Thursday, April 17, 2008

my 100th post

this is my 100th posting to this blog. i started this blog way back in august 2007 while i was on two week vacation from work. my blog started out as a engineering log about my hackystat development but quickly morphed into something else. i'm actually really surprised that i made it this far.

the turning point was when i was recruited by google (i'll write a separate blog about that). it was a time of uncertainty for me. the fear of wanting to leave hawaii for "bigger" opportunities re-focused me. i was a bit confused at this point. honestly, i was a little upset that i was even considering moving away from hawaii. after the google opportunity faded, i focused my attention on the students and the high tech industry.

with this new goal, i set out to make a difference. not knowing how to go about doing this i started writing things like, why you NEED to do a Honors Thesis and we need a Fog Creek in Hawaii. i think at this point dr. johnson sent my blog around to his students. another turning point is when i visited the local office of 21csi for their "grand opening". during that event i really tried to do some networking to learn more about hawaii's high tech industry. the result of that effort was meeting ian kitajima. a week later i wrote a post about knowing your industry. i learned a lot about the dual use group. but, i didn't really know what to do with that information.

for the next few months i worked on hackstat stuff and tried to help write posts that students would like. here are some examples:
  • twitter, sharing, hackystat ideas
  • work on your soft skills
  • why i work on hackystat
  • re: blogging, open-source software, and rockstars!
  • think about things other than code
  • don't be afraid to speak up
  • outward thinking
  • student portfolios
  • finding what you are passionate about

    those are just some examples. but, i found that i really like blogging about things that i actually helped in. for example, lacy veach and helping kids with scratch. or going to career fairs; i love going to career fairs cause you can talk to the students and help them. and my wiimote demonstration was a lot of fun! talking with the honors students was also very enlightening. and most of all i like helping to make students awesome!

    i had the idea of helping students learn more about the people in our industry. hawaii has a lot of great people! i wanted to show the world how awesome our people were. so, i started my blog interview posts. to date, i've done 7 interviews.
  • interview with lynn fujioka - this interview was really successful and got a lot of attention from the techhui group. hopefully a lot more people know about lynn's efforts.
  • interview with randy cox
  • interview with ian kitajima - this interview was pretty inspiring and it was cool to see it posted on oceanit's website
  • interview with dan leuck
  • interview with russ tokuhama
  • interview with ryan k
  • interview with austen

    i learned a lot from doing these interviews. hopefully, people read them and got to know these awesome people.

    those of you that actually follow my blog, have probably noticed that i tend to think a lot about a lot of different things; hackystat, the environment, being socially conscious, hawaii's tech industry, sharing information, and other random things.

    a hundred posts is a lot. and i really learned a lot about what i value from actually forcing myself to write. hopefully, other people thought it was valuable too. i have no idea. its really hard to what i do helps, so i don't really concern myself with trying to please other people. but.... i have been keeping track of my analytics with google. here are some my very low numbers (but i don't really care about popularity);




    moving forward i will continue on my quest to help people. i know that is a general statement. don't worry about me. i'll figure it out... i'm at a good point in my life and i really feel lucky to be able to do what i do. i'm appreciative of so many things and have the overwhelming urge to help people. i suppose my blog is supposed to be a small representation of that.

    let me know what you think by adding a comment!
  • 2 comments:

    Unknown said...

    I look forward to reading your blog. I was concern when there was a lull :-). I enjoy reading about the events, your thoughts and hopes.

    There are not many of us who can say they would like to help others and "set out to make a difference".

    austen.ito said...

    cya at post 250.