A blog by Mark Connolly
An annual tradition in my family is our visit to the City of Waterloo Service Centre Open House. This year’s edition is next Saturday, June 12. As I wrote following last year’s version, it’s an amazing event, it’s free, and there’s lots to do. If you have kids, I highly recommend taking them.
I’m not really tired of waking up tired. I was, though, a little tired on Thursday morning after two worlds collided for me on Wednesday night at the Starlight in Waterloo.
When I worked at Platform Computing I had a fine manager, Ian MacKay, who was a great supporter of our user experience team. We got along well, and he was a generous collaborator in addition to being an inspiring leader. Ian was, and is, also a man of many other talents, including visual artist and musician. Around the time that I left Platform to join Primal Fusion, he left Platform as well. One of the things that he’s taken on since leaving that company was to return to his roots as a Canadian punk rock pioneer, playing bass and singing in The Diodes. Some of you may remember their catchy hit “Tired of Waking Up Tired”.
Happily, the band played here in Waterloo Wednesday night, as part of a mini-tour that they have underway. I was glad to have a chance to catch up with Ian, along with another friend and former Platform UX colleague who joined me at the show. Hearing The Diodes was fun too. I wasn’t sure what to expect musically from a band that has played very little together in the couple of decades, but they were tight and sounded great.
So which two worlds collided? As with my Ignite talk on metaphor in product design, the Diodes show saw my working life as a user experience professional intersect with my leisure life as a music enthusiast with too many albums in too many formats!
One of the enduring traditions that I’ve been able to enjoy every other Thursday over the last decade here in Waterloo is a morning gathering known to its participants as Boys Breakfast. The attendance has varied dramatically in the years since the regular meetings at the long-departed Texas Bar-B-Q (a ghostly reminder of which appeared briefly late last summer while the space was being renovated; see the accompanying image), but some of the original founders are still there. While not exactly a secret society, it’s certainly been a well-kept secret, with new breakfasters joining via invitations to come on out and try it.
What’s the attraction? The diversity of breakfasters and the resulting wide-ranging conversations is certainly top of the list. This week’s gathering, for example, saw an architect, a writer, a historian, a venture capitalist, a librarian, a land developer, and a designer, amongst others, taking the conversations hither and yonder through the news and local topics of interest. Happily, conventional ‘networking’ isn’t on the menu!
The food has for some time been a top notch feature; Chris and Chef Willie regularly deliver wonderfully unique and delicious morning meals. Green eggs and ham (!) were a special surprise, and I have particularly fond memories of the scotch eggs served up some time ago.
In the end, the regularity of the gatherings may be a big part of the appeal. Year in and year our, Boys Breakfast is there, providing a defiantly local communal experience. Guys, you know who you are, and I thank you all for creating and maintaining this Uptown Waterloo tradition.
2010 is an important year for me as a soccer fan, but not because the World Cup takes place on the continent of Africa for the first time (though that is, admittedly, big).
I’m a big fan of watching my sons play organized soccer here in Waterloo. The new season kicked off last week for all of them, and the big 2010 highlight for me is that my four-year-old has joined a team for the very first time this year! I’m pleased to note that, like his brothers before him, he managed to get uniform number six for his inaugural season; he’s a free man, and number one in my heart.
Between the three boys, this season I’ll be watching games five days a week at fields all over the city.
Organized soccer is available in my community thanks in large part to the work of many volunteers, and I’m grateful for that. My boys are too!
While I’ve known about it for years I only recently visited the Earth Sciences Museum at the University of Waterloo for the first time. I was accompanied by all three of my sons, two of whom had been there before, and we were there with a group of kids with their parents. We saw a presentation on dinosaurs that was engaging, fun, and educational. Millions of years were covered, with museum exhibits of an Albertosaurus and other extinct species illustrating points about how dinosaurs lived. The boys and I learned a new word too, discovering that the Brachiosaurus, as well as other dinosaurs and some modern animals, swallowed rocks to facilitate digestion; the museum has a specimen of such a gastrolith.
