Things That Matter Most

Things That Matter Most

White Hat Documentation

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The act of both finding and publishing information online is an interesting one.

On the one hand, sometimes I come across information I’m not supposed to have. When people discover I know something questionable, they get defensive and start trying to grill me for information about why I know this.

Case-in-point: I worked as an intern in Seattle and, one day, asked why we had several locked filing cabinets in the corner we’d never used. As it turned out, my boss had bought them at an auction for extra storage, but they came locked and without a key.

“If only you knew how to pick locks, Eric, then we could put them to use.”

“Actually, I do know how …”

A confused and slightly concerned look, and my boss gave me permission to bypass the cheap locks on the cabinets. A bent paperclip and five minutes of raking later, and I’d opened all four locks. The company had these cabinets in the office for over a year, but finally they were usable. Everyone was impressed, and my boss was happy I was good with both computers 1 and with physical jobs, too.

Until the next Monday, when I arrived to work and was met by a local cop standing at my desk. The back window to the office had been broken out, and every computer in the office except for mine was missing. As I’d recently shown my proficiency for less-than-reputable skills, my office mates suggested he ask me if I knew anything about the break-in. 2

Show you have a bit of knowledge, and everyone begins to question how you’ll use it.

Last week I wrote a piece on debit cards, security, and the risk you face by giving out information about your choice of banking institution too freely. The immediate response was “of course, we all know that.”

The response shortly after that was, “cool trick, can you show me how you cracked the number on a card? For … um … educational purposes.”

The final response was, “why are you writing these things that criminals can use to steal from honest people? You’re just as bad as the thieves!”

I learn things because I’m interested in them. I teach about things because I’m interested in learning more about them. I write about things because I want those around me to be well-informed, in this case about basic security.

I do all of these things while wearing a white hat – I’m in it for personal education and to try to help make the world a better place. Keep in mind, though, that for every white hat in the market, there are a hundred (or more) black hats using the exact same information, knowledge, and techniques for nefarious purposes.

Notes:

  1. As the intern, I was responsible for most of the low-level data entry we handled. Sometimes I had the opportunity to interview customers or prepare final strategic reports, but the majority of my day-to-day job was manipulating spreadsheets or tabulating handwritten notes. ↩
  2. First of all, I’d be out of town visiting my parents all weekend. Secondly, the thief cut himself on the window as he broke it, and the police were able to quickly identify and arrest him (though he’d already sold all of the PCs). Finally, I’d proven I could pick locks and I had a key to the office; why would I break the window to enter? Not only that, I had the worst PC in the office. Why not get rid of my POS laptop so I could get a new one from insurance like everyone else? ↩

A Night with Patrick Rothfuss

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I’ve read the annual Writers of the Future anthology every year since I discovered it in high school. It’s a fantastic anthology of cutting edge new fiction from yet-to-be-discovered authors.

That’s the most amazing thing, really. That the authors featured in the anthology are still technically novices. They haven’t achieved commercial success and are, as of yet, unpublished.

It was in the WotF anthology in 2002 that I discovered the work of Patrick Rothfuss. He included a single chapter from a book he’d been working on for years, and that short chapter took the grand prize for the yearly competition. It was fresh, riveting, and promised what would be a stellar novel to be published in the future.

So when I saw his first book, The Name of the Wind, at a Borders store a few years later I bought it immediately. I read it in spurts when I could find the time, devouring every fantastic page. To my surprise, though, the chapter he’d won the WotF competition with was nowhere to be found in the book; this was instead a chapter from the second novel in the series.

When that novel, The Wise Man’s Fear, came out I bought it immediately in ebook format (I didn’t want to wait for Amazon and Borders was out of stock), took an early day off work, and read the entire thing in one sitting. It was glorious!

I can count on one hand the number of authors whose work I thoroughly enjoy this much. London, Faulkner, Hemingway, Follett, and Rothfuss. 1 So the opportunity to see one of them in person at a reading is something not to be missed.

Last night, I joined about 800 others at the Newmark Theater downtown to hear Patrick talk about his latest novella. We heard some fantastic music, listened to the first few pages of the book read aloud by the author, and laughed together at some truly insane jokes and commentary Mr. Rothfuss has written – I am neither dead nor too big to matter, but hope one day to write a book worthy of one of his reviews. 2

Seeing an icon from a distance is one thing. Meeting them in the lobby before they speak is something else. Being able to realize the person to whom you look up is human and, like you, struggles with human things is inspiring. It helps remind you that yes, normal people can be just as successful.

It also makes me want to write again.

Who do you look up to who you might be able to meet or at least see speak in person? How inspiring an experience would that be for you and your career? What’s holding you back from making it happen?

Notes:

  1. Luckily, the latter two are still writing! ↩
  2. I only hope it’s better received than Roald Dahl … ↩

Indie Publishing

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The birth of blogging was heralded as the death of traditional publishing. Now anyone could be a writer, and anyone could see their words distributed to any audience anywhere.

