Aaron Pava's blog

Nobody likes to be in an unproductive meeting. Yet many phone conferences and business meetings drag on way too long, go off-topic or simply have unfocused leadership.

Here are three simple ways you can apply right away to make all your meetings more effective:

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I love learning and sharing tips that make my day more productive. Often times, it's the simplest ones I find the most useful.

If you're like me, you spend a significant portion of your day interacting on the Gmail web interface. However, one of my biggest pet peeves in Gmail is that when composing a new message I lose access to the rest of my mailbox, since it takes up the entire window.

Alas, I discovered the key! By simply by holding down the SHIFT key when clicking COMPOSE MAIL, a pop-up window appears, and access to the full mailbox is retained.

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Hot on the heals of yesterday's post regarding sharing our Client Questionnaire, Nancy Schwartz of Getting Attention posted a ready-to-use Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template that provides a though overview for generating your marketing and online strategy.

 

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A thread began a few days ago on the Drupal Consultants list regarding Client Questionnaires. Not long ago, Ian and I went through our own Client Questionnaire with the intention of supporting a client with a new project. In the end we simplified our original laundry list of questions to this much shorter and refined list, more pertinent to her specific project.

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We're heading to Paris to serve up a sweet entree of 15 five-minute speed presentations showcasing some of the most tasty Drupal dishes!

How to Eat 15 Drupal Sites in 90 Minutes

Do you have a yummy site and the skills to show it off in just 5 minutes?

All 15 presenters will be speed-geeking in the Ignite presentation format (20 slides, 15 seconds each) as we chow through all the sweet deliciousness.

If you think you have what it takes to cook up something special and you can already taste your 5 minutes of fame, then let us know that you want to play!

The only question remains -- can you stand the heat?!

Nearly four years ago (and 12 weeks - according to my Drupal.org account) I first came to know Drupal and the brilliant community that maintains it. Soon after, I attended my first DrupalCon "conference" in Amsterdam (October 2005) which I fondly recall though a somewhat smokey haze... At that time, DrupalCon participants didn't number more than 30 or so people in a dark room, hacking away at emerging Drupal 4.6 in all its glory! Since those early days, the depth and breadth of the Drupal community has blossomed beyond my wildest notions. Now it's commonplace to expect at least 800 attendees to fly around the world to the bi-yearly DrupalCon conference - and even see 200 at a local meetup such as San Francisco DrupalCamp last weekend! This September the Drupal community returns to Europe and descends on Paris! I personally haven't attended the last couple DrupalCon events in Brussels or Washington DC and I'm finding myself re-inspired to connect with the community. In my appreciation of the magic we build together, I just proposed a fun session/panel called How to Eat 15 Drupal Sites in 90 Minutes. This panel will be a presentation of some of the best Drupal sites the entire community has ever produced - in one wickedly fast session using a speed-geeking presentation format. I'm looking forward to seeing you in Paris - and I hope you'll take a minute to vote for the session and/or consider nominating your own site for the deck! See (and vote for) the rest of the Drupal Sessions too!

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"Working for the earth is not a way to get rich, it is a way to be rich."

I'm feeling 100 times more inspired tonight after reading the Commencement Address by Paul Hawken's (Blessed Unrest) from Sunday, May 3rd. The text is below and speaks for itself! PAUL HAWKEN'S COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS When I was invited to give this speech, I was asked if I could give a simple short talk that was “direct, naked, taut, honest, passionate, lean, shivering, startling, and graceful.” Boy, no pressure there. But let’s begin with the startling part. Hey, Class of 2009: you are going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating. Kind of a mind-boggling situation - but not one peer-reviewed paper published in the last thirty years can refute that statement. Basically, the earth needs a new operating system, you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades.

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While the country remains in a fury over absurd corporate bonuses and looking for economy scapegoats, it was a refreshing change to be at the Green:Net conference yesterday, surrounded by distinguished entrepreneurs, technologists and investors committed to solving the world’s biggest issue: climate change. In the spirit of "we’re running out of time," San Francisco’s Mayor Gavin Newsom kicked off the one-day event after a long-delay, setting in motion the urgent pace and tone among the 200 participants. Newsom did a great job of rallying the troops, inspiring action and sharing some recent successes both in his City and within California.

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Every so often a new technology emerges that "changes everything". Ubiquity, the new project of Mozilla Labs is the latest in that trend.

Ubiquity enables "on-demand, user-generated mash-ups with existing open Web APIs." Or, in other words, it allows users to remix the Web to fit their needs, no matter the Web site or whatever the user is doing.

Seeing is believing:

Ubiquity for Firefox from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.

Obama takes the lead with another emerging technology: temporarily embedding advertising inside video games. The technology is only 18 months old, and Obama is the first presidential candidate to buy space for the Xbox Live system. "The ads — appearing on billboards and other signage — remind players that early voting has begun and plug a campaign Web site that encourages people to register for early voting." The video game ads are targeting 10 battleground states that allow early voting, including Ohio, North Carolina, Nevada and Florida among others.