Aug
16

Come Join the Fun at Rando Happy Hour

Image courtesy Spectacle Theater.

So… every few months I put on one of these Rando Happy Hours, which is essentially me just mining my contact database and telling everyone at the same time where I’ll be drinking one evening. What ends up happening is a really fun social experiment wherein I get to see how the varied people in my offline network interact together.

There’s no goal: it’s totally rando. Hence the name. However, what ends up happening at these things are odd little personality collisions between people who would normally never talk to each other, and I love watching it happen. For instance, one of my music buddies might rub shoulders with a buttoned down colleague of mine from the Pentagon, resulting in commodious AWESOME talk about favorite bands. People have even found new leads on jobs and work through the amorphous blob that is the Du4 grid.

So if you’re in the DC/NOVA area, feel free to come join us in Shirlington on August 30th for a brew. The details follow–

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Jun
13

Racists Totally Freak Out Over Muslim “Batman of Paris:” A ComicsAlliance Article

Media_httpwwwblogcdnc_fjdie
via comicsalliance.com

Great article and great subsequent comments on the controversy of DC’s “Muslim Batman of Paris.” When I wrote earlier in the year about Islam being the elephant in the room, instances like this act as indicators that people are beginning to deal with the implications of modern Islam. More importantly, I think it’s encouraging that those dealing with it are working out the issues involved in a medium like comics where illustrated drama can be employed to create a modern fable about these issues. Be sure to leave a comment at the link.

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Feb
24

SXSW: The Adventure Begins

I finally bit the bullet this year and bought a full conference pass to South by Southwest, Austin’s long-AWESOME music, film, and tech festival. Having suffered through years of Twitter and Facebook friends broadcasting the varying degrees of AWESOMEness emanating from one of my favorite towns in Texas, I’m taking the @Du4.llc plunge.

While I do have a few specific goals for my trip, a large part of it remains unplanned. I intend to broadcast my experiences often, and I thought this would be a great opportunity to develop a publication strategy for a single event. Granted, it’s a media-heavy event, so separating out fun content from crappy stuff could be dicey. So here’s a quick breakdown of how you can find the different Du4 media that I’ll be pumping out from AWESOMEville.

Where I’m Gonna Be: Plancast

Here’s a new social stream with which I’m experimenting: Plancast. The idea is similar to a calendar except you organize your plans socially around what your friends are doing. You can also link into several existing tags for types of events, like I’m doing for SXSW. I’ve been invited to and RSVP’d to a staggering number of parties and events at SXSW, so keeping track of everything via my email inbox has just become too tedious and confusing. I’m hoping to use Plancast to organize my plans (duh) for Austin and share them with folks via my Plancast stream so if you do want to link up with me, it’ll be easier to sync schedules.

However, let us all remember the special operator’s maxim: “No plan survives first contact with the enemy…”

Twitter: @Du4

I’ll be broadcasting my hour-to-hour activities at SXSW via Twitter. The #SXSW hashtag will probably be overloaded with people tweeting on it, so follow me for direct updates. I’ll also be retweeting cool content I find on Twitter throughout SXSW. I’d also encourage anyone who’s doing remote listening of the event using tools like TweetDeck, Hootsuite, Radian6, or whatever, please hit me up with any emerging hashtags you see coming out of SXSW so I can find ‘em “on the ground.”

Twitter is also my go-to service for preferred commo. If you need to get ahold me right away, @reply or DM me and I’ll get back to you fast. Even better, if you’re attending SXSW, be sure to hit me up so I can follow you around too!

Locations: Foursquare and Gowalla

I’m a dual geolocation user: Foursquare for the badges, Gowalla for the items. There will be a TON of SXSW specific checkin rewards for 2011, so I’m going to have a ball checking in and sampling all the AWESOME places and things to do during the week. I have both accounts connected to my Twitter stream, so just follow me on Twitter to see where I am and what exclusive badges and achievements I unlock as I roll through Austin. I will probably post some pics and tips for various places too. Where Plancast is a proposed schedule of where I am planning to be, Foursquare and Gowalla will show where I actually end up.

Pro tip: you can click on the link in each checkin tweet I make to bring you to my Foursquare or Gowalla page and see everywhere I’ve been.

