I joined what I would officially call a crowd at the Houston NetSquared meeting last night. Ed Schipul (Schipul) has just returned from a week long crash course for the new iPhone. I would say he was just showing off except he was so damn excited about the whole thing I can only conclude he was genuinely happy to be sharing all his discoveries, frustrations, and optimism about this latest gadget. There was a brief (very brief) and nasty rumor that someone was going to win an iPhone, but I think this may have been the wine and appetizers talking.

Thought this was pretty on the mark with the discussion we had at the Houston NetSquared meeting almost a year ago...

http://www.netsquared.org/blog/jj-lassberg/connecting-with-our-troops

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Last November 1, as the sun rose over a farm near Dover, New Hampshire the Eyes Wide Open crew once again began laying out more than two thousand pairs of boots representing the U.S. military personnel killed in Iraq. But this was not a standard stop on the nation-wide tour of AFSC's acclaimed anti-war exhibit.

The boots were being prepared to play a role in a music video for blues musician Robert Cray's poignant new song, "Twenty", telling the story of a young soldier...

View this amazing video now, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqG_nYAZ9RI >>

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Google:
1,310,000 for little +fish +big +pond
Ok, I make websites for a living. Well, I do a lot of other stuff too, but one of the things I do is make websites. I make these sites 90% of the time for small to medium sized companies, and of course these days everyone knows (well just about everyone, I do occasionally still run into a person who thinks just cause they have a website for their TOTALLY off the wall widget they are going to instantly sell a million of the dang things and retire on an island they buy with the money, anyway…) almost everyone knows if you build it, it doesn’t mean they’ll come. Enter SEO, Search Engine Optimization that is: SEO, SEM, META-Tags, Pay-Per-Click, etc.

Was honored (after much debate, persuasion, and final clarity about the general laid-backed-ness of the meeting) to be asked by Ed Schipul to lead the July – Houston, TX – NetSquared get together. Have not been to other NetSquared meetings, so can only speak about the attitude of the Houston group, which is more about social issues and passion than technology. I chose to talk about using technology (the internet really) to tangibly support our troops while they are deployed (I’m not talking yellow flags on your car here!) – A topic containing many social issues, all of which I can get pretty passionate about. I’m a Quaker (Nothing to do with the guy in the funny hat) and embrace the Peace Testimony. I also have a brother who is an MP and served a year in Iraq. I find myself in an interesting position with a unique point of view about the “War on Terror.”