There is rhythm when: it is “recurring at regular intervals” and a flow when it is “moving continuously”.

You can be in rhythm without flow. For example when you are continuously repeating an action, but it feels forced or “not right”. Is like one of those days when you feel like working, but nothing gets done. Think of somebody in a karaoke forcing the lyrics, it just doesn’t sound right and sometimes can be painful. Or writing a blog post but it just feels like crap.

Now, as you can have rhythm without flow, you can have flow without rhythm. This is case when you have the ideas flowing, the energy and all the intentions of doing your work, but you get interrupted, again and again. Following the music example above, is like somebody singing at the same time that little kid plays with a drum set, doesn’t matter how good the singer is, the sound (or noise) generated by the kid will win over you trying to sing.

Finally, rhythm and flow is when you have the ideas – and for long periods of time – work on them.  It doesn’t mean you work for a whole day non stop. By long periods I mean that you can work for a couple of hours, stand up, stretch and have some coffee. Then with a small warm up (like reviewing what you have done), you get back to what you where doing.

When in rhythm and flow, it feels natural and things just get done. There is a level of focus that only meditation can surpass.

So how did I got into this topic about rhythm and flow? Well, I wanted to get back to blogging around 8 posts a month. In the past months I been posting less and less, and is not that I don’t have something to say. I just was out of sync.

Although many people see it as a habit, when it is time to create, write or program: I need to “warm up” my mind. Is not enough just to get inspired or get an idea, there is need to a jump start with some energy  for things to roll. Most of the time that “warm up” proceeds a lot of junk and might be a waste of time, but is necessary to get rolling. Think of a steam locomotive starting up, see video bellow. At the beginning there is a lot of noise, it looks forced and slow, however when the locomotive gets rolling, it gets rolling to the point that maybe.. and just maybe superman can stop it.

So, this post is my warm up, don’t how much time it will take for me to get into rhythm and flow. Right now is not about the quality, the important thing is to continue doing it and letting it come to you. That is why when a shooter [in basketball] is in a slump, they shoot, writers just write until they get into it, programmers program, people live and when is there.. is there and only yourself can stop it.

[sorry no superman video stopping a locomotive, however roll back into your childhood, if not then just check the Spider Man 2 Train scene here, just awesome.]

Anybody can setup a blog and be publisher; anybody can upload videos to Youtube and have a TV channel; any body can create music and distribute it to the whole world, but being “that easy” is what makes it hard. Easy to do, equals low barriers of entry, with that comes low barriers of exit. As a result:  easy we start and as easy we drop-out.

For some reason things that are not challenging are seen as easy, which is not all true because not everybody can keep a blog, TV Channel, or whatever non challenging hobby we are into. A lot of people, entities and companies compete for our attention, becoming a distraction and making it difficult to constantly doing something for “love of the game”. Not everybody is that resistant, to be persistent, give it all. We may start with high energy and hopes, but rapidly deflating. Then we try to inflate some more, however a hole that we don’t seem to find, keeps us semi inflated. At the end we just give up and tell ourselves that it at least we tried, so we can sleep better at night. It takes a lot of passion and determination to be an Amateur; to do it for pleasure of just doing it.

Sure we can start a blog easily, however if you don’t post constantly, you don’t have a blog. Anybody can post a video on the Internet, but not everybody can make a TV channel out of it. You see, when people say its not challenging or not easy, they are referring to the implementation part. What is really really tough is actually is constant execution.

So for the next “easy project” remember:

“Less is more.. and is better with a KISS”: starting with something simple and not complex will permit it grow in us and develop that passion we need to keep it up.

“Talk is cheap”: when somebody tells us “anybody can do it”, lets ignore them. But if for some reason we can’t, lets ask them if they have jobbies or do something for the “love of the game”, or even better, to “show what they have done”. Generally, talking has the lowest barrier of entry, which makes it even easier to shut them up with our actions. Feeding on cheep talk sometimes is good to fuel your passion, however watch out for the indigestion and don’ abuse. By the way if the show you something, they maybe had earn it, therefore look and the next one…

“Arrogance is earn”: Once we had actually done something, for respectful period of time: we had earned it and take care of any bashers, critics and cynics. In the meantime save the energy for productive stuff i.e. like building our passion.

Userfly is a service that permits site owners, record the sessions of their visitors. All you need to put a script in your website and viola.  Its a pretty cool and useful tool, because you see how your visitors “behave” in the website, as well what works and what doesn’t.

When you sign up they give you 10 session recordings for free and if you want more you pay for them, at a price of 0.05 USD. Bellow is an image showing the “Buy Now” button, above it is a message that states: “Buy as many user session captures as you need for only $0.05 per capture. Captures are sold 100 at a time”.

Uh?? I can buy as many I need, but the only way to buy new captures is 100 at a time, it doesn’t make sense.

The first sentence states that I can buy as many captures I want. Sure, I need 30 more sessions that is 1.50 USD. However captures are sold 100 at a time, then what about the other 70 sessions captures I don’t need? I can use them latter, sell them to a friend, etc,  that is not the point. The point is that the company looks bad, cheap and unsecure of their product. If the product is good, why not use something that is clearer and direct:

100 captures for 5.00 USD. Captures are sold 100 at a time.

or

Minimum is 100 captures, at 0.05 USD each.

