jonobacon@home

Wow. That is the only way of describing how we all feel in the LugRadio team regarding the response to Monday’s news that we are wrapping up LugRadio. I have been, in a word, stunned at the incredibly generous and kind comments that we have been receiving. It was incredible to see so many comments on that blog entry, as well as Aq’s write-up, the LugRadio forums thread that announced the news, and the mountain of email to the show email address.

I have read every one of those comments, posts and emails and I am stunned at the incredibly kind things people have been saying. Some of the things that people have said have really made us all feel incredibly proud of the show. I love the fact that many of you said that LugRadio helped you get enthused about free software and the community, and many of you said that you feel part of something with LugRadio. A long time ago, Bruno, a LugRadio community regular said “LugRadio is my LUG“; it seems he is not alone in that sentiment based on many of the messages we have received.

So with all the thanks we have received and well-wishes for the future, I want to use this as an opportunity to say thanks to every one of you too. As some of you will know, I am rather fond of communities, and I am incredibly proud of the LugRadio community. It has demonstrated all the traits of a good community; it is a friendly, welcoming environment, and one that has never been short of people enthusiastic about getting involved. Heck, the foundation of LugRadio is a testament to this, with every single show being mirrored by a large number of contributors - this was a conscious decision that we made from day one to help make the show possible, and low-and-behold the community once again stood up and helped. Not only that, but had community contributions with sys-admin work, the planet, the facts database, the clan, the forums, the IRC channel, at LugRadio Live, with ideas for the show, emails and more.

There is though one little story though which I would like to share with you that really demonstrated to me what the LugRadio community is capable of. Back when we were organising LugRadio Live 2006, we spent months preparing for the event. It was twice the size of 2005, two days instead of one, three stages instead of two with more talk slots, had far more activities and events going on and involved a lot more coordination, sponsorship and more. We worked our respective arses off to get everything in shape, and the community was psyched up about it. People had booked flights from all over the world to attend, hotels were reserved and we were a few weeks away from the big weekend. Then, one evening while doing some recording, I logged onto the LugRadio Forums from my studio computer and noticed a comment that a rail strike was scheduled for the weekend of LugRadio Live. Crap. I can safely say that in 28 years of being on this planet, I have never been so angry as I was in that moment, and was fuming at not only the incompetence of the people who run the rail network but also the union deciding to throw their toys out the proverbial pram. Who the hell did they think they were? Did they not consider other people who rely on the rail network? Were they aware of how disruptive this was going to be? I stood there and envisaged all of our hard work slowly going down the drain as people could not get to LugRadio Live.

In all the commotion, the LugRadio community…unasked…and unprompted, jumped right into action and started organising car sharing, investigating alternatives and getting a plan in place. Discussions happened, wiki pages were created, capacity was developed. We even had someone volunteer to pay or a nationwide coach service out of his own pocket. When I went to work at OpenAdvantage the following day with a black cloud hovering over my head, I was touched by just how much the community had pulled together. In my mind, this is the definition of what this is all about - we are all coming together to not only do incredibly cool things with technology, culture and new perspectives, but there is a noticeable atmosphere of people looking out for each other. The greatest communities in the world are not just places where you feel empowered, they are places in which other people empower you.

…oh and for the curious, the conclusion of this tale was that when I got into OpenAdvantage that day I called the rail network officials and the union and gave them equal doses of my derision. Fortunately, said strike was called off and everyone lived happily ever after. I even shaved off that insane beard at that LugRadio Live. Retrospectively, that was a deeply wise move.

So in conclusion, thanks everyone for everything you have been saying to us, we really do appreciate it.

Come to LugRadio Live UK 2008 for one last shindig

So everyone, with the show wrapping up, you absolutely, utterly have to come along to LugRadio Live UK 2008 on the 19th and 20th July 2008 for our farewell LugRadio Live. Of course, its not just our last recording of a show - there will be three stages of speakers, a full exhibition, parties and other fun for the weekend. Its only a few weeks away, so get booked into a hotel and come and join us.

DIGG THIS!

