I’ll be moderating a panel called Your Social Media Solar System.

Website, Blog, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Etsy, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, etc. The social media universe keeps expanding, and most of us swing between thinking we obviously must use every single tool and app out there to raise our profile and thinking that it’s all a waste of time without any return on the investment of our time and energy. The answer may be to choose one or two platforms to be the sun in your social media solar system and let all of the other tools and apps and channels be the planets and satellites that revolve around your primary platform. This panel will review the various social media opportunities and their strengths and weaknesses as a vehicle to feature your crafty work.

I’m not crafty or DIY at all, but I do know my social media tools. I’m looking forward to presenting Kathy Cano-Murillo, Nancy Malay, and Stacie Tamaki who will help other creative geeks and geeky creatives figure out what’s out there, what to do with it, and why they should bother.

I attended BlogHer in 2006 and 2007, the second and third years of that conference. Those events were a turning point in my life in some ways, so I’m happy to help out and give back.

Video of my segment is here.

Julio, being the tech guy, snagged a copy of the video and uploaded it to YouTube, which I will embed here.

You really should click through and also watch the bonus web-only segment in which we play a little game called “Technology Hot Potato.”

Everything about this experience was so great. I got to meet John and chat with him and Julio before our segment. Cathy Wurzer and Eric Eskola and all the staff at tpt were super friendly and encouraging. I’d love to do it again if they’ve got an opening. I owe this one to John Daenzer. I met him when he worked at WCCO; he’s now the VP of Interactive Media at tpt. Thanks for the opportunity, John!

I had a tremendous amount of preparation help from a friend who does anti-racism education and training. I spent much of my very short time on the concepts of privilege, inclusion, representation, and structural barriers to participation. Most of the actual how-to steps are in the accompanying blog post.

The folks at SXSW were great at every step of the way. They communicated often and clearly from the moment I got notice that my panel was accepted. My liaison, Glenda Bautista, curated the Future15 diversity track. As I sat through all of the presentations, I was blown away by how great each one was individually and how well they all went together without duplicating any content. And it was super cool to meet Glenda, because we have a number of mutual friends and I hear great things about her.

It’s hard to gage reaction to a 15-minute presentation in the middle of a block of 15-minute presentations for which there is a lot of dense material in a short span and no time for questions and answers. Based on the tweets I saw, those that were in the room got a lot out of it, and there were some impressive and knowledgeable people in the room.

I was surprised to realize, a month after the fact, that I really enjoyed doing it. It’s not just that I enjoyed having been asked and having done it, but I enjoyed being up there. For the format and material I had, I felt well prepared. A longer format and taking questions is a whole ‘nother thing and I can certainly use some practice on my delivery, but this was a good start. Between this experience and presenting at the Minnesota Blogger Conference, the prospect of speaking in front of people on a topic I know doesn’t scare me so much anymore. I made a promise to myself to present on this topic again sometime this year, in whatever format or context I can find. I’m investigating one already and keeping an eye out for others.

And I got to see a film, since you get a Gold Badge as a speaker which allows you complete access to the simultaneously-occurring SXSW Film.

As for the conference overall, there was a lot of talk about whether SXSW has jumped the shark. It has changed quite a lot, even just in the last couple years. It’s a case of people talking about how they liked their favorite band before it was popular. I’d bet that folks who regularly attended SXSW Interactive in its pre-2000 days as SXSW Multimedia said the same thing about six years ago.

People – myself included – need to 1) decide for themselves if SXSW as it is now has what they want, and 2) make their best effort to improve and own the experience. It’s a huge event. You have a lot of choices. Five days is a long time for a conference. You need to know going in who you want to see and who you want to meet. If you’re choosy about panel content, do some homework before you show up. Also, the organizers are very open about accepting feedback and suggestions, so at least make an attempt to voice your concerns. For the newbie, I recommend a more fly by the seat of your pants style, but for the jaded old-timer, you’ve got to do some work if your natural style does not lend itself to flying by the seat of your pants.

I think many people who were dissatisfied are aware of all that and are adjusting their expectations and actions accordingly. Some folks get paid to publicly complain punditize analyze these events, so they hopped on that theme’s bandwagon and did all that talking about it.

