bubbling enthusiasm for $arbitrary_topic
Nearly fell asleep in the bath earlier, so ended up taking the nap I really didn't want to take. Now it feels like mid-afternoon when it is in fact mid-evening, and I'm guessing that the can of Coke I just drank won't help. Jetlag wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that I have so much work to do tomorrow, and then have to leave for London on Monday.
Whoops.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Dan's unintentionally funny IRC quit message today (or was it yesterday?).
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
Sitting here in departures in JFK, after a ludicrously early start and a flight over from San Francisco, during which I watched Henman fuck up Wimbledon for another year. Can't believe I've missed the first week of tennis – what poor timing. Not much battery left on the laptop, so figure I had better use it whilst I am still awake enough to do so.
I have to say, I am sorry to be here. I really fell in love with San Francisco – it's such a great city. Not that I saw much of it, to be honest, because I spent most of my time in meetings rooms and offices and the conference. If you're wondering what happened to my 'holiday', Technorati Live 8 happened to it. As I was in San Francisco, and as Technorati needed a temporary geek wrangler, they asked me to help out. It was great fun to work with everyone at T'rati – they are not just cool people, but fun as well. They're doing good stuff behind the scenes there, and I hope I get the chance to work with them again.
If you have been following my Supernova posts over on Strange, then you'll know that I had a fantastic time at the conference. I have had really good feedback from the Business Blogging Workshop that I moderated, so that seems to have gone down well. I have an audio recording of the sessions and will post that as soon as I can. I don't think anyone recorded my second appearance with Ross Mayfield and Mary Hodder in the Backchannel Round-Up panel, which was about as chaotic and all-over-the-place a panel as I have been on.
Some of the sessions were really great – highlights included stuff about telecoms/VoIP and Linda Stone's session on attention. But, as usual, the best bits happened in between sessions in the hallway. I finally got to meet David Weinberger, who is just the loveliest man and with whom I wish I could have spent a bit more time talking about the future of blogging. Joho the Blog was one of the first blogs I ever read, along with Nic Dafis' Morfablog and Neil Gaiman's blog, so it was so cool to meet David at last. (Of course, this means that of the three biggest influences on my early blogging 'career', I have only Neil yet to meet. Anyone's guess if that every actually happens, of course.)
I also got to yap at everyone and anyone who would listen to me about business blogging and the like. You can see me in action on CNET, talking to David about how I think blogging will develop and how it will affect people's lives. I was also interviewed by Internet News about marketing and blogging, and did a podcast on PodTech.net about business blogging. I also did another video interview with Jonathan Marks about blogging, and as soon as I have know if/when that is available online, I will let you know.
[On the plane now, battery holding out.]
Shock of the trip, however, was the email I got telling me that I featured in the top 150 blogs, as published in/on AlwaysOn. Chocolate and Vodka is one of the 50 'Honourable Mentions' – i.e. blogs that didn't quite make the top 100 but which for some reason someone found fit to mention in the list anyway. It's kind of odd to think that this little blog, so aimless and rambling as it is, should make it on to anyone's list, so I'm chuffed. Welcome to anyone who came here via AlwaysOn.
Getting about a bit, eh?
Anyway, have acquired a new client whilst in SF too, which is great and if all goes well it might mean a few more trips to The City. More news on that as and when. It did mean, however, that I had to cancel my day in New York, so apologies to Dan, Andy and Michael for not being around when I had hoped I would. Next time, I promise.
Huge thanks to Adam Hertz and Maciej Stachowiak for being most gracious and lovely hosts and for providing me with unlimited wifi, and to Kevin Werbach and Jeanne Logozzo for inviting me to Supernova and for giving me both the opportunity to speak (twice at that!) and the damn fine excuse to go to San Francisco at last. And thank you to everyone I met – everyone was so friendly and charming. I feel like I finally found my peer group.
{ Comments on this entry are closed }
If you’re interested in writing, books and cats, subscribe now to Word Count, my weekly round-up of mews, news and reviews and get my free urban fantasy novella, The Gates of Balawat.
Matt is fascinated by the story of Argleton, the unreal town that appeared on GeoMaps but which doesn’t actually exist. When he and his friend and flatmate Charlie are standing at the exact longitude and latitude that defines Argleton, Matt sets in motion a chain of events that will take him places he didn’t know existed… and which perhaps don’t.
From the identification of the Horsehead Nebula to the creation of the computer program, from the development of in vitro fertilisation to the detection of pulsars, A Passion for Science: Stories of Discovery and Invention brings together inspiring stories of how we achieved some of the most important breakthroughs in science and technology.
If you’d like to write more than you currently are, whatever you’re writing and why ever you’re feeling stuck, then my newsletter Why Aren’t I Writing? is for you!
Every year, on May Day, a young woman is stolen away by the faeries to become their Queen for a year. This year, though, the faeries have bitten off more than they can chew. Shakti Nayar will do whatever it takes to get her own life as a botanist back. As she struggles to work out how to get home, she uncovers Faerie’s dark secret and finds that she is not the only human who needs saving.
Strange Attractor