AMY GAHRAN: The Right Conversation

Organic Conversations (Pun Intended)

Jonny Hunter, via Flickr

On Friday, June 22, I'll be speaking right here in Boulder, CO at the Organic Summit Leadership Conference -- cosponsored by New Hope Natural Media and the Organic Farming Research Foundation. I'll be speaking on a panel: What makes the organic news?

Like any industry, people in the organic food & product business want to spread the word about their offerings and issues. As a longtime environmental journalist (among other things), I'm very used to talking to people in this field, so I'm looking forward to it. At the very least, the food will be excellent, of course!

My co-panelists are award-winning food and nutrition journalist Carolyn O'Neil and Kristine Kidd, food editor of Bon Appetit magazine.

Most of the people attending this panel will probably be in involved in PR and media relations for the organics industry. That's great, because it seems to me that these folks, in particular, can have a ton of productive fun with online and conversational media.

Here are some things I plan to discuss...

Links & more thoughts for my BlogHer Talk Today

This afternoon I'm on a panel at the BlogHer Business Summit: An RFP for the Measurement Industry:

"Where is the blog measurement tool that could measure more than "eyeballs," more than "authority" via inbound links, and could begin to approach measuring influence and relevance? [The panelists will] scope out what is, is not and ought to be available."

...Earlier I wrote some thoughts about this topic: Accounting for Community

Here are links for some tools I'll mention today:

• BuzzLogic: Sophisticated analysis, records interaction, looks at more than just your site
• Google Analytics: Simple, free analytics tool, but not my favorite.
• Omniture: Really sophisticated site stat analysis, cream of the crop -- but expensive
• Newsfire (my favorite Mac feed reader)
• CoComment and Co.mments, two comment-tracking tools
• IceRocket and Technorati: blog aggregators
• BoardReader: Elizabeth Lee recommended this in the session, I must check it out -- a search engine for message boards.

Also, on May 12 I'm giving a workshop in Chicago with Heidi Miller: Creating Passionate Communities with Blogs and Podcasting.  Special $40 discount for  BlogHer session attendees with the code: blogher.

UPDATE: Right now I'm in the session preceding mine on the ROI of social media. Lena West of Xynomedia just said something that made me thing of something I want to mention in my session...

Accounting for Community: Thoughts for the BlogHer Business Summit

                                               

Stig Nygaard, via Flickr (CC license)

"Toto, I don't think we're in Boulder anymore..."

I'm in New York right now, and on Friday afternoon I'll be on a panel at the BlogHer Business Summit that I'm really looking forward to. Here's the official blurb from the conference program:

An RFP for the Measurement Industry

Where is the blog measurement tool that could measure more than "eyeballs," more than "authority" via inbound links, and could begin to approach measuring influence and relevance? [The panelists will] scope out what is, is not and ought to be available.

The panel will also include Edelman PR's Elizabeth Lee and LiveWorld's Jenna Woodul. Jory Des Jardins, one of the BlogHer founders and a gifted blogger in her own right will be moderating.

Gee... No pressure...

Frankly, I've been stressing a bit about this session. For a long time I've felt I was missing something very obvious about this topic. I've been worrying that I'm going to get up in front of an audience of people I respect and look like an idiot. Perhaps I'm about to do just that.

Regardless, something just occurred to me. I'd like to hear what you think about it...

May 12, Chicago: My Workshop with Heidi Miller!

Ok, here's something I've been working on that I'm very excited about. On Saturday, May 12, I'll be teaming up with the Podcasting Princess herself, Heidi Miller, to offer a special one-day workshop: Creating Passionate Communities with Blogs and Podcasting. Attendees will get a fun, practical jump start toward using the Internet to support your work -- and your bottom line. 

Is this workshop for you? Quite possibly.

• Do you love your business, organization, or project -- but hate doing traditional marketing or outreach?
• Do you love connecting with people who might want to buy your products or services, support your efforts, or just spread the word about what you're doing -- but hate creating ads and press releases?
• Even more importantly, do the people you need to reach tend to tune out traditional advertising and marketing? Also, do they like being heard?

Register now to get the early bird discount rate. (Right Conversation readers, enter the code RC01 to receive an extra $25 discount.)

Here's what our workshop will cover...

