DigitalFanGirl

She’s Geeky is coming to Northern Virginia – the DC Area.
April 18th McLean Virginia (Tyson’s Corner).
http://www.shesgeeky.org/
Early bird admission is $40 until April 1 – $45 regular until April 11 and $50 after that.
Student admission is $20

REGISTRATION IS OPEN

Online Event Registration –
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We’re back from a temporary hiatus and we can’t wait to bring you our mix of tips, tricks, how-tos, and reviews on a regular basis.

Read the full show notes over at Moms Gone Geek

*INVITATION*

She’s Geeky is coming to Northern Virginia – the DC Area.
April 18th McLean Virginia (Tyson’s Corner).
http://www.shesgeeky.org/
Early bird admission is $40 until April 1 – $45 regular until April 11 and $50 after that.
Student admission is $20

We are inviting women from a divers range of industries together for a day of interactive learning and industry cross pollination.

To us Geekiness is self defined – from those with advanced degrees in mathematics, science and engineering. To skilled programmers who are in large enterprises, government or startups. To women who have taught themselves how to code the PHP on their side bars on their blog or just super enthusiastic users of technology.

Each city has a different mix of technologies – DC has a variety of fields
* the nonprofit and advocacy sectors,
* government, defense, aerospace, and intelligence
* Web portals – like AOL
* startups innovating

The range of topics discussed is diverse – in California you can see the list of sessions.
http://shesgeeky.org/wiki/Sg2009wc:Notes

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*How does the unconference day work?*

The sessions are put forward by the women who attend the event – and are diverse. They include expert topics about their particular expertise, hosting conversations about issues of interest both technical and personal (like how to balance work and family), exploring start-up ideas, introductions or deep dives to different programming languages or frameworks, sharing stories about what it was like to work in the early days of the industry, introduction to public speaking and many others.

Beginning at 9 AM each day, we start with a blank wall and, in less than an hour, through a highly participative process, create a full day, multi-track conference agenda that is relevant and inspiring to everyone there.

From there, we go to separate areas or rooms assigned to each topic. The session can be a presentation, inquiry about a question or discussion about an issue or technical field. or. One participant volunteers to record the proceedings.

The notes from each session are collected in the newsroom, then a book is compiled with all the notes from the conference and distributed to everyone who attended.
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Sponsorship opportunities for both small and large companies are available too.

If you have questions you can e-mail us at info@shesgeeky.org

I’m one of the community leaders over at GovLoop for the GovLoop Project of the Week. Every 4th Wednesday I showcase a new tech related project.

What is Open eGov?
- a framework for a city government’s website
- provides context-sensitive portlets of information; e.g., each department controls what is in its portlets based on its currently published content, but the portlet placement and names are consistent throughout the site
- provides multiple ways to find content, both at the department level and for the whole site

To read the full post, please sign in/ join GovLoop

Many of us have muliple twitter accounts. I am managing three. It’s quite complicated to have to login into twitter for each account individually to post a tweet. It’s downright annoying. So I went on the hunt for a tool that would allow me to manage multiple twitter accounts without the headache. I ran across a couple, but the one that really works best for me is Tweet3.

Tweet3 allows you to manage up to three multiple twitter accounts and they are separated by tabs. So, there is no confusion as to which account you’re updating. There was another multiple twitter account manager, but it included all twitter accounts in one stream and they were differentiated by different colored squares. That was not working for me. I find Tweet3 to be the easiest to use and manager.

I was thinking today, it would be cool if they had a mobile app because that would solve my problems with trying to tweet to my multiple accounts from my BlackBerry. Until then, give Tweet3 a try. I’m sure you won’t be disappointed..

What is Whrrl you ask?

Whrrl v2.0 is a storytelling application for the web and mobile that lets people share and remember their real-world experiences as they happen. Everyone – whether physically present or not – can contribute to the experience. Stories can be published to Facebook and Twitter, and the storyteller controls who can view and participate

This is a fun service to use. It’s just another way to chronicle your happenings. I created my first whrrl yesterday and created my second one today. I had a blast just whrrling away. I like how you can easily add comments and photos to your story right from your cell phone and I love the fact people can join in on your story. I can’t wait to whrrl the next NoVA Girl Geek Dinner. That should be a lot of fun. However, I do wish they enabled you to see a public stream of whrrls, but I’m sure they’re working on that.

Check out my whrrl profile and join me in the whrrl of fun – http://whrrl.com/person/17098189

Now, if I could only get those Whrrl guys to send me a Whrrl t-shirt……..

