newsletter

DeveloPassion's Newsletter #134 - Community brain

Edition 134 of my newsletter, discussing Knowledge Management, Knowledge Work, Zen Productivity, Personal Organization, and more!

Sebastien Dubois

Aug 15, 2023 — 8 min read

Welcome to the 134th edition

Another week, another newsletter! I hope that you all had a great one 🤩

This week, I was on vacation with the kids, but we stayed at home. Unfortunately, while I love being with the kids, it means that recording my course was nearly impossible. It's a bit frustrating, since I wanted to focus on that, but I couldn't find quiet times to record (yes, I know, I could've been inventive 😂). That's why I've continued working on Knowii instead. I'll tell you more in the lab section.

By the way, I've decided to let go of the "Tech" section of this newsletter. While I remain a software crafter and will always be passionate about IT and programming, I want to focus more on Knowledge Management, and Bootstrapping. I'll keep the AI section for now because I strongly believe that it matters a lot for the future, but that's it. If you are disappointed and want me to do something different, please let me know! Note that I'm always interested in ideas to increase the value you get out of this newsletter, so don't hesitate to chime in!

Alright, let's gooooo 🚀

The lab 🧪

In the past 30 days, I've sold 22 more copies of the Obsidian Starter Kit ($658) and 8 copies of the Personal Knowledge Management library ($135). I didn't have new coaching sessions; I suppose it's because I didn't take enough time marketing that service, and people are also away on vacation, less motivated to learn new things.. ;-)

I resumed working on Knowii, for which the backlog is still insanely long. It took me a while to find my marks, as I didn't touch the codebase for a while. It's always frustrating when you feel lost looking back at the code you wrote a few weeks back. But it's okay now. I've remembered how React and Next.js works, and how I've structured the project. I've created the first version of the Community homepage, which is where public and private communities will regroup and share their knowledge:

The initial version of the community page on Knowii

As you can see, it's pretty raw at the moment, and there's nothing much to see. The first step for Community Knowledge Management is really to let communities curate useful resources. That's why I'm now going to work on the screens and APIs to create resource collections and resources. Those will enable communities to share things that they find (1) interesting and/or valuable. Then, I'll update the page above to include resource collections and recently shared resources. At first, these will only be links. Then I'll iterate to include metadata, images, and much more. As a reminder, Knowii is Open Source, and I hope that it will grow into a useful tool for communities out there.

This week, I've also added support for state management, which is the only reason why the little "Show recent resources" switch is present on that screen. The goal there is to enable users to customize the screen any way they want. Later on, those choices will be persisted, so the experience remains the same across devices.

Creating a platform is a complicated, but fun experience. Being a crafter at heart, I'm fighting against my urge to make the code perfect. It's clearly a struggle for me, as bad code makes me nervous 😂.

The most frustrating part is working alone on that project, and having so little time to dedicate to it. If I had more financial support and time, I could go so much faster. But hey, that's the indie life. Navigating efficiently around hard constraints!

New articles

I've published an article about continuous note-taking and the idea of evergreen notes:

It's a topic that near and dear to my heart, as I believe it is key to create valuable knowledge bases.

Quotes of the week

An unfulfilled vocation drains the color from a man's entire existence — Honoré de Balzac
All happiness depends on courage and work — Honoré de Balzac

Book of the week

Up from Nothing is a book about success by John Hope Bryant. In it, John write about the five pillars of success: massive education, financial literacy, strong family structure, self-esteem, and supportive role models. It's all about the American dream. Turning away from distractions, and focusing on what we can control. It's not about how to make more money, but about thinking and approaching challenges differently.