Shane Perris on Techwhimsy and Why He Doesn’t Want to Break the News

An Interview by admin

Shane Perris is guy behind Techwhimsy, a tech commentary blog that I personally enjoy. It’s not his full-time job or anything, it’s just something he does, and he does it good. I know him from Twitter and the Performancing Hive forum.

Shane is in the same situation as a lot of bloggers out there. He enjoys blogging, but he’ll have to balance the time spent with his day to day job, and his family. That’s not easy, as many family fathers and mothers will tell you. Still he manages to have a strong online presence, write insightful blog posts, and be an all around nice guy. Gotta love it, right?

Shane, you’re the guy running tech blog Techwhimsy. Why don’t you tell the readers a little bit about yourself?
I’m a mild-mannered public servant by day and devoted father and husband by night. I also manage to fit in part-time post-graduate study in Web Technologies somewhere in all that, as well as an undying love for the world’s greatest football team, Liverpool FC (everyone needs a hobby after all). I’m a sociologist by training where I specialised in the study of the impacts of globalisation on both global and local communities. Mixed in together, I guess you could call me a web geek-in-training who used to looking at things with a global eye and a local feel.

I’m also a frustrated electronic musician, but you wouldn’t know it from looking at me (or listening to the noise that comes out of my speakers )

Frustrated electronic musician eh? Share something with us!
Sadly for me (and my traditional, legitimate musician wife) my musical experimentation is always the first thing to be bumped to the bottom of the list. I haven’t finished a piece of work in quite a few years now and I don’t think I have any old pieces floating around online (a hard drive crash a few years made sure of that as well – back up your data, kids!). The closest thing there is around are a few demo sound bites I made for the Spirit Canyon Audio’s Sanitarium impulse response collection (available here) Piano 1, Dance Lead and Guitar are mine. One of my goals for this year was to get back into music (I also play guitar) but it hasn’t happened with much success so far. Over Christmas I finally got my hands on Philharmonik but I have yet to do much more than scratch the surface on this baby. Soon. I promise. When I finally push something live again, you’ll be the first to know!

(For more information on impulse responses, go to this Wikipedia page. Spirit Canyon Audio is on the more creative side of things rather than replicating traditional reverb units and room spaces. Much more fun!)

The Techwhimsy about page states that the reader shouldn’t expect stories to be broken on the site. Would you rather have the time and money to run a site like that, the newsy story breaking kind of blog?
I used to think that a “breaking news” blog was the ultimate dream. The adrenaline rush of being on the cutting edge, getting the scoop before the big guys, maintaining a place on the contact list of the publicity seeking and disgruntled alike. Imagine all the launch parties, the back room tours, the over-indulgent self importance of it all I’ve come to the realisation that it doesn’t look so good in the harsh light of reality. A number of well known tech writers/bloggers have died over the last 6 months or so, and others like Om Malik have had serious health scares. There is also Mike Arrington’s recent declaration that he’s sure Techcrunch will give him a heart attack. Add to that Duncan Riley leaving Techcrunch partly so he can have a weekend again, and I don’t think breaking the news is something I would want to do.

I think, given enough time and money, I’d much rather be a thought-leader in the tech space. Maybe it’s just my sociology training but I really enjoy finding the disparate pieces of information floating out there and pulling them together into a new way of looking at things. I’m not a big fan of the “post short, post often” mentality (it clogs up my news feeds for one thing!) as it doesn’t leave any room for critical analysis and sometimes teeters on the edge of simple regurgitation. In an ideal world I’d rather be known as the guy who knows where it’s all heading rather than the guy who knows all about where it’s just been.

Who would you say is the role model for that approach in today’s blogosphere?
One person’s role model is another person’s purveyor of trash. Having said that, there are a handful that right now are part of my essential reading list:

Some you may not have heard of:

• Ross Dawson – Trends in the Living Networks
• Laurel Papworth – Social Networks
• Mark Pesce – The Human Network

Then there are a couple of the more popular writers like Louis Gray, Maki of Dosh Dosh and Seth Godin who can either see where the trends are leading or consistently find different angles on what is going on right now.

