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Tempus fugit, dang it.

My usually-persistent blogging has slowed to a drip, not because I don't have anything to say, but because hours are filling with meetings, leaving little time for writing. It's good to be busy and getting a lot done, but it's unfortunate that writing (along with other projects) has been swept aside. Some of the things that are occupying my time lately:

My company, Polycot Consulting. Along with partners Jeff Kramer and Matt Sanders, I cofounded Polycot in 2001 as a web consultancy, but our timing was unforunate (entity formation was filed September 12, 2001). Web technology development, which had been my passion for years, was clearly not in demand following the Internet collapse of 2000, and the events of 9/11/2001 further delayed any revival of interest in web business. The limited demand was for web development, so that was our focus for years. We were consulting, bringing our intelligence about the web to bear on many projects, but almost always in the context of a development project. However not only is there renewed interest in the web, much of that interest is in the realm of what's now called social media, which has always been my real passion. It was only when I discovered that you could build communities in cyberspace that I became a career technologist, and I've always been drawn to projects that were about building social spaces (for communities, virtual teams, online social networks, etc.)

I took a four month sabbatical from Polycot to build a blog network for Worldchanging.com, and when that project ended, I decided the next step was to build a focused social media consulting practice at Polycot. I've been working on that for several weeks now. My Polycot partners, meanwhile, have built a development practice focused on creating social media environments using Ruby on Rails. They're taking a limited number of projects in that space (and we'll have some exciting announcements soon as current projects are completed). Now there'll be two Polycots, and while we may combine consulting and development for some projects, the consulting practice will also stand alone. In addition to social media/online community/social networks, we also consult on user experience and information architecture, findability, and conversion support.

I've also been increasingly involved with the Bootstrap Network, which started in Austin and is spreading across the globe. Bootstrap is the most effective social network I've seen, manifesting fact to face and online, creating a remarkable support framework for entrepreneurs and their companies. Originally created for founders of Bootstrap Companies, the organization now welcomes potential entrepreneurs who're in ideation, and it's been working with established companies that began as Bootstraps via the "Rebootstrap" project, which helps restore the entrepreneurial spirit.

And I've been working via EFF-Austin with Aspiration's Allen Gunn (aka Gunner) and a dedicated group of Austin technophiles to coordinate the first Penguin Day Austin, an April 28 event that will give local nonprofits an opportunity to explore free and open source software. In addition to helping nonprofits, the event will bring local techs together, including members of the revived Open Source Posse (which has connections to Bootstrap, EFF-Austin, and the regional Digital Convergence Initiative).

I'm also getting involved with the
Cleantech Forum for Austin, editing and blogging at Worldchanging Austin, and working on various and sundry other projects... so blogging's been hard to work into the mix. I'll try to do more, but on the run, and shorter posts.

Photo: Hiroshi Inoue (President of NaCl, where Ruby was developed by Yukihiro Matsumoto), Jeff Kramer, and Jon L. at Polycot Consulting.

jon posted this at 11:45 AM
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