Tag: resolutions

New Years Resolutions 2012

Me in Manchester

Taken by Becky Davis in Cloud23

Following my review of last year… here’s my New Years Resolutions for 2012

  1. More public talks
    I quite like public talking although I personally think I’m not very good at it. I’ve forced myself to talk more in public and so I’m going to push my public talking more in 2012… Its starts with Ignite Leeds and a few others in the first half of 2012. More will come soon after.
  2. Keep my calendar more clear
    I find if I keep my calendar clear, adhoc things pop up and I quite enjoy this. So hopefully keeping it as empty as possible will help this happen. I’ve been known to use twitter a lot to arrange adhoc meetups and this year I’ll keep this going. This also fits with my idles about focusing more and removing the stuff which doesn’t matter so much, from my life.
  3. Play more
    Like previous years, I hope to play more games but unlike last few years I’m considering real life gaming like Werewolf, The thing, etc… I’m already playing Werewolf once every two months in the northern quarter with Larkin About. And the venue we have has bags of potential for other types of real life gaming experiences.
  4. Inspire through what I do
    I still love the simplistic of iamido.info. I feel there’s a lot more what I can do to inspire others through what I do. Hopefully some of this will come through what I do at work. Lots of friends say to me, why don’t you setup your own company? But to be honest I love my job and I feel like I’m in a bit of a startup environment within BBCR&D. This has its advantages and disadvantages, but either way hopefully it will show theres more to life than money. This also means even more oversharing or overlistening. But I’ve decided to pump more information into Google Plus (because of their Data Portability) instead of Facebook or Twitter. I think the circles are a good idea, and I think I could use them over another service like Path. Even considered documentating things like dates I go on just like 52 first dates.
  5. Don’t settle for mis-information and totally bogus arguments
    Quite a few times I’ve been having a debate with someone and they throw in something which is totally bogus. I mention it but we carry on regardless, then later on it comes back but worst. The other person builds a argument off the back of this mis-information. I then have to build a argument to counteract this mis-information. No more! The debate isn’t going to carry on now.
  6. Never shy away controversy / push social limits (including complaining myself)
    I understand social limits or boundaries but can’t help but push them. I don’t do it to be deliberately a pain to others but sometimes I use them as a transport towards something much more enlightening. In my blog post about VivID lounge, I faced a lot of angry people, but in the end I’m starting to see comments which confirm some of the points I was making. Its not about me, I’m just pushing the conciousness into the public where others can give a better reasoned argument. Someone needs to be the person who lights the match I guess, and thats me. I’m also adopting Senior Troublemaker as my title at work, which is very fitting. I’m sure my plans for #geekstalksexy will also cause some controversy. Lastly complaining is important (within reason) My ex-wife use to complain when something grated with her and you know, it always ended positively. So its time to shake off the British stiff upper lip…
  7. Drink only when they serve decent cocktails or wine I actually like
    I’ve already stopped drinking stuff I think is so-so, by extension I’m generally only going to drink when I’m really up for it and looking forward to enjoying the taste. This means no more drinking cherry beer just because theres nothing else to drink, no more settling for crappy cocktails made out of packets.
  8. Improve my circus skills
    I still loving my Diabolo and when I was off sick I was going to Manchester University Circus Skills. But when I went back to work the timing (2-4pm on a Wednesday) was never going fit with work. Now there’s the circus house next to me, and I’m hoping to make full use of it. On top of that, when it gets warm in MediaCity again, I’ll be pushing for Circus Skills classes again at lunch times. Maybe there’s a way to combine the two? Or even move one of the after hour classes away from South Manchester to East Manchester?
  9. Buy more non-black shirts
    If you know me, I tend to wear a lot of black shirts. Hey I like them and I have many of them (maybe I should take a photo of my wardrobe just to prove it). However I’m not against other colour shirts (I wear Orange/Yellow/Green/Red Tshirts for example), but they do need to be short sleeves and not dodgy cheques like you see on a lumberjack. So time for different shirts and you know what? Maybe even different colour trousers now and then…
  10. Be more careful with money
    I’m spending right now about 6 pounds on lunches bought at Booths at MediaCity (Booths is the Waitrose of the North) , this has got to stop. Not only that, I’m treating maybe too many people with free meals and drinks. Cool but I do need to limit the number per month.
  11. Bake a cake
    I don’t understand why but there seems to be something about engineers and baking cakes. I don’t personally get it, but the guys all bring in cakes every week for everyone else. I’ve not contributed to this and to be honest I can’t bake because I can’t help but mess with the recipe. Maybe its the creative side of me… or something. Anyway, sometime this year I’ll bake a cake and bring it in for BBC R&D, can’t pledge for its quality however
  12. Eat healthy
    Been consistently loosing weight at a slow pace, and to be honest my NHS dietation/nutritionist has been good. And we’ve identified the only time I eat bad is when I’m far enough away from decent quality food. So I’m going to avoid all the rubbish food places and stick to decent places (even if its at odds with number 10). I’ll also do more smaller shops, so I can pick up more fresh fruit and veg.

