My focus at the conference was finding good stories of how brands are using social media. I heard plenty; I recorded a few.

Below are the links to three audio interviews I conducted at SXSW and published over on my LiveWorld SocialVoice blog:

• FedEx’s Matt Ceniceros on defining success with corporate blogging
• JetBlue’s Morgan Johnston on using Twitter to listen
• Colin Browning and John Johansen on innovation and content marketing (disclosure: LiveWorld sponsored part of the Innovators’ Road Trip that Colin and John discuss in the interview)

My own backyard

My personal highlight from the conference? Being honored as one of the Austin Statesman’s 25 Texas Social Media Awards winners [video recap] on March 15 (my LiveWorld co-worker Mark Williams, pictured with me above, came along for the occasion).

You had to be … a Texan to be eligible for an award. There’s just no getting around it: Austin really is my hometown now.

Photo from Laura P. Thomas’s Flickr stream

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Tonight I published my first post on Dad-o-Matic: Creating and archiving tweets about your kids.

It’s a quick entry about my latest efforts to chronicle the daily lives of my two children using social media (other ventures: my Flickr photos and Hopeful Dad blog). If you’re a parent yourself, I hope you find the post helpful.

I plan to write a publish a couple of entries a month for Dad-o-Matic.

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Not long after receiving the bad news on Sunday, I chose to share my grief on Twitter and by posting a some photos of Dorothy on Flickr. It just felt like the right thing to do.

And I was relieved that I wasn’t alone.

Several other family members updated their Facebook statuses and/or added comments on Sunday afternoon to express their own sadness, including a cousin of Dorothy’s who managed to survive the crash. My brother-in-law also uploaded photos of the totaled car (I’m choosing not to link to them in this post, but they are accessible through my Facebook account if we’re connected there).

The Wall of Dorothy’s own relatively new Facebook page (I regretfully discovered her friendship invitation only after she had passed away) is filling up with tributes and memories, too.

We all find our own ways to deal with loss, but I know I have found comfort and support in reading the kind words and prayers of family and friends on Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, and BigTent (an online social networking site used by a small group at our church). And right about now, I can’t imagine not having these social channels to help me grieve.

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Here’s hoping 2009 will be as memorable as 2008 has been. Happy new year!

Part 1

Programming note: In spite of following Animoto’s estimates when choosing a musical accompaniment that would accommodate all 133 image and text slides I wanted to include in this video, some 30 photos were cut out of the final montage (not something one can control, apparently, on Animoto). I may eventually mix those missing images into a follow-up production, but for now, you can refer to my Best-of-2008 set on Flickr to get a sense of the full range of photos I had hoped would appear in the video above.

Update: Here’s Part 2, which comprises the 30 missing slides from Part 1.

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But before I go, I’m squeezing in one last Boston-area Tweetup. Here are the details:

Summer Tuesday Tweetup with Bryan Person: Coffee and Conversation at Peet’s (Upcoming.org listing)

• Day/date/time: Tuesday, August 12, 2008, 8:00-10:30am
• Location: Peet’s Coffee and Tea, Harvard Square
• Address: 100 Mount Auburn St, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 (Google Map)
• Cost: Pay for your own food/drink

There’s nothing formal here, but if you can make it, please do stop by for a few minutes or an hour to grab some coffee and say hello.

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My daughter will be starting high school in the Austin area in just under a month, and I’m about to write her an informal Dad’s Guide to Getting through High School that she can refer to every now and again (even if she did roll her eyes when I gave it to her, I suspect she’d still look at it in the away-from-Dad privacy of her room).

If you could advise my daughter on how to approach, live through, and survive her high school years, what would you say? I’d love it if you could comment on this FriendFeed page, where some of my Twitter pals have already chimed in.

Of course, if you’re not a FriendFeed user or otherwise would prefer commenting directly to this blog, that’d work just fine, too.

I hope to incorporate some or all of your suggestions directly into a page of the guide.

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The job offers me the opportunity to do what I’m passionate about: explore, write, and talk about how individuals and businesses are using social media to build community. And I’ll continue to blog here, Twitter there, and play a major role in the growth of the Social Media Breakfast as part of that exploration.

I’ll also be joining a team that has lived and breathed the word “community” since its founding in 1996.

In heading to LiveWorld, I leave Monster Worldwide, where I’ve worked for the past two years. I have to say goodbye to a caring group of co-workers later this week, but I take comfort in the fact that I’ve been part of a team that knows a thing or two about communicating — and staying in touch — online.

I’m moving, too …

… but not to California.

Instead, in late August, my family and I trek south and west to Austin, Texas, and I’ll work out of a home office. Why Austin? Pretty simple: We wanted to be free of the long, cold New England winters and to find a welcoming, affordable city to raise our two children. We think Austin offers us the setting to do just that.

I’m also headed to a city that is no stranger to social media, as it boasts the likes of fellow social media evangelists Connie Reece, RichardAtDell, and Thom Singer (to name a mere few). I’m ready to learn more from them, all the while sorting out just what it means to Keep Austin Weird.

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