fXceed

Currently I am reading a book called “Designing for the Social Web” by Joshua Porter, Korean translated version. I would like to share the highlighted notes from the book.

Usually, I prefer to get an English copy so I can share my quoted excerpts directly from the text. But in this case, I must translate back to English. Please bear with me for I will try my best to convey the exact meanings.

Following excerpts are not as structured as a serious composition should be, merely combining the selected sentences I took from the book and translated back to English.

Highlighted excerpts from Chapter 1: Emergence of Social Web Era

“The key to success is based on humanity.”

“How to satisfy usability and personal desires and social requirements?”

“the Usage Lifecycle”

1. Indicate the user’s need and engage in the sincere conversation about it.
2. The user has curiosity, is prepared to listen
3. Examine if the site is for the user, worthy enough change the user’s pattern in web utilization.
4. Listen to the regular users.
5. Developed an emotional attachment and began to evangelize to the people.

“User reviews are the most wanted contents in Amazon.com”

“‘People will not work without money’ theory is facing the big challenge.”

“Human is social being since his birth. Service he use must be social too.”

“Lewin’s Equation: B=f(P,E) Dichotomy between personal and environmental factors cannot satisfy human psychology.”

“Depends on how the User Interface(Environmental Factor) is designed, all conversations and interactions are determined.”

“Too restricted, the users will neglect it, or too flexible, the user will be confused.”

“Users want get the most accountable, trustworthy information from family or friends.” – Searching for a trustful agent

“Too much information make people to give up to make decision.”

“Advertisements cause stereotypical thinking.”

“People want the sincere, genuine converstion with the accountable people.”

“So much information needs attention from the users.”

“The Attention Economy: The value of attention is diminished because there is too much information requiring our attention.”

“The attentions is a valuable property of an individual. By reading the text of person in the similar condition, the individual can make sound decision, which includes saying, ‘No’”

Next Chapter 2: Framework for Social Web Development >>

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/scrum-for-one.html

This scheme is exactly what I need for developing my project. Step by step toward each small but important goal.

Scrumming Solo

Seems to me that, with a little modification, those are pretty good principles for anyone with some big projects on their plate – especially if you, like me, have a tendency to get side-railed. Of course, most of our projects aren’t collaborative, and they’re rarely as compartmentalized as computer programs, either. The idea of developing a project by evolutionary steps, with each step creating a potentially usable end-product, simply doesn’t apply to the kind of long-term projects most of us have as individuals – things like writing a book, learning a foreign language, or earning a promotion.

But the idea of Scrum is, I think, very applicable to our personal lives. The whole point is, through a process of constant self-awareness, to identify what’s holding us back, how we can work around it, and where the next few days or weeks should take us. Consider, then, “Scrum for One”:

• Do what you can with what you have. There are bound to be hang-ups in any project worth doing, and it’s all too easy to look at a project and despair because you don’t have whatever you need to finish it. Well, you may not have what you need to finish, but chances are you have what you need to start, to do at least some of the steps needed to get yourself somewhere close to the finish line. And you can take heart from this peculiarity of Scrum: often, when working under less than ideal circumstances without all the necessities to finish a project, Scrum teams find that either a new solution emerges that’s much more within their grasp or, just as often, that the missing element isn’t really needed in the first place. At the worst, you’ll give yourself the time you need to come up with the missing piece – and meanwhile you’ll be moving inexorably closer to your goal.
• Constant self-reflection. If you’re a fan of Allen, Covey, or Drucker, you’ve probably already accepted the importance of a weekly review. Scrum for One suggests that more frequent reflection might be helpful – nothing at the scale of a full weekly review, but a few moments of honesty each morning to define the work in front of you and any problems that might be standing in the way. Brainstorm a few minutes to see if you can solve the issue, and if not, put it in your to-do list for later action. A lot of time, just asking “What’s standing in my way?”is enough to trigger a solution – more often than not, the problem lies more in ourselves than in our situation.
• Work towards clearly-defined, short-term goals. Give yourself a time limit and set a reasonable goal – reasonable, but meaningful – to reach by the end of that period. Projects that stretch out in front of you for months or years are discouraging (which is why so few people write books) while projects that are too small often aren’t very satisfying to complete.
• Sprint. Sprinting the way Scrum teams do it won’t really work for individuals – you probably have a lot of different roles to play on a day-to-day basis, which means focusing on a single project to the exclusion of everything else is going to be difficult, if its even possible. What you can do, though, is block out a number of hours every day and use them to focus strictly on one project – no distractions, no knocking off early, no nothing until you reach your goal.

