In San Francisco.
It’s little things like this that remind me why I love this country.
An Italian Song for Valentine’s Day: Per Dirti T’Amo
Pierangelo Bertoli: To Say “I Love You”
Avrei voluto dedicarti una canzone — I would have liked to dedicate a song to you
con le parole della televisione — with the words of the television
tutti quei fiori e quei discorsi complicati — all those flowers and complicated discourses
che al cine fanno nei locali raffinati. — which in films they do in refined places
Ma mi sembra di commettere un reato — But that seems to me to be committing a crime
perché per dirti che sono innamorato — because, to say that I’m in love with you
perché per dirti cosa penso in fondo al cuore — because, to say what I think in the bottom of my heart
non c’é motivo che mi finga un grande attore. — there’s no reason for me to pretend I’m a great actor
ritornello: — refrain:
Per dirti t’amo, amo te, bastava solo che guardassi intorno a me — To say I love you, it’s you I love, it was enough to look around me
per dirti ti vorrei sposare, é giusto dirlo, dirlo in modo naturale. — To say I’d like to marry you, it’s right to say it, say it naturally
Non voglio chiuderti in nessun mondo fatato — I don’t want to close you in any enchanted world
e non ho voglia di tornare nel passato — and I don’t want to return to the past
io so, potremmo avere il mondo nelle mani — I know, we could have the world in our hands
se siamo forti e fiduciosi nel domani. — if we’re strong and have faith in tomorrow.
Avremo un posto dove andare a lavorare — We’ll have a place to go and work
e avremo figli da allevare e da curare — and we’ll have children to raise and take care of
e tanto amore tanta gente come noi — and much love, and many people like us
e avremo un mondo, un mondo nuovo intorno a noi. — and we’ll have a world, a new world around us.
(refrain)
Seth Godin at TED: Tribe and Community
A very cool perk of working for Sun recently was that we had live streams of TED into the three major US campuses. It has long been a dream of mine to attend TED, though for the moment it’s well out of my price range.
I couldn’t break free of meetings to watch during the day, but I was mesmerized by the evening sessions. The first major speaker Wednesday evening was Seth Godin, whose blog I follow from time to time. Not surprisingly, his talk was based on his new book, Tribes, which I probably don’t need to read now (for the record, I haven’t read any of his other books, either).
I took away some ideas that might be useful for those of us at Sun (and elsewhere) who are doing this mysterious and fashionable thing called community building.
Seth started out by asking: “What do we [TED attendees, presumably] do for a living?”
His answer: “We try to change everything.”
In order to foster change, Godin offers the idea of tribes, which “can align large numbers of people” behind a goal or cause. He recommends this cycle:
tell a story -> connect a tribe -> head a movement -> make change -> repeat
He notes that a product that “tells a story” lets its user/consumer tell the story again and perpetuate it.
Godin says that tribes need leaders, most often self-appointed. Leaders should:
- Challenge the status quo
- build Culture
- have Curiosity
- Connect people to each other (“people want to know they’ll be missed if they go away”)
- have Charisma (but you don’t need to be born with it; being a leader automatically endows you with charisma)
- Commit to the cause/tribe/people
So how does this apply to Sun’s efforts to create community around our open-sourced software? Clearly, we had to be the leaders who started this (but that doesn’t mean we’ll always be the leaders of these communities).
You can’t force a community into existence; people have to want to be part of it. But you can make it fun and easy for them to participate, mostly by making it easy for them to connect with each other.
Important Note: Once they’re connected, you don’t get to control what they say to each other! Oh, you can try, but it’s a bad idea because it always backfires. Even when you’re the leader, you’re still only one member of the tribe, and the tribe insists on functioning as a democracy no matter who’s supplying the facilities.
What we can, should, and do do, however, is act as leaders.