Today we announced that we have decided to call it a day with LugRadio. Our last show will be LugRadio Live UK 2008 on the 19th and 20th July 2008 at The Lighthouse in Wolverhampton. We announced this in the latest episode of LugRadio, Season 5 Episode 21 - go and have a listen to the show to hear more.

In a nutshell, we have decided that LugRadio has had a good run for the last four years and five seasons, and a show such as ours has always faced the risk of getting old and tired unless the formula is changed to keep it fresh. This growth and evolution has happened to a decent degree over the seasons as we introduced interviews, musical comedy skits, points based segments, competitions, focusing on different types of content etc, but as we near the end of Season 5 we came to the conclusion that the show was nearing its natural conclusion. From the beginning, when we have discussed if and when LugRadio was to finish we were always determined to take it out on a high, and this is part of the reason we feel now is a good time. The last thing we would want people to say is “yeah LugRadio was fantastic, well apart from that dire sixth season“. We feel we have had five good solid seasons under our belt, so now is probably a good time to wrap things up.

Now, as with when Matt left, some people are bound to jump to conclusions why we are calling it a day. To clarify:

A am massively proud of what we have managed to achieve. Over 100 shows, 7 full-time presenters and countless guest presenters, 200+ hours of audio, 100+ guests, 2million+ downloads, 1000+ forums members, 40000+ forums posts, 5 live events in two countries, 5000+ emails to the show and an incredible community of people who have surrounded the show, discussed it, got involved in some way, and otherwise given us all an immense enthusiasm to keep doing LugRadio. I am also proud of every one of my co-presenters over the years - Steve “Sparkes” Parkes, Matt Revell, Ade Bradshaw and the current roster of Adam Sweet, Chris Procter and Stuart “Aq” Langridge. I am particularly proud of Aq, my best mate and someone who has been my partner in crime in LugRadio since Season 1 Episode 1.

The thing I am most proud of about LugRadio is that it shook things up. It has always been raw, unexpected and at times uncomfortable to listen to. We always set out to do a show on our terms, knowing full well it would not be everyone’s cup of tea, but we forged ahead and I am proud of how the history looks.

Everyone has their favorite moments, and I just wanted to highlight just a few of mine:

Our many incredible guests - Nat Friedman, Jeff Waugh, Eric Raymond, Miguel de Icaza, Mark Shuttleworth, Matthew Garrett, Rob McQueen, Sacha “Sago” Goedegebure, Alexandre Juillard, Havoc Pennington, Colin Walters, Quim Gil, Greg Kroah-Hartman and many more. The many strong debates Aq and I have launched into on the show. We have a somewhat unusual style of debating and some people have been worried we were on the verge of falling out, which has never happened. I know, its odd, and something that started back in 2001 at LUG meetings. It never stops being fun. The Gong-a-thong was an idea that Aq and I concocted late one night while on the phone. The first time we did it in Wolverhampton, we both stood at the side of the stage and it was a very surreal, proud and frankly hilarious moment. We replicated such insanity in San Francisco with Aaron Bockover and it was another comedy gem. The final gong-a-thong will happen at LugRadio Live UK 2008 in a few weeks. Ade’s random stories, and strange expectations of life. Who can forget Ade asking if any of us looked at our arses in the mirror, expecting a fully reasoned and learned discussion about said activity. Oh, and Ade’s perspectives on women in technical roles and his idea of compliments to a lady in a nightclub (”You sit well for an old girl…“). Bonkers. The booting of Matt Lee and GNU/FSF on the show and his admirable efforts at retort. Oh, and RMS refusing to come on the show as we use the words “Open Source” in the description of the show. Theatrics and comedy skits - The National Lottery segment, musical efforts (Pigeon Street, Lion Sleeps Tonight), Mrs Mudchild appearing because Matt was late for the show, Stallman only wanting a kipper, the What The F**k Book Truck, Filthy Gamble and more. LugRadio Live USA 2008. Wow, what an experience - a lot of fun, and a lot of work, but well worth it. LugRadio Live And Unleashed - there is nothing like doing a show in front of hundreds of people. It is a lot of fun and a real buzz. Sparkes availing us of his many stories, particularly the girl taking the piss out of his shoes in Wolverhampton. When I was editing his best bits segment I had tears streaming down my face laughing. Filming the LugRadio Live 2007 promo videos. It was a lot of fun making them. Actors, we are not. The emails. Our emails were always eclectic. Sometimes random, sometimes wise, sometimes hilarious, sometimes deeply offensive, but always inspiring. We loved every one of them, even the ones we thought were crap. The competitions - Stupid Hat For Corporate Tat, Look Queer In The New Year, Pimp My LugRadio, Asa Raskin’s Hat Dilemma and more. Bruno’s talk at LugRadio Live 2006 about how much we all swear in LugRadio and his rather amusing delivery and graphs. Matt’s impressions, particularly his Irish leprechaun impression. Specifically, Matt’s leprechaun impression that he used to impersonate Lucky Charms when at Skycon in Limerick. The Finger Of God.

