My Cause: Empower the people of Haiti w the power of the Internet!

I have been volunteering as Director of Operations for the Universal Learning Centre - Haiti for the past year and we have made significant progress toward empowering people of the Haitian countryside with knowledge.


In the last year, we have hosted several fundraisers, opened the doors to 26,000 books provided by the Parliament of Quebec, installed the rooftop on our new Learning Center in Pilate, and are about to finish the last mile of our Satellite Installation Program!


If you would like to get involved, there are many ways - ULC-Haiti! is a good first stop.  For those local to Richmond, VA - I have free oil changes and state inspections available for minimum donations!

Jugaad coming to America?

A recent article in Business Week http://bit.ly/8mBe9M discusses Jugaad (pronounced "joo-gaardh"), "India's improvisational style of innovation promises fast and cheap solutions".

From a western perspective, the initial reaction is to think "quick turn-around that's low on quality", however the true essence of Jugaad is a process used in an economically depressed market like India to deliver products and solutions that cheaply solve an immediate need. With the 77% of Indians living on less than $0.50 a day (see Reuters Article) , companies must focus on delivering cheap solutions that address immediate necessities like transportation as seen by the recent Nano vehicle introduced by Tata Motors.

As we here in the west face an Economic Depression, companies are quickly realizing that the long product innovation cycles of old in a market where consumers are deal shopping for products that meet their daily necessities or replenish basic needs without breaking the bank.
In the technology development world, the trends have followed a parallel path moving away from long-winded processes like the "Waterfall" method to quicker impact processes like "Agile". As the market demands faster and cheaper solutions, businesses must quickly find partners that can react quickly to innovation requirements and deliver under tighter budgets.

Master Cleanse: Day 5 spent at Joshua Tree

I have been waking up with more and more energy every day and today, Day 5, I woke up at 7am feeling the best I have felt in a long while.  Now that could be a result of the fact I havent had a drink in over a week or it could be the cleanse.  Whichever it is, I felt fresh.
As with each morning, I hammered back the repulsive blend of non-iodized salt and 1 liter of water.  This time there was only about a 15 minute delay before the gurgling turned to a rumble which had me seated on porcelain for the following 20 minutes.  Sparing you the details, it was the most productive day yet on the throne with multiple flushes.  Afterwards, I felt light, empty but refreshed.
So what better to do after my last salt water flush of this round of the master cleanse?  Go bouldering in Joshua Tree with 40 mph winds in 45 degree weather.  Sounds a bit daunting, but ended up being one of the most amazing short trips I have had in recent memory.  I have a few pictures below of Hidden Valley Park, Joshua Tree where we climbed random rock formation, got lost, climbed some more, then retired to the Nurturing Nest.
Here is a link to the Flickr album of Joshua Tree: http://bit.ly/7YjPzy

I must also mention the awesome little spot we stayed at about 25 miles outside of Joshua Tree called the Nurturing Nest.
We arrived to friendly smiling faces who showed us to our simple cozy room with super white, clean sheets, full kitchen, bath, and no tv (awesome).  Just outside our room were 2 large hot spring pools, one enclosed in a candle lit room and one outside with views of the Mojave.
All the small things made the difference at this place like a really cool selection of teas available with organic honey, soy milk, etc.  Waking up to breakfast laid out in the indoor hot spring; oatmeal, cereal, fruit, breads, etc., and the overall cleanliness of the place made my stay there so good that I will stay there for my next non-camping trip up to Joshua Tree....even if I do camp, I will stop by to decompress after a hike, chat with the owners, and sip some tea.  Here is a link to their website...http://bit.ly/4Wf7DT

Day 4: Master Cleanse

Its 1030am on Day 4 and my energy level is perty solid with no real food desires or hunger for that matter.  I even went for a morning meeting at Coffee Bean and didnt think twice about how I cant have coffee.  In fact, I joyously sipped my spicy/sweet cleansing concoction as I recounted stories about dangerously doing Yoga after taking down a liter of saltwater, heh heh.

The other cool thing is that I finally have my entire 6-pack abs back in effect after a 5 year hiatus at the ripe old age of 33...thats after 3 months of beachfront debauchery in bars.  I am sure its some genetics, yoga, and surfing, but hey - should cause an eyebrow or 2 to raise out there lol!