Out of nowhere, new idea for a web service emerged. I am quite happy about its importance and potential for being a useful service for many, and I want to protect it from my own procrastination and negativism.

The research plan for this project and also for other ones, or for general learning in web development:

• Find about the translation services. Which is the most popular one and how it functions?
• How to analyze and refine the article submitted to sentences? How to imitate Digg submission and rating system?
• What’s the best way to promote the web service and maintain its activity? How to lure master translators?
• Learn about the general methods, procedure in web service development.
• What’s the basic and the best usage for database?
• What’s the good method for finding attractive domain names?

Perhaps, I need these:

• Whteboard
• Easily scalable hosting service; something like FatCow
• Good Teachers
• More tech books, or O’Reilly’s Safari subscription.
• Optimization tools for learning, researching, and developing: XMind, Gliffy

My schedule is not ideal for many people, but remember—I’m not married, not (currently) taking classes, and don’t have a day job. I maintain a midnight-7am schedule for blogging because that’s when I’m able to focus without being distracted—no matter what. I may be able to work undisturbed during the day every once in a while, but by choosing a time to work that is consistent has led to my building a habit around this time. My body now knows at midnight that it’s time to focus, crack down, and produce. Habits are a great “system” to have in place because they can help force efficiency and effectiveness in everything. Get in the habit of writing at least once a day, and start building good habits around your blogging “business” as soon as possible.

I just can’t help but agree, based on my own experience, observation on myself, I need to build the habit around the specific range of hours which enable me to focus and produce.

The ultimate goal of systematization is not necessarily automation—though when executed deliberately and correctly, automation can be a welcome hand in your business’ operation. By systemizing your blog, you are able to begin working “on” your blog, not “in” your blog—to borrow from a popular business expression. Sure, you need to provide great, original content, but understand that there’s more to blogging than what you type (unless, of course, the blog is for your eyes only!)

Since I hope to make this blog open to the viewers and earn enough money to support my autodidactic plans, I must develop professional skills to manage the blog to be a real business.

Acquired copies of books that I consider necessary to start my project.

Actually, I wanted to buy more concise and inexpensive ones, but after realizing that I don’t have any references for these technologies, I decided to have big ones, like AJAX Definitive Guide from O’Reilly.

But the important matter is actually finish reading them and understanding them enough to effectively use the knowledges.

Tested so many ideas for my domain name, starting from ~cited~.

Because I wanted to make it more general, open to all kinds of faith to test one another, eventually prove our belief in Jesus the Savior through citing the accountable sources, initially with the Bible.

I chose the Bible, because it’s fully indexed, open to the public, and numerously cited by so many people in the world for many years.

However, as this service evolves, it will include other resources for other fields of studies. Wide varieties.

The main essence is to support our expressions, opinions, translations about anything, especially about our faith, with the reliable, truthful sources. Making the statement more deeper.

After so many thinking and pondering, I confidently choose: www.deepwideopen.net

I like .net because it reminds me of the fishers of Jesus.

Some ideas came up, which I can see some value and importance of their existence. But I need to learn more, something I only have concepts about them, to actually produce the working applications.

Must start learning, AJAX with PHP and MySql. Must be able to solve critical database problems. Document the development, so I can use it for my future references and portfolio.

And I must look back what I had written in my posts, to reclaim my lost ideas.

I just installed WordPress locally. I will set up a hosted place and synchronize the contents.

I will keep the track of my personal development in the area of programming and productivity skills. Stay sharp and focused.

This project must start by specifically set the goals and execute the necessary processes.

Both setting the goals and executing is quite difficult for me. I feel so embarrassed to myself. Can’t focus on one thing and feel some satisfaction at the beginning. I guess it’s wrong to expect some satisfaction first.