It is certainly going to be unusual not having my mates around to my house every two weeks to record a show, drinking endless amounts of tea, taking an average of 15 takes to record an intro (really), regularly ribbing each other about everything under the sun, and then releasing a show and hearing about how it was received by our community.

So, the last episode of LugRadio will be recorded in front of a live audience at LugRadio Live UK 2008 on the 19th July 2008 in Wolverhampton. Why not come and share it with us, and the Saturday night we will be toasting to four years surrounded by our friends from the community; I can’t think of a better way to get off the roller-coaster.

Also see Aq’s write-up.

A few months back I did an interview with the Sun Developer Channel and it was released today. The interview covers Ubuntu, MOTU, community building, developer communities, extremists, LugRadio, LugRadio Live USA 2008 and more:

Can’t see it? Click here!

You know what, I have done interviews before, but in this one I found it pretty nerve wracking. Something about a video camera poked in your direction in nerve wracking enough, let alone a full-on studio, like the one buried away at Sun’s Silicon Valley campus. Thanks to Barton for the interview.

For the bored, last week I did a few interviews:

Thanks to both shows for the airtime.

Organisation for LugRadio Live USA 2008 on the 12th and 13th April 2008 in San Francisco coninues apace, and we are in the process of confirming exhibitors. Our first raft of exhibitors have just been confirmed, and I can announce them as:

We are currently working to add another twice as many exhibitors. If you would like to exhibit you’re project, organisation or company, get in touch with us at show AT lugradio DOT org.

Of course, LugRadio Live USA 2008 is much more than just exhibitors, we have 35 speakers who will be speaking across three stages:

It is going to be a kick-arse event. And remember it is only $10 for the entire weekend. Thats it. Ten bucks. If you want to come and join in the fun, please go and pre-register, it guarantees you’re entry, and also includes a bunch of other benefits. Look forward to seeing you all there!

Just a quick note - the chaps on the show (Aq, Adam and Chris) and I are heading out with ex-presenters Matthew Revell and Ade Bradshaw for a few celebratory birthday drinks this Friday (29th Feb). Everyone is welcome.

We will meet at 8pm at The Varsity in central Wolverhampton (address is Stafford Street, Wolverhampton, WV1 1LZ). If you can get along, let us know.

DIGG!

Well, today LugRadio turns 4. Quite a roller-coaster it has been too.

Just over four years ago, in the far corner of The Moon Under Water pub in Wolverhampton, we hatched the idea of LugRadio. For a while I had been thinking of doing on online radio show about Open Source, and when Matt Revell joined Wolves LUG, he mentioned he had had thoughts of doing an online radio show too. We roped in a few loud characters from Wolves LUG (namely Aq and Sparkes), and LugRadio was born. It would be a few months before we finally got round to recording our first show in my tiny home studio in my house. Although my home studio was reasonably kitted out, it was nothing compared to the current setup - we were using a cheap multi-tracker running on a PC, four drum mics (with socks as pop-shields), and all four of us crammed into an extremely small space. The first show was 22 minutes and 38 seconds long and was frankly…rubbish by today’s standards, but at the time I think it genuinely brought something new to the Open Source community, and the core LugRadio formula was there in its rawest form. Knowing we could not afford to distribute the shows, we concocted a devious scheme of allowing our listeners (assuming we would get listeners) to mirror the show and therefore share the bandwidth hit. That system is still in place now, and a typical show will have 15+ mirrors pumping out shows to an estimated 20,000 listeners.

