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tragedy in las vegas – a city that changed my life years ago

Nothing can explain away the tragedy that happened last night in Las Vegas. A terrorist act by a cowardly American white male terrorist. And nothing SHOULD explain it away. It’s inexcusable in every way.

A wise person recently told me that “POTUS is not the problem. He is a symptom of the problem.” I believe they make a valid point that we have major issues that have been building for years. And we need to STOP IT.

Now is a time to support the families.

But very shortly, we need to have some serious dialog …. and the burden of finding the right balance of legislation falls 100% on the gun lobby itself.

On a positive note, this is how I think of Las Vegas. Still.

Lake Las Vegas

PS: There are no links in this post because there are much smarter people than me working together with the victims right now and I have no desire to distract. 

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.. A true veteran … 

“A true veteran might not agree with Colin Kaepernick, but a true veteran would fight to the death to protect his right to say what he believes.
You don’t like what Kaepernick has to say? Then prove him wrong, BE the nation he can respect.

It’s really just that simple.”

— Jim Wright

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New Office of Public Liaison with Obama’s Whitehouse.gov

First – HUGE CONGRATULATIONS to Barak Obama, our new President! 2009 is going to be better than 2008, and I hope and pray he can lead us back to what so many of us believe America is capable of. obama-inauguration-cnn

From a tech perspective the switch of the site from change.gov to the actual whitehouse.gov and the first blog post by Macon Phillips, the Director of New Media for the White House, is quite amazing. Comments are not enabled, but the start with a conversational tone is appreciated by this citizen. He lists as goals:

  1. Communication
  2. Transparency
  3. Participation

In addition to having a “Director of New Media”, I noticed from a PR perspective is the new Office of Public Liaison on whitehouse.gov. Doing a quick google on it there seems to be a disagreement between this article and on the leadership bio names listing Valerie Jarrett, Tina Tchen and Michael Strautmanis on the site.

I did notice that Jarrett is an attorney, and Tchen and Strautmanis are both litigators. Hmmm, no APR communicators in the office of public liaison? What does this say about the PR profession that the Obama team chose not to bring in any professional communicators on the leadership team? Or am I missing something?

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Martin Luther King day 2009 – one we won’t forget

Three of my favorite MKL quotes:

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.“
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.”
‘We may have come here on different ships but we’re all in the same boat now.’
–      Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

It’s one of those days that just seems so predictable and yet so impossible at the same time with our new President‘s inauguration tomorrow!

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go vote


road to tampa
Originally uploaded by eschipul

go vote. no really, go vote. take the time, take the pto, do what it takes, go vote.

how should you vote? think. do that. then vote.

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Barcamp Houston 3 Slides from Eschipul Presentation

First – I really liked this photo from @thefuzzball on flickr of @davidherrold at Barcamp Houston 3. Great photo!

Second – embedded below are my slides from the “Strategic PR using Social Media” that are posted on slideshare.net. I did have to delete a few graphics to get below the 50meg limit. Let me know if you need those as well.

And thanks again for all of the organizers for a great event! From the wiki:

And here is the presentation I gave on Strategic PR using Social Media. Hopefully the biggest take-away is that without RESEARCH and STRATEGIC PLANNING, well, social media is as useless as anything else. You can’t evaluate results if you don’t have an objective. The basics of PR remain the same, with social media being another outlet for your ethical strategy. or something like that.

Strategic PR with Social Media

View SlideShare presentation (tags: barcamp media social pr)
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Association of Women in Communications Tulsa


  AWC Tulsa 
  Originally uploaded by eschipul

Enjoyed a fun social media presentation yesterday in Tulsa Oklahoma with the Association of Women in Communications.

Great hospitality in Oklahoma as always with a very fun and informed audience.

From the AWC Tulsa site:

The
Tulsa Professional Chapter has a longstanding and strong presence in the community.
The chapter is 150+ members strong, representing a variety of communications disciplines
in Tulsa and surrounding areas.

Slideshares from the presentation follow.

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Happy New Year


free
Originally uploaded by eschipul

Happy New Year everyone! May 2008 be far more awesome-er than 2007.

That said, it is no secret that I am very skeptical about the US economy and the upcoming election year. So please be careful y’all. Bring your friends and family closer. Be prepared peeps.

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Larry Page Landing at Foo Camp


P1000064.JPG
Originally uploaded by digitalfilmmaker

Foo camp. An invite only (nope, I am not there) event hosted by Tim O’Reilly. Thanks to twitter, I know this is a photo of Larry Page landing by helicopter at foo camp.

So there, something else to aspire to. The jones have a freakin’ helicopter.

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TetheredTo is Creating a New Medium like Lonelygirl15 did

Every once in a while you see an artist do something different. Stretch a medium so that it becomes a new medium. They create not only art, but a new art form that is a derivative of a prior (a priori?).

Two artists who are doing that in the world of social software right now are RoseAndOlive on flickr of Tethered To The Sun. (note – some images NSF.)

The photography is of course great. Of course, because it becomes apparent that some folks have an eye that the rest of us wish we had. But you don’t "look" at their photos. You experience them. From the photo itself. The wondering what they wrote as you wait to click through to their latest. To the ridiculously long tags on the photos that tell a whole nother story (yes "nother" is a word in Texas).

The comments quickly gather below any recent post. TetheredTo has 4536 friends on flickr. People value their time. You add Rose and Olive because you like their work. And it is NOT typical flickr. It is something else. Just like LonelyGirl15 was not typical youTube when they came out. So, what the heck is it?