It also meant that anyone could be a writer. The editorial barriers to entry were gone, and content of all types and qualities began to make their way online. 1

The birth of vanity publishing was heralded with similar praise and prediction. Websites like Lulu.com meant anyone could become a published author overnight. No more long processes of sending manuscripts into obscurity and just hoping that an editor somewhere would pick you up and publish.

It also meant (again) that anyone could publish anything.

The First Hundred

When I first began blogging in 2007, my goal was to build a body of content worthy of traditional publishing. I worked diligently to regularly write feature-length articles and set what, at the time, felt like an insanely ambitious three-day-per-week publication schedule.

I wasn’t picked up by any professional shops. I didn’t even receive stellar traffic on the site. 2 Instead, I took a half day away from freelancing and writing to build my own manuscript and published Mindshare Marketing: The First Hundred on Lulu.com,

I think, to date, I’ve had a total of 2 sales of that book. Only one of them was me, so I’d consider it a success. But I won’t be pushing for Amazon or Barnes & Noble to carry this title any time soon because, honestly, it’s not that good.

Jumping Duck

I started Jumping Duck Media around the same time as this first publication. Since its founding, I’ve professionally edited and published four separate titles under the imprint. 3

It’s been a great experience, and I look forward to continuing to publish titles under this imprint. It’s taught be a lot about the editorial process, marketing the printed word, and working with powerful wholesalers. 4

Indie Publishing

I love to read, and I take the opportunity to pick up new material every chance I get. Sometimes it’s spectacular. Other times it’s junk that reads as if no one bothers to proofread or offer editorial advice. More often than not, I find out that books in this second category were either published through services like Lulu or Amazon CreateSpace, of the imprint publishing the book is a vanity shop owned by the author.

The ability to publish one’s work independently has definitely challenged traditional publishers, but it’s also dragged the quality of published work down considerably. Anyone with an idea can now be a published author, and that’s not necessarily a good thing.

As the median quality of novels goes down, so does the price sellers ask from their customers. Just as we’ve watched software applications drop to and below the $0.99 price point, 5 we’ve watched the price of books drop for $29.99 for a new edition to $9.99/month for unlimited titles via Kindle Unlimited.

Gone are the days when avid readers lined up at midnight for a new book release.

The tale of indie publishing isn’t all doom and gloom, though. The fact that new authors can now find their way to bookshelves and readers’ homes where stuffy publishing policies would have otherwise blocked them is inspiring. The trick is twofold: to help these new authors find quality editorial resources to review/edit/polish their work before release and to help readers wade through the mountains of muck to find the gems out there waiting to be read.

Sites like Geeky Library aim to do that, placing the burden of editorial review on a team of individuals and making recommendations to would-be readers based on their own experience. No one-off reviews like Amazon. No somewhat-anonymous reviews like mainstream news media.

Indie publishing has been both a boon and a bane to the world of publishing, simultaneously increasing access for new writers and muddying the waters for readers looking for new books. Seeing how things continue to develop in the next month/year/decade will be very telling for the future of the written word.

Notes:

  1. Just think about the number of parody or intentionally misleading fake news sites propagated online. ↩
  2. The first time I had more than 10 unique visitors in a week I thought it was a mistake by Google Analytics. ↩
  3. One was a very limited print run of an outdoors botany guide. You can only purchase copies of the book while on-site at the region it covers. ↩
  4. In the publishing world, you’re essentially required to avail your titles to large booksellers at a 50% discount. You’re also required to allow returns from these booksellers, at their full payment price, in perpetuity if they decide their inventory is not maintainable. For a small publishing shop, knowing that the 10 copies you sell today might be returned for a full refund 3 years from now is incredibly stressful. ↩
  5. A price point wholly unsustainable for all but the most successful (or lucky) development shops. ↩

Diversify your Audience

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As you progress in skill with one field or another, it’s often important to ensure your other talents don’t rust away.

I write on this site daily and often cover WordPress as it’s highly relevant to my day job. Ironically, when I don’t cover WordPress, my traffic goes down.

Likewise, when major WordPress events (i.e. specific WordCamps) hit the schedule, my traffic goes down considerably. This is because the majority of my readers shift their focus from my articles (which occasionally don’t cover WordPress at all) to the WordCamp event of the weekend.

My readership yesterday, for example, dropped by 60% – while my Twitter feed spun out of control.

Expand your Audience

My skills aren’t limited to WordPress. I write about physics. I write about religion. I write about business. I write about writing.

When I code, I most often write PHP – the primary language of WordPress. But I’m also proficient in JavaScript, Ruby, and C# – at times I write about all of them.

