1980's One-Hit Wonders

I spent several hours over the last 2 days putting together a mix of 1980's one-hit wonders to initiate my iTunes reorganization project. Here's the first cd mix and honorable mentions that made it onto the megamix on my laptop...

Sairy's 80's One Hit Wonder CD Mix:
"It's My Life" by Talk Talk
"The Safety Dance" by Men Without Hats
"Obsession" by Animotion
"Our House" by Madness
"Der Kommissar" by After The Fire
"Eye of the Tiger" by Survivor
"Maniac" by Michael Sambello
"867-5309 / Jenny" by Tommy Tutone
"I Melt With You" by Modern English
"Perfect Way" by Scritti Politti
"Send Me an Angel" by Real Life
"Too Shy" by Kajagoogoo
"Tainted Love" by Soft Cell
"99 Red Balloons" by Nena
"Smalltown Boy" by Bronski Beat
"Electric Avenue" by Eddie Grant
"Come On Eileen" by Dexy's Midnight Runners
"She Blinded Me With Science" by Thomas Dolby

Others of note that made the megamix but not the cut for the cd, in no particular order...
"Voices Carry" by 'Til Tuesday
"I Want Candy" by Bow Wow Wow
"Harden My Heart" by Quarterflash
"The Politics of Dancing" by Re-Flex
"Axel F" by Harold Faltermeyer
"Centipede" by Rebbie Jackson
"Somebody's Watching Me" by Rockwell
"Rock Me Amadeus" by Falco
"Mickey" by Toni Basil
"Whip It" by Devo
"Missing You" by Tom Waite
"Tenderness" by General Public
"I Got You" by Split Enz
"Your Love" by The Outfield
"I Can't Wait" by Nu Shooz
"Word Up" by Cameo
"Walking On Sunshine" by Katrina & The Waves
"Wild Wild West" by The Escape Club
"Puttin' On the Ritz" by TACO
"Summer In The City" by Lovin' Spoonful
"Turning Japanese" by The Vapors
"Turn Up The Radio" by Autograph
"Love is the Law" by The Suburbs

Living on Twitter and Other Thoughts on Social Media

I've been living on the 140 character micro-blogging world of Twitter more than ever lately - it's easy given my mobile lifestyle and I've become quite enthralled by the community and immediate nature of it all. But eventually it can become too much. Sunday night, we had the #fem2 (Fem 2.0 conference follow-up) live chat, then Monday began the #p2 (new progressive aggregate hashtag) talk. Tuesday, we had a presidential joint address to congress and #pvow (The Political Voices of Women) participated in a life chat. Wedndesday night, #women2follow began (courtesy Alysson Kapin, @womenwhotech) and all of the sudden, it's #followfriday now. Busy busy. Follow @sairy to see what I'm up to there.

The rest of the time, I've been speaking at conferences - Fem 2.0 at the beginning of February and South by Southwest coming up in a few weeks. I'm working on a new major project helping WomenCount online as their Director of New Media. I'm also working with some startups and small organizations through FutureCampaigns. Through these activities, I'm learning new things and thinking a lot about the implications of social media in advocacy, outreach, activism and of course politics.

It's all about social media these days, so I'm trying to stay on top of the technology behind whatever I'm writing about here, there, wherever. Watching Twitter become mainstream with members of congress, moms, artists, and others not part of the usual tech early adopter crowd has been a lot of fun so far. I'll try to update this blog more often, reflecting my thoughts on related topics. Thanks for reading.

My Afternoon at the White House

Me behind the podium in the White House press briefing room today.

I arrived late to the press briefing, but luckily the Press Secretary was behind schedule as well. After I settled next to the wall (where apparently CNN would catch me on TV anyway), I tweeted the press briefing. Then I spoke with press staffers about some stories I'm working on, talked with some other reporters including Katie Couric, who was there with other major anchors to interview President Obama. After that, on my request, someone from CNN took my picture and convinced me to stand behind the podium for the shot. It was a fun afternoon.

