Tag: community

Replace “WordPress” with “Yellow Bubble”: An Open Letter to the WordPress Community

A few years ago, I fell in love with the WordPress community, as I have spoken about.  Even my wife sees people she has never met, as family.  The people I have had the pleasure of meeting in the WordPress community have made a dramatic impact on my life, and I thank you all, but some of you have become the thing I dread each day.

You know, I used to enjoy checking Twitter and see what many of you are up to.  Now, I scroll through occasionally; only to usually see some kind of bullshit labeled as #wpdrama.  Some of you are nodding but haven’t the slightest clue of what I’m talking about.  I’m not protesting those who bring up controversial topics.  I’m protesting those who slap a #wpdrama label on something and sweep it under the rug.

To be fair, I went through this same thing years ago in the Lotus “yellow bubble”. It was a dark time for me personally, but I took myself out of it and am now in a much better place. Does anybody remember the term “attack kittens”? Again, this is way in the past and you really need to read the article. Bubbles are everywhere and some now call them “pimples” that need to be popped.

I highly recommend that you read this post by “Jeff Matson” entitled “An Open Letter to the WordPress Community“.

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Bubble

The term bubble, as I use it, refers not only to the economic bubble in which the valuation of some tech start-ups went crazy but also to the mindset of the people working inside tech companies, the true believers, and Kool-Aid drinkers, the people who live inside their own filter bubble, brimming with self-confidence and self-regard, impervious to criticism, immunized against reality, unaware of how ridiculous they appear to the outside world — Dan Lyons

This was me just a few years ago

I Love to See Others in Our Community Developing New and Creative Products

A few months ago I wrote about Corey Davis’s awesome “Word Connect” app available for iOS and Android. Today, I found out that he has published an iBook entitled “Flight – A Multi-Touch Book”.

Flight! tells the amazing story of how humans learned to fly. Through the use of pictures, drawings, interactive photos, and video, it describes the exciting history and unbelievable stories of how kites, gliders, hot air gallons, airplanes, helicopters, rockets and the Space Shuttle were created. Flight! will teach and entertain young minds (as well as old).

Flight! A Multi-Touch BookThe book is available for pre-order on the iBook store and costs $2.99. As you can see from the screenshot, I have pre-ordered my copy.

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Thank you Joyce Davis

I wanted to take this opportunity to personally thank IBM’s Joyce Davis for her tenure as the IBM Collaboration Solutions Community Manager. I have learned so many things from Joyce over the years that it would be impossible to list them all however, the one thing that I have learned from her more than anything is to always look at the bright side of an issue or a person. Always focus on the overall good, rather than a moment of dissatisfaction.

Being a community manager can’t be an easy job. We the ICS Community have gone through several transitional times, both good, bad and even unfortunately ugly. Joyce has been there to ensure that the community as a whole remained even keeled. She provided us with the occasional “sanity check” that was sometimes needed. Joyce is “real” and she sometimes tells you things you didn’t want to hear.

All the best to Joyce in her new role in the IBM CIO’s office. You and the leadership you gave us will be missed.

Our community mourns the loss of Jens-B. Augustiny

Today I received the following email from Jens-B. Augustiny’s son Herbert:

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

Last Saturday my father, Jens Augustiny died. You are entered in his
address database and because of this you are receiving this sad news. For
details please refer to the attachment.

Since we are not sure whether we can address all friends, business partners
and customers, we ask you to forward this message to other people which had
contact with Jens.

Best regards

Herbert Augustiny

I was deeply saddened by the news of Jen’s passing. My heart felt condolences to the Augustiny family.

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Podcast: ICS Tech Tweetup with Paul Mooney and Gab Davis

A quick 14:15 podcast to discuss the specifics of the IBM Collaboration Services Technical Tweetup being put together by Paul Mooney and Gab Davis on Wednesday July 18th at 6pm BST (1pm EST). The hashtag will be #icstt, and Paul and Gab will put up a page with more information next week (I will add the link when it’s live).

Also discussed: Paul has announced dates for two USA instances of his Ethical Hacking course, Paul and Gab continue to add great content over at connections101.net, and don’t forget to register for UKLUG!

Listen now >