I’ve been online on some network or other since I was 14, usually as Iphigenie. It’s almost my middle name now. I am also know as Zenaide, Azzurre, Superiphi and Ifigenia when Iphigenie is already taken or doesnt match the context.

I’m a web witch turned bossy exec… Not only do I practically live online, I work there too! I have worked as a web producer-project manager-senior architect-business analyst-technical sales-tech support-developer-sysadmin…. you name it, I’ve done it! Until recently I was a director in an 20 man internet company which I spent the last 4 years building - but I have just recently decided to move on, to get out before it totally cannibalised me. There are a lot of stories to tell here, of mistakes, successes, loyalty and betrayal. I have learned a lot, some of it painful. I am now the CTO in a b2b media company, working on the transition to online-centric, and involved in startup around vertical search.

I’m a social animal. I love meeting people, and hanging out with people. I think in an ideal world I’d love living in a huge house full of people, bohemian style, if that still existed… I wish I spoke a few more languages and always mean to learn another. Maybe I should take the time… I believe everyone is fascinating, except maybe people who are so full of themselves there’s no place to communicate anymore.

I’m endlessly curious. I like exploring, from little known places to independent music, alternative films, small publishers… This carries over to the computer where I have a keen interest in shareware, independent games, alternative websites and communities.

Key hobbies: trying things out or generally wasting time on a computer. bookoholic, film buff, an amateur photographer, a mountain climber and hiker (with the camera!). Dabble in arts and crafts now and then with no illusion.

I’m a free thinker… although most of the time I shut up, and so far there has not been much “soapboxing” on this blog

I am an atheist but I still believe a few things (in no particular order, what I could think of just now)
* the wonder for life and the universe
* the value and dignity of people, at all ages and in all cultures
* the value of education, knowledge and skills, and that we need to try to excel and we need to try to help others develop and excel in what makes them feel fulfilled
* the value of imagination and creativity, and what it does for the human spirit and society
* the value of craft and skill, and a belief that they are undervalued in our day and age
* the value of originality and diversity, non comformism and challenging received ideas
* a belief that people can organise and take care of themselves if just given the space and opportunity (although that can take time)
* a strong rejection of the idea that injustice and inequality are a normal thing and that it would cost societe too dearly to do anything about it

One thing that strikes me over and over is how it takes so little to allow people to interact and empower themselves… and so little to treat them like numbers and shut them off. I believe that at some level people are able to empower themselves, organise themselves, but that a lot of things in modern life combine to try to keep up distracted, dizzy, upset about non-news that hide the real issues, manipulated and disenfranchised.
Now I dont mean there’s a conspiracy, I think it just happened over time… but this state of affairs does benefit a lot of people.

So yes, I get really annoyed at all these things in the world that try to prevent us from thinking for ourselves, feed us belief and opinion and trying to prevent us from questioning and applying critical thought… As a result I’m a bit of a debater and I like playing devil’s advocate, because no opinion is ever 100% right, and forcing people to clarify their thinking and justify their ideas is always good… I especially like challenging common platitudes, and received opinions, the kind of things people say without ever thinking about it, the thoughts we were “fed” to think.

And I get really wound up when I see all the things in the world today which seem to be dedicated to suppressing people’s curiosity and their ability to learn and question, create and think for themselves… all the messages out there dumbing people down, especially children and young people, telling us the world is too complicated for peons like us, leave it to the technocrats, culture is too high for normal people, leave it to the specialist… Well I am a technocrat and you know what, rocket science is not *that* complicated…

Regrouping
Get back in touch more with all these friends I lost contact with. So if you read this, get in touch
Revive hobbies and projects I have left behind when things got busy - photography, painting, hiking and a few others
Read the books I already have, play the games I own, listen again to all the music I have….

Refocusing
Get rid of clutter and useless things.
Stop wasting time - there are enough good things to get entertained with not to waste time on empty stuff.
Start doing the things I always want to do but never get around to - write a few more sites, for one, scan all my photos, and more

Thankfully I learned this a while back, from a colleague back in 2000.

He regularly told us stories of some extravagant surprises he’d be planning for his mom or his dad (or both). When people remarked on this, he replied that you must do things like this for your family while you can, because one day they’re not able anymore and you don’t want regrets, you want great memories.