Justin Crawford: Notes for his talk

As I mentioned, Halloween morning my colleague Justin Crawford and I are giving a talk to a class of journalism graduate students at the University of Colorado on the amorphous topic of blogs and citizen journalism. Here are some notes for Justin's talk, What are blogs and why should you care?...

Media Is Not a Spectator Sport: Notes for my talk

Halloween morning, Justin Crawford and I will be leading a discussion with journalism grad students at the University of Colorado. The topic we were given is rather amorphous: "blogging and citizen journalism."

Well the good thing about an amorphous assignment is that I can make of it pretty much what I choose. So that's exactly what I'm doing.

Here are my notes for that talk. I've also posted Justin's notes.

To start with, this past weekend I had the opportunity to speak with many journalism students at the annual conference of the Society of Environmental Journalists. I even taught some of them how to blog, so they could contribute to the unofficial SEJ2006 blog. I also got a chance to speak with many journalism educators. These are all very bright people.

Still, I got the strong impression that journalism education today remains focused almost entirely on traditional print/broadcast media -- not just in terms of technology, but also by instilling a mindset which assumes a passive audience that absorbs news, rather than engaging an active community that contributes to news.

Here are a few thoughts and tips for how today's journalism students (and other budding or not-so-budding journalists) can capitalize on a media landscape that has shifted strongly toward participation and conversation...

Running a Group Conference Blog: What I'm Learning

This Tuesday I'm flying to Burlington, VT for my annual brain food festival -- the conference of the Society of Environmental Journalists (SEJ). I've been working with this group since 1990, and I have a lot of friends there, so this event is always a blast.

This year, I set up an unofficial SEJ2006 group weblog. It's "unofficial" because it's a strictly volunteer, independent effort by people who are either SEJ members, attending the conference (speakers, exhibitors, others, etc.) or who are working on the conference (staff, etc.). I did this mainly because it was more efficient to just set it up by myself, on my own, than to have to deal with any organization to get it done.

To be quite honest, this blog has been consuming much of my time this week. More than I'd intended -- but this is an experimental project, and experiments always entail unforeseen resource demands as well as results. It's OK, I've been learning a ton of useful stuff from this effort.

So if you're considering setting up a blog in support of your conference, benefit from my experience. Here's what I've learned, so far...

10 Ideas: What To Post to a Conference Blog

I've been working hard lately to get the unofficial conference blog up and running for the 2006 conference of the Society of Environmental Journalists.

Now that it's up and the crew of volunteer bloggers is mostly trained in how to use our blogging tool, Typepad, they're starting to request more guidance on content. Most of these contributing bloggers come from print media. They know how to write, but they've never blogged before -- and most of them also have little or no experience in creating any content specifically for online media.

Consequently, they aren't familiar with conference blogs. That's fine -- many people aren't, although that's starting to change. I've worked on some conference blogging efforts, so I've pulled together a list of 10 kinds of posts that work well on conference blogs.

As with any conversational-media effort, it helps to know your audience, as well as your community of contributors (both bloggers and commenters). What skills and expertise do they bring to the table? What do they want? Ultimately, that should be your guide.

Here's my list...

Capturing Conferences: Expanding on Beth Kanter's Thoughts

Beth Kanter, one of the many great minds I encountered at BlogHer 2006.

Ever since the BlogHer conference in late July, I've been thinking about live blogging and other ways to capture the energy and creativity that often arises at conferences and other gatherings.

Well, as often happens when I don't get around to writing something down, some smart blogger beats me to it. That's just what Beth Kanter did. See her Aug. 25 post, Collaborative Models for Capturing and Sharing Conference Notes at Nonprofit Gatherings.

As a matter of fact, go read her post first. What I'm about to say will make more sense after you read her excellent overview of tools and techniques.

(Really, go read it. I'll wait. It's cool.)

...OK, now that you've read Beth's overview of collaboration tools and strategies that can help capture the value of conferences (and hopefully followed her links to some examples), here's my bigger-picture thought for today:

Conference planners should consider how to capture and extend the value of the conference during the planning process. Because for many people and organizations, what gets captured from a conference is more valuable than the event itself.

READ MORE: Over at my client's blog, Capture the Conversation, I've published a quick checklist of what I think conference planners should start taking into account...

3 Must-Use Online Tools for Journalists

As I mentioned earlier, this weekend I'm speaking at the annual conference of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ).

