ok, so I’m a huge icanhascheezburger fan – all kitties all the time – but no one can doubt the mucho adorableness of this ‘lil dood –>
Gray Area Foundation for the Arts OPEN (10/1)
1 09 2009forward/slash: The Gray Area Foundation for the Arts Story
Gray Area Foundation for the Arts (GAFFTA) will open its new digital arts center – kicking off a series of fundraising events starting with an elegant Gray Tie ball on Oct. 1st, 2009.
OPEN celebrates GAFFTA’s arrival as San Francisco’s new home for creative innovation and the cornerstone of the city’s nascent Tenderloin Arts District. This inaugural exhibit will feature new works from three leaders in the field of digital art:
C.E.B. Reas – a principal player in the software art movement and co-creator of the free, open-source programming language Processing. His software installations, unique prints and relief sculptures are inspired by biology, natural intelligence and the principles of emergence.
Camille Utterback – presenting an interactive video piece “Liquid Time,” a series of pieces filmed in the Tenderloin, projected back in the gallery window where the imagery of time, as well as space, is disrupted by the motions of passer-bys.
Stamen Design – debuting a series of interactive and printed pieces that allow visitors to virtually explore the Tenderloin through mapped and visualized public data from the Uptown Tenderloin Historic District and the City of San Francisco.
In collaboration with The Mayor’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development, Tenderloin Economic Development Project and Grants for the Arts, GAFFTA has transformed an abandoned adult theater into a state-of-the-art gallery space, studio facility and multimedia community center. The opening of San Francisco’s first and only cultural center dedicated to the emerging field of digital art marks a historic step towards the renewal of the city’s historic Tenderloin district, and a much needed production and exhibition center for the Bay Area’s progressive arts communities.
GAFFTA Opening Events: Thursday, Oct 1st
GALVANIZE Fundraiser Gala: 6:30pm – 9pm
GAFFTAHours Preview Celebration: 9:30pm – 1am
Click here for Tickets and Donations.
About Gray Area Foundation for the Arts
Gray Area Foundation for the Arts (GAFFTA) is a San Francisco-based nonprofit dedicated to building social consciousness through digital culture. Guided by the principles of openness, collaboration, and resource sharing, GAFFTA’s programs promote creativity at the intersection of art, design, sound, and technology. For more information, please visit http://gaffta.org or email press@gaffta.org.
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Tags: art, gaffta, gray area, gray area foundation for the arts, tenderloin
Categories : art, culture, inspiration
Jpod by novelist Douglas Coupland
31 08 2009Looking for a great weekend read? Like gaming, technology, understand contemporary cubicle culture and appreciate the randomness of life?
On my way home yesterday I stopped at Ricky’s Pancake Hut for a cheeseburger, fries and Coke. It’s not what I usually order, but for a short while I wanted to pretend I was living inside an Archie comic – don’t we all feel like that at some time or other?
Page 107. Jpod by novelist Douglas Coupland.
Highly recommend it for geeks with a sense of humor.
I’m going for his Generation X or Microserfs next.
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Tags: books, douglas coupland, jpod
Categories : book report
good things come to those who wait…
17 08 2009really?
or do you just lose your window of opportunity?
patience is a virtue…
but are all virtuous people patient?
life is but a process of elimination…
so finding something worth keeping is meaningful.
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Categories : deep thoughts
What’s the relationship between the CTO, CIO and CPO?
8 08 2009Last week I was fortunate enough to listen to the recently appointed Chief Technology Officer of the United States Aneesh Chopra present to a fairly intimate crowd of Silicon Valley-ers (when you produce events for thousands of people at a time, a few hundred is actually very intimate).
He said a bunch of interesting things about the wave of change that’s happening in the White House to embrace technology, innovation and – as President Obama promised – change.
I’m no reporter – and if I was I’d be way late on this ‘news’ – but there’s a great in-depth post on TechCrunch about his talk and you can listen to the podcast on ZDNet.
What I wanted to share from my notes on the evening is the breakdown of the new White House roles that were instituted this year:
Who’s in charge of what in the White House?
Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra wear’s a dual hat as both an Advisor to the President as well as the Associate Director of the Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP), which provides guidance on the $150 billion R&D budget.
Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra is the Administrator of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) – a vehicle to direct, rein in and better manage the President’s $76 billion annual spend budget as it relates to e-government and information technology.
Chief Performance Officer Jeffrey Zients also holds a role within the OMB to establish outcome goals and metrics for the investments made.
These three are partners to establish and monitor the framework for government reform and spend on all matters related to technology policy.
The event was sponsored by the Churchill Club (a non-profit business and technology forum) and took place at the Computer History Museum – “a museum dedicated to artifacts and stories about the Information Age.”
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Tags: aneesh chopra, cio, cpo, cto, vivek kundra, white house
Categories : information
Lessons Learned
20 05 2009I love elephants.
I have an obsession with them.
They are pretty damn amazing creators.
