Results tagged “speaking”

I'm doing a number of presentations and public appearances over the next several weeks, here's a quick chronological overview if you'd like to meet up.

• The AAAS Annual Meeting in San Diego, this week from Feb 18-20. The American Association for the Advancement of Science is the parent organization for my new project Expert Labs, so I'm extraordinarily excited to get to attend and participate in this event for the first time. Even if you're not a scientist, you can check out Family Science Days for some very cool events that are open to the public.
• Sweets and Treats on March 10 in Washington, DC. Debbie Weil's great event for bringing together DC's tech and government communities looks really promising, and that was even before I knew there was gonna be free cupcakes.
• South by Southwest in Austin, TX on March 12-16. I'm really looking forward to this — Break Bread for Brad in memory of Brad Graham on the night of the 12th, the KICK kickball game is coming back on the morning of Saturday the 13th (more about that soon!), I'll be returning to Battledecks (this time as a judge), and of course all the usual Austin festivities.
• Fast Company's Innovation Uncensored conference, April 21. I'd be excited just to attend this one — it's even more thrilling to get to present. Take a look at the lineup of speakers and I bet you'll agree.
• Gov 2.0 Expo, May 25-27. I can already tell there's been a huge shift in the conversation about how government and technology relate, and if last fall's Gov 2.0 Summit was a watershed moment, this might be even more of a milestone.

And, if you can't make it to any of those events, I'll be doing a few things online, such as this career event about looking at your job skills in the context of Last Year's Model. I'll likely be adding in a few additional events, including Chicago in early March, which I'm hoping will let me meet even more of you. Oh, and of course I'll be blogging here as well, if you really don't feel like going anywhere.

How often do you get to meet someone who's outstanding in this field while they're out, standing in this field? Well, good news: KICK! is back.

KICK! is the kickball game I started as a meet-and-greet for the South by Southwest Interactive Festival, back in 2002. Over the years, it grew into a pretty substantial (and extremely fun!) annual tradition, peaking somewhere between 150 and 200 attendees.

Then, when I stopped going to SXSW after 2005, I let the game languish. But I'm going back to Austin this year, and the game is coming back with me, bigger and better than ever. I talk about it more on the site, and go into some depth on the About page, but one of my fondest memories of KICK! is that I got the chance to meet so many people who've been inspirations to me in my work, and since then many of the folks who've shown up for the game have become friends, partners, even coworkers.

I'd stopped attending some events like SXSW because I felt, as the conferences grew and changed, the amount of new things I could learn from an event was diminishing. Given the fact that I travel almost constantly, the idea of spending time and money to get to an event where I wasn't going to learn a lot of new ideas seemed especially wearying.

But I've decided that there are some parts of the web community that I don't want to give up on, and that the best way I can contribute is to make the things that I'd want to see. A chance to have a fun game (as always, nobody gets picked last!) while also consorting with the best in the business seems to fit the bill. Michael Lopp, who's moderating a panel that I'm appearing on, articulated this well:

It's big and becoming notorious for the fact that while everyone goes, many skip the panels because the panel structure provides less content and more rambling conversation where there is no guarantee that a rock star set of panelists are going to say anything useful. ...

Yes, it's a panel and I just ripped panels, but my commitment is this: we'll stay on topic, say something bright, and we'll be available for yelling at a local bar shortly after the panel.

That sounds like a good mandate. Best of all, the topic of our panel is called Designing for Freedom. You'll be hearing about designing for freedom instead of attending the likely-to-be-100%-content-free presentation at the same time by Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook. I think that's a fair step towards making the things we want to see, too. Kick it with us. And if you're going to the game, pass the link along to everybody who should join us at the game.

I've been doing a good bit of speaking lately, and have some more coming up, so let me share it with you if you're interested.

• I was flattered to have my post about Gawker quoted in passing by Jim Romenesko while talking about Vanessa Grigoriadis. However, I was mortified at the context -- Page Six of the NY Post had published a thinly-veiled threat of sexual violence against Ms. Grigoriadis. Let's repeat: The traditional, mainstream, dead-tree media institution published a threat of sexual violence on newsprint. And those who objected? The folks typing away in Movable Type at Radar Online and Media Bistro. This is why we need blogs to help fix traditional media.
• I got to spend an hour talking to John C. Havens over at Blog Talk Radio which was ostensibly about transparency, but ended up getting into a good bit of blog history and some more philosophical parts of blogging. That was a lot of fun, and I was glad to get to do it.
• On Friday, I'll be speaking at the Online News Association Conference in Toronto. I'll only be in town for a few hours, unfortunately, even though I love Toronto, but the discussion about Journalism Next is right up my alley. And I'm especially looking forward to getting to meet the other folks on the panel.
• And then on Saturday, I'll be at ConvergeSouth 2007 in Greensboro, North Carolina. It looks to be an absolutely amazing event, and I'll be joining in at 10am on Saturday for my panel. I'll also be hosting a dinner at 6:30 on Saturday, you can sign up on the wiki to join the table.

Phew! Can't wait to meet a bunch of new folks, and if you want to get in touch and will be at either event, my mobile number and email address are both right here on my blog.