On Saturday, Jeff South (Va. Commonwealth Univ.) and I will be hosting a session from 3:30-4:30 pm on this theme: "Technology: A User's Guide to Software, Hardware and Other Tools Revolutionizing Journalism." (Incidentally, just before that, from 2:15-3:15, is a session hosted by Robert Cox of the Media Bloggers Association entitled "The Good and Bad About Blogging." I'm definitely going to sit in on that one, and will live blog it if there's good wifi.)

Jeff's handout for our session is available as a pdf download from SPJ because he's organized enough to get his handout done and in to SPJ on time.

In contrast, I only finished my SPJ session handout yesterday, shortly before I dashed off to host the first-ever Front Range Blogger Meetup (which was a huge success and I'll blog about that next).

So here is my handout for the session: Top 3 Must-Use Online Tools for Journalists (pdf).

If you're not a fan of pdf files, I've published the full text of that handout on Contentious....

Front Range (CO) Blogger Meetup Aug. 23

(NOTE: I've cross-posted this from my other weblog, Contentious.)

As much as I adore conversational media, I like face-to-face conversations even more. I know there are lots of bloggers in the Boulder-Denver (CO) area, but we never seem to get together much. I'd love to meet some of these people.

So this weekend I decided to do something about it. I signed up as a Meetup.com organizer and arranged the first-ever monthly Front Range Bloggers Meetup. It's Aug. 23, 2006, 6-9 pm (MST) at Trident Bookseller & Cafe, 940 Pearl St., Boulder, CO.

If you're a blogger located along Colorado's Front Range, or if you're from this region and you like reading blogs or are thinking about blogging, feel free to stop by! This event is free.

Please RSVP for this event via Meetup.com. Several people have already indicated they're coming.

Even if you can't make it on Aug. 23, please join this group on Meetup.com so you can get announcements of future events. I'm sure we'll try other locations for these monthly meetings as this develops.

BlogHer 06: Tons of Coverage

Over the last few days I (and a few other people) have been adding to the BlogHer 06 live/post blogging coverage wiki. It now features dozens of links. I won't have a chance to add much to it over the next few days, and I know there are plenty of items that aren't on there yet which should be.

This is an open public wiki, so if you know of a link that should be on there but isn't yet, please click "edit page" to add it. Thanks!

BlogHer Silent Movies

Here are a few Quicktime movies I shot at Blogher. They're kind of fun, so I thought I'd share. My camera does not do audio, but you can still figure out what's happening.

• Friday morning breakfast -- already a good-size crowd here, getting caffeinated. Download blogher_breakfast.MOV

• Blogger Tree Fitzpatrick demonstrates a cool iBook keyboard cover -- which probably would have saved my keyboard, which had an unfortunate run-in with a martini in Washington DC earlier this year. Download keyboard_saver.MOV

• The room was packed from wall to wall for the Saturday evening keynote panel session. Download lotta_bloghers.MOV

• Hanging out Friday evening with Susan Mernit, Jarah Euston, and Lisa Williams. Download susan_jarah_lisa.MOV
•  

  One of several BlogHer events that took place by the Hyatt San Jose pool. This was on Saturday, just before the "Birds of a Feather" small group gatherings. Download by_the_pool.MOV

Microsoft's conference marketing, part 3

Over the weekend I wrote about a major Microsoft marketing/sponsorship gaffe -- a cheesy, crass, embarrassing commercial that took place on the main stage during the Saturday morning welcome session. If you look over the comments to that post, you'll see I'm not the only one who was cringing.

Then, via Kevin O'Keefe, I learned that Microsoft took a softer, lower-key approach to marketing at Gnomedex, a tech conference held just a few weeks ago and amply sponsored by Microsoft. In a July 3 posting, Gnomedex founder Chris Pirillo praised Microsoft for rewriting the rules of conference sponsorship:

Pirillo wrote: "Microsoft (as this year’s diamond sponsor) did not have any scheduled time on stage. By this action, they have set the bar incredibly high for conferences the world over. No longer need conference coordinators be pressured by pay-for-play politics -- and no longer need top conference sponsors fall victim to the misconception that speaking time is implied."

Given that moment of shining progress, why did Microsoft backslide so suddenly into a heavy-handed, off-target sales pitch?

I suspect there are several reasons...

Psycho birdcage and other BlogHer visual weirdness

I just finished uploading the last of my BlogHer photos to Flickr, and I can't resist sharing a bit of visual weirdness I encountered at the conference hotel, the Hyatt San Jose.

