CarlaBorsoi.com

It cracks me up to find things way after the fact, including this article on long distance dating. So glad that’s no longer the case!

My favorite is still the Gulf War cocktails, in the Worth Noting section.

2010 has been a wild and wackadoodle year — all in a good way. I’ve barely had time to catch my breath to even call my mother, much to her chagrin. Personally, apart from all the fun side endeavors, the most fun has been that my spousal equivalent, Jeff, moved from Austin to San Francisco. It’s been an extreme pleasure to not only have him present for fun, but also to enjoy the mundanities of life together. Nothing says love like discussing whose turn it is to clean the lint out of the dryer (always me) or to go grocery shopping (always him). Jeff’s also been an awesome step parent to my children and has enjoyed doing all sorts of things, from school trips to family vacations.

Jeff’s move was yet the first of many new things to happen this year. The remaining big ones are all professional and have benefit from his presence.

First off, in January, I switched roles at Ask.com to head up their emerging community of Q&A answerers. I jumped at the chance to put my years of participating in communities online into action as a community manager, not merely a member. Not soon after, however, an old acquaintance (Mike Maser) came a-knockin’ having just left Digg to move to AOL. He offered an opportunity to conduct research among larger audiences and across a wide swath of products. It was a tough choice to leave Ask.com, but I realized the opportunity to have an impact on more products and more people was a professional challenge I needed. After five years at Ask, I bid adieu in late June. Leaving the fantastic women and men of Ask.com was sad, but I look forward to seeing lots of great answers to questions in the Ask.com community.

I began at AOL in late June. These first few weeks yield a vision for the type of analysis and insight that can help a company transform. AOL is a start-around: taking a huge company and turning the tide and all the associated brand imagery built up over 25 years into something new. This is a task that is mentally stimulating and one that will be rewarding. It’s thrilling to be a part of this re-energization of a stalwart so many of us have known. I hope to be able to share some of my philosophies around research here as I delve more deeply into this role. Spending lots of time on airplanes engenders time to ponder research methodologies and techniques deeply – and their application more so.

In other professional news, at the turn of the year, online I met a fellow Rollins alum, John Dick, CEO of Civic Science. He had called to ask a few questions about how I viewed the world of research and through the course of our conversation, we discovered a mutual passion for real time consumer insights, especially among hard to reach consumers (hey teenagers and tech-savvy elites–I’m looking at you!). The Civic Science model allows for polling that can be aggregated in powerful ways to draw conclusions about the marketplace on a nearly inexhaustible list of subjects. This led to me taking a role on the Advisory Board for Civic Science. In the future, you’ll see cross-posting here on CarlaBorsoi.com as I ruminate on data coming from Civic Science’s Millennial Index.

All of these changes are exciting and daunting. It delights me to have these opportunities and appreciate the chance to grow both personally and professionally this year. However, they do mean that I am on the road a great deal and have been traveling extensively this year. You may see me at an airport gate sometime soon. Stop by and say hi and let’s talk some shop.

I wanted to announce that Salon97 has seen fit to appoint me as a member of its advisory board. This organization, dedicated to making classical music accessible to the other 97% of us, had its 2 year anniversary this past weekend. There’s a wonderful write up by Chloe Veltman.

Founder Cariwyl Hebert also announced quite a few fun things at the most recent event. One of these is a text fact of the week. To get this for free, text Salon97 to 41411. (As the commercials say, your text message rate still applies – hopefully you are smart and have unlimited texts, as I do.) Cariwyl has also been blogging about a composer a week. This week is Amy Beach – one of the new-to-me composers I heard at one of the very first events.  Her music is delightful.

Look out for the next event at Citizen Space on June 17th, 7pm!

It seems that I’m cultivating a lot of little side projects and monthly events tailored around socializing.

One of these is a group of amazing women who meet up to discuss life, tough life questions and enjoy wonderful meals in our homes. This is called the Comfort Food Club, started by Tara Hunt and Rachel Weidinger.  I appreciate the high quality conversation, an ability to discuss industry (and non-industry doings) and to discuss food.

The next was inspired by LUPEC, and it’s LARC  – Ladies Advocating Respectable Cocktails. Many of us are fans of high quality concoctions made with premium ingredients. Everything from homemade ginger simple syrup or homemade grenadine has made it into drinks featuring everything from Creme to Violette to rum. Every month we have a featured liquor and every member is responsible for bringing a recipe to try. We report out on our successes (yes, only successes) on our group Tumblr. We had a fantastic organizational meeting, agreed on a set of ground rules and have been enjoying all sorts of deliciousness!

The final is a new book club I joined, started this year by Corey Denis. Our group name is SpaceMonkeyLit and you can follow along with what we’re reading each month on Twitter.

What’s interesting about each of these is that each one established its own ground rules for success. Each one has a unique personality and adds to my life in a different way and draws on different people to enhance the things I’m interested in learning more about on a daily basis. For example, while I’ve always been a fan of cocktails, I’ve been learning a lot about the art of mixology as well as the science and history behind the hooch. Comfort Food Club has broadened my food horizons and ways of thinking about food, as well as made me re-think a lot of life’s big questions. Finally, SpaceMonkeyLit has exposed me to new ways of thinking of books I both love and hate.

Ultimately though, these all are centered around my most important life project: people! Familiarizing myself with new friends, getting to know old friends with a new lens, and learning how everyone reacts to specific filters (food, cocktails, books) enhances my own life.

