If you haven’t heard (which clearly means you live under a rock), I was in San Francisco for the past 10 days attending several events and meeting a slew of amazing people.

Overall, the entire trip can be best classified as a non-stop adrenaline roller coaster of craziness. To say I can capture the majority of what I saw, experienced and heard would be lying.

From WordCamp to the after party to Event Apart to the Giants game to Citizen Space to visiting the Digg offices to Yoono to the Golden Gate Bridge to the Mashable party to karaoke to CBSi to Sausalito to Muir woods-  *phew* – the best part, the people.

My plug for social media –> I met quite a few people in real life, which without tools would have been missed.

Many many thanks to our gracious host(s): @marianne_m, @khartline, @kcuneo and @ttoste. Speaking on behalf of the Texas group, we could not have had better hosts to welcome us to the city.

I could write an entire novel based solely on our adventures over the past week. More than happy to go into detail offline, but to recap on here would be unjust.

Also, much much love to these three guys. Without them, this trip would have been incredibly dull.

If I learned one thing from this trip, I’m surrounded by some amazing people.

I’m spending the first half of my Tuesday night catching up on the Olympic events I missed last night. From diving to swimming to gymnastics, so many sports – so little time.

Is anyone else suffering from complete envy while watching? And, I’m not just referring to everyone’s amazing physique.

Instead, I’m alluding to the range of emotional and mental stretching each athlete must endure. From the excitement of the opening ceremonies to the disappointment of losing a race, talk about flexing your emotional capacity.

I think . . .

• What must it feel like to walk into a stadium filled with deafening cheers.
• How do you control your nerves and stay calm?
• What is it like to see your counterpart and arch-nemesis across from you?
• How does it feel to know that everything you’ve worked for will be defined in the next two-minutes?
• When it’s all over, what’s next?

I **can’t** even fathom the elation one must feel breaking a world record or winning gold.

Why would I want to experience this? Easy, to remind myself that I’m still living.

So, where can I turn to for an equivalent?

Saw this tweet earlier today and was automatically intrigued:

@missrogue I really like the grassroots nature of this project: http://www.girleffect.org Many microfunding units prefer to lend to women as well.

Mesmerized by the eye-catching flash animation and succinct, but well-chosen phrases, I felt compelled to continue clicking.

Click.

Click.

Normally, I would have lost interest far in advance, but it was so well made, and it told an interesting story. Guess, the quality should be expected when the site’s champions include;

• The Nike Foundation
• NoVa Foundation
• UN Foundation
• International Center of Research on Women
• Population Council

The “Girl Effect” brings to the surface what seems to be a logical concept.  “Girls are the most likely agents of change, but they are invisible to their societies and to our media.”

Upon exploring a bit more, a light bulb sparked. Recently, I’ve observed what I recognize as the next iteration of social & corporate responsibility. By now, the phrase “democratization of the Internet” has been seared into our heads. But, in all seriousness, this movement coupled with a heightened awareness of social injustice is sparking an evolution. No longer should one feel dis-empowered by a lack of funding or resources. Instead, the slew of tools has, as many have noted, leveled the playing field.

From these large initiatives to smaller regional causes (i.e. Austin Tweet-up Blood Drive), why not ensure that your content is more than just fluff. The interwebs is loaded with useless frivolous crap.Why not make yours count?

**Keep your eye out for the upcoming #atbd case study and mash-up.

It’s SXSW Interactive time! kind of…

Panel Picker is up and running. If I were to have my ideal set of panels to attend, I’d have the following on my sched.org:

• The New Inbox – Nutshell Mail
• Government 2.0? Tweeting from Dark Corners – Hillary Hartley
• Conform or Die: Balancing UX Strategy and Corporate Culture – Annette Priest
• Chicks Digg IT: How women are influencing the future of social media – Andrea Hill
• The Social Web: No More Walled Gardens – Joseph Smarr
• Breaking through the digital ceiling – Allyson Kapin
• The World Isn’t Flat – Building the next Silicon Valley – David Crowe
• Drupal with its pants off – Jeff Eaton
• Interest Networking, or: Death to the Super Poke – Nova Spivack
• Data Portability and open standards – Dave Morin
• Twitter for marketers: Is it still social media? – Ricardo Guerrero (**Austin)
• Computational Journalism - Brad Stenger
• Social Media in the Enterprise: A status update – Jeff Beckham (**Austin)
• Digital Dating: Are the Internets killing your game? - Aubrey Sabala
• Ditch the Valley, Run for the Hills – John Erik Metcalf (**Austin)
• Social Influence: Empowering your customers - Marcus Nelson
• Suxorz ‘09: The Ten Worst Social Media Campaigns -Henry Copeland

This is just a quick glimpse. I voted for WAY more (lots of Austin love etc. .). In any case, check the list out for yourself and remember to vote before August 29.

Know it’s been awhile since I’ve contributed to this blog, and I’m starting to sound like a broken record. I hope to remedy this moving forward.

more photos from Michael Cummings *ace photographer*

Quick rewind on everything that has transpired in the last two months:

• Launched Austin 3.0
• Travel
• InnovationCamp
• Travel
• Mexico
• BlogHer
• Travel
• SocialMediaCamp/SummerMash
• iPhoneDevCamp Austin
• Conjunctured officially launches

..upcoming, you guessed it, travel.

Needless to say, I’m juggling quite a few things right now. But, as the sayings go: you only live once and I can sleep when I’m dead

Have also recently found myself back in Facebook land more so than I had been. Despite my initial hesitance of the redesign, I’ve actually found it more useful. Shh, don’t tell twitter.

In any case, like I had mentioned, trying to get back into the swing of things on this site. Will have several posts in the next couple of days. Also, for ONCE this month, I am staying put and will be in the city for the weekend.

