Blogging for the [Government] Enterprise at WordCampMid-Atlantic

Whether you work for the Government or a public business, it is very important for you to approach your blog content as a professional and with an established brand. Today (this afternoon) I am presenting my thoughts at WordCamp Mid-Atlantic about Enterprise Blogging, especially with regards to the recent efforts of Government 2.0. 

The day is energetic for a bunch of nerds to get up early on a Saturday morning with so much going on today in the area. We have the Preakness just up the road, the Joint Service Open House at Andrews Air Force Base, and right next door, one of my alma mater’s “University of Phoenix” is graduating next door, amongst the many other institutions that are holding their commencement ceremonies. 

But back on topic, today since I have been moved from the User Track to the Technical Track of the schedule, I want to focus a little on both. So I have prepared remarks about the technical needs of the Enterprise when it comes to blogging. My points are strongly specific to the Government 2.0 aspect of the Enterprise. 

The first aspect I want to touch on is culture – the User side of the story. When it comes to the culture part of the story, there is much to address when it comes to the behavior of how we share information. Recently I had published a lengthy guest editorial at ZDNet about the mindset of “You Were Never 1.0“. While not all of my Enterprise 2.0 colleagues agree with all my points, I believe strongly in the bottom line of my message. You need to practice your game before you step on to the court.

Anil Dash seemed to echo this sentiment about blogging in general. He mentioned that when he looked back on his earlier blogs (he and I both started blogging 10 years ago), he can see how much he has grown as a blogger. This is why I think just getting your foot in the door and blogging internally is a great way to practice your tone, demeanor and message. Once you have practiced a bit behind the firewall, you can almost anticipate the reaction and how you react. 

The second aspect is the technical nature. There is much to discuss when it comes to where the Enterprise will go with new Web 2.0 and blog widgets, I briefly touched on this earlier this year in an interview with Executive Biz. 

So I hope that my presentation today is more of a conversation, what we have learned in Enterprise blogging and what can the open community, especially the mid-altantic can do to help move ahead the blogging force of Government 2.0, inside and outside of the firewall.

I’m up against a big hitter this afternoon, so if you are at the camp today, I hope I can steal your attention away from the big dogs to have a robust dialogue. 

Tweet This Post Delicious Digg This Post Facebook Reddit

She’s Geeky Comes to Northern Virginia

Announcing She’s Geeky NoVA edition. Kaliya, Amy, and myself are organizing the first ever local She’s Geeky event to the DC/MD/VA area on April 18, 2009.

LMI – 2000 Corporate Ridge, McLean VA, 22102

Registration

You can find a ride coordination wiki page here.

If you are a geek and you are a girl, then you qualify to attend. The event is self-organizing by those who attend. An event inside DC proper off a metro line is being planned for later in the year for those who are not able to attend this event. But save the date and I hope to see you on April 18, 2009.
Follow the names above on twitter for more She’s Geeky news as it happens, as well as @shesgeeky for official news.

Update: This event has been postponed until Fall 2009

Tweet This Post Delicious Digg This Post Facebook Reddit

I’m Just a Geek – Part 2

High School

Oakland Mills High School sign

As probably some of you other geeks could relate, I hated High School. I wanted nothing to do with it. I started 9th – half of 11th at Oakland Mills High School. I hated math and never remember anything about class except for getting a perfect score on the Maryland Functional Math test, one of only two students in the county that year, IIRC. I also hated science. I put my head down in class everyday for the 1st semester proclaiming, “why do I need science, I’m going to be a famous singer ?” I realized soon, that the reason hated math and science is that the day in middle school you pick your HS classes, I missed. I was in classes that were too easy and annoying. So the next semester, I figured out the system of grading and set the curve over 100%. When I wasn’t working at the Ice Rink after school, I would hang out with my stepfather bonding by watching Star Trek:The Next Generation. I had a uber-crush on Wesley Crusher, who we all know is just a geek by following him on twitter @wilw and his blog.

Andrea in Pompei, Italy

At the end of junior year, I had obtained all my credits for graduation, except for English and Gym. In fact, I failed English when I moved to NJ because I stopped going to class. I was further along at OMHS and was frustrated to have to reread books I had covered years before. I also thought the teacher was a real witch. So Senior year was a blast. Since I couldn’t get my mom convinced I should just drop out and get my GED or home schooled, I returned with a new scheme and a different persona. I sold the Chrysler and got my uncle’s 1978 Ford 150. It was “Dukes of Hazzard” Orange and I loved it. It stood out in the parking lot that is for sure.     