A review of last years resolutions 2011

Every year for the last few years I’ve been publicly posting my new years resolutions… 2011, 2010, 2009 and here’s a review of last years

  1. Ski on real snow
    Yes and this year I did it. Chill Factor in Manchester was where I skied on real snow for the very first time. So I can finally take this one off the list for good.
  2. Organise a Trance night in Manchester
    This (kinda) happened, I got together with Dirty Si and Composite and we did it in a small place called Arcadia on the Great Ancoats ring road. It lasted about 4 weeks but only shut down because the owners had a massive fight and we lost our venue in the aftermath. Shame as we were starting to build our night, Startup… Not to say its over, but I’m not pursuing it right now (for reasons below)
    Of course theres more mixes on mixcloud if you want tunes.
  3. Read more non-news stuff
    Ok so this hasn’t happen so much, still got many books I need to read on the Kindle but generally I’m reading less news stuff and more blogs and opinions. Also reading a lot of recommended stuff from people I follow on twitter.
  4. Live even more in the public
    This is all happening… I’m actually currently writing a presentation about this in the same vein as Jeff Jarvis. Over sharing or Over listening? Who knows, but I do know spilling my thoughts into the public domain is always going to cause conflict no matter how I think about it before hand. Perfect example is my thoughts about the late VivID Lounge, which still is getting comments, some negative and some positive. But they got people talking…
  5. Document more online (including films, books, photos, etc)
    Using Trakt to document all the films and tv shows I watch has worked out great….Specially when you look back across the whole year like this… Its much better than documenting them using Twitter or even Identica. Pushing things into Facebook has been interesting, specially when my friends commented “am I feeling alright?” when watching a lot like love. I keep meaning to add reviews there instead of Twitter but it hasn’t happened yet.
  6. Meet more young, progressive, single and central located people
    This is happening more and more, slowly slowly… Only real issue is they all seem to be gay (so no love action), but alas I conclude my gaydar is totally broken and I’ll just have to live with that now. Will have to work around this.
  7. Consider going out with woman who have kids
    Generally I’m more open to woman who have kids, but haven’t dated any yet. But I have spoken to a few in passing, so who knows what might happen next year…
  8. Get my finances in order
    I could have done better but to be honest, I’ve saved quite a bit money but I’ve also spent too much money on lunches and dinners out. A little look through my bank details shows a lot of transactions from the newly opened Booths in MediaCity, and Booths isn’t exactly cheap (its the Waitrose of the north for my friends down south).
  9. Work more on my healthy lifestyle
    Playing Volleyball, walking most places in Manchester and losing weight slowly but steadily. Its certainly going all in the right direction. I did sign up for the gym but they wanted a doctors note to cover there arses, which the doctor could not/would not give me. And to be honest, I think taking up another sport is more likely than the gym.
  10. Play much more
    This is one I’ve failed on for sure… Simon Lumb keeps saying, stop watching films and play instead, but I’m generally doing something else at the same time, so its continent. When Brendan was living with me for a while, we did play PES 2010 a bit but most of the time the Xbox 360 stays off. However, I’ve started pushing the Manchester Werewolf chapter again and the last one was very well attended and its great we got the venue deeply involved.
  11. Spend more time thinking deeper and focusing
    This year has been all about this. Less time keeping track of whats on everyones radar and more time focusing on things which matter to me. This could be seen as a social/media bubble but if it stops me trying to store lots of loosely related things in my head, then so be it. I’m very active about pushing away things which are not core to myself or what my goals/aims are.
  12. Take Geek Culture to new heights
    I’m pursing a few things which are related to this. There’s thoughts about whats next after BarCamp and Hackday? What would go into Geeks talk sexy series 2 and what other games can we play socially. I’ve done some ground work to work closer to Larkin About and who knows where it goes from here?