Finally, just prior to leaving, my sons led me to the 8.5 meter gneiss monolith, a truly massive slab of rock that dominates a stairwell in the Centre for Environmental Information Technology building in which the museum is housed.
As with other entries in this series, the Earth Sciences Museum makes Waterloo a better place to live — even if the large and extinct carnivore won’t really rampage through the city.
Ignite Waterloo hosted another great evening of talks last night. It was the second local event, but this time it was part of the much larger Global Ignite Week. The Waterloo speakers presented talks on a diverse range of topics, and the large audience was engaged, and engaging, throughout the night. It’s great fun to help organize this event.
Highlights for me included Alex Matan’s accordion workout, Erica Waugh’s directions on how to drive in a roundabout, Jeff Henry’s practical advice on working with politicians, and Sunshine Chen’s storytelling story. My favourite, though, as Brendan Lowther’s talk on Geocaching. It wasn’t so much for the topic, but for his passion and for the aplomb that he showed when confronted with slides that didn’t seem to be displaying all his pictures. He made it into a fun thing and demonstrated that, in the end, a successful talk is about the speaker, not the technology.
Finally, the Lego building competition was also a fine succes, though I missed much of it as I was working the door while the competition was on. At the end of the night, though, while helping to clean up I was able to take the accompanying picture of one of the contest entries after it had been returned to the large bin of Lego pieces. Pretty cool entry!
Having left Primal Fusion, I’ve been giving some thought to what’s next. At the moment, I’m really in discovery mode — thinking about possibilities, talking to friends and colleagues, and generally trying to keep an open mind. It’s a liberating state to be in, as is the beginning of any new adventure, though it’s obviously not without its moments of uncertainty.
Having said that, I’m still pretty committed to living and working in the Waterloo area. There’s a great technology and startup community here with a lot of thoughtful, engaged, and passionate people who share their knowledge and experience through a variety of activities. And, Waterloo is also a fine place to live — as I’ve written previously, there are many reasons why my family and I enjoy living here.
Which brings me to what feels like quite an odd request.
I’d like to hear from anyone who would like to share any ideas on how I might think about what’s next. Let’s get together for coffee, or talk at a community event, or exchange email or tweets, whatever. I’m always impressed by the depth of knowledge, the wisdom, and the generosity of spirit that I’ve encountered in people in our community, and I want to find out whether its possible to tap into that at this stage in my adventure. It’s not quite crowd-sourcing a next career move; it’s more like seeing what I might learn by opening up the thinking process. For that matter, I’m also happy to share my own thoughts with anyone who has their own career questions and would like to chat.
For context, I hope that it’s clear from my various posts on this blog what my interests, skills, and experiences are (user experience, software products, startups, etc.).
Beyond this blog, I write in much shorter bursts on Twitter as @uxMark; reading my tweets there may or may provide more clarity! Connect with me there, or send me an email. My email address is my first name [at] connollydesign [dot] com.
Wow! That was amazing!
TEDxWaterloo, on Thursday February 25, was even better than my already high hopes for it had led me to expect. The ambience at the Gig Theatre was great, the speakers were inspiring and the conversations I had were a treat. While the topics and styles for the talks were diverse they all related, even if loosely, to the overall theme of the event, Tomorrow Started Yesterday. While I got something out of each talk, highlights for me included Terry O’Reilly’s musings on friction, Paul Saltzman’s highly personal yet somehow epic reflections on life, Caroline Disler’s dissection of the foundations of what we call Western Civilization, and Madhur Anand’s exploration of the meaning of green.
Conversations were great too. I ended up chatting a fair amount with a student from the university of Waterloo about Bruce Springsteen, of all things. He’s a huge a fan, and said that he had never really met another fan before. I never expected to be weighing the merits of the 1978 Cleveland Agora show at TEDxWaterloo, but that’s the magic of the encounters that the event facilitates!
