A collection of events occurred since my last post. I was really hoping to get some deep dive into writing more about collective intelligence, in the background. But various things came and distracted me from that initial trajectory.

Hubot revival

First, there has been a revival of the Hubot project. I wrote a bunch of plugins for that chatbot for internal usage at Gandi in the past year. I have been poking around in the community complaining that it became some sort of abandonware. Issues on github were not addressed, PR unanswered, irc was silent.

Then one day 3 weeks ago, bkeepers came up and woke it up. It appears that now Github has plan for this codebase. They want to include it in its products more officially, says the rumor (nothing official yet). But it makes a lot of sense. So then he gathered people that could be involved in the revival of the project. I was contacted to join the core team. That’s what you get by nagging people.

Since then it has been quite great to clean up backlog, re-examine old ideas, help setup new process and tooling for community gardening. I never get tired to see how informal communities can shape up and self-organize.

Quiting is not a bad thing

Around the same time, I felt inspired by handing my resignation of my current job at Gandi. There is nothing wrong with the job, and most reasonable people could argue that I’m just stupid. But there are a combination of factors that led me to think I was not using my potential at full capacity.

Working on a large infrastructure as a sysadmin was great, but it’s pretty hard to build new things properly in the service industry. It’s always about contingency management, and reacting to the environment. It’s more about doing the fireman than the gardener. Well, honestly, I think it’s a question of intent and culture and that could have been addressed. But I didn’t see any hint that could let me think this environment would become intentional about gardening anytime soon.

So, out of the blue, I left. I chose a moment where there was no crisis, no trouble, no real reason to quit except a strong feeling that it was time to move on. That way, transition is painless, there is no frustration involved. I hate conflicts. My advice: never wait the burn out to make your move out.

Green ruby end of life

In the mood of transitionning, this week I proposed that we close the Green Ruby adventure. For some months Xenor has taken over the publication process. But he’s himself bunt out a bit. So after 4 years of publication, it’s time to close this properly and move on.

That weekly links collection was a fun exercise. And I’m really happy to have refused any business side track on this operation, it would have been much harder to close.

What next?

I decided that I could stay funemployed for a while (that’s the proper term, right?). I’m planning to look around, play with techs, talk with friends, hold on any decision to engage in anything. It’s time to re-assess my roadmap. This is what is great in transitions. By losing contact with the ground, you can feel the direction of the wind.

Maybe I will get back to entrepreneurship, and setup some business venture. Maybe I will freelance for a while. Maybe I will find a context in a company where I feel comfortable contributing. But honestly I have no clue. And yet, this feels great.

Getting back to old friends

In the first days after my decision to renounce my day job, I got back in contact with a lot of old friends. Transitions have that side effect that you have to re-evaluate your environment, your network, your values.

Getting into a full-time job doesn’t prevent that, of course, but you cannot give the same attention. The center of gravity of an employed person is static. Now that I’m floating, I have to dedicate much more attention to my environment. And it’s an excellent thing.

I will certainly have occasion to talk about my adventures very soon. Maybe I will force myself to write more.