A few weekends ago, I had the opportunity to attend WordCamp Toronto 2010 as a representative of Trailmeme, one of my current projects at Xerox. A trail is a way to tell a story with URLs, you can see an example of a trail created for WordCamp Toronto that collects all of the resources from the speakers together in one spot. The trailmeme project has a destination website, as well as a WordPress plugin (called Trailmeme for WordPress or TM4WP for short) that allows users to create trails to connect posts on their blogs. My colleague Venkat and I traveled to Toronto to learn more about the blogging community and to talk to people about the TM4WP plugin.

I have only been to large conferences like that of the American Library Association and huge trade shows like the Fancy Food Show, so the unconference concept was new to me. It was organized by volunteers, it was affordable ($35/ticket) it and allowed 200 or so people to mix, mingle and learn about WordPress in a fun, causal atmosphere. Although I am fundamentally an introvert, I found it easy to meet and talk to people at this event.

Xerox was one of the sponsors, so Venkat and I had the opportunity to attend a pre-Camp event on Friday night to meet the organizers, speakers and other sponsors. We also managed to get some time in the spotlight to talk about our plugin on the second day. The response was pleasantly positive. I often have a hard time explaining the trails concept to people I meet, but the blogging crowd saw a use for it immediately, you can read more about it in Venkat’s post about the response to TM4WP at WordCamp Toronto 2010.

I learned a lot at the event that I can use personally and for the chocolate business. I have a much better understanding of how people are using Twitter, see #wcto2010 on Twitter search. I also got a lot of excellent, practical advice on SEO from one of the presenters Brad Gosse.

I lost my Grandma Betty on January 6. Her passing was sudden and unexpected, I still can’t quite believe she is gone. We celebrated her life in Junction City, CA on January 17. It was a gathering of family and friends, my cousin Charlie put together a slide show from all the great pictures she saved. Everyone was invited to speak about her. Although it was difficult, I decided that I wanted to get up and share my thoughts. Here’s what I wrote and read aloud about my grandma:

My name is Zahra Langford and I am Betty’s third grandchild, my parents are James and Kathy, my siblings are Anthony, Cameron and Dolly. I wanted to share some good things that my grandma gave to me, both directly and indirectly through my mother Kathy and Aunts Mary, Meg and Carol. I started out with a list of 25, but figured I better narrow it down to the most important ones in the interest of time. My grandma gave to me:

A love for words, both written and spoken
Some of my first memories are of Grandma Betty and Mom reading aloud to me. I loved when she read the story of how the elephant got its trunk in Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling, the words “the banks of the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River…” pronounced in her special way, always conjured such wonderful images in my head. She shared stories of her childhood and growing up, images and phrases that I will always carry with me. I loved the smell of books in her house and the letters she would write to me in graceful cursive. When I saw the Limpopo river with my own eyes as I crossed the border between South Africa and Zimbabwe, I wrote to my grandma about it.

A liberal view of the world
I never had to worry that grandma would say something embarrassing or racially insensitive like many of the adults of a certain age in my life. I didn’t have to avoid sensitive political and social subjects for fear of starting an argument when I spoke with her. She didn’t make me feel different because my life partner is woman or because I am bi-racial. I’m proud of her for her intelligence and thoughtful, active engagement of the world and I strive to be like her in that regard.

An appreciation of nature
Growing up we were always outside, running around in the woods, sledding down the driveway in the snow, exploring the meadows. At grandma’s house, going outside was even more special. We took walks with her through the sloughs and down towards the river, we shared wild blackberries and watercress, we spent hours at the swimming hole digging in the sand and collecting fool’s gold, we collected beautiful pebbles. Grandma always had something to teach us about the natural world. My favorite thing to do at Grandma’s house was search for sow bugs in the grass at the edge of her front step. I didn’t even mind pulling weeds from her garden in the summer. Even though I live in the city now, I always make time to go outside to breathe fresh air, to walk in the park; I maintain a small garden at home and plots in our neighborhood’s community garden. I get that from her.

Of course there are many other things that my grandma passed on to me and not all of them good (I also get my overwhelming sense of responsibility, a tendency to worry too much, as well as my occasional inflexibility from her). Seeing these things in Grandma Betty has helped me identify them in myself and work actively to change them, so the outcome can only be positive. She was a wonderful influence on me and I am grateful to have had so much of her presence and love.