So today its off to Joshua Tree for some climbing and hot springing and a 27 degree night in California...see, it gets cold out here too y'all.  Check out the shot of Joshua Tree...U2 sang about if for a reason ;)

Day 3: Master Cleanse

I will say one thing - that saltwater flush friggn works like a charm in an evil, immediate kinda way.  I have seen some blogs recommend not using that part of the cleanse but man, it is damn effective with immediate results.  So if you ask me, stick with the saltwater cleanse even though as you drink it down you want to gag on the insanely bitter, horrific taste...well worth it.

I did Yoga again on Day 3 (Iyengar this time), and had one of my best classes yet.  I think your mind craves distraction from the food cravings that happen when you smell anything that even slightly resembles a "food smell".  I was able to really focus on the breath and be in the pose during the entire class - something I havent been able to do so well.

 After class, I came back home, grabbed the board, and hopped in the water for a 1 mile paddle and surf.  Had plenty of energy and felt great...until like 7. 
I could not keep my eyes open or mind off of fooooood.  It felt like every commercial was about food.  Hell, even the Applebee's 2 for $20 platters that Chris Berman was pitching looked like the best food I've seen since birth!

I can say its harder this time around that I dont have a job, dogs, or a wife to keep my occupied.  Very glad I am doing it, but will only be doing 5 days this time around with a proper ending - meaning I will do the day 6 orange juice and day 7 veggies only before going to Applebees!!!!!

IxDA Conference on Designing Social Interfaces

I am a member of the LA chapter of IxDA which is a network of folks involved with Interaction Design; check out their Ning page here.

We met at the MySpace HQ in Hollywood, which I thought was kind of random.  I mean of all places to pick your HQ for a social media mogul you pick the land of glitz and glamour instead of where all the nerds roam like Palo Alto, San Jose, or even Austin, Texas.  Weird.

Anyway, the event was headlined by Erin Malone, the current head honcho of their User Interaction Design at MySpace, who also has a new book out entitled Designing Social Interfaces - 5 principles, 5 practices, 5 anti-patterns.

One of my biggest takeaways from the conference was that wow, the new design of all applications will be social.  It's official the twilight of one-way banter and the dawn of complete social interaction.  The companies that get this phenomena will succeed, those that dont will die.

The 5 main principles she discusses in her book are the following:

Pave the cowpaths.

Kinda like the Pareto efficiency concept, build around 80% then let the users define the remaining 20%.  Once you observe their usage patterns, build the rest out and keep moving.  Simple but profound concept that few companies adopt

Talk like a person.

For error messages, application updates, and all things from the company out to client - let their be common language spoken in a fun, down-to-earth, non-jargony method.

Be Open. Play well with others.

The easier a social site makes it for you to share photos across your sites, share contacts, update statuses, and even utilize common login credentials will make using multiple sites that much more likely from a consumer perspective.

Learn from games.

Games hit the social networks first and have learned some valuable lessons from their extremely large, diverse user base.  There is a lot to learn about what people like about reputations points, profiling, communication, etc.

Respect the ethical dimension.

If users sign up to use your service, dont bombard with emails, periodical subscription opportunities, and sell their address information to direct marketers.  Its a fickle market out there, so respect people that decide to use your service.

There were also some other very interesting concepts that Erin discussed like the Power Law of Participation and the Participation Ladder.  For example, depending on our interest, we may be a passive reader, a follower, a commentator, or maybe all the way up to a full on to a collaborating list/group member.  
I think it kind of puts into perspective what to expect from people.  First comes the social object, then come the interested people according to their participation ladder or interest in the object. 


Cool stuff.

Vinyasa Flow on the cleanse...

I wasnt sure if I was going to literally "flow" from the saltwater flush or I was going to flow from the rhythm of Angela Kukhahn's class (seen in below pic), and surprisingly I had one of my better classes today. 

Lots of twists which you non-yoga folk would be surprised about the cleansing ability of a simple twist. It's like wringing a wet cloth by twisting it in the center. What happens to the liquid? Some of it sloughs off completely (inside the body this would be detoxifying or cleansing), other portions of the liquid move to the ends of the cloth from the center.   Lets just say after a night or weekend of drinking, you will sweat your ass off from some of these twists.

The technique in Yoga is to start the twist by trying to move only the navel toward your hip, then turning each vertebrae in the spine as  you move the twist up your back until you are facing the wall behind you.  There is an Iyengar twist below for you to check out.

After all the twisting and sweating, its 3.10pm, I finished 1 liter of my cleanse concoction and feel pretty energetic.  I'm thinking about surfing but given that more caloric intake is next to nothing, I will choose a sedentary afternoon/evening.