Back in November, Jeanne Brooks (fellow member of Tech LadyMafia) reached out to me to ask for me to speak at an upcoming hackathon for Fusion RiseUp. Though I’ve spoken at events before, for the most part it had been through JCC Association and JCC events. I had never been asked to speak as me, as a professional.
To be honest, I was surprised. I couldn’t help but wonder, in the pool of amazing women that we belong to, why would she ask me? Of course, that may have had something to do with a bit of my own confidence issues in the moment, but what came back was a list of reasons as to why I was indeed more than qualified.
As nervous as I was, I said yes. This was not an opportunity that I could miss. And boy, am I glad I did.
Instead of speaking about development or hacking in a traditional sense, I spoke about building community. Back in November 2012, I attended NASA Social Final Journey of Atlantis. As you may (or may not) know, even getting to Orlando was an adventure (thanks Hurricane Sandy). Community building carried on long after the event ended, and there is now a group of individuals that are a part of my extended network with a shared love for all things space.
A friend of mine recently posted an article from The Atlantic, “A Eulogy for Twitter”, questioning the validity. I spent time reading and rereading, thinking about what this article meant. Was it true? Is Twitter the next MySpace? I thought I’d share my response here, in a more pubic forum.
While good points are made, saying that Twitter is entering its twilight seems awfully extreme. Platforms grow and change, and then immediately people balk and say, “We are leaving. We don’t like it anymore. It’s different. We hate change.” That being said, it has grown exponentially in the past few years. It’s become common place for professionals to be expected to have one and for businesses to have a presence.
Is Twitter overrun with spammers and bots? Yes. Is there a lot of noise and hateful negativity? Also yes. Can you choose to tune that out and still have meaningful conversations? I guess it depends on how big your audience is. Maybe not for the Justin Biebers of the world who have millions of followers (and let’s be honest, probably isn’t having meaningful dialogue ANYWAY), but for the average joe, yes. Read More
I recently read an article on Inc titled “11 Reasons a 23-Year-Old Shouldn’t Run Your Social Media.” Let me start off by saying that yes, I did read the generalization pardon. Yes, people shouldn’t be hired just because they are “really good at Facebook” (that’s how my parents describe what I do, because they’re not social media savvy). No one should ever be hired “just because.”
That being said, “just because” someone is a new graduate doesn’t mean they are ill-equipped to work in the professional world. I would bet that it’s these types of generalizations that are helping keep the unemployment rate up for new graduates.Read More
Yes, that’s two #msupw folks – Mike McLeod, faculty, and Alexandra White, alum – with a space shuttle. This happened because we were both selected to attend the NASA Social Atlantis – Celebrate the Journey event to see the Space Shuttle Atlantis be permanently retired from service and share that experience on social media. We attended this event first as unabashed space nerds, but we managed our nerdery well enough to strategize our writing to document the experience for ourselves and for our audiences. Here we’ll reflect on the rhetoric of the event, our social writing strategies, and shamelessly geek out over space.Read More
It was another bright and early day for NASA Social, with our arrival at the rocket gardens at 9AM. The theme of the day was saying goodbye, having the last few moments to explore Kennedy Space Center and then spend some serious time with the shuttle. This time, however, we were joined by several thousand more people.
I could droll on and on about the logistics, but really it was a day spent with the shuttle. One great moment before we got to Exploration Park (where we could see the shuttle being moved) was a special appearance by NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden. He came aboard the NASA Social bus to say “Hello!” and answer a few questions.Read More
It’s hard to come back at the end of the day and remember all of the awesomeness that was NASA Social. Even harder will be breaking it down to a blog post that not only makes sense, but has some value to you, the reader.
Warning: This WILL be full of geeking out and general nerdery.
At the start of the day, we introduced ourselves via Twitter handles, names, and an interesting fact. As last in the circle, my two stories had been told (the journey to Atlantis and the last shuttle launch). I declared that I am probably one of the luckiest people, and that I was so happy to be a part of a group of people as geeked about space, shuttles, and social media as I am. We quickly moved in towards the rocket garden for a group photo before we saw Kennedy Space Center, learned about NASA’s old and new programs, and had general nerd out sessions.
