Plinky

Have you heard about Plinky yet? It launched yesterday, and you might want to go grab your preferred user name before it’s gone.

Plinky gives you a new question to answer every day, and lets you friend people and compare answers with them, sort of like you can on Facebook or Twitter. You can favorite other people’s answers, and publish your own answers to your blog (or your Twitter feed), and so forth. If you’re already blogging, it’s a nice way to supplement and to help your readership grow. If you’re not, it’s a less work-intensive way to connect with friends. I’m an advisor to the company, and I’m excited about it, so I’ll be posting my answers to Plinky prompts here in the next few weeks. Go have a look, and let me know what you think.

Coffee Shop Etiquette: 15 Tips for the Wi-Fi Workforce

I spend a few days a week working at coffee shops, which is pretty common in San Francisco, and I’ve seen some serious audacity in the last few years.

There’s always the guy communing with his computer at a table meant for four. He inevitably plugged in to the only outlet five hours ago; about the time he purchased his coffee, which has long since gone cold. Occasionally he rises to aim banter at the irritated barista, and then returns to his seat without making a purchase. Smashing.

I once saw someone pull a screwdriver out of his bag to remove a cover plate the owner had secured over an outlet. I had to restrain myself from walking over to smack his hands away.

By supplying Internet access, coffee shop owners know they’ll attract customers who want to work, but there are limits. Let’s review them:

1. Remember you’re frequenting a business. If the coffee shop isn’t profitable, it closes, leaving you pantsless in front of a Top Chef marathon. You, my friend, are a customer — so rise to the challenge. While you’re working, keep a purchase in front of you, and buy something every hour or so. If you can’t afford that, the library beckons.

2. Don’t bring a picnic. This should go without saying, but you may not bring food or drink to a place that sells things to eat and drink. Not even if you bought a coffee at some point. You can leave and come back if you want, but go eat your PBJ somewhere else.

3. Hang up. The barista is not a vending machine. Put away your cell phone while you’re ordering.

4. Tip well. Tip at least a buck every time you make a purchase. This promotes goodwill and serves as karmic rent. It’s an acknowledgement that you’re using space someone else could fill. Someone who tips.

5. Clean up after yourself. If you spill half the creamer on the counter before you find your cup, wipe it up. Empty sugar packets go in the trash, which is conveniently located inches from your hand. Bus your table between purchases and clear the table before you go. If someone takes your empty glass while you’re still sitting, that’s a forceful hint that it’s time to buy something else or leave.

6. Let the baristas be. If they want to talk to you, they will, and a pleasant conversation may ensue. But if you feel chatty — or god forbid flirtatious — direct those impulses elsewhere. Employees can’t be rude in the face of your attentions, and they can’t exactly leave work to avoid you.

7. Take one chair, and the smallest table available. If that happens to be a large table, offer to share until someone accepts. Don’t wait for others to ask, and don’t cover the table surface with papers in hopes that no one will bother you. As soon as a smaller table opens up, move.

8. Leave chairs free. If the space is busy, your bag goes on the floor, not a nearby chair. That way other people can use the chair without interrupting you. If you’d like someone to clear a laptop bag so you can sit, say, “Excuse me, is someone sitting here?”

9. Don’t bogart bandwidth. No P2P or large file downloads while everyone is sharing a network. Besides, we can all see your porn, and it’s awkward.

10. Respect the owner’s intent. If wi-fi is turned off at certain hours, then your laptop probably isn’t welcome either. Be aware of the cafe’s culture. If everyone around you is reading newspapers, or having quiet chats, this isn’t the place to start coding.

11. Avoid noise pollution. Switch your cell to vibrate, and take calls outside. If that’s not possible, keep conversations brief and quiet. Also, mute the sound on your computer, or wear headphones. Do you have any idea how much time you’re spending on Hulu?

12. Recognize that everyone wants the outlet seat. Unless outlets are plentiful, don’t use one unless you must. Arrive with a charged machine, and consider bringing an extra battery to avoid the whole drama. If you’re sitting at an outlet and you have enough battery to work for an hour or so, offer to share.

13. Don’t tamper with outlets. If an outlet is covered with a plate or tape, are you seriously willing to be the guy who opens it up? Don’t be that guy. What’s more, if there’s a fan, a lamp, or any other electrical device plugged in, you may not unplug it in order to charge your machine.

14. Ask before you pull out a power strip. In some cases it’s fine to bring along a power strip to multiply outlets, in other cases it irritates the owner. It’s more likely to be a good idea at a Starbucks than a mom-and-pop cafe. Another good sign is if the coffee shop has several available outlets, and is clearly set up for laptop use. When in doubt, ask the owner.

15. Once in a while, change your scenery. If you plan to spend an entire nine-to-five workweek in the same space, you might as well get a real job. Perhaps you’d be interested in learning to make a good latte?

The day may come that you’re too engrossed in your work to notice that you’re doing something rude. Hopefully, that situation will be such an anomaly that everyone will cut you some slack.

Now let’s go get some coffee. You can sit with me.

What Are the Odds?

Holy crap. You must nominate someone for this. Only 131 people have entered so far, which means the odds of winning $5,000 of Intel equipment are currently 1 in 43. Let me put that another way. Say you’re standing in a room with only 43 people? One of you gets $5,000. Can my math possibly be correct on this? Let me know, I was an English major.

As I mentioned before, I’m amongst the judges, so I invite you to play on my heart strings. Stuff to remember:

-Deadline is October 6.
-Nominating yourself is just fine.
-Photos and video are good.
-Community votes are a factor.

I think that’s it. Now go win this, please.

Intel is Wondering if You Want Computer Equipment

Some of you may not care about free stuff, and for you, I have four photos of people interacting with wildlife in inadvisable ways:

1. Seals
2. Rhino
3. Sharks
4. Crocodile

Now.

