The Blogo’Shawn

And then there was one social aggregator ‘to rule them all’…at least for the millisecond: FriendFeed - I’m on there as ’shabo’, if you care to track me.

Chiming in after a drought in personal blogging…

Been steeped in my social networks, and I find myself repeatedly evangelizing for two in particular: LinkedIn and Facebook. Yes, I preach the virtues of LinkedIn to my unenlightened, professional relatives and friends, as in ‘why didn’t you complete your profile? Don’t you know you can attract the right kind of recruiters and opportunities by buffing up your LinkedIn?!’ And I’m deadly serious too as my experience has borne out. I have garnered some wonderful introductions and interactions via LinkedIn, and let me tell you, if you happen to encounter a juicy job description emanating from one of your first or second network contacts on LinkedIn…well, there’s no finer way to fly. They can screen you easily and see what you’re all about, and you are, oh, many tens of percentage points more likely to get an interested response. Square that off with chugging your way through Monster, Dice, Craigslist, et al. Couldn’t be easier!

And then we have Facebook. I began my affair with Facebook only a year ago and it has wormed its way into my psyche to the point that I check in practically every day and now leave my MySpace account untapped for weeks (take that you fugly user experience!). And you know why I am latched to Facebook? Because I want to see which events my friends are RSVPing for, and there is no better way to reduce my needing to scout out events of interest on my own precious time. Sure I used to pour over other services to meet the need, but I progressively find myself dispensing with the others in favor of Facebook’s native events app - it trumps all others!

Now I would be remiss in not mentioning Twitter. So happens that Twitter doesn’t render me delerious with excitement so far. I know it does others who are more into getting their name and personal brand out to the tweetosphere. Bloggers, vloggers, and marketing folk especially seem latched onto it. Only…I don’t have the patience to wade through all the cruft to ferret out the good stuff. Good stuff for me simply comprises knowing where the buzz is and better yet, where people are massing for social occasions. I installed Twhirl and monitored activity in the moment for awhile, and all the updates were so disruptive for the most part, almost akin to repeated phone calls from telemarketers. I just don’t care, particularly with the healthy dosage of ‘@’ bantering which fly by and don’t mean diddley-squat to me. Someone at a mobile chat recently nailed it on the head and referred to Twitter as a mini-exhibitionist platform…so true! All told, I put my Twittery thing into dry-dock and presently adore the vast silence…permeated with my thoughts alone.

So in summary, ‘yea’ for LinkedIn and Facebook. ‘Meh’ for Twitter, unless I’m headed to a conference like SXSW, and here’s hoping MySpace implodes to rubble sometime soon.

And just to extraneously tack on one more find for fun: Pandora. Love it to smithereens and it often trumps the selections contained on my mere iPod!

Note: I decided to turn the @reply setting off on my Twitter feed and that really helped - right away I saw a notice regarding a social friend who has been admitted to the hospital! Now then, if users were allowed to set urgency level on their tweets and I had the ability to filter for high urgency only sometimes…well then I could see myself clinging to Twitter more.

Been keeping busy, so much so that I’ll just point to my latest Yahoo Local post - a shortcut I know, but between keeping abreast of all my social networks and events, sometimes I overlook the need to post in my own personal blog!

Local has made great strides since re-launch…our review coverage on businesses has leaped to new heights and the quality and length or reviews has improved dramatically - the revamped UI has been a boon, indeed.

In other news, there are some cool geek-girl events afoot. I am to participate in a Women in Technology panel about leadership at Yahoo on the 28th in 2MC-2 at 2PM…not sure if it’s open to the public, but I mention it to underscore that there are women techies in the company who have decided to band together and inspire each other. Also, a Girl Geek dinner to occur 1/31 at Google - looks like I’ll finally be sampling the fabled cafeteria’s wares.

Where it all began:

BarCamp @ SocialText

Be there or be polygonal!

Well I’m back…have had my head to the ground making fundamental changes. After an extended, listless search, I have landed an apartment in Menlo Park. Yes, I succumbed to the horrors of daily commuting back-and-forth from SF to the South Bay and I have slagged over three hours daily on trains, shuttles, and automobiles. Not worth it at all! I had yearned to get this done sooner but reality was that the rental market is beyond insane at the moment. That I got a decent apartment at a reasonable price exactly where I wanted it is a bit of a coup too, especially since I had to go through Craigslist, which is definitely *not* the channel of choice right now during summertime in a brisk economy when folks are choosing to rent in droves rather than buy. Every showing I went to was mobbed with people. Cue the dot-com flashbacks! Anyway, it’s still sinking in that I don’t need to reflexively hunt like a bird-of-prey anymore. The plan is to make the moving trek no later than the coming Monday. Lots of packing *sigh*. But the shorter commute to work will ultimately be gained. And I may actually regain a social life on week nights - hurrah!

….
More exciting news is that I participated in my first internal hack day for the Local LMC division! I had been itching to do this since I first joined Yahoo. Best of all, besides the fulfillment of a great effort made, my team wound up as a finalist…and then we proceeded to win! I am thrilled because it really did take concerted effort to pull together and coordinate. I had a dedicated project to lead in short-order and I had an enjoyable time hammering out the requirements, interaction, and priorities with the two engineers over the course of the hack and finals days. I bestowed the name “NewsDrive” on the hack, and derived the messaging for it. I also had the pleasure of delivering the presentation for finals judging. Compacting the essentials into an effective four-minute presentation certainly took some preparation, but it came off well in the end. I see now how addictive and all-consuming hack days can be, and good thing - they really got my creative juices flowing and I anticipate the next one which isn’t all that far away.

