The decade that was (2000 – 2009) was pretty much a disaster. I am looking so forward to putting this lost decade behind me. In 2000, the industry that I loved and had dedicated my career to tanked, bring my career prospects, my investments, and my sense of security to a new low.   Of course, 9/11 happened in 2001 and I was personally affected when a family friend was taken who worked on the 102nd floor at Cantor Fitzgerald.   After 9/11, I made the decision to stop working.  I spent 2001 – 2005 at home being a wife and mother.  That only half-way worked out, as I had to file for divorce in 2006, which also coincided with a return to the workforce.  In 2006, I could not have been more unprepared to be a professional again.  I literally had to start from scratch with nothing– no current knowledge in a fiercely competitive tech market, no real contacts, no identifiable marketable skills.  I remember buying business clothes in a thrift store called, “Second Time Around“  thinking it was aptly named for my comeback.

Broke and somewhat shattered emotionally, I started my trek back to work.  You can actually see this on the pages of my ITSinsider blog if you go back to the beginning in the archives.  I had no idea what I was going to do, but had an enormous pressure to make something happen to support myself and the kids.  I arrived on my current sector sometime in July of 2006.  In 2007, I was fortunate to find an actual job which required a relocation to Austin.   My house never sold, so I was finding myself sucked into the economic sinkhole that become the real estate crisis of 2007.  As the economy slid even further, I discovered I was losing my job by the end of 2008 and employment opportunities were becoming more and more scarce.  My daughter graduated high school with honors in 2009, but it was touch-n-go there for a while if she’d be able to attend the college of her choice.  Thankfully, to the good graces of a friend, she made it.   The remainder of this year, 2009, has indeed picked up, however, and it appears I am finally, thankfully on track.

I was having dinner with a few friends last week, and one of them familiar with my travails mentioned that I should give myself credit for surviving and prevailing over some pretty tough odds.  This post is a reminder to myself that, ya, he’s right.

In short, I am very eager to leave this decade behind.  Good riddance.  It’s not the worst I’ve ever had in my life, but I’m very hopeful the next decade will be one of the very best.  So, here’s to you 2010.  Bring it.  I’m ready.  This decade nearly kicked my butt, but I’m still in the ring, gloves up.

So. There it was. An iPhone just laying there under the front passenger seat of my cab. Should I pick it up? I knew it wasn’t the taxi driver’s because he was chatting up his friend on his phone while he zoomed me down 5th Avenue. Yeah, I gotta pick it up. Should be easy to just call the owner and tell him/her, “Hey busy guy/girl, ya left your iPhone in the cab.”

I reach down, pick it up. Hit the home button, slide the slider… oh crap. It’s got that damn password block on it. The one my teenage son uses so I won’t read his text messages. I guess at a few passwords. Of course, that doesn’t work. Crap. Now what do I do? It’s impenetrable.

I ask on Twitter what do I do with an iPhone I found that is locked? Most tell me to take it to an AT&T store. They can track it by GPS. But, I don’t want to do that… so impersonal. It would release me from my decent sense of civil obligation to personally return this phone safely to its owner.

Hey, what’s that? A tweet comes through from @steamykitchen. I look her up on my iPhone. She’s in Tampa, a food writer with a lot of followers. Hummm. Not likely she’ll know my iPhone owner. But, what the heck… Maybe she’s a sister; a college roommate? I send her a Tweet. No luck. I realize the Tweet notifier came through as “emFeigen.” (which I stupidly don’t recognize as her twitter ID). I google emFeigen. Nothing. I search “Emily Feigen Twitter.” Nothing. Shoot. We’re so close, but so far.

The iPhone is running out of battery. Luckily, I have my charger in my bag. I arrive at NYU Parent’s Day at the Kimmel Center, and I’m worrying about the iPhone. I settle into my seat in the auditorium and spot an electric outlet near me on the wall. I discreetly charge the iPhone.

The kickoff speech is over. I check the iPhone and see there are texts coming in. Mom, Shara, some other names, nothing that gives me a clue how to contact the owner.

Finally, a phone number texts to the iPhone… I text back, “You just txted someone’s iPhone. Please tell that persion I have her/his iPhone. It was left in a taxi in NY.” A text comes back, “Thanks for texting back! Where are you? Still in NY?” Yay! I feel good. I’m only one degree of separation removed from the owner. Connected.