For all he turned out to be a selfish back stabbing liar in many things, in this he had his heart and priorities in the right place. And I am glad it inspired me to do some trips and other things with both my parents.

Things like that become particularly important right now after I have had a chaotic 2 weeks due to the biggest scare yet with my mother’s health. It doesn’t matter that you have known for years that there was an incurable, deadly illness - when suddenly things get dramatically worse overnight you are not ready. You think you have prepared yourself to let go, but there you are, all day in a waiting room in a hospital, giving DNR instructions and seeing someone you love barely conscious, with lots of tubes and surrounded by beeping monitors… and you just want to scream, cry, pound a wall…

The crisis is over for now but it will happen again, and I won’t be any more ready for it.

So go on, spoil your family while you can.

It can be taking them away for a weekend, or cook them a meal, or just spend more time with them at home, or do something nice and helpful like repaint their house or help in their garden…

Some of you know all that happened over the summer, but some of you didn’t, so I think it is a good idea for me to post a summary.

* I completed my work in my last job. It is now time for me to move to the next thing. I am not sure what it is yet, but my plan was to wait till the end of summer - since I had a few things peppered throughout the summer and it is not always a good time for finding jobs. As it turns out it could have been had other circumstances not changed things.

* My plan was to spend the summer split between outdoors activities, work on house/household chores delayed too long, working on this site and creating a separate blog for my professional interest, and possibly some photo or painting or crafting (perhaps even a course) on the side. I also had the 4 days hike of Nijmegen (4daagse) in July to prepare for, and a trip to Colorado planned. All in all a great summer!

* I decided to get a dog - always wanted one and now I think I can organise my carreer so I can have the time and space to have a dog. It so happened my friend Lene had a lovely dog that she couldnt keep, since she was doing the gutsy thing of going back to University. I thought about it for a month or so then decided it was too perfect. It turned out quite complicated to get a dog out of Denmark into the UK, but that’s a story for another blog post.

* I went to see my mother some more, after a really bad health scare in February. She had been in the hospital all winter and I went to Switzerland for a while to allow her to go home a bit. She was (psychologically) better than she had been for years and it was a pleasure to see her be her old self again. We did alas realise she would be too weak too live home alone, but were trying to find some solution perhaps with home care, to avoid her living in some kind of palliative care hospice.

* I went back to the UK for a week to go to @media at the end of May. Had a great time, met lots of interesting people, and was really pumped up to start my own blog(s) on several topics, and also to investigate new things both on the technology and the business side. If you met me then and wondered why I never connected, the reason comes next.

* Right at the end of @media I received a call telling me we ought to come back to Switzerland as my mother was not doing all that well - after the week at home where everything went so well it was a bit of a surprise. I spoke to my mother and she seemed fine. She died while we were driving on our way back.

* Needless to say this changed my summer plans - instead of being in switzerland spending time with my mum and writing a blog/painting or whatever, I ended up in Switzerland trying to organise a funeral, sort out a flat, and coping with my and everyone’s grief. This ate June and parts of July, killed any time I would have spent on the blogs as well as my hiking preparation.

* I head from a great startup looking for a CTO and tried to fit an interview in there, but I fear my head and heart were not quite focused enough. They were nice enough to tell me I was one of the last two, bless them, but I know I wasnt quite at my sharpest or even at my average sharpness. I also found out that during my time at Nexus I had taken the bad habit of being “a little vague” about technical matters, as a way to let both my staff members and my suppliers fill the blanks. I had found it worked well in this case, whereas using all the precise terms could make them feel a bit threatened (as if I was trying to entrap them, perhaps?). This is a habit I must get rid of if I am going to be interviewing! It is a shame as this would have fit one of my life plans perfectly.

* I still went to the 4daagse of Nijmegen although I suffered a little more than necessary since I barely trained in June. I still had a great time - and did succeed in the 4x40 - and want to do it again. I might blog about it later in the catch ups.

