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Jul 10

Calling All Bloggers: Your Support is Needed to Support a Child with Leukemia

July 10, 2008 • View Comments • Social Media for Social Good
National Bloggers Blood Drive DayBlogging 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 wait for a printing press or an editor. We can be more accurate than publishers because we offer firsthand information instead of filtering it through the corporate sponsored machines that are magazines and newspapers.

So bloggers, I’m asking you to show your power for a cause that is truly worthwhile.

A man named Phil Burns found out about the Austin Blood Drive Tweetup and decided

that bloggers everywhere should organize blood drives on July 30th.

It’s called National Bloggers Blood Drive. Phil’s daughter Serenity has acute lymphoblastic leukemia, the same form of leukemia my sister had. He’s calling bloggers everywhere to blog, organize, tweet, and muster as much support for blood banks everywhere. Don’t just blog it though. Sign up to give blood and as well as for takesalltypes.org, a service that sends you text messages anytime your blood type is needed in your area. Let’s show Phil and Serenity that people do care about those in need by creating and building blood drives around the country on this day.

For more information, please visit Phil’s blog. Learn more about Serenity and her situation on her site.

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Jun 11

Why Plurk Will Fail

June 11, 2008 • View Comments • Other Social Networks


I like Plurk. It’s fun to put out a message and then have all subsequent threads neatly organized underneath. It definitely needs an API and a way to track @replies, but it is a neat tool. I was excited when it first came out.

Why then the harsh title, you ask? Plurk rewards us for Plurking and punishes us for not Plurking by using a “karma” system. Go to an important meeting for a day, have a fun day with your family, save a homeless shelter from being torn down. It doesn’t matter. If you don’t Plurk, Plurk lets you know that they are not happy with your Plurking activity and take away Karma points.

People should not feel obliged or punished for not wanting to use a social network. That’s just silly. It’s like the mother who always whines at you for not calling. Come on now, sometimes we get busy, and it’s hard to call you as much as you want us to because you are retired and we are not.

What is the result of this plurking karma nightmare? Karma obsessed goobers with nothing better to do than Plurk any dumb idea that comes to their head. Uh, sorry you don’t have a lot of followers on Twitter and have resorted to something else. I still do not care what you have to say.

I do give props to Darren Rowse from Problogger. He uses it, but doesn’t abuse it. There are others like Connie Reese and Omar Gallaga who pop in once in a while, but their Plurks are vastly outnumbered by plurking nightmare people. What’s kind of nice is you can stop following your “friends’” plurks without actually taking them off and thus risking the incitement of a Plurk war. God forbid.

That is not a community. That is a competition without money or really any benefit whatsoever. What a Plurking nightmare.


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Jun 08

Tired of Web 2.0 Celebrities? Here’s a Hint: QUIT PAYING ATTENTION

June 8, 2008 • View Comments • Social Media and Society

I read Hugh MacLeod’s (gapingvoid’s) post “10 things I hate about web 2.0″. This post got 35 comments, generally to the tune of “right on, Hugh”. Now I like Hugh, and that’s why I’m writing this sound piece of advice.

IF YOU DON’T LIKE INTERNET CELEBRITIES, STOP PAYING ATTENTION TO THEM.

Seriously, do you know how many people are in this world who actually have interesting things to say? Do you know how many of them are not on Twitter, don’t blog, and will never Plurk? Do you know how much good work you can do if you just say in the words of the infamous “Dude” by saying, “Eh, fuck it” and just move on to something constructive?

I’m not knocking every internet celebrity. Some actually use it to offer interesting insights. Honestly though, do I need to see every moment of your life? Do I have to rush to follow your dogs on Twitter or , and if I actually did, would you have even an ounce of respect for me? Geez. To me, this is like following Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, or whatever other skin and bones the gossip rags decide to throw at us. It’s a total waste of energy.

Here’s the test: if these people ceased to be famous, how would history remember them? What does the their work contribute to other people?

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May 06

$20 Will Help a Family Reconnect after the Burma Cyclone

May 6, 2008 • View Comments • Social Media for Social Good

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 with others.

So people in Burma don’t have Twitter or Brightkite to connect. A lot of the time, they don’t even have internet because the totalitarian military government shuts it off to prevent people from discussing the killing of pacifists. What some of them have phones. There are many Burmese refugees here in Austin. These people have no idea if their families back home are alive or dead. If you’d like to help them reconnect with their families, just follow these instructions. It will only take five minutes:
1.) Go to www.speedypin.com.
2.) Choose USA–>Myanmar (not what Burmese people like it called, but that’s all a lot of people know)
3.) Buy a “Gemini” calling card. It is best to give these out in $10 increments so they can get spread around equally. Just fill out your own information, as you will just receive the pin in an email.
4.) I would not opt for auto-recharge, as there is no telling where this would go.
5.) You will be receiving an email eventually. Just forward this email to borntohelp(at)earthlink.net. This is Elaine Allan’s email. She helps Burmese refugees here in town and will be more than happy to give the PIN numbers to them.