We were all pretty nervous if LugRadio would go anywhere; we figured it would either generate some interest or really piss some people off and last only a few shows - we knew the recipe would be somewhat controversial for some people. In fact, in the early days, I was a full-time freelance journalist, and I will never forget going to karate with this deep uncertainly about whether LugRadio would be a wise idea for my career. At that point, my work was starting to become fairly public (due to my magazine work), but my voice was always carefully written, edited, crafted and refined before it ever went to the editor - LugRadio however, was balls-to-the-wall frankness, largely un-edited and up-front. As I mulled on this over a few days I came to the conclusion that I am my own person, and I should never hide my personality; I figured that as a journalist, and eventually as an advocate and community manager, being frank and truthful with people is essential, not optional. Fortunately, LugRadio has had the opposite effect and helped grow all of our careers, as opposed to hinder them.

We are all amazed at where LugRadio has gone in the last four years - none of us ever expected it to grow like it has. There are many milestones that have freaked us all out - people who we respect listening to the show, showing up at conferences all over the world and people saying they like the show, winning a marketing award, topping magazine reviews of podcasts - each of these was a huge surprise as we have always seen the show as fundamentally four loud blokes rambling on in a room; our benchmark has always been other shows, and we have always felt somewhat amateur and still do to this day. To see formal recognition like this is a very strange experience, but a huge buzz too.

The community that has grown around the show is stunning, and it always amazes us that we have such a thriving community and importantly, a culture that has been defined around the show in the forums, planet, facts, quotes, clan, #lugradio IRC channel, and with hashlugradio. People contribute to the show in many ways - we have nearly 1000 members on the forums, and around 100 people constantly in #lugradio on Freenode, and people constantly contributing emails and ideas to the show. The emails segment in the show has always been my personal favorite segment - it is really great to have some fun with the emails people send in, and we get some truly interesting and amusing mails. One thing I love about our listeners is that they don’t take themselves too seriously and are more than happy to put the boot in where required - it always provides fun and exciting content. Our incredible community has helped with all aspects - the content, the website, the system administration, the mirroring, the promotion and more.

Thanks must also go out to the 100+ interviews that have been conducted in the last four years, and some of the frankly bizarre questions we may have asked people - these include Simon Willison, Quim Gil, Lennart Poettering, Rob McQueen, Christian Tismer, Niall “digitaldeath” O’Brien, John Alfred Knottenbelt, Alan Cox, Sean McGrath, Greg Kroah-Hartman, Adam Williamson, Havoc Pennington, Colin Walters, Will Stephenson, Sacha “Sago” Goedegebure, Alexandre Juillard, Gavin Henry, Lee Jordan, Jeff Waugh, Miguel de Icaza, Sven de Marothy, Aaron Seigo, Mike Hearn, Seth Nickell, Kevin Carmony, Michael Meeks, Ralph Giles, Edward “lamb-burning surrender monkey” Hervey, Ryan Quinn, Henrik Nielsen Omma, Carl Worth, Joe Shaw, Paul Leonard, Adrian Keward, Paul Sladen, Caroline Yates, Jonathan Riddell, Maria Blackmore, Hubert Figuere, Alex Hudson, Aquarion, Schwuk, Digit0, Mozrat, Richard Allan MP, Howard Berry, Russ Phillips and Jen Phillips, Mark Shuttleworth, Dave Camp, Yannick Pellet and Carlos Guerreiro, Ian Brown, Sarah Ewen, Greg Mancusi-Ungaro, Ian Wilson, John Leach, MrBen, Adam Leventhal, Philip Copeman, Bill Hilf, Jeremy White, Jacob “jimmac” Steiner, Dave “pig-carrying Irishman” Neary, Chris Messina, Simon Phipps, Timothy Miller, Cliff Brereton, Jeremy Katz, Matthew Garrett, Michael “mdk” Dominik, Ted Haeaeaeaeaeaeagear, Rory McCann, Matthew East, Gareth Bowker, Mirco Müller, Aaron Bockover, Robert Love, Luis Villa, Bastian Nocera, Philippe Normand, Jan Schmidt, Graham Taylor, Justin “juski” Hornsby, Peter Hollingsworth, Justin Davies, Cory Ondrejka, Sava Tatic, Stephen “SheepEatingTaz” Garton, Pia Waugh, Scott James “Three Shot” Remnant, John Cherry, Eric Raymond, Alan “Popey the sailor man” Pope, Matt Wilson, Andrew “spline” Lewis, Chris DiBona, SteÌphane Marchesin, Mickey Lauer, Wouter van Heyst, David “tyrion” Dolphin, Christian Schaller, Becky Hogge, Ian “Howlin’ Mad” Murdock, James Governor, Matt Lee, Chris Jones, Jeremie Zimmerman, Neuro, Branden Holtsclaw, Bradley M. Kuhn, Zeth Green, Barbie…

