Bytemarks

The vibrance and excitement of SXSW was intoxicating. When I got back last week Wed (3/18). I hit the road running going into the office, sharing cool finds from SXSW, doing the Bytemarks Cafe radio show that evening. Then on Thursday it was the Andy Bumatai show and on Friday it was working on getting Sunni Brown over to Hawaii for a management team presentation. By Friday afternoon, I was feeling the wheels starting to wobble. It started as a headache and a fever. I thought maybe a weekend of rest would do it. But no sooner did the weekend start, it ended. Monday (3/23) was staring me in the face. Sunni Brown was sick (like I was) and made a good decision to fly from Austin to Hawaii on Monday. We talked about it over the weekend and I totally understood. If it was me I would have done the same thing. Suffice it to say it added to my stress level. We found a substitute graphic recorder and had her flown in from the Big Island. Tuesday was back to back meetings going over the executive presentations with our team and the new graphic recorder Suzanne London. Lots of prep work went into capturing the 2-thirty minute presentations. On Wed morning I (with the help of my fellow teammates) schlep over two cameras and tripods. The presentations go without a hitch although the graphic recording wasn’t up to the standard set by Sunni. But that’s life. Wed afternoon is another Bytemarks Cafe with Alex Ho and Briana Acosta in the studio talking about FRIST Robotics. Thursday (3/26 ) is an all day Health2.0 Conference held at the Kahala Hotel. Very interesting day of presentations, panels and break out sessions on the topic of telemedicine, present and future. Thursday night culminated in the quasi-monthly Manoa Geeks which had 70+ people converge on the Honolulu Advertiser building to geek out on tech talk and pizza.

That brings me to today, Friday 3/27, my day to make a presentation to coworkers entitled: Digital You: LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. By this time my throat is killing me and I am drinking cough medicine every 12 hours. I am told that I will have at least 70 people in attendance and a bunch of last minute show ups. My voice has lost all its projection but the subject matter is my passion and I am hoping that comes through. @Lavagal is in the audience giving me support. I wanted to spend most of my time talking about Twitter but when I looked at the clock it was already 12:45 when I ended the section on FB. I should have timed it better. I start going over the basics of Twitter, microblogging and the 140 character limitation. I then talk about personal branding and about some of the popular Twitter celebrities that have changed their handle to better suit their “brand”. As I talk about Neenz, who went from @infinitypro to @neenz, low and behold I get a tweet from Neenz. I am totally humbled and tell everybody that is the power of Twitter. It even facilitates  psychic connections!

Cold or no cold, that made my day and week. Life is like that. It deals out a set of cards and it is up to you to make something out of it. If you look back and feel you have lived every moment to its fullest, with no regrets, you then turn around and go forward with the same conviction. Ichi-go ichi-e, each moment is “one chance in a lifetime.” Makes life such a fun path to be on.