It turns out the owner’s name is Emma, not Emily. Emma’s friend calls me while I’m in the rest room. I tell her I’ll be at NYU all day; my name is Susan. I eventually hear from Emma. She reaches me while I’m eating lunch with my daughter at a neighborhood Italian restaurant. She’s two blocks away. She says she’ll come by in ten minutes. She arrives with a beautiful bouquet of three dozen roses and offers to give me money. I flatly refuse the money, but am happy about the flowers because I know my daughter will love to have them in her dorm room. Emma is very sweet and very grateful. I had learned from her friend she is a chef downtown. I feel good about humanity.

It turns out, it was a banner social media day. The reason I was receiving so many texts on the iPhone is Emma wrote this note on her Facebook wall:

Because of the volume of texts I received, I was able to text back to the one number she did not have in her address book. (If a text from a friend comes up, you only see the friend’s name, not the number.)

Later, I text Emma and ask her for her Twitter ID and I ask her to friend me on Facebook. I tell her I’m a blogger and would like to post about this encounter and take a screen shot of her Facebook wall. She agrees.

In this simple vignette, I affirm for myself that the social web is bringing out the best in people. It’s connecting us in ways that are wonderful and useful. During the dotcom era I was a CMO for a digital startup. Our tagline was a question– “What happens when everyone is connected to everything?” In the late 90s, we didn’t know; the question was rhetorical. A decade later, the answers are unfolding.

The more connected I become, the more hopeful I am about the transformative, empowering changes that are taking place in society as a result of moving from an atoms-constrained planet to a pervasive-digital world. Yes, I know it’s only a minority of individuals who are connecting today, but the connections we’re making and the do-good we’re doing is establishing a new social order among civilized humans. With the exploding growth of mobile connectivity and ubiquitous access to the web, those in power to change our world are getting the job done in a spirit of service and humility.

So maybe it was only a lost iPhone and a grateful owner today, but the premise of humans helping humans via Twitter, Facebook, and SMS messages, is becoming the rule and not the exception.

And I’m loving every moment of it.

There has been a lot of conversation (again) surrounding the lack of diversity, and particularly, women represented in our tech sector.   I was started to see this dramatic breakdown of 2.0 Adoption Council fans on my Facebook page.

With so many Americans still out of work, I’m particularly sensitive to the plight of the homeless these days. It’s alarming to recognize how quickly individuals could find themselves without proper shelter for themselves and their families. I heard a statistic on the radio that homelessness has risen to over 10,000 in the city of Austin. Austin is particularly humane about helping the homeless with various community and local programs, as well as not criminalizing panhandling (it doesn’t work: read why). There is much work to do, but as cities go, Austin is more progressive than most.

Last week, Austin was visited by Mark Horvath (@hardlynormal) who is touring the U.S. filming the homeless in various cities . Take a look at some of the video Horvath has shot on InvisiblePeople.tv/blog Unless you’re truly heartless, it will leave a permanent impression. Horvath is succeeding already in his mission to “put a face on the homeless.”

Alan Graham (@mlfnow) was introduced to Horvath via Twitter. It’s a huge testament to how social media can be used for social good. A group of us in Austin (@mikechapman, @jonl, @heatherjstrout and @bryanperson) collaborated on a social media initiative during SXSW to raise Mobile Loaves and Fishes’ profile. In short, social media has been the gift that keeps on giving for Alan and his team.

In other homelessness news, I had the privilege to watch a documentary last night by local director Layton Blaylock, “Art from the Streets.” The film was a part of a local initiative currently underway by Lights.Camera.Help. another non-profit that hosts a film festival dedicated to promoting non-profit and cause-driven organizations. The documentary covers the amazing Art from the Streets program that has been held every year in Austin for the last 17 years.

There is a similar thread linking the Art from the Streets program and the work done for the homeless by Horvath, Graham and others. It’s the compassionate interest in delivering something of higher value than heightened awareness, food, clothing or temporary shelter: it’s delivering dignity to a pocket of our society that exists on the periphery of our lives. I encourage you to purchase Blaylock’s film from his web site. It would be terrific if this film were picked up by a national distributor. It exemplifies, along with Alan Graham’s good works, how Austin is a model city for its treatment and creative resourcefulness in educating us who the homeless are: they’re us without our creature comforts.

A friend of mine here in Austin is launching a business that delivers small wind solutions to communities. It occurred to me as she was telling me about her business, that I know absolutely nothing about small wind, yet I do know about a little thing we’ve come to know in 2.0 circles as the “strength of weak ties.”