Fem 2.0

The question of where to go in terms of the feminist movement in the future with new media and the new millennium is a big one, and several people got together to plan a conference and brainstorming session around this concept. Feminism encompasses a broad range of ideals including gender equity, equal rights, pay equity, reproductive choice, and much more.

The challenge of the original feminist organizations as well as some of the newer ones is: where do we go now? The Fem 2.0 conference and online dialogue will hopefully provide some direction in this area.

I'll be speaking on one of the panels about feminism in the media and how to help women's organizations expand their outreach online. The conference is being held Monday, February 2nd at George Washington University in Washington, D.C..

Join Me at South by Southwest Interactive

March 13-17, Austin will be buzzing with web and new media professionals and enthusiasts for the South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive conference, part of the entire SXSW festival which includes music and film and spans over a week of events.

I found out a couple of days ago that I will be leading a Core Conversation that I proposed a few months ago. It's entitled "Whitehouse.gov 2.0: Upgrading to Open Source Government." What that means is I'll be primarily operating in the role of facilitator for a discussion about how the new national administration can provide more open dialogue through new media and use of the Internet.

Here's how I described the session in my proposal: "The 2004 and 2008 campaigns' use of collaborative tools, blogs and social networking have shown citizen activism and online communities can wield powerful influence. In 2009, our challenge becomes how to harness these tools in order to reopen the policy-making process."

I hope to produce a report of the recommendations that come out of the discussion to submit to the new administration and I'm looking forward to getting as many people involved with this as possible. Please join me at SXSW in Austin!

(Cross posted from the FutureCampaigns blog.)

Latest writing...

For those who want to keep up on what I'm doing, I'm still keeping busy, although taking a brief breather now that the election is done.

I'm excited about a small project I took on earlier in the year that just launched - the California Legacy Trails, part of the California Museum of History, Women and the Arts. I wrote the intro script for the Remarkable Women's Trail as well as for the Legacy Trails, both read as an introduction to the trails, by Dana Eastwood (wife of Clint, former news anchor, board member of the museum). It was an exciting project and it's fun to see my words in action.

I'm now writing regularly for the Personal Democracy Forum and techPresident, focused on emerging information technology in government and campaigns, respectively. PdF features articles about uses of social media and new online tools around the globe in communities and governments. techPres keeps up with the campaign beat - the latest and greatest of "how the candidates are using the web". Both sites contain fascinating stories and information every day, and I'm excited to be a part of their team. Check out my blog there.

I continue to write about figure skating for BlogHer, keeping me engaged in the sport I know and love. I recently covered Skate America and Skate Canada and I'm looking forward to writing about the U.S. Nationals January 18-25.

I have a couple of other new projects I'm excited about as well, that I look forward to writing about soon...

Phew! It's finally over... but I miss the campaign.

It's difficult to explain post-election feelings I'm having this year. In 2004, I worked 16-18 hours a day on a presidential exploratory organization only to have it evaporate, leaving me completely spent. I then moved into consulting for a nonprofit and tried to help with the Kerry campaign on the side as able, but there wasn't the kind of inclusion and ability to feel a part of that. We thought he would win, as we'd thought Gore would win, and he lost. It was a terrible, hopeless feeling, wondering how we could make it another four years. And the people who I had worked with daily for so long just disappeared from my life, making me sad.

This time around, I started trying to get involved for Hillary at the start and did what I could, but the organization was tightly controlled with little we could do remotely other than blog about it and help out on the ground in small doses. I knew Obama was running a better online operation and my view of him improved throughout the primary to the point where I felt in many ways after he won the nomination that he would do better than Hillary in terms of being able to rally people behind him. She had the policy knowhow and experience; he had the charisma and the might. So I kept on blogging and began to a feel a part of a movement, through the MOMocrats, BlogHer, the Political Voices of Women and WomenCount, through the Personal Democracy Forum conference, Off the Bus (the Huffington Post project), VoterWatch, and of course the Democratic National Convention. I advised who I could on the side - candidates and campaign staffers alike, I blogged a bit for Women for Obama and helped launch the Tech for Obama site. I was tapped into everything and I felt included. I even reconnected with some people from '04 who had lost touch. Each debate, I was online live chatting, blogging, tweeting. I interviewed fascinating candidates and gave some tips on how to leverage the Internet for their campaigns. It felt good to help and I enjoyed interacting with people in every way I could. Then came election day.

