Jonathan Oxer
[Blog]
>> How to write a book in 2 hours
Sat, Jun 30th 11:03pm 2007 >> Writing
Well, not quite, but close! A while ago Neil Evenden (my Business Development Manager) came up with a plan to turn my first book into a 3-book series. His concept was that since the first book covered the business and process issues of having a website created for a business, it would be logical to follow on with a sequel that talks about growing an existing website into a thriving online business. Then a third book could go even further again, and cover deep integration of online tools with internal business processes.
The first book was called "How To Build A Website And Stay Sane" so the obvious title for the second one is "How To Grow Your eBusiness And Stay Sane".
Tonight I wanted to take a bit of a break from the Second Life book I'm working on, so I thought I'd see just what would be involved in putting together Grow Your eBusiness. Rough out a structure, see what material I'd need, that sort of thing. Just get a feel for how it might come together. So I created a skeleton and started trawling through previous articles from Jon Oxer's eBusiness News to see if there was any material I could repurpose, and after a couple of hours of copy/paste and some initial trimming I had 154,000 words compiled! Amazing. 2 hours work and it's further progressed than the Second Life book I've been working on for a couple of months.
If you don't count all the time spent writing those articles in the first place, of course ;-)
Well, not quite, but close! A while ago Neil Evenden (my Business Development Manager) came up with a plan to turn my first book into a 3-book series. His concept was that since the first book covered the business and process issues of having a website created for a business, it would be logical to follow on with a sequel that talks about growing an existing website into a thriving online business. Then a third book could go even further again, and cover deep integration of online tools with internal business processes.
The first book was called "How To Build A Website And Stay Sane" so the obvious title for the second one is "How To Grow Your eBusiness And Stay Sane".
Tonight I wanted to take a bit of a break from the Second Life book I'm working on, so I thought I'd see just what would be involved in putting together Grow Your eBusiness. Rough out a structure, see what material I'd need, that sort of thing. Just get a feel for how it might come together. So I created a skeleton and started trawling through previous articles from Jon Oxer's eBusiness News to see if there was any material I could repurpose, and after a couple of hours of copy/paste and some initial trimming I had 154,000 words compiled! Amazing. 2 hours work and it's further progressed than the Second Life book I've been working on for a couple of months.
If you don't count all the time spent writing those articles in the first place, of course ;-)
>> Secret lives
Mon, Jun 25th 12:07am 2007 >> Family
I got an interesting phone call from my Dad this afternoon: he's currently on a boat just approaching Broome, having sailed about 700 nautical miles along the coast of Western Australia. He grew up in WA, mainly around the Kalgoorlie area, and he's spending a month or so back over there with my step-mother to wander around the state and look at the sights.
The interesting bit of the call was that he's discovered an interesting bit of trivia about my grandfather, Gordon Oxer. Old Gordo was a bit of a slacker who didn't get up to much in life: he was a doctor, a pilot, an explorer, a cartographer, and probably about seven other things as well. You know, the sort of person who brings the family name into disrepute. He's even got bits of WA named after him including a mountain and a lookout at the spectacular junction of Joffre Gorge, Weano Gorge, Red Gorge and Hancock Gorge. Tourist info here, with better photos here and here. He was the first white man to explore certain parts of WA and some of his original maps are preserved in a public library somewhere.
So anyway, the point was that there's an unexplained chunk of my grandfather's life that my Dad has never known much about until now: he knew Gordon was way off in WA somewhere, but not where, why, or what he was doing.
Turns out Gordon spent the time stationed at Corunna Downs air base, a top-secret joint US-Australian facility located just outside Marble Bar and used to launch bombing raids against Japanese forces. Because it was located in such a remote and unlikely area the Japanese never figured out where the raids were coming from, and it seems quite likely that their repeated pounding of Darwin (64 times in 1942-43!) may have been at least partly a frustrated effort to stop the source of the attacks.
Something else I learned a little while ago is that Gordon once got himself into a spot of official hot water by flying an aircraft into an open-cut mine, causing just a little consternation to those unlucky enough to be trying to go about their business of digging stuff out of the ground without being buzzed by a demented pilot. Told you he was a troublemaker.
I got an interesting phone call from my Dad this afternoon: he's currently on a boat just approaching Broome, having sailed about 700 nautical miles along the coast of Western Australia. He grew up in WA, mainly around the Kalgoorlie area, and he's spending a month or so back over there with my step-mother to wander around the state and look at the sights.
The interesting bit of the call was that he's discovered an interesting bit of trivia about my grandfather, Gordon Oxer. Old Gordo was a bit of a slacker who didn't get up to much in life: he was a doctor, a pilot, an explorer, a cartographer, and probably about seven other things as well. You know, the sort of person who brings the family name into disrepute. He's even got bits of WA named after him including a mountain and a lookout at the spectacular junction of Joffre Gorge, Weano Gorge, Red Gorge and Hancock Gorge. Tourist info here, with better photos here and here. He was the first white man to explore certain parts of WA and some of his original maps are preserved in a public library somewhere.
So anyway, the point was that there's an unexplained chunk of my grandfather's life that my Dad has never known much about until now: he knew Gordon was way off in WA somewhere, but not where, why, or what he was doing.