Photos: Posterous and Instagram

I’ve been noodling with how to use a Posterous page for a while now. For those who don’t know, Posterous is a dead simple, email-based blogging system. You have a couple simple commands that you set up via your preferred email account, and then you just publish content to your Posterous stream via email or SMS. It works best when you’re on the go and want to share something or capture something quickly form your mobile device and get it online and visible. You’ll also receive every comment on your posts via email and be able to reply back via email.

For SXSW, I’ve developed a brand new Posterous page where I can instantly upload content. I’ve found this is the simplest way to upload HD photos from my iPhone to a website where people can view them without a corresponding account. You just click on that link and BOOM: AWESOME shit direct from Du4. Because I can gin up other content and get it quickly published as well, I may use this Posterous page for snap, on-the-street blogging or “scrapbooking.”

(Aside: I got the idea for said use of Posterous from “vigilante pundit” and comedian Baratunde Thurston, who uses his Posterous as “an internet scratch pad.” I love that description of the service, and you can see from Baratunde’s updates exactly how well such usage of Posterous suits him.)

Baratunde Thurston at ROFLCon II

Baratunde Thurston (image via Wikipedia)

(Aside 2: I’ve also got a Pulsememe stream I’ve been using via Posterous to share stories and other content I view through the Pulse iPad app. Pulse is a cool reader-like app that I use now for ALL of my daily reading; Google Reader is dead to me after playing with this. Pulse connects to a separate Posterous URL where I share any interesting articles, links, and other stuff that comes across my ADD-addled eyes via the Pulse app. I also pull my Links of the Week directly from this Pulsememe stream.)

For those of you on Instagram, you can follow my feed (my username is du4) there for any photos I upload and touch up using Instagram’s color tools. Instagram does not have a web-based version of its users’ streams so you can only view it from your smartphone.

Longer-form Reporting: Must. Be. AWESOME!!! dot com

If SXSW is social media nerd heaven, then I wouldn’t be a crown prince in the nerd host of angels without a blog. So every couple of days, I’ll throw together something more thoughtful than a mere tweet or photo upload can convey here at http://mustbeawesome.com. You can also expect some video blogging, interviews with rad people I meet, and other video clownishness posted here.

Stay Mobile, Stay Flexible, Stay Alive

SXSW is going to be a good opportunity for me to really put the gas pedal down on developing and sharing content online. I may get part way through the experience and realize that I don’t need all the streams I’ve talked about above. I figure this will be a supercool learning experience though. Let me know what you think by leaving a comment here or anywhere on one of the social streams I’ve described above. If there’s something I’m missing, I wanna know about it!

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Aug
03

Station Ident: Albuquerque Rock AWESOME

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! :D

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.

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Jun
05

The Darwyn Cooke Experience

Sign outside the lecture hall at the American Art Museum where Darwyn spoke.

I never got a chance to blog about Darwyn Cooke‘s lecture at The Smithsonian American Art Museum a couple months ago during the Snowmageddon. Instead, I thought I’d share a couple of the notes I furiously typed into my iPhone during the event and some pics I managed to snap. Apologies ahead: I own a first gen iPhone 3G and the camera sucks, so picture quality is kinda meh.

He speaks with a gravelly voice, like the chief of a newspaper or a Parker-like character from a film noir. He’s reed thin and possessed of a certain class, as if he’s living in the same ’60s of which he so adoringly speaks. He wears a crisp suit and looks comfortable and smooth.

Cooke did all his own lettering for his adaptation of "The Hunter."

He gets choked up when he speaks of Westlake. He’s visibly awed by the legendary writer’s effect on him, how Westlake became the wonderful person Cooke always hoped he’d be. His voice cracks when he mentions Westlake, and his droopy, hound dog face grows longer. There’s much love in this man.

Cooke regaling us with tales of AWESOME.

He tells a story of how he remembers the smell of his dad’s Old Spice cologne. His father would put on a jacket and tie to go dancing with his mom.

Cooke reads from Donald Westlake's original novel, "The Hunter"

Cooke’s 1960s is chock full of art, where furniture and cars are individual masterpieces along with typography, book covers, and more. To Cooke, things just looked good in the ’60s… as opposed to the boring little metal boxes people drive around in today.

