Monthly Archives: August 2010

this week in people

My week in review: No Pauses Even With A Sprain

mjpicnic 006

Last week…
The Brit and I went to the MJ Picnic in Prospect Park. We sat in the shade and sang Michael Jackson songs and ate free Ben and Jerry ice cream. Saturday, we went to Melissa’s birthday/housewarming party. Earlier that day I slept. Earlier than that I went to the Duane Reade walk-in clinic again but I sprained my ankle AGAIN. I have either weak ankles or poor balance. I will not wear heels any time soon. I sprained my ankle on Friday which made me missed going to the New Work City party. Thursday I stopped by Obliterati late after first going to the Aviary office warming. Wednesday I went to Topics and Tapas, and then met with the The Brit to see The Sweet Divines, Inyang Bassey and Binky Griptite and Eli Paperboy Reed perform at Rockwood. Tuesday I went to Drinking Club at Maritime and talked to Sean and Riva about Foursquare and other geo-location services. Not all will survive, I’m sure. Before that I picked up my fruit share from Brooklyn Farmacy. I resisted the urge to get an egg cream.

conferences

Upcoming Conferences

cupcakes and cocktails 008

I have been busy working on my career and business. Fourth quarter 2010 is going to be great. In October, I will be headed to Las Vegas for Blog World Expo. I will be speaking at Tech Munch Vegas on October 16th on the panel, Food Trends & Curating Flavors On The Web: How To Come Up With Great Content.

I am also planning on going to SXSW again next March. Please vote for my panel: Blogging & Social Media for Niche Audiences.

Two other unconferences on my radar is Pod Camp Philly and Lavish in Atlanta.

food and drink

Trip to the ATL and the BHAM

Mom and Dad at Birthday Luncheon

Last weekend, I flew down to Atlanta to celebrate both my mom’s birthday and my sister’s birthday. We went to Birmingham on Saturday and had a big family fish fry. Fried tilapia, catfish, shrimp, hush puppies, french fries, baked beans, cole slaw and homemade lemonade. Yum!  I forgot to take any pictures because I was too busy eating and talking to my cousins.  Next day, we had a luncheon for my mom and uncle who are twins to celebrate their 60th birthday. Above is a picture of my parents. It was a great weekend.

me

The #HowBlackPeopleUseTwitter Discussion Continues

After watching several of these hashtags from start to finish and talking to a few researchers who’ve studied trends on Twitter, I’ve got some potential answers to these questions. Black people—specifically, young black people—do seem to use Twitter differently from everyone else on the service. They form tighter clusters on the network—they follow one another more readily, they retweet each other more often, and more of their posts are @-replies—posts directed at other users. It’s this behavior, intentional or not, that gives black people—and in particular, black teenagers—the means to dominate the conversation on Twitter.-Farhad Manjoo

Slate’s article on the subject.  The hubbub surrounding #howblackpeopleusetwitter goes from–to use a term from the Bush era—shock and awe.  It appears that “Calvin” and his friends are using Twitter.   I just wish Chappelle Show was around to make fun of the whole thing.

blogs

Links From BlogHer

Post BlogHer, I am cleaning out my purse of all the business cards I collected and want to share links of some great women. Check these out.

Owning Pink, a wonderful site for women.

Make and Takes, a craft/food/fun blog with projects for kids.

168hours, blog and book by Laura Vanderkam.

Momotics, where motherhood meets the politics of parenthood. Danielle loves cupcakes.

WLB Consultants, a blog about work life balance by Chrysula Winegar.

Mighty Girl,  lots of mighty stuff from Maggie Mason.

Carley Knobloch, life and career coach, productivity expert.

Mocha Momma, the funniest card I got at BlogHer.  It says “Mocha Momma will cut a bitch”.

Angela Haynes, mixed media artist

I’m remembering, a pop culture nostalgia blog. Hillary Buckholtz is someone I have know online via emails and Facebook for years and we finally met at BlogHer.  Yay!

blogs

BlogHer 2010

1 Comment

nichecupcake
Cheryl Contee of Jack and Jill Politics took the picture of me.

BlogHer has evolved tremendously since I attended the first conference back in August of 2005 in San Jose. There were only 300 attendees then, but it was a remarkable feat because blogging was still “new”. Blogging was not considered mainstream, and also not considered “women’s work”. Blogging then was equal parts confessional, conversational and confrontational. Most of the influential bloggers were men back then but Lisa, Elisa and Jory knew differently. They created a community where women can blog and now there is more content that is more informational and inspirational as well as being confessional, conversational and confrontational. The totality of voices is what Blogher has facilitated and that is great.

I didn’t attend any of BlogHer parties this year, mainly to stave off even more information overload. Part of me still feels like I am still recovering from SXSW back in March. Attending conferences is actually hard work mentally with so much information absorbed in a short amount of time. It is hard to remember anyone’s names or what they blog about, what twitter handle to start following or what URL to bookmark.

Instead, I enjoyed learning about how to run for office and how to increase traffic to my blogs. I ran into friends I met at SXSW, Foodbuzz, Blogging While Brown, Techmunch as well as fellow New York City bloggers. It was great to see them all.

me

Job Seach Is Not Career Strategy

Estee Lauder
Yesterday I attended Media Bistro’s Career Circus.  Career Circus is a conference where  HR professionals,  career specialists and job coaches gave advice on how to have the career you want.  I really enjoyed the event and I learned a lot. Here are some of the nuggets of advice from the panelists.

  • Job search is not career strategy.
  • Personal branding is necessary.
  • Bad careers happen when people don’t make decisions.
  • Don’t ask to be validated.
  • Regarding passion: “nothing beats giving a damn”
  • done is better than perfect

Estee Lauder was one of the sponsors of Career Circus and they provided makeup artists to give makeovers and a photographer to take your picture. They even supplied a thumb drive of your pictures, and now I have new pictures of myself.

Michelle Madhok of She Finds recommends reading Seth Godin’s The Dip.  To learn software, she also recommended taking online classes available on Lynda.

me

Hot Dog Cookoff

hotdofcookoffcollage
Saturday was lovely day to grill hot dogs in Brooklyn. This was my third competing in the Great Hot Dog Cookoff. Julian was my sous chef again this year and our hot dog was the English Breakfast Dog. We didn’t place but we had a wonderful time eating hot dogs, drinking beer and dancing in the street. It was truly a block party held outside Kelso Brewery in Fort Greene. Thanks to Kara Masi who puts on a wonderful and fun event with proceeds going to City Harvest.

See photos on MetroMix
Read Epicurious‘ recap