Imagine this but really, really orange and no motorcycle

I took video production, public speaking, several classes of singing, gym, drama, & two English classes. I was able to work out a deal with my English teachers for 11th and 12th English to turn in the same paper for each assignment but with more stringent grading criteria than the other students. It had to be longer, have more sources, and footnotes. So I adhered and got A’s in both classes from doing the same amount of work. The problem was that English and Public speaking were the first three classes of the day and I have never been a morning person, ever (we’ll by force in boot camp, but that’s the next installment). I would stay up really late with my best bud (we’ll call him CS). CS and I would stay up and listen to hours on end of music just being silly. He made these cool adventures up and we’d go on them spontaneously. He was my rock in New Jersey. When I would finally come home, I would not want to sleep, so there I would be up to 4-5am, getting in a nap before heading off to classes. 

So a typical day would be mostly just spending time singing in school all day long. I was in Advanced choir where I sang tenor with 3 others, only one was male. I sang in schola, which was an all female A Capella group, and I fronted the Jazz Band. Since my range was vast and I could hit the low notes, I was the first person at the school to sing for the Jazz band. It was a success I think, because we would do gigs on the weekends outside of school. I remember one winter performance in front of the entire school. I sang “When I Fall in Love” in front of a darkened room and was so nervous, because I kept wondering if they thought I was singing about someone. The whole school knew I was in love with my best friend.

Another class I was fond of was Video Production. Our school had one of those weekly news reports that aired on local cable. But aside from the “news” we did all sorts of video shorts as entertainment. I had won a “Rosie” named after our teacher Richard Rose, for one of my shorts. I also remember spending hours on the couch in studio just goofing off trying to come up with ideas for my next piece. CS was in the class with me, as he was in Statistics and Analysis. It was really hard to think when he was around. 

I also recall the time when Jon Stewart came to talk to our TV production class, as his younger brother was in one of my classes. I am only guessing he some how arranged for this little interview to happen in our studio. This was obviously before the Daily Show, This was The Jon Stewart Show. To be honest, at the time, even though he was funny, I thought he was really cocky. He was only at MTV at the time, but something stuck with me about him. So I have followed his career over the years and bought his book, “America (The Book): A Citizen’s Guide to Democracy Inaction”. 

The Jon Stewart Show w/Claire Danes

I also enjoyed drama classes as my class was very competitive. I had drama only every other day, because I was able to convince my guidance councilor to put gym on the opposite days. Because I looked and acted older, I got the more obscure parental roles and really enjoyed my parts. I was the mother in the “Marriage of Bette and Boo”, a girl (can’t remember which) in “Stop the World I Wanna Get Off”, and my award winning slap to my fake daughter Kelly Hutchinson in “The Rhymers of Eldritch”, where I played the disappointed mother, Evelyn. 

I was also an athlete all through High School At Oakland Mills, I played field hockey as the goalie my freshman year. But after an accident the summer before sophomore year, I stopped playing and became the team’s manager. I also played tennis and was quite good, making it to the state championships in singles my freshman year, but pulled out of the tournament to have surgery on my scalp. In the winter months, I played basketball, the only sport I continued while I was at Hightstown. My senior year I played both JV and Varsity as their was a rule you could play up to 5 quarters a day and we didn’t have that many girls to cover both rosters.

The end of High School became a whirlwind as I already knew I wasn’t going to go to college. The summer before my Senior year, I joined the Army and spent my last year in High School trying to enjoy it, knowing that all I had to do was graduate. I hated school and I felt the Army was the best thing for me, because I wouldn’t have to go to any more classes. (A lesson I learned differently, in the next installment). 

The coolest moment was graduation, because of the size of our class (I think like 400 seniors), our graduation was held at Jadwin Gym on the Princeton University campus. My father was so proud of me. He put the invitation on display at work, as it read as if I was graduating FROM Princeton University. 