Is like buying fruit or vegetable at a market: 20 tomatoes for 5 USD, 3 mangos for 7 USD, etc.

I’m not questioning the 100 limit, they have their reasons. I guess many customers will end up using the 100 captures, because of the number of visitors a site might have. Also, they are targeting owners of business website, not the “Videos of Cat Blog” or “My Life As a Teen” blog using WordPress or Blogger.

[Yeah its might sound as a big deal, but is insulting to trying NOT to scare customers using the “5 cent” strategy. Actually, I tried to find a an email where to suggest them to change that pricing statement, couldn’t find any, so I decided to blog about it.]

The CEO of a company should be aware of what is going on the website, how the pricing is presented to the customer, not an intern. Pricing of products and services needs to be done carefully and after a lot of analysis. The wrong price may scare possible customers, or the company may miss out on revenue that will make the company profitable.

Lately I have heard the term “open source” and the word advantage in the same sentence. And my reaction being “aja and…”, which made me realized that people tag a new project as open source, underestimate the efforts of starting, sustaining and growing a open source project. Even more, I wonder if there are naive enough to think that such tag is enough. Do they think that the by just releasing the code under GPL, MIT, Apache or MPL [licenses], “the community” will bow to them and all the worked and problems will end there? All taggers out there, that is not the case. Like they say “one thing is to talk the talk and other is to walk the walk”.

Based on the definition of the Open Source Initiative, open source is define as:

…is a development method for software that harnesses the power of distributed peer review and transparency of process. The promise of open source is better quality, higher reliability, more flexibility, lower cost, and an end to predatory vendor lock-in.

Think about the following: why should anybody launch a open source project or more important why should you do it ? The whole point of meditating on why people should start open source project, is to fully understand the implications of such initiative. I’m not against open source, furthermore with this post I salute open source initiative. What I don’t agree is the waste of resources of working on a project that is tagged as open source, but there is no plan or road map. Even worst, saying that what makes the project unique is that its open source.

Image Source

Here are something to think about when thinking about your project:

What are the benefits, other than the general specified in the definition above of a open source project. Is the software of value for other people and does it have potential to solve a real problem? But you don’t have the resources to pull it off by yourself. How do you attract a community, how many of those that find it useful are willing to contribute to it? Do you have a plan, how will you keep track of development versions, bugs and request of features? How long will the project be develop privately, before it becomes open source? How do I know when its ready? Finally, will you make money or do the real benefit comes from people working on it… Is this a long term commitment?

While thinking of the above, it suddenly came to me, launching a open source project is like starting a business. Can you see the similarities? Needs resources to start, its not that easy, relives a pain, has a target market, needs a plan (A B C or D), looks to be sustainable, etc. Its not easy and still people try it and many fail. Even if it was easy to start it (using a platform like sourceforge) the project still needs a community, which requires time and effort or a very mature project ( i.e. these guys or these others).

If you don’t like the business analogy, here is another: blogging. Anybody can start a blog, however does that makes you a blogger ? How many blogs are out here that are dead (by the way I have like two). It requires time, effort, long term commitment, quality and a bit of luck (to get noticed). So, just tagging your project.. will simply not make the cut.

Blogging and social media in general, is about the conversation. You post, others read and a few comment. Sometimes readers will discuss (or fight) about the topic. However, most of the time I see the author just speaking his mind and “talking”. Maybe the author is busy or he just is not arose intellectually by the comments to even bother. We are irrational beings so its a challenge to guess what is going through the mind of the authors and why they don’t comment much. However is ironic that people say that blogging is about he conversation, when authors are shouting. Its more like:

hellooooooooooooo!!!! I’m here..!! now that you know I exist, read this!!!! anybody please read it!!!!

You might think that is the case of G to The Square, since I don’t have much readers in my blog. However, in my defense, any comment I get a reply, although people don’t reply back, still its a “three way handshake“. I post, somebody comments and I comment back (see image bellow).

Three way handshake of conversation in blogs (too much net stuff in my mind )

Then again what is a conversation? Based on the Merriam-Webster dictionary a conversation is defined as:

oral exchange of sentiments, observations, opinions, or ideas

In the Internet there is no oral exchange as traditional conversation, instead we have written words as a medium on exchanging our sentiments, observations, opinions, or ideas. Apparently this exchange happens in less, traditional and immediate ways. Authors post their ideas and after some minutes, hours or days, readers who may be loyal, syndicated, occasional visitor or “stumbler” (thanks to a search engine, post a comment). When the comments hit the right tone then the conversation start. What I mean the by right tone? Conversation is not simply agreeing with the author or telling her that she is pretty, but actually expressing our:

sentiments, observations, opinions, or ideas

And there is where the conversation is, in the comments: where there is substance, where at full throttle readers express their mind in a attempt to prove a point or simply to take a stand. On the other side of the coin, the author is just simply expressing himself, because he doesn’t reply to the comments just fills his pocket with the “ad money” and his ego offcoarse. And to those that really reply to their readers.. then I salute you, for honoring the essence of blogging: the conversation.