That said, I’m not sure I’ll be going again. I’ve noticed in previous years that a lot of the topics that draw me to SXSW Interactive are the intersections of technology and civic life. Government, higher education, the sustainability movement, nonprofits, etc. I realized this year that a lot of those topic areas probably have smaller, cheaper, more niche (and local!) events from which I can get even better information. But the cool thing about SXSW is that I can get all of those different niches at once, together. Depending on what my next career is looking like six or nine months from now, the networking aspect of attending SXSW might be useful.

I did get my chances to connect with friends I don’t see often and to meet new people doing cool things. To that end, SXSW Interactive 2011 was a success for me.

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It will be presented as part of a Future15 track. That means I’ll be doing a 12-minute solo presentation.

I’m hoping to give this presentation somewhere else next year as well. Preferably somewhere locally, but we’ll see what opportunities there are. It’s an important topic. Plus it would be good practice for me.

Big thanks go out to a lot of people who will all be acknowledged at some point, but I absolutely have to thank Adria Richards for encouraging me and helping me to get this proposal submitted.

Missy Berggren and Arik Hanson convened the first ever Minnesota Blogger Conference on September 11, 2010 at CoCo coworking and collaborative space in Lowertown Saint Paul.

I agreed to present on the topic of generating blog content, and ended up with a presentation entitled Generating Blog Content: Out of Your Ass and Other Surprisingly Useful Sources.

The gist of the presentation is ideas to jumpstart your blogging mojo. I grouped them as follows:

• Frame of Mind. These are about trying a writing style that may not be the one you use currently. If you tend to be detached, be more personal. If you tend to edit obsessively, let it fly and don’t second-guess yourself. Etc.
• Format. These are about trying out a new technology or way of organizing information. Give yourself permission to try a podcast, make a video, or make your own presentation.
• Get Out of Your Pajamas. These are less about trying new things for the purpose of blogging about them and more about accessing the awesome things the Twin Cities has to offer to stimulate your brain. Get on a bike, see a show, hang out with smart people, whatnot.
• Reading Material. These are websites that I find fascinating and useful. Not all are Twin Cities focused.

I took this as an opportunity to try out Prezi, an online (and offline, for cost) presentation tool with much more dynamic and versatile composition and navigation than your standard Powerpoint presentation.

Of course this is all much more interesting with my sparkling personality mixed in.

If I’d had more time, I would have worked on getting some pictures or video or other media in that presentation. The learning curve on Prezi is reasonably short, but I didn’t give myself much time to put it together in the first place.

One really nice Prezi feature is that, while you create and edit it online, every presentation is downloadable in a package that can be run from your desktop.

Technical lessons learned:

• When bringing your own hardware, always bring your own adapters. There were two dongles on the table and neither matched the hole in my MacBook. (Thanks to Arik Hanson for letting me borrow his MacBook.)
• Always keep a copy of your presentation on a thumb drive. (Thanks to Patrick Rhone for loaning his for fast transfer from my Macbook to Arik’s.)
• Light text on a dark background, unless it’s super bold, is probably never a good idea; you never know what lighting is gonna be like.

As someone who’s been doing personal blogging for eight years (as of this month), and as someone who’s always blogged for my own enjoyment and never for business or to make money, I feel like my perspective is always in a very small minority at events like this. That’s partly why I gravitate towards the more techie stuff (because I can focus on the tools) and why I resist being pulled into any one niche’s events.

Another great thing was that the size of the event was limited to 150 people. The dang thing sold out within a few hours, so I’m lucky to have been on the speaker list. It was manageable, navigable, and not terribly overwhelming for your friendly neighborhood introvert. That said, I could and should have introduced myself to more people.

About two-thirds of the way through the day, I realized that the “aura” of this event was due to the fact that no one niche outnumbered the others, so no one niche’s existing dynamics and politics ruled the day. A diverse audience made for a very balanced experience.

The fine folks at The Uptake recorded all the action in the main area, so you can see video of the three keynotes and three of the breakout sessions.

At the end of the day, I was pleased to find that I had really enjoyed myself. My thanks to Arik and Missy for the opportunity to present and participate.

