sixtwothree.org » General

SXSW Recap (bullet point style)

Jason — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 01:51:25 +0000

Dang there were a lot of people.
Wait in lines? No thanks, start your own party at Buffalo Billiards.
The panel went really well. We had a great time and I think the audience enjoyed it as well. Keep an eye on the podcasts page. We’ll be up there eventually.
SXSW will never get my badge photo correct. Ever.
I’ve never drank so much in all my life. Well, if you know me, you know that’s really not saying a whole lot.
Twitter is the way to get things done.
Ficlets won a major award! Check out Kevin’s photo of the trophy.
Team Refresh crushed all comers (again) in the 3rd Annual Bowling Tournament. One word: dynasty. See Dan’s photo of us all.
The Zuckerberg/Lacey incident was the best and worst panel/keynote I attended.
While a lot of presentations were lacking on the nitty gritty, most everything I sat in on sparked at least one idea, related or otherwise.

There you have it, SXSW 2008 by the bullet points. You can check out all my photos from this year over on Flickr.

Moving right along

Jason — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 00:36:54 +0000

Seems like everyone’s on the move these days when it comes to jobs. Two of my close friends recently picked up stakes and joined up with some great local companies.

Samantha Warren has joined up with the fine folks at Viget Labs. Samantha’s a bad ass designer (just look at her site!) and an all around rock star.

Also switching it up is Justin Thorp, one of my co-conspirators (*ahem*, co-organizers) on BarCamp DC last year. Justin’s smart as all get out and he’s hooking up with Clearspring as a Community Manager. As I understand it, he’ll be an advocate for Clearspring’s widget platform and is charged with going out to the community and spreading the good word. That strikes me as right up his alley.

There’s a few other folks moving around, but I’m probably not allowed to speak about that. Congratulations to everyone! The DC area is really lighting up with opportunity.

My Year in Cities, 2007

Jason — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 22:34:26 +0000

Since Mr. Haney is doing it, and anything he does is worth doing right, I present to you the cities I traveled to and through in 2007.

Washington, DC (I live here-ish)
Somewhere up in Maryland (for Mir’s one-and-only show)
Austin, TX (South by Southwest)
Nashville, TN (Ameriganzapalooza)
Graceland, Memphis, TN (Ameriganzapalooza)
Oklahoma City, OK (Ameriganzapalooza)
Albuquerque, NM (Ameriganzapalooza)
Grand Canyon, AZ (Ameriganzapalooza)
Boulder City, NV (Ameriganzapalooza)
Las Vegas, NV (Ameriganzapalooza)
San Francisco, CA (Ameriganzapalooza)
New York City, NY (Future of Web Design)
Harrisonburg, VA (spoke to Grover’s web design class with Jeremy)
Richmond, VA (my family lives there)

Looking back, it’s been a helluva year. I finally got to make that cross-country drive I’ve wanted to do since I read “On The Road” in high school (thanks Cindy!). I finally visited New York City (cool town, looking forward to going back). I’m indebted to all my friends and family near and far who’ve helped me out along the way. You guys are the best.

See you in ’08!

Speaking at SXSW ’08

Jason — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 19:05:54 +0000

This is a slight bit of old news, but considering how long it’s been since I’ve written anything here, it’s still “news.”

I found out a few weeks back (on a boat coming back from the Statue of Liberty, no less) that my (our) panel for South by Southwest was selected. I’m pretty excited about this, it’ll be my first time speaking at a large-scale conference and I’m honored to share the stage with Kevin, Cindy, Thomas, and Leslie.

So if you find yourself in Austin for SXSW, come out to our panel. More details once we know exactly when and where we’ll be speaking.

Heading to Future of Web Design

Jason — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 15:39:34 +0000

Mixx buttons!

A whole bunch of the DC crew is heading up to New York City for the Future of Web Design conference next week. Mixx is representing in a big way with myself and Alex in attendance. We’ll also be handing out the shiny new Mixx buttons seen above!

This will be my first time in the Big Apple (as preposterous as that sounds). Other than the conference (of course), I intend to hit up some record stores, see a show or two, and maybe go to Letterman. We’ll see what happens. Either way, it’s going to be a blast.

SXSW Panel Pickin’ Time!

Jason — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 04:12:27 +0000

I’ve blatantly ripped the title for this from Kevin’s post on the subject, but what the hey!

It’s that special time of year again. Time for all the web geeks to come out of the woodwork and determine panels for this coming year’s South by Southwest Interactive conference. This year, there are something on the order of 600+ panels to choose from, so voting will be no easy task. In an effort to make it easier on you, the attendee, I shall point you to this panel:

Career Transitions: From DIY to Working for The Man

The panel was thought up by Kevin Lawver and Cindy Li and will also feature yours truly and Thomas Vander Wal. It should be a good panel, and I hope you agree. Vote for me (or Cindy… or Kevin… or Thomas…)!

Once I can get through all 600 or so submissions, I’ll try and post a few of my favorites.

Update your feeds

Jason — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 03:25:39 +0000

Hello friends, I finally got my butt in gear and made a few changes to the site. With that, I’ll have to politely ask you all to update your feeds in your feed reader to:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/sixtwothree

I promise it won’t hurt. kthxbai!

Farewell, dear AOL friends

Jason — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 01:53:27 +0000

This past Friday was my last day with AOL. About a month ago I was given an opportunity to join a startup with a couple former (now current) colleagues and, after some very critical examination, decided to make the jump. My stay at AOL was brief, but I learned a lot and made a lot of great friends. There were highs and lows along the way, but on the whole, I enjoyed the experience and look forward to possibly returning down the line.

I’m proud of the work I did at AOL. Ficlets is the best project I’ve ever worked on, hands down. Without coming off as sappy, I’d also like to thank Kevin for being a mentor (you were my first — ha!) and letting me tag along.

In the coming weeks and months I’ll be able to give more info on what exactly I’m doing, so stay tuned.

I also bought a car recently!

Rules for Career Development

Jason — Thu, 31 May 2007 00:42:09 +0000

Kevin and I were talking today about career development and pretty quickly came up with a list of tips. From Kevin’s post:

Don’t be a dick: Translated – be constructive, helpful and positive

Teach yourself something new on every project.

Be passionate about what you do: If you’re not, find something else to do.

Get involved in the internal and external communities.

Repeat step one.

Know when to run: No one talks about it, but you have to know when to get out of a bad situation. I’ve been very lucky at AOL to know when it was time to move on to a new group or challenge. Thankfully, I’ve always found a soft place to land with new challenges.

Expect change, roll with it, move on: Working in a company means things will change. When you’re not in charge, there will be lots of stuff that happens that you don’t agree with. You have to know when to fight, when to give up, and when to move on. The quicker you can do all three, the better.

A few of these I would consider general rules for living a proper life, but in particular they should serve as a model for anyone looking to advance in their field. If you’ve got any tips of your own, post them in the comments!

Ameriganzapalooza

Jason — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 04:39:37 +0000

Cindy and I set off tomorrow morning (okay, actually this morning, it’s really late) to drive ‘cross country from DC to San Francisco. Miss Li has moved out west and wants to get her car out there. I’ve always wanted to drive from coast to coast, so it works out. This afternoon I cobbled together a page for everyone to keep track of what we’re up to while we’re on the road.

It (should) be pulling in Flickr photos, Twitter tweets, and any blog posts written during the course of the trip. It’s not 100% complete, but hopefully I’ll have some time to finish a few things off during one of our stops. So check it out, and hope you enjoy keeping tabs on our (mis)adventures:

Ameriganzapalooza mini-site