Guess what? Today is my second 29th birthday. And although I’m not too fond of birthdays, I’m trying to make this one rock by raising money for my niece Zoe’s college fund. She just lost her mother to leukemia and has had a rocky past four years dealing with her mom’s sickness. If you are [...]

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I was on a panel with Scoble once where he matter-of-factly declared that anyone who eventually does not use social media will become irrelevant in future generations. God. I hope not. There is a certain amount of optimism among social media “evangelists” that this medium can change the world. Mediums don’t change anything–people do. You [...]

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Get banners like this one and their embed codes for your blog at charity:water’s site.

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There are a lot of causes out there. So why pay so much attention to this one? I am just some two-bit tech marketer, but check out this video charity:water made on the subject: charity: water promo featuring “Time Bomb” by Beck from charity: water on Vimeo. If you think water relief is a complete [...]

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**Note: I’m putting the Sponsorship Information for Twestival on my blog because the London Twestival webmaster implemented a version of WordPress that makes this information very difficult to read. We will have it up on a much more formal, permanent site (www.austintwestival.com) when Austin/Chicago based Stalelife unveils it. Thank God for locals. I welcome you [...]

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Laura Fitton is a blogger who always seems to be picking up good causes to champion. Today I saw no exception as she is trying to raise money to build a water project in Africa. OK, it’s really messed up that there are people on the same earth as us who don’t have the basic [...]

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Lynn Bender at GeekAustin (aka @linearb to many other circles) is a phenomenal piano player. He heard about my sister Debby’s financial strife while trying to overcome graft-vs-host disease, and decided he’d like to play to help her raise some money to cover her expenses. Right now her health insurance is over $700 a month [...]

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This post is part of Blog Action Day. You see them. They pass by you on the street. They are the ones sitting, waiting for a bus. They clean your tables and serve your breakfast tacos. Do you know them? Do you know the man that makes minimum wage who cuts your sushi? He narrowly [...]

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I am a writer, so it’s not surprising that I don’t really enjoy presenting. My perfectionist tendencies tend to get the best of me. But when Cody Marx Bailey from Downtown Cartel asked for a speaker for Refresh Bryan/College Station, I decided to step up. My talk is called “Making Social Media Matter: How Social [...]

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Yes, this is correct. I am never going to another tech happy hour in Austin again. I don’t care if Michael Arrington shows up. I don’t care if Obama shows up. I don’t care. I am a former athlete and I don’t like drinking that much, and there is a lot better use of my [...]

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