Firecat Studio

Social Media Tools for Business: Rotary District Presentation

Welcome District 5840 Rotarians! Hope you enjoyed the presentation, and the Assembly. Here's the presentation on Social Media presented by Susan Price, CEO of Firecat Studio.

Feel free to contact Susan with questions!

Social Media to Build Rotary Participation

View more presentations from firecatsue.

SxSW-i: Our ADD + Web Design Panel, vote now

Are you planning to attend South by Southwest-Interactive in Austin in 2009? The Panel Picker is now live, where we get to vote on the programming at this local conference.

I agree with the sentiment that setting panels and content so early is counterproductive in the Web world, and that unconferences like BarCamp are eclipsing the old conference model. But - we continue to get great value out of the $400 or so we spend for a SxSW-i ticket. It's a great way to meet leading lights in the web industry, talk to them directly. Any panel with a relatively open format quickly becomes relevant because of the high level of understanding and engagement from the participants.

Last year, I helped arrange the Coworking Meetup and led a Core Conversation on Transparency. This year, I've suggested this panel:

Designing Experiences in an ADHD Culture

Attention Deficit Disorder is increasingly recognized as a cultural adaptation to information barrage. How can experience designers cope with distractibility and lack of attention? What do we need to be doing, or not doing, to continue to connect with users amid all the noise? Is there an ADD upside?

I have noticed myself and the connected folks around me exhibiting classic ADD symptoms more and more. I've found intriguing studies that suggest ADD and ADHD aren't "disorders" -- but helpful adaptations with a definite upside. We'll talk about the current research, the upsides and downsides of the trend, and techniques for directing and holding attention online in our interaction designs.

Help me make this panel great! Vote for it in the SxSW Panel Picker and provide comments right there, or through separate email.

High-Tech Happy Hour Tonight! Lion & Rose

Dear San Antonio area friends:

Knowbility, Inc. is sponsoring a High-Tech Happy Hour in San Antonio tonight at the Lion & Rose Pub, 410 & Blanco. Web professionals, businesspeople and nonprofit folks are invited to attend to learn about making websites accessible by anyone with a disability, while at the same time making the site more friendly to Google and other search engines AND ready for mobile phones.

Free appetizers, and I'll buy a pitcher or two.

Details: Thursday August 7 (tonight!), 5:30 - 7 pm

Old England's Lion & Rose
842 NW Loop 410 #115, San Antonio, TX
(210) 798-4154
Hope to see you there!

InnovationCamp - Mind Food for Info Sharers

Some of the Firecat team are attending the upcoming InnovationCamp in Austin, and we're so excited about it that Firecat Studio is sponsoring. Innovation is something we love, and want to see more of. Innovating with a bunch of smart folks from all different disciplines is like catnip to us.

It's the first such event, though modeled on the BarCamp format. Which means it's free to attend, everyone participates, select your own topics and organize panels on the spot.

Here's the scoop:

http://innovationcamp.wordpress.com/

Startup Weekend SA — Tired but Up!

I spent last weekend participating in Startup Weekend San Antonio. Though I didn't make it to the in-person kickoff on Friday night, when I did show up Saturday morning, things were well underway, lots of participation. Who knew the depth and breadth of tech, startup and creative talent? With events like Startup Weekend, BarCamp, Podcamp, and the coworking sessions, we're bringing things together.

I was lucky enough to end up on the ForceXchange team — an eBay style auction site for military, service. This target audience is very familiar to me, from all my years doing web sites and marketing at USAA, and it's a natural effort to spring up in San Antonio. Great URL, too. Rethinking and tweaking the eBay model, reverse-engineering its revenue, content models and so forth gave me an appreciation of how much eBay and other auction sites have evolved, how much we've become used to them, how quickly they've become an ingrained part of the commerce landscape.

The San Antonio Express-News has posted a video  about Startup Weekend SA, and the story about it runs in today's paper; here's the related post at MySA.com (but check the print version for pictures).

My biggest lesson from participating so far has been "Lighten up and quit overthinking stuff." As a serial entrepreneur who often helps other startups get going with business and marketing plans, it's been enlightening to see what progress can be made by just jumping in without any of those docs, and just iterating. It's Agile in the way Agile is meant to be done, without WORRYING about the structure. Makes it fun, exciting.

And it's an honor to be working with the fine people on the ForceXchange team. One member just returned from a tour in Afghanistan. Another's sister is a Border Patrol agent with tales from the front lines. I was tasked with compiling team bios for the site, and they're impressive. Thanks to my ForceXchange team members for letting me join the party.

Check out ForceXchange.com when you get a chance, list some items and tell some service stories. I know San Antonio is THICK with interesting military service stories.

