June 2005

Michael and I received confirmation today that we have press passes and a photo pass for Saturday night’s Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ concert at Great Woods (err “The Tweeter Center“) Saturday night. It should be a fun show. The Black Crowes are opening for them. Last time I checked on ticketmaster.com there were still lawn tickets available. I’m not sure yet if we have access for an interview but it would be awesome if we could get even just three minutes with Mr. Petty for a micro short podcast recording. I’ve never gotten around to really using my audioblog.com account — maybe Saturday will be a good time to tinker with that plus my digital voice recorder setup. We plan to get to Great Woods early so maybe we can wander around and interview fans, etc.

related tags: concert blogging, group event blogging, tom petty

Talking with Pete Caputa this morning on IM about the dinner I’ve put together when Kevin Smokler is in town inspired me to come up with a new acronym.

YANE: Yet Another Networking Event

I aspire to do events that are not YANE-related. ;)

San Francisco writer (and friend) Kevin Smokler is going to be in town on Thursday, July 7th to talk about his new book at the Harvard Book Store at 6:30 PM. I’m hosting a dinner afterwards at nearby Smile Thai Cafe. RSVP if you’d like to join us.

About BOOKMARK NOW: Writing in Unreaderly Times:

Offering a voyeuristic peek into the private, creative lives of today’s 20-something and 30-something writers, BOOKMARK NOW sheds light on what their work means at a time when the book business is changing, and yet storytelling via e-mail and weblogs seems more relevant than ever.

Kevin has a website for the book where he’s writing his impressions and also recording audio about the book tour. It’s a fun peek into the world of an author’s first book.

It’s Bookmark Now’s fifth bookstore event, our second week of touring and I still get scared 8 ways to silly before it happens. I wonder when I’ll get used to this? Christmas 2008 perhaps? I’ve seen concert films of bands that have been touring for 20 years and they still get the ole’ sithers in the stomach before they go on. Maybe the fear puts you in game mode.

For a while I was getting a lot of unsolicited resumes from people who were trying to get into event planning as a career. Many of them would ask how I got into it: did I study it at college, etcetera. The way I got into it was by just doing it. Growing up in Nebraska my parents hosted a lot of events for friends and family: pig roasts, snowmobile tours, reunions, etc. I guess it was a mostly organic thing for me. I’m probably not a typical event planner since I’m not a member of event planning organizations and I don’t do it fulltime exclusively. I’ve mostly focused on my own events such as the social, networking and community building events that I host. Most recently I helped put together the Boston Wi-Fi Summit hosted by the City of Boston and I organize the monthly Boston Wi-Fi Meetup plus the semi-regular Genius Workshop dinners with Shimon Rura. Free Agent Boston has been on a bit of a haitus and will probably be back in action this summer. The biggest event I’ve put together was the Geek Pride Festival that around 3,000 people (from as far away as Sweden) attended. I’d like to top that one of these days.

I was curious what Google had to say about do it yourself event planning (or DIY event planning) and there isn’t a whole lot that turns up. Of course the first page of results is predominantly my own links to WhizSpark. There’s a listing for a company in Tampa who seems to have tricked Google into listing them on the results page even though they are an event planning company who don’t seem to have any resources or information about DIY event planning. A search for “event planning tips” turns up more results but who wants to wade through thousands of results to find a few useful nuggets.

I’d like to compile resources for DIY event planning. If you have anything to share, please post it in the comments. I suppose this is sort of a curated search project. I’m also going to start podcasting my “networking manifesto” sometime soon.

Here are a few tips and resources to start off with:

• WhizSpark: offers an event planning platform for events including an integrated event website with ticketing, guest lists, RSVP, promotion tracking, email newsletters, raffles, etcetera. They’re a good alternative to evite if you want to create a site that doesn’t look cheesy or full of ads.
• “Planning Special Events: Blueprint For Success“: A concise checklist and overview of event planning tips.
• Event Planning Tips Blog: It hasn’t been updated in a while but the archives look interesting.[UPDATE: I missread the date stamps ... it has been updated in June.]