As she described her excitement (and frustration) with her new venture, I wondered if I could be any help to my friend. I asked her if there was one person or one piece of information that would help her move further toward her goals. She thought about it and said, “Yes!” She explained that there is a great deal of stimulus money being made available for wind projects and wind research, but she has found it difficult to cull through the various funding opportunities on the DOE website. She is hoping to find a person she can talk to who can help her find the right grant opportunities.

As a huge fan of GovLoop, the Sunlight Foundation, even the federal teams at Booz Allen Hamilton and CSC, in addition to all my social connections/friends I have in the D.C. area, I wondered if I could help my friend my posting an APB for this person she is seeking at the Department of Energy. My friend is very industrious and will go far with a name and phone number.

So… if you know anyone (or know someone who knows, etc.) the name of a person at the Dept. of Energy who can help my friend find grants to fund research and projects in the area of “small wind” (wind turbines that produce 100kw or less), please either comment here on my blog, send me an email or DM, or contact me in any way that makes sense.

Best case, we’ll find the right person for my friend. Further, I’m interested (as a 2.0-ologist) to see what happens when we harvest our social networks for expertise outside of our traditional competencies.

A few years ago, I was doing one-on-one tutorials for a series of consultants to introduce them to the blogosphere.  I told them blogging stands on a three-legged stool: posting, linking, and commenting.  In order to be successful, you need to do all three because a blog (personal or professional) is not your opportunity to push “send” on your opinions to the world, it’s a conversation.  The idea is to generate an intellectual, perhaps sometimes spirited, discussion on a topic that a number of folks can benefit from by adding their point-of-view.

The A-list bloggers still have a lot of conversation going on at their blogs, but I’ve realized many of us not in the A-list league have simply moved blog conversations to other social settings: facebook, friendfeed, and twitter.  I’m wondering if that is a mistake.  By commenting on a blog, you leave a thoughtful response to the author’s post in a place where it logically belongs.  Fragmenting conversations off onto other platforms dilutes some of the value of the “conversation” effect.  I’m guilty of this as well, and thought I’d make a more concerted effort to comment on blog posts I value.  Unless you throw in with the “blogging is dead” crowd, I urge you to step up the commenting as well.

Just sharing.

I don’t like the word, “asshole.” I tell my kids when they’re tempted to use it to visualize it.  A good deterrent.  But like no other word in the marginally unacceptable words for polite conversation does “asshole” communicate so effectively.  If you’re labeled an asshole, you probably are, in other words.

Now, I’ve always wanted to read, “The No-Asshole Rule,” but never got around to it.  But from the title and the description, I get it and wholeheartedly endorse its premise.  I think it’s time to establish a No-Asshole Rule for the Social Web (#no-assholes).  Destructive jerks are disruptive and destroy the healthy fabric of the social web which is grounded on mutual sharing and civil conversation.  Disagreement is encouraged, but public abuse (especially personal abuse) should be outlawed by the community.

I have a personal history of being in an abusive, violent relationship.  It was many years ago, and I still bear the scars of that era in my life.  There were many occasions where I was being verbally and even physically abused and groups of people did nothing.  They watched in silence and then pretended it didn’t happen.  I never understood that until I took Sociology 101 in college and found out it’s very common for groups and individuals to not get involved when someone is being victimized.  An oddity.

But drawing from the courage it took to get out of that relationship, I’m writing this post.  It’s never acceptable to be abusive in any social or private circumstance.  Period.  Let’s crowd-source some civilized rules of engagement, shall we?  Let’s call out bullies when they’re bullying and direct our efforts toward cultivating a positive, helpful, social web learning experience.

I’ve written many times about how the SocialWeb is teaching us and opening us up to a greater understanding of ourselves and the world we live in. This week, I witnessed first hand the power of relationships, the immediacy of the SocialWeb, and learned a great lesson in tolerance and understanding, and dare I say, faith?

I’ve written a few times casually about how I’ve been personally affected by the downturn in the economy. As a result of my own economic crisis, I was turned down as a worthy co-signer for Amie’s student loans. Mostly I have felt awful about the prospect that I would be the one, in the end, who stood in the way of Amie’s dream of going to New York University. Of course University of Texas, Austin is an excellent school, but Amie’s heart already moved into the dorms at NYU. For good reason, she convinced me over the past few months NYU is where she belongs and where she aims to fulfill her lifelong ambition to contribute toward improving our imperfect world.

