(I hope first, anyway.) If you consider yourself a guru on enterprise software and you don’t know my friend, Sandy Kemsley, I’m not sure you should. It would be nearly impossible to be informed in this space without stumbling into her blog posts, tweets, webinars, or comments and other contributions around the social web.Confession: Sandy scares me a little. She’s wicked smart and is not only a role model for females in tech, she’s a role model for that other gender too. I first met Sandy in person in ’07 at mashup camp. She waltzed in surrounded by developers– major geek street cred. Unlike me, she actually understood what was going on at mashup camp. Since that time, Sandy has been drafted into the Enterprise Irregulars and joins our growing female all-star minority. Sandy can out-tech most of the Irregulars, yet she does it politely and with style.Sandy has one amazing skill that is admired in bloggers’ corners far and wide– she is a speed, live-blogger. While many of us are collecting our notes from a conference session, Sandy has already reported it, analyzed it, drew historical references to it, uploaded photos, and published it to her blog. HOW does she do that?In my dreams, I would be Sandy Kemsley. (Plus, I’d get to live in Toronto!) For Ada Lovelace day and every other day, I celebrate Sandy Kemsley. Mad props.
As I mentioned in the previous post, I’m helping to support Mobile Loaves and Fishes during this fun, frenzied SXSW season. Here are all the details you need to know for the #Twegg contest.Short version is– help the homeless and win a kindle!WHATWith the help of some social-media savvy volunteers, Mobile Loaves & Fishes, an Austin nonprofit organization that feeds homeless and working poor people on the streets of five U.S. cities every night, is launching two contests in conjunction with SXSWi. The name for the contest– “Twegg”–has a dual meaning. The first part of the contest takes place on Twitter, and hard-boiled eggs are one of the most popular and important foods served from MLF’s trucks. See www.mlfnow.org/tweggHOW IT WORKSTwegg #1:• Participants must be on Twitter and following Mobile Loaves & Fishes CEO and President Alan Graham @MLFNOW• Until 11:59 PM on Saturday, March 14th participants must make one or more tweets about Mobile Loaves & Fishes or its mission to be considered eligible. Each post must include the hashtag #twegg to have be counted in judging.• On Sunday, March 15th, a panel of judges will review each post tagged with #twegg and pick the best Tweeter. The winner will get a Kindle 2!Twegg #2:• This contest takes place at the SXSWi 2009 Plutopia music, art and performance extravaganza/afterparty on Monday, March 16–see www.plutopia.org• Find the Mobile Loaves & Fishes volunteers with Easter baskets and bunny ears, and exchange your business card for a free, informative egg and the chance to win a Kindle 2!• The winner will be announced at Plutopia between 11 and 11:15 PM (must be present to win).WHENTwegg #1 takes place until 11:59 PM on March 14, 2009 and Twegg #2 takes place at the SXSWi 2009 Plutopia afterparty on March 16.For more information, go to the Mobile Loaves and Fishes Twegg site. I will be judging the best tweets– so they better be good! I’ll be looking for the best tweets that respectfully show support for Mobile Loaves and Fishes and their mission. Good luck!Here is a video segment generously donated by Andrew Shapter of Alan Graham and his work with MLF.
I always like to hear the story (although I’m not sure it’s still in effect) about how Google permits its employees to dedicate 20% of their time to pursuing creative and innovative work of their own choosing. Here at the newly launched SoCo Partners, we’re instituting 20% time not for innovation, but for pursuing civic activism. I’ve chosen domestic and international poverty as my issue. Here in Austin, there are many ways you can contribute to helping the less fortunate. Here are a few causes I am involved with or with which I am planning to be involved:1. For the past two years, my daughter and I have participated in Operation Turkey on Thanksgiving. Bryan Menell turned me onto this from Facebook when we first arrived in Austin. We love doing it. Every year it grows and is more impressive. I plan to do this forever more. Wonderful way to give thanks.2. I’ve recently become involved with Mobile Loaves and Fishes. Last Friday I saw an Austin screening of “Happiness Is,” a beautiful and moving documentary by Andrew Shapter, a local Austin film-maker. Alan Graham, founder of Mobile
Loaves and Fishes is featured generously in the film and participated afterward in a live panel discussion with the director. Alan said a number of things that completely changed my worldview regarding the homeless. In Austin we have many intersections where folks hold cardboard signs looking for help. The individuals are as varied as the messages they broadcast to the uncomfortable drivers waiting for the light to change (hurry light!… don’t make eye contact!). I’ve committed to helping Mobile Loaves and Fishes in any way I can apply my hands and heart and possibly socialweb and collaboration know-how to helping their cause. We are cooking up a fun project for SXSW called “Twegg.” Details are still being worked out, and I will be blogging on that shortly. Be sure to plan to attend Jon Lebkowsky’s Plutopia Monday night, March 16, which will showcase a large part of the initiative. Information on Mobile Loaves and Fishes (MLF) is available on their web site. Please considering donating.3. I met Tina Williamson over a year ago at her Christmas party. Tina has launched a program called, “Women Worldwide.” Women Worldwide has as its mission to enable women to help other women around the world. She recently returned form a trip to Mali in Central Africa. You can hear Tina’s story about what her team did there and the inspiration for Women Worldwide over on vimeo. I’m helping Tina leverage social media to raise awareness for her initiatives.4. I’ve become a student of poverty and am particularly interested in generational poverty issues. I picked up three books on poverty and have set aside time to read each one. I’m currently reading, “Nickel and Dimed” by a wonderful writer, Barbara Ehrenreich. She also wrote, “Bait and Switch” which has a lot of relevance for today’s economic downturn, as it focuses on white collar unemployment. A book I bought for the shock value of some of the demeaning language is “Bridges out of Poverty.” More on that one when I read it all the way through. I’m also subscribing to the Poverty in America blog on change.org. Learning a lot there.It was @timoreilly who motivated me to “work on something that makes a difference,” while we’re navigating through the vagaries of economic turmoil. Even though in his most recent posts on the subject he wasn’t advocating pure charity work, it forced me to look carefully at what I’m going to commit my time to. My goal is to help my non-profit friends to learn how to leverage the social web to make their work more productive and rewarding.Finally, the trailer from “Happiness Is.” Enjoy.
A Piece of My Mind 