Category Archives: Conferences

Digital Capital Week

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I’m really excited for Washington DC’s very first Digital Capital Week (DC Week), which kicks off on Friday.  DC Week is “a 10 day festival in Washington DC focused on technology, innovation and all things digital in our nation’s capital.”  It’s being co-produced by Frank & Jen at Shiny Heart Ventures and Peter & the gang at iStrategyLabs.

I remember when the current generation of the DC tech community was just 20 people sitting around a conference table drinking beer.   It’s crazy to think that we now have a world-class 10 day festival.   It’s a community that I’m so proud to be a part of.

I’m doing my best to be at as many of the parties as possible but you’ll also be able find me speaking on some panels. There’s two. One is Tuesday, June 15th, at 6:00 PM at 1410Q (1410 Q St NW ) on “Hacking Social Networks in Real Life.” The second is Friday, June 18, at 1:00 PM at the UMC Conference Facility (900 Massachusetts Avenue, NW) on “When Failure and Criticism Are Public.”

If you’re going to be there, come find me and say hello.

TransparencyCamp – My Thoughts The Day Before…

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So… tomorrow, I’m attending TransparencyCamp here in Washington, DC. It’s going to be a convening of the tribe of people who’re interested in sharing “knowledge on how to use new technologies to make our government transparent and meaningfully accessible to the public.”

Now more then ever our federal government needs Transparency. Yesterday, President Barack Obama presented us with his $3.55 trillion dollar spending plan for 2010. *gulps* That’s a lot of money. Thats an incomprehensible amount of money.

If we’re going to be forced to accept this radical increase in the size of government then bureaucrats need to go out of their way to forge a new relationship of trust with the American people. If they’re going to ask for all this money, they need be reporting back to me on a regular basis about what they’re doing with it and what kind of return we’re getting.

These are the discussions that I’m hoping will be had this weekend at TransparencyCamp. I hope that the organizers are able to attract more then just the advocates and the thought leaders. They need to bring the decision makers to the table. That’s the only way we’re going to get change. Let’s get some people to lay it on the line and start making and announcements and commitments to making this happen, otherwise it’s just an intellectual exercise.

Will you be at TransparencyCamp this weekend? If so, drop me an e-mail. I’d love to meet up. – justin@clearspring.com


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Government 2.0 Camp in Washington D.C. on March 27-28th

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After my tenure serving the Library of Congress, the notion of Government 2.0 has a special place in my heart.  It’s why I’m so excited about Government 2.0 Camp coming to Washington, DC on March 27-28th.  This is an unconference being organized by Maxine Teller and Peter Corbett, my co-organizer for BarCampDC 2.  It should be epic.

This is the description they give:

Government 2.0 Camp is the unconference that will bring together the leading thinkers from government, academia and industry to share Government 2.0 initiatives that are already in process and collaborate about how to leverage social media tools and Web 2.0 technologies to create a more collaborate, efficient and effective government — Government 2.0.

I’m definitely going to be there.  This event also kicks off Government 2.0 Club which looks quite interesting.

Update: There are two other organizers for this event: Dr. Mark Drapeau and Jeffrey Levy.

Rickshaw Bags, Blurb, and the Griffin AirCurve – The Coolest Things I Saw At MacWorld

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Over the last few days, I’ve gotten a few questions about what are the coolest things that I saw at MacWorld.  Here’s a rundown of what’s on the top of my list…

Probably, one of the coolest things I saw were the laptop/commuter bags from Rickshaw Bagworks.  Yes, I was most impressed by a bag company.  As someone commutes an hour to work everyday,  you really start to desire something which  is going to better meet your needs.

The company was started by a former employee of the Timbuk2 bag company.   He saw a lot of things that they weren’t doing and he wanted to do differently so he started his own company.  When he told me about the bag, he went through how every inch was purposefully created to serve some purpose.  For example, the bag can stand upright when you put it on the ground.  I could do a whole post on them.  Lets just say I was just really impressed.

Secondly, I was really impressed by the online bookmaker Blurb.  They provide you the tools so that you can design, create, and order your own books, for reasonable prices.  And… these books are GORGEOUS.

The coolest part was that Blurb was launching a community for creative professionals Blurb Nation.  If you’re looking to create a book but feel like you’d want the help of someone with design skills, you can tap into a member of Blurb Nation.   With people throughout the country getting laid off and deciding to become independent/freelance, I think the companies that create this type of ecosystems around themselves is really smart.

Lastly, one of the things that most impressed me was Griffin’s iPhone acoustic amplifier AirCurve.   For a while now, I’ve been looking at these different devices which turn by iPhone into a boombox.  Due to the typical price tag ($120-200), I’ve never made the jump.