Last week, Amie graduated with honors from Westwood High School. Here she is pictured at the Erwin Center donning her IB bling. I forced her to stand with the Capitol Dome in the background to snap this photo. You can see how enthusiastic she is by her expression about the prospect of linking her graduation to Texas and UT. The reward of graduating from such a difficult school in such a competitive program was eclipsed by the heart-breaking disappointment that Amie would not be returning East to continue on her academic journey. To Amie’s credit, she accepted her fate and began to let her friends in the Northeast know she would be staying in Austin.

On Friday, last week, I was “facebooking.” A friend asked me a question on my wall regarding where Amie would be going in the fall. The difficulties we’d been having had been chronicled on my Facebook page for months, so a wide range of my friends were curious about Amie’s ultimate college decision. When I responded to my friend that we were unable to send Amie to NYU and she’d have to attend UT Austin in the fall, I received a pop-up IM from another friend who was on Facebook at that moment. That friend was Greg Grosh. He asked me why Amie couldn’t go to NYU, and I explained all the details over IM.

Greg’s reply? “I’ll be happy to co-sign Amie’s student loans.”

My knee-jerk response: “Are you fking kidding me???”

As it turns out Greg, who is in what he calls his “second retirement” is affiliated with The Point Foundation which “provides scholarships, mentorship, leadership training and hope for students of merit who have been marginalized due to sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.” Greg is helping a few kids get through school and is willing to help Amie too. This news floored me on a few levels.

First of all, the cosmic connection here is Amie is more connected to gay friends and family than anyone I know. Her father is gay, in fact. I’ve always been mildly uncomfortable with the gay community that surrounds Amie. Greg’s generous offer has forced me to take a hard look at my own repressed intolerance. Reading the literature on the Point Foundation’s web site has done me a world of good. I encountered something similar (via Facebook again) a few months ago relative to racism. Who knew I was a racist? The SocialWeb that connects us is breaking down the ignorant walls that divide us. I’m living proof of the power of the SocialWeb to challenge our entrenched, stereotypical, ignorant biases by exposing us to new ideas and new freedoms.

The second meaningful outcome relative to Amie’s new opportunity is related to generational poverty. Getting Amie to NYU is symbolic to me. Although I’m certain Amie would have done well at UT, the opportunity to attend a private university should break the cycle of generational poverty that has been shadowing my particular branch of the family tree. I was the first one to attend college in my immediate family, although I never completed my education. There have been many debates over the value of a good education. I could probably argue both sides persuasively. My most convicted arguments would fall on the side of pro formal education, however. It’s taken a lifetime of “breaking the rules” to understand this, but in this new era of social mobility and connection, I believe it now more than ever. Further, if this is the generation that is going to finally set things right, they’ll need all the ammunition they can stockpile. And the reinforcements they’ll need will come in the shape of empathy, knowledge, and compassion for those people and places that exist outside of our comfort zone.

So, congratulations Amie. You’re going to NYU. Thank you Greg for your generosity, and thank you Mark Zuckerberg for keeping us connected and integrating our public and private lives. Oh, the biggest news here is Amie finally signed up for Facebook. My rebellious day-dream believer is now a digizen.

Have I mentioned how much I love Animoto? Bought the yearly subscription last night. Here’s a fun video slide show of my trip to visit my daughter and grandson on Mother’s Day weekend.

(I hope first, anyway.) If you consider yourself a guru on enterprise software and you don’t know my friend, Sandy Kemsley, I’m not sure you should. It would be nearly impossible to be informed in this space without stumbling into her blog posts, tweets, webinars, or comments and other contributions around the social web.

Confession: Sandy scares me a little. She’s wicked smart and is not only a role model for females in tech, she’s a role model for that other gender too. I first met Sandy in person in ‘07 at mashup camp. She waltzed in surrounded by developers– major geek street cred. Unlike me, she actually understood what was going on at mashup camp. Since that time, Sandy has been drafted into the Enterprise Irregulars and joins our growing female all-star minority. Sandy can out-tech most of the Irregulars, yet she does it politely and with style.

Sandy has one amazing skill that is admired in bloggers’ corners far and wide– she is a speed, live-blogger. While many of us are collecting our notes from a conference session, Sandy has already reported it, analyzed it, drew historical references to it, uploaded photos, and published it to her blog. HOW does she do that?

In my dreams, I would be Sandy Kemsley. (Plus, I’d get to live in Toronto!) For Ada Lovelace day and every other day, I celebrate Sandy Kemsley. Mad props.