I’m waiting for my first panel to start:

• Back on the Conference Circuit
• The White House Goes Green
• Next Up: Collaborative Governance?
• Cleaner Energy Ideas
• Habitual Thinking

I’m heading to Netroots Nation for what might seem like less-than-obvious purposes.  This is in many ways a politically-focused event, but I’m planning to attend sessions that emphasize progressive policy advocacy online, building and supporting communities of activists, and driving change with the most innovative and inclusived tools possible.  As someone who has been at times both inspired and flabbergasted by the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors’ creativity with or resistance to emerging technologies, I’m really hoping to reconnect with the folks on the cutting edge of these innovations.  I expect to return from Texas brimming with new ideas to test in my own field and state.

I focused my senior thesis on the use of web-based technologies on the campaign trail; at this point, I’m much more interested in how social technologies can be brought to bear on governance, advocacy outside of the campaign season, and building public awareness around pressing issues.  With those interests in mind, here are a few of the sessions I plan to attend this weekend:

Transparency, Participation and Reinvention in Government in the Next Administration Through Web 2.0 Tools and Culture

Working from the Inside Out: Success Stories in Netroots Organizing

Debunking the Issue Silo Myth: Why the Broader Progressive Movement is Green

Lobbying Congress: Advocacy and Digital Empowerment

Insanely Useful Tools You Can Use to Keep Track of Congress and State Lawmakers

Culture Clash or Fellow Travelers? How Should Progressive Non-Profits Engage the Netroots?

Image used under a Creative Commons license courtesy of Flickr user supervillain.

• Greetings from Texas
• Covering The “Council On Foundations” Philanthropy Conference
• Social Entrepreneurship at Council on Foundations
• Wired Philanthopy in the Foundation World
• Next Up: Collaborative Governance?

This one is the most impressive, and relates to cooking…so it’s first on the docket:

This one is geektacular…and involves two of my childhood passions: Lego and  Star Wars:

Hat Tips: Signal Vs. Noise and Geekologie.

• In-Flight Infotainment
• Politicians Abandoning the Social Web
• There Is Comfort In The Sound
• Sunday Cooking…With the Internet
• Mashups and Conversational Media

I’m way behind the blogosphere, but here are a few links to kick things off on Monday morning…nothing about Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac because, let’s be honest, we don’t actually know what those entities are supposed to do:

• For those who are interested, here’s the Harvard Business Review post-mortem on Starbucks’ troubles.  Hint: it’s exactly what you think, namely too many stores and trying to sell too much crap that had nothing to do with coffee (like John Mayer).

• A great intro to online giving markets for those who are interested in micro-philanthropy:

eBay disintermediated shopping. Napster initially did the same for music and Wikipedia for information [...] What paradigm shifting changes has the Internet brought to the slowest sector of them all, the philanthropic sector?  The answer might be online giving markets.

These organizations can be loosely defined as web-based, informational and transactional platforms that help donors and volunteers more easily identify and then contribute to or volunteer at high performing nonprofits, social projects or needy individuals.  They empower pre-vetted organizations to access a wide and diverse base of primarily individual contributors and volunteers.

[...] The fact that it is taking the philanthropic sector a decade longer than the private sector to identify and support this inevitable and emergent trend is quite disheartening and one of the main reasons why the smartest and brightest young professionals leave the sector (let’s not only blame salaries) [...]

• From TreeHugger:

[Y]ou knew it, but…in case you needed more proof: “A direct comparison of drinking water from the tap with unrefrigerated bottled water shows an environmental impact of tap water which is less than one percent of that of bottled water. Even when refrigerated and carbonated, the environmental impact of tap water is approximately only one fourth of that of bottled water.

• If you like Krispy Kreme doughnuts AND bacon cheeseburgers…you’ll still probably experience nausea seeing the two together at the Google cafeteria in NYC.  Careful Jarred, Krispy Kreme and bacon cannot be combined safely…

• Did anyone get a new iPhone?  If so, did you also get a date?

• Finally, I told you all that I decided to give Jarred a Something from the Something Store for his birthday.  Knowing Jarred as well as the magic elves at the Something Store do, they sent him skeet shooting glasses (true story: a sticker on the lenses says “great for night driving!”).  As my gift to you, here’s photo evidence:

• Monday Links: February 18th, 2008
• Monday Morning Links: January 7th, 2008
• Pork Across the Pond and Here at Home
• Monday Morning Links: January 14th, 2008
• “Monday” Links: January 23, 2008

These questions are a little frivolous, but I thought it would be interesting to see the numbers.  Next week, we’ll use this system to ask more relevant/serious questions. But, as this is my last day of work at my current job, I’m not in a very serious mood. Roll it.

