Alex Priest » dcevents

Chispa DC

Alex Priest — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 06:06:34 +0000

Chispa is the spanish word for “spark” and rest assured, there was nothing but sparks flying at the Fridge in DC tonight. The Fridge is a bar/art gallery/event space in D.C. and by far one of the coolest that I’ve seen since I’ve lived here.

Passion poured out in the form of ten completely different presentations, all united around a single purpose: to share what they’re thinking, dreaming and doing. This was Chispa D.C.

At first, I was on the fence about attending. I’ve got lots of schoolwork, I’m clearly behind on my blogging, I’ve got enough reading to do to keep me engrossed for 48 hours straight… but this was well worth it. Never again will I question going to an event in D.C. like this–these don’t happen every day, and each one is another chance to learn and to grow. Check below the cut for a quick summary and some of the photos I shot tonight.

The event kicked off with Jared Ball, presenting his views on “mixtape radio, emancipatory journalism and anti-colonial media.” Was it a bit radical? Of course–he argued that capitalism is equal to commoditization, and that we’re witnessing neoslavery in the prison system of the United States. My views certainly differ from his in many ways, but it’s always fascinating to hear different viewpoints, no matter how “radical” they may seem to some.

The first half of the event was mostly speaking presentations. But boy were they good.

Regina Holliday was fired up as always!

We heard from Kristy Li Puma Herrera about her fascinating life bouncing back and forth between living in the U.S. and visiting her family back in Lima, Peru. ”Packing a suitcase is like an act of subversion,” she said, saying that really, the different parts of the world aren’t as backwards, as different, or as far apart as they may seem.

Adam Eig showed us some absolutely incredible photographs of his cross-country motorcycle trip and spoke about the lessons he learned along the way.

“Sometimes you have to drive on the wrong side of the road… to get a good shot,” he said.
“This is a journey you can have walking down the street.”
“There’s a lot of reasons to smile,” said Adam, as we go about the world we live in.

All incredibly valuable lessons. Most importantly though, he wrapped up with some of the best advice I think I’ve ever heard: “Live, smile, enjoy, appreciate.” Love it.

Loryn Wilson told us about why “black girls rule the Twitter world.” Charlie Seashore gave us an awesome presentation relating the challenge of diversity to a wide variety of chickens. “Being adult is hard work,” he said, “It involves speaking out and pushing back.” We should look at being adult as a moment in time, not a stage of life. You can choose to “act like an adult” or let our your childish side–that’s ok too.

The second half of the event kicked off with a bang after a quick intermission. Tiik with G.U.T.S., a local indie band, kicked off the fun with three of their songs. Binahkaye Joy followed them up with a lesson in “booty” that ended up with the entire room on their feet, dancing around and shaking their booties. “A liberated booty is a liberated being,” was her mantra.

“The Holy Grail Gone Wild” was Zaccai Free‘s wild presentation that, I’m pretty sure, just about blew everyone’s mind. Relating sex and religion in some no doubt controversial ways, it was fascinating to watch and certainly an attention-getter. The HollabackDC crew gave an awesome presentation with the brilliant Regina Holliday and Josef Palermo of CHarts, the Columbia Heights Arts Foundation.

And finally, the event wrapped up with a great presentation by the Potomac Group, LLC, about “The Dream and the Drama”–power, conflict and structure within social justice organizations, possibly the more incredibly relevant and important topic of the night for all us activists in the room.

For more info on the presenters tonight, check out their bios on the ChispaDC blog.

I could literally talk for hours about how much fun the event was, how great it was to see friends, meet new people, and hear new and fascinating ideas. But I’ll stop here and instead ask you: why weren’t you there? Follow me on Twitter and rest assured I’ll let you know when the next ChispaDC is coming up. I dare you, come out and see what all the fuss is about–it was well worth it.

Oh, and don’t forget to check out my photos from the event on Flickr here, or just by scrolling through the slideshow below.

Blogging the City — DC, that is.

Alex Priest — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 04:41:51 +0000

So in case you don’t remember, last month’s Social Media Breakfast DC was awesome. This month’s was just as good.

The theme this time around was “Blogging the City,” with the city obviously being DC (which I love, love, love–I honestly cannot tell you how much I love living in this city). Hosted at the awesome Busboys and Poets (they’re on Twitter too: @busboysandpoets) in the U Street neighborhood, today proved that I’m definitely not the only one who loves this city. In fact, as almost all our speakers this morning put it, they love this city so much they’re willing to put in more than their fair share of the “labor of love” in order to spread the word about the fantastic events, news and opportunities our city has to offer.

The line-up of speakers was fantastic. We had the founders of WeLoveDC, FreeinDC and Borderstan presenting and they had some thought-provoking and inspiring things to say. Check below the cut for the highlights, lots of links and even a video of the speakers if you’d like to watch the event yourself!

First up we had Tom and Tiffany Bridge (@tbridge and @tiffany, respectively), the awesome, awesome creators of WeLoveDC. Outside of maybe the DC-ist (which, as far as I know, makes money and has an extremely large staff for a blog) their blog is hands-down the best for coverage of our city, and they frequently cover things more thoroughly and all-around better than anyone else, mainstream media included.

They had one of my favorite quotes of the entire morning: “Voice times obsession equals an audience,” they said [Note: I'm an idiot and somehow managed to get this quote wrong the first time], calling it one of the fundamental equations of blogging. I couldn’t agree more! There’s no doubt that when you’ve got the voice for a topic and a little obsessed, the people will simply come to you. That’s happened to them at WeLoveDC and it’s a wonderful thing to witness.

Second was the always wonderful Amy Melrose and her FreeinDC blog (tweeting @freeindcblog). I had the pleasure of getting to know her a little bit back in January at Social Justice Camp DC and it was great to see her again this morning! Her blog is hands down the best resource for free (or at least cheap) events in and around the District and if you aren’t reading it you’re simply missing out.

