I’m struggling to get back into the blog saddle after several weeks of travel and madness. I’m cooking up a couple special posts soon, but I wanted to take a moment and welcome all the newcomers who are happening upon Must. Be. AWESOME!!! for the first time.

WELCOME!

I just returned from four days in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where I attended the Sister Cities International (SCI) Annual Conference. I am a raging fan of Sister Cities, as you will see from some future blog posts, and I’m very proud to announce that I’ve been elected to SCI’s Board of Directors. This is a big deal to me as I’m following in the footsteps of my AWESOME mother, Mae Ferguson, who not only served on the board but acted as its president for two AWESOME years. I had an amazing time in ABQ where I met hundreds of new friends and colleagues from all over the world.

If you’re one of those new sisters or brothers, and you’re coming to the blog for the first time, I hope you enjoy it. I’m always open to feedback, so feel free to holler at me in the comments section of any post or via the contact form. I can’t wait to talk to you more!

This is Must. Be. AWESOME!!! Dot com.

Outgoing SCI Chairman (and personal friend & mentor to me), Mike Hyatt, from Albuquerque.

Apologies for the lack of updates over the past couple weeks. I’ve been wore out from traveling so much lately, and it’s been nice to just chill out at the hizzy with Mrs. Dufour for a while. That said, I’ve got some GREAT new content coming at you that I’ve managed to collect from my travels into AWESOME. Be on the lookout for a lot of fun posts soon.

In the interim, check out this hilarious Ke$ha / Star Trek mashup from the brilliant minds at Major Spoilers:

This is Must. Be. AWESOME!!! Dot com.

Mentally, physically, emotionally, and gubernatorially EXHAUSTED from the AWESOMENESS of this week. TWTRCON, the Corporate Social Media Summit, and #140conference DC have strung me out. On the road soon for a relaxing weekend in Charlottesville. Hope you have AWESOME plans for the weekend as well.

In the interim, I’d like to leave you with a meditation on AWESOME from Laura Fitton, creator of http://oneforty.com (a bank for Twitter apps). Laura spoke at TWTRCON NYC this week and rocked it with a really fun Twitter 101 preso. In this preso, she mashes that 101 course up with a challenge for all of us to be more AWESOME.

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• Photos: TWTRCON 2010 (laughingsquid.com)
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• Station Ident: TWTRCON NYC Bound (mustbeawesome.com)

I’m a little behind with commentary on the tweet-storms and blog-bangs about the Twitter Gov Liaison job. Lots of interesting discussion punctuated by occasional drumbeats of douchebaggery. I’ll try to get caught up with my writing on the train to New York Sunday as I depart DC for TWTRCON NYC!

I had a great time at TWTRCON DC last year, so this outing should be superfly TNT, especially with the last minute addition of BPTerry (he of the hilarious BPGlobalPR Twitter satire). I’ll also be attending the Corporate Media Summit on Tuesday and Wednesday on behalf of The Rendon Group. If you happen to be in the neighborhood, shoot me a holla so we can connect.

On a completely unrelated note, I leave you with this unreleased piece of AWESOME from my favorite (and sadly defunct) band, Oasis.

This is Must. Be. AWESOME!!! Dot com.

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Welcome to all of my new readers and visitors, and thanks for making my work here a better basket of radness. I hope you stick around for more AWESOME.

Here’s to better places…

View from the balcony of our suite at the Omni Royal Orleans in the French Quarter, New Orleans. March 2010.

This is Must. Be. AWESOME!!! Dot com.

Phew! Lots of conferences, workshops, and summits lately. Given that I love connecting and networking with people, I find that even the least relevant of conferences can yield super positive experiences.

Still, time is a commodity, and it’s sometimes hard to determine what’s worth your while. I used to work for a government program manager who used to tell me that meetings and conferences were a waste of time; that you spend more time trying to determine if the event is worthwhile than actually working. We always butted heads about this because my view was that even at the most time-wasting event, you can still find value if you know where to look and you have an objective.

