Randy Charles Morin blogs for the sake of blogging.
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An interview with Blogger of the Day, Allen Searls of Wondir.com.
iBt4iM: Tell my readers who you are.
Allen Searls: Professionally speaking, I’m the VP of Community for Wondir, Inc. Although the rest of the Wondir crew is in Bethesda, Maryland, I’m here in Seattle, where I first came to launch a company and website built around “the World Live Web” idea in 2001. Alas, social software wasn’t as well-received then as it is today (not even sure “social software” was readily in circulation as a term back then) and although we generated a devoted following and community, we weren’t able to get funding or make enough money from the site to keep it alive. When Wondir came along with a similar but more successful (and better timed) “Live Web” idea, built around free, open Live Q&A, I was invited to come on board and did so in early 2004. Before Seattle, I sold real estate in Alaska, and before that I attended UC Santa Cruz (creative writing and philosophy), University of Sussex, England (literature and philosophy) and Indiana University (business).
iBt4iM: What's your blog? What's your blog about?
Allen Searls: My weblog is called Wondiring. Used to be called Wondir Land, which I think is a slightly cooler name, but the regulars at Wondir started a Yahoo group called Wondirland, so I thought I’d change my blog’s name and let them have the cooler one J Wondiring is a quasi-corporate blog in the sense that it’s centered around Wondir.com and our pursuits in community Q&A, although the opinions are my own and don’t necessarily represent the views of Wondir the company. In general, I post about anything that compels me. I’m interested in all-things Web 2.0, especially the social media side of it. Since everyone seems to define Web 2.0 in a different light, I’ll coin my own definition of Web 2.0: the sea change from a web of documents and transactions to a web of people and interactions. Defined as such, I want to encourage and participate in the Web 2.0 sea change as much as possible. It’s not that I think documents and transactions are unimportant. It’s just that the social side of the web is much more interesting to me and ultimately where I feel the greatest potential for growth and invention lies.
iBt4iM: What secondary blogs do you have? Linkblogs? Moblogs?
Allen Searls: Although Wondiring is technically my only blog (I do break it down by category), Wondir also has the Daily Wondir blog, as well as RSS feeds for all questions asked at Wondir, which is generally more than 5,000 question-posts per day right now. In that sense you can think of the catch-all Wondir Question Board as one big blog.
iBt4iM: Why do you blog?
Allen Searls: My father originally got me into it, but I find that it’s a compulsive necessity these days, especially if you’re handling an online community—not only to talk out loud about what’s happening in the area you care about and are responsible for, but to keep your ear to the blogosphere to find out what you’re missing (which is always much more than you imagine). Bloggers I’ve met through my blog, such as Cori Schlegel and Peter Caputa, have been instrumental in opening up new directions for Wondir, not to mention opening my mind to new dimensions of Web 2.0.
iBt4iM: What are your favorite blogs?
Allen Searls: These are in first-name alphabetical order so my favorites list doesn’t have any favoritism J
- Cori Schlegel: House of the Hanged Man (http://kinrowan.net/)
- Doc Searls: Doc Searls Weblog (http://doc.weblogs.com/ )
- Jeff Clavier: Software Only ( http://blog.softtechvc.com/)
- Ken Joseph: Bond Hunter’s Guide to Wondir (http://bondhunter.blogspot.com )
- Peter Caputa: pc4media (http://worcester.typepad.com
/pc4media/ ) - Randy Charles Morin: iBLOGthere4iM (http://www.kbcafe.com/iBLOGther
e4iM/ ) - The Daily Wondir (http://wondiring.typepad.com
/dailywondir/ ) - Rojo Blog (http://blog.rojo.com/rojoblog/)
- Wondir- All Questions Feed (http://www.wondir.com/wondir /jsp/rssIntro.jsp?catid=1)
iBt4iM: What do you do when you are not blogging?
Allen Searls: I’m an amateur offline writer. Spend lots of time with my fiancée and our miniature dachshund (wiener dog), who is smaller than most of his toys. Try (usually in vain) to get away from this computer J
iBt4iM: Thanks for taking the time to tell our readers about yourself. You are the Blogger of the Day.
Note: Blogger of the Day is a new series. We will interview one average-Joe great-blogger every few days (we hope). If you want to be the Blogger of the Day, then email me.
Previous Bloggers of the Day:
Wondiring
UMO - International Cartoon contest
The UMO - International Cartoon Contest is held by UsabilityMatters.Org towards the World Usability Day. All the awarded and qualified cartoons will be exhibited on 3rd November 2005 on the World Usability Day.
Participation is open to all cartoonists from every country in the world.
There is no Entry fee.
Please go through the rules and regulations – and in particular – the conditions applicable to the intellectual property rights.
Theme for the Competition
Technologies have now become the integral part of modern era. In our daily routine life we encounter with several products and technologies to make our work and life easy but does it solve the purpose always?..
Our encounter with technology continues every single moment, when we are relaxing, or when we use different appliances in home or office, our lives are full of moments with technologies, and theme for the competition is to identify such moments, specially the ones that cause frustration and convey them with a humorous and thought provoking cartoon.
Awards and Acknowledgements
A jury will select the top 6 winning entries, the cartoonists will be granted a cash prize award of
An exhibition of the winning and short listed entries will be held and UMO will publish an exhaustive works report.
The jury and the judgment criteria
We are in process of putting a jury of well-known professionals and socially active personalities. The names will be announced in due course, depending on confirmation.
For Judgment jury will use criteria such as creativity, humor, visual communication, presentation, persuasiveness, originality, cleverness, relevance of content and execution to identify the winner.
Deadline for Submission
Cartoons will be accepted through October 3, 2005
Rules and Regulations
Entries : up to 3 cartoons per person
Size (snail mail) : A4 (210 X 297 mm) or A3 (297X410)
Size (digital) : 300dpi and in dimensions that are suitable for printing
Technique : free
Entries in hard-copy/paper will not be returned.
Exhibition and Prize distribution
On World Usability Day, November 3, 2005
Submitting your entries
Mail your cartoons keeping the competition name in subject line to usabilitymatters [at] gmail [dot] com.
If you are sending through the snail mail, use the following address:
"Usability Matters.Org"
407E- Block,
Keerthi Apartments,
Yellareddyguda,
Hyderabad-500 045
India.
Please mention a little background information about yourself that may help identify you with your work and the email id that will help us get back to you with any communication.
Randy
Randy