Of course, LugRadio has also spawned LugRadio Live which has seen three UK shows (2005, 2006, 2007) and the up-and-coming LugRadio Live USA 2008 and LugRadio Live UK 2008. We delved into and analysed the ethos and formula behind the audio show and worked to convert into conference form and every LugRadio Live has has been an utter blast. Particular thanks must go to the people who believed in LugRadio Live back in 2005 when we had no reputation behind us - and specifically to our good friends at Bytemark Hosting for supporting us every year. Two particular things stick in my mind with LugRadio Live. Firstly, I will never forget in the build-up to the first LugRadio Live - Aq and I would have lunch together in Birmingham to discuss and make plans, and we were both hugely terrified that no-one would show up. We came to the conclusion that if around 60 people attended, we would be happy. When it got to the big day, we had over 200 people attend in our tiny little venue. We were stunned. The second memory was the unbelievably heartening feeling that ran through my veins when we ran the 2007 event - we had over 12 crew (all LugRadio fans and volunteers) get to the venue at 7am and within minutes of us getting in, every single crew member was chipping in, working hard and doing their best. With all of the crew adorned in yellow t-shirts, it was like a pack of animals dispersing - they shot out across the venue and started constructing the entire event in two hours. With the months and months of build up, stress and tension that we had put in, seeing the crew put in every ounce of energy they could that weekend, was simply stunning.

I am so proud of what LugRadio has gone onto achieve - we are not the most insightful, we are not the best produced, we are not the funniest, but I am hugely proud to see the sheer amount of content around LugRadio and LugRadio Live, and every bit of it has been entirely volunteer based, done in spare time, fueled by caffeine and late nights. To be honest, we were half-expecting that the energy from the listeners and us would wain after the first year or so, but four years on, it is just as exciting as ever - LugRadio would be nothing if it were not for our incredible listeners. Thank you everyone for sticking with us.

I would love to hear people’s fave memories from the show, LugRadio Live or anything else - head over to this forums thread to add yours.

Can’t see the vid, click here

LugRadio Season 5 Episode 12 is out. It features a royal Chris kicking, discussion of Open Source celebrity, results of the Pimp My LugRadio competition (of which the above video is one entry), a brand new competition, discussion of LugRadio Live USA 2008 which of course has registration open.

Bring it on, and babble about it here.

Everyone is banging on about the EEEPC, and rightly so; it rocks a big ‘un. On Season 5 Episode 7 of LugRadio we reviewed it and gave it a unanimous thumbs-up. Thankfully, the review model we got from Dale at EfficientPC was not just for review, but to give away in our Pimp My LugRadio competition. So far we have had some excellent entries, and some very amusing, to boot.