Unfortunately I don’t talk often enough about my work outside of WordPress, so my readers don’t follow it – or I don’t have enough non-WordPress readers to make a significant difference.

For this site to remain successful, that must change.

For your site to remain successful, you need to learn this lesson as well.

What are your hobbies outside of work – write about them. What are your other interests – write about them. What ancillary skills are needed in your job that aren’t in your job description – write about them.

There’s an audience for every topic. The trick is to be broader than a one-topic site. Being an expert in your field requires knowledge above and beyond your primary responsibility – leverage that knowledge to expand the content of your pillar articles and expand your audience at the same time.

Stories and Bias

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I love stories.

Reading stories, writing stories, telling stories. They’re a way to recount history and, through fiction, a way to make persuasive points about one thing or another. I’ve always been a fan of storytelling, and many of my friends indulge me when I get together.

Earlier this week, I was able to meet with some friends I hadn’t seen in a while. They asked me about my recent travels, and I recounted some of the more enlightening parts of my trip to Brazil – namely arriving in a non-English-speaking airport with no idea how to get to a hotel and no way to communicate my needs.

“Wow, that sounds pretty terrifying. I don’t think I could ever do something like that.”

“Of course you could! You’ve been plenty of places, and I’m sure you’d be more than OK working your way through.”

“Well, imagine if you had faced that as a woman. Alone. It probably wouldn’t have been as much fun.”

I admit, I hadn’t thought of it that way at the time.

Check your Bias

I will only ever see the world through one set of eyes and one set of experiences. That doesn’t devalue who I am at all, but it increases the value of listening to the stories of those around me and trying to put myself (figuratively) in their shoes.

When I have to navigate a foreign country with no means of communication other than pantomime and prayer, I will only ever do so as a white man. It’s impossible for me to experience that any other way, so while I can imagine other circumstances, I will always need to yield to others for factual accounts.

When I tell a story in person, my personal bias – the demographic lens through which I experience the world – is immediately apparent. I can’t pretend to be anyone I’m not when I’m speaking, so everyone can immediately identify my bias and raise concerns like the one above.

When I write, though, that bias is a bit more hidden. I can write under a pseudonym. I can publish through an anonymous medium with a phony biography in place. I have the option of obscuring my background so no one can claim such bias.

Bias and Written Stories

I read several travel blogs before my Brazil trip to mentally set up expectations before I landed. Some were collaborative – written by groups who had gone to the country for hiking, exploring, or business purposes. A few were solo accounts, ironically similar to my own of trying to navigate the country with zero Portuguese skills.

The even larger irony is that more than half of these solo accounts were written by women. Like me, they landed in a foreign airport with no clue how to get to their destination and made it safely through depending on the kindness (and ability to understand pantomime) of taxi drivers.

When I read these accounts, I related instantly to the stories. I didn’t discover until later they’d been written by women and I was pleasantly surprised our experiences were so similar despite our difference in gender.

This reminds me of the common complaints I see of men writing women, or of white authors writing minorities. Too often we look at the demographic of the writer and immediately assume they’re incapable of relating to or conveying the stories of another demographic.

I was recounting a personal experience, and it was implied that my experience would not apply to another demographic – despite my finding very similar stories presented by that very demographic. I find it a bit frustrating to have my stories limited in their application to demographics fitting my personal appearance.

To this end, I proposed a wild idea:

I still hold that a somewhat anonymous anthology would be an interesting experiment. Do you see any value there?

Daily Habits

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For the past several weeks, I’ve made a concerted effort to blog every day.

When you do something daily, it becomes an ingrained habit – something you can continue to do without even thinking about it.

Showering. Brushing your teeth.  Reading the newspaper.  All things we do on a daily basis (or at least I hope you’re showering every day) without thinking about it.

Writing every day is something I want to be capable of without over-thinking the effort – so it’s something I force myself to do daily in the hope that it will become habitual.

Building a Habit

How long does it take to build a habit? Some say it takes three weeks of consistent effort.

The functional word here is “consistent.”

I write every day, but it’s at different times.  Some days I wake a bit earlier and write before breakfast.  Other days, I’ll pull up an editor during my lunch break.  Yet other days will find me writing after dinner.  This post, for example, was written before bed the night before it was published.

I’m writing every day, but I’m not writing consistently.  To develop a real habit, I need to do more than make an effort to write every day.  I need to set aside time out of my schedule designated explicitly for writing.

More than Prose

My day job is writing PHP code, again something I do every day.  As a result, I’m often burned out from using a computer to type by the end of the day – one of the reasons I write often before work or late into the evening.  Still, as writing code is a daily activity, it’s not something I need to think about too much to actually sit down and crush code.

I want to write regular words like I write classes and functions.

I flex my creative muscle by also reading every day – but reading is a far cry from writing.  It will take work and focus to build this into a habit.

What behaviors do you want to build into habits?  What more work could you do today to start?