Next post has to be 2012 resolutions…

A step towards achiving one of my new years resolutions

My new mini (8 inch) Woks

Number 9 on the long list of new years resolutions included living a healthy lifestyle.

As part of this I’ve item, I ended up buying 3 new woks. The difference is being they are little mini 8 inch wok’s. There so sweet and mini! The other woks I owned ranged from a middle of the road 12 inch to a massive 15 inch. Hopefully with a smaller wok to cook in, i’ll cook a lot less and end up with smaller portions to eat.

Achieving New Year’s Resolutions

Just discovered Derren Brown is blogging and twittering. One of the things he reblogged was a link to achieve your New Year’s Resolutions.

  1. Make only one resolution – Many people make the mistake of trying to achieve too much
  2. Plan ahead – Don’t wait until New Year’s Eve to think about your resolution
  3. Avoid previous resolutions – Deciding to re-visit a past resolution sets you up for frustration and disappointment
  4. Be specific – Think through exactly what you are going to do, where you are going to do it, and at what time
  5. Set S.M.A.R.T goals – Focus on creating goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time based (SMART).
  6. Carrot not stick – Focus on how much better life will be for you, and those around you, when you achieve your resolution
  7. Go public – Many people keep their New Year’s resolution to themselves.
  8. Be persistent – New habits take time to learn, and once in a while you will slip up and revert to the old you.
  9. Visualise – Visualise yourself doing whatever it takes to achieve you resolution as this will help you believe you can do it and see it through.
  10. Be positive – It is better to think about the good things that will flow from a healthier lifestyle than the bad things that will result from an unhealthy one.

So looking at these recommendations, I’ve pretty much failed on every point except number 7, a bit of 6, 9 and 10.

7. Go Public – Many people keep their New year’s resolution to themselves. Unfortunately, this makes it all too easy to simply forget about them. Instead, go public. For example, write down your resolution on a large sheet of paper, sign it, and place it somewhere prominent in your house. Tell your friends, family and colleagues about your resolution, and ask them to provide you with helpful nudges to assist you in achieving your goal. Either way, do not keep your resolution to yourself.

