Chris and I are headed to Boston and wanted to put a couple of events on your calendar: First stop - support our friends over at SNCR as they hold their Inaugural Research Symposium and Awards Celebration. There are a few seats left for this event and I am told if you register online at http://tinyurl.com/hqmom and use the promo code ‘NCR20′, you will save almost 20%! Then we will join our buddies at Topaz Partners who have offered to co-host the first ‘official’ meeting of Social Media Club Boston on Thursday, November 2nd from 6pm to 8:30pm. We are currently looking for a venue* in downtown Boston (Topaz is located in Woburn), so just put the date on your calendar for now and we will get an update to you shortly.

We like to focus on promoting 'unconference' like events here on the BrainJams community site, but I just learned of The New New Internet which is a traditional conference by trade, is coming to the Washington D.C. area.  The cool thing?  They added in two great unconference like features along with it; The New New Internet Conference Social Network, and the Web 2.0 Birds-of-a-Feather (BoF) Unconference (this actually takes place on September 19th, the day before the conference).More details can be found on their website, but it looks to be a great gathering of minds on the East Coast to network with, and some insightful information being shared about this Web 2,0 thing.  

The idea is simple.

• Option #1:  You have some knowledge. You would like to share that knowledge, so you come to CNET on Tuesday, September 19th and pay it forward. You leave knowing you have done something really nice and you will win the lotto next month. (Ok, so I can't really control that, but I believe in karma so let's think positive shall we?)
• Option #2: There is something you have been yearning to learn how to do. You put your name on our website and we see if we can find someone to help you out. You go home. You play with your new mad skills. You come back to the next Rent an Expert event and teach someone else. (Show. Do. Teach.) 

I am a big fan of the 'Show. Do. Teach.' philosophy and this past Thursday we had another opportunity to see it in action when we partnered up with the National Coalition on Deliberation and Dialogue ('NCDD') and held a BrainJams during their annual conference.  We had 42 participants with us for the day and ended up being our first event where the non-techies outnumbered the techies in the room (by about 7 to 1).  It was fun for me to be a part of as most of the folks in the room are not currently blogging or using the social media tools available today and left the event realizing just how much more they could be doing, and the amount of people they could be reaching if they started utilizing what was currently out there.  Seeing that gleam in their eyes got me all warm and fuzzy on the inside.   It was a great way to start off the NCDD conference and we are now in discussions to do more BrainJams with the folks at the NCDD, so stay tuned for the details as we hope to be coming to a city/town near you soon!  Cheers! 

I believe if you help others, good things will come back to you three fold. I believe if you let go of a little, you will gain a lot. I believe karma prevails in all situations. ——— Want to know who is testing karma tonight? Folks sharing bits of what they know at the Rent an Expert event being held at CNET’s offices in San Francisco. That’s who. These lovely people are donating their time and their expertise because they know good things come back around to those who help others succeed. As of this morning, our ‘experts’ have signed up to cover the following topics:

• Setting up a Word Press Blog - Chris Heuer, BrainJams
• Search Engine Optimization - Lawrence Coburn, RateItAll
• The Basics of Creating a Videoblog - Eddie Codel, GETV
• Smack’ ‘em (Community Building) - Jonas M Luster, Your Intarweb Going Commando
• The Secret to Kick-Ass BBQ - Eugene Eric Kim, Blue Oxen Associates
• Innovate to be great! - Cathryn Hrudicka, Creative Sage
• Publishing Globally to the Web - Arthur Law, Ion Global
• MindMapping with MindJet – Tom Blossom, MindJet
• Celestial videos/pictures for blogs, websites and sharing | A handy personal organizer - Rod Seddigh

Chris Heuer and Shel Holtz introduce the weekly New Media Release Podcast (‘NMRCast’) and explain the NMR working group; discussion of microformats and their role in the NMR; where we plan to go from here. You can download the podcast, or sign up for the RSS feed to get it and future shows automatically. (For automatic synchronization with your iPod or other digital player, you’ll also need a podcatcher such as Juice, DopplerRadio, iTunes or Yahoo! Podcasts, or an RSS aggregator that supports podcasts such as FeedDemon).If you would like to participate in the New Media Release conversations, please join the Google group.   Thank you Shel for all of your support!

With the help and support of Joel Sacks from CNET, the Rent an Expert event is back in full swing and will be taking place on Wednesday, July 19th at the CNET headquarters at 235 Second Street in San Francisco.The format will follow the laws of open space as the 'how to classes*' offered will be determined by the participants. We ask that a small fee (average is $5) be given for each 'how to class' you sign up for, and all the money collected during the evening will be donated to a charity that will be decided by those in the room (majority rules folks).So, if you have something you would like to share or if there is something you are dying to learn, please sign up on the wiki so we can try to match people before the event which should minimize the time needed for setup.  We would also like to thank our event sponsors for helping us put this event together, so please give them support where you can:  

I was pleased to see Hollywood stepping back into the picture to do their part in the recovery of New Orleans. This past Monday a delegation of women, including Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Garner, toured the devastated parts of the city to meet with families and children trying to adjust to life after Hurricane Katrina. Witherspoon and Garner are working with the Children's Defense Fund, an organziation that plans to open more than 20 schools in communities along the Gulf Coast: 13 for Louisiana and nine for Mississippi. I applaud their efforts to bring attention back to the needs of the residents and those wishing to come back home.

Operating as a non-profit organization, Chris and I believe in being 100% transparent with the BrainJams expenses.   The idea is not to make money on the BrainJams event - simply to cover the expenses associated with each one, and if there is anything left over, we will apply it towards the next 'gathering'.   The totals for the New Orleans event are now in, and unfortunately, it looks like we came up just a bit over $300 short.  Bummer.  We always strive to have the events pay for themselves, but it seems we missed this mark on this one.  BLAH - I hate being in the red...  The attached spreadsheet reflects our cost for the event excluding travel for Chris and myself and if you have any questions, please direct them to me at kristie [at] brainjams [dot] org.  Cheers.  

Our buddies at HuckaBuck have come through again, working a deal with the producer of the Backbeat Jazz Fest Series to offer $5 off each ticket to everyone attending BrainJams. Hello, that is 1/3 off! These guys truly have the Midas touch. If you would like to go to the Backbeat Jazz Fest and save a few dollars in the process, simply find me at one of the following locations and I will give you a pass: BrainJams Planning dinnerWednesday, May 3rd at 8pm Alpine Restaurant 620 Chartres Street, New Orleans (in the French Quarter) BrainJams UnConference Thursday, May 4th from 9:30am - 6pm Louisiana Technology Council 1215 Prytania Street, New Orleans Of course I could always post the ticket here, but that would be cheating the system. :)