One of the most visible recent examples of over-sharing was Josh Harris’s movie, We Live in Public, where he taped every minute of his life for six months and turned it into a movie to show “the price we pay for living in public.” While this example is well-known and has been seen by people all over the world, there are certainly many other examples on a smaller, local scale. Right here in Portland, a friend of mine works in a building where The Public Isolation Project has just been kicked off. The plan is for Cristin Norine to spend a month living in an isolated glass room visible to anyone passing by on the busy street, but without any non-digital human contact. All of her interactions with people will occur solely online or through glass walls.

Both of these examples are way beyond anything that I would ever consider doing, but I am constantly faced with choices and trade-offs: am I sharing things that other people really would find useful, or am I sharing too much? For example, my favorite running app, RunKeeper, introduced the RunKeeper Live feature where other people can track my runs in real-time to see where I am running right this second. While this would be really useful if I was ever injured while running, I don’t think that I want any random person to know exactly where I am every second of my run. However, the company also introduced live tracking for races where people can see where you are on the course and watch your progress toward completing that big race, which might be something that I would consider. I can see my family and friends being interested in following my live progress on a run when they are too far away to attend in-person.

What about those gray areas: information that you want to share even if only a few people will find it interesting. Does anyone really care what I had for lunch? What if I made a really amazing lunch, and I posted what was in it to give people ideas and inspiration for something they might want to make? I also sometimes share details about my workouts, which probably aren’t that interesting to many people, other than a few runner friends, but it gives us an excuse to motivate each other. What about fun posts that make people laugh, or commiserate about a bad day? Most of us probably share bits and pieces of information that falls into one of these categories, but how much is too much sharing?

Sharing details about the work that we do online is usually OK, as long as we’re careful not to disclose anything confidential about our company or clients. I try to share things that I think will be useful for other people. In my work as a community manager, I document and share processes and information that members of our online community might need. On a more general note, I blog about community manager tips on my personal blog, write posts of interest to web workers here and occasionally share other information as videos or guest posts.

I often feel obligated to share the personal rationale behind my decisions to help people understand my choices. I’ve blogged about stepping down from a non-profit that I helped co-found, starting new jobs, leaving old jobs and other actions that people might notice. Each of us now has a platform to tell our side of the story or to provide personal insights in a way that didn’t exist for most of us until relatively recently. The hard part is deciding which parts to share and which to keep to ourselves.

What are some examples you’ve seen of people sharing too much? Where do you draw the line between public and private?

Photo by Flickr user Ben Grey used under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license.

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What this really means is that I finally have a decent reason to use Google Groups. In the past, I think I’ve belonged to a maybe one Group, and it didn’t work out all that well. The members generally forgot it existed, and it acted more or less as a glorified mailing list. Now, though, since I already use Docs and Calendar and often want to share content from both with multiple people, Groups has matured to become a full-featured business tool.

Replacing PM Tools for Small Teams

There are a lot of online project management and collaboration tools available free online that do the same sort of thing Google’s new sharing features do, but most of them are overkill for small team work. Say, for example, that you’re tasked with forming a small team at work with three or four people. The entire purpose of your team is to draft a new statement of purpose for your annual holiday dinner and year-end review.

Using a complex tool like Basecamp to manage this kind of task is unnecessary, and could be distracting for the team. Setting up a quick Google Group for those involved, and then sharing drafts and meeting times via Docs and Calendars with members of said group is a much simpler and more effective solution, especially if everyone already has a Google account, which, at this stage, shouldn’t be too much to ask for.

Simple, Single-Solution Event Planning

If you already have a Google Group set up for your work place or professional network, then there is no easier way to plan and prepare for an event than using the new sharing features.

Your invitee list is built-in, as long as everyone in your work group is invited to your work-related function or unit-wide meeting. Scheduling a time should be easy, thanks to Google Calendar access. Finally, drafting, finalizing and circulating agendas and meeting documents and supplementary material is a snap with Docs.