I had already voted 3 weeks previous, just in case I needed to hop on a plane and cover voting problems somewhere, but I still felt the excitement for my vote on election day. I enjoyed hearing the reports of people voting via TV news, Twitter, facebook accounts, e-mail. It was like somehow the election was a real national event for once, not just something people dread. I felt a real thrill of being a part of it all, like being back in the stadium in Denver after a long line that lasted two years, winding around the web. I decided that night that I wanted to feel that buzz of people in person celebrating, so I went to 4 different election parties, the last two being juxtaposed both physically and in terms of their results. In one ballroom at the Westin in San Francisco, San Franciscans celebrated Obama winning the presidency and we watched his speech, cheering together. That was a great feeling. In the ballroom next door, it was too close to call for Prop. 8, and we inevitably lost in a close ballot proposition race over the right to gay marriage in our state. It felt bittersweet. Even after working countless hours and seeing all of the numbers as the electoral map turned blue, it was tough to soak it all in.

All through the night, I was on my phone, reading results and commentary by friends on Twitter, and I felt my friends with me, but the reality was that even though I saw many people I knew throughout the night, those who I had worked with closely each day of the campaign were scattered across the country and I missed being at home on my laptop celebrating and commiserating with them during that moment. It was like an incomplete memory. Somehow, I wanted that feeling of elation - celebrating in person and online with my compatriots, with all those who I felt were my sisters and brothers in arms. I even missed those in other parties who I had observed throughout the campaign. I felt for their loss when I saw their tweets come through during the night.

Now we look toward January 20th where we will watch the most notable inauguration of our lifetimes, and I am already fretting about how to make it memorable, meaningful. I've always been of the mindset that I need to see something to believe it. I want to see Barack Obama in the oval office behind the president's desk. Then perhaps it will really settle in for me. As President-Elect Obama has said, "this is our moment." Let's find as many ways as we can to celebrate it, revel in it, and share it together.

In-Video Commentary of Last Week's Debate

Well, we ran into some technical and logistical challenges with this experiment, but I'm excited to be done with my commentary for the debate from last week (just in time for this week's VP debate!)

Here's what I wrote. I don't expect anyone to read all of the commentary, but whatever you do view, keep in mind I was not in fact check mode while working on this - my notes are more related to language, style, nuance, gestures, expressions, that sort of thing. I made some policy related remarks, but there are others out there with a lot more time and resources than I had for this who can cover which statements were true, which were lies, and which were slanted.

Blogging the Debates

The first debate finally came and went, and it was fun to spend time viewing both candidates while talking off and online. You can see the MOMocrats' live chat, the BlogHer open thread/live blog, and my twitter feed for what I wrote live - it was mostly casual responses.

Over the weekend, I plan to use the in-video blogging tools from VoterWatch's bloggingthedebates.com site and I should be able to embed some of that here.

I'll be doing more of this type of coverage for the other debates, and possibly liveblogging for MOMocrats. Stay tuned.

Listen to Digital Politics Thursday

Thursday, September 25th, I'll be on Karen Jagoda's "Digital Politics" radio show at SignOnRadio. The topic of the show is women voters and I will be on with Mindy Finn who ran e-strategy for Mitt Romney '08 and worked on Bush '04 as well as for the RNC.

The show begins at 12:00pm Pacific and those who are interested can listen live from the site via RealPlayer, Windows Media Player, or iTunes. Call-in number is 866-818-6384 for questions. The show will be podcast and available for listening after it's aired as well. Check back to the site for more details.

