The Year Ahead: The Past Year As Context

I guess this is a combination of roadmap and resolutions for the new year. 2008 is upon us, or given the highly personal nature of this post, upon me.

Cyclic Time, originally uploaded by Stowe Boyd.

It's Day One of 2008. I am sitting in my new office at 156 South Park (see New Office In South Park!), finishing up this prospectus for the year:

1. No Plastic -- after reading The World Without Us, I have been scared organic. I am putting saving the planet first on my list. So: no more plastic razors, plastic bags, plastic wrap, or plastic bottles.

   There is a floating mass of plastic in the Pacific -- a huge inorganic Sargasso sea or razors, bottle caps, and fish nets -- the size of Africa. LIterally billions of tons of plastic crap. I am going to do whatever I can to avoid contributing to it. [At the airport this morning, I went to Potbelly sandwiches for my take-on lunch, because they wrap in paper and use paper bags. Sandwich was good, too. Next: a Swiss wind-up razor. Uses no batteries or electricity, either!]
   

2. Less Writing, More Work -- For a number of reasons, I will be writing less this year, I bet. I quit the writing gig with Internet Evolution after a basic dispute about what is blogging and what isn't, but I am happy to not have the obligation.

   I am involved in a number of activities where I am acting as a founder and designer, coming full circle as a parallel entrepreneur. Over the course of the next few months I will be able to start disclosing what is going on in these activities, about which I have largely been silent. I will be writing more about my work -- especially these projects -- and less about other people's applications.

   Here's the rundown on what I will be working on in 2008:

   After amicably disengaging from Blue Whale Labs early in 2007, I returned to my solo consulting practice, renamed The /Messengers, and shifted my 'advisory capital' model of work into parallel entrepreneurialism. In essense, I have convinced people who initially wanted my consulting advice that we would all be better served if I were to become a partner in the envisioned product. When people disagreed, I generally fired them politely. (In a few cases, I have continued on in an advisory capacity, but not very many.)

   In most of these projects, I am the chief architect, designing the structure and moving parts of what I hope will be viewed as intuitive but powerful social applications.

   I have been able to write about the Open University Social:Learn project, at least a bit, but I haven't really detailed the application as currently designed. I am the chief designer of that social learning platform. I guess I will be spending time in Europe on this and other projects, which is likely to be as much as 2007: around three months.

   Social:Learn is based in part on design principles that are embodied in another project -- Workstreamr -- where I am also a founder, partner, and chief designer. It is my hope that these two applications -- and maybe others -- will share more than common design principles, but may in fact be the first two instances of applications that are sharing common components (as I described in a recent post, Social Architecture). I will be disclosing some key elements of the design for Workstreamr within the next month, I believe.

   I am also acting as the chief designer on another, unrelated social tool project that has yet to be announced, where once again, I am a co-founder: in this case, with some extremely accomplished and well-known partners. This is likely to be based in New York, as is Workstreamr, so I will be spending more time there than in recent years.

   Also, in 2007, I have become a member of the new advisory board at b5 media, and I will also be working with a new start-up in Europe as a board member and advisor, although that has yet to be announced. I am also an advisor to Going Far, Stephanie Booth's new media start-up (I supplied the name!), and a Boston-based social conference application start-up.

   I will be continuing my involvement with Rocco Pelligrinelli at Imaginventure, in Lugano Switzerland, advising on the direction of Playyoo, the mobile casual gaming platform, and on other projects.

   There are other discussions going on, with other groups, in particular, working with an innovative services firm on a new approach to helping entrepreneurs get new applications to market. More to follow as that firms up in the next weeks.

   Basically, I think I am maxed out, at least for the first half of the year, so, unless you have a hugely exciting opportunity, I am completely tapped out.
   

3. Less Theory, More Practice -- As a direct consequence of all these hands-on, highly involved projects, I will be (soon) able to speak about the thinking behind the applications I am designing, and use that to illuminate my thinking about social applications. In the past, I have critiqued others applications, alluding to all sorts of quasi-nebulous principles: like social scale, as in my recent finger wagging in response to the Google Reader sharing kerfuffle. Now I will be able to illuminate these ideas with actual applications I am involved in rolling out.
   
4. Social Work -- I have arranged a new office space at 156 South Park, and plan to do most of my work there, while in San Francisco. Formerly, I had an office at 625 2nd -- the Looksmart building -- but the place was loud and lacked ambient light. I really didn't like the feel, so I seldom went in during the last months. I worked in my teeny, tiny studio on Brannan, but, trust me, it's too small for that. I am moving my office junk -- printer, monitor, boxes of documents, #2 Xootr -- into South Park from my studio over the next few days. I am hoping that more people contact me to just have a chat in my digs, a coffee at El Centro, on the corner, or a glass of wine at Bacar or South. (This also means I will get back some space at the studio apartment, which is nice, too.)
   
5. Less Conferences, More Hanging Out -- I find the conference experience to be pretty tame, perhaps even lame. The same model of talking heads waving their arms around on the podium, powerpoints, blah blah blah style panel sessions.

   I intend to avoid most conferences, but I plan to set up more topic-focused salons when I wander around, and something regular in San Francisco. These will be small format get-togethers, a blend of invited and selected, mixing different sorts of people, never more than ten. Artists, designers, authors, musicians, and trouble-makers. I haven't figured out how to do this, but it will be a twisted blend of late night TV, a cocktail party, and an unconference. I am looking for sponsors, and I plan to videocast the outcome. And for some of them, I will be cooking the food, too. I will call this /Epicenter (www.stoweboyd.com/epicenter). More to follow, as it gains critical mass.

   You can be sure that the initial launch of the various applications I am working on will be premiered on /Epicenter, but I hope to reach way outside the familiar circle of the web, too, and wander off into architecture, design, music, sex, cognitive science, travel, history, fiction, wine, food: basically all my obsessions. And it won't be topical-focussed either, but more likely geolocal: when visiting Boston, London, or Munich, I will pull together some brilliant, funny, inquisitive and cantankerous people, mix it together with some food and wine, and see what happens. And then boil it down into a thirty minute something. Hang on to your hats.
   

6. Back To Martial Arts -- I have given my elbow and lower back two years to rest since the five and a half years I was working toward a black belt in Shito Ryu. My schedule -- and the relocation of the class -- makes it nearly impossible to attend the dojo in Virginia where I trained. I have decided to take up martial arts again. However, there is no Shito Ryu dojo in San Francisco. I am considering Aikido, and will be snooping around to find a teacher/dojo. In preparation, I am restarting karate-style physical training -- sit-ups and push-ups start again tomorrow -- so first step will be a health club that offers aikido and other martial arts based in SoMa. Watch /Ambivalence for more on that front.
   
7. Vacation -- I am going to program more vacation time into my life. In 2007, I sneaked a bunch of long weekends, and took the week 'off' between Xmas and New Year, but with my Dad's illness and recovery, it wasn't very restful.

   In 2008, I am planning to spend a month in Europe. Basic plan is to rent an apartment or house in Lisbon for a month, maybe make a few side trips. I will work in the mornings, and take the afternoons off.
   

8. Deferring The Book -- I had planned to spin a book out of the writing project at Internet Evolution, but I have scotched that arrangement. Given all the urgency of various projects, I am going to put the book on hold. Maybe in 2009, when the various apps I am working on have launched, and I can use their design as at least part of what I want to write about, my Social Revolution may come into existence.