You may have noticed that I’ve done some housekeeping on the blog. It was about time – I can’t tell when I last updated my blogroll – best guess is sometime in 2006 – but my homepage was evidently last changed in late 2005. I’ll be adding more links to the blogroll in the next couple of weeks – please don’t be sad if you’re not yet included.
My impetus for this digital housecleaning? I’ve had a couple of kind mentions in the media recently, and thought it might be nice to people searching for me to find out what I’m doing lately… and not what I was doing in 2005. And just in case you missed it, here’s the shameless self-promotion:
CNN runs TED talks every Tuesday, and invites speakers to accompany their talks with an essay. I took the opportunity to write about Facebook’s 500 million member mark. This now means that my TED talk is circulating to another audience who are primed to believe that it’s about Facebook… though I don’t think I actually mention Facebook in the talk.
Before going to Oxford for TED, I dropped in on friends at the Guardian for their Activate Summit. Liz Ford offered an excellent overview of my talk there. I dropped by again on my way to Nigeria to do a brief interview about cyberutopianism, which follows below.
Probably the most enjoyable talk I’ve given lately wasn’t a lecture – it was a two-hour conversation with Ghanaian bloggers and tweeps set up by my friend Mac-Jordan. We were almost thwarted by technology – Google Calendar evidently decided to “help” by rescheduling our meeting at Smoothies Pub in Accra to eastern time, which meant that I showed up for the event at an hour when most Accrafolk are in church… and by the time everyone showed up, I’d given up and gone to find a bowl of omo tuo and groundnut soup. It all worked out, and I’m grateful to Mac-Jordan both for setting up the event and blogging about it. I clearly need to spend more time in Ghana – the local tech and literary scenes are both amazing.
Okay, enough about me – back to your regularly scheduled, sporadic posting.
Hi Ethan,
too bad I missed the meet-up you had with Ghanablogging, but feel of course very happy as the founder of the group (on vacation inEurope at the time) that you found the interaction enjoyable.
Judging from our last meeting on Thursday, you inspired Ghanablogging members too!
See you next time in Accra!
Best,
Kajsa
I was beginning to wonder if you were ever going to fix those links on your personal blog, not that any of your loyal fans over the years were really bothered by the problem. But as you pointed out, now that you have gained some degree of respectability and authority OUTSIDE of the blogosphere, it ain’t a bad idea to do a bit of good housekeeping every now and then.
I noted the new TEDTalk video in a newsletter from TED last week (I think that it was last week) and will try to check it out as time allows. You talks and posts are invaluable to many of us who remain dedicated to the power of blogs.
Re: shameless self-promotion
I have a short series up at my place on Somalia and the rising threat of the al Shabaab and Hizbul Islam. In the first post (July 31st) are references to two bloggers who we once followed regularly, Yvette Lopez (Inside Somaliland) and Bill Ainashe. I know where Bill is these days (the Villa Somalia in Mogadishu), but do you have any idea where Yvette has disappeared to over the past few years? Check it out when and if you find the time and please update me with new information you may want to share. It’s not like people give a rat’s rear end about what’s going on in Somalia, as we both know so well.
Thanks EZ and all the best to you and the family.
Bill (BRE)
You can certainly see your enthusiasm in the paintings
you write. The sector hopes for even more passionate writers like
you who are not afraid to say how they believe. Always follow your heart.
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