Thank you America for having the courage to vote for change.

My step-nephew (if there is such a word),  Robert ‘Zi’ Taylor,  is running in the New York Marathon to raise funds for Team Continuum, a charity which is a non-profit organization dedicated to taking immediate care of anyone involved in fighting cancer.  They give cancer patients access to the everyday care. They fill in the physical and emotional gaps of support so cancer patients can have the strength to focus on their treatment.

Zi is a talented musician, playing the sax - a talent of which I am incredibly jealous, but for the last few months he has given up his time to train for the marathon, and I know how hard that is on him and his family.  I know times are hard, but if you can spare a little to support Zi and Team Continuum, or even just a little time to spread the word in the way that those of us who work online do so well, it would be appreciated by so many people.  You can see his sponsorship page by clicking here,  or spread the word in the true style of every online marketer.  If you like good music and love the sax, then you will find Zi’s music  here - Zi on Sax

The fact that most of us are self-employed has a lot to do with the lack of social interaction as well.  If we don’t work, we don’t get paid, and if we don’t get paid, we don’t eat – sick days are not an option.  If you are still working at 2.00 a.m. to get it finished, you are still working, there is little choice.  Despite all that I wouldn’t swap it for the world.  I love working for myself, even with all it’s uncertainties.

We create a world for ourselves that it quite unique.  The advent of services like Twitter gives us the office chit-chat that we would otherwise miss, and it doesn’t matter what time of day you are working.  I find myself intrigued by the goings on of friends all over the planet these days, Stephen Fry’s recent arrival on Twitter has caused me so much amusement and enjoyment.  I find myself interested in things that would otherwise have passed me by.  I avoid newspapers and the like, because they are so negative but I have a good grasp of what is really going on in so many places because of the constant flow of information that bubbles up in the right hand corner of my screen.

Granted there is a fair amount of drivel from some quarters, but I can soon stop following them and gradually the quality of the conversation rises and I find I do have colleagues, people that I work with and can ‘chat’ to and share the large and small things in life.  I have the privilege of choosing the people I converse with in the office, unlike so many.  Important information drops into my ‘In Tray’ without having to seek it out, I can share my discoveries with people who are genuinely interested.  I have a window on the world that would be denied to me if I was stuck in a ‘normal’ job.  I wouldn’t swap it for the world.

Tomorrow is Halloween, and I can lay down my persona of Susy Slime for a few months, fun though it has been (and profitable!), I shall be gathering up the reins for the next onslaught, my work continues.  In the meantime the ‘office chat’ will give me continuity, support and feedback.  The names I look forward to hearing from, dare I say –‘my friends’, will continue to pop up and keep me company.

There are some people you just have to follow because they are important in our industry but there are some who deserve a special mention as my days would be less sparkly without them, Philoscribe, YouCould2, Rock_The_Ice, thefluffanutta, PaulDuxbury, NextInstinct,  GeorgeLane, spud, Riquochet, and of course garethjax, though I will have to improve my Italian to understand everything he says.  Please don’t be upset if you are not named – this post would have gone on forever if I included everyone.

If you’d like to be part of my office chat then you will find me here flaminglacer on Twitter.  If you’re not on Twitter, I leave you with this song and I’ll look forward to ‘chatting’ soon.

I look at the ‘To Do’ list every morning and think to myself ‘I’ll write later, I’ve got to get this lot done first’.  Somehow I never get round to the fun writing, the writing that matters.  A small thing has changed that.

Some of my friends laugh at me - I’m a geek, I work on the internet, one dear friend is convinced I’m chipped!  They laugh because next to the keyring full of flash drives on my desk is a fountain pen, a pile of neatly sharpened pencils and a Moleskine Notebook.

The other day my daughter and I went off to a Car Boot Sale where I purchased an old pencil box which I’d seen a couple of weeks before.  It was still there waiting for me, and more reasonably priced this time.  It’s a very old fashioned, slide topped box with layers that swivel apart, just the sort I longed for when I was at school but was never allowed to have one that is quite so posh as this.  It even has a layered top with blackboard paper for notes.  It’s well used and battered (more so since I dropped it, but my dearly beloved fixed it), it’s ink stained and grubby, but I love it.  My pencils and my pen are neatly placed inside, some leads for my propelling pencil and even the odd Post-It tab will fit in too.