Last year at about this time, I was at a very low point in my life. I was uncharacteristically depressed and felt trapped by circumstance and obligation. The start of the New Year (2009), along with some support from those who are closest to me, gave me some energy to re-balance myself. I started exercising regularly, taking Vitamin D supplements and fish oil, getting acupuncture. I was feeling better, but I wasn’t feeling happy. I needed to do something different.

I admit to being skeptical about this life coaching thing. I always thought it was for other people, people who had serious problems and needed extra help, but not me. I would think to myself: I’m not one of those people. My friend Cara had recently been through the certification process with the Institute for Integrative Coaching by Debbie Ford. She was very positive about it and encouraged me to think differently about it. I was willing to try anything at this point in my life. It seemed like the right time and we agreed to trade a 16 week coaching session for website design/development. I started my sessions with her in March 2009. Because I knew I needed something different, I took the risk and I can tell you that I have no regrets.

A life coach helps you to become conscious of the bad habits that everyone slips into eventually; to realize that you have the power to make your life extraordinary, to focus on the areas of your life that you need to change; and to make a concrete/ actionable plan to make those changes. A coaching relationship provides structure, support and accountability.
The goal I set for myself during my session with Cara was to get a new job. My career was the one area of my life that I was most dissatisfied with, but also the area where I felt the most powerless. When I started the session, I felt very far from my dream of a fulfilling job because I had been putting off work on my resume/portfolio and this had become an enormous burden. Cara helped me shift some of the negative behaviors that I had fallen into at my old job and find small things I could do to make myself happy at my current job, while preparing and implementing a job search strategy. My goal was to have a new job by March 2010; I achieved that goal 5 months early. I now have a dream job (see New Job: Interaction Designer), a job where I am able to do the things I love and truly contribute with my whole self.

The power to change has always been there, I had just gotten to a point where it seemed very distant. The changes I made (and continue to make) have not been limited to just my career, because everything is connected. I’ve been able to affect other parts of my life in positive ways, such that I’m feeling more confident, capable and in control of my own happiness. Of course, I’m still not perfect, but I feel I’m more conscious of what I can do to ensure that I am living the life I want. Coaching was quite good for me, I also think it came along at a point where I really needed something new and was open to actively engaging the process. I found the process invaluable and would recommend it to anyone who is trying to make positive changes in their life.

I redesigned this site and updated my resume this year to begin looking for a new job. My goal was to be in a new position by March of 2010. I’m happy to report that I have met my goal, in true overachiever style, 5 months early.

One of the milestones in my plan included looking for internal positions at Xerox, my current employer. I didn’t have high hopes for this step because Xerox rarely has a use for someone with my skillset and I have already worked in the most likely groups. Surprisingly, two positions were available to me: User Experience Designer for xerox.com in Wilsonville, OR and Interaction Designer in the research arm of the company here in Webster, NY. I applied and interviewed for both positions. The position in research was a better fit and it allowed me to stay put. I moved into a new office building just down the street from my old one and started work on November 2.

I work in the Xerox Innovation Group (XIG) which contains 4 research centers, including the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), one in Europe, one in Canada and the one I am a part of in Webster, NY. Within the Webster center, I’m in the Document Workflows and Services Lab as part of the Work Practice and Technology group. My role will be to design and evaluate user interfaces for ongoing research projects that explore the future of work and document technologies.

Initially I have two projects to focus on. I’ll be contributing to Open Xerox, a public website for sharing and getting feedback on some in-progress research projects. I’ll be designing the UI for new applications that will be added to the site over the next year, as well as evaluating the usability of the site itself. I’ll also be working on another project called Document Interactions, which is exploring ways to make connections between large collections of artifacts/documents.

I’ve had my toe in the social media pool for a while and the water feels fine. However, I’m always looking for shortcuts. Facebook is my primary arena right now and I feed my status updates to twitter via twitterfeed. I have been experiencing a bug in this process which double-posts to Twitter and is a little annoying. I’ve attempted to address this today by clearing out my twitterfeeds and starting over. In the process I’ve also added a feed from this blog to twitter. I’m still considering doing twitter for the chocolate business, but I’m not ready to commit yet…