First of all, this statue stands near the door between the lobby and the pool area, where many BlogHer events were held. Most attendees didn't notice it, but I just thought it was ironic to see a headless, one-handed giant stone woman looming in the shadows of this gathering.

Next on my list of weirdness is the spooky birdcage positioned against the wall in the hallway just inside the glass door shown in the statue photo above. It contains about 20-odd finches and other small songbirds. It's designed to look like a cutesy Victorian house.

...But just look inside the "windows" and a whole new scenario emerges. Within that cute little birdcage, it looks like Philadelphia's Eastern State Penitentiary!

This is, without a doubt, the most dismal and sadistic birdcage I've ever seen. Here's how it looks when you walk up and peer inside: Download psycho_cage.MOV

After I stepped away, that "cute Victorian house" now began to resemble the Bates house in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. I swear, it even sounded like some of those finches were chirping "Norman! Norman!"

...shudder...

More live- and post-blogging from BlogHer

Just a quick note -- I'm continuing to update the BlogHer 06 live blogging wiki I created yesterday. If you attended BlogHer in person or virtually and blogged it, or come across such coverage, please stop by and add it to the wiki.

I've organized the wiki according to the conference schedule. General post-mortems appear at the end of the list.

Thanks to the people who have already been contributing to this wiki! I definitely can't do this all by myself.

Microsoft's Conference Marketing, Part 2

Yesterday I wrote about what I considered a woefully off-target pitch by BlogHer sponsor Microsoft for their new Windows Live Spaces service.

Kevin O'Keefe at Lexblog picked up on this, and said that Microsoft "should have gone the low key approach as at Gnomedex. Write a check to a worthwhile program, get thanked on various occasions, and get out of the way."

Now, that's interesting. Could someone tell me exactly what Microsoft did at Gnomedex? Were they promoting the same product: Windows Live Spaces? And if so, how did they pitch it? Were the Janes there doing this song and dance?

I'll look into this when I have time. On a cursory glance, MS Tech Today doesn't offer any real information about the way Windows Live Spaces was pitched at Gnomedex. Nor does the MSN/Windows Live Newsroom. Hmmm, I was just chatting with Ponzi last night at the BlogHer reception. Wish I'd known about this then to ask her about it.

BlogHer catchup: Notes on notes

I'm at the San Jose airport, and I have a couple of hours before my post-BlogHer flight back home to Denver. I've been lucky enough to commandeer a rare airport electrical outlet, so I'm going to try to catch up on my BlogHer blogging and updating the converence coverage wiki I created yesterday. (Feel free to add to that if you were at BlogHer in person or virtually and wrote some coverage, or have found coverage like that which isn't already on the wiki.)

I took copious notes and photos yesterday, but didn't post to this blog after the morning session because the wireless network was operating at a crawl when I could get on it at all. I did manage a brief posting to Contentious (my other weblog) with a link to support a comment I made in the Next Level Naked session.

Speaking of notes...

I thought Barbie was blonde?

First off, I greatly appreciate all the companies that sponsored BlogHer 2006. I think that's not only great for the strong and fast-growing community of female bloggers, but also a wonderful marketing/PR opportunity.

...If you handle it right.

Still, I had to cringe at the campy, off-target Microsoft presentation during the welcome session just a few minutes ago.

To promote its new Windows Live Spaces service, someone at Microsoft thought it would be appropriate and fun to send a couple of bouncy, bubbly, sexy, carefully scripted 20-somethings uniformed in tight t-shirts and jeans to banter giddily for about 10 minutes on home improvement. It sounded like Barbie doing "Tool Time" in stereo. Excruciating.

(UPDATE JULY 30: It seems that Microsoft may have taken a very different approach to pitching this product at Gnomedex earlier this month. Also, the brunette Barbies are actually "The Janes" from the portal site Be Jane Inc., which apparently is going to be featured content on Windows Live Spaces.)

A wiki for BlogHer Live Blogging

Since so many blogHer 2006 attendees are live blogging this event, I thought it would be easier to track this coverage via a wiki rather than simply scrolling down the list of pre-assigned live bloggers.

So here it is: the BlogHer 2006 Live Blogging Wiki

It's a public wiki, so please feel free to edit it. I'll be updating it throughout the weekend. Hope this helps!

