FollowFriday
#FF
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 05/14/2010 - 09:55@RobDrabkin @nhso @ripple100 @andreayap @AmyDesmarais @jwierin @shesosocial @JaymesGrace @timtracey @followcb @MatthewBrowning
It may seem strange to include @RobDrakin, an obscure rock musician from Denver Colorado and the New Haven Symphony Orchestra which has been performing in New Haven for over a century, but there is actually an important theme.
Recently, I wrote a blog post entitled High Speed Social Fiber. It was about New Haven’s efforts to be a test bed for Google’s High Speed Fiber project. I mentioned how @andreayap and @ripple100 have been working with others to promote New Haven using social media. I suggested it is strengthening the social fiber of New Haven, whether or not New Haven gains the benefits of Google’s Fiber.
Thanks to Andre and Ripple100, a group of people interested in the use of social media to strengthen the fiber of communities attended last night’s performance by the New Haven Symphony Orchestra. It was a great performance.
As I listened to the majesty of Beethoven’s Eighth and Ninth Symphonies, I thought of the themes running together; starting in the violins, echoed in the basses, taken up by the horns. It reflected, for me, the nature of social media. While there is something beautiful about a solo violin, or a single message online, there is also great beauty achieved when the message or theme is repeated and moves from section to section. It applies to a symphony of social media as well as it does to a classical symphony. The folks that Andrea and Ripple100 gathered for the symphony last night are some of the best performers in the social media space.
So, what does this have to do with Rob? He, like Katie Garibaldi whom I mentioned last week, is a young musician who is using Twitter to promote his music. Will he join with other online musicians to create some sort of new symphony of social media? I hope so.
#ff
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 05/07/2010 - 17:08@katiegaribaldi @viennateng @aidenjamestour @iHobo @songsalive
I’ve been busy with a collection of technology and music issues during the day, and haven’t really gotten a good chance to write a long blog post. So, I’m doing a simple Follow Friday blog post talking about some musicians on Twitter.
Recently, I entered an agreement with Sonicbids to review emerging artists that submit their electronic press kits for me to review. Typically, there is a page with a brief biography, and perhaps a few links, a page with half a dozen songs, and a few other related pages. Often people include links to other pages they have online. MySpace and ReverbNation tend to top the list. Every once in a while, I find a link to Twitter or Facebook.
The first person to submit their music to me was Katie Garibaldi. Since she submitted her music, I’ve received about two dozen other submissions, so I’m still going through them and trying to decide who I’ll highlight on Monday. However, besides being first, Katie also has links to her twitter account, @katiegaribaldi and her Facebook Fan Page. I’ve followed her in both places and encourage others to do the same.
Her bio also mentions that she “volunteers as the San Francisco chapter coordinator of the non-profit organization that supports artists and songwriters, Songsalive”. (@songsalive)
With this as a starting point, I thought I would highlight a few other musicians whom I like that are on Twitter. They are all musicians that I heard at Falcon Ridge Folk Festival. They include @viennateng, @aidenjamestour and @iHobo. I’ve added all of these into my music list on Twitter.
Check out these fine musicians, and if you follow other good musicians I should follow on Twitter, let me know.
#ff @SMCNewHaven #cttu
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 04/16/2010 - 11:15@AmyDesmarais @shesosocial @Malafronte @suzicraig @EnzaDandeneau @sbc111 @cdschein @cellularchloe @theMattCrouch @yougottacall
It has been a while since I did a Follow Friday post, but yesterday was a busy social media day, so I thought I would highlight some of the meetings and who I ran into.
The first meeting was Social Media Club, New Haven. @AmyDesmarais of Ripple100 was there, as was Giulia Gambale Gouge of SheSoSocial. We talked a little bit about how the Social Media Club of New Haven could interact with groups like the Connecticut Tweetcrawl and the planning of the Connecticut Podcamp. However, much of the discussion focused on Best Buddies of Connecticut and what the Social Media club could do for them.
I also met Paul Malafronte. Paul does a lot of Joomla work and I do a lot of Drupal work. I’ve been looking for a Joomla expert to handle requests that I sometimes get and cannot handle, and I ended up referring a request I receive to him today.
The second stop of the day was the CT Tweet Crawl. I’ve been to various Tweet Crawls in the past, so it was great to see some old friends. I had a good talk with @SuziCraig about Drupal and Google Maps. @sbc111 also joined in on the discussion. I also spoke a bit with @EnzaDandeneau. Enza is a realtor from Marlborough, where the Tweetup was. She brought in people from the Marlborough Business Association to help them understand how social media could help their businesses. I don’t know how much additional business the Tweet Crawlers brought to the Marlborough Tavern, but there were a bunch of us there for drinks.
I had a few other good discussions, and wanted to particularly shout out to @cdschein @cellularchloe @theMattCrouch @yougottacall. It was a good day for social media networking and I look forward to upcoming Social Media Club of New Haven meetings and CT Tweet Crawls.
#ff #gov20ne
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 03/05/2010 - 18:23@deborah909 @shava23 @colinrhinesmith @sarahebourne @corbett3000 @gtremblay
Tomorrow morning, I will head up to Boston to attend #gov20ne, an unconference about using social media tools and Web 2.0 technologies to create a more effective, efficient and collaborative government.
