obama

Being geeks, its seemed appropriate that our service project for the National Day of Service utilize our geek skills.  Thanks to my network, we ended up testing donated monitors at CCNV Homeless Shelter.  Cheryl Harrison, Mickey Panayiotakis and I were offered a large room with donated equipment stacked randomly everywhere and a promise to check on us later.  The room was full of monitors, printers, cables, and random items I could not identify.  One box we came across was full of laptops.  Laptops with no power cords.  Now who would donate a box of laptops with no power cords?  Best of intentions, I'm sure.

Dealing with the whole room would require weeks.  We found a couple of working CPUs, created a system for testing the monitors and marking them "Good" or "Bad".   A couple of hours later we had tested about 50 monitors.  

Masses of donated equipment is an issue for many community tech programs.  Folks with good intentions offer up used equipment but the recipient of the donations then has testing and distributing the equipment to deal with which is time consuming.  Who ends up doing that work?  Very often the result is a room full of equipment, just as we encountered.   

Someday in the future when the inauguration of '09 is very much in our past, what will we remember? I hope I remember the feeling of excitement in the crowd. I hope I remember what one person I interviewed referred to as a sense of unity. I hope I remember the well wishes for Barack Obama. I hope I remember black and white folks crushed into metro cars with very few complaints.

The adventures Cheryl Harrison and I found/created during the past few days will be easier to remember:

• Watching Ludacris perform just feet from me,
• Testing about 50 monitors for CCNV Homeless Shelter,
• Dancing at Madam's Organ,
• Wandering the streets with masses of other wanderers, all intent on finding someplace to be when the inauguration took place,
• Singing along at the Metro Ball, and
• Recording the Metro Minstrel during the Metro Ball.

I think I will also remember the day to day:

• Tweeting everything,
• Editing and posting video as often as possible,
• Catching sleep when I could,
• Interviewing, or trying to interview, folks in the metro, on the street, wherever we found them.

Folks asked me if going was worth the craziness. My answer is definite - ABSOLUTELY.

A Canadian friend referred to the 2009 U.S. Presidential Inauguration as the Woodstock of our generation.  I get that.  An event that we will love to discuss and be supremely pleased that we were a part of.  I have had the opportunity to feel the excitement, feel the possibility.  I have talked to folks who traveled to DC from across the country for those same experiences.  I am one fortunate chick. 

I have carefully chosen how I live my life.  I am dedicated to making the most of my days while also trying to make the world a better place.  Due to the election of Barack Obama, I believe my do-gooder efforts will have a greater impact.  I also wonder how my "fight the good fight" efforts will change.  With an administration willing to listen and discuss issues, how will we change the way we advocate and work toward equality and justice?

During his inauguration speech, Barack Obama stated that we are a country created by do-ers and risk takers. He stated we would need to be so again. I accept his challenge.

I spent most of the evening discussing politics and watching the news at a friend's house.  I had to get home to get the kids to bed so I hear the announcement that Barack Obama is our president elect while sitting in my family room by myself.  But not really by myself.  Thanks to twitter I am receiving updates from colleagues and friends including one who is at Grant Park for the public Obama celebration.  "@justinmassa #grantpark largest, most diverse crowd I have ever been a part of". 

And really, I grinned through the announcement.  I grinned because we had done it.  I am proud of the work I did to assist Senator Obama, from the big items to the little items.  A colleague emailed me after Ohio went to Obama and said "thanks for all your work in Ohio".   As a volunteer, I feel part of the "we" and thanks to social media I always felt very aware of various efforts and communicated with some of them.  The connectedness met me at many turns.

We all dream.  We dream for ourselves and we dream for the greater good.  Making those dreams reality requires the coordination of many details.  For the technology community in Columbus Ohio, one of those requirements - encouragement and advice - occurred on October 10, 2008.   At 2.Ohio, the tech community heard from Reid Hoffmam, Judy Estrin, Mike Nelson and Craig Newmark.  The community received not only specific advice on how innovation occurs but how technology policy impacts innovation.   We also received ideas on how we, as a local tech community, can work towards establishing ourselves as a recognized tech city.

Judy Estrin discussed the big picture of how innovation occurs, all the pieces that are necessary for it to occur and how there is not currently a fertile environment for innovation.  Her comments spoke to the community and to individuals.  They spoke to what each entrepreneur must do to ensure success while also speaking to the issue of a region creating an environment in which tech entrepreneurs will flourish.