Some Days…
We decided to send out the OpenSolaris repositories to OpenSolaris user groups worldwide on iPods. Turns out you can’t copy iPods on a USB duplicator (no big surprise), so I spent three days copying the repos to them individually… Then I made ~240 USB sticks with videos, also for the OSUGs…
Home Making
^ Memories, new and old: An embroidered silk hanging from the Central Cottage Industries Emporium, Delhi, which I bought during an epic shopping spree with Yuti, and the decorated tin trunk I bought in Mumbai from artist Rashmi Dogra while visiting Deepu, combined with an American mission-style dresser. The objects on the dresser include figurines bought at the Crafts Museum in Delhi, diyas, a piece of driftwood from Gouverneur Beach in St. Barth’s, and a photo (in a Kashmiri frame bought in Mussoorie) is of Rossella and friends in a Woodstock production of The Taming of the Shrew. On the wall to the right you can see the edge of an appliqued wall hanging I bought with Sara during a visit to Mumbai.
I’ve been residing in Colorado since last March, but during that time have been traveling so much that it’s taking a while to get settled. What I’ve done so far towards setting up my home reminds me of my college days: starting from scratch in a new place with limited personal space, trying to keep spending down, while surrounding myself with objects rich in memory. I’m enjoying the opportunity to decorate all of my space in my own way, instead of having to find niches among Enrico’s family heirlooms.
I’m living in a large suburban house with a Sun colleague, Kathleen, from whom I rent two bedrooms and a bath. We share most of the house and fixtures, which saved me an enormous amount on kitchen stuff and furniture. I didn’t even have to buy beds, thanks to Kathleen (who had a single bed waiting for me, made even, the day I arrived) and Dan and Karen, who gave me a king-sized futon (which Dan delivered and carried up the stairs, bless him – the thing must weigh 200 pounds).
My furniture investment so far has been minimal: a dresser, a desk, second-hand bookshelves, and, just recently, a chair to go with the desk. It’s a pity there’s no Ikea in Colorado, but there is American Furniture Warehouse.
The Shaker desk above came from a very nice furniture place (not AFW), but was on sale cheap, probably because the drawers stick. Furniture needs to be tempered for Colorado, or the dry air can cause such problems. The prints are from my beloved Elfquest, something I’d been meaning to buy for a long time.
I wasn’t using the desk much til this week, when I finally got around to getting a chair so that, if I’m stuck working at home because of snow, I can at least be comfortable. Yes, I use two computers at once. Often I do email etc. on one while the other is processing video.
This is in my “office” room, along with the single bed and:
The painting is from/by Ross. Sue and Jack should also recognize gifts from themselves in this photo!
The larger room, in addition to the dresser shown above, contains:
This painting by Rashmi Dogra illustrates icons of Indian life common 20 years ago. She was amused that I wanted this painting – none of her usual Mumbai clients were interested in this kind of nostalgia.
Above the bed I hung a length of ikat material bought at Dilli Haat. The window treatments are curtains from an American chain with torans from a SEWA store in Delhi.
I’ve been decorating with photographs, some of friends and family:
…some travel photos that I never got around to printing before…
Thanks to Donna and Sarah for the housewarming gifts (though they don’t even know each other, they picked the same picture frame, in different colors):
^ photos from Viterbo, taking during the Imaging in Italy tour I did a few years ago. I have so many great photos from that trip…
^ these are from our visit to Jaipur
^ another piece of Indian nostalgia, this time purchased on a trip to Mumbai’s Chor Bazaar (Thieves’ Market) with Deepu. The guy in the red shirt is Amitabh Bachchan, by now the grand old man of Indian cinema. Nowadays, such an ad would be for a luxury car, not a bicycle!
I’ve still got plenty of space to fill, but am in no hurry to do so. I don’t mind the relative emptiness, and I prefer to buy things over time, making each purchase significant, not just a way to fill space. (I only bought the dresser after several months, when the lack of drawers began to seriously annoy me.) But what I do have in here already helps it feel like home.