It has been a long time since I put up a Follow Friday post, and I thought this might provide a good reason to do so. The way I do my Follow Friday posts is that I write it as a blog post, with the people I’m following in the first line. This then gets picked up by TwitterFeed and sent to Twitter, and from there to Facebook, FriendFeed and who knows where all else.
This week’s list is of people that have signed up for #gov20ne that I know already or seem particularly interesting.
I’m not sure exactly when I met @deborah909. I believe it was at some gathering of technologists interested in non-profits. She is an interesting person and I always enjoy seeing here.
I think the first time I met @shava23 face to face was at a Media Giraffe Project gathering. However, there is a good chance that we had met previously in Second Life and perhaps other places online. She also ranks high on my list of interesting people that it is fun to run into.
@colinrhinesmith and have been emailing back and forth about community media and citizen journalism. In a recent discussion we tried to figure out if we’ve actually met, and if so, where. I think we may have met at some of the Media Giraffe Project or New England News Forum gatherings. Not only do I look forward to seeing him at #gov20ne, but I am especially interested in what he is arranging for the Alliance for Community Media National Convention in Pittsburgh this July.
I don’t believe I’ve met @sarahebourne. She is the Mass.Gov Chief Technology Strategist for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. I believe she was involved in getting @Massgovernor on Twitter and I started following her through as a result of that. She may also be friends of some of my social media friends from Massachusetts, which may have been how I found out about @Massgovernor being on Twitter in the first place.
@corbett3000 is the CEO of iStrategy Labs. He has been involved with Apps for Democracy and #gov20dc. I don’t believe we’ve met but we may have crossed paths online.
@gtremblay works in the Commonwealth CTO's office. His name is really familiar to me, but I can’t place exactly why. The odds are we are on some mailing lists in common or something like that.
Of course, some of what is really interesting about unconferences is the unexpected encounters. It will be great to see Deborah, Shava and Colin again, as well as hearing what Peter and Glenn have to say. However, some of the most interesting discussions may just well come people who I don’t know yet.
Follow Friday #NaNoWriMo Author @renegadegenius
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 11/13/2009 - 06:57The sound of heavy wind outside only adds to my desire to stay warm and comfortable under the bed covers. It is five in the morning and dark outside. Is the wind and rain are the remnant of Hurricane Ida? I’m not sure but it may make the ride a bit longer. All the more reason to get out of bed and get going.
This weekend is Junior Dad’s Weekend at Mary Baldwin College in Virginia. Miranda, also known as @renegadegenius is a junior this year and wants to do the whole Junior Dad thing. Her older sister @MaireadCH is a senior at Mary Baldwin. She didn’t want to do the Junior Dad thing.
I can understand that. I never was one for a lot of ceremony and the Junior Dad events reek of college marketing infused with old southern ceremony. “Few events in a young woman’s life are more memorable than the day she receives her MBC class ring,“ the page starts off.
Events kick off this afternoon with a “VWIL Honor Ceremony”. VWILs are the members of the Virginia Women’s Institute for Leadership, “the nation’s premier leadership program for young women” and “the only all-female Corps of Cadets in the world”.
But @MaireadCH and @renegadegenius are not VWIL’s, they are PEGs. PEG is Mary Baldwin’s Program for the Exceptionally Gifted. Like many of their friends in classmates in the PEG Program at Mary Baldwin, @MaireadCH and @renegadegenius both started college at fourteen. It has been a very different sort of experience for both of them, but for both of them, a wonderful, rich and fulfilling experience.
I am not used to all this Dad stuff. I grew up in a family that was not particularly close knit, and only recently, as my father’s brother struggles through Alzheimer’s, have I reconnected with my father and his side of my family. At home, we’ve always tried to talk with our children as peers. They have important thoughts to share and should be part of much of the family decisions. We joke around, and they see me in all my warts, or at least all except a few that I might still manage to hide.
There are times that I feel my life has been hard. The failure of my first marriage was very hard on me. I’ve been very successful at times in my career financially. At other times the successes have been harder won and not financial, but perhaps even more meaningful.
Because of this, I have not been able to give my children everything I wish that I could, and each of them has missed out on things one way or another because of my own inadequacies. Yet each of them are turning out wonderfully.
@renegadegenius, now sixteen, is writing her third novel as part of National Novel Writing Month, or #NaNoWriMo. She self published her first two novels, Subtle Differences and The Silent Serian. I am a couple days behind in my writing, but @renegadegenius is all up to date.
Another struggle I have as a father is how best to praise my children. They are special and I am very proud of them. I don’t want their heads to swell and I don’t want to stimulate sibling rivalries so I am careful in heaping my praises on them. On the other hand, I don’t want them to go through life not knowing how much their father loves and admires them.
So, this weekend, I am driving down through the wind and the rain to celebrate but a portion of Miranda’s many successes. I will dress up and where nice clothes for the “My Precious Someone Champagne Brunch” and the “Junior Dads & Family Ball”. Yet all of this will fall short of giving her the due that she deserves.
Am I a proud dad? Oh yeah!