Be on the lookout for more on social media breeding social responsibility, reviews on a couple of new products and my insights on learning Cocoa.

Feeling better already..

Testing new iPhone/WP application!
Very cool =] thanks to Marianne for sending me the link right at launch.

Interested to see how this will alter the blogging race: now has even quicker access to their blog. Talk about lightening fast turn around for posts, as if there wasn’t enough pressure to get the scoop.

Kudos to those in the WP camp for making this possible for us nerds! Now, my iPhone can be a one stop shop.

Love the picture load and preview capabilities! Anyone know when/where one can add links?

Hoping this won’t read like a very self-involved egotistical ranting, but have you ever Summized yourself? **Please, i know you’ve googled yourself before.**

So why do I ask? Well, last week, I was in San Francisco attending BlogHer 2008. My quick and dirty recap of the conference:

The conference was eye-opening (mommyblogging what?), the content so-so and the people – extraordinary. Per usual, I gained the most value meeting new folks and from the hallway conversations. It was definitely a different perspective and audience. It was great to hear everyone’s  perspective on blogging. I guess, I’m just more information driven and not looking for the emotional – “here is my life and everything you wanted to know about it” connection. I look for news and tips/tricks.

WIll I attend again next year? More than likely not.

While at the conference, Twitter was down for a scheduled maintenance. By now, we are all well aware of Twitter’s constant Fail Whale floating to the top of the internets.  I decided to check for missing @ replies. Luckily, it worked and I found several that I had missed earlier that week.

Should I have to summize myself? Absolutely not.

Is it better than googling myself? Only because it makes me feel less narcissistic.

Will I do it again? Only, if I see that damn whale again.

Ok, so not really. But, I have been traveling quite a bit – even if it’s just within the DFW area. For a quick summary, I had the pleasure of visiting a couple of great places – and as always – met some really cool folks along the way.

Puerta Vallarta, Mexico

Beautiful place with some of the friendliest people. I, finally, had the opportunity to completely disconnect for a week’s time. I don’t need to remind everyone how important that kind of recharge can be for the psyche. My daily routine consisted of a run on the beach, breakfast, layout, lunch, pool, nap, dinner, sunset walk then dancing.

This was definitely one of those “let’s re-evaluate” life trips.

Dallas/Ft. Worth

Since early July, I’ve been in Dallas working, relaxing and playing. I came to realize that despite the fact that I had lived in the city for over 18 years, I knew no one. As a result, I decided to really experience the DFW area.

• Dallas Meet-Up: A co-idea with @michaelcummings, the Dallas meet-up called for all tech heads in the Big D to meet-up and get to know one another. From my perspective, this was definitely a success. I met quite a few intelligent, interesting and very funny people. Interesting how the pains of the DFW tech crowd parallel those of the Austin crowd- lots of dispersed talent in silo-ed areas. Unfortunately, they have a huge hurdle – distance – which is only amplified by rising gas costs.
• Arlington: Yup, that’s right. I definitely spent time in Arlington, TX. Chuckle as you might, I give it two thumbs up. It’s a bit off the beaten path and plays as an excellent mediary to Ft. Worth and Dallas.
• Denton: Another excellent area with great potential. Interested and excited to see what @stormy has up his sleeves. The city has an incredible town square and an excellent creative vibe. From graphic designers to musicians, there is plenty to be inspired by in this town.

As I mentioned, I had some great conversations with a ton of people, and I will try to expand on those a bit later. I’ll be heading back to Austin on Sunday then it’s off to San Fran.

When it rains it pours.

I had to take a moment to document that I think I maybe suffering from adult onset A.D.D. And, I personally blame it on communities such as Plurk.com and now, iminlikewithyou.

Holy, every time I log into these communities, I feel suddenly very frantic and schizo. Keeping up with the conversations is nearly impossible on Plurk. Last night, I logged on to find over 450 unread messages and a lower karma rating (all of which discouraged me to log back on tonight). On iminlikewithyou, the interface along side the pop-up messages can be overwhelming. Talk about over stimulation.

My biggest pet peeve remains the “finding friends” options on both sites. It’s nearly impossible and requires a ton of leg work. Why can’t all of the communities just automatically populate my friends list? I’d be more than willing to put my friends in the cloud if it means that I won’t have to use a sub-par search function. But, I digress.

Now, when I’m away from my keyboard, my attention span zips back and forth as if I were participating in these communities. Obviously, this claim is not based on scientific fact. However, thought I’d throw it out there as a cautionary statement for all of those who are about to sign up for iminlikewithyou or yet to have their cherry plurked.

Know it’s been quite sometime since I’ve written a genuinely thought provoking post – hell, not sure if I have yet or not. But, I recently decided to check the numbers on a couple of the videos.

Steady and sure, each are picking up great traction (e.g. DreamBig video #1 and @garyvee’s Austin visit). However, most surprising was the Twittter cliff jumping video. I literally slapped that together in about four hours. It has over 1,200 views and more than 675 trackbacks. w00t! Also, it was recently featured on Viddler Blog as a community spotlight piece.

Needless to say, I’m seriously considering a sequel.

Also, would love to say thanks the Austin community for their continued support to Austin 3.0. Joey and I are quite impressed by the responses we’ve received from the tech community. We’ll be at all of the upcoming events, so please make sure to stop by and say hello.

Lastly, as if I don’t neglect this blog enough, I will be heading out on a string of trips for the next couple of weeks. Most notably, I will be heading to San Francisco. Watch out Bay Area. I’m hoping to meet a ton of people and to rep Austin!

So, if you’re in the area and want to meetup, drop me a line. Oh! I suddenly have an idea for a mash-up sequel featuring SF Twits. Let’s make it happen!