Above you’ll find a video from Jonny’s Partay, where I was interviewed on Wednesday, July 9 at 9pm.

There’s a bit of talk about AwayFind, some news about DC, and of course much of what I’ve been up to. From lifehacks to batching email to mobility and travel, hopefully this’ll keep you entertained.

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Two events this past week highlight both the size and maturity of the burgeoning web and social media community in Washington DC.

While the biggest roadblock to getting involved remains knowing where to start, Graphing Social Patterns and BlogPotomac show just how much we’ve regained our position on the map. Read on for highlights and a discussion of these events.

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The only thing more difficult than picking panels and parties at SXSW Interactive is sorting through the coverage afterwards. Here are my recommendations for kick-ass panels so that you can listen to or read more about them. It’s no replacement for being there, but it’s as close as you’re going to get now… Following my recommended panels I mention some party highlights and other ideas for good SXSW reading. Feel free to add your own recommendations or links in the comments below.

Note: I’ll update the podcast links as they become available on SXSW’s site.

Personal favorites

• Beyond the Blogosphere: How Online Talent is Being Developed Offline - this rockstar panel–Omid Ashtari (Creative Artist Agency), Damon Berger (Revision3), Brad King, (thedudeman.net), Nicole Lapin (CNN), and Gary Vaynerchuk (winelibrary.tv)–was packed full of valuable insight. Vaynerchuk was hilarious and there were questions and commentary with Tim Ferriss, Jeff Jarvis, Erik Nordby, Jim Louderback, and even Twanna Hines. This was a panel full of sharp people with conversation to match it. [podcast] [description on SXSW]
• Tools for Enchantment: 20 Ways to Woo Users - Kathy Sierra never fails to offer an enlightening perspective, and do it with wit & flare. Here she explains 20 ways to get your audience’s brains more interested in your message/product. She ends with a touching surprise that got everyone cheering. [podcast] [description on SXSW]
• The Art of Speed: Conversations With Monster Makers - This panel, moderated by Tim Ferriss, featured Mike Cassidy (XFire and others), Evan Williams (Twitter), and Cali Lewis (GeekBrief.TV). It offered a lot of creative ideas for growing a business rapidly. [podcast] [description on SXSW] [coverage]

Ones many others have recommended (I may add to this list) Continue reading…

I loathe reading articles about AOL’s downfall foreshadowing the death of DC’s technology scene. Last night’s event at Google DC certainly evoked within me a longing for the Valley, but there’s so much tech/entrepreneurial vibrancy here. I’d like to think that Google’s DC presence is a testament to that.

Photos:

dancingwithwords’ NetSquared at Google DC photoset

Last night’s event was put on by NetSquared DC, a group that educates while bringing together the non profit and technology sectors. We spent an hour in open discussion of the OneWorld.net web presence–and the conversation ranged from social media and Drupal to advocacy and business. There was energy, intelligence, passion. It felt right at home in the Googleplex.

I’m excited to see the way companies like Viget Labs and nclud are raising the bar of our local businesses’ web presence. The way social media outreach is taken to high levels of transparency and integrity by companies like Livingston Communications. And the way small startups and big are right at home here.

Last night I met Jake Brewer from idealist.org, as they also just opened a DC office. It’s great to see companies participate here, regardless of all the Valley talk lately. We’ve got a ways to go, but progress is being made by so many people.

This morning I spoke at a Meet the Members event for the Greater Baltimore Technology Council on the ROI of Social Media. It was great to see so many Baltimore & DC friends looking to get involved! Below you’ll find slides from the speakers that used slides, links to their websites, a video of my talk, and some places to go to get more involved in social media.

Greg Cangialosi of Blue Sky Factory:

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Just thought I’d share some photos and a video from the event this morning:

www.flickr.com dancingwithwords’ Jeff Pulver DC Breakfast photoset

And here’s a video I took of Jeff Pulver interviewing Jonny Goldstein on Qik while Jonny interviewed him on Utterz.

Well, there’s finally some coverage. DC Startup Weekend and the web 2.0 startups were mentioned in Monday’s paper (The Washington Post)!

• DC Startup Weekend
• Web 2.0 Startups in the DC area
• Photos from Startup Weekend (hey, I made it into two!)

