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Mar 30

A Productive Day One at WordCamp Dallas

March 30, 2008 • View Comments • Events I've Attended

There is nothing like reconstituted egg product at the Frisco Hampton Inn and hanging out with a bunch of fellow geeks with MacBooks to get the ideas flowing. I was a bit worried that WordCamp Dallas would not be worth missing out on a weekend in Austin, TX, but here are some of great ideas/announcements that came about at WordCamp Dallas:

1.) According to John P., I finally need to update the look and plugins of this blog so it does not suck.
2.) Andy Skelton wants to have a “rate my neighbor” Google maps mashup that allows you to see if your neighbors are total duds. Aaron Brazell thinks we should have a “rate that driver” application that allows you to call out crappy drivers by their license plate number.
3.) B5Media’s VP of Social Engineering, Ed, is a former diplomat and a total social media guru. Look for his ideas on how to kickstart your career using social media on Twitter soon.
4.) Will Andy Skelton allow me to whisper sweet nothings to you in your WordPress dashboard? Doubtful.
5.) Oh yeah, some guy named Matt Mullenweg announced the WordPress 2.5 launch 20 minutes after it happened. Then he gave insights as to what would be in 2.6 for the first time ever. Well, whoopidy do!

Look for more news from me, Ryan Joy, Paul Menard, Jen Simmons and Jeff. I’m hoping they don’t release the official WordPress mascot, Pressly the grizzly bear. That got kind of ugly last time, from what I heard.

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Mar 26

Everydotconnects Post Inspires Michelle’s First Official Rant

March 26, 2008 • View Comments • Politics and Current Events

OK, double pings here, I read Connie Reece’s post “Five White Men Talk About Social Media” which was inspired by “X Chromosome Web 2.0 Rock Stars“. Essentially, the observation is that we continually see the same men in the social media world, and although we like these men, we would like to see more women.

Why does the lack of prominent women in social media surprise anyone?

We’ve never seen a female U.S. President. Great Britain elected a female Prime Minister in Margaret Thatcher. Indira Gandhi served as Prime Minister of India. Finland, a country with the highest number of scientists per capita in the world, elected Conan O’Brien look-alike Tarja Halonen as president. Although the Catholics in Argentina will not see a female priest, they did elect Cristina Fernandez de Kirschner, who is following in the footsteps of her husband and former president Nestor. Pakistan, a primarily Muslim nation, elected Benazir Bhutto as Prime Minister in 1988 and she was leading another election until she was assassinated last December. This is supposedly the freest place on Earth for women, and yet, a Muslim nation elected a female for a leader 20 years before we even get a viable candidate for President. Should we be surprised we can’t get a woman on a City Council social media panel? Nope.

There are very few female CEOs. There is one woman on the Supreme Court. There are 14 women in the Senate. These are decision makers. Are there issues they face that impact women much differently than men? Yes. Are there people that seriously believe women are poor decision makers, consciously or subconsciously? Unfortunately, yes.

Many commenters on Connie’s post said that it is much more natural for men to promote themselves than women. I’d say so. I’ve worked in the tech and auto industries since I graduated from college. I have not had a female boss since I was 18 and I worked in a restaurant. Everyone ahead of me has been male, and many of my female, straight counterparts get married, have kids and then stay at home. It often feels as if the cards are stacked against us.

This rant being said, that doesn’t mean that the social media world should simply follow suit. On the contrary, if social media can produce viable, relevant female “celebrities”, it would bring more attention to online media than ever. These would have to be progressive thinkers, capable of instituting substantive change both in and out of the online space. Any takers?

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Mar 19

My Belated SxSW “What I Learned” Post

March 19, 2008 • View Comments • South by Southwest Interactive

Color me a slacker. There are a million SxSW wrap-up posts that will get archived way ahead of mine. I figure I should document this somehow.

What did I learn at SxSW Interactive? Although I saw some interesting speeches, particularly from Frank Warren and Charlene Li, what struck me most was being able to meet the people I see online. Technology is amazing. It connects people. But if you sit behind your computer all day, you will not understand the subtle nuances to human interaction that you understand by meeting and interacting with people at a face-to-face level. That is what South by Southwest Interactive offered me.