New Years Resolutions 2011

So after reviewing my 2010 resolutions its time for my 2011 resolutions

  1. Ski on real snow
    Yes every year I say this but seriously this coming year, I’m going to do it at that indoor snow place (Chill Factor) in the Trafford Centre.
  2. Organise a Trance night in Manchester
    Not only can I dj but i’ve found 2 djs from work and 2 other geek djs who are interested in djing out. Enough to surely put together my own night. Ok no one would get paid at the start but heck we’re all doing it for the fun of it.
    On top of that, I’m also hoping to get more involved with music and maybe do a few live broadcasts via the pacemaker. Either on my own station as such or else where. Of course you’ll certainly see more mixes on mixcloud.
  3. Read more non-news stuff
    Since I bought my ebook reader (the sony one) I’ve honestly read more that ever more. Even when I had my ipaq and use to take 3 hours to cross South London. But I seem to be reading lots of news and blogs rather that books. This isn’t necessarily bad but there are lots of books I would like to read. So now I got the Kindle, I’m hoping to slow down a little more and read more non-news.
  4. Live even more in the public
    I’ve come around to the fact that I’m a very public person and although there are certain things I won’t reveal to the public (isn’t a person able to keep a few secrets) I’m generally going to be more open and public that before. I know some of my friends will be saying heck no, please no more but I don’t really see a seriously bad side to all this. i’m already considering making my dating profile public, right now it links to my online persona in parts which might be why I’m getting the type of woman reply that I do.
  5. Document more online (including films, books, photos, etc)
    Luckily this should be much easier this time. I did microblog (twitter/identi.ca) every film using the hash tag #film but then I noticed Twitter was cutting off my entries past a certain date. Identica fairs much better going right back to Jan 09, but I only really post to identica when I’m at my laptop (really need to find a identica/statusnet client for android). Anyway, now I’m using Trakt, things should be easier. Although I got to say having my film collection online does raise lots of questions.
    On the photo front, the Nikon D40x (DSLR) is helping a lot, but I’ve still not picked up the courage to shoot people on the street like pebaline (susanna’s great work). I’ve also got first dibs on shooting our work area at Media City for Wovox. Of course Dataportability is still high in priority as always.
  6. Meet more young, progressive, single and central located people
    My boss (adrian) made the point a while ago when he took me to hospital with Tim (my ex-flat mate) I know lots of people from all over the world but I don’t know many people in Manchester or the North. I live in one of the party central locations of england and I should be out all the time but alas I don’t really have many people to go out with (yes cue the violins). So its time to change that and get to know more people. I say single but thats only because I already know lots of couples and its nice to go out with people with a similar status, be them male or female.
  7. Consider going out with woman who have kids
    I’m 32 this year and its becoming more and more difficult to meet women who don’t have kid(s). Although I’m not really bothered either way about single parent families, I’ve tried to only date women who have no kids to date. I spoke to my ex-wife (Sarah) and she gave me some advise (thats how we originally got talking online, she was giving me advice about a girlfriend I was having trouble with at the time) regards to meeting woman who have a kid. So I’m not going to rule it out like I was before.
  8. Get my finances in order
    Now I got a mortgage again, its time to be a little stricter about my spending. I earn quite a nice salary and heck I live in quite a reasonable place for going out. So I should be paying off more that I currently am. I was actually doing ok then I blew up my scooter engine and spent the good part of a grand buying a another one. I also think this might be the last motorbike regrettably
  9. Work more on my healthy lifestyle
    Although I had the bleed on my brain back in May/June, I’m certainly a lot more healthy that I ever was before. I had no idea I had high blood pressure and a lot of the small things were tied to that. So now I have that under control (thanks mum & dad for the blood pressure monitor for Christmas). I generally eat healthy but I do eat quite a bit. So hopefully little things like buying smaller woks will help aid with this.
  10. Play much more
    I have a feeling that play is going to be massive. Its going to be weaved into almost everything around us. I would go as far as to say play will be as big as social was in the late 2000’s. I say play because it doesn’t mean we’ll be playing more Xbox games, no the concepts and mechanics of gaming will make it into more and more things. So its time to get a lot more serious about my own playtime.
  11. Spend more time thinking deeper and focusing
    After the life/death experience I’ve had this year, I’ve done a number of things to improve myself but what still amazes me is our brains. Between hypnotherapy, mydreamscape and a few other things I’ve observed. I’ve come to realize that our brains are extremely powerful and even the idea of positive thought can do amazing things. My social worker (yeah they assigned one to me when I came out of hospital) said these type of life or death experiences makes you question your religious outlook. Although this hasn’t happen for me (although I am thankful to everyone who prayed for me) it has certainly made more interested in what can be done when you really focus hard.
  12. Take Geek Culture to new heights
    This is a bit of a aspirational one (not that there is nothing wrong with that), along side running a full barcamp at Media City UK and putting effort into the BarCamp WikiBook. I’ve been thinking, I’m really interested in what happened to the girl geekdinners, Sarah Blow and the other ladies worked very hard to make it the success that its has become. I feel there might be something with the geeks talk sexy series. We’ve only done one so far but there is something surprisingly compelling about geek culture right now and I think now the general public has the taste. So hopefully the rest of series will be even more successful and the chance to do run at the green room will really kick off something extra interesting.