One more thing of note: I attended the Women 2.0 mixer in Atherton at Minti founder Rachel Cook’s abode. It was a fantastic occasion and I have to hand it to Rachel for hosting so soon after moving to live in America! Now that’s dedication to forwarding entrepreneurism. Want to mention that Katherine Barr gave an insightful presentation on negotiation and really got me thinking about it more consciously. Also the founders of Women 2.0 are wonderful as well and I am amazed by how they have forwarded the organization in such short order. I look forward to seeing what’s brewing up for August. I hope there are more events on the Peninsula in relaxed settings such as this last one - so much easier to talk lucidly outside of bar venues where so many professional mixers wind up.

Yesterday a topic flew by on a Yahoo internal list. “Before Yahoo I Never Ever…”
My response was:
Before Yahoo I Never Ever… travelled this far south on the Peninsula and considered re-locating way south of San Francisco.

Essentially, the commute back and forth is whipping my hide, and this is even taking public transportation. I come out of work feeling upbeat and vibrant and then I take a shuttle in stop-and-go traffic down 101 for about 1 hr 15 mins and then walk uphill another 25 minutes and by the time I reach home, I am ready to drop in my tracks from exhaustion. Oh, that is caused in part by waking up at 5:30-6AM in the morning. Over three hours of commuting a day is far more than I could have reasonably contemplated. It’s brutal and it’s sheer madness, I tell you.

I am ready to move to the Peninsula (Menlo Park, Palo Alto) now. I know some of you would have me believe I will be forlorn should I do so, but I don’t think so. No, I will regain my boundless energy and ability to arise at a sane hour. Any tips as to hip and happening (don’t laugh) apartment complexes down South?

I am very pleased to announce that I have accepted a job as a Sr. Product Manager for Yahoo! Local where I will be working to grow and enhance community. The job is a great fit for my interests and background and the notion of working for Yahoo has actually appealed to me for awhile now and, especially, ever since the most splendidly orchestrated Yahoo Hack Day last fall. I join a solid team of engaging people who will be wonderful collaborators and I look forward to what lies ahead!

A healthy dose of mixerage to cap off the end of the year…and the pace stepped up this very week!

Last Tuesday, 12/5, I attended the French American Tech Connection at BOCA and found it very much to my liking. A number of startups were demo-ing at tables, and it was a format that lended itself well to questions and one-on-one interaction. So on the whole, I enjoyed a number of engaging and enlightening conversations over many hours, always the sign of an eminently worthwhile event.

Zooomr was representin’ and Sir Thomas Hawk captured me talking with one of the event organizers, Andrew Kippen, who, along with his colleagues, did a commendable job facilitating the mixer. This was my second Tech Connection and I liked it even better than the last. Be on the outlook for the sequel in 2007.

This past Thursday, 12/7, was SFWIN. I’m sure many of you are already familiar with the SFWIN mixer as it has been running since the near beginning of this year. If not, you owe yourself a visit! It was great to experience SFWIN at Orrick where attendees were privy to a fine view and spacious quarters within which to roam. It was a chance to catch up with some acquaintances I hadn’t seen recently due to their extreme entrepreneurial activity. And I also met some fascinating new folk who are stirring things up in the SF tech scene.

Next week’s picks:

Wednesday

Good things always run in threes?!

• Yelp holiday bash @ California Academy
• SFBeta mixer @ Shine
• SF New Tech meetup @ Cnet

Thursday

Whatever will one wear?

• Stirr’s Winter Wonderland @ Exploratorium

So much more fun than the typical corporate holiday party…

Heeeeey - I am back to posting in my blog after a lil silent spell - at least I think I am.  I really should update this more…and, yes, I realize how terribly cliché this is to type into a blog, ha!  Actually I really have plenty to write about regarding nightlife and multi-hued adventures experienced throughout the city…hmm, I really should be writing spicy exposés - the things I see and hear can be truly outrageous!

Well I went to Scott Beale’s bodacious Laughing Squid party last night and enjoyed myself mightily, so mega props to Scott for going to such exertion to throw a fantabulous soiree where we had plenty to look at and talk about!  Scott’s dedication to bolstering the SF tech and art communities is beyond commendable and it is such an achievement to be a prolific contributor for so many years!  Cheers to Scott!!

Now I must admit, I had to warm up a bit again to mixing with the Web2.0 world, because I’ve kept myself busy and out of it largely for the last many weeks.  Dunno, I think I overdid it going to so many functions and needed a breather, a break from swilling the collective Kool-Aid, and what a better time than when you’re focusing on a new endeavor and desirous of gaining a renewed, personal perspective upon online potential, one beyond what’s propagated in the midst of the bubble.  More and more, I recognize how essential it is to extend a service’s reach beyond the Valley and into the fabric of real peoples’ lives, the kind of people who don’t relish camping out all day on computers because they are leading staggeringly busy/intense lives with obligations.  Deliver a service to them that really enhances the quality of their spare time and you stand a chance of enduring.  And develop a business model that goes beyond unpredictable online advertising and you’ll be that much stronger in the long run.  Anyways feeling renewed and more inclined to join the fray again.