Maybe best of all, you can solicit post-meeting feedback from all of your event participants without having to email people individually, or prepare a paper-based survey or feedback form.

Freelancer Resource Sharing and Collaborative Solution Sourcing

If you have a like-minded group of colleagues you consistently go to for tips and advice, and who you help out in turn, then you may already have a Google Group in place for that purpose. If you don’t, the addition of resource sharing gives you a reason to start one.

It’s cleaner and less complicated than Twitter, doesn’t have the character restrictions, and allows for file sharing in addition to discussion. It’s a nice, private way of sourcing solutions for hiccups in your projects, away from the prying eyes of clients. Asking questions on public message boards always carries the risk of an embarrassing discovery.

Another good way for independent freelancers to use Google Groups with sharing is as a document template store. Having less to leverage from is one of the major downsides of being a freelance consultant. Sharing blank templates is a great way for a group of independent contractors to gain some IP to leverage from.

Share and Share Alike

Google Groups always used to be a bit like an awesome collector’s edition comic book. Really seemed like a good thing to have, but at best you put it on a shelf and never really look at it again. Now, it stands a chance of becoming a well-thumbed paperback, thanks to Google Apps integration that really should’ve been there from the beginning.

Does tighter integration with other Google products make Groups more attractive to you?

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Fluxiom is a web-based digital asset management system for creative teams that offers a nice, visually rich interface and the ability to scale depending on your needs. It has a number of useful features, and there’s a free version available, so I wanted to see if it could function as a tool for helping people collaborate on a wide variety of media including text, photo, audio and video.

Assets

Right away, you notice that Fluxiom is clearly content-oriented. By default, you launch into your assets page, and you can upload files there either using the web interface, or using fluxUp!, an app that makes uploading multiple files easier. If you’d rather not install any software, you can always zip a number of files together and upload the whole archive via the web interface. You can also upload entire folders via the fluxUp! app, which I think gives it a huge advantage over other similar web apps for file sharing.

Once you’ve uploaded some media, it quickly becomes apparent how well-designed Fluxiom is. Interacting with your uploads feels a lot like using a native OS X desktop app like iPhoto, and because of this, there is almost no learning curve to the software. There’s a search field prominently displayed in the top left-hand corner; you can choose either thumbnail or list view; and you can filter your assets using a number of pre-set fields using convenient buttons running along the top of the asset pane.

As in iPhoto, you can also preview each asset you upload. I was pleasantly surprised to see that Fluxiom even supports PSD previewing, which is a huge benefit for graphic and web design teams hoping to use the app. To test the limits of file type support, I uploaded a RAR archive and a Flash file (.fla). Both uploaded fine, but neither could be previewed, though Fluxiom did know what the Flash file was, at least.

Tags & Stages

You can add tags to any uploaded media for easy searching and organization. That will really come in handy when you start dealing with large volumes of media. While Fluxiom does not have folders for organizing media, the “Stages” feature presents another good way to drill down and focus only on the media relevant to your specific purposes. Stages is designed to help you share a limited set of material with a particular client. So if you’re designing an ad for someone, you can create a tag for that project, assign it to all relevant media, and then create a stage using the tag. You can then email a link to that stage which, once the correct password is entered, will allow them to view and download the media you’ve designated.

Stages is also a great way to parse out media for individual assignments to different team members. This is especially useful if you’re working with a consultant or external contractor, since you can then ensure any IP not pertinent to the task at hand remains safely out of reach.

Dropbox

Fluxiom is not only a great way for you and your team to share files amongst each other and with clients, it’s also a great way for others to share files with you. Using the “Dropbox” feature, anyone can upload a file or files to your account, so long as they have the proper address and can confirm that they have a valid email address. Media uploaded via this method is then stored in a queue where you can choose to accept it, thus moving it into your main asset library, or reject it, whereupon it is deleted.

