SF Recap

If you haven’t heard (which clearly means you live under a rock), I was in San Francisco for the past 10 days attending several events and meeting a slew of amazing people.

Overall, the entire trip can be best classified as a non-stop adrenaline roller coaster of craziness. To say I can capture the majority of what I saw, experienced and heard would be lying.

From WordCamp to the after party to Event Apart to the Giants game to Citizen Space to visiting the Digg offices to Yoono to the Golden Gate Bridge to the Mashable party to karaoke to CBSi to Sausalito to Muir woods-  *phew* - the best part, the people.

My plug for social media –> I met quite a few people in real life, which without tools would have been missed.

Many many thanks to our gracious host(s): @marianne_m, @khartline, @kcuneo and @ttoste. Speaking on behalf of the Texas group, we could not have had better hosts to welcome us to the city.

I could write an entire novel based solely on our adventures over the past week. More than happy to go into detail offline, but to recap on here would be unjust.

Also, much much love to these three guys. Without them, this trip would have been incredibly dull.

If I learned one thing from this trip, I’m surrounded by some amazing people.

While watching the Olympics..

I’m spending the first half of my Tuesday night catching up on the Olympic events I missed last night. From diving to swimming to gymnastics, so many sports - so little time.

Is anyone else suffering from complete envy while watching? And, I’m not just referring to everyone’s amazing physique.

Instead, I’m alluding to the range of emotional and mental stretching each athlete must endure. From the excitement of the opening ceremonies to the disappointment of losing a race, talk about flexing your emotional capacity.

I think . . .

• What must it feel like to walk into a stadium filled with deafening cheers.
• How do you control your nerves and stay calm?
• What is it like to see your counterpart and arch-nemesis across from you?
• How does it feel to know that everything you’ve worked for will be defined in the next two-minutes?
• When it’s all over, what’s next?

I **can’t** even fathom the elation one must feel breaking a world record or winning gold.

Why would I want to experience this? Easy, to remind myself that I’m still living.

So, where can I turn to for an equivalent?

Make it count

Saw this tweet earlier today and was automatically intrigued:

@missrogue I really like the grassroots nature of this project: http://www.girleffect.org Many microfunding units prefer to lend to women as well.

Mesmerized by the eye-catching flash animation and succinct, but well-chosen phrases, I felt compelled to continue clicking.

Click.

Click.

Normally, I would have lost interest far in advance, but it was so well made, and it told an interesting story. Guess, the quality should be expected when the site’s champions include;

• The Nike Foundation
• NoVa Foundation
• UN Foundation
• International Center of Research on Women
• Population Council

The “Girl Effect” brings to the surface what seems to be a logical concept.  “Girls are the most likely agents of change, but they are invisible to their societies and to our media.”

Upon exploring a bit more, a light bulb sparked. Recently, I’ve observed what I recognize as the next iteration of social & corporate responsibility. By now, the phrase “democratization of the Internet” has been seared into our heads. But, in all seriousness, this movement coupled with a heightened awareness of social injustice is sparking an evolution. No longer should one feel dis-empowered by a lack of funding or resources. Instead, the slew of tools has, as many have noted, leveled the playing field.

From these large initiatives to smaller regional causes (i.e. Austin Tweet-up Blood Drive), why not ensure that your content is more than just fluff. The interwebs is loaded with useless frivolous crap.Why not make yours count?

**Keep your eye out for the upcoming #atbd case study and mash-up.

My votes for SXSWi 2009

It’s SXSW Interactive time! kind of…

Panel Picker is up and running. If I were to have my ideal set of panels to attend, I’d have the following on my sched.org:

• The New Inbox - Nutshell Mail
• Government 2.0? Tweeting from Dark Corners - Hillary Hartley
• Conform or Die: Balancing UX Strategy and Corporate Culture - Annette Priest
• Chicks Digg IT: How women are influencing the future of social media - Andrea Hill
• The Social Web: No More Walled Gardens - Joseph Smarr
• Breaking through the digital ceiling - Allyson Kapin
• The World Isn’t Flat - Building the next Silicon Valley - David Crowe
• Drupal with its pants off - Jeff Eaton
• Interest Networking, or: Death to the Super Poke - Nova Spivack
• Data Portability and open standards - Dave Morin
• Twitter for marketers: Is it still social media? - Ricardo Guerrero (**Austin)
• Computational Journalism - Brad Stenger
• Social Media in the Enterprise: A status update - Jeff Beckham (**Austin)
• Digital Dating: Are the Internets killing your game? - Aubrey Sabala
• Ditch the Valley, Run for the Hills - John Erik Metcalf (**Austin)
• Social Influence: Empowering your customers - Marcus Nelson
• Suxorz ‘09: The Ten Worst Social Media Campaigns -Henry Copeland

This is just a quick glimpse. I voted for WAY more (lots of Austin love etc. .). In any case, check the list out for yourself and remember to vote before August 29.

Catching up

Know it’s been awhile since I’ve contributed to this blog, and I’m starting to sound like a broken record. I hope to remedy this moving forward.

more photos from Michael Cummings *ace photographer*

Quick rewind on everything that has transpired in the last two months:

• Launched Austin 3.0
• Travel
• InnovationCamp
• Travel
• Mexico
• BlogHer
• Travel
• SocialMediaCamp/SummerMash
• iPhoneDevCamp Austin
• Conjunctured officially launches

..upcoming, you guessed it, travel.

Needless to say, I’m juggling quite a few things right now. But, as the sayings go: you only live once and I can sleep when I’m dead

Have also recently found myself back in Facebook land more so than I had been. Despite my initial hesitance of the redesign, I’ve actually found it more useful. Shh, don’t tell twitter.

In any case, like I had mentioned, trying to get back into the swing of things on this site. Will have several posts in the next couple of days. Also, for ONCE this month, I am staying put and will be in the city for the weekend.

Be on the lookout for more on social media breeding social responsibility, reviews on a couple of new products and my insights on learning Cocoa.

Feeling better already..