In case you were looking for the lighter side of the State of the Union, you've come to the right place. Sonal and Deanna, while eating pie and playing this drinking game, are here for your entertainment. We'll kick things off around 8pm or so… maybe closer to 8:30 once we figure out the pie situation.
This was shot in June 2009 in Toronto for GetInvolved. It was a really fun conversation with the producers… I talk about free-for-all organizing, how influence is changing, the importance of authenticity–and I start the first Twitter Anon meeting, to boot.
As I mentioned on Twitter, it's just getting too hard for many of us to keep track of all the awesome conferences that happen every year. I've missed so many this fall, even ones happening in NYC, just because I hadn't done any curation. Conferences can be a drag, but as a freelancer/consultant/author without a formal organizational structure, they're often where I make the best connections and have the most fun with my colleagues.
So! An early New Year's resolution: I'm gonna try to get on the ball for next year. Already thinking of SXSW, Allied Media Conference, US Social Forum, Personal Democracy Forum, Women Who Tech, America's Future Now, NonProfit 2.0, NTEN and more; what do you recommend in the social tech, media, politics, activism, and social justice fields? Conferences & unconferences, big 'n' small. Leave 'em in the comments (links to conferences would be helpful), and I'll publish a big list in the next few days.
Some of you were around Friday evening when I put it out on Twitter and Facebook, but wanted to get a chance to share it with the rest of yous after a busy weekend. Hurray! The official title of my book is…
Share This! How You Will Change the World With Social Networking
Many folks participated in the surveys that brought us to this point, and I just want to thank you again for all that. I'm super-psyched!
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.
There's a ton of great material out there on the nuances of the Iranian election and protests, and I just want to quickly throw some thoughts into the ring.
First, from an American media perspective, here was another great moment for folks to demand what they wanted to see covered on national news media. What a moment of media dissonance: As protests erupted — and in some cases, turned violent — in the streets of Tehran and elsewhere in Iran, major broadcast media in the US had little to no news on the events at all. By using the hashtag1#CNNfail to collect all of the dissatisfaction on Twitter, Americans were able to shift the focus of the conversation and eventually influence CNN's decision makers to start covering stories by Sunday.
In case you were looking for the lighter side of the State of the Union, you've come to the right place. Sonal and Deanna, while eating pie and playing this 
As you may have heard
There's a 