• Questioning Things: Vol. V
• Questioning Things: Vol. VIII
• Questioning Things, Vol. I
• Questioning Things: Vol. III
• Questioning Things: Vol. IV

• Changing The Way We Think About Change
• Mashups and Conversational Media
• Blogging Makes You Healthier, Smarter, More Attractive…
• Classroom Connections: The Role of Technology in Schools
• Blogging and Work-Life Balance in a Digital World

(On a side note, Wikipedia states that “white noise can be used to disorient individuals prior to interrogation and may be used as part of sensory deprivation techniques.”  So it can eliminate distraction, but also disorient you?  Hmmm…)

I feel that I do best when I have a little music and some subtle distractions (people moving around me in a library, for example).  If I’m in too quiet or calm an environment, then my focus wanders.  It seems a little counterintuitve, I suppose.  The best way I can describe it is like this: in an environment where there is a little bit going on around me, my mind grips a little bit tighter onto the task at hand.  It’s almost like a challenge to my brain to have a little bit of noise in the background.  If there’s too much, then my brain can’t hold on; if there’s not enough, then my thoughts wander.  Go figure.

But white noise?  Surely not.  It’s still noise, right?

Surprisingly, I found it to be fairly effective.  I’ve set the meter at 30% over SimplyNoise while writing this post, and have just now cut it out.  Instantly, I realized that there are subtle sounds happening all around me that — while I rarely pay attention to them on a day-to-day basis — are kind of annoying: my window A/C unit, my external hard drive humming and clicking, car horns outside on the street, etc.  The white noise covered it all up.

My friend John grew up in West Virginia, and every few months a group of us will head to his family’s house for a weekend out of the city.  The minute we step out of the car, the thing I appreciate most (next to the fresh air) is the silence.  John lives in a valley next to an apple orchard.  The closest neighbors are hundreds of yards away.  No clicking or clanking, no honking or humming — just birds and wind and rain.  As soon as I turned off the white noise a few moments ago, I was reminded of this contrast.  Sometimes it takes a shift in your environment to appreciate or understand it.

Out of curiosity, I pose this question to you: do you work better in quiet environments, or when there are things/noises happening around you? Does your current work/study environment match that tendency?  Have you always worked better that way, or has it evolved (out of choice or out of necessity)?  How much does your focus and productivity suffer when you’re not in that environment?  Would (or does) white noise work for you?

Image used under a Creative Commons license courtesy of Flickr user Nils Geylen.

• Mea Culpa: Facebook Chat Is, In Fact, Useless
• Google In The Sky (with Diamonds?)
• CNN Shirts: The News Is Now For Sale
• Art From Above
• Blogging and Work-Life Balance in a Digital World

How It Happened

It began with nothing.

Doing nothing, that is.  Due to circumstances beyond my and, to a slightly lesser degree, beyond my employer’s control, I had no work to do.  A good third, at the least, of my time was being “billed to the firm”, as we say — in other words, being wasted.  Of course, I’m no enemy of free time.  The first few days of idleness were devoted to writing long-overdue responses to e-mails I had received, catching up on blog and news items, and spending some fun hours on YouTube and MiniClip.

Yet, as this blog’s existence proves, I’m not very good with extended periods of unproductivity.  Taylor and I created Tropophilia to fend off the atrophy of our creative and other mental powers that were trained and honed at Davidson.  I felt the same pangs sometimes during my year in France.  The feeling of being really challenged just wasn’t there.  And so it was that I began thinking about trying to find a new job.

I had applied to Google last year before graduation, for a position as a Trademark Assistant I believe.  I’d been a fan of Google for years as my interests in technology had developed, and knew that I wanted to head to law school down the road, so this seemed like it would be the perfect marriage of those interests.  They didn’t have a space for me, though, so my sights refocused on moving to Washington, D.C. and seeking paralegal positions from the abundance of firms headquartered there.

Now it was a different story, though.  I had a year of paralegal experience under my belt.  I had informed myself on legal issues in the technology industry through lots of reading and, a little later, writing.  And, unlike in those months preceding graduation when I was well in the grips of academic intellectual stimulation, I now had something that lacked in my first application: a very real, very intense hunger to have a job that would make a difference, that would teach me new and interesting things, that would challenge me.

In an hour or two I banged out a cover letter, modified and cleaned up my CV, and sent in my application for a Legal Assistant position with Google at their Mountain View, CA headquarters.  I kept an open mind and began looking at a few other jobs in the D.C. metro area.  Google receives over 1,000 applications a day for the various positions listed on their website, and I was expecting and bracing myself for the same computer-generated “thanks for your application, but…” email.

But this time, it never came.  Instead, one day I was a second too late in getting to my ringing cell phone, and the call went to voicemail.  The area code was unfamiliar, so I searched online.  San Francisco peninsula.  Holy…  My heart, already in overdrive, almost stopped when my phone buzzed with a new voicemail.  Recruiter from Google.  Got my application.  Wants to talk.  My email dinged at the same time with a similar message from the recruiter.

Decisions

And so it was that I began the interviewing process.  At the same time, I began a drawn-out decision making process.  There was a lot to think about as, each day, it seemed more and more likely that I would be offered a job.

The position is unbelievable.  I won’t go into details, but it is a very independent role serving numerous attorneys who deal with the entire collection of Google products and services.  There are no cons to the job, only pros.  The burden of proof lay not with the reasons for going, but with the reasons for staying.

