Kim Siever’s Blog

Is “Aint” a Word?

Lay Versus Lie

Continuing from last week’s article on my 1 million photos on Flickr, I thought I would post about another online project I worked on that gave me a sense of accomplishment.

In March of 2004, I made my first edit ever on Wikipedia, and it was at the Lethbridge article. All I did was update the population amount. Over the following few months, I contributed a few more times, as well as to a handful of other articles.

Over April and May of 2005,  several editors completely rewrote the content. When the 2005 municipal census was released at the end of May, I went to the Lethbridge article again to edit the population.

I noticed the article had changed substantially, and I saw the potential of it. I spent the next two years working on the article: adding new content, finding sources for claims already in the content, editing for grammar and clarity, and so on.

In February 2007, after following several internal Wikipedia conventions for good articles, I submitted it for peer review. The results of the review was that it was not good article material, but the reviewer left several suggestions for imporvement. I implemented those, and it was resubmitted and subsequently approved three days later for Good Article status.

GA status is the second highest status an article can get on Wikipedia, and it made me very proud, but it would’t last long. Only 6 months later, after making several more changes, I felt it was nearly ready for peer review under the assumption it would eventually be submitted for Featured Article status.

I received a lot of feedback from the peer review process, and implemented it. Three months later, I submitted it for Featured Article status, and on 28 November 2007, it was featured on the front page of Wikipedia.

That made me happy.

Who Versus Whom, Advanced

Last week, I posted about trying to figure out what my passion is. I want to figure what it is I love doing, would love to do for the rest of my life, and could realistically get paid to do.

What I did last week was put together a list of interests and hobbies, hoping it would spur me into more thinking.

I did think of a few things (opening a camping store, becoming a chef, and so on), but none of it got me genuinely excited.

While doing my swim this morning, I thought of what I could do for the next stage of the process to discover my passion. I am going to post about some of the things I have done in the past that have left me with a real sense of accomplishment.

First to the bat is the “1 Million Photos” project I did in the summer of 2006.

Basically, I managed to convince 6,000 Flickr members to add all the photos they had into a pool that’s only purpose was to be the first pool with 1,000,000 photos on Flickr. And we did it in 2 months.

Only one other group has reached that same number, but it took about a year.

That project took a lot of hard work, but it was truly the most successful grass roots, viral campaign I have ever been a part of, let alone initiated and orchestrated.

There was a lot of cold calling and a lot of follow-up. As well, I provided tools to make it as easy as possible for members to share the excitement with their friends.

Looking back, it was likely the most exciting project I have ever been a part of.

If there is one thing I got out of reading Gary Vaynerchuk’s book Crush It, is that I really need to have a passion. Something I could love doing for the rest of my life.

My problem is that I have no idea what that is.

I love my family. If I could somehow stay home and make enough money to give my family a comfortable life, I would totally do it. I love spending time with my family. I just don’t see how spending more time with my family will make me more money.

I am committed to my religion. Given how much time I spend each week doing something related to my religion, I better be. Again, I am not sure how I could make a career out of living my religion, particularly one that relies on volunteerism and a lay ministry. I suppose I could start a Mormon bookstore. That just seems kind of weird, and having cheap thrifty Mormons as one’s clients just opens up a whole different can of worms.

Beyond those two things, I am not sure what else there is.

After a discussion during the most recent Lethbridge tweetup, I was thinking more about the idea of discovering my passion. One thing I thought might kick start this is to list out some of my interests and favourite pastimes.

• Pastimes
  • Cooking
  • Yardwork
  • Camping
  • Public speaking
  • Writing poetry
  • Being underwater (swimming, scuba diving, snorkelling)
  • Volunteering
  • Cooking over wood-fuelled fire
  • Taking photographs
• Interests
  • City planning
  • Technology
  • Maps
  • Organization

I am sure someone who knows me will mention something about grammar. I don’t know if that is something I enjoy as much as it is hating seeing/hearing bad grammar.

Now to think about this some more.