Tweet This Post Delicious Digg This Post Facebook Reddit

My Web 2 Makeover

For years on the web I haven’t had the same hair color, cut, or style for more than 6 weeks. My hair has been my outlet for creativity for years, but has that era come to an end…? (My colleague at work asked, does this mean no more purple hair?) I am leaning towards yes. As a future legislator, I think my crazy colored hair days are over. In fact I believe a memorial session on flickr is in order. I’ll get to work on that soon.

So what spawned this hair-life change? Why I’m I giving up my most visible creative outlet? Well aside from wanting to take a more professional tone with my appearance, its now healthier. I using better color, shampoo and conditioning treatments to help it grow out and forget the days of a “Technicolor do”.

For my hair, I started going to The New You in Lusby, MD. My colorist, Renee, does amazing work as you can see from the photos below. She has been using Redken color on my hair, and when at home, I use Redken shampoo. I am being very aware of what I do and put on to my hair. I found Renee from my Grandmother who has been a customer of hers for as long as I can remember when she was local to her in Clinton, MD. When Renee opened her new shop in Southern Maryland, not only my grandmother, aunt, and cousin remained clients, but so did many of her other loyal customers. This expanded to my mother and I becoming customers because we take turns driving my grandmother the 45min to and hour drive to get our hair done. This is great family quality time, being at a salon with people you know helps pass the time much faster.

So now I got new hair, well I got to show it off. Thanks to a tip from @charyis, I was introduced to Michael Collins of Studio 1 Photography in Pasadena, MD. Michael was able to accommodate me on very short notice. I had to get professional business photos for my website, my company website, and for any publications or speaking engagements that wanted a picture. he was able to meet with me late into the evening and make magic out of the clothing selection I had brought. Michael is also very funny and amazing to work with. He made me feel comfortable and pretty, which I felt was a great task considering I had spent all day in a salon going darker in my hair color shade. I was also able to see some of his work displayed in his studio. If you are looking for someone to make you look amazing and feel natural doing so, Michael is the guy to go to.

I also want to take the time to mention his wonderful make-up artist, Laural Hargadon. Laural was very quick and very much a part of “Team Andrea” that day. In a matter of minutes she took my blank canvas of a face and made me look gorgeous, if I can say that. Yeah, its my blog, I can say that. I was suffering a little from a long-haired cat allergy and with her work and constant attention to detail by my side during the entire shoot, the end result was nothing short of amazing.

I would like to extend a very public thank you to www.studio1baltimore.com. I highly recommend them, professionalism and fun experience throughout.

Tweet This Post Delicious Digg This Post Facebook Reddit

Groundswell is the new Grassroots

In this post, I thought I would take a moment to let you know a little more of the story of my background and how while my career has taken me all over, the lessons learned from one industry to another carry over:

Years ago I ran my own promotions company (Emerging Sounds) for the music industry. My focus was creating a methodology for success in helping bands get noticed and get signed, it was all about grass roots marketing.

This was around the time when e-groups was bought out by Yahoo, so we created groups for our bands that we supported. In addition, we would take thousands of pictures of our bands so while we traveled from show to show, city to city, we had images to capture their essence. This was before digital cameras were affordable and as mainstream as the are today. So we would have to go to CVS or another photo development place, as for the pictures not only in print, but on floppy disk. Those were the “glory days”.

We were the “gardeners” of the Mid-Atlantic Music Scene and we were happy to do it. Why? Because we believed in our product: The bands we selected to promote. This just wasn’t any old band of the street, but ones we felt we knew and could get to know better as people. We became a family with them and in turn, we’re able to put 1000% efforts in to pushing them out to the rest of the world and record labels. This was the beginning of a new era for the music industry as MP3’s on the web were a way of getting your music into the hands of fans. I was working with industry reps giving them the inside scoop of what fans in our area were listening to and who we wanted to see on MTV (they were still playing some videos) and the short-lived Television show “Farmclub“. To me, this is as close to a point when I can remember a user-generated web beginning to form. Before we started calling it “Web 2.0″.

If you take a look at the bands listed on the Mid-Atlantic Music Scene page, you might see names of bands that you still know of today. Some had regional success, some even more national an world exposure (Remember Sev’s Pepsi Blue commercial), and some well are dating world famous socialites.