The AirCurve, which is $20, is essentially a hunk rectangular plastic that is curved on the inside like an ear.  When you set your iPhone in it, the sound is amplified by 10x.  It’s pretty outstanding.  I was bummed that Griffin wasn’t selling these at their booth.  I probably would’ve bought one.

So… What’s the Future of Web Design?

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For the last three days, I’ve had the pleasure of being in NYC.   I came up for the Future of Web Design that was put on by the crew at Carsonified.

While I believe Ryan Carson and the crew at Carsonified did a fantastic job with the event and I thought the content was pretty outstanding, I left the event with one looming question, “What is the Future of Web Design?”

Isn’t the title the “Future of Web Design”?  So… I expected someone to get up and say that “The future of web design is [blank].”

Ryan Singer of 37signals had a good talk entitled “The future of web app interface design” but he seemed to just talk about how designers need to be more knowledgeable about the development process. As many will attest, I’m not a designer.  So… maybe I just don’t get it but that doesn’t sound at all like a revolutionary idea.

In their talks, I think both Mike Kus of Carsonified and Nick La of ndesign-studio somewhat pointed to the idea that there is a certain level of art that needs to be brought back into design.  Mike Kus showed some of his amazing and very intricate Web design that he first starts with pencil and paper, which was kind of cool.

But… is this the future of Web design?  What do you guys think?  What does the future hold?

Join Us for Beers Tonight at The Ginger Man in NYC

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I’m sitting on the train on my way to New York City.  I’m really excited because not only is tomorrow Election Day but tomorrow is the Future of Web Design Conference.

To celebrate, I thought it’d be fun to get folks together for some beers and good times.

So… if you’re going to be in NYC tonight at 8pm, stop by the The Ginger Man.  It’s at 11 East 36th St.

It’s got this rock list of beers on draft.  According to their Web site, they just loaded up Rouge Double Dead Guy Ale.  (What?  There is a Double Dead Guy Ale?!?! I’ve just had Dead Guy.)

I setup a FB event page.  If you RSVP, I’ll know to look for you but you don’t have to RSVP.  Just look for me.

Got a Ticket for Future of Web Apps Miami in February 2009

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Today, the cool kids at Carsonified released 100 conference tickets for $100 and 20 conference/workshop tickets for $200 for their Future of Web Apps (FOWA) conference in Miami on February 22-24, 2009.

I was lucky enough to snag a conference/workshop ticket for $200. :-) So… I’ll see you guys in Miami at the end of February.  I’m super excited!!!!

I had so much fun at FOWA Miami this year.  I met so many great people and made a ton of great friends.

Shameless Plug – Please Vote for My SXSW Panels

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It’s that time of year again where we all make shameless plugs for our South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) Festival panels that we proposed.  The fun this year is that I get to join in the fun.

At Clearspring, we’ve submitted a number of different proposals which I think are pretty cool and would LOVE your vote.

Also… my buddy Nick has submitted a panel that he’s asked me to sit on.  It’s entitled, “Building Entrepreneurial Communities Outside the Valley.“

For those of you who can take a few minutes and throw us a vote, I sincerely appreciate it and I can’t wait for next year’s SXSW.

In San Fran This Week for Under the Radar Conf. and Meeting Folks

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Early tomorrow morning, I’ll be taking the flight to San Francisco from Washington DC National Airport.  Tuesday I’ll be at the Under the Radar conf.  The rest of the week I’ll just be meeting with a bunch of different folks.

I definitely love the West coast, especially San Fran. I’m excited about this trip.

If you wanna meet up in San Fran, i’d love to grab coffee or a beer.  Just drop a comment in this post or e-mail me – justin@clearspring.com

TechCocktail: Micah Baldwin on “SEO is All Grown Up”

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Probably my other favorite presentation at TechCocktail was by my friend Micah Baldwin, the VP of Biz Dev at Lijit Networks.  He talked about SEO.

Now I’ve heard a lot of talks on SEO.  Most made me feel dirty or like I was trying to get black magic.  This was a breath of fresh air.

Micah went through some very practical tips and best practices for Web development that not only help SEO but are just good practices in general.

Like…

  • Keep your code clean
  • Keep your code minimal
  • Keep your content focused
  • Keep your content short
  • Keep your clear
  • Have good content

He even went over his own SEO experiment of how he became the #1 douchebag on Google… and he became #3 after previously not being ranked it all on the term.

Check his preso out at: http://learntoduck.com/douchebag.pptx

June 1, 2008 – UPDATE: Micah put his preso on Scribd: http://www.scribd.com/doc/3167777/Douchebag-SEO