Turns out Gordon spent the time stationed at Corunna Downs air base, a top-secret joint US-Australian facility located just outside Marble Bar and used to launch bombing raids against Japanese forces. Because it was located in such a remote and unlikely area the Japanese never figured out where the raids were coming from, and it seems quite likely that their repeated pounding of Darwin (64 times in 1942-43!) may have been at least partly a frustrated effort to stop the source of the attacks.
Something else I learned a little while ago is that Gordon once got himself into a spot of official hot water by flying an aircraft into an open-cut mine, causing just a little consternation to those unlucky enough to be trying to go about their business of digging stuff out of the ground without being buzzed by a demented pilot. Told you he was a troublemaker.
>> Stay-Sane hits Amazon
Sat, Jun 16th 8:58pm 2007 >> Writing
Well, that was quicker than I expected: last night "How To Build A Website And Stay Sane" second edition wasn't listed on Amazon, today it was.
Woot!
Well, that was quicker than I expected: last night "How To Build A Website And Stay Sane" second edition wasn't listed on Amazon, today it was.Woot!
>> Finding lost tribes at Officeworks
Sat, Jun 16th 8:35pm 2007 >> Misc
I dropped in to Officeworks this afternoon to grab a replacement presentation remote (my old one died a couple of weeks ago just as I was about to start a presentation - doh!) and saw Glenn, Vicki and James Sherry (3/4 of the family who lived with a Zulu tribe as part of a reality TV show recently) doing some shopping. While I was standing in the checkout James wandered by, obviously just filling in time while the folks did their thing, so I asked him if he was sick of being recognised everywhere he went yet. He stopped and had a chat for a minute while my stuff was being scanned, and was very friendly and didn't seem at all fazed by a random stranger striking up a conversation.
I dropped in to Officeworks this afternoon to grab a replacement presentation remote (my old one died a couple of weeks ago just as I was about to start a presentation - doh!) and saw Glenn, Vicki and James Sherry (3/4 of the family who lived with a Zulu tribe as part of a reality TV show recently) doing some shopping. While I was standing in the checkout James wandered by, obviously just filling in time while the folks did their thing, so I asked him if he was sick of being recognised everywhere he went yet. He stopped and had a chat for a minute while my stuff was being scanned, and was very friendly and didn't seem at all fazed by a random stranger striking up a conversation.
>> Day-trip to Brisbane without leaving the airport
Thu, Jun 14th 10:25am 2007 >> Web Development
Yesterday was quite a day: up at 3:30am, early flight to Brisbane (watched the sunrise on the flight up), a day in a workshop with Brisbane Airport Corporation operations and security staff going over some of their internal processes, then onto a flight back to Melbourne (watched the sunset on the flight back).
It's actually pretty convenient to visit clients that happen to run an airport. The flight destination *is* the trip destination!
Even better when it's for an interesting project and the client's staff are very focused and switched-on. Workshops examining business processes generally tend to drift off into minutia and bikeshedding, but that didn't happen with BAC at all. Smart people + time pressure + a specific required outcome = productive meeting.
I'd love to tell more about the project, but then I'd have to kill everyone that reads this blog. Or maybe just myself. Either way, it's not a desired outcome.
Yesterday was quite a day: up at 3:30am, early flight to Brisbane (watched the sunrise on the flight up), a day in a workshop with Brisbane Airport Corporation operations and security staff going over some of their internal processes, then onto a flight back to Melbourne (watched the sunset on the flight back).
It's actually pretty convenient to visit clients that happen to run an airport. The flight destination *is* the trip destination!
Even better when it's for an interesting project and the client's staff are very focused and switched-on. Workshops examining business processes generally tend to drift off into minutia and bikeshedding, but that didn't happen with BAC at all. Smart people + time pressure + a specific required outcome = productive meeting.
I'd love to tell more about the project, but then I'd have to kill everyone that reads this blog. Or maybe just myself. Either way, it's not a desired outcome.
>> Second Edition of How To Build A Website And Stay Sane
Thu, Jun 7th 7:14pm 2007 >> Writing
I received the author's proof of the Second Edition of "How To Build A Website And Stay Sane" in the mail today. Woot! It'll be another 4 weeks or so before it's on Amazon and B&N (it takes a while for the publication database updates to work their way through the system) but it's already listed on Lulu:
www.lulu.com/content/859133
If anyone who has read the first edition paperback or PDF feels so inclined I'd really appreciate it if they could write up a brief review on Lulu (even just a sentence or two) and give it a rating. The second edition is basically the same as the first edition but with the case studies updated and some little fixes here and there, so opinions about the first should still apply to the second.
Mmmm, shiny. (Literally. The Second Edition cover is full-gloss laminated, while the First Edition had a sort of satin finish).
I received the author's proof of the Second Edition of "How To Build A Website And Stay Sane" in the mail today. Woot! It'll be another 4 weeks or so before it's on Amazon and B&N (it takes a while for the publication database updates to work their way through the system) but it's already listed on Lulu:www.lulu.com/content/859133
If anyone who has read the first edition paperback or PDF feels so inclined I'd really appreciate it if they could write up a brief review on Lulu (even just a sentence or two) and give it a rating. The second edition is basically the same as the first edition but with the case studies updated and some little fixes here and there, so opinions about the first should still apply to the second.
Mmmm, shiny. (Literally. The Second Edition cover is full-gloss laminated, while the First Edition had a sort of satin finish).
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