Sev – Pespi Blue (Same Old Song)

Now to my point of this blog post title. This was all grassroots work. Done by those who loved what they did and it didn’t matter if it wasn’t their “official” job or even if they were getting paid for it. It was for the love of the game. This is what I see happening with social media tool adoption with the communities I am involved.

Just as I took an initiative to create a company for recognizing and promoting the talent in a music industry that was on the verge of a technological change, I wanted to do the same for my organization. I believe I started using Wiki’s in 2005, with Confluence and at least in May 2006 with Wikipedia (when I finally decided to get a user account).

In early 2007, I became the first ever paid Intellipedian. My job as lead wiki gardener (a position I have since passed on to other colleagues) was to maintain the wiki and other social web tools for the Intelligence Community. I used my position to mentor and shape the “edit swarms” that have helped Intellipedia grow into what it is today. I have to believe a lot of my mentoring and efforts in shaping Intellipedia come directly from my experience in managing a music promotions community, all grassroots.

If you were at Fastforward2008 this past February, you might have heard Professor Andrew McAfee mention the story above as a part of his keynote.

So this grassroots term is now being referred to as groundswell, when it comes to the growth of any social web tool. For Intellipedia, it has been a wonderful ride as to see my suggestions to the gardeners who I have mentored use their “spare-cycles” with managerial buy-in. Their work has been to me the great success of the wiki, as we are not only capturing knowledge, but organizing it in a robust way.

I used to use the term “Community Manager” to define my role, however I never felt manager was the right term, I believe myself to be more of an advocate. A “Community Advocate“. I have shaped the term and role from past experience to what I have learned from the likes of Tim Ferriss, Gary Vaynerchuk, Jeremiah Owyang, and others in the world of social media. I am an advocate not only for the tools, but for the people on both sides of the application, the developers and the users. I have walked in both sets of shoes in my life and that experience helps me make the communication flow between the two parties. Then there is marketing… you know the fun stuff. The stuff that drove me to want to do more when I was in the music scene. I believe those skills I have sharpened over the years, so I can tell what potential users, listeners would probably want to hear and see to get them to use their tool or buy their music or go to a show.

I hope that in all my work, in all the talks, in all the blog posts, and online chats: inside the community, my company, and beyond; that my work inspires others to be community leaders. I would love my grassroots work to make the groundswell happen within these “families” to take-off and build bigger and brighter things. And I know they do, I see the work of others and I am proud to call them a colleague.

Tweet This Post Delicious Digg This Post Facebook Reddit

Skins Loss Equals A Fan’s Second Thoughts

photo by @robotchampion

I am a lifelong Washington Redskins fan. My family and friends know this. My best-friend is a Ravens/Giants fan. So Sundays are a big day at my house. We got the main games on the HDTV in the living room and the side games on in the bedrooms. In all my life, I had never been to a Skins game live, before this Season. Now I have been to 2 live games and they lost both. (I’m not going to get into the details why I never went before now, but nutshell is poor childhood, out of country, no girlfriend rule at games).

I bleed burgundy and gold. My last house, I painted my bedroom burgundy and gold to show my pride.

I also bought my first jersey this year. Clinton Portis, number 26. My fave players have been Portis and Chris Cooley (saw a fro wannabe in our section last night) in the past few years, followed by Santana Moss. Although I got to say, Suisham is rising to the top fast as the most consistent scorer on the team. So in my first live game, before we fought the crowds in traffic, I stopped to get that 26 to wear.

Now I am thinking, and I am a little superstitious when it comes to football. Do I need to stop going to games? Do I need to get the 47 jersey and wear it instead, as that was the jersey I wanted first? During the Browns game, I wore my jersey watching it at home. I took off the Jersey in the fourth quarter because I felt if I kept it on, it was a loss. I didn’t even wear the jersey last week.

Last night, I go to the game, wearing my 26 and I even run into my cousin, who I only see during the holidays in the 400s getting a brat. So I was stoked… I wanted to win. I knew the loss would be symbolic of an Obama win. But as I keep my votes private I just wanted the skins to win… forget the Washington ball game indicator.

So again I ask, do I ditch the jersey? Stop going to games? Get another jersey? I dunno. I want to support my team, but I don’t want my support to be the reason for losing. What do you think football fans?

Tweet This Post Delicious Digg This Post Facebook Reddit