Great thoughts on pursuing your passion by my friend Jenn Downs.
Blog
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Super Happy Block Party: Greater Augusta
On June 1 – as part of the National Day of Civic Hacking – Super Happy Block Party will be held at TheClubhou.se. Augusta’s goal is to bring hackers and artists together to help build a greater Augusta. They’re planning to have several curated challenges, but participants will be encouraged to create their own projects as well, using available data. They’ll be focusing primarily on Health, Happiness and Open Public Data. (The party will last from 1-9p and the hackathon will run from 1p-1a.)
About #HackForChange — The National Day of Civic Hacking is a national event that will take place June 1-2, 2013, in cities across the nation. The event will bring together citizens, software developers, and entrepreneurs from all over the nation to collaboratively create, build, and invent new solutions using publicly-released data, code and technology to solve challenges relevant to our neighborhoods, our cities, our states and our country. National Day of Civic Hacking will provide citizens an opportunity to do what is most quintessentially American: roll up our sleeves, get involved and work together to improve our society.
The event will leverage the expertise and entrepreneurial spirit of those outside federal, state and local government to drive meaningful, technology-based solutions for federal, state and local government. It demonstrates what’s possible when we all work together to strengthen our society and our lives. YOU can make a difference no matter where you live.
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Victoria Stilwell is a bully.
When celebrities use their influence to incite their fans to attack and harass random internet strangers, they have a responsibility to apologize if/when they’re wrong. Victoria Stilwell posted a link on her Facebook wall (102,000+ Likes) to a video my friend posted of his son with his well-trained English Mastiff. She encouraged her followers to harass Wyatt and “let him know how stupid he is”. She’s apologized for how her fans reacted, but has yet to apologize directly to Wyatt for the damage this attack has caused. Victoria Stilwell is a bully.
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Web Afternoon is coming to Augusta.
I’ve been toying with the idea of planning a conference in Augusta for quite some time. They’re a lot of work and I could never get the timing right. (And there’s the whole, I’ve never planned a conference thing.) And then J started Web Afternoon in October 2011. I loved the half-day format. I loved that he was able to pull it together in a month. Fast forward to last fall. J brought Web Afternoon to Charlotte with Bermon Painter.With local support and a great framework to base it on, I saw that Web Afternoon could go just about anywhere.
So, on May 18, Web Afternoon is coming to Augusta. Tickets are only $39 through March 16. I’m nervous and excited, but super happy to be bringing something so awesome to Augusta. I hope to see you there.
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In Motion
[vimeo]https://vimeo.com/59779374[/vimeo]
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TheClubhou.se
Last month, something happened in Augusta that I’ve wished for ever since I started working downtown: a coworking space opened up. TheClubhou.se, located at 816 Broad Street, is one part workspace, one part meeting space, one part workshop. While it’s currently geared towards Augusta’s technology crowd, it’s really designed for anyone interested in working and learning alongside other smart people. (Disclosure: I’m a member and minor partner in the TheClubhou.se.)
Who should be a member of TheClubhou.se? Freelancers. Telecommuters. Makers. Hackers. Photographers. Craftsmen. Writers. Marketers. Entrepreneurs. Basically: anyone interested in learning, sharing, collaborating, or building. The space will only get better as it’s membership grows more diverse.
What does membership entail? Being a member costs $100/month. It gets you 24/7 access to the facilities. You’ll get free high-speed access. A first-come, first-serve desk. Access to things like a 3D Printer. Free workshops. And more.
Want more info? Check out http://theclubhou.se, or check them out on Facebook or Twitter.
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Approved: Pens
Approved Pens
I’m eyeing #2 pretty hard. -
Upcoming Conferences
I’ll be attending at least two web conferences in the next two months. (And possibly a third.) First up: A Web Afternoon in Charlotte, NC on 22 September. Then there’s Converge Florida in Tallahassee, FL on 4-5 October. In both cases, these are events that were successful enough in their home towns – Atlanta & Columbia SC respectively – that they’ve taken their shows on the road.
I like to describe A Web Afternoon as a half-day of awesomeness. (Tickets are only $49 if you snag one before 19 September. Follow @webafternoon on Twitter and there may even be promo codes to make your ticket even cheaper.)
Converge FL is an exceptional two-day conference. The first day is full of workshops. Day 2: awesome speaker after awesome speaker. Speakers include Leslie Jensen-Inman, Chris Coyier, Cameron Moll, Carl Smith, Jina Bolton, J Cornelius… and the list goes on. Tickets are still available for $250.00.
So what am I doing at these conferences? I’ll be live-tweeting from them. If you can’t attend either, follow @webafternoon or @convergese on the day of the events. Closer to each event I’ll share official hashtags and alternate accounts for both just in case I get rate-limited.
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Back to Basics
I haven’t given up on Tersus. I’m trying to get into the habit of posting more and I felt like having an incomplete theme was too much of a distraction for me (and for anyone else who might stumble across my site). In the meantime, I’ve switched to using the wonderfully designed,
Twenty ElevenTwenty Twelve theme. Will it stay this way for long?I hope not.If it encourages me to write more, maybe.Speaking of habits, I’m working on becoming more productive. How am I hoping to accomplish that? I’ve installed RescueTime on my Mac and it tracks my web browsing and app usage and has a running dashboard available that I can view and see exactly how productive I’ve been each day. The other thing I’m doing is using an app called SelfControl. SelfControl lets you create a blacklist of distracting sites. Once its running, you can’t turn it off.
I’m hoping these two changes will help me stay more focused and, in turn, I’ll get more shit done.