Tag, You're It! BlogHer Notes

So I'm at my final Blogher session today: Tagging, Tracking...and what's this structured blogging? The session leaders are Marnie Webb of TechSoup and Charlene Li from Forrester Research.

We're all debating the difference between keywords and tags. I must confess, I find this distinction very confusing.  Marc Canter expressed the difference this way: "Keywords are outdated. Tagging is what's happening today." Which I don't doubt is true, but that didn't clarify the issue for me.

Marnie Webb just clarified this for me. Keywords and tags are basically the same thing, but this difference is in how they're used: "The context of tagging is frequently social. The context of keywords tends to be in isolation (internal use)."

Marnie also mentioned a cool service that allows you to search the tags of many different social bookmarking/Web 2.0 services: TagFetch. Way cool! I've been wanting something like this forever. I'll have to play with it to see how well I like it.

And Marc Canter mentioned "All software can -- and should -- use tags." Amen, brother!

More highlights from this session...   

Web Writing Tips: BlogHer Notes

So I'm in my second afternoon session at BlogHer, The Ten Types of Web Writing. Lisa Stone and Lynne D. Johnson have started out by opening up the floor to the question "What is web writing"

Dina Mehta -- who came here all the way from India -- commented: "I think web writing is about conversations."

Well, I can't argue with that. I think even if you're starting with a monologue, you'll end up with a conversation whether you want it or not.

Speaking of conversations, here's that IT Conversations podcast featuring Robert Scoble and Shel Israel (authors of Naked Conversations) that I mentioned in the session. Shel Israel, near the end, discusses some sophisticated measures they had to take in response to inappropriate comments on their blog.

More highlights from this BlogHer session...

Building a Blog Audience: BlogHer Notes

I'm still at Blogher, sitting in on the afternoon session on building audience for a blog. Right now, Elise Bauer (of Learning Movable Type and other blogs). I actually wrote about Elise's blogging approach back in 2004.

Great quote from Bauer: "The whole key to community is generosity." Wow -- simple, elegant, and so counter to the competitive mindset I encounter in many community cultures.

At some point in this session I'll mention the posting I did earlier on this blog: Strategic Commenting: No Blog Is an Island. That's my best strategy for building a blog audience. Well, that and posting evergreen content (actually, that post is a good example of that strategy).

She also recommends using Google's personalized home page feature. I didn't realize that was an option for reading feeds. I'll have to play with that. She also recommended setting up a Google sitemap. Damn, I haven't finished that yet, I need to finish setting that up...

...And as she's discussing feeds, I'm wondering whether I should rethink my approach of publishing only excerpts in my feeds. Now that I consider the findability benefits, it might be time for me to change my mind on that. What do you think?

Great quote on trolling

    From a commenter at the Blogher luncheon event I'm sitting at right now:

"Build your code to manage trolls in your communities. It's no fun for people to manage trolls, and it's a lot of fun for trolls to be manage by people."

How true, how true. I've shared my thoughts on managing trolls and other kind of online vermin in a popular Contentious series.

Another great quote, from Caterina Fake of Flickr, about web app and community development: "Stealth has pretty much gone out of fashion."

And speaking of Flickr, I've continued to upload more BlogHer photos...

Classic BlogHer Shot

You'll see this kind of photo a lot from BlogHer: The "mutual photo."

Here, blogger Beth Kanter stopped me with: "Amy Gahran -- I read you!"  She introduced herself and I said, " I read you! Wait, let's get a picture!" And we both raised our camera.

This conference is a blast, and the real sessions haven't even started yet.

Photos from Third Thursday

So as I mentioned yesterday, last night I was on a panel for a monthly gathering of Bay Area PR pros called "third Thursday" (only this month it was the fourth Thursday, but whatever...  It was a blast!

There was a snafu about the space -- we were supposed to be out on the patio of Fanny & Alexander in Palo Alto, which would have been cooler and quieter, but they gave that away to a private party (to Phil Gomes' great chagrin). So we ended up taking over half the bar. It was hot and noisy, but it still went well.

Highlight of my evening: I finally met Shel Holtz in person! We've been corresponding and getting embroiled in cross-blog conversations for a few years, and I've always enjoyed our discussions. Well, here's proof that neither of us is a computer simulation.

Also, Jarah Euston of Fresno Famous was good enough to give me a ride back to the BlogHer hotel. I had a great time hanging out with her yesterday evening. We had a great talk about citizen media, Rotarians, and other topics.