The CREATE South Conference will be held April 25, 2009 in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and I am so excited. I went last year and I had a great time, met some great people and participated in some great sessions. I blogged about my experience and posted some video I took of a few of the sessions at CREATE South. Check it out http://www.digitalfangirl.com/2008/04/24/create-conference-recap/.

Last year was the very first CREATE South Conference and I was amazed at how organized everything was. I mean, I was really impressed. All of the organizers were also super friendly, which I truly appreciated. The sessions planned were right on point as well. So, I am looking forward to attending the 2nd CREATE South Conference.

The conference registration is free for the attendees and we plan to
always keep it that way. If you haven’t already registered for this
year, please do at http://www.createsouth.org/register.php so that we
can accurately plan for the size of the turnout.

That said we have set aside today, March 19th 2009 as “Donate Day.”
We are still looking for donors and sponsors to help us meet the costs
of presenting it. If you can spare a few dollars, there is a donate
button in the sidebar of every page on our website. If your company
would be interested in sponsoring the conference or you know of one
that might, please drop a note to sponsors@createsouth.org .

Also, today in honor of March Madness we are putting on the “full
court press” for getting the word out about the conference. If you
have a blog, we’d appreciate greatly if you’d post a short note
referencing the conference. Likewise, for those of you who are users
of Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed or any other social media sites,
please make a quick post about the conference. Our goal is to get as
many interested people in the room for mutual education and
edification. We’d love it if no interested party misses out just
because they didn’t know about it.

I’m already registered…. ARE YOU???

This is a question that’s been on my mind for quite some time now. I remember sometime last year (or maybe it was 2007), people were falling all over themselves about crowdsourcing. I admit; I payed little attention. I find myself not getting so excited over “new words” because they generally turn into mush after the luster begins to dull. But I kept hearing it and it prompted me to do a little research on just what the heck crowdsouring is.

According to Wikipedia:

Crowdsourcing is a neologism for the act of taking a task traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people or community in the form of an open call. For example, the public may be invited to develop a new technology, carry out a design task (also known as community-based design^[1] and distributed participatory design), refine or carry out the steps of an algorithm (see Human-based computation), or help capture, systematize or analyze large amounts of data (see also citizen science).

The term has become popular with business authors and journalists as shorthand for the trend of leveraging the mass collaboration enabled by Web 2.0 technologies to achieve business goals. However, both the term and its underlying business models have attracted controversy and criticism.

As I read this, one line really stuck out like a sore thumb to me [the act of taking a task traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people or community in the form of an open call]. I said to myself; self, this sounds a lot like spec work and the act of spec work is a big NO NO. So, I began to wonder why people were praising the act of crowdsourcing, but damning the act of spec work, which in my mind as I read this definition of crowdsourcing  and spec work, appears to be the same thing.

Let’s dig a little deeper into the world of spec work, shall we. This is taken directly from No!Spec  and this short article sums up what spec work is.

What is Spec?

What is ‘working on speculation?’

By Elisabetta Bruno of ThinkCreation

What is “spec?”

“Spec” has become the short form for any work done on a speculative basis. In other words, any requested work for which a fair and reasonable fee has not been agreed upon, preferably in writing.

What’s so wrong with that?

In a nutshell, spec requires the designer to invest time and resources with no guarantee of payment.

Isn’t it wise for a client to “try before they buy?”

On the surface it may seem so. But, digging a bit deeper, one realizes that professional graphic design is about creating custom solutions, not cookie-cutter concepts.

But, with today’s computers and software, how long could it take?

This is a common point-of-view for many who confuse the professional with his or her tools. The “process” is more than simply tapping at a keyboard or clicking a mouse. It’s about understanding the nature of a communication challenge and then using one’s brain to find the appropriate solution.

At the end of the day, there is a certain irony in spec work. A prospect requesting it is ultimately saying, “My project isn’t important enough to hire a professional who will take the time to understand my situation and goals and invest the time needed to create a suitable solution.”

Now,  looking at the definitions for crowdsourcing and spec work, they read the same.  I mean, you’ve read this post to this point; do you see anything different in terms of what these terms actually mean? So, I ask the question again. What is so good about crowdsourcing? What is so good about asking people to create something with NO GUARANTEE of getting paid? When did we enter an age where experience, professionalism and time goes without value? I’m confused. Maybe you can shed some light on this for me. I keep hearing people say it’s the power of community, but I gotta be honest. It feels like a scam and it seems like people [not really sure who these people are] have slapped the term “crowdsourcing” on the act of spec work and have made it sexy by relating it to web 2.0.  But at the end of the day {according to the definitions of both crowdsourcing and spec work} they do the exact same thing.