* I spent most of the summer moving between London, Leeds and Lausanne, Switzerland - it’s been a crazy time with not more than 7 days in any one place in a row, including a week in the Netherlands, a week in Colorado surrounded by 2 short stays in Iowa. I think the amount of miles travelled would be a record for me…

See for yourself:

May 16-22: Switzerland
May 22-30: UK London
June 1-16: Switzerland
June 17-24: UK Leeds & London
June 25-July 5: Switzerland
July 5-12: UK Leeds & London
July 13-21: Netherlands
July 21-30: London, Leeds, London again
July 30-Aug 20: US Iowa, Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa
Aug 21-23: London, Leeds
Aug 24-26: Denmark
Aug 26: Denmark->Calais
Aug 27-28: London
Aug 29-31: Leeds
Sep 1: London
Sep 2-14: Leeds
Sep 15-16: London
Sep 17-20: Leeds
Sep 20-22: London (@media Ajax)
Sep 22-Oct 7: Leeds (for now)
Oct 8-11: London (FOWA)

All the time I have had this site, from 1997 onwards, I have been involved in building websites and web technology apps during the day, but when it came to having a personal site I had a problem (especially later once I was running a web agency). If I tried to do a site using my own code and technology, and under my own name, people would find it, expect it to be about the industry, or at the very least expect it to uphold standards and be a showcase. I would get so stuck into perfection I would spend more time on that than on content. I got enough of that from 6am to 8pm every day, I didn’t need more.

Even when I decided I should continue to have my old site, less about games and more about the stay-in-touch kind of things, me-and-my-toys.

I didn’t want it to be like work, or about work (this was probably a mistake for my own career, really). If I was going to spend more web time in my evening it would not involve coding, it would not involve design and I would not mess with it. It would be about content - content that interested just me, and that was fine with me.

And for a very long time I kept it totally separated from anything in my real life, nickname, no links, no real name, and nothing about work. I didn’t want to have to watch what I said or did. So I could get away with it.

Then the web changed, and the work-life boundaries blurred for everyone, and I decided it was silly to have that barrier. Now people turn up here knowing me from my professional persona, and I fear I cannot get away with this site anymore.

By blogging standards, it does everything wrong, it lacks focus and consistency, it has a very candid and direct tone, I might post 10 things one day then nothing for months, and, horror! a “sorry I havent posted anything” post. It jumps all over the place. No strategy, no coherence. I didn’t care, I’m not a blogger. This is for me and my 10 occasional readers, a “me and my stuff site” of the worst kind. Followed by about 20 friends on and off, when they wondered “What’s happened to iphi lately?”.  And usable for me when I need to send a link about a game nobody has heard about, because I watched it and collected links and quotes.

And on the side of technology and building it, I have gone for the frankenstein method - I messed with it live. The results shows entropy as applied to websites, a dozen half finished reorganisations and design changes, bits hanging out, bits fixed with staples. But it’s alive, even if all it can say is “gaaaah”.

Anyway, I will clean it up, and apologies to the 5 people who liked the old site fine as it was.

1) I’m a 5 minute cat detector, due to an extremely strong allergy (although it has gotten better).

2) When I was 4 years old my parents asked me if I would prefer a little brother or a little sister. I replied I’d rather have a dog. It somehow took the wind out of their sails, since I never got either sibling or dog and had to wait 30+ years before I finally go a dog.

3) In spite of the story in 2), I was a fertility expert at 4 - we had friends of the family visiting, married 2 years previously, and somehow the conversation went to their yet unsuccessful attempts to have a child. I embarrassed my mother by explaining in sufficient detail how these things worked. It was worth it though, as a few months later they were expecting. I don’t remember this at all, but supposedly I was very proud that my advice had worked.

4) I have my mobile phone ringtone set really low, so I don’t hear it if I am concentrated on work or a conversation. Most people I have worked with really cannot understand this, but it makes sense to me. If I am working well, or in a conversation with someone, I don’t want the phone to interrupt!

5) I find it hard to remember numbers, and often also mathematical formulae. The number thing goes for phone numbers, but also for a lot of the physics and mathematical constants which we always use - quite crippling. It took me years to remember the basic trigonometry rules, I used to have to rederive them on a side piece of paper. That pattern went on - I can go through the reasoning again, but can’t remember the exact final result without going through it. I suspect it made my studies harder than necessary!

6) On the other hand I can remember almost every fiction book I have read, what I though about it, and where I got it - which library or store etc.

7) I’m better at starting things than finishing them, will put the 7th entry later