I know, from that survey a while back, that lots of you are teachers, librarians, students, and parents. I’ve never done a sponsor giveaway before but holy crap, some of you are going to need this.

Intel is giving away $5,000 in brand new tech equipment to three people who post over here about why they need it (photos and/or video encouraged). They’ll also send over the guys from Hot Hardware to install everything and teach you how to use it. Nice.

Selection is based mostly on how compelling your story is — and you can nominate other people (!). The odds are pretty effing good, and you will be excellent at this. You will make the judges, laugh, cry, and bend to your will.

So what do you need that Intel has? They could make a tech station for your class. They could give you the ability to write and print term papers without fear of losing a month of work to a hard drive malfunction. They could provide a functional workstation so you could run a business from home and see your kids more.

Here’s more info, and here are the rules. I’m one of the judges, but please limit your persuading to the Intel site.

Do some good for yourself, your team, or someone who needs your help. I’m rooting for you, and I’ll tell you who wins.

Twitter Etiquette

I just finished a new article for The Morning News: Writing My Twitter Etiquette Article: 14 Ways to Use Twitter Politely.

So, you may be asking yourself, “Why should I change the way I Twitter to satisfy a bunch of whiny tweetards who don’t even know how to use Twitter anyway? They can just unsubscribe if I’m breaking their precious rules.”

True. Yeah, I think you have a little spittle on your chin there.

Anyway, some of us would prefer to keep followers from leaving in droves. If that’s the case for you, there are lots of little ways to preserve their sanity. Go have a look.

Most Public Index

Say, I’m included in NowPublic’s MostPublic Index, their take on the most influential folks in Silicon Valley and San Francisco. Their criteria for selecting people are interesting, and actually has a lot to do with all of you, so scroll down past the list of links to see how they decided.

In the meantime, if you need me to influence anyone, you know how to reach me.

Start Conference

So, my alarmingly capable husband Bryan Mason and his partner Jeff Veen are putting together a conference for people who want to launch their own start-ups. It’s called Start Conference, appropriately enough, and the speaker lineup is killer.

Also? It’s only $200 for the day, which is ludicrously cheap for something like this. Then again, I suppose it would be tough to expense a conference that teaches you how to successfully leave your job. Anyway, spaces won’t be available for long, so go have a look if you’re a company-starting type.

Canada? Check.

I think I said blowjob 453 times in the space of an hour. Then Heather made several references to goat testicles. She also had a rare timid moment when she stopped, squinted up into the stage lights and said, “Am I allowed to cuss?” Like God was going to answer.

Obscenities and phallic references aside, the session went well. That is, once I was able to tune out the live blogger. It’s unsettling enough to be on stage, but try it to a soundtrack of frantic typing that stops whenever you pause for breath. Fortunately, the audience wasn’t full of people I knew in seventh grade, and I wasn’t naked behind a podium, so actually the presentation was better than I could have dreamed.

Afterward, we headed to my very first meet-up, and I had a great time. I’ve never done a meet up before, and (as I mentioned during our presentation) part of me always pictures myself alone in a large warehouse whistling and waiting for someone to show up.

That’s Aimee and Kathryn who, along with Kirsten, chatted with me for most of the meet-up. I’d love to see them all again, plus lots of the others we met. At one point, I was talking to a neuroscience major, and all of the women around the table were like, “You study neuroscience? I’m totally into neuroscience too!” Thereby verifying my suspicion that all of you are total geniuses. If you came out, thank you so much for finding sitters, driving from the far reaches, or overcoming your shyness. It was good to see you.

We fly home today, but there will be lots of photos and a few good stories to come. Canadians are lovely, and Canada is officially checked off my Mighty Life List! Next? The pyramids at sunset! Or possibly making butterscotch pudding from scratch. I’ll keep you posted.

It’s the Shoes

During the two hours we meeted and greeted, Heather stood in these shoes:

In fact, she’d been wearing them since noon, when we left the hotel to present. She did not whine a single time, and only whimpered once.

So the next time you find yourself wondering why you can’t pay your mortgage with your Internet Website, don’t ask yourself where you’d find ten hours a day to take photos of suburban life, balance batteries on your dog’s head, and write detailed essays about Al Roker’s nipples. Ask yourself whether you’d be willing to stand in 5 inch heels for seven hours while greeting 200 people you don’t know.

Next time I present somewhere, I’m wearing 15″ lucite stilettos. I apologize in advance if my feet bleed on you.

Coming to Canada

Are you in Canada right now? OK, stay there for a minute. I’ll be right up.

I’m speaking at Vidfest with Heather Armstrong. (Whose name, incidentally, I can never type without thinking, “Arm strong, feel arm! Heather strong, like ox!” But I digress.)

It’s taken me thirty-two years to get up to Canada, and I cannot wait. Everyone tells me how gorgeous Vancouver is, and how no one locks their doors. As you might imagine, I’m excited to walk around trying all the doors and photographing what’s inside.

While we’re there, my very helpful husband Bryan, arranged a meet-and-greet for me and Heather, and you should come because I want to meet you. Also, if you have one of my books, I will write something nice inside.

When:
Friday night, May 23rd
5-7 p.m.

Where:
Dockside Brewing Company
behind the Granville Island Hotel
1253 Johnston Street
Granville Island, Vancouver B.C.V6h 3R9

(Google Map)

Please join us.

In other news, regular readers may remember that “Cross the Canadian border” is one of the items on my Mighty Life list (lower left sidebar if you haven’t seen it). The offer to speak at Vidfest was one of the slightly uncanny things that happened right after I posted the list. I’ll tell you about the rest of it later. In the meantime, if anyone has a boat that needs christening, you know who to call.