Snacktime was a success

A big thanks to all of those who came out and participated in this afternoon’s Social Media Week DC event, Snacktime: Collaboratively Improving Kids’ Nutrition & Fitness….and Having Some Fun Along the Way.  I am proud to say that this was the only Social Media Week DC event that had programming specifically for kids.   Kid Power DC, Arcadia Center for Sustainable Food & Agriculture, Capital Area Food Bank, and Girl Scouts of the Nation’s Capital just rocked it.  Check out these pictures:

Happy Family Brands was a terrific in-kind sponsor, providing smoothies for all! Yummy!

For the grown-ups, Katie Harvey from Kid Power DC’s Veggie Time program, Andrea Northup from Arcadia Center for Sustainable Food and Agriculture’s Farm to School Program, and Marla Caplon from Montgomery County Public Schools’ Food and Nutrition Services provided a great overview of the key nutrition and fitness issues, challenges and programs in the DC area.  The session was super-interactive, exploring such challenges as how to educate kids about health and nutrition so that they can be the catalysts of change in their families, how leverage social media when so many families of under-served kids do not have computers in their homes, and how to get kids to like vegetables!Thanks so much to all of those who participated and attended.  It was a wonderful opportunity to bring these issues into the social media arena.

Happy Family Brands is bringing snack…

I am pleased to announce that Happy Family Brands will be bringing smoothies for our Snacktime event on 2/16…yummy!  

If you’re a company or non-profit interested in providing in-kind sponsorship, distributing relevant materials or showcasing your capabilities at our event, please contact me. This is a collaborative event that should maximize value for all involved.  I am going to see if we can have tables set up so that people can learn more about all of the terrific nutrition, fitness and health programs.  Will keep you posted.  

Update on Snacktime event for Social Media Week DC

Okay, things are coming together.  Thanks to Jackie McKinney at KidPower who sent me an email that got me moving again on this event,  we have a great venue: Harriet Tubman Elementary School (3101 13th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20010) in the Columbia Heights neighborhood in DC.

The format of the event will be as follows:

• Kids Panel: (20 mins) kids in attendance will share their thoughts about health, nutrition and fitness, what’s important and why, etc. (Kids can then choose to participate in a special health and fitness activity organized by KidPower.)
• Experts Panel: (40 minutes) 3-5 experts from government and non-profit organizations leading in this arena will each present about their organization for 5 minutes.  Invited panelists are from USDA’s Food & Nutrition Service, Arcadia Center for Sustainable Food & Agriculture, and Montgomery County’s Division of Food & Nutrition Services.  This will be followed by a moderated discussion about the key issues and challenges in this arena. 
• Participatory/Unconference Session: (60 minutes) Attendees will identify four sessions, each aimed to solve a different problem raised during the panel. Attendees will break into discussion groups to brainstorm solutions.  Each group will report back and present their ideas to the whole group.

)A big shout- out to the fabulous Wayne Moses Burke, expert in using OpenSpace/unconference methodology to drive action, for helping me think this through.)

I will spend a good portion of today reaching out directly to relevant individuals and organizations this week via email, social media and phone calls to drum up interest for, participation in, and registration for this event.

Please share!  Please register!

Snacktime — The Event I’m Planning for Social Media Week DC

As one of the board members of Social Media Week DC, I am in the process of finalizing my event.  The session that I’m creating is called Snacktime: Collaboratively Improving Kids’ Nutrition and Having Some Fun Along the Way and will be on the afternoon of Thursday, February 16th (venue and exact timeframe will be ironed out today).  As the description on the site explains, the event will bring together local school district nutrition program leaders, farms contributing to farm-to-school programs, non-profits, school children & parents, and technologists to identify, explore, and create solutions to the the challenges of raising healthy kids.

Since I was selected to participate in First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move tweetup at the White House back in October, I have been focusing a lot of my personal and professional efforts in this arena.  As a healthy foodie, avid exerciser, and mom of two, I am passionate about making America healthier, one snack choice, one jumping jack, one restaurant menu item at a time.

So, when I was invited to contribute to Social Media Week DC–the theme of which is Empowering Change–I decided to bring together three communities that are important to me to see what actionable ideas we can co-create:

1. Social media evangelists and technologies who are proponents of collaborative problem-solving, crowdsourcing and transparency and understand how to creatively apply technology;
2. Non-profits and government agencies that have fantastic information and are leading education, fitness and food programs that replace bad habits with healthy ones;
3. Parents and kids who are looking for, and in need of, creative ways to weave healthy choices into their lives and communities.

I will write more over the next few days about the details of and participants in this event.  I encourage you to sign up on the Social Media Week DC site!