Note: If you are an event planning services company, please link back to this entry on one of your blogs and then I’ll approve your comment. Here’s Pete Caputa of WhizSpark’s related entry as an example.

If you have a pointer to an interesting and well written bio, please share the URL in the comments of this entry. I’m trying to write something about myself for the new Joshua Darden Studio website that is in the works.

Also, if you’ve got a good way to describe what it is I do/have been up to/etcetera … I’d love to hear it. I thought I’d give away (at random) a Flickr pro upgrade for this collaborative bio writing cause. (The nice folks at Flickr gave everyone two upgrades to share with others after they were acquired by Yahoo!.) Or if you don’t want the Flickr upgrade perhaps something else can be offered — at the very least my neverending appreciation. ;) If you don’t want to post something in comments, email works, too. But it would be great to at least see the pointers to other people’s bios in the comments section.

Thanks!

Here’s a bulletted list of a few tidbits I’ve come up with so far:

• Brings twelve years of new media and interactive industry experience to the Joshua Darden Studio.
• As the studio’s business manager she keeps the plates spinning while overseeing day-to-day operations and marketing efforts.
• Maintains the studio’s Boston office.
• Passionate about technology’s role in society for the greater good.
• An event maven who has hosted social and networking events in the Boston area since 1997.
• Observations and audio recordings (podcasts) are noted on her personal website at www.sooz.com.

SPEAKING

• The Media Center @ API’s Mobile Media Conference
• South by Southwest Interactive Festival

PRESS

• The Boston Globe (daily and Sunday editions)
• Boston Herald
• Boston Phoenix
• MIT Technology Review
• CIO Magazine
• ABC News.com
• INC Magazine
• CNN.com
• boston.com
• NY Times.com
• New England Cable News (NECN)

AFFILIATIONS

• Boston Wireless Advocacy Group, co-founder (2004- present)
• Boston City Councillor John Tobin’s Wi-Fi Summit Task Force (2005)
• Free Agent Boston, founder & host (1999-present)
• Independents Day, co-founder (2001-2003)
• South by Southwest Interactive Festival Advisory Board (2001-2003)
• Digital Web Magazine, contributing editor (2001)

HOBBIES

• Photography
• Boston’s independent music scene

Brian Russell is finishing up his AmeriCorp VISTA program. And now he needs to find a fulltime job somewhere in the Durham, North Carolina area. He’s an inspiring guy who has a lot to offer a non profit who uses technology to help people.

He lists these three things as his career goals:

• Increase media literacy by helping people create their own media.
• Assist non-profits and the people they serve use technology successfully.
• Create technology curriculum that encourages learners to learn their way

Read more on his website about his quest to find work as he begins the next chapter in his world. Brian might want to talk to Deborah Elizabeth Finn who seems to be doing similar work in Boston.

There’s been a musical baton circulating around weblogs for several weeks or maybe years. Lisa Williams passed it on to me yesterday. I’m certainly not going to pass up an opportunity to talk about my favorite bands! Though I’m a much better music evangelist via MP3s or a live show.

Music on my hard drive: 10.80 GB — I think my external hard drive has a lot more but it’s at my office.

Song playing right now: “She Will Have Her Way” by Neil Finn
I can’t say enough fabulous things about Mr. Finn — whether it’s his old bands Split Endz and Crowded House, his solo work or his most recent music with his brother Tim as The Finn Brothers. The guy’s got a way with words.

It’s the life I’ve been frightened of she said
deathly silence and especially the dark
feels like I am heavy and my spirit has died
she will have her way
somehow I will still believe her
she will have her way

The last CD I bought: I haven’t bought a full album in a long time. Bands send me their CDs for Exploit Boston! Radio or I buy individual tracks off of iTunes. The most recent individual songs I purchased were “Put It Out for Good” and “Driver Education” on Amy Ray’s Prom album released April 2005.