My friend once asked me this psychological test: What are your three favorite animals and 3 attributes why you love them.
I don’t want to give away what the test represents (until you’ve had a chance to ponder it) but I will say one of my animals is an elephant.
The attributes I named: they are family-centric, caring creatures who simply walk down the path of life without intentional harm to those in its way.
Now folks can disagree with me but this is what I choose to believe.
Elephants walk – to their goal, their destination: food, water, shelter, family.
So last weekend when I was waiting for my flight at LAX, cruising the isles of the Hudson Booksellers shop, I saw this book by the Harvard Business School Press -
And had to get it.
It’s a really quick read with 14 short story-type lessons. Here are the takeaways from my favorite chapter:
Three Essential Attributes for Career Advancement
* Effective leaders often exhibit high expectations, strong resilience and perseverance, and an affirmative attitude. These are the very attributes you’ll need to develop in order to rise through your organization.
* You shouldn’t hesitate to foster open lines of communications with superiors. They might surprise you with their willingness to assist.
* You must try not to get discouraged by adversity; everyone struggles through difficult times. Try to remain confident no matter what the challenge – and remember it too shall pass.
The lesson was written by Dina Dublon, Former CFO, JPMorgan Chase & Co.
I think it’s the combination of Dina being a female, Dina being a female in finance, Dina being a female in finance at a large corporation that I personally dedicated 5 years of my life to… but I liked her lessons a lot.
And in the grand scheme of things – it’s more validation that I’m doing it right. And a supporting reminder to keep on keepin’ on.
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Tags: career, elephants, lessons, management
Categories : book report, inspiration, janetti
me on ReadWriteWeb…
14 05 2009ReadWriteWeb is an established web industry publication / blog and they just released premium reports for businesses.
I was asked to be an early reviewer and got quoted in the report and in their announcement. Very cool.
It’s hard not to get excited about this when I know how excited editor Marshall Kirkpatrick is about this launch!
And the reality is that there is so much interest in community-building for businesses that it’s the right time for this type of report to surface.
The first 75 pages are a collection of case studies and testimonials – and as Sameer Patel (Pretzel Logic) wrote in his blog post, one can struggle “with the idea of buying a premium report that was largely peppered with quotes from articles that I’ve read before…” but what Marshall has provided is an in-depth and intelligent collection of the most salient, relevant and helpful quotes – scoured from across the interwebs, and from those at the forefront of community management.
You can download a free sample section of the report here.
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Categories : Uncategorized
My Notes on Community Management …
13 05 2009I’ve been telling myself to publish more but I never do. Then I realized today after spending almost 3 hours talking about social media with my CEO and colleagues that I already had written things I could share on my blog. So here are some notes I think are a worthwhile read for anyone who is starting to build a community online.
Established community manager Micki Krimmel gave a great talk at Web 2.0 Expo SF on What Would a Community Manager Do (WWCMD). And these notes, from a South by Southwest Interactive session I attended this past March, are helpful in framing the mind to think like a community manager. Consider reading it as your step 1 -
From Flickr and Beyond: Lessons in Community Management
Panelists: Heather Champ (Dir. of Community, Flickr), Mario Anima (Dir. Online Community, Current TV), Matthew Stinchcomb (VP Community, Etsy Inc.), Jessamyn (West Dir. of Operations, MetaFilter), Micah Schaffer (YouTube)
Community Building
Start with an idea of what the community is going to be about but the community is going to have their own ideas on what it is. Empower them and try to cultivate something good.
Constantly evolve:
- You’re going to have to adapt your product and practices
- Redefine how your product, company, service works by addressing the needs of the community
- What is good for the community at one stage, might not be beneficial at another stage
Strategies need to adjust and evolve as communities grow. Most important is to understand HOW the community wants to interact and building around that.
If you give people multiple channels to communicate with you/brand, you are making a commitment that you will respond
Community managers:
All wear multiple hats. You have to ID what those hats are and be quick about running with them
Focus on internal communication; make sure everyone knows what’s going on
Must commit to being there, be ready to hear feedback and answer it honestly
Salient advice for someone starting or engaging within a community
Spend more time online! The more interactions you can create enables and grows ambassadors who do the job for you. Build a team of evangelists. There is no metric to gauge that value but imagine how much farther your reach will be.
One basic rule: don’t be a jerk and everything else comes from that. [Don't be a jerk is ok but I like better, Kill the world with Kindness]
There’s a lot more to this role than moderation and making things pretty
It helps to be an insomniac
You have to be committed, you have to promote the 1-to-1 interactions you do, to make people feel that they are being responded to as an individual
Be able to explain and enforce your rules
Censorship and comment moderation
Sometimes the best action is inaction
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Tags: community management, recap, session, sxsw
Categories : community management, conferences
10 resonant chamber – this video is amazing.
22 04 2009http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8lja_10-resonant-chamber_fun
(i’m having problems embedding stuff. boo)
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Tags: chamber, digital, music, video
Categories : music, video
