Must. Be. AWESOME!!!

And now, the final video from my MountainRunner Institute talk at the “Now Media Seminar.” Let me know what you thought!

You can also find the slides from this preso by following this link.

Here’s Part 4 of my MountainRunner Institute talk from the “Now Media Seminar.” HOWF!

Also, you can follow this link to see the actual slides from the event.

Here’s the third part of my MountainRunner Institute talk from our “Now Media Seminar” on July 6th. Hope you dig!

Here’s the second part of my MountainRunner Institute talk from July 6th’s “Now Media Seminar.” Enjoy!

This past Tuesday, July 6th, 2010, I got the opportunity to speak as part of the MountainRunner Institute’s “Now Media” seminar at the National Press Club. For the less sharp-eyed out there, I’ve been proud to call Matt Armstrong (MRi President and a highly AWESOME blogger) a friend for some time… even before he provided the first forum for Must. Be. AWESOME!!! in its proto-stage. A few months ago, Matt asked me to help him transform his blog, MountainRunner, into a full-fledged nonprofit institute devoted to the study of and conversations about public diplomacy and strategic communication.

One of MRi’s key offerings is a seminar Matt honchos about “Now Media,” his concept of understanding the existing and emerging media environment as it relates to influence and engagement. These seminars give us an opportunity to wrap up everything we learn into something useful for communication practitioners. At this particular event, we had attendees from the U.S. Marine Corps public affairs team, the State Department, and even a contingent of Indonesian bloggers visiting the States on a State Department exchange.

Matt asked me to put together something to capstone the day, integrating everything from his lectures to the examples and information of our guest lecturers. I thought I would present that briefing, “Engaging in a Now Media Continuum,” here for everyone to check out. Accompanying the slideshow is the first of five videos of my actual presentation. I’ll deploy a new chapter of this video series every day for the next five days, so tune in or subscribe to the blog via RSS to get the whole story!

This was my first time presenting on behalf of MountainRunner, so I’d be really interested in everyone’s feedback: What do you think about engaging in a “now media” continuum?

(Note: Special thanks to Rob Watwood for his time and energy discussing the various ideas, thoughts, and challenges that I eventually cobbled together into this preso.)

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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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This job announcement from Twitter just went live. The salient bits are here:

Twitter is looking for an experienced, entreprenurial person to make Twitter better for policymakers, political organizations and government officials and agencies. You’ll be our first D.C. -based employee and the closest point of contact with a variety of important people and organizations looking to get the most out of Twitter on both strategic and highly tactical levels. You’ll help Twitter understand what we can do to better serve candidates and policymakers across party and geographical lines. You’ll support policymakers use of Twitter to help them communicate and interact with their constituents and the world. You’ll work with nearly every group at the company and at every level to pursue your vision for how Twitter ought to be. You’ll help set the culture and approach of a fledgling public policy department and be an important part of our very small company.

Image courtesy of zoominfo

I could totally do this. It’s actually the one thing that sounds insanely fun about working in DC: showing government folks how they can use Twitter for AWESOME purposes. Connecting legislators to their constituents (and each other). Connecting soldiers with families. Connecting. CONNECTING.

Even though I’m already gainfully employed and stretched thinner than Plastic Man in a God-sized tug-o-war… I am really giving some serious thought to applying for this gig.

What do y’all think??? Should I go for it?

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Just hit SEND on the final “Instituting a Culture of AWESOME in Government” preso to be delivered at the Gov 2.0 Expo this week. I’m up at 5:55pm on Tuesday at the Washington Convention Center. If you happen to be in town and catch me, shoot me a holler on Twitter so we can connect later. There’s a social or some shit like that after the keynote Tuesday, and I’d love to hear how AWESOME my delivery was.

I’m a complete stranger to Ignite-style briefing: 20 slides, 5 minutes, 15 seconds per slide. It’s either gonna be a fun exercise in bullshittery or a complete shit-show. HOWF!

For folks who aren’t going to make it to the Expo, I’ve uploaded the preso here for your viewing pleasure. Please feel free to leave a comment below and tell me what you think. I’m going to try and get video of the actual Day-Of, so be on the lookout for that in subsequent posts.

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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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A wrench got thrown into my Gov 2.0 Expo preso planning while I was picking myself up a bride Down South. It actually made me question whether I wanted to go through with it at all. However, after some hard thinking, I’m putting on the smiley face and taking my cheek-splitters like a man.

Let me explain.

The Gov 2.0 organizers contacted me about my presentation, “Instituting a Culture of AWESOME in Government: The Case of the IED Task Force Tech Team,” a couple weeks ago. They told me that they were altering the format of the conference and that my presentation was being shortened from the originally proposed 50 minutes to FIVE minutes. Apparently, they thought it would be so much cooler if they bunched in a ton of 5 minute “rapid fire” presos around the keynote address. There were a lot of platitudes about how great my proposal was and how AWESOME it would be condensed to 5 minutes.

How do you “condense” a case study, which by definition is the result of an analysis? It’s like saying, “Hey, dude, I love your book! Can you give me a pamphlet version?” Considering how much effort I’ve already put into researching this topic, a FIVE MINUTE presentation does the material – especially this material – a disservice.

I wrote the organizers back expressing my discontent but also offering an alternative: how about I come up with something else related to creating AWESOME culture in government that I could adequately fit in the time limit? Apparently, the organizers really wanted the IED Task Force Tech Team case study but felt it wasn’t topical enough to warrant a full panel. They adamantly demanded I present the same topic as originally proposed. Basically, do it or hit the road, jack.

Now this all sounds like inside baseball and dirty laundry, but I’m recounting it to demonstrate something. Despite the sheer shittiness of the situation, it forced me to sit down and think hard about what I was being asked to do. Is it worth taking a stand against this tomfoolery? Should I risk standing behind my material if it means getting kicked off the ticket? Is it even possible to give a good presentation on my original topic under these new circumstances? Am I betraying my AWESOME if I cave to these new demands? In this case, can you still be AWESOME living on a compromise?

At the end of the day, I accepted… and here’s why:

• I can’t trade the exposure I’ll get at this conference at this stage of my career.
• It will be an even more challenging exercise boiling my preso down to something entertaining and valuable.
• I think I can still deliver an AWESOME preso.
• Who knows what I can get away with on the day of?

Don’t be mistaken though: I’m not compromising on this. I’m acceding to the organizers’ demands. I think that’s an important distinction.

All that said, though, I’m still gonna fucking ROCK this expo. Fifty minutes, five minutes, whatever. It’s just less time into which I gotta pack a more concentrated dose of AWESOME.

So bring a spare pair of panties– IT’S ON.

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