I went to the monthly Media Makers meetup at NPR headquarters, and tweeted a few responses to the conversation at #dcmm. Jen Consalvo, a photographer, talked about her upcoming book, but mostly about digital photography techniques.
Jen asked us what we disliked most about our pictures. Me, well, my husband likes to take pictures much more than I do. This results in my ownership of multiple pictures of traffic signs. I do not want pictures of traffic signs. I want pictures of people. People I know. And not these posed fabrications with fake smiles. I want real people doing real things in real settings.
My favorite story of the meeting was from Andy Carvin, NPR’s Social Media guy, who was threatened to be arrested by private security guards at Union Station for taking pictures, in spite of his press pass. http://www.andycarvin.com/archives/2008/05/almost_arrested_for_taking_photos_at_uni.html
Fox News got a hold of Andy’s real-time tweets and went to Union Station themselves. Camera rolling, they interviewed management about their policy on people taking photographs. They insisted they were totally OK with it. Until security came in and harassed Fox News on camera, insisting they leave or get arrested. This resulted in a congressional hearing on first amendment rights http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2008/06/union-station-p.html
January 27, 2010
NPR and Fox News harassed for taking pictures in public
January 19, 2010
White Male Engineer Panelist discusses pregnant wife at sitting around at home
I went to an entrepreneur talk put on by the Engineering College at George Washington University. It was way more fabulous than I expected. Awesome fancy hors d’oerves, excellent speakers.
There were three semi-white male panelists. One was American, the other two had some Middle Eastern background. They had interesting stories about how they started their companies. Well, I found the stories interesting, probably because they were relevant to me and I like to compare how people develop new companies. However the student next to me fell asleep.
The entrepreneur panelist I found most relevant was Elias Sham who founded telezoo.com, a B2B social networking site, in 1999. He was also on the board of Searchles, another social media company, and runs a blog http://www.awesomedc.com which is about the real people of DC, not the politicians. I relate to that mission. When I was on the board of the local Society of Women Engineers section, I used to write letters to various media outlets commending them whenever they wrote about engineers, making the point that engineers are a huge part of what makes DC tick.
Unfortunately, the panelist story that stuck out for me was when the white guy made a point about how hard it is to start a company when the wife is at home and pregnant. Hello? Who is your audience? Why is your wife sitting around at home? I felt like to him, my presence in the audience was nonexistent, that he was commiserating with the boys, and I was merely an interloper.
Of course to the men, I’m sure they didn’t think twice about it. Instead they probably thought it was more unusual that women were there.
January 7, 2010
Was a link to my blog posted somewhere yesterday?
At about 3:00 yesterday, I got around 180 hits on my blog. I usually get about 120 per day. So I’m not sure what happened. I use myStat and I have no idea how it counts hits. Or if real people are reading the blog vs some blog bot hitting my site.
It didn’t translate to more hits on my home page http://BudgetJustified.com
November 30, 2009
Reasonable Comments. Finally.
I’ve had my blog hosted on my own web site, as opposed to a blogger or wordpress site, for over a month now. According to my stats plugin, I get about 100 views on the days that I post an entry, and the trend is growing. So if I post an entry every day, I’ll get over 3000 views per month. Although, I have no idea if all those views are people, or if some are bots.
Some of the viewers are spammers. I’ve been getting a few spam comments each week. But I’m finally getting some real comments. Thank you, real people! Within the next few months, I’d like to make this blog, plus Facebook, Twitter, etc. into a more interactive forum. Let’s start with a question…
In the spirit of “Budget Justified” (http://budgetjustified.com), how many women out there have worked with, or know someone who worked with A Groper?