There were a few glitches, including a late start due to technical problems with getting the streaming video working and a crowded food area during the first break. These, for me, felt minor and in no way diminished the overall experience of the event. My only regret is that I didn’t make it to the after-party.
I left the theatre energized, enthused, and engaged. Congratulations, and thanks, to the folks who put this on. Outstanding!
Finally, I’ll leave Amy Krouse Rosenthal with the last word or, more precisely, the last seven words to wrap up this report:
Make the most of your time here.
There’s a lot to like about living and working in Waterloo. In previous posts I’ve commented on non-commercial aspects of my community. Today, following an exciting new opening last week, I feel compelled to write about a few independent businesses that happen to be within walking distance of my home and that I’ve been patronizing for many years. All of them add to my quality of life in Waterloo, and I’m grateful that they’re here.
Vincenzo’s, a lovely grocery store, recently opened their brand new location in the historic Bauer building, and I discovered on a recent visit that it really is quite wonderful. I’ve been shopping at Vincenzo’s for a very long time — I was first introduced to the store by a friend while I was attending university. At that time it was in a small house on Bridgeport Road in Waterloo and wasn’t yet called Vincenzo’s. My wife and I continued to enjoy the delights of the store when they moved to a larger location on Belmont Avenue in the early 1990s. The new location is even better, and I’m looking forward to shopping their regularly. If the sausages that we had for dinner this weekend are any indication, the newly added Bauer Butcher will be a great hit.
On another front, Words Worth Books is also a longstanding presence in the community. Over the years they’ve weathered the arrival of big box bookstores and internet shopping, and continue to provide a passionately local and literate alternative to those other shopping options. I’ve lost track of the number of times that I’ve gone with a staff recommendation when buying there over the years. I’ve also enjoyed readings by the many authors that Words Worth has brought to town, and look forward to many more. One, in particular, stands out. The late Robertson Davies, a celebrated Canadian author, was here to to promote his most recent book, The Lyre of Orpheus. My wife had brought her copy of the book, which I had previously given to her for her birthday, in the hope of getting it autographed. While standing in the autograph line after the event, my wife joked with Words Worth co-owner Tricia Siemens about a flaw in her copy of the book — some of the pages had been bound upside down. Tricia wanted to replace it, but my wife didn’t want to bother, and Mr. Davies heard the discussion. He took the book and examined it, before inscribing the great message “Robertson Davies Shame on Macmillans!’
Last for today, but certainly not least, is Generation X Video and Media. Mike and his crew have been a reliable source of fine videos, books, magazines, and odd collectible toys for over a decade now. The store was initially located in a house on Regina Street, and later moved into the Regina Commons location where they can be found today. We’ve been getting movies there from the very beginning, as my wife found and explored the store before they were even officially open! It’s a great place where everyone cares about movies. I’ve never hesitated to walk in and ask Mike or Chris “What should I watch?” and neither has ever steered me wrong.
While every city has it’s own unique independent businesses, these are three that make Waterloo special.
I’m really more of a warm weather guy, but there are some fine outdoor events that are worth venturing out into the winter cold for here in Waterloo Region. One that my family enjoys is the Wonders of Winter, a festival of lights that graces Waterloo Park every year. This season’s version started November 28 and runs until January 3. On our visit on Sunday night there were many people, young and old, who there enjoying the installation. My sons and I had a great time; my 4-year-old, in particular, showed a lot of excitement over his first visit to the festival.
It’s a community-supported initiative, powered by volunteers and supported by many sponsors. Thanks folks!
Meanwhile, over at Kitchener’s Victoria Park, there’s Christmas Fantasy, a similar event that looks like it’s worth a visit too. I’m sure that we’ll get there soon.
(By the way, if the headline for this post seems familiar but you can’t quite place it, try to imagine Darlene Love singing it!)