Got too many emails? Who doesn’t these days. Ahem, that would be me. I’ve been using OtherInbox for about six months and honestly, I don’t know what I’d do without it. I pride myself on being organized, almost to the OCD level, and OtherInbox has helped me save time and anguish by pre-organizing my emails, as well as drastically reducing my spam.
“It’s the e-mail account to send all that stuff that you want to get but you don’t want interrupting you during your day in your primary box.”
Last fall Joshua Baer and co-founder Mike Subelsky presented Otherinbox at TechCrunch50. After watching the presentation online, I was sold. Then I got an invite from Joshua to use the beta version. Yay! I’ve been in a state of email bliss ever since. Insert Buddhist chant here: Name Ho Renge Kyo. [click to continue…]
Michelle Obama makes me happy! I can’t tell you how much I enjoy hearing and seeing her in the news. She’s strong, smart, self-assured, and refreshingly real. That pretty much says it all.
Each of these amazing women has a courageous and inspiring story, but Hadizatou Mani’s (pictured far right above) I found especially powerful.
In 1996, when she was 12, she was sold for $500. “I was negotiated over like a goat,” said Mani. Her mother was a slave, so she was a slave, it was a simple as that. Can you imagine? This was just a little over ten years ago! Niger just criminalized slavery in 2003, but as we all know sometimes the law lags behind when it comes to law enforcement.
Ms. Mani was determined to somehow break the cycle so that her daughter would not have to experience the same world she did. She knew she needed to be strong, smart, and self-assured in order to succeed. [click to continue…]
If it wasn’t for ferrets and cigarettes, who knows if I would have even met one of my best friends, Cheryl Finfrock. In the late 80’s we were introduced to each other by mutual friends. They knew that we were both looking for a roommate and finding it increasingly challenging because of our individual vices. I had a nasty cigarette habit, (haven’t smoked for 14 years thank you very much) and Cheryl had ferrets, (can’t remember exactly when she quit those).
We decided to be housemates and became close friends. I didn’t mind if a ferret poked it’s head out between the cushions of the couch occasionally, and she didn’t have a problem with my smoky bedroom. Cheryl was the first person to impress upon me that psychotherapy is fun! She is a true therapy enthusiast. She is all about self-reflection and questioning her own motives. Cheryl loves to analyze her own thoughts and feelings, as well as those around her if they are game. I think her paintings are merely an extension of that process.
Today my cool friend is an accomplished painter with a very impressive body of work. Last night was Cheryl’s art opening at Wally Workman Gallery, one of Austin’s most prestigious galleries. It was a real Austin scene. Here’s a little video snippet from the event. [click to continue…]
The best and the worst aspect of social networking is one in the same.
There’s always a party going on online anytime, day or night, filled with interesting, creative, intelligent, funny people that want to have conversations, share their lives, offer business advice and connect.
Believe it or not, this was a recent revelation to me. I had one of those “A-ha!” Oprah moments, or whatever you want to call it. I must confess that the never ending Web 2.0 party is pretty addictive, but I try to remember it’s just an accessory to my 3D life. Just like going to a real party, two or three hours is more than plenty.
Remember the Seinfeld episode (Season 9, Episode 16) where George Costanza devises a new social strategy after Jerry suggests he use some stand-up techniques?
End every conversation on a “high note” and “leave them wanting more!”
I’m thinking that’s not a bad strategy for online social networking either. I would add one more tip.
Don’t get so involved
with online networking
that you forget to
nourish your 3D life.
I’m happy to say my priorities are still in order. My immediate offline network is a much more important part of my life than my online network. For my own well being I have to have time with my dogs, my husband, my friends, family and nature. Funny how dogs came up first on my list, but not all that surprising really. It makes me think of a sweet little quote from John Dean Anderson, a.k.a. Macgyver.
Dogs are my favorite people.~ John Dean Anderson
And thank god they can’t get online. It’s really nice that the only kind of relationship you can have with an animal is a 3-Dimensional one.
Martin helps to keep Sue grounded and offline whenever possible.
How about this for a surprise birthday party idea? On your birthday, ask all your friends over and then give out awards to the ones you think really “kicked ass” in the last year! So it’s the guests that get surprised, not the birthday boy or girl. Well, that’s exactly what my friend Spike Gillespie started doing about a decade ago and now it’s an Austin tradition called the “Kick Ass Awards“.
This year’s ceremony, January 9, 2009, was graciously hosted by the Austinist and BookPeople. I don’t know where I’ve been, but this was the first time I had attended a Kick Ass event. The highlights for me were:
My friend Marla Camp winning an award for the great work she’s done promoting the local food community. (This smart cookie started Edible Austin.)
Jodi Egerton presenting an award while breastfeeding her son Oscar! (Not surprisingly, the award was going to GB Khalsa, her midwife, who wasn’t there because she was busy delivering a baby.)
The groovy band Horses with Horns. (Their lead singer is 7 years old!)
The most unusual Happy Birthday rendition I’ve ever seen, played on a theremin by Robert Mace. (Video below.)