I kept everything secret from everyone but my family and roommate at first, not wanting to count my chickens (or have anyone else count them for me) before they had hatched.  After each successive step in the process, however, as it seemed I was inching closer and closer to having an offer, I let more people know.  This part was almost as nerve racking as the interviews.  For the past year, I’ve been lucky — spoiled, really — to have a great community of friends around me.  We’ve lived and eaten together; shared endless jokes and links by e-mail; traveled to North Carolina, West Virginia and Michigan together; watched countless Davidson basketball games on T.V.; drunk countless margaritas and beers together; and more.  For Davidson, a college that graduates only several hundred young people each year, having this type of community right off the bat is rare.  During good times and bad, these guys had been my family.  That’s something I wouldn’t find in California.

So, leaving D.C. would be hard.  Heck, leaving the East coast would be hard!  Moving to California would mean being hundreds and thousands of miles away from everyone I knew and everything I was familiar with.  And I knew it would be tough for my friends, too.  In the end, though, I came to realize that the next year was going to be different no matter what time zone I was in.  Some other friends were moving away, others were moving elsewhere in D.C., and some had plans to move mid-year.  I couldn’t make the decision based on the past year, because it was exceptional.  2008-2009 would, one way or the other, not be the same as 2007-2008.  So I looked at it as if I was graduating from college again — an opportunity to do something extraordinary while I was young and without anything tying me down.

That was definitely the biggest hurdle to cross in making the decision.  There were certainly others.  Things were improving some at my current job, and leaving would mean renegeing on an informal two-year commitment I had made to them.  It would also potentially impact my timeline for law school; while the job with Google wouldn’t commit me beyond one year, I might like it so much that I would decide to delay going back to school one more year.  While I’m already hundreds of miles from most of my famiy, the increased distance from home would be tougher still.  And of course, there was the looming culture shock and loneliness  that I would likely encounter during my first months in California.

Worth it?

The end of the story, of course, is that I decided that the answer was “yes” and accepted the job the minute it was offered.  I had been weighing everything for over a month, talking to friends and family and trying to figure out if it was the right choice.  While even the logical balances tilted in favor of the job, it came down to listening to my heart.  And my heart said, “go.”

The tipping point came during my videoconference interview at Google’s D.C. headquarters.  There was a moment where one of my interviewers had to step out and see if there was anyone left to speak to me.  There were two giant projections on the wall of the room I was in — one showed the conference room in Mountain View from which the Googlers were transmitting, and the other showed the image of me that they were seeing.  I had been focusing on making “eye contact” with the interviewers by looking at the camera, and alternately looking at the image of them to make sure they were responding positively.

In the few minutes that she left the room, I took a look at myself on the second screen.  We had just spent two and a half hours talking about the job, my qualifications, and my interests — enough talking and listening time to either stress or tire me out.  But here I was, leaning forward, wanting to talk to them more.  I had pages of notes, not in case I was quizzed but because I was genuinely excited by and interested in everything we had discussed.  I looked comfortable.  I felt at ease.  And right before I heard the door open and my interviewer walked back in, I looked at my face and saw myself grinning from ear to ear.  I knew this is what I wanted, and I couldn’t have been happier than I was right there, sitting in a Google conference room, talking about technology.

California, here I come.

Images used under Creative Commons licenses courtesy of Flickr users Leo Reynolds and marttj.

• Breaking: Davidson Sends Students to Big Game In Detroit For Free
• Changing The Way We Think About Change
• Movie Review: In The Shadow Of The Moon
• Happy Independence Day from Tropophilia!
• iGoogle Goes Social: The Birth of Scaled Automation

• There’s a privacy stir going on in some recent rulings in the Viacom v. YouTube litigation.  I wouldn’t be too worried, there’s no way that all that information is getting handed over.
• In other Google news, check out the first international implementation of Street View by scoping out this year’s Tour de France route.
• People are already lining up a week in advance of the iPhone 3G launch.  Yikes.
• Engadget reports that a future version of the Prius will have solar-powered air conditioning.  I’m looking to buy a Prius with my forthcoming Google hybrid subsidy… too bad this version hasn’t even been prototyped yet.
• This makes me sad.  Some dude was trying to sell his vote on Ebay?  Come on, bro.  Don’t whore out your rights for money.
• The NYT has an interesting piece on how a Facebook co-founder revolutionized the way campaigns are organized online through his creative leadership with the Obama campaign’s social network, MyBo.
• Ponoko (which we covered here) is holding a 10-day design challenge July 1-10.  $1,000 cash and free production and product advertisement are at stake.  Go get it.
• “Is e-mail in danger?”, Alex at ReadWriteWeb asks, in the face of competition posed by Twitter and the like.  I don’t think so.

Be on the lookout for more from Eric this week, as well as the first installment in my series chronicling the personal changes I’m facing with my move to California.

• Ponoko Solves Designers’ Puzzle… By Making Puzzles?
• Monday Morning Links: January 7th, 2008
• Mea Culpa: Facebook Chat Is, In Fact, Useless
• Questioning Things: Vol. VI
• Monday Morning Links: January 14th, 2008

• Satellite Challenge #15
• Satellite Challenge #1
• Satellite Challenge #14
• Satellite Challenge #3
• Satellite Challenge #10