If you have any problems with this process, please let me know via email at michelle(at)michellesblog.net

There is no need to sit back and idly watch the news if there is something you can do to help. Take a few minutes out of your day to make a difference, and pass this along to someone else who looks bummed. Hit the tiny Digg button at the bottom. After all, helping others physiologically makes you happier.

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Apr 14

Drink Beer, Buy Professional Photography Prints, Deliver a Beatdown to Cancer. Done.

April 14, 2008 • View Comments • Events I've Attended
cancer fighterI’ve been on guard as of late. Since watching my sister undergo both brutal treatment for leukemia and a stem cell transplant, I look for any opportunity to lay my vengeance on cancer. Cancer sucks.

No one should have to deal with that disease.

Fortunately, some other people also think cancer sucks, so it looks like I’m not alone here. I ran into Jay B. Sauceda’s site watching my Twitter stream. Jay B. Sauceda is a photographer here in town with his own studio. I scrolled to the bottom of his site and he is having a happy hour for osteosarcoma research on April 16th from 5-10 PM. Osteosarcoma is the most common malignant form of bone cancer, accounting for 35% of bone malignancies. Any proceeds from prints purchased at Jay’s event will go straight to osteosarcoma research.

So basically, you can drink beer or wine, hang out at a photography studio, buy cool prints for your house, office, or friends, and help make osteosarcoma history. This seems like a real win/win here.

The event will take place at Jay’s studio at 301 #i Chicon in east Austin from 5-10 PM on April 16th. Please leave your katana sword at home ;) .

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Apr 02

Twitter’s Wicked Gossip Rag: wasoverheard

April 2, 2008 • View Comments • Twitter

Someone: “Calacanis is like a fungus. He grows on you.” 04:00 PM March 29, 2008 from web

@tangofoxtrot: “we’re creating the 10 commandments on the web. 2 column tablet. Only displays in Moseszilla” 09:23 PM March 22, 2008 from web

@guykawasaki: “Sperm in your hair isn’t terrorism?” 06:07 PM March 17, 2008 from web

The Twittosphere is listening to you…

Don’t keep those funny Tweets/comments to yourself. Expose your friends’/foe’s funny and embarrassing comments to wasoverheard. Here’s how it works:
1.) Start following wasoverheard on Twitter.
2.) Wasoverheard will automatically follow you back.
3.) Listen in for stupid/crazy/witty stuff your friends say.
3.) When you hear something cool, direct message wasoverheard with @(person who said comment) and what they said, and the comment will be posted for all of wasoverheard’s followers to see. This will be posted anonymously, so you shouldn’t have any problems getting away with it.
4.) Laugh at your friend’s pain. Or don’t. That’s really up to you.
5.) Wasoverheard is a community project. The benefit of following it is a constant stream of funny one-liners flowing through your Twitterstream.

I have no idea who started wasoverheard, but I would like to thank the guys at b5media for pointing it out to me. Too funny!

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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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Jan 12

The Best Connection You Might Ever Make

January 12, 2008 • View Comments • Social Media for Social Good

If you are like me, you are amazed at how quickly and efficiently the internet enables us to make connections within our community. You can throw a party and within a few hours, have 50 people show up. You can make connections with people who are connected with five employers, all with jobs that you will find more gratifying every day.

Making connections doesn’t stop at Facebook and Linkedin though. I met Ivo at Nuclear Tacos Night, which was started by a bunch of guys who met on distributed.net. I had a good time talking to him and the gang, so I decided I’d Google him. I found his site, and on his site was a link to the Upendo Centre, the orphanage his sister Tessa runs in Kenya. From this site, I connected with the orphans who live there. Think about that. In a matter of minutes, I ran into profiles of people halfway across the world. And unless you are in a hurry and didn’t actually click on those links, I’m passing them to you in even less time.

If you feel the community spirit, please take a look at what the Upendo Centre is all about. The news about Africa can be disheartening. Fortunately, we have more tools to help solve these issues than any other time in history. What is one of these tools? A simple tool called PayPal. If you would like to help support Tessa’s work, please take a few minutes to donate at upendocentre(at)gmail.com.

Want to spin this your own way? Here are the links, made nice and easy:

http://www.upendocentre.org
http://www.upendocentre.org/children
https://www.paypal.com

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