So first things first. Ignite is an excellent opportunity to share and listen to exciting ideas and presentations in a very fast paced setting, giving maximum bang for your virtual buck (it’s free is what I mean). Alvin aka @wyliemac along with Dan and several others have setup the next Ignite Columbus #IC3 for Friday, June 19, 2009 from 6-8pm at the OSU Mendenhall Lab. I’ve submitted my presentation “A new social movement I call Digitalocracy” and need your help to make it up to the stage.

Take a moment to visit http://ignitecbus.uservoice.com/pages/general and cast a vote for me. While you’re out there take a look at other ideas and check out the Ignite Columbus blog.

In other blogging and presentation news:

• My blog post “Trust Management” was selected as the Best Trust Post of the Month on the Carnival of Trust website. Initial props were given by the good folks at EGYII who first linked the post up.
• I received an email from the fine folks at Schmap that they wanted to use one of my photos from my St. Augustine trip on thier latest mapping mashup. This is particularly ironic because I took the photo while I was at Flagler College giving a presentation about Social Media and Collaboration – and here it is in action!
• Finally, I’ll be presenting at MORPC on May 1, 2009 with my friend Jody Dzuranin about how non-profits and local communities can utilize Social Media and Collaboration Tools to promote a greener, more sustainable and communicative city. I believe it is open to the public in case you’d like to check it out.
• Oh, and next Tuesday, April 28, 2009 is when my next commentary airs on WOSU 820. This one will be about Volunteering Your Way Out of the Recession – I’ll post it up here as well but tune into 820am!

Keep your eyes out for these upcoming projects that aren’t yet fully cooked yet but will hopefully start to boil in the near future, including:

• This years garden/mini-farm in the backyard will include a new special garden for Sophie.
• Hosting conversations that matter in the city of Upper Arlington.
• Launch of OurUA.org community website and conversation point.
• OSU Communicative Cities presentation.
• OTEC presentation (hopefully).
• More to come about my manifesto, Digitalocracy, and my contribution to another Social Media book project.

Do people want to live in your community?

Seems like an obvious question for a condo association, town or city to ask but what about your work organization? The average person spends much more time working in thier life than any other pursuit. All things considered you, or your employees are essentially choosing what community they want to live in when they go to work for you.

Is your organization the ghetto or millionaire mile?

I don’t often write specifically about business culture unless it is a tie-in to social media, this post is no different. In the current economy it is imperitive that organizations retain the best employees and in order to do that they have to create an environment that allows them to live happily.

If your organization uses the internet then encourage your employees to search the web as they see fit (except for the obvious porn/gambling type sites) as long as they continue to meet their productivity expectations. Productivity is the charge of the manager anyhow. A happy and engaged employee will be more productive anyhow, so stop trying to block them from participating in the world around them.

When employees are happy and they spread that message across thier social networks your organization is getting free, positive and engaging marketing.

And beyond the simple such as that what about taking the time to listen to your peers and employees about what they are most concerned about. Positively engage them, use conversation and collaboration as a way to empower people instead of building stagnant systems. Boredom at the workplace chases away creative thinkers – aka your best and brightest.

Professional Journalism is not only alive but about to go through a transformation through mass information. Citizen Journalists are effective at reporting on perspective and hyper-local events but it is the data they create that is creating opportunity for professionals to tell the stories of our times in ways never before available.

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