‘Amanda Palmer Sounds Off’ Is A Webby Honoree

I am excited to announce that the “Amanda Palmer Sounds Off” piece I edited/co-produced for Uncensored Interview is a 14th Annual Webby Awards Official Honoree!

My colleagues at UI forwarded the group this email today:

——— Forwarded message ———-
From: David-Michel Davies
Date: Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 12:58 PM
Subject: You are a Webby Honoree
To: x

Dear x:

It is my pleasure to inform you that:

Amanda Palmer Sounds Off has been selected as an Official Honoree for the Reality category in The 14^th Annual Webby Awards.

Subculture Shock has been selected as an Official Honoree for the Experimental & Weird category in The 14^th Annual Webby Awards.

As a result of the exceptional quality of submissions this year, the Academy has recognized outstanding entries as Official Honorees alongside our Nominees and Winners. The Official Honoree distinction is awarded to the top 15% of all work entered that exhibits remarkable achievement.  With nearly 10,000 entries received from all 50 states and over 60 countries, this is an outstanding accomplishment for you and your team.

Congratulations!

YOUR OFFICIAL HONOREE LISTING:

Your listing on the Webby site is located at http://www.webbyawards.com/webbys/current_honorees.php

MAKING THE MOST OF YOUR ACHIEVEMENT:

We developed an online toolkit full of PR tips, site bugs and other helpful ideas to help you promote your achievement.  Please visit http://www.webbyawards.com/honoreekit to access the toolkit.

Again, congratulations!

David-Michel Davies

Executive Director

The Webby Awards | Int’l Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences http://www.webbyawards.com | http://www.iadas.net

This achievement would not have been possible without the following people:
Marisa Bangash, Melinda Lee, Jennifer Vineyard, Kathleen Conkey, Max Dana, Emily Youssef, Lisa Mazzella and Tom Perry. I apologize if I forgot anyone.

On Working At SXSW & Online Life Colliding With Offline

Back in 2006(7)? one of my bosses called me into his office to warn me about blogging.

Apparently someone had submitted a “tip” that I was talking about my job on my blog. Luckily, I wasn’t an idiot and what I had written was purely factual and easily found in an existing press release…

All this to say that part of what I love about the workplace slowly evolving to embrace social media
is that I am no longer atypical in that regard. What I’ve been doing since 2006 isn’t that special anymore.

A lot of people tweet for their jobs. This wasn’t always the case, now it’s practically mandatory for anyone working in media. Many people (in addition to traditional media skills) blog, create podcasts, livestream and lifestream – all for their 9 to … 10? 12? he-he.

The plus side of all this evolution is that my colleagues are developing new skill sets at an astounding pace. The bad news is that often these increased abilities don’t automatically translate into promotions or raises – you’re just expected to do more shit for the same amount of money. What was once good enough, is no longer.

This is (in part) why I promote my content, maintain a web site and use social media as a career-developing tool. I know what I am worth and I refuse to be a slave. Life is not a bitch — life is MY bitch, and all of my skills ARE worth a fair rate. I won’t take anything less.

It takes constant vigilance to remain competitive in this crazy economy, but there are some bright spots:

Sometimes my social media projects for work overlap into my real life and end up unintentionally benefiting someone else in the process. I recently made a promo video (for fun – and self promotion, obvs) about
my experience working for Uncensored Interview at SXSW.

It’s just a short little video about my weird clown issues. But it’s also more than that: it showcases what I can shoot in the middle of a crazy work schedule (using a crappy flipcam) and then edit in between a ton of other things, plus it brings more visibility to my employers. I made it for myself to share with friends and family, but it ends up benefiting UI too.

It even helps the people featured in the video – I’ve used it to assist one of them to make a job connect.

Yup, my little flipcam vid about my trip in Austin turned into a “video interview” for someone else. That’s the thing about social media, you may have an intention for your creation out the gate, but ultimately it will become something else. Sometimes that “something else” is in your control and sometimes it’s not. In this case, it all turned out OK.

I thought this post was going to be about how funny I thought it was that companies now encourage their employees to be brand ambassadors, but it turned into me revealing how cognizant I am of every little choice I make, online and offline.

I don’t always do the right thing and I’m not Nostradamus, but I know for damn sure that the worst thing you (freelancer/staff employee/unemployed) can do right now is bury your head in the sand, ignore the warning sirens and refuse to evolve. Change is scary but it’s never going to go away.

Whether it’s taking that one class or asking someone to help you with something, just dive in. You won’t know what can happen until you give life permission to surprise you.

Behind “Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson Sounds Off”

Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson is one cute misanthrope.

– image via SEQUENTIAL LOGIC

The recent Uncensored Interview newsletter included this piece that I cut for them last December: