Archive for 'Personal News' category
June is a wild rollercoaster ride of talks and workshops that I’m giving, and I wanted to make sure folks know about the wonderful conferences I’m heading to — hopefully I’ll see you there!
June 3-4: Personal Democracy Forum, New York City. This is one of my favorite conferences all year because it’s one of the few that blend many worlds well together: Technology, electoral politics, advocacy politics and cultural analysis. I’m giving a 10-minute talk on Thursday, June 3, that will (definitively!) answer the question: “Can the Internet fix politics?” Muwahaha. Other luminaries on the speaking roster include Howard Rheingold, Clay Shirky, Cheryl Contee, Jane Hamsher, Arianna Huffington, Esther Dyson, Anil Dash and many, many more. Register today — I’ve got a code to give you $100 off the registration; just email me and ask for it.
June 7-9: America’s Future Now, Washington DC. A yearly pilgramage to DC for progressives, where we talk strategy and tactics for challenging the right-wing agenda. I’ll be moderating a workshop on Tuesday morning, June 8, on social networking with Toby Chaudhuri, and we’ve actually turned it into a gameshow format: Social Media Jeopardy! Contestants will be Lizz Winstead, Garlin Gilchrist II, Scott Goodstein and Heather Holdridge. Also, Monday night, June 7, will see the DC launch of my book, thanks to Toby and Scott of Revolution Messaging, who are throwing me a killer party. Wooooo! Register today for all the goods.
June 9-11: Making Media Connections, Chicago, IL. I’m thrilled to be keynoting this gathering of non-profit communicators, put together by the Community Media Workshop. This year’s theme is “Storytelling and Strategy in the Digital Age,” which hits home strong for me– it’s through our stories that we have always made change, and our shiny new digital tools give us unprecedented capabilities to tell them. Register today for this amazing conference. (PS — That Friday night, June 11, I’ll be reading at Women & Children First, and having a party afterwards nearby.)
Because I have tons of time on my hands (*cough, cough), I decided I’d start a new documentation and, hopefully, advocacy project: Respect Prospect. (shoutout to Candace for the name!) It’s like this: I go to Prospect Park almost every morning with Izzy Louise to run around, because dogs are allowed off-leash from 5AM to 9AM. But! There’s often so much garbage strewn about the park that I can’t let her off the leash — unlike dogs with sturdier bellies, she gets sick from eating garbage. A lot of other people are frustrated with this, too. Garbage means more unsavory rodents and other creatures hanging about, which could mean more disease spreading. No good and no fun for anyone.
Park officials aren’t super responsive (besides saying that closed dumps on a holiday mean that the park gets trashed, oh well), and no one’s sure what to do. At the very least, to start with, we can document it when we see it:
As you may have heard, I’ve signed a contract with Berrett-Koehler to write a book about social media this summer. But! I need a tremendous amount of support — monetary, moral and otherwise — to get it done in the super-fast timeframe that I’m working within. Can you help? Here’s the email that I sent out to all my friends and colleagues. Please use the ChipIn to the right, or click here to make a donation.
Update, 7/13/09: Two things. There’s a post on my progress and thoughts here, and also, to reflect the offline donations I’m getting, I’m now gradually lowering the goal of the ChipIn.
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Friends, colleagues, clients! Lend me your ears…
I’m writing you with some exciting news that makes me very happy. I just signed a contract from Berrett-Koehler publishers to write a book I’ve been imagining for a long time. But it’s going to take some very hard work on my part, and I hope you can help me succeed.
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Incredibly exciting news came across the transom last night while I was at the Women Who Tech after-party in NYC: I’ve been offered a book deal with the stellar Berrett-Koehler publishing group in San Francisco. I’m absolutely thrilled to be working with Johanna Vondeling, their vice president of editorial and digital, and the rest of the staff there. Their commitment to social change as well as digital innovation for publishing makes them the perfect fit for what I want to do.
What do I want to do, I hear you asking yourself? In short — I do want you to buy the book, after all — I’m going to be describing the social media moment as a huge opportunity for social change and action. If you’ve read some of what I’ve written about Twitter and other services, and my ideas about the giant gene pool and the desperate need for diversity, you have an idea of where the book will go. Plus, it’ll be stunningly entertaining to boot!
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Six months ago, a nutty little dog named Izzy Louise came into my life via the incredible efforts of a rescue organization that works on saving dogs of her breed, Rat Terrier ResQ. An all-volunteer, nationwide staff that is tireless in its mission, ResQ was in desperate need of a new website that reflected all aspects of the work they do, as well as the group’s fun-loving nature. It didn’t take long for me to get sucked into the vibe as a volunteer, and over the last few months, I’ve been working on this redesign for them, volunteering to work with their board of directors to produce a new brand, corresponding logo and ultimately, the site.
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Last weekend was the last of my three sessions with the Progressive Women’s Voices program… and while I’m excited to run out into the world with the stacks of knowledge that I gained, I’m sad that it was our last class! Here’s our group with the staff of the Women’s Media Center, plus a certain famous lady that helps make it all happen:
Bonus: I also played superfangrrl and got my picture taken with Jane Fonda.
Well, kids, it’s been an interesting couple of days. (don’t know what I’m talking about? start here!) Before I get into the story update, there are a couple things that I’ve learned:
- My supremely awesome brother sent me a task list of things to do after you’ve been a victim of fraud, and there’s a similar list provided by the FTC. Check it out– very, very helpful.
- On the preventative side of things, I’ve learned:
- from a woman at Citibank: don’t put your address on your checks. I’m not sure why, but it’s better.
- from my brother: schedule getting your annual free credit reports throughout the year — i.e., Experian in January, TransUnion in April, and Equifax in October.
Okay, now for the update. I went back to Citibank in Park Slope earlier today, and since there was no one at the little info desk, the security guard had me sit in a row of seats to wait for someone to be free to help me. After a few minutes, a woman who worked there walked by and asked, “Are you being helped?”
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Let me tell you a little story about a goofy ol’ worldwide bank that you might’ve heard of: Citibank.
It’s Friday night, I’m having drinks with my comics instructor, the illustrious (pun intended) Tom Hart. I go to pay for the drinks with my Citibank debit card, hooked up to that silly li’l thing I like to refer to as my “checking account.” The bartender informed me that it wasn’t going through, which was a bit of a surprise… I have a tempestuous relationship with my dough, sure, but I should be able to eek out $20 for cocktails.
Logged into my online account, where a very bright red font did its job of getting my attention: I was overdrawn by four thousand dollars. Hmmmm. I quickly ran through the past week: yes, it’d been an insane week with lots going on, and yeah, there were a coupla fuzzy spots in my memory, but I was, um, pretty sure that I couldn’t have spent all the money in my checking and my overdraft and then still have been overdrawn by… let me repeat… four thousand dollars.
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I’ve been bouncing off the walls since I got the official word, and now I can finally broadcast it in every medium: I’ve been accepted into the first class of this year’s Progressive Women’s Voices program! Here’s a brief description of this killer training that I’ll be receiving:
We are "changing the conversation" by making sure that there are plenty of qualified, authoritative, progressive women experts available to editors, reporters, producers, and bookers. For the women chosen to participate in our 2009 Progressive Women's Voices program, we provide intense media training sessions in New York, with weekly follow-up briefings and continued training, as well as support and resources for media bookings.
Not only am I thrilled to be participating myself, but I’m especially excited to work with amazing classmates — Rinku Sen, Jehmu Greene, hello! — and almuni of the program (Carmen, Courtney, I’m lookin’ at you…). Thanks to the Women’s Media Center for giving us all this fabulous program.
Finally got around to submitting a drawing for Larry Smith’s second main volume of the brilliant Six Word Memoir series:
Here’s a permalink to the submission, too.