At one point, I ate dinner with Dave and Erik from Nashville, Cian and his girlfriend (argh, name escapes me but she was a jeans designer) from London, and Graham from New York. It was a great time sharing with people who appreciate technology but use it to reinforce connections made in beyond a computer screen. We did not know each other before SxSW, and yet our use of Twitter, the internet, and a bunch of good jokes ensured we always had something to talk about.

If anything, it taught me that we have a long way to go in this world if we want to truly use social media effectively. At this point, we are a bunch of early adopters communicating with other early adopters. We are the elite. It is good to connect with early adopters to build and exchange ideas. As social media becomes easier to use and more accessible, we will see more “non-techie” people contributing their ideas to our lives with ease just by using social media tools. What tools will we use ten years from to ensure that people from all circles can communicate effectively? We are already seeing every social media site seeking to be the de facto standard social media site in its niche. How do these varying standards create social cliques on the web? How do these cliques raise the level of our collective knowledge by the forces of collaboration, and how do they take away from it by pigeon holing us into one group?

Five out of six people at that table use Twitter. Would I keep up with these people as easily if they only sent updates via MySpace? Probably not. They are thousands of miles away and communicating with them quickly would require me to login regular to a site I do not frequent often. Will we all be on Twitter in ten years? I have no idea. Did I have fun and do I think they are worth following? Yes I do.

Apparently the fortune cookie was right. We live in very interesting times.

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Mar 10

Frank Warren SxSW Keynote Leaves Me in Tears…and On Camera (crap)

March 10, 2008 • View Comments • South by Southwest Interactive

So I cried in front of a thousand people at Frank Warren’s keynote at SxSW. I hate crying in public but inevitably do it. I was feeling the love in the room and felt I could make something happen at that time.  My sister is very ill and it just doesn’t feel good when you are at a social media/technology conference and you are related to a blogger who should be there but seriously might die because people don’t know about host vs. graft disease. So I felt compelled to bring her message to this audience.

If you want to show a little comment love to someone seriously in need of it, please go to www.debutaunt.com.

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Mar 09

Kicking It at BarCamp Austin III with Three Burmese Refugees, a Blue-Haired Dude, and a Lawyer

March 9, 2008 • View Comments • Events I've Attended

BarCamp Austin III effing rocked.

Not only was I accompanied by the most diverse entourage ever, I managed to:

So how did I score such an amazingly cool entourage? I met Erik, a very cool blue-haired postgres guy from Emma Email Marketing through Nuclear Taco chef Decibel. I met Elaine through the Austin Christmas Bureau and helped her create (albeit poorly) a presentation for her speech “Connecting the Disconnected: Using Your Sweet Social Media Skillz to Help Free Burma”. We are trying to get people to sign the petition to end oppression in Burma as well as get computers for refugees here in Austin, so if you have any lying around, let me know and I will inform you of a meetup place to deliver them.

If you want to see more, check out the Flickr pool and the footage on Viewzi. Much thanks to Whurley, Richard, and the folks at That Other Paper for putting together such a fun event.

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Mar 02

Michelle Almost Turns into Pile of Goo in Front of Computer

March 2, 2008 • View Comments • South by Southwest Interactive

I want to plan to see nothing but the best SxSW Interactive speeches available since I am taking time off for it. Unfortunately, the SxSW scheduling page only allows me to see the topic of a speech by a particular time period. I cannot see what speaker is speaking at what time, so it takes some work to create the best route of attack possible. I’m excited about going but I’ve been looking at this stuff for much longer than I’d like.

My advice to SxSW speakers? Make sure you come up with a title that blows all other titles out of the conference. Make it the Hollywood movie poster for your speech. Try referring to massive explosions, torid love affairs, or Denzel Washington. I mean really, who doesn’t like Denzel? You’d fill up the room in no time.

I have to clean my house and get away from the computer before my eyes glaze over.

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