March Firecat First Friday at SxSW-i

It's already March, and First Friday is Friday, March 7. This week is a big one for Firecat Studio; we'll be traveling to Austin for South by Southwest Interactive, our favorite local web conference.

So we'll do our Friday coworking session from Austin; most of the Firecat gang and usual coworking suspects will be in attendance. Among the events we've got on our calendars:

• Coworking Meetup, Friday March 7, 7-9 pm, San Jose Motel. LaunchPad Coworking's Julie Gomoll has used her connections to get us a sweet spot to meet coworking enthusiasts from around the globe, Austin's chic San Jose, just across from the hopping Continental Club. We're expecting 75 or so; join us! It's open to everyone, you don't have to have a ticket to SxSW to attend.
• Transparency in Business, How Much Is Too Much? Core Conversation, Saturday March 8, 5-6 pm. This event IS an official part of SxSW-i, and I am proud to say I'm leading this discussion. Core Conversations are a new feature of the conference this year, 6 tables in a ballroom and as many interesting planned conversations. If one conversation doesn't hold your attention, you can move on to the next one. But Transparency is a fascinating topic with implications for politics, business, coworking, social lives, personal lives, and the interesting ways these intersect.
• Coworking and the Evolution of the Independent Worker, Core Conversation, Monday March 10,  5-6 pm. Independents Hall's Alex Hillman (from Philadelphia, natch) and other cool folks behind seminal coworking spaces around the world will discuss the coworking trend specifically. Again, SxSW-i badge is required for this one, but I am betting there will be some tweets and meetups after.

Next month it's back to the usual schedule, Firecat First Friday will be on April 4. For the April Brown Bag discussion, we plan to continue our discussion of social networking and collaboration tools. Your suggestions for future brown bag topics are very welcome; thanks to Joe McBride for suggesting Ajax/Ruby on Rails -- we're considering that one for May. Interested? Other ideas? Drop us a comment here.

Firecat First Fridays

Our vision for Firecat Studio is to take full advantage of the new collaborative trends in business, the Wisdom of Crowds, Wikinomics, and letting smart, creative people do what they're best at. I've built two similar businesses before; never with this level of knowledge and intent, but it worked out well with Susan Price & Associates and MediaRich.
We've made great strides working as a remote team, but I have missed the face-to-face communication. That's about to change.

Firecat First Fridays Coworking sessions begin February 1

Speaking as an independently mobile knowledge worker, I enjoy the freedom of working from anywhere I choose, but I miss face time with other creative professionals.

If you're interested in Coworking and live in or near San Antonio, Texas, I'm hosting a once a month coworking session in our commercial space. There's an existing First Fridays recurring art event in San Antonio, pretty well attended in our creative community, so it made perfect sense to align this event with that one, and dedicate one day a month to restocking our creative ponds (apologies to Julia Cameron and her Artist's Way series).

My good friend McD said, "I love the idea of capping the week with something fun and creative." I couldn't agree more.

Format

• Start at 9 am or whenever you want to get there. Bring your laptop, cell phone, or pad and paper. We'll put the coffee on.
• At 11 or so, we'll figure out some type of shared lunch, pitch in to cover the cost, and send somebody for it or have it brought in.
• At 11:30, we start a brown-bag session, with a topic agreed on and published in advance. This is a loose, show-and-tell type deal, bring something you want to share or just come to watch and listen to someone who's passionate and knowledgable - or just opinionated - about the topic.
• At 4 pm or so, some type of happy hourish thing could happen. If we want.
• At 6 pm, we're kicking everyone out and locking the door. Those who want to go on to more Happy hours or First Friday, go right on ahead.

Ground Rules

Pitch-free zone. We do want to know what you do and why; it's part of the magic. But it's important not to kill the mojo.

Yes, it's probably fine to bring someone else - please check with us first.

Chip in for lunch, beverages and snacks or feel free to bring your own. We'll need to work this out so I can afford to host these sessions. I know I'm going to find it valuable; hope you do, too.

Speak up if you have questions or problems; we can work it out.

Behave yourself and don't steal other people's ideas, property or clients. As long as everyone operates in this spirit, we'll be fine. I reserve the right to decide who gets to stay.

Our FIRST Firecat First Friday (sorry, carried away with the whole alliteration thing) is happening this coming Friday, February 1, 2008 at Firecat Studio. Topic: Social Networking Tools for Business, part one. Web 2.0 for companies, as it relates to marketing, networking and PR.

I'm setting up a notification list, so drop us a line to opt yourself in to the Firecat First Fridays email list.

If you can't make the first session, send me ideas for future sessions.