A review of last years resolutions 2010

Its that time of the year, so first up the review of last year.

  1. Go skiing on real snow
    Yes this has been on going and to be honest, with all the spare time I had this year I could have but it would have been against the doctors advice. Anyway this coming year it will happen for sure.
  2. Blog more
    Yep achieved
  3. A better routine and live more healthy
    Yeah this is certainly in effect, never guessed I would have ended up in hospital midway through the year. Crazy stuff.
  4. Kick off Manchester werewolf night again
    We did kick off another werewolf night but its always at the wrong days, so I need to do more about this.
  5. Find my perfect development stack
    Yeah to be fair I still need to work on this but I did end up buying XML Oxygen editor and played with PHP and Xquery. With mydreamscape I got into the type of development I rather liked. Stitching together things which work like lego bricks
  6. Playout live more
    Yeah I didn’t quite achieve this one but I have plans for 2011. I certainly like to play Trance out live.
  7. Use even more graphics
    This didn’t quite happen, but hopefully this will change
  8. Upgrade sooner if it makes a noticeable difference
    Yes this is working for me
  9. Be involved in a regular podcast
    Indeed this worked out great. Techgrumps is fantastic and hopefully we can develop this even further.
  10. Buy a flat in Central Manchester
    Yes I finally this year bought a 2 bedroom flat in Islington Wharf, just on the east edge of central Manchester. I owe my sister and Billie my amazing mortgage advisor greatly for this whole thing
  11. Avoid all online services which don’t perform to my acceptable levels of data portability
    I’ve done this but I certainly could do more in this area.
  12. Play more games
    This is certainly something I am still not doing enough of. I did buy a Xbox 360 a while ago and to be fair I did buy a whole selection of games when I was recovering from my bleed on the brain, thinking I would now finally have the time to invest in them.

My New Year Resolutions of 2009

So its about time to start looking into the future again and making those resolutions… Looking at the previous ones for 2009 things have not gone exactly to plan.

  1. Go skiing on real snow
    Didn’t happen, will have to carry this one over…
  2. Work and execute a Alternative Reality Game
    Also didn’t happen, but I may have to sub this one for writing a book
  3. Build up a better routine
    Its starting to happen but not quite yet, but give it a little more time and things will be better. I’m going start getting up earlier and go to bed earlier that currently.
  4. Work smarter, with less pace and less stress
    This is happening, but there is still smarter ways I could be working. I’ll try and document some of this too of course.
  5. Go out more and be live more heathly
    Yep, I think I’ve drunk more beer and wine this year that ever before. So I’m certainly going out a lot more but living more heathly, not quite. This year that will change.
  6. Be more daring with matters of the heart
    Yeah I’m not doing so bad there… Between OKCupid, Speed Dating, etc I’ve done a reasonable job enjoying myself and not holding back.
  7. Start organising Werewolf and Werewolf+ nights in the North
    Started well but dropped the ball a bit half way through the year when barcamp, tedx, etc kicked in. I should certainly get this going again, as I do enjoy a good game of Werewolf.
  8. Build a web application
    So I got a couple of kick ass ideas which I do want to build and with my new thoughts about using Xquery instead of Python, means I’m a lot more likely to build what I’m thinking in my spare time.
  9. Blog every film I watch
    So I started doing this via twitter using the hashtags film and movie but due to twitters archiving system, they got sucked away before I noticed. Someone pointed me towards 140 film review. So who knows maybe I might use that or come up with some simple Xquery to pull my reviews into a storage container using Twitter/Indenti.ca
  10. Read more
    This has happened a lot, since I bought my ebook reader I’ve read about 15 books in about 4x the speed I usually would. I can see this increasing in the future.
  11. More Trance music
    I’ve not done may trance mixes recently but once I get this competition mix out the way I’ll be uploading them regularly again. I’m also making a habit of listening to Armin Van Buuren and other dj shows at work and making a note of top tunes. I also noticed I spent about 150 pounds last year on tunes from AudioJelly and Juno.
  12. Lots more graphics
    Yep this is happening, I’m also getting faster at drawing in inkscape and explaining the after graphics. I’m hoping next year to be able to do complete presentations based on the graphs alone. I’m also going to start using some of the techniques Dan Roam uses in the back of the napkin