Thank you to Kendra Marr and Zachary Goldfarb for taking the time to talk to so many of us and offer a small glimpse into a community that’s thriving and energetic.

My only hope was that they might make it easier for people to latch onto some of the groups and join in–so here’s a quick mention of a places to look if you happen to be coming here from the Post:

• DC’s tech discussion forum–The DC Technology Network
• The main list of DC area events going on this week–DC Tech Events Weekly
• Some geeky stuff for non-profit people–NetSquared
• The group that gets and deserves credit for having the biggest events and starting the longest ago (well, at least so far as the new groups)–Refresh DC

My guess is that there’ll be some more technology press soon, given the New New Internet Conference on Thursday in Reston. But either way, hat’s off to so many fantastic organizers for really bringing vibrancy and stability to a community that was just dying to get started.

DC Startup Weekend is almost over, but our launch is just underway. Over seventy passionate and talented people have come to one place to build a web application and a business over the course of fifty-four hours. That web application, which we had never even discussed or planned to work on prior, became HolaNeighbor.

Update, my photos are now up on Flickr.

We voted on an idea. We composed a business plan, architected a user experience, designed a beautiful website, developed a very-involved web application…and put it all together. Many of us didn’t know anyone, but after a little bit of a rocky start, the chemistry, cohesion, and excitement of our product launch paralleled that of any other. Maybe we rushed a little, but that was par for the course.

I’ve always felt the best way to meet people is in a setting where you can really offer your best, so they can learn what you bring to the table while contributing to something meaningful. Startup Weekend accomplished that, and accelerated the process of building some great relationships.If you’re curious about HolaNeighbor, Continue reading…

My head is spinning from all the excitement in the DC technology community. Over 90 people at an event on widgets this week? WTF!? nextDC, Refresh DC, Social Media Club, DC Bloggers, NoVA Open Coffee, NetSquared, Tech Tuesday, Lunch 2.0 (fyi, this is a random selection, and probably not accurate or complete)…and those are just the ones that want to meet monthly. The only thing to be sure of from all this: there’s a lot of Type A geeks inside the Beltway. But how will all this evolve into something sustainable, vibrant, more diverse, and larger than the sum of a few energetic parts?

I’ve spent the last five years networking with people who think online communities were invented in the last five months. My clients are primarily MBA & lawyer types, and my friends are mostly save-the-world liberal arts people. But every day I’d go through the geeky & design-y podcasts and RSS feeds, dreaming about the west coast. So I thought of starting a technology group in DC because I knew there would be people with similar passions. I purchased the domain silicondc.com and did what any entrepreneur would do: market research. That’s what led me to the cacophony of DC technology groups above. Needless to say, DC no longer needs me to bring people together to talk tech.

What the latest round of DC technology needs is a vision. Continue reading…

Yesterday was DC’s first BarCamp, and I hope it can set the tone for what’s to come in the DC technology community. Unlike the more business-oriented groups like NVTC, GBTC, DC Tech, and MD Hi-Tech, this was by tech people and for tech people. There were noticeable lacks of business topics, VC & legal attendees, and explanations of acronyms. It was beautiful.

The conference was organized by a team of volunteers and paid for by numerous sponsors. Fleishman-Hillard Inc. was kind of enough to donate their office space. There were no set topics, but the 110 attendees presented on 27 hot issues (with varying degrees of preparation). The topics ranged from user experience to Second Life to Getting Things Done. But more important than the details of the content was the energy of the attendees.

Not since the heyday of Netpreneur have there been so many people in one DC room so excited about what’s happening online. This was evidenced by the high level of conversation, the community-willingness to share, and the pure geekery of the attendees (everywhere I turned were MacBooks, iPhones, live bloggers, and people uploading photos to Flickr).

I can’t thank the organizers (Justin Thorp, Jason Garber, M. Jackson Wilkinson, Rodney Degracia, Martin Ringlein, Peter Corbett, Nick O’Neill, and Justin Stockton) enough for the time they so graciously volunteered. Without question this and the upcoming DC Startup Weekend will lead to more technology businesses, higher quality applications being developed, and many new friendships.

You can read some other good conversation about BarCamp at Russell Heimlich’s blog, the Viget Blog, and many other sites. And you can find hundreds of pictures on flickr. See you all next year!

tag: BarCampDC