It’s difficult for me to believe that we just finished week 6 at RIT. This has been the most intense quarter yet. In part that’s because it’s my last. Teaching one class for only the second time has contributed as well. But most of that time has been taken up trying to come up with ways to bring sustainable change to the School of Print.

Coming up with ideas has not been hard. It’s the doing and nurturing parts that take all the time.

One effort we’ve undertaken is to start a blog for the School. SPMEtcetera soft-launched earlier in the quarter. Our hope is to create a destination where the industry, alumni, and prospective and current students can discover all the neat things that are going on at SPM. The great part, from a sustainability perspective, is that all the writing is being done by student employees. We’ll make an official announcement about the blog later this week.

The other big project is the Open Publishing Lab. There will be a lot more about that soon. The good news is that over two years of planning will (hopefully) be coming to fruition in less than 14 days. We just need our teams to make it to May 3 and the innovation festival and then we’ll have a lot to talk about and show.

Julian Dibbell is going to be speaking at RIT this Wednesday. Julian, an associate editor at Wired, is an awesome guy and someone whose been involved in, and writing about, cyberculture for years. His latest work, Play Money, is an exploration of the various economic systems that have developed in various virtual spaces. At RIT he’ll be speaking on “Ludocapitalism – A few ways of making real money from a virtual economy, and what they mean.”

I first met while at the University of Chicago. Julian’s input was really helpful for me while writing my thesis. We touched base again late last year at the American Anthropological Association Conference. Again, I got a lot out of the conversation. So if you’ve got the chance, come out and hear him speak.

Here are the official details:

Julian Dibbell

• Topic: Ludocapitalism – A few ways of making real money from a virtual economy, and what they mean
• Time: 7:30pm (the talk will be followed by open q&a time from 8:30-9)
• Location: Liberal Arts (Bld 6), Room A205

I’ve been testing the new Wordpress interface for a while and just think it’s da bombiest! The user interface is clean, the new functions rock, and the .php seems pretty optimized (everything running faster, even on my slow server).

It’s amazing to think that I’m already done with the first three weeks of my final quarter at RIT. It’s been intense — and the reason that I’ve not been blogging. By the end of this coming week, I’ll be able to premier all the stuff that I’ve been working on.

So I haven’t been able to update the site on any consistent base in a while. Life’s been really busy. Unfortunately, as of late, it seems like I only have time to blog around major, and often tragic, events. So, quickly (with RIT’s quarter drawing to its close, I have a mountain of grading to do) here’s some good things:

• My presentation at the American Anthropological Association’s national conference went well. It looks like I’ll get a journal publication out of it.
• The quarter itself has gone pretty well, in particular a lot of strides have been made at setting up a publishing research lab here at the school. More on that soon.
• Our (boy) cat Lewis, has made a full recovery after having two toes amputated because of a cancerous growth.
• I got a new phone/pocket pc, which has helped me get organized.
• I was a judge in a national variable data print competition.
• The blog helped me reconnect with an old friend.
• Dre and I are succeeding in getting out (and traveling) to see friends and family. At this rate, who knows, we might actually go on our Honeymoon this year.
• I was awarded my teaching rank (black sash) in Kung Fu.

I’m sure there’s more, but my timer is going off, reminding me that it’s time to get back to grading.

I’m back from vacation, and sitting in my office trying to get used to my new Mac laptop. Our short vacation was great. And Dre and I have passed the one-year marriage milestone with no frying pans being embedded into my skull. Good times!

Here are some photos from today at RIT:

Tomorrow I’m at Cornell to start classes there.