A page from Cooke's "The Hunter"

Cooke shuns the label “creator” or “artist.” To him, he’s an entertainer. A storyteller. A workman-like view towards his chose profession: no nonsense and no pretense.

“You can’t sell Red Tornado comics to real people. They wanna read about… skiing!”

Regarding technology, Cooke spoke of how animated the title sequence to Batman Beyond on a Mac in his spare bedroom. It blew traditional animators’ and media techs’ minds at Warner Brothers, who had up until that time, shunned the use of such devices to develop new animation.

Darwyn Cooke, ladies and gentlemen.

Cooke pointing out the elements of AWESOME in his work.

Darwyn sketched Parker when he autographed my copy of "The Hunter"

Darwyn also sketched Green Lantern when he autographed my Absolute Edition of his masterpiece "DC: The New Frontier"

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Jun
03

An AWESOME Corporate Culture: The Palantir Experience

One of the coolest personal experiences I’ve had of late involved meeting and hanging with a bunch of cats from Palantir Technologies, a Silicon Valley-based company that rocks a pretty cool data analysis tool. I’ve known about their software for some time, and I’ve heard good things about their products and services from some of their clients in the Intel Community and DOD. What I had not experienced, however, was Palantir’s AWESOME corporate culture.

I met Palantir’s Drew and Jon at the Gov 2.0 Expo in DC, where Palantir had spared no expense in setting up the biggest and baddest-ass booth in the entire expo hall. Instead of developing the same old tired convention booth marketing concept, Palantir had designed a cool little area in which to simply hang out and get to know their people. Drew described it as their “mullet booth: business in front, party in back.” While they flaunted the customary multiple widescreens on which to demo the Palantir system, the real draw of the booth was the pleather couches and full-on Wii gaming setup they had going on behind it. Oh yeah, and they were serving their visitors complementary beer. Motherfucker, JAM.

What Drew &  Jon showed me was a corporate culture that valued their people’s AWESOME way more than their products and sales of their products. As I learned, Palantir is all about its people. They let their teams self-organize to solve problems, and they provide tons of on-site perks that enable a creative, fun atmosphere. I got the chance to see this culture of AWESOME in action when I got invited to Palantir Night Live at Palantir’s Tysons Corner office last night.

Pro setup at Williams Sonoma? Nope. Just Palantir's AWESOME kitchen, complete with daily catering menu for its peeps.

Every month, Palantir Night Live features a rad speaker in the national security, intelligence, tech, or other related community that Palantir touches. Last night it was Michael Chertoff, former Secretary of Homeland Security and Skeletor lookalike. The event is a social one and underlies a key facet of Palantir’s people-based marketing strategy. The draw of this event has little if anything to do with the company’s products and everything to do with its culture. Palantir peeps are young, hip folks who enjoy socially building their business. So that means they value facilitating knowledge exchange (via AWESOME catering and bar service) amongst a variety of people in their social business circle. You saw govvies rubbing shoulders with bloggers at Palantir Night Live.

I would be greatly interested in seeing the sales leads generated from events like these, if those are even metrics Palantir tracks for the success of its marketing events. As a social business, I see Palantir experimenting a lot more in non-traditional selling, i.e. allowing its community of interest (customers, personnel, etc) to recommend the company within existing trust networks.

Skeletor-- er, Chertoff, draws the hotness of DC blogger "K Street Kate."

How well this works for the company’s business development strategy remains to be seen, but I can attest to the AWESOMEness of the culture. Their focus on people really underscores the value of a social business. Palantir doesn’t even use a whole lot of social media marketing because their in-person social marketing works so well.

I should also mention that a couple of my former Detica colleagues got picked up by Palantir when that company was unceremoniously acquired and assfucked. One whose work I respect a great deal told me how much he loves his new job and how he feels great working for Palantir. It’s people like this guy whose trust is based more on social culture than the old work-reward hierarchy that tells me there is something imminently special about Palantir. I would LOVE to work with these cats if given the chance.

For more on Palantir Night Live, check out the Twitter hash #pnldc and @palantirtech.

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Feb
02

Brand Building: @Du4.llc

As my 2010 evil plans evolve, I thought it prudent to establish a professional outpost for business I may undertake. Lo and behold, I give you @Du4.llc.