I have my tools about me, the addition of a simple, tatty box has made them matter again.  I am writing things like this just for the joy of it, for the feel of pencil on paper giving thoughts a physical presence.  I am happy.

There are so many types of poverty that I could sit here and write a list that would go on forever.  Fond as I am of writing lists it would do nobody any good and only feed my ‘list OCD’, and I’m not a ‘sit on your butt and bleat about it’ sort of person, I prefer to take action.  I would rather do something positive and commit to that as my contribution to this day of action.  If each and every one of us who takes part in Blog Action Day either by writing or reading takes one positive, tangible action we will have made a difference, especially if we do it publicly.

I believe in helping people to help themselves, in helping them to move forward, in taking small positive steps that are measurable and achievable.  It is, to my mind, the way we are going to get out of this economic mess that we have been dumped into.  So, I am not going to talk about it, Instead I am going to tell you exactly what my positive, tangible action is going to be.

I build websites, and I write.  It’s what I do and it’s what I’m good at.  My action against poverty is to set up a new lensmaster account at Squidoo and to commit to building at least one new lens a month on that account.  All the funds generated from that account will go towards beating poverty by helping people to help themselves by way of Kiva.  The account is set up, SupportKiva.  The first lens is being has been created, to explain what I am doing and why.  The rest will be shamelessly commercial to make as much money for Kiva as possible.

I am doing this as part of the whole Squidoo contribution to Kiva because this is not about me feeling good as I make a loan on Kiva, it is about raising awareness of what positive steps we can make against poverty as a community.  It is about saying that I can put effort in, as well as money.  It is about committing my time, the most precious gift I have to give.  Each time someone looks at one of those lenses they will see a commitment to beat poverty by taking action as part of a community, because that is the only way we will beat it.

What step will you take today?

My friend and colleague Ron drew something to my attention today which has absolutely appalled me.  A large part of me wants to be very, very angry but in truth, my overwhelming emotion is fear.  Fear of where this could take us.  The action in question is the attempt by the Governor of Kentucky to seize 141 web domains that are, in his view, associated with online gambling.   It has to be said that this association is very loose, in some cases  merely carrying advertising.  Let’s set aside for now the fact that the Governor was “elected in part on the strength of a promise to bring casino gambling to the state” (Washington Post 10.8.08) which raises all kinds of issues relating to vested interest, and focus on what is going on here.

A spokeswoman for the Kentucky Justice Department stated that “We think it creates a tremendous disadvantage for our legitimate, licensed and taxed gaming interests, and there are some damages that are due to the commonwealth as a result.”  In other words, they want damages from businesses that operate outside their state for the terrible crime of carrying on their business.   They want to restrict the citizens of Kentucky from having access to businesses that operate outside the state, the same spokeswoman said that  their ‘primary goal is to force the Web sites to block Kentucky residents from visiting them’.  Do I take it then that the residents of Kentucky are not to be allowed to do business with any organisation outside the state unless it meets with the approval of the Governor?  Obviously their Governor does not believe that they are capable of making decisions for themselves.  Obviously their Governor believes that freedom of choice is not a privilege to be accorded to them.

Then there are the wider issues still,  what if a company does not like the fact that a competitor has a website, and is going about it’s lawful business.  Can they then seize that website on some pretext or other.   What if the Government of China decides it doesn’t like the policies of the American Government and seizes their websites… where does this end.

For those of us who make our living on the Internet, the creeping shadow of vested interest is like the darkness spreading from Mordor, insidious and dangerous and we have to guard against it by whatever means we have at our disposal.  More frightening still, to me, is the restrictions this places on the freedom of the individual to live the life they choose, safe in the knowledge that those freedoms will be protected by those whom they elect to do so.  America prides itself on being the land of the free - but is it still?

(For a full report see Washington Post 10.08.08)

Just as an FYI, one of the things I have been busy with is setting up a website for my dearly beloved’s  woodturning business/hobby.  You can have a look at Lacemaking Bobbins  - I have to admit to encouraging him greatly in this for two reasons, first it gives him an understanding of just exactly what it is I do when I disappear for hours into the office - websites don’t grow on trees and they need careful nurturing.  The other reason is far more selfish - if he gets busy in the Workshop, I might get some new bobbins too…