The competition is simple - send us a piece of promotional material that we can use when promoting the show. It can be in any medium (e.g. audio, video, poster, article), and it should promote the concept of the LugRadio show, and not any specific season and not LugRadio Live. Examples could include audio and video adverts/promos, posters, dummies guide to LugRadio articles, LugRadio stats, and they should focus on the different aspects of the show - Linux/Open Source, discussions, rants, amusing banter, etc. One important note - we are not looking for people to actually promote the show themselves - writing a blog entry about how cool LugRadio is…is nice and all that…but will not qualify as entry - we are specifically looking for material we can use when promoting the show.

Another few examples you may want to see are the promo videos we did for LugRadio Live UK 2006 - like I say, the competition isnot for LugRadio Live, but the show in general, but it gives you some ideas:

We have been working to re-license the entire back-catalog (getting on for 100 shows) under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license, and this has mean’t contacting previous presenters and all interviewees to see if they are happy with the license change. So far we have got through about half of the interviewees, and all apart from a few, are happy with the license change - all of the non-interview content with all of the presenters apart from Sparkes is approved for the license change - we just have not heard from Sparkes yet.

So, there is bags of content out there which you can mash-up and play with. Have some fun, and send us your entries to show AT lugradio DOT org, and you could win yourself an EEEPC.

See the competition page.

So here we are, drawing 2007 to a close, and what a year it has been! Understatement of the century.

I think 2007 has possibly been the most turbulent year of my life, filled with its share of good and bad times, and a year in which I have felt a great degree of personal growth. Around this time of mince pies and glorious overeating, I think its always important to evaluate the past year, and flesh out some core plans and changes. I did this last year, and found it pretty useful - I would love to see other people’s year in review, and have seen a few already.

Open Source and Projects

2007 has been a stunning year for Open Source - the machine continues to get sleeker, smoother, and is rampaging on in its mission to kick arse and take names. Irrespective of competition, distributions, companies and brands, I think 2007 has been an excellent year for the core ideal and ethos of Open Source and Free Software. We have seen growth, acceptance, successes and a continuation of form that sees our world blur into the wider world, while retaining our core principles and ideals.

It has also been a great year for Ubuntu. This is my first full year working at Canonical, and it has been a joy to not only see the growth in the community but a growth in the business impact of Ubuntu and the technology continue to grow, mature and refine. I am really pleased to see more and more OEMs shipping with Ubuntu, and I have been chuffed to bits to see the community evolve, and our processes scale when the crunch is on. We still have lots of work to do, but we are getting there, and boy do we have a great community to help us all get there together. There has not been a day pass by when I haven’t felt privileged to work with such an inspiring group of contributors.

What a year for a LugRadio too! Two new presenters was enough of an upheaval in the LugRadio camp, but we also realised that Season 5 was going to be make or break for the show and fundamental to its future. Four years in, we knew that we need to constantly move and change to keep the show fun, interesting, educational and irreverent - four years of the same approximate formula can get old, and we never want this to happen. Season 5 has involved a lot more work, but it seems the LugRadio fans are enjoying it, and this makes us happy, so much so that we regularly celebrate with beer and kebabs. This year has also seen LugRadio Live grow - we held the 2007 event which was was a great success, and plans are afoot for LugRadio Live 2008 UK, and the new addition to the LugRadio Live family, LugRadio Live 2008 USA which will take place in San Francisco. We are looking forward to both events, and are all prepared for the oodles amount of work that they will entail.

Music

2007 has been a difficult year music wise. Seraphidian has been a slow moving machine with the departure of our drummer, and I have taken over the reigns of drummer and we have sourced a new singer, Chris. We have written a stack of new material, which we are hugely proud of, but this has taken time to write, and we are looking forward to getting out gigging in January with the new line-up. I have personally found the new role of drummer in the band to be a pretty taxing and physically demanding goal - Jon set a high bar to match. This has mean’t lots of rehearsals, working out to get my legs and arms fit enough, and working hard to get the speed, stability and finesse of my playing up to scratch. I am getting there, but I am not at the end of the road yet.