People speak of crowdsourcing as if a business is absolutely incapabale of acquiring services unless they crowdsource it. This is ridiculous! On the other hand; from the perspective of a business, crowdsourcing is the best thing since sliced bread. Why? Hummm, let me count the ways:

1. They DON’T have to hire any in-house graphic designers or web designers/developers (because they’ve crowdsourced those services)
2. The DON’T have to hire any market researchers (because they’re relying on the acation of ”voting” from the crowd)
3. They DON’T have to hire any advertising professionals (because the contest gets plenty of traffic on the web or at least they hope it creates enough buzz)
4. They DON’T have to hire an R&D department (because  the online work (design or whatever) takes the place of research & development)

So, let’s break that down – graphic designers, web designers & developers, marketing AND advertising professionals as well as R&D professionals will have less jobs to compete for because crowdsourcing has alleviated the need for ALL of these positions. I don’t claim to be part of the Mensa organization, but this doesn’t sound good to me and it certainly doesn’t attract me. Am I missing something? I know someone is going to mention this power of community bs again [I just know it], but what the hell does that really mean? So, all of you folks who went to college and got degreed in design, marketing, advertising, business, etc. and are buried in student loan debt (at least most of you) can barely bank on getting a job because companies are choosing to go the crowdsourcing route??? There goes the motivation to get a higher education or to even strive to be educated or well equipped in a certain area. Maybe, I’ve taken that too far, but maybe not. That remains to be seen.

At this moment in time, crowdsourcing leaves a nasty taste in my mouth and outside of the obvious hype surrounding it, it sounds, smells and feels like spec work and I just can’t get excited about it. Although crowdsourcing is not new per say, I think it’s still an open concept and has the potential to change with the wind. So, I’ll have to sit back and watch how it transforms.

What do you think about crowdsourcing? If you think crowdsourcing is a good thing; state your position on that.  What do you think people mean when they talk about the power of community? Is crowdsourcing just a fancy web 2.0 term for spec work? State your thoughts here.

I’m sure everyone knows the new Kindle 2 has landed and word is it’s fabulous. It is pretty sleek and thinner than the original version.  I mean, let’s be honest; it is dead sexy (spoken in my fat bastard voice). You can even dress it up with Gelaskins (I love Gelaskins!). On top of the sexy factor, it also has a ton of  features. You may ask, who wouldn’t want one of these puppies. The answer is [drumroll please] ME.  I know; don’t clutch the pearls too hard.  Hey, I think the Kindle 2 is an awesome product and I can certainly see why people are lusting over it and I would totally buy this for someone as a gift (if they were into reading digitally). But, I have a special love affair with books and the bookstore and I can’t imagine going completely digital with my reading habits.

There is something very therapeutic in picking up a book and turning those pages. One of my favorite things to do is to get up early on a Saturday morning, brew some coffee, play a little jazz and read in bed for a few hours. I live for those moments; so relaxing. I admit, I also love book cover designs. My kids and I spend hours in the bookstore and we really enjoy it. As a kid I spent hours in the library with my mom and hours in obscure book stores with my dad. There is no doubt my parents passed down the love of books and reading to me and I’ve done the same with my kids.

Now, as much as I love books, I most definitely could have used the Kindle when I was in college and I think the Kindle is a great product for college students. If college textbooks were available for the Kindle; that would be awesome. I’ll tell you why:

1. College textbooks are too freaking expensive
2. College textbooks are too freaking expensive
3. College textbooks are too freaking expensive

I  dreaded buying textbooks. Spending $100+ on a textbook would literally make me wanna throw up in my mouth. I don’t know if textbooks are available for the Kindle, but that would sure take the financial burden off of college students if it were.

Whether you’re a book or Kindle lover; at least you’re reading. Remember what they taught us in school – Reading is Fundamental.

I’m usually reading two or three books at a time. I am currently reading:

1. The Host
2. The Secret Handshake: Mastering the Politics of the Business Inner Circle (I’m re-reading this book)
3. Duct Tape Marketing: The World’s Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide (I’m re-reading this one as well)

Are you a Kindle or old school book lover? What are you reading right now?