Out of the Closet

I guess it is time to come out of the closet and admit that I have now officially contributed to Hillary's campaign on two occasions, the most recent being earlier today. My daddy must be dancing on the clouds to think that his boy has seen the light and moved away from the dark side; i.e.: the Republican Party. Of course, there is a slightly dark lining to this otherwise wonderful tale of conversion. You see, I'm attracted to Hillary because she is the most conservative candidate running for the office of the President of the United States (in my most humble opinion). I know she still has a mighty mountain to climb if she is going to wrest the nomination away from Barack, but I'm hoping that by some miracle she does pull it off and gets to run against John McCain come next November. I think she will do well on the experience side and I think that she is more politically savvy than Barack, who will (I think) get his ass handed to him by John McCain.

My conversion has been slow and the transition from a Republican to an Independent to a publicly acknowledged Democratic leaning voter has not been easy. I'm still conservative at heart and I still resonate with many of the values espoused by the Republican Party, but unfortunately the Republican Party that I knew and loved under Goldwater and Regan has twisted itself into some neo-religious base of extreme right-wing enthusiasts and I simply can't find a place for myself within the Party. I suspect I'm not alone.

Anyway, there it is.......everyone now knows the truth. I'm no longer the right wing conservative in the Gaul family. In fact, I don't know if there are any true right wing conservatives left in the family (at least two brothers-in-law don't count,,,,,apologies to Roger and John).

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend.

C

SoCon '08 Photo's

Later that evening.............

I left right after the 1:15 p.m. break-out session ended.....not because I did not enjoy Laura McGrath and the group that attended her program, but rather because I had developed the most painful headache. I think I was just networked out......you know, a long week with the firm coupled with Friday night and then I was at the conference early to set-up the Tescom table.......the hours just seem to grind you down after a bit. I put in over 60 hours this week before I headed for the dinner on Friday night. Unfortunately, this seems to be a trend right now and I really need to get off the treadmill for a bit before I become a crispy critter.

Anyway, I really enjoyed today. Laura reminded me of my niece Katy.....both are English Majors.....about the same age......probably came out of Grad School about the same time.....Katy is teaching at a private school in San Francisco and will most likely go back for her PhD before too long. Laura did a very nice job despite the fact that we kept going off on subjects that had almost nothing to do with strategic web writing. Bring a course in town Laura and I'll attend!

So, what an event! I met some great folks over the past 48 hours and really learned a ton about video blogging, video marketing, video editing, video, video, video. Mostly from my friend Amani Channel (www.myurbanreport.com), who I met for the first time at this conference last year. I also learned a lot from Brad Fallon, the CEO of Free iQ (www.freeiq.com). He has to be one of the brighest chaps I've encountered in a very long time. Don't know him or his business? Well, get to know him because he is going to make a name in the social media space and you'd heard that first at www.elliesdad.blogspot.com. Right?

So, it was a good conference..........not as good as last year overall, but then that's sort of expected; i.e.: you can only have an original experience once! I know that sounds stupid, but last year was original......this year had a different mix of people..........I don't know......it wasn't as original!

Strategic Web Writing

1:15 p.m.

Break-out Session I: A very bright young woman (Laura McGrath) who is an assistant professor of English at Kennesaw State University is leading a discussion about strategic web writing..........we are currently focused on keyword strategy and I`m about to get us back on point because I did not come here to learn about SEO......done that, have the textbook.

Okay, we`re back on track........anyway, I think we are heading back to the primary topic.

More later..........

SoCon08

So here I am at Kennesaw State University attending SoCon '08, the social media conference of the year in Atlanta. I`m sitting next to my good friend Alan Urech and cannot imagine a better way to spend a Saturday. Tescom is one of this year's conference sponsors and I'm also therefore representing Tescom today.

We have a great group of folks here today and I'll be reporting back with some pictures and more details about the conference later today.