How do we think about the influence within the context of age, gender and race? How often should we think about it? How do we put the conversation in the proper context? How do we avoid being caught in a trap of only celebrating the same individuals when trying to call attention to a larger, systemic issue?

These are all big questions, and were sparked by the Ada Lovelace Day Celebration, taking place on March 24th. The concept behind the day is to celebrate women in technology and their achievements, to provide both inspiration and to call attention to the fact that while women have embraced all career fields, including technology, it still appears there’s issues in getting women seen in the forefront of the field, including as matter of course. You’ll have articles calling attention to women in the industry, but it seems to me that it’d be a lot more fulfilling if were considered without having to push extra or create special articles about them. As well, the same women seem to get lauded over and over again, understandably so, but it’d be nice to see people dig into the guts of businesses and determine who is actually building things and making useful technology for the rest of us.

This problem has been especially well commented on with regards to tech conferences, where it’s easier for a woman to use the bathroom (due to less women in attendance) than it is to get on the speaker roster. It does seem that conference organizers do try and reach out, but it doesn’t always come to fruition. Many times, the same faces show up again and again, often because they are the ones that get asked, or that know organizers, or perhaps because they actually say yes.

However, none of these bigger questions answer the request from the Ada Lovelace organizers, which is to celebrate a woman in technology. Rather than pick a woman specifically running a company, or building something (although I will admit to being completely tongue-tied when introduced to Kim Polese a few years ago), I thought it would be useful to look for someone who contributed to something behind the scenes.

In order to pick someone like this, it was necessary for me to think about the things that help run business, the analysis that can be performed to best do various jobs, and a skill that runs across many disciplines. One discipline that fits the bill is statistics. Researching female statisticians led me to Florence Nightingale David, who wrote a classic treatise on game theory – Games, Gods & Gambling. (Never heard of game theory? It’s definitely an under-pinning of an algorithm or two.) She also worked as the Chair of the Biostatistics department as UC-Riverside. Every reference to Florence talks about how she ended up in her field, when someone explained they wouldn’t hire her since she was a she. Thankfully, undaunted, she went on to publish multiple books, academic papers and monographs.

Women, including myself, need to learn from the example of creating tools for ourselves and to find other paths when one way is blocked. It does mean that we need to look for opportunities to promote and integrate ourselves into the overall consciousness so that we are not seen as separate, or requiring extra effort. Truthfully, the same could be said for any group not in the mainstream, when it can be hard to pull ourselves out of the fast-moving river where it’s easier to float along without thinking.  

Personally, I’m hopeful that Ada Lovelace day shows a diversity of women to emulate, admire and celebrate, and that we don’t get caught in looking only at the top of the field, at the moment, without reflecting on who laid down the road.

More information can be found about Florence here. For the statistically inclined, there is also an award established in her name given to a female statistician of merit.

Inspired by Tantek’s Communication Protocols wiki, I’ve started my own.

This details my preferred methods of communication, motivations and how to interact with me. My sense of etiquette is also detailed and will be updated over time.

Please note these are my preferences and everyone likely has their own, so create your own!

After a very exciting victory for Barack Obama, it’s time to roll up our sleeves and get to work.

My friend Ryan summed up the current feeling of elation in a recent post:

“I didn’t think I’d ever see masses of people on the streets of San Francisco chanting “USA! USA! USA!”. You see, the left coast liberal elite loves America too, we just sometimes can’t get excited about it.”

Now the thing is, we actually have to show that all the bake sales, fundraisers and concerts can translate into ongoing action.

I’m totally impressed with the transition website, http://www.change.gov/,  but what excites me in this time is the number of places people are talking about what they can do. Check out the thread on Get Satisfaction about “What Can I Do to Help?” What are the things we should be doing to change our own behaviors to create a better country and deal with the abundance of domestic issues at hand.

My comments on this thread are related to Barack’s nomination acceptance speech, in which he stated that we would all have to make sacrifices. While I am anxious to hear specifics of what he envisions, I also feel that this very much has to come from the populace as well. This is our duty as citizens, to figure out how we fit into the overall fabric of this country and how our actions impact everything.

I want specifics on the sacrifices we can make from our President-Elect’s perspective, bucketed into different areas: finance/economy, education, environment, etc.

I think there’s some basics: increase the amount that is put into your savings account each month, live within your means, take public transportation where possible, shop local, buy made in the USA, pay attention to key local initiatives, attend a school board (or other governmental meeting), reduce your electricity needs.

What suggestions do you have?

I got a lovely email from Paul Terry Walhus today, asking about the SXSW Charter project, and reminding me of the lovely video he made after our How to Rawk SXSW Panel earlier this year.

CC Chapman, Kevin Smokler, David Dylan Thomas and I talked about how to keep the inspiration going after the always fabulous week. We got some guests to join and were able to extend the conversation beyond the panel presentation.

Check it out.

And yes, I know, I talk too fast.

My creative juices seem to have been flowing recently, or maybe it’s just excessive conversations with a wide variety of friends, co-workers, former colleagues & family members.

A lot of encouragement to dive into side projects — including an invite to help with BarSleepawayCamp, push further on Immortal Dating Service, and energy for PopSkipJump. This, on top of my desire to create some social things, such as a Charter Flight to SXSW 2009 and to do some actual creative writing with Nadir.

Watch this space as I forge on those efforts, and they do battle with social time.