More Social Networking

I'm here at the monthly meeting of Austin Bloggers which I found out about yesterday on Upcoming. The leader is Chip Rosenthal, writer of It's Just this Little Chromium Switch Here. Also in attendance is Jette Kernion, writer of Slackerwood, a blog "devoted to reporting and reviewing all aspects of Austin film". Just arrived is Kimbrough Gray, author of Austin Real Estate Blog. We also have Prentiss Riddle, writer of aprendiz de todo, maestro de nada, Chris McConnell, author of infobong.com and Adam Rice, writer at of Random Neural Misfirings.

The conversation ranged from Mike Huckabee's admission about frying a squirrel in a popcorn popper to high technology to high school reunions and more. Good people. Good conversation. Good social networking.

Social Networking

Yesterday evening I was reading a blog post over at edtechpost about ”where can I meet you”. In it, Scott mentioned a program to use for personal and event planning – Upcoming. I decided to click on the link and check it out. Apart from the fact the page opened up customized for where I am located, which was a little disconcerting since I had never been there before, I was pleased. One thing that immediately caught my eye was a meeting for Austin Bloggers Monthly Get-Together. I decided to check it out and am here at Austin Java now. Although this is my first time here, I would highly recommend it. If you are ever in Austin come on over to Barton Springs Road just south of the river and visit. The food is great, they have bottomless cups of coffee, and there is a very strong wireless connection. AND most of the tables I see around me have power connections nearby so you can keep working for a long time. Great! Keep the coffee coming. OK. I didn’t intend to focus only on Austin Java, (there are actually several locations) but it really is great. I’m sure I‘ll be back.

I don’t really know enough yet about Upcoming to write intelligently about it so I will keep it brief. It allows users to set up events for themselves plus keep track of other’s events. It also provides the capability to set up favorite places and groups. It could be a quite useful tool, but only if people use it. I’ll try it for awhile and see how it goes.

I really enjoy technology. I enjoy learning about and using new tools. I also enjoy learning how using technology can help improve my performance and the performance of others. Nevertheless, there is always a time when getting together face to face is worthwhile. I am looking forward to this evening’s meeting just to meet with others in Austin who blog. It will be the combination of online social networking with f2f networking. I really don’t know what to expect but I imagine it will be fun. I’ll write more about the experience later. I just got a text message on my phone, sent from Google Calendar, telling me it's time to get to the meeting. Later.

Communication and Collaboration Tools

I do quite a bit of my work remotely. I tend to sit in my home office and work, sometimes late into the evenings like today. Also, much of the work I do is with groups of people spread all across the country or even in several different countries. Right now I am involved in one project with people here in Texas, in Georgia, in California, and in Japan. I am involved in another project with people in several states, in Germany, and in Eastern Europe. I also have to communicate with people from time to time in several other states and countries.

Of course email works well for much of my day-to-day communication needs. However, email does have some significant shortcomings. There are times when I just need to speak to someone. For that, one of my favorite tools to use is Skype – one of the popular VOIP tools available today. One great thing about Skype is that the basic service is free. All I need is an internet connection and a computer and I can communicate by voice with anyone, anywhere, who also has those. Since my laptop has a built in camera, I can also let them see me while we are talking and they can do the same. Skype also allows phone calls to any mobile or land line anywhere in the world for very small charges. I can even purchase a phone number in several different cities and allow people from those cities to make local phone calls to me. Of course Skype also offers voice mail so if I am out or on another call I won’t miss my calls.

Two other communication tools I like are LinkedIn and Ning. Both of these are social networking tools. LinkedIn is a great tool for professional networking. It provides a way to keep up with what is happening with other professionals in one's network. Ning allows people to set up their own personal networks. I have only been using it for a short time but I think it is great.

I will write more later about these and other communication and collaboration tools I use.