My New Year Resolutions

Happy New Year everyone…So in the usual vein, I'm going to blog my new years resolutions. I don't usually care or do these but I think the process of blogging them will maybe help because you guys might help me stay on track. I'm all about getting things done…

Finally go to Tokyo
I've talked about it for years and seriously know I will just explode when I get there. But have never got anywhere close. If I can go via Hong Kong then even better. So how is this going to happen? Well I'm looking for a site (besides Travelocity) where you can set a specific price on tickets and it will alert you when that price is close no matter which route or time of the year. RSS would be great too.

Not to do another BarCampLondon unless the BBC is the venue
So at BarCampLondon3 I decided I wouldn't want to do another BarCampLondon because people are starting to expect me to do it and thats not fair on others. Also BarCamps are poping up all over the place now (leeds, brighton, cork, etc) so this is a good time to say thanks to everyone who's kick started BarCamps in the UK but now its time for others to take it forward in their own vision.

Work on something very different but cutting edge this year
This is already happening. I think it wouldn't be a secret to say I could be working on an Alternative reality game (ARG). My feeling is that Play is when we are most open to learn and I think ARGs can be used to educate without the usual guff you get about educational games. So look out for that because I think the small team which have formed could pull off something very special.

Dataportability
I'm going to spend more time on this subject next year. Its a worthwhile cause and I think the link between all the trends like open data, the data web, authentication (like openid and oauth), etc is data portability. Giving people not only access to the data but also to move their data around. This was also part of my flow/pipelines concept anyway but much more tangable. I'm also looking to pimp this at a few conferences in the near future.

Small Routines
So I'm going to build up a few routines including reading my rss at regular times and going to certain events and not others. My Blogging has finally picked up which is good but I do need to keep it up. Theres also a bunch of other stuff I'm going to do including visiting friends and family regularlly.

Play a team sport
I've tried many thing to keep fit but what works best for me is playing in a team sport I enjoy. So something like joining Basketball, Volleyball and Handball team would be great. I've been looking around and there seems to be some new teams starting up in Jan.

Geekdinners and Geekvenues
So as you may have all noticed geekdinner.co.uk is down at the moment. I'm going to try and get to the bottom of this really soon but till then I'm going to move the geekdinners blog to my own server. The plan for the future of geekdinners was like the girl geekdinners to make it a charity or non-profit but this has been put off for a while because I need more help on geekdinners. Plus maybe its time to get a little more regular? I've not added enough to geek venues, and I do plan to add a lot more soon.

Start learning Python
So Python seems to be everywhere. From the xbox media centre scripts to conduit provider scripts. This seems like a useful programming language to learn or at least understand enough to hack around with. I'm also liking the idea of python with xslt using something like uche's 4suite.

Use the technologies around me better
I've been making do with some services, but actually I've been compromising with the limits attached to the free account. If I just pay the small fee, it will much more useful and effective. So for example paying for Plaxo means I can now sync between linked-in, plaxo and my windows mobile phone. On top of the syncing between Plaxo, Google Calendar, Outlook and Sunbird.

Go to more comedy clubs
I love comedy and I don't go to enough comedy clubs. So its a no brainer right?

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