“What is this crazy madness?” you might ask. “What the hell do you know, Du4, that entitles you to hang a shingle?”

Well, it’s pretty simple. Over the past year, I’ve digested quite a bit of stuff that’s made me question the concept of “work.” Now, financial issues aside, work has never been terribly fun for me. There have been great jobs and great people, but never anything that exactly flipped my passion switch. Ultimately what I came to recognize is that there was no persistent stream of AWESOME in my work. @Du4.llc gives me the chance to change that.

If you believe all the Gary Vaynerchuks and Chris Brogans of the Web, then you may think 2010 is the year of the entrepreneur. Now more than ever, there are tons of resources available to launch anyone into turning their passions into work… or redefining work as passion. Semantics aside, it was that realization that catapulted me over the edge into launching a business of my own.

So what is @Du4.llc?

In short: @Du4.llc enables AWESOME.

The major criteria for work I undertake through @Du4.llc is that it’s AWESOME. This may entail embedding with a client to determine what’s AWESOME about their company… and what’s not. It may entail speaking to conferences and groups about AWESOME stuff (stay tuned for some exciting announcements about this soon!). It may involve conducting research and analysis programs into the deeper concepts that make up the super-concept we all know as “AWESOME.” It may be taking perfectly mundane and pedestrian tasks and turning them into something AWESOME.

For the time being, Must.Be.AWESOME!!!.com will act as the launch point for @Du4.llc activities. Eventually, I’ll get around to retooling the site to deliver better value for my clients, my raving fans, and anyone else who’s been participating in the convo. But I’ve got plenty to keep me busy in the meantime. In future posts, I’ll describe a little bit about what I’m doing for clients, how I’m designing my business around my own personal brand, and discuss some of the successes and failures that happen to me. If you want to do business with me or just learn more about @Du4.llc, shoot me an email at du4 at mustbeawesome dot com.

Thanks to everyone who’s been supportive of this venture. Thanks to you, @Du4.llc is gonna be AWESOME. :)

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Oct
01

The Awesomeness Manifesto – Worthy of the Title?

Short answer: Pretty much.

Umair Haque over at HarvardBusiness.org beat me to the punch with his Manifesto on Awesomeness. Now, on the whole, I like Umair’s writing. He’s crazy. I mean, look at this guy:

Aaagghhhhh!!!!
Aaagghhhhh!!!!

Dude looks like he’s got so much rumbling around in his brain, rays of badassness might come flying out of his peepers.

Umair argues that the days of innovation are over. Innovation, in Umair’s estimation, is old hat and not inherently COOL ENOUGH to continue to be that shining beacon in the distance that we should all be striving for. Instead, we should be yearning for AWESOMENESS, which he describes thusly:

Awesomeness happens when thick — real, meaningful — value is created by people who love what they do, added to insanely great stuff, and multiplied by communities who are delighted and inspired because they are authentically better off. [Emphasis mine.]

Putting all the other stuff aside, I want to hone in on the two things I highlighted above: love and insanely great stuff. Umair is right on the money in describing something that is AWESOME as something that has been born of love. It is often someone’s passion that produces anything of remarkable import.

From such love, insanely great stuff can come. I think this needs no further explanation. Plenty of other 21st century troubadour poets have said as much more eloquently than I.

Love + insanely great stuff = AWESOME. I can get behind that.

There is a GREAT conversation happening in the comments section of Umair’s post in which I highly encourage everyone to go participate. While I dig the guts of Umair’s manifesto, I still think he’s missed some things. Furthermore, many commenters – including quite a few bean-counting, butt-headed, bitch-assed defenders of Ye Olde Way Of Doing Things – have attacked him, pointing out his assertions’ naivety and the mere GALL – GALL, I tell you – that Umair would use such a silly word like “awesomeness” to replace the sacred golden cow of Innovation.

Umair, like a true son of the Social Media Masses, responded that The Awesomeness Manifesto is open source. That means, YOU can go edit it. Don’t like the concept? FIX IT. Think of a better pillar of Awesomeness that Umair missed? GET IN THERE.

What would NOT be AWESOME, but in fact be kinda LAME, would be if you just said something stupid about it in the comments (mine or Umair’s) and pretended to care. ;)