My Trip To TED with Shira Lazar for CBSnews.com

Had a fun few hours yesterday at The TED Conference in Long Beach, CA with friend and fellow eGuiders, Shira Lazar. We were there to interview Jamie Oliver (chef, author and food activist) who just won the 2010 TED Prize. As we were walking to the press room, I was stunned at the creative and scientific minds that surrounded me.

I was also able to say hi to buddy Robert Scoble, who is attending the whole event and I would be lying to say I was not envious of his free pass into the greatest conference in the world. I had 2 Blue Yeti Mics in the trunk of my Veggie Benz waiting for him, but as expected, Robert was buzzing around like a kid in a candy store...

I thought Shira did a great job under the huge time constraints... The CNN crew and ABC's crew who were shooting Jamie Oliver's reality/documentary series were very cool. Not sure if we will make it into their cut of the show, but we did have a blast putting Jame to work on the second Kodak Zi8 HD camera. That guy has a steady hand. Nice shooting, Jamie. Shira also had a Zi8 and I was using the Canon 7D and recording audio separately on a Zoom.

Here's the video, which looks surprisingly compressed on the CBSnews.com site. Come on, CBS... Let's get that HD signal flowing...


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The tc140 in Los Angeles Was An Inspiration

I was truly inspired at the Twitter Conference 140 this week. Not because I learned a ton of new Twitter tricks, but because Tony Robbins gave one of the best motivational keynote addresses I have ever seen. No wonder celebrities and athletes pay this guy the big bucks. Tony had us jumping in the isles, connecting with our more positive self. He also weaved how Twitter can be used to help trigger conversation or inspiration by sharing and connecting with others. We all know that Twitter can't be used as a substitute for real relationships, but it can be used a trigger to share with others.

I was also honored to be interviewed for Robert Scoble's new venture with RackSpace, Building43.com. The interview should be live soon. Michael Sean Wright, who is also a core eGuider, was filling in for Scoble since he was unable to attend due to the birth of baby Ryan.

It was great to meet up with Brian Wong, who is the CEO of FollowFormation.com, a great Twitter tool for novice Twitter users and I got to meet iJustine, who was very sweet. She should join th eGuiders team.

Here are a few pictures. Enjoy!

Here is Tony's headshot. He really does have amazing teeth. I was skeptical at first, but man can this guy tell a story. "If God brings you to it, He will bring you through it. " Good to remember when you're in the middle of chaos, challenge & fear. :-)


He had us on our feet, jumping for joy!

It was really incredible.










Hamming it up for the
Building43.com interview.

Rocky, the cameraman, with the rock steady hand.

Michael Wright with the hard-hitting questions.












Talking Twitter with iJustine. A new LA transplant from Pittsburgh, PA - now living in Santa Monica.

Back From SXSW: What A Long, Awsome Trip It's been!

I'm finally getting settled and back into the work groove after 5 days of intense, mind-expanding conversations, introductions and celebrations in Austin.

It's true that I Twittered more than I ever Twittered in my life and was partially responsible for crashing the AT&T servers. Whoops.

While I did attend a handful of panel discussions and keynote addresses, I think the most interesting aspect of the SXSW conference was meeting people in the convention center hallways, the introductions at the parties and random conversations that were popping up everywhere...

The highlight of the trip for me was hanging out at the Ustream.tv Studios where they were streaming live video all day and evening long. This is where I was pulled into a panel with Jeff "The Dude" Dowd and Robert Scoble. Jeff is the real life Big Lebowski (Jeff helped launch the Cohen Bros first film, Blood Simple & is one of the founders of the Sundance Institute). Robert is a social media pioneer and celebrity blogger / photographer. After our discussion that night, we hit some great parties and met a ton of wonderful people.

It was so powerful to be in a place where everyone with similar interests and passions converged to discuss, share and celebrate the web.

Here are a couple of pics from Robert Scoble. I'll post another blog post soon about some other adventures and tweets from SXSW.