Conferences are so much fun, but also oh-so-tiring!

I attended my first Northern Voice this past Friday and Saturday and had a great time. While blogging and social media aren’t really related to my personal area of study in HCI (I study people collaborating in the same space, rather than online) they are definitely areas of personal interest to me. I met lots of cool local (and not-so-local) bloggers, and saw lots of great talks.

At the conference I also realized that many bloggers aren’t techies like me, and there is definitely a market for someone who could help install WordPress or Drupal, or tweak a blog template to look a bit more original. What’s a reasonable hourly price for a blog software consultant? Because some of the prices I see people being charged for this stuff are crazy! I occasionally help friends with their sites or do a one-off project for a group I am affiliated with, but I am not very good at putting a price on my time. I am also not always the greatest at time management and am worried that freelance work would eat into thesis time. But if I could make it work it might be a good way to share my tech knowledge with others and supplement my grad student income.

Speaking of time management, today I’m trying to get my head back into “thesis” mode, as I need to finish up the final draft of my thesis proposal and put the finishing touches on the ethics application for my upcoming user study. I’m feeling pretty tired and unmotivated, though. I’m still decompressing from the conference, and I’m on day 8 of the d-tox, which is probably contributing to my low energy level. Other than having slightly less energy I’m very happy with the d-tox so far. I’ve been sticking to the list of approved foods (with the exception of a couple vodka-sodas at the Northern Voice opening party) and am feeling pretty good. Only five more days to go!