I also had a good chat after the panel with Jeremy Pepper, who I've also known through online conversations for a while. Here he is greeting Phil Gomes with a hug. (Download jeremy_hug.MOV)

More photos on my Flickr page...

I'm quoted in the Washington Post today!

See: Changes at Netscape Foreshadow AOL's Evolution, by Sara Goo. I'm quoted on page 2.

It's about Netscape's intriguing new move to offer to pay people to do social bookmarking. I wrote a lot about that yesterday at Contentious.

I'm On a Panel Tonight: Podcasting & PR (Palo Alto)

Today I'm catching a plane to San Jose for the second annual BlogHer conference, which starts tomorrow.

Tonight (Thursday, July 27) I've been invited to speak on a panel at a monthly gathering of Bay Area PR luminaries, held this month in Palo Alto. The topic is podcasting.

My fellow panelists are:

• Phil Gomes (Edelman)
• Barbara Anthony (Palo Alto 360)
• Aaron Burcell (Podshow)
• Jarah Euston (Fresno Famous)

The panel is at Fanny & Alexander in Palo Alto. It starts at 6:30 tonight, and probably goes until 9 or so. I don't believe there's a fee to attend this event, but you might want to RSVP via Meetup.com.

So to warm up my brain for this, here are a few thoughts on podcasting as conversational media...

I'm speaking at the SPJ conference

Just a quick heads up: I've recently confirmed as a speaker at this year's conference of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ).

Read all about it over at my other blog, Contentious. And while you're there, tell me what you think I should talk to SPJ about!

Join me in Seattle this Wednesday!

Greetings, all!

I know I’ve been silent lately – I’ve been overwhelmed with work and business-related travel for the last couple of weeks. Most of my blogging has been happening on Poynter’s E-Media Tidbits, where I continue as editor.

I’m spending this week in Seattle, WA – where I’m working and spending some time with my husband Tom Vilot, who’s on extended contract to a major tech e-commerce company here.

I’ll get back to regular blogging on Contentious and The Right Conversation soon… But in the meantime, I’d like to invite all my Seattle-area readers and blogging/media colleagues to an informal get-together on Wednesday evening, June 7.

Here are the details…

Links for my URMA talk

On Wednesday, May 17, I'll be giving a talk at the annual conference of the University Reseach Magazine Association (URMA). They seem like a fun group of media professionals. (Seriously -- their conference agenda even features the Creature from the Black Lagoon!)

The topic of my talk is: Invasion of the bloggin’ pods: The new media – ready or not, they’re here! (So whatta we do with ‘em?)

I already warned URMA: I don't do lectures, so the people attending this session had better be ready to get involved.

Here are some links I plan to mention in my session...

My New Gig: Poynter's E-Media Tidbits Editor

A lot of interesting new work has come my way recently.

Along with my normal mix of editorial, writing, and consulting/training projects, I've just been awarded one new blogging gig of which I'm particularly proud. I've  been named editor of the Poynter Institute's group weblog, E-Media Tidbits.

I'll be taking over this task from my friend, colleague, and fellow Boulderite Steve Outing, who's just left Poynter to pursue an exciting new entrepreneurial venture in citizen media, The Enthusiast Group. (I'll write more about this later, but rest assured this is a very cool venture well worth watching.)

Steve is a consummate editor who has managed to gracefully combine creativity, good humor, ethical grounding, and decisive guidance. I hope this job will be as easy as he made it look -- but I won't bet on that. ;-) I will do my best to continue his Tidbits vision.

If you're not familiar with Tidbits, you really should be! Here's what it's about...

Hear Amy Live: Public Speaking Services

I thrive in the public conversation because I'm experienced, practical, curious, and enthusiastic. These qualities also make me a uniquely engaging speaker.

I love speaking, and I give a lot of talks. I've addressed the UN Food and Agriculture Association, Public Relations Society of America, National Governors Association, NY Press Association, Society of Environmental Journalists, National Association of Science Writers, Da Vinci Institute, and many other groups.

These are the types of speaking engagements I offer...
 

My Topics for Events and Appearances

I do a fair amount of public speaking. This is one of my favorite parts of my career, since these live events always produce plenty of energy and ideas.

I have a wide range of interests ane expertise, so I offer talks and workshops on many topics.

Here's my current topic list...