the other band members!

Companies don’t have core values… people within them DO and I think we have really nailed what makes us at Rock Star Recipes tick, no marketing or PR bullshit… bottom up not top down,  just real honest values that we live and bring to our work.  It’s just like being part of a band and we all bring our unique style and character.
We hope that our customers, fans and friends can also relate to them and join us in our movement to shape the next generation of musicians!

I finished reading Seth’s book tribes a few weeks back and really enjoy his work… Check out this great video, I will be posting a few other videos and interesting internet/techy/new thinking bits and pieces over the next couple of weeks as there are no journal questions for the next 2 weeks as we are on a break from university.

What are you naturally good at and what talents do you have?

• Good at listening and understanding others.
• problem solving and learning.
• translating “geek”… that is I have always been able to communicate technical concepts clearly and concise to people that aren’t very technical.
• Anything technology and computer related, programming, web development.
  
• I often see opportunities and uses for technology to make working easier.
  
• Helping others understand and make use of new technology, website, social networking.
• I have a good feel for music, i have played several instruments, DJ’d and written music.
• I have recently found a “talent” within my chosen martial art, iaido which also offers time to work on a clear mind and a greater sense of spirit.
  

What are the images you associate with you doing work that you love?

Gadgets, computers, communities of people both online in forums, social network and offline in professional networks and hobbies, music, solving challenging problems, writing useful website code.

Think of the three greatest/most significant experiences/achievements of your life. What are the images that you associate with them?

1. Completing my Diploma of Multimedia – Being creative with computers, solving problems, working with clients and to a brief, self paced learning.
2. Getting my current job at RockStar Recipes – Getting to combine computing with music, teaching others to play guitar, building an online community around learning, solving technical problems and contributing to the vision of the organisation.
   
3. Attending the X:Media:lab Conferences – Getting to learn about the latest technology and ideas, meeting the worlds best in my industry, being able to speak on a highly technical level and being understood by others who are as technical as myself.
   

If you were to do work in the future that you loved and that was totally aligned with these images what would it look like? How would it feel?

I would be using the latest new technology on the internet to help people communicate there would be a sense or feeling that I am contributing to making the world online a better, easier and more fun place for everyone to interact, have conversations, do business and hopefully it would be so easy, integrated and intuitive that everyone can participate and contribute without the current technical barriers.

As far as passions go, technology has to be up there on the top of my list.  I really enjoy keeping track of all the new hardware, websites, mobile phones and gadgets that always seem to be released overseas long before we even hear about them out here in New Zealand.  I try to listen to as many technology focused podcasts and follow many technology blogs.

I’m an early adopter of as much new technology I can get my hands on if I feel it is something that is going to change the way we think going forward.  The iPhone being one of those gadgets I lined up last year in July to get my hands on this game changing platform, not just because the iPhone is a cool piece of kit but because I believe that portable computing platform like the iPhone push forward the way in which we connect with others and have meaningful conversations (though tools including Twitter and Facebook).  Technology touches so many aspects of our lives without us thinking twice about it and I makes our lives *easier and more interconnected with those around us.

I am also passionate about the method in which I gather all my technology related information and media; the global community that exists online and in online communities and “social media” (a term I use relatively loosely as it seems to be a word thrown around in many a traditional marketers plan a lot as the new cool thing).  In reality I think the best “social media” is naturally and organically formed communities around a topic of interest and led by those within the community.

Whether this conversation is initiated by organisations or individuals doesn’t matter so much, as long as it is real, genuine and honest conversation.
It is becoming more and more accessible to engage and have real dialogue with a community of people using freely available tools and a smart strategy, I get excited when I see great implementations of these ideas/tools and people engaging in communities about ideas and interests they are passionate about.

*There is some debate around this… just try keeping your mobile phone or computer off for a day or two and see what happens!  I also am guilty of cursing at my computer screen when something doesn’t work as it should.