Amy really got me thinking when she started talking about how most people outside of the District see Washington completely differently than we, its residents, do. The media makes such a fuss about Washington being “broken” and DC being such a “mess.” Even Barack Obama has consistently driven a message of “changing the way Washington works.” Well replace Washington with “the Federal government” and you’ve got the messaging right. Sure there are issues with DC, but it’s not broken, it’s not a mess and not everything needs changing.

Don’t get me wrong–public education, public transit, crime and poverty are still issues that this city needs to confront, among others. But those issues aren’t unique to our city, and they aren’t unsolvable problems. Are they challenges? Of course. But people like us–the bloggers , the social media junkies , the conference addicts, the social justice activists–we are the ones here to change that.

Amy is doing a fantastic job communicating what greatness our city has to offer, and for free. So even the down-and-outs, the poor college students, the still-seeking-a-job-ers can witness the great cultural, historical and social aspects of our city that are so frequently overlooked by the mainstream media and those outside the beltway.

Finally, we ended with Matt Rhoades of Borderstan (@borderstan), a somewhat more specific DC-based blog, focusing on only the Dupont Circle, Logan Circle and U Street neighborhoods. But don’t write him off, those neighborhoods are some of the most interesting and vibrant neighborhoods in the District, and even if you don’t live there it’s worth reading.

Matt described his blog as “the accidental blog,” but it’s just another case of that fundamental equation Tom and Tiffany presented early on in the morning: voice x obsession = audience. There’s no doubt this man has a passion for his neighborhood, for creating a dialogue among the people that live there, and for working to make it the best place it can be. It’s truly inspiring. He’s also looking for help in the near future, so if you life in the area and are interested in helping, don’t hesitate to reach out.

Below I’ve embedded the Ustream video of the event, so if you like watch it–it’s almost like being there! By no means did I cover everything they told us in their presentations, so there’s plenty more to learn if you’ve got the time to watch.

A liberal blogger, a conservative blogger, and a journalist all walk into Microsoft…

Alex Priest — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 04:24:44 +0000

Sounds like the beginning of a bad geek joke, doesn’t it?

Well actually, it was the setting of tonight’s Social Media Club DC event, titled “Leveraging Online Relationships,” and hosted at Microsoft’s Friendship Heights office here in Washington, D.C. Organized and hosted by the awesome Sarah Wurrey, the event blew our geeky little minds, as usual. The panel consisted of:

Alan Rosenblatt – A digital strategist, liberal organizer, professor and blogger, Alan is also the Associate Director of Online Advocacy for the Center for American Progress. Lucky me, this has been my second time to meet him in the past five days (he can’t escape me, haha!) and I swear he teaches me so much every time, not to mention every day via Twitter/Facebook/etc.
Rebecca Wales – Rebecca is the Director of Communications for Smart Girl Politics, a conservative action network. Now obviously I have my qualms with her cause, but she’s got some real talent and she’s an incredibly nice person. She’s a ton of fun to talk to and I learned a lot from her tonight. Plus, know thy enemy, right? (Just kidding, Rebecca!)
Brian Dresher – He is the Marketing Manager for USA Today, and boy is he smart. Not only did he provide some excellent insight into social media, but he provided the unique viewpoint of someone who’s industry is changing rapidly and dramatically–journalism. He told us a little about what USA Today is doing to continue to connect with its audience, and even told us where you can get a little bit of a behind-the-scenes glimpse.

So, clearly, you missed out. Anyway, be sure to check the hashtag stream for more learnings from the evening. Also, see my photos from the event embedded below or here on my flickr.

Roots Camp Photo Wrap-Up!

Alex Priest — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 05:20:29 +0000

So no time to do a proper text wrap-up of Roots Camp tonight, but I did manage to get all my photos online from today. Take a look on my flickr set here, or just click through the embedded slideshow below. Thanks everybody at Roots Camp for a fantastic day today, it was a blast and I learned so much. Can’t wait ’til Roots Camp 11! I’ll try and get my text-based wrap-up (lessons learned, criticism, etc.) at some point soon, probably sometime during this week.

Roots Camp #RC10 Begins!

Alex Priest — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 15:24:33 +0000

Breakfast at Roots Camp! #rc10
Originally uploaded by alex.priest

So just wanted to toss out a quick update this morning as I’m sitting here waiting on NOI’s Roots Camp to begin. So far, so good! I biked down here about 20 minutes ago (it’s a beautiful day, by the way) and now I’m sitting in the atrium of the National Education Association waiting on the festivities to begin!

It looks to be a fun-filled day of learning, talking, networking and organizing. For those of you unfamiliar with Roots Camp, it is, in a lot of ways, just a look back at the progressive organizing of 2009, what we’ve learned and what we can do better. Expect lots of talking Twitter, online organizing, as well as the “old” methods of offline organizing!

Roots Camp is what they call an “unconference,” a really cool, somewhat new format of conference where, quite literally, the participants set the agenda. When you walk in, they give you a blank card with the words “Session title:” and “Your Name:”. The participants create sessions (as many as possible!) and then arrange them on a giant grid in the atrium to fit with the pre-set schedule. Then you just go to it! The schedule may change and fluctuate throughout the day, and yes, it’s a little chaotic, but it’s also fun and gets everyone participating.

Another quick thing: my friend Chris Golden pointed out that the infamous Glenn Beck is speaking at the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) here in DC. Interesting contrast, I’d say.

More to come later on, possibly today, maybe tomorrow, maybe this week… who knows. Regardless, you know you can always find me tweeting (and I’ll be tweeting about Roots Camp all day with the hashtag #RC10).