Research shows that professionals of color who relocate to Minneapolis St. Paul find it difficult to connect with the community, feel at home and develop a strong peer and professional network. In fact, many choose to leave the region within two years of arriving! To address this, several companies worked together to create The Partnership. Modeled on successful diversity retention programs around the country, the program is administered by the Minneapolis Regional Chamber of Commerce. The Partnership is designed to help retain professionals of color in our companies and in our community! Participants in The Partnership meet other community and business leaders of color, learn about the region and develop a personal and professional network of peers. This network provides support and connections to help transplants become part of our community.

I’m thrilled to know that this program exists and that a civic organization is an active participant. I relocated to the Twin Cities myself to work for General Mills. (I don’t work there anymore.) Attraction of a diverse workforce was not a problem, but retention was and probably still is. For all the great things about Minneapolis, it’s a little difficult to adapt to if you’re coming from a more diverse environment. At a bare minimum, participation in The Partnership is great networking opportunity.

My co-panelists were Duchesne Drew of the Star Tribune and Sheletta Brundidge of KSTP. As the non-big-media panelist, I tried to create a picture of the robust alternative media landscape in the Twin Cities and dispel some myths about blogs and the word “blog.”

Big thanks to Wendy Helgeson for including me.

• Jeremy Iggers, executive director of the Twin Cities Media Alliance which, among other things, publishes the Twin Cities Daily Planet, a premier online resource for access to community and ethnic media
• Lynnell Mickelsen, cohost of KFAI’s Truth to Tell
• Laura Waterman-Wittstock, a former journalist, author, advocate for the American Indian community, and host of KFAI’s First Nations Radio
• Mike McIntee, executive producer for The Uptake

Nick Coleman opened the program with his remarks and took some questions, and then we each had the opportunity to respond to his comments and take more audience questions.

I have several points that I try to make whenever I participate in this discussion.

• Young people and old people consume their news in fundamentally different ways. This is often overlooked and misunderstood by older journalists, even though they are making valiant efforts to adapt.
• I know the words “blog” and “blogger” have a particular connotation and those terms are often used condescendingly and with disdain. It’s very important to make the distinction between the message and the medium. Blogs are a legitimate platform for self-publication.

The discussion mainly centered around the changes in newspapers (and, to a lesser extent, journalism in general). In short, the increasing emphasis on short-term profit by disinterested ownership and dwindling editorial cojones have resulted in the newspapers of today, such as they are.

One thing missing from the conversation was the fundamentally different way in which younger folks consume media in general and news in particular. Putting aside the specifics of the whizbang new media tools of the day, the fact is that we consume our news by reading it on the internet (desktop/laptop/mobile) or by listening to it on the radio (live, or time-shifted via podcast). We attempt to moderate the massive information flow for ourselves by depending on recommendations from our friends or being extremely selective about the sites we consume.

Related to that, technology significantly influences our consumption. I think there’s a lot of opportunity in the actual digital delivery. I think there’s even more opportunity in non-disruptive payment mechanisms. I’m willing to concede the fact that eventually we may all have to pay to consume news online. In the interim, make it dead simple for me to send voluntary micropayments for acts of journalism that I do find worth my time. I’d like to see these on a per-article or per-author basis. Within iTunes or within Amazon, it’s frighteningly easy to spend money. Make it equally as simple for me to throw a tip to journalism I appreciate in a targeted way.

I had a personal revelation not long ago when it came to buying iPhone applications. There are so many free apps out there, it makes you think that you should be able to get what you want without having to pay for it. But what I get out of that one app I paid $3 for was completely worth the money. I spend way more than $3 on a regular basis without even thinking. It’s a paradigm shift to learn to attach value to journalism in the same way.

Further reading:

• In These Times: Death of the Newspaperman, by David Simon, former Baltimore Sun reporter and creator of HBO’s The Wire
• Newsless.org: The 3 key parts of news stories you usually don’t get, by Matt Thompson
• spot.us, a community-funded reporting project in which users request reporting on a topic, journalists pitch a story, users pitch in to fund the reporting, and the resulting work is available for publishing under a Creative Commons license
• LazyLightning.org, an example of a superb cityblog (covering the Twin Cities South Metro) produced by engaged citizen Bill Roehl who does it because he loves it and thinks it’s important

My thanks to KFAI News Director Ahndi Fridell for asking me to participate.