I’m getting ready to board a train to New York for the Social Business Edge conference put on by Stowe Boyd. Despite missing all of The Dachis Group‘s Social Business Summits this year, I’m still convinced that social business is the new big concept for strategic thinkers and planners. Since this is a path on which I intend to take @Du4.llc, I’m willing to “waste” a little time and money connecting with this community, integrating some of their skills into my business offerings, and, hopefully, booking some work.

Here are a couple places you can catch me over the next couple months. Feel free to holler at me if you want to connect in person in and around any of these events:

• New York, April 18-20 (Social Business Edge)
• Los Angeles, May 2-4 (super secret squirrel engagements!)
• Washington, DC, May 10-14 (reporting on and conducting workshop seminars linked to InfoWarCon 2010)
• Washington, DC, May 25-27 (presenting at Gov 2.o Expo)
• New York, June 2-5 (tentatively attending Personal Democracy Forum 2010)
• New York, June 13-14 (TWTRCON 2010)
• New York, June 15-16 (Corporate Media Summit)
• Albuquerque, July 28-31 (Sister Cities International Annual Conference… where I hope to be elected to the board of directors!)

Thanks for reading and participating. This is Must. Be. AWESOME!!! Dot com.

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• Social Business Online Panel: Stowe Boyd, Peter Kim, Jeremiah Owyang, and Joshua-Michele Ross (stoweboyd.com)
• Social Business Summit 2010 Sydney (slideshare.net)

Submitted for your consideration…

We now return to your regularly scheduled programming.

This is Must. Be. AWESOME!!! Dot com.

Judging by the increased traffic on the blog, and from the influx of followers on Twitter, my recent forays into new web communities like Third Tribe Marketing are bringing in some new eyeballs to This, Our Foul Blog of AWESOME. Greetings to all you new visitors. Please feel free to browse the archives and find a post of your preference to comment on. I’d love to hear what you think about all these shenanigans.

In the meantime… BATMAN, courtesy of Frank Miller and Jim Lee:

Courtesy of CHUD.com

This is Must. Be. AWESOME!!! Dot com.

Image courtesy of The Comics Reporter

Crazy, out of control madness going on behind the scenes here at Must. Be. AWESOME!!! Central. I wanted to break radio silence though to share an exciting event for people in the Washington, DC area.

Darwyn Cooke will appear at the Smithsonian American Art Museum on Saturday, January 30, 2010, at 4PM. Cooke is by far the absolute BEST graphic artist working in the comics business today. Not only is his style reminiscent of the clean, inspired animation art of Bruce Timm, but his composition on the page changes the way you think about sequential art. He will be reading a few selections from his most recent work, an adaptation of Donald Westlake‘s “Parker” novel The Hunter (from which the panel to your left is taken; free preview at this link). If you’re at all into modern art, comics, or animation, Cooke is a great talent to experience. You’ll find his paw prints all over some of the most eponymous prodigious artistic endeavors of the past 20 years, to include Batman Beyond, Catwoman, and Jonah Hex.

Your Intrepid Host of AWESOME will be at the Smithsonian for said event, easily identifiable with the massive Absolute New Frontier hardcover weighing me down as I cravenly strive to persuade Darwyn to give me a personalized head sketch. Prepare for nerdgasm.

This is Must. Be. AWESOME!!! Dot com.

Cooke's seminal New Frontier from DC Comics. (Image courtesy of Geekshow Entertainment)

Welcome to 2010. I’m coming for YOU.

My resolution this year is to make everything I do AWESOME. I will launch an AWESOME consultancy. I will publish an AWESOME book. I will deliver AWESOME content to the readers of this blog. I will get married…AWESOMELY.

In this, Our Year of AWESOME, I invite YOU to join me.

Photo by Sarah Austin

This is Must. Be. AWESOME!!! Dot Com.

Required Reading for the New Year:

• Gary Vaynerchuk, author of Crush It!
• Social Business Design in 2010 by The Dachis Group
• Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith
• EVIL PLANS by Hugh McLeod
• Tyler Durden’s 8 Rules of Innovation, courtesy of Lateral Action
• The Journal of a First-Time Entrepreneur by Aidan Nulman
• Andy Nulman on the Art of Surprise