"Technology for the Turnaround" (4/25/09) Shaping up to be mega-cool.

Cool people and cool companies have already signed up for "Technology for the Turnaround: A Crisis is a Terrible Thing to Waste" on Saturday, 4/25 at UGA. You need to come, too! You can read all about the day at http://www.mynmi.net/Tech4Turn. We have set as our goal as identifying the TTTTT's (Top Ten Technologies Trends for the Turnaround -- man, I love alliteration!). So look for discussions about mobile apps, cellular video, Twitter, YouTube, gaming, advertising, whatever. It all kicks off with a keynote from Turner Entertainment Network's Jennifer Dorian (see below) about where innovation comes from. We will be showcasing over a dozen new media student projects -- crazy fun. And we close out the day with a networking reception on beautiful Herty Field. Plus the Twilight Criterium (http://www.athensTwilight.com/) starts up a few blocks away just about the time we wind down. The whole thing is FREE and we want you there. RSVP at http://www.mynmi.net/Tech4Turn/RSVP.php so we can save a place for you.

Jennifer Dorian (Tech4Turn Keynoter) profiled in AJC

Jennifer Dorian (Senior Vice President of Network Strategy and Brand Development at Turner Entertainment Networks) is committed to innovation. Just a few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to hear her talk about how Turner Entertainment Networks (TEN) is constantly uncovering innovation that is right under its nose. At "Technology for the Turnaround" on 4/25 (http://www.mynmi.net/Tech4Turn -- see above) Ms. Dorian is going to talk about Innovation for the Turnaround. TEN's strategies for innovating with technology is something we all can learn from. Turns out we aren't the only ones impressed with Ms. Dorian's ideas -- The Atlanta Journal/Constitution profiled her on Sunday as a "Mover and Shaker" http://tinyurl.com/cov6ba.

This DBB (Tu, 3/31, 12:30P) Mike Eckert -- Entrepreneur-in-Residence (WeatherChannel & Pathfire)

As CEO and president of the Weather Channel (http://www.weather.com/) then Pathfire (http://www.pathfire.com/) Mike Eckert dedicated himself to building companies based on innovation. Now as an entrepereneur in residence at the biggest tecnology incubator in the country, the Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC), Mr. Eckert is helping other start-ups learn the ways to turn ideas into companies. As our guest at the next Digital Brown Bag (Tu, 3/31/09, 12:30P, NMI, 401 Journalism) Mr. Eckert is going to share some of his secrets. Join us.

Dealing with Data Death Depression -- my solutions so far.

The saga of my hard drive crash continues. I sent it away to one of those hardware forensics firms to see if they could help me recoup some of the information. OK, when they use the word "catastrophic" it isn't good. The darn thing is dead -- although Easter is in the air, there is no resurrection in sight for my hard drive.
But my experiment of keeping my new terrabyte hard drive free of commercial software is going pretty well. Google Docs (http://docs.google.com) is taking care of my word processing and spreadsheet needs. And last week, I used Google's presentation to create a simple presentation -- it worked fine. The biggest drawback with Google Docs is the limited formatting capability -- I have become addicted to complex indentation and bulleting schemes. And I don't know how easy it is going to be to drop audio and video into a Google presentation. We will see.
To replace Dreamweaver, I have downloaded Smultron (http://tuppis.com/smultron/) and it is working great. I have never really been a Dreamweaver power-user so the simpler interface is reassuring. I am using Cyberduck (http://cyberduck.ch/) for FTP. Sure, it hurts my street cred a little to be using a program that has a rubber duck as its icon, but the thing works. And it interfaces with Smultron to make it easy to manage and edit files online.
But the challenge I dreaded most was finding something that would allow me to do image editing. So far I have been pleased with a program called Seashore (http://seashore.sourceforge.net/). It lets me crop, resize, and encode images -- and truly that is about 90% of everything I do with graphics. I am concerned about what happens when I need to do more, but I will burn that bridge when I come to it.
So thus far, my goal of reducing the cost of participating in digital media is progressing well. Who knows, maybe it is possible to build an entire curriculum without spending a dime on software!