The Brian Shaler Blog

Recently, I have been making it a point to write more. During the last month, life has been getting in the way of that. Regular posts will resume soon.

During February, I quit my job at Sarkissian|Mason, a New York-based interactive advertising agency with an office in Phoenix. I am now working with BitGravity, a Content Delivery Network based in San Francisco. I will continue to focus primarily on interface development in Flash.

SXSW starts next week (March 7-11). This impacts one’s schedule in several ways. First, I need to invest extra time and energy into my new job, as I will be taking a week off. Second, as someone who wants to have a technology to advocate at the conference, I have an impending deadline for my side project. Third, it’s pretty important to make sure you have travel and lodging arrangements. Oh, that reminds me…. I need to figure out how I’m getting there.

During the last month, I spent 9 days in California, drove the PCH, gave a demo on XID at Refresh Phoenix, gave a presentation on advanced Javascript (Firebug, Greasemonkey, Google Gears, Firefox extension development) at Refactor Phoenix, attended a chess meet-up, gave impromptu demonstrations of HDR photography and general photo retouching at Refocus Phoenix, had dinner in Half Moon Bay, CA with Francine Hardaway, redesigned the BrianShaler.com landing page, and much, much more.

I finally made it to Social Media Club. It was my first time and overall, it was a worthwhile evening.

The topic was a presentation by Arizona-based white label video site, V:social. I have heard about the site, but it was great to see a more detailed view of their platform. It was also great to see some of the implementations of their product. As a white label video player, you can be watching V:social video without even knowing it (and I have!). Great company. Great product. Great presentation. Glad to hear about companies like this thriving in Phoenix.

There were two other highlights of the night. As I introduced myself, Francine Hardaway, an “uber” networking maven if I’ve ever seen one, interrupted me immediately after I said my name. “Oh HEY!” she said. “I (@hardaway) follow you (@brianshaler) on Twitter.” That happens from time to time with people I’ve never met, and it’s always awkward. But because this was Francine, it was awkward + awesome.

The other highlight was the guy that introduced himself by saying “I invented Web 2.0 in 1991.” Yes, an Al Gore joke inevitably followed (it wasn’t me, I promise…. but it was definitely on the tip of my tongue).

Social Media Club meetings are on the second Thursday of every month. Check out SMCphoenix.com for more information.

BarCampPhoenix is tomorrow, so I figured I would help spread the word in any way I could.

I am currently developing something that would be great to present and talk about at BarCamp. It is not near completion, but I will be working late into the night tonight to try to get it to a ‘proof of concept’ condition that I can demo.

Some hints:
- Related to contact management
- Decentralized, peer-to-peer foundation, aided by an optional web service
- Designed to be developer-friendly to spur the development of tools/gadgets
- Currently developing a Firefox extension that utilizes a client-side database (pretty awesome)
- Intended to impact the way people use & find social networks
- Intended to help people stay in touch, stay organized, and stay up-to-date

Hopefully this sounds interesting to you. If so, come to BarCampPhoenix and be one of the first to learn about this exciting project!

Tomorrow is the November meeting for Refresh Phoenix. I am looking forward to it! I missed the last two meetings, due to business trips.

The main discussion this month will be about Blueprint CSS. Whether or not you know or care about CSS, you should try to attend. The crowd is usually very diverse, with designers, programmers, copywriters, photographers, and many other web-relevant specialists.

I look forward to seeing you there!

This one time at PodCamp…

Yesterday was PodCamp AZ. The turnout was great. I talked with quite a few people I had met before and met some new people.

Some of the folks I talked with include Aaron Post and James Archer of Forty Media, Todd Austin of Design Reverb, Adam Nollmeyer of ACME Photography, Austin Baker of Box-seven Media and 62mph, Susan Heywood of DirectMarketingMBA.com, Heather Herr of Experience Studio, Clintus McGintus of I Do IT Digital, Douglas Welch of WelchWrite, Evo Terra of Fun Anymore, Jody Gnant of JodyGnant.tv, Jason Waldrip of Viddler, Andy Ferra of Monospaced Media, Michael Hacker of V:social, and Nam of Stay Up Maps.

Phew..

It was fun. Many words were spoken. Countless ideas and stories were shared. It was very much a worthwhile event.