I’m a Scrum Master!

As of 5pm Friday, I received my certification as a Scrum Master. What’s that? Well Scrum is a form of project management that focuses on self managing groups and agile/iterative development. Read more about...

Henri Poole and Mike Gifford Talk About Open Business Models

While at the Web Of Change conference in September of 2005 I spent a fair amount of time talking to Mike Gifford of Open Concept Consulting about CivicActions and our business model and how it can be a model for new open source web development consultancies. Upon our returns to the real world, Mike wrote me with some questions, at that point I brought Henri Poole, one of the founders of CivicActions into the discussion. What follows is the text of a week or so of email messages between the 3 of us. I have edited for consistency and added clarifying remarks where necessary. Both Henri and Mike have taken a look and approved this version of the conversation. Michael Gifford: Henri, I spent a great of time exploring business models that are used by the other companies that were present [at Web Of Change] and trying to draw on the collective experience in the group. OpenConcept is presently owned entirely by me and I engage a group of sub-contractors for specific projects. Unfortunately, juggling their time and availability has proved to be rather time consuming and not particularly effective. Phillip Smith was discouraging me from re-organizing my business along the lines of a traditional business model. Someone told me to ask Gregory [about CivicActions,] and the business model that [you have] developed really speaks to me. I want to bring on more skilled programmers, provide them with a stable source of income and be able to build better tools for my clients. I need to help cultivate more Drupal coders. I also like the Drupal Guild concept and...

Ever read the MySpace Terms?

A friend just pointed out the The MySpace Terms 6. Proprietary Rights in Content on MySpace.com. 6.1 By displaying or publishing (“posting”) any Content, messages, text, files, images, photos, video, sounds, profiles, works of authorship, or any other materials (collectively, “Content”) on or through the Services, you hereby grant to MySpace.com, a non-exclusive, fully-paid and royalty-free, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense through unlimited levels of sublicensees) to use, copy, modify, adapt, translate, publicly perform, publicly display, store, reproduce, transmit, and distribute such Content on and through the Services. So while you music, photos, writing is on MySpace, Rupert Murdoch / News Corp and MySpace have the right to use it for whatever they want. That means license it for use in commercials, televisions shows,...

Trees for the future: carbon offset programs

If you have been following my blog, you have seen that I am feeling guilty about air travel and the environmental impact. I wrote about this earlier and got some good feedback in the comments from Rolf which lead me to Trees for the Future where I just bought $100 worth of trees to offset my carbon footprint from air travel. TFTF will plant trees to the tune of one per dime. So I just bought 1000 trees which will each absorb 50 pounds of carbon a year for 40 years. So my trees will absorb 2.5 25 tons a year. Each transcontinental leg I fly emits 1 ton (that is per passenger) so really all I did so far is offset one and a quarter round trips from New York to Seattle (in the first year). I have nutralized 12 round trips between NY and Seattle. I am going to also buy some carbon offsets from Sustainable Travel International which invests in World Wildlife Fund approved carbon offset programs. While I might not reach carbon neutral this year, I figure that if every year I invest about $200 in carbon offset programs, within about 4 years I will be net negative on my carbon footprint, and if I continue to make those investments each year, I will very quickly offset my past carbon...

An Inconvenient Truth

Via WorldChanging: The movie An Inconvenient Truth will open at the end of May. Participant Productions is getting people to pledge to see the film when it opens in their market (at the film’s website ClimateCrisis.net). The ClimateCrisis site also has a nifty carbon footprint calculator. The Calculator got me feeling really guilty about air travel. This past weekend I met a guy while in the desert south west of LA who is working on carbon pollution credit trading. I should admit that we talked about these issue while in a climate controlled house baking in the sun and 100 degree ambient air temp. We talked about TerraPass which allows you to buy carbon credits for your driving. I suggested that someone should start “AeroPass” to allow travelers to buy carbon credits to offset their air travel. Anyway, join me in pledging to see An Inconvenient Truth when it...