The Big Red Recording was another key musical event this year, and was a fun but hugely exhausting challenge to meet, far more exhausting than I expected. I remember when I was mixing the tracks, I had been awake for two days solid and was falling asleep at the desk. It was however, an incredibly worthwhile experience, and I am proud of the end result. I am also proud of everyone who donated and contributed to the £1200+ final wad of cash for charity.

Recreant View, my solo music project has seen a stack of tunes added, but in the tail end of this year I have not added so many songs. This is largely because I am the process of writing my first solo metal album, and it is taking time, I want this one to really impress - I don’t expect to start recording until February or March in 2008.

Work

2007 has been an insane year (good insane, like Keith Richards, not bad insane like Fred West) for work at Canonical and with the Ubuntu community. I am still really enjoying my role, and I get up every day and look forward to going to work, which I feel is a real privilege.

This year saw a lot of travel - over to Sydney, Porto Alegre, Los Angeles, Portugal, Boston, Oregon, Limerick, Berlin, Hannover, London, Seville, San Francisco and various other places. It has been great fun travelling and meeting so many people, and I am really pleased with the success of How To Herd Cats And Influence People. Looking forward to getting back out on the road in 2008 to meet a bunch of people, talk about Ubuntu, make connections and of course, quaff some local brews in the evenings.

This year also saw me more formally become a manager and have two people working for me - Daniel Holbach and Jorge Castro. I couldn’t wish for a better team, and it has been a change for us all - Daniel moving to the community team, Jorge starting a new role and me becoming a manager for the first time. Becoming a manager is a pretty ominous prospect and there are a great many ways of approaching management - different styles, techniques, methods of application and other theories. Bombarded with so many options, I figured it is best to just be myself, and the team has found a comfortable balance in working together. I have also been more deeply embedded in the engineering side of Canonical with the developers who work on Ubuntu; this has helped my team become better clued into the development aspects of Ubuntu as well as the pure community processes.

Canonical is an excellent place to work, filled with smart, inspiring, clueful people, and our growth has been huge in the last year. It is a tough working environment at times with so much going on at one time, and everyone has developed a pretty high bandwidth for managing so much at any one time, but it is a satisfying and engaging place to work, and I look forward to riding into 2008 with Canonical paying my salary that funds my exuberant life of over-indulgence and excess.

Personal

2007 has been a tough year in my personal life. As some of you will know, back in March I split up with my girlfriend of 11 years, and this brought about many different changes. Fortunately, Sooz and I have a very amicable relationship, we are still very good friends, and we share our two little miniature sausage dogs, Frankie and Pepper. It has been an interesting time becoming single again, considering I was last single when I was 16. This brings about all kinds of things - getting used to living by yourself, doing your own chores, getting into the swing of a new social life, meeting new people etc. It has been tough, I am not going to deny it, and there has been many dark moments in 2007. Luckily, I have an incredible family, and stunning friends and colleagues who have helped me over the obstacles, and this is where I have felt the personal growth I mentioned at the start of this post - stepping through your fears and coming out the other side with your head held high does wonders for thickening your skin and solidifying your philosophy of life.

2008

With 2007 pretty much out of the door, it is time to look forward to 2008. I am generally not one for new years resolutions, but I do have a few things I want to focus on:

So there we have it, 2007 covered and 2008 planned. Much of the reasoning behind these thoughts and overt ramblings is basically to avoid possibly my biggest fear in life; when I am an old man, sat in a large chair in front of the staring window, possibly having lost the control of my bladder, the one thing I want to comfort me through my final years is the thought that I gave life a pretty good crack of the whip and that I experienced it and did it right. The last thing I want to feel is that I wished I had done this and that. Regrets about bad decisions are fine, but I don’t want to feel I wasted my time on this earth, and this does not just apply to career ambitions, but the whole gamut - career, different experiences, love, family, friends, ambitions, fun etc. I think much of this can be evaluated by stories - each amusing and interesting little story you have to tell is an experience and a memory, and it is this patchwork of stories that signifies to me that things are going to plan. So, onto 2008 and lets see where the road takes us all…