On Returning Or What Do I Do Now

March 13, 2017

Returning is a shame. Maybe you spent all your money and fed the pigs for shelter or maybe you just took the wrong subway exit. All these knowing faces around, they know you went astray.

To return is to admit your choice was bad and choosing badly proves that nothing ever can turn out well as there are too many choices involved. Applying your will erroneously makes you seem human — and that’s especially unforgivable in the undiscardable reality of the web.

Well, here I am.

Sharing again

Since 2010, some of my writing has ended up on closed platforms and most of it has not been published at all — I wasn’t sure what’s okay to publish when I was starting at the agency and while getting used to work at the university (I’ve never left that phase in three years) there was no time to even think about it.

As I return to freelancing, I want to share more again. And again in my own space.

What do I do now?

These are my current projects:

• With my friend Ivana Lukeš Rybanská (and her home publishing house Nová Beseda) we want to create a book suited for current technology — and end the paper/display superiority discussion.
• With my friend Lukáš Kubánek, we design and develop a diagramming app that just works (feel that 2008 startup vibe!). Details are coming soon.
• I teach three courses on Masaryk University (at KISK):
  • Intro to sociology for designers disguised as Critical theory and Innovation.
  • Intro to the actual computer basics: working with text (HTML, Markdown, regular expressions), tabular and structured data and basic scripting.
  • Intro to the open web: publication on the web, software versioning and collaboration, licensing, net neutrality, remixing web, etc.
• Supporting my teaching efforts, I created an e-learning environment based on peer-assessment: Peer Blender.
• In small team of four, we develop a fact-checking platform Demagog2. Primarily for [Demagog.cz][demagog], working in Czech Rep. and Slovakia. I work on design & frontend. If you’d like to join us (PHP/Symfony and more), I’ll be happy.
• As a part of a grant project, I’m a helping hand in research and software design to support fundraising efforts for a NGO early childhood care. It’s still taking shape, but there will be public results.

I’ll try to keep this list updated on my homepage.