“Discovering & Finding Meaning,” by Jeff Pulver

I wanted to share with you the content from a terrific and inspiring email that I (& the rest of his distro list) received from Jeff Pulver just before Thanksgiving.  This is a transcription from an interview he did during the #140conf Tel Aviv on November 2nd.  I am posting this because I simply could not say it better myself.

A Reawakening of Humanity

      I believe we are seeing a reawakening of humanity. People are discovering and feeling, maybe for the very first time. They understand that they can actually stand up and affect change not even realizing that is what they are about to do.  

      Although I still think that there is a need to have face-to-face interaction with people. These technologies allow an intensity in terms of connectedness we can feel. When we can read someone’s Facebook status and start to cry as a result of it, or laugh hysterically, or just smile, we realize that through this digital medium, feelings are emanating. For example, if you have searched someone on twitter, or wrote something and you cried because of it, maybe it was the loss of someone, or maybe it was frustration, then you have experienced this connectedness. As a result, words are turning into feelings and those feelings are turning into synapses in our minds.

      There is a different world out there. If we close your eyes, we will start to visualize a world, which is not necessarily the one in front of us. When we get to the point where we can start hearing people whose voices are based on what we are reading and believe that when we type something we are really speaking back, it is a much different place than what we see.

      There is a virtualization even though we are in the physical. There is still something happening spiritually, that is touching, changing, and connecting many of us. Some of us, unfortunately are kind of numb to it. They do not get it. They feel something but they do not know why they feel it. There are other people who actually have this intense ability not only to feel, but sometimes affect positive change. So these technologies are helping us accelerate some things.

      Where does this leave us in terms of negative consequences? Well, short term tactical, yes, there are probably some negative affects because nothing is perfect. We are always evolving. I would like to believe that there is such a thing as a good failure. We have good mistakes. We learn, we develop, and we apply. The only failure I think is not to use these technologies. To ignore them, that is the failure. To try them out and see where it goes, to see where it takes us, that is the blessing of being alive.

Transitioning from “Social Media” to “Mission Media”

I was honored to deliver the keynote presentation at this morning’s “Transitioning from ‘Social Media’ to ‘Mission Media’: Using Social Media for DoD Missions” event produced by Adobe Systems, Blue Beacon Consulting and Carahsoft.  My presentation is below as well as posted SlideShare.  The slides are, by design, sparse… I often say that PowerPoint should be revoked from DoD until they can learn to produce presentations with less text, so I practice what I preach.  However, all of my talking points are detailed in the notes view, so you can easily walk yourself through it.

My presentation was followed by a terrific panel comprised of:

• Joe Boutte, Strategic Advisor, Strategies, New Media & Collaboration for TASC, Inc. who has done a great deal of work  for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence;
• Dana Clark, Social Media Manager & Public Affairs Specialist for the Army Corps of Engineers
• Dan Wade, Social Media & New Technology Chief for Strategic Communication, U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM)
• Christopher Zember, Deputy Director of the Information Analysis Centers at OSD’s Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC)
• Rob Pinkerton, Senior Director of Enterprise Solutions for Adobe Systems Incorporated

“Let Us Go Boldly Into the Present,” says Michael Edson

I had the pleasure of attending OpenText’s Purpose-Driven Speakers Series event yesterday morning in DC at the Willard. Michael Edson, Director of Web and New Media Strategy at the Smithsonian Institution, was the terrific presenter. Not only was he funny, relevant, quick and fresh, his presentation was grounded in decades of management theory and technology history.  Michael has a beautiful knack for making connections that others don’t necessarily see themselves.  If you have a few moments, check out his slides.

Here are a few highlights and key learnings that I took away (on my sad 5×8 lined pad–not on an iPad) and wanted to share with you.

• “Our job is to make YOU succeed” –that should always the be the orientation of organizations’ digital strategies
• “Now” is closer to the future than it used to be; the future has caught up with/is collapsing in on the present… long-term strategy doesn’t matter as much as it once did.  Focus on what you can do NOW.
• Strategy is language that does work.
• “Design patterns” (principles) for going boldly into the present:

• Objectivity: compare the mission of the organization to its actual mission — do a reality check. If you’re going to commit to new approaches, commit to new approaches.
• Be a platform–an enabler; be able to bring expertise in and out of the organization
• Bring innovation at the edges into the center of the organization; transform innovation into infrastructure so that it can become the organization
• Organizations have immune systems & metabolisms — be self-aware and accept change
• Focus on your mission

All leaders should ask three questions:

• Context: what is the world in which I’m living/doing business?
• What impact do I want to have?
• What can I do TODAY?

Success is all about casting.  You can change the people or you can change the people

People grant trust to organizations that are more porous and transparent.

 Just great stuff!  Keep noodling…