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 […]

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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? […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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When Lisa Goddard from the Capital Area Food Bank first told me that hunger was unacceptable, I kindly agreed with her and grabbed a Clif Bar to munch on. But then I realized that she was talking about the thousands of people who are on food assistance right here in Austin. Here are […]

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I am amazed at how many pats on the back I get for trying to support Elaine Allan’s efforts to help Burmese refugees here in town. All these people, all Obama supporters. All clamoring for change. Few choose to step up and actually help out.
Awareness is great. People willing […]

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Blogging doesn’t have to be self indulgent drivel. You don’t have to post and post and think, “Eh, no one is going to read this”. Blogging allows you to spread information, and information is power. We can make change spread faster than any other time in history because we don’t have to […]

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I am so happy at how many people showed up today at the first inaugural Austin Blood Drive Tweetup. I spoke with many staff members at the Blood and Tissue Center, and they all agreed that the Tweetup more doubled their traffic that day and brought in more first time donors than they had […]

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What happens when you take
1.) 30 Burmese refugees in who don’t have cars to go anywhere and
2.) Texas heat (a given in the summer)
and give those refugees 250 water balloons?
You get THIS!
Outta School Super FunFest from Michelle Greer on Vimeo.
Check out Grant Hutchins’s pics on Flickr. Too awesome!
Many thanks to Grant and Josh Seaver […]

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We all saw the horrible Katrina aftermath. We saw the disconnect people felt after the tsunami. It appears as if Mother Nature has struck again, this time in Burma. A cyclone has left at least 25,000 people dead and millions in a chaotic state of having no means to connect or communicate […]

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