I wasn’t paying close attention and didn’t notice we were supposed to list five favorite songs. That’s what I get for starting this entry at 3AM last night. ;)

If I had to choose a favorite band it’d be The Tragically Hip: Canadian rock stars who are still under the radar of most people in the U.S. They also put on the best live show you will ever see. Truly. Gord Downie’s songwriting is maddening genius. And hey, they rock. If you were going to dabble with The Hip, I’d recommend starting with the Live Between Us album recorded (live) in Detroit in 1996. But my personal favorite is Fully Completely released in 1992, my sophomore year in college. I saw them for the first time that year at the Ranch Bowl in Omaha, Nebraska. The Ranch Bowl was one part bowling alley, one part bar and one part rock club. You can’t beat that!

Lyrics from “Fully Completely”, the title track on that album:

Bring me back in shackles,
hang me long out in the sun,
exonerate me, forget about me.
I recommend measures for ending it.
Lover, she simply slammed the door.
She said, “you’re gonna miss me.”
Wait and you’ll see.” fully, completely
I ponder the endlessness of the stars,
ignoring said same of my father.
Either it’ll move me or it’ll move right through me;
fully, completely

I’ve been broadcasting an internet radio station since around 2000. In 2003 I narrowed in on Boston’s unsigned and independent label rock and pop bands. Tom Thumb and the Latter Day Saints became one of my favorites this past year. “Gracie’s Mine” is my favorite song of theirs. It has a sound that is infectious without being annoying. (Gwen Stefani, I’m talking to you. That stupid “Hollaback Girl” song is … well, I don’t know if it’s even worth being called a song.) Tom Thumb released an EP last month and it includes the best Bruce Springsteen cover of all time: “Atlantic City.” So good! You can listen to an MP3 of that tune (and several others) on the band’s website.

If you knew me anywhere between 1994-2002 you probably heard me go on and on and on and on about Mistle Thrush. MT singer Valerie Forgione has a newish project with Ken Michaels called Van Elk. (Mix up Val and Ken and guess what you get?). They’ve got four MP3s to download on their website. The songs create the perfect soundtrack for any rainy day.

Other Boston bands and singer/songwriters worth checking out: Anushka Pop, Ray Hendricks, Rose Polenzani, Annette Farrington, Dear Leader and Ken Michaels. You can hear them (and a bunch more) on my radio show.

Time to pass the baton to …

Michael Femia
Mike Carvalho
Adam Gaffin
Steve Garfield
Shannon Okey

Sometimes I’m surprised what domain names are still available. On a whim I looked up BallSquare.com and discovered it was up for grabs so I did just that: grabbed it! I’m curious about helping set up a community Wi-Fi network(s) in my neighborhood of Ball Square in Somerville so this domain will likely come in handy. Maybe a gathering at True Grounds about starting up this project would be a good idea sometime this summer. I’d love to hear from anyone in the Ball Square area that is interested in contributing ideas.

The June Boston Wi-Fi Meetup is happening (tomorrow) Wednesday, June 8th in Waltham.

We’re meeting up initially at Watch City Wireless Brewing Company at 256 Moody Street in Waltham at 7PM. Thomas McGonagle and Robbert Abbott created a community network along Moody Street called Watch City Wireless. They’ll be taking us on a tour of the network and talking about how and why it was created. If you’re curious about this sort of project and might even like to start up a network in your own neighborhood … join us! After the tour we’ll return to the brewing company for food, drinks and Wi-Fi conversation. The evening usually wraps up around 9PM.

RSVP at http://wifi.meetup.com/3/ or send an email to info@bostonwag.org. You do not need to RSVP on the Meetup site but an email is helpful so we know how many people to plan for.

More info about Watch City Wireless:
www.watchcitywireless.net

More info about the June Wi-Fi Meetup:
www.universalhub.com/node/996

MBTA Directions:
Take the Fitchburg-South Acton commuter rail train to the Waltham Station and walk three blocks south on Moody Street.