The list is everchanging and I’m sure there are others I’ve forgotten about but right now, these come to mind. Of course, my essential reading list is much longer than this

What do you do for a living, and how does it work with running a blog like Techwhimsy?
I work in a government department where my day-to-day efforts are completely unrelated to things I write about at night for Techwhimsy. It is an awkward mix at times. Working in government, I have to be conscious of where my salary comes from (tax payer dollars) so I don’t spend very much time researching posts during work hours. This means that I have to cram what I can into my spare hours along with study and spending time with my family. Unfortunately for the site, blogging is often the item on the bottom of the list that doesn’t get crossed off at the end of the day. Priorities can be a funny thing, but when it comes down to it, a 2 year old doesn’t care that Daddy’s blogging, he just wants to play. It nearly broke my heart the first time I heard him say ‘Daddy. Put laptop away. Finished working now’. How can any blog compete with that?

Of course, as my part-time study probably indicates, I don’t plan to do this sort of work forever. Hopefully in the future my work and writing will have a more natural connection and maybe even serve as mutual sources of inspiration. It’s a nice dream.

Balancing blogging with full time work, and family life, is a challenge for a lot of bloggers out there. Do you have any tips or tricks to manage it, or do you just play it as it comes?
I wish I had tips and tricks. I really do. I’ve tried to be organised, made lists, checked them twice, crossed off items, invoked major GTD-fu, every tweak and lifehack I could think of. However, as blogging doesn’t pay the bills, it takes a back seat. I’ve been told I’m not focused, or that if I really was in to what I’m writing about I would make the time, with the right topic for me it would all come naturally – pffft. I personally think I’m being honest with myself about what’s more important. I fit in blogging where I can (despite all the grand plans I used to have *sigh* ). I admire greatly anyone who is able to combine a healthy family life, a career and a regular blogging schedule. I’ve accepted that being paid to write isn’t in my immediate future and I’m okay with that. That’s not to say that should the right offer come along…

You’re a dedicated Twitter user. How has Twitter changed your blogging habits?
I wasn’t always a dedicated Twitter. I used to be all about the Jaiku. Threaded comments, consistent uptime, accessible developers and a healthy customer support attitude – what’s not to like about it? Unfortunately, after the Google acquisition things seemed to stagnate (turns out that was probably because of back room work to port Jaiku to the Google App Engine) and it never could attract the critical mass. I flirted with Twitter once more (mainly to play with the AIR-based desktop apps I kept reading so much about) and I got hooked without even realising it.

Twitter is an odd tool. It’s boring to say ‘You don’t understand it until you’ve really used it’ because everyone says it, but it’s true. It’s also boring to say “Twitter has made me a less productive blogger” but once again it’s true. However, that’s not to say there’s no value in Twitter. Because of Twitter, I had the opportunity to guest post at Sarah In Tampa (the personal blog of Read/Write Web writer and member of the Grand Effect blogging network, Sarah Perez). I do tend to spend time twittering that I used to spend doing background reading for post ideas. While Twitter has made me a less productive blogger, it has made me a more productive networker as I have become more aware of and involved in the local scene in my city – a scene I didn’t even know existed 6 months ago. In the long term, contacts made now and ideas tossed around in this mix could well create a more interesting mix of writing and development in the future. Or I could just be justifying to my myself how much I spend twittering. Your readers can decide that one

Jaiku was great, wasn’t it? I made the same journey myself, it got too quiet over there, so I’m focusing on Twitter now. Anyway, to wrap this up, why don’t you share some of your favorite blogs with us, besides your own of course?
Jaiku needs it’s own Twhirl. With the right desktop app, so many things would fall into place for it. Net apps are the way of the future. Web interfaces are so 2006

I have about 100 feeds across three news reader accounts (I like to keep some thing separate…). I’ve whittled this list down over time and I’m pretty solid on all of them. If I had to choose some stand outs (and believe me, I love all my feeds), apart from the blogs mentioned earlier, I would choose:

• Neil Gaiman’s Journal – the blog of the most excellent writer Neil Gaiman
• Wil Wheaton: In Exile – the blog of Wil Wheaton, writer, actor and geek extraordinaire
• Smashing Magazine – there are few better design resources. I’m beginning planning a re-design of the site so I make sure I catch every single post
• 43 Folders – main home for GTD and organisation guru Merlin Mann
• I Can Has Cheezburger? – who are you to resist?

I’d like to thank Shane Perris for doing this interview. Check out his blog Techwhimsy, and why not follow him on Twitter as well?

This Interview was published on May 22, 2008 at 7:31 am • Did you like it? Subscribe!
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