I wanted to write a short post including a list of all the winners complete with hyperlinks to where you could find out more about them. After I got the names of the recipients however, I realized this wasn’t going to be as easy as I thought. Many of these incredibly cool, creative and inspirational people have no online profiles or websites, that I could find anyway. [click to continue…]
It’s common knowledge that the Numa Numa video was the first real viral video that found it’s way onto YouTube, and took on a life of it’s own. But I remember watching and sharing The 405 Movie back in 2001, and it seemed to have a pretty viral quality too. This exciting three minute drama, produced by Bruce Branit and Jeremy Hunt, had everyone’s attention for a while. Since then Bruce has worked as a digital artist on productions such as the hit show Lost, the remake of King Kong and many others. He now has his own high-end computer graphics and visual effects company, Branit|VFX. Jeremy has done visual effects for Showtime’s hit Weeds and movies Marley and Me and The X-Files. He owns a small visual effects studio by the charming name of Screaming Death Monkey.
I guess it doesn’t really matter whether you agree that it was the first viral video, but you can’t argue that these two talented and creative guys did an excellent job of marketing themselves digitally in a pre-YouTube era. (FYI: YouTube launched and uploaded the first video on April 23, 2005.)
I know it was over eight years ago, but The 405 Movie is the most exciting AND funny 3 minute video that I’ve seen to date. I still love watching it. Enjoy!
Last year I started following Jason Alba on twitter. We tweeted back and forth a couple times and sometime later, I asked for him for a consultation. I always go for quality when I can afford it. I was about to give my first Linkedin consultation in a few days and thought it would be smart to get one myself before giving one. He is a networking master after all. Jason wrote the book “I’m on Linkedin, Now What?“, “I’m on Facebook, Now What?“, and is the founder of JibberJobber.com, a powerful online tool that lets you really manage your career.
Jason and I spoke on the phone a little over an hour and he gave me some excellent feedback. [click to continue…]
If you are a cultural anthropologist you’re probably quite familiar with the term ethnography, it’s a genre of writing that uses fieldwork to provide a descriptive study of human societies.
Michael Wesch is an Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University. He’s really a media ecologist, and perhaps the first cultural anthropologist to study and teach Digital Ethnography, He gave an excellent presentation to the Library of Congress last summer called “An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube”. If you haven’t seen it yet, I hope you take the time to watch it in it’s entirety. Especially if you think YouTube is only for funny animal videos and silly home movies. Trust me, it’s so much more.
I promise, after watching the video below you’ll never look at YouTube the same way again.
Wesch was named National Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in 2008. Here’s a video of his acceptance speech two weeks ago, including an introduction given by a former student. I really enjoyed hearing Wesch talk about his former teacher, the one that inspired him, Dr. Martin Ottenheimer. Wesch said of Ottenheimer, “He’s the one that inspired this idea that it’s the questions that matter not the answers.” He said his professor “helped me find new questions I’d never asked before. And suddenly I was in this life long quest of asking question after question after question.”
We all know that laughter is therapeutic, reduces stress, strengthens your immune system, makes you live longer, increases your intelligence, etc. So I guess that makes the 99 cent iFart application an amazing value, therapeutically speaking of course.
Yesterday they came out with an update, version 1.1, which includes new features like Record-A-Fart and Fart-A-Friend! What an exciting age we live in.
I’m not a twelve year old boy, but I bought and I love iFart. I was talking on the phone with a friend about it, and I could just tell she was rolling her eyes when she said, “Uh, I don’t think I’ll be getting that.”
I just did a little sneak attack on my next door neighbor, a sweet old lady in her late eighties, and she seemed to get a kick out of it. That alone was worth the price. See short video.
What soap is to the body, laughter is to the soul ~ Old Yiddish Proverb
The fact that I find most fascinating, really more like inspiring, is that the developer, Joel Comm, took in $40,000 in 48 hours over the holidays selling his playfully offensive, yet harmless application. I mean really, at 99 cents you can’t afford NOT to get it. That’s what over 40,000 people must have thought anyway, as they downloaded iFart on December 24th and 25th of last year.
iFart, you can’t help but like ifart the sound of it.
Got too many emails? Who doesn’t these days. Ahem, that would be me. I’ve been using OtherInbox for about six months and honestly, I don’t know what I’d do without it. I pride myself on being organized, almost to the OCD level, and OtherInbox has helped me save time and anguish by pre-organizing my emails, as well as drastically reducing my spam.
Michelle Obama makes me happy! I can’t tell you how much I enjoy hearing and seeing her in the news. She’s strong, smart, self-assured, and refreshingly real. That pretty much says it all.
In 1996, when she was 12, she was sold for $500. “I was negotiated over like a goat,” said Mani. Her mother was a slave, so she was a slave, it was a simple as that. Can you imagine? This was just a little over ten years ago! Niger just criminalized slavery in 2003, but as we all know sometimes the law lags behind when it comes to law enforcement.
Most people know that networking, i.e. relationship building, is not so much about what you can get, but what you can give to someone else. What value can you add to their life, business, cause, goal, etc…? 
It’s common knowledge that the 
Jason and I spoke on the phone a little over an hour and he gave me some excellent feedback. 
We all know that laughter is therapeutic, reduces stress, strengthens your immune system, makes you live longer, increases your intelligence, etc. So I guess that makes the 99 cent 