Coverage from Democratic National Convention

I'm still catching-up from covering the Democratic National Convention, but I've done a terrible job logging all of what I wrote about the experience and I've been getting several requests to summarize and link to the posts from the week. So belatedly, here they are:

Women for Obama Blog -
Coming Together

WomenCount Blog -
Unconventional Nancy Pelosi Calls for More Women in Government
WomenCount Launch Celebration at DNCC (edited and half written by me; the rest by other MOMocrats)
Out of the Race, But Continuing to Fight for Issues Important to Women

Also, here's a post about a panel I was on for WomenCount in The Big Tent: Cracks in the Glass Ceiling: A WomenCount Panel. Erin Kotecki Vest of BlogHer, also on the panel, wrote a post about it including Q&A following the discussion. I heard through the grapevine the entire video was supposed to be up at The Big Tent YouTube channel, but I have yet to find that.

FutureCampaigns Blog -
The DNCC & Netroots: They're Beginning to Get It

BlogHer Politics -
From Twitter to Tear Gas: MOMocrats Take Denver & the DNCC
MOMocrats Rubbing Elbows at the Democratic National Convention
Hillary Clinton Calls for Vote by Affirmation - Barack Obama is the Democratic Nominee
MOMocrats at the DNCC: We Came, We Saw, We're Exhausted

MOMocrats -
Barack Obama is the Nominee - Vote by Affirmation!
The DNC: Up & Coming Democratic Leaders
No Police Outside Invesco for Obama Speech - Longest Lines in History (the night of the big event at Invesco field)

Here are some great photos of the MOMocrats in a post by Glennia Campbell, MOMocrats Managing Editor, and Glennia's flickr stream has more great images.

Blogging the Democratic National Convention This Week

Thanks to the MOMocrats for initiating this great project... I'm going to Denver today, covering the Democratic National Convention for several online publications (mostly blogs) including:

Sairy
BlogHer
MOMocrats
Obama HQ Blog
WomenCount Blog
FutureCampaigns Blog
Silicon Valley Moms Blog
Huffington Post - Off the Bus
The Political Voices of Women

I'll be spending time pretty much everywhere - at the convention itself, in the Big Tent, at the Unconventional Women event, the EMILY's List events, Youth delegation events, California events, New Democrats Network events, getting together with Emerge alumni, meeting people and of course partying. I'm particularly looking forward to the Rocky Mountain Blogger Bash which looks to be a great way to kick back, and the Big Tent will be hopping I'm sure.

Follow the action via Twitter - sairy - and momocrats!

Please Pretty Please Vote for My Proposed SXSW Panel!

I have proposed the following panel for the South by Southwest Interactive conference in March...

Title:
Whitehouse.gov 2.0: Upgrading to Open Source Government

Summary:
The 2004 and 2008 campaigns' use of collaborative tools, blogs and social networking have shown citizen activism and online communities can wield powerful influence. In 2009, our challenge becomes how to harness these tools in order to reopen the policy-making process. Panel presentation followed by brainstorming session.

If you like the idea, please VOTE for it by Friday!

I really hope we can take the brainstorming session and turn it into a report to submit to the next presidential administration.

Please see also TechMama's recommendations for panels, including Joanne's on building political influence online and Beth's on moms using tech, where hopefully I'll have a chance to participate as well.

New Bi-Partisan Commission on U.S. Policy Toward Russia

I'm happy to learn that Senator Hart will be co-chairing a new commission, announced this week, on U.S. policy toward Russia, along with Senator Hagel. The commission will produce a report for the next U.S. presidential administration. I look forward to reading it.

Reports of Terrorists Recruiting Online

American news may be focused primarily on the election and the Olympics these days, but it's important to realize that terrorists are still out there, and there are growing reports that they are heavily recruiting, including online via web sites and video tools like YouTube.

I'm not trying to scare people here - just remind that this is just a real threat. The fact that 9/11 was seven years ago doesn't mean we're safer since there hasn't been an attack; it means we're more likely to have another one soon since these organizations take their time planning.