South by Southwest Interactive has evolved into a truly massive event -- with up to twelve simultaneous sessions at a time and scores of official and unofficial parties each night. As most vets will advise, your best bet is simply to ride the wave and explore new ideas since you can't catch it all or meet everyone if you tried.

So, in no particular order, my gross generalizations from this year while it's still fresh: more

Hey y'all. We had so much fun at our own 5 yr anniversary robot party at drupalcon last week that we're doing it all over again (kind of, not really) in Austin this wknd during South by Southwest.

As usual, we'll be rolling deep: Tina, Cristen, Ethan, Alan, and I will all be there, against the best advice of the people who try to keep us profitable. more

An older woman living on the third floor of my building was found dead in her apartment last night, on January 5th. Sadly, she had been dead for weeks. Others in the building were surprised when she didn't show up to the holiday party -- on December 17th -- but then realized something must be wrong when the TV had been blaring for days and the newspapers and mail started piling up after the holidays. more

My cousin Jake is a sophomore in high school in Westchester County, New York.  At one point during our family's Thanksgiving (and amidst an endless string of "how's school!?" questions that I don't miss at all), Jake casually referenced an interesting site called www.turnitin.com.

Jake and his fellow classmates are required to upload their essays and term papers to turnitin.com instead of submitting a hard copy to their teachers. Intrigued by how times have changed since we had to walk uphill to school both ways, I checked out the site. more

The Obama campaign's plan to announce their V.P. pick via SMS was a brilliant stroke, and the sheer number of people engaged with the campaign via text has already earned the campaign a place in political history (not that there was any question).

Unfortunately, the announcement didn't go as planned. Both the campaign as well as their most connected supporters have reason to be frustrated, and there are lessons here for all of us in the worlds of online politics, campaigning, organizing, and communications (keep reading!).

I'm quoted in two AP stories yesterday (here and here) about Obama's Biden pick as saying, "This is like finding out from your neighbor instead of your sister that she's engaged: not how you want or expect the news to be delivered."

There's a bit more to the overall story that didn't make its way into the coverage (surprise!), so i'll elaborate below. But for those still bitter about not receiving their text message, I think we'll need to give the campaign a pass on this one, after what was surely a long and bumpy night largely outside of their control. more

I'm just back from co-leading a 3-day social technology training in Toronto for some incredible nonprofits and social enterprises across North America. And almost everyone attending could be described as their organization's lonely internet person, struggling to get web strategies implemented. If this sounds like you, read on.

Refreshingly, after the strategy and tools conversations on day one and two, we spent almost a full day on the organizational dynamics and "change management" needed to implement smart web strategies.

Here are some key take-aways from a workshop I led entitled, "Getting Web 2.0 Resourced at Your Brick-and-Mortar Organization."  As I see it, the biggest challenge with all this new media and technology stuff is getting it implemented; there are too many smart and well-meaning staffers at organizations and businesses who have their car but can't seem to get the engine started or shift into the fast lane.   more

Just before the holiday weekend, I had the honor of facilitating a call with Bill McKibben and an incredible group of almost a dozen bloggers -- from Julia at WorldChanging to Kristen at Motherhood Uncensored to Dave Roberts at Grist, and others. I'm pasting the audio of the call at the end of this post, so you can listen to the entire conversation with Bill.

Produced by our friends at Brighter Planet, the roundtable was a chance to dig into everything from carbon offsets to federal policy to personal carbon-cutting lifestyle changes.  more

Quick! Got a TV near you? Our latest project, MyCommitment.org, is going to be on TV today! Oh, and President Bill Clinton will be introducing it. Along with Martha Stewart. On her TV show. For almost a full hour. I'm not kidding, and, as you can imagine, it's making all of us a bit giddy.

MyCommitment.org launched this morning in conjunction with the Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting in New York City. The idea is simple: Global leaders, CEOs, organizations, and heads of state all come together each year to make massive commitments to help solve the world's greatest problems. But rather than letting the big whigs have all the fun, MyCommitment.org invites everyday citizens to participate in the pledging process with their own ways to make the world a better place. And just like at the CGI summit, every commitment that an individual makes must be specific, relevant, and trackable. more

I spent part of Saturday at the Berkeley farmer's market (well, one of them) visiting with a good friend and enjoying some truly perfect weather. One of our first stops was, of course, for coffee. The Blue Bottle Coffee Company had a booth where they were slow-brewing coffee cup by cup, as it was ordered, slow-food style. I ordered a special New Orleans iced coffee that was roasted with chicory and cane sugar -- it was pretty amazing. Something about the scene was particularly poignant, so I whipped out my Treo, snapped a pic, and dutifully emailed it up to Flickr with a simple caption before i forgot where i was. more