I can think of a thousand different uses for that feature, with the most appealing to me being a submission form for photographic or illustration work for contribution to a publication or web site. Fluxiom even makes it easy for you to post your Dropbox link on your web site so that, if you want to, you can open up content submissions to the general public.

Pricing & Conclusions

Because of how easy it is to share and receive files via Fluxiom, and because of custom branding and API access, this is one of the most impressive and scalable asset management systems I’ve seen in a web app, and especially one that offers a free account. Paid accounts range from €9 (about $12.50) all the way up to €169 ($235) per month, and offer a variety of storage/user limitations. Definitely give the free account a shot first, since it may be enough if you just want to use it for yourself, but I think creative teams will quickly see the value of an upgrade.

Share your opinions on Fluxiom in the comments.

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File Sharing

Once upon a time, I used Image Shack for most of my design-related file hosting needs. That was before I had my own server space with which to play. But despite still having private server space, sometimes it’s just easier and faster to use an online file-hosting service, especially if that service is incredibly easy to use.

Sharenload is really simple, and it has an impressive file size allowance. How does 2048 MB sound? You can upload up to five files at a time that together add up to a full 2 GB. Have more you need to share? No problem. Just reload the site and do the same thing over again. Sharenload provides you with a nice progress screen, and then gives you automatically generated download and file deletion links for each file.

You can also sign up to keep track of your files if you like, or even pay for a premium account ($5-$50, for 7-180 days) to get more storage space, remove ads and get other perks. It’s a great, easy solution that your clients will also really appreciate.

Font Resource

My old typeface haunts are mostly still in operation. 1001fonts, Blambot, and FontFreak all continue to be great resources, but there’s nothing like sheer volume to put a smile on my font-loving face. A new resource put together by a group of web designers offers enough selection for even the most jaded of font geeks. Best of all, PimpYourFont.com is all hand-selected, so you don’t have to worry about duplicates and other oddities that can crop up in web crawler-generated lists.

The site is simple, but does have a variety of methods for navigating fonts in the database. By default, they’re listed in the order in which they were uploaded, with the most recent additions listed first. You can also view them alphabetically, by style, or take a look at the top 100 list. And of course, you can always search the site if you know what you’re looking for.

What new design resources have you discovered recently?

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The first thing you need to do is install 1Password on all the computers where you want to keep the same passwords. (Yes, this only applies to OS X users at the moment – though it seems that you can at least view the password file contents on a Windows box if you know the master password). Next, you need to step up to the most recent beta version of 1Password: open Preferences, go to the Updates tab, and turn on “Include Beta versions”. Then click the “Check Now” button and upgrade your copy of 1Password to the current beta. Remember to do this on all of the computers where you’re running 1Password.

After installing the update, you need to turn on the new Agile Keychain format in 1Password. Open a command prompt and run the command “defaults write com.1passwd EnableAgileKeychain -bool YES” (without the quotes, of course). Now reopen the 1Password Preferences and go to the Keychain tab. Click the “Switch to Agile Keychain Format” button. 1Password will take all of your existing data out of the Apple Keychain and put it in their own data format.

This is where Dropbox comes in. Click “Change Location” in 1Password preferences and move your new agile keychain into your dropbox (you can also use other sharing utilities like SugarSync or FolderShare – the key is to pick something that does automatic bidirectional synchronization).

Now, move to your other computer. Make sure that 1Password is upgraded to the beta version and that the agile keychain is enabled. Then open your dropbox in Finder and double-click on the synchronized keychain file. Confirm to 1Password that you want to load this file, and voila!: all of the passwords from computer #1 will be available on computer #2. If either one adds a new password, it will synchronize to the other via Dropbox.

There are, as we’ve pointed out before, many options for password management. To my way of thinking, this setup – using a native client-side password manager with encrypted synchronization over the web – is one of the slickest ways to set things up.

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