Thursday Meetings at Berkman Blog

While we had a great program last week about real estate (Thanks, Bill!) and Erica tells me she has something fabulous for next week, we didn’t have any brilliant thoughts about this week, so we’re canceling the meeting in the hopes that we’ll encourage more of you to attend next week. Besides, who wants to go out in the slushy, icey cold? Stay home, have a warm beverage, and do something offline or go contradancing to warm up.

See you next month!

Our own Bill Wendel of Real Estate Cafe will lead a session with many special guests on the changes in real estate in the online era. Real estate is one of the industries most in flux right now, due not just to the financial crisis but also to the shift in roles of realtors, homeseekers, etc in the internet age.

Guests include:

• Tim White, of ISellBoston, will present his guest perspective which was selected as the best in the Roadmap to Recovery contest sponsored by Inman News.  Tim hopes to launch a new venture in first half of 2009.
• James Shiner & Greg Afarian of ZIPVO who led a session at REBarCampNYC on distributing your video to the world. Syndication, social media, etc. We will be there to talk about video, social media, and distribution of videos/listings.
• Tony Longo, Founder of CondoDomain and Erica Farthing, Director of Social Media  were to co-facilitate a round table on the future of buyer agency, alternative brokerage models at REBarCampNYC (but were unable to make it).  CondoDomain is a leading flat fee business model, which has bootstrapped an expansion into 10 markets in little over a year and has plans to expand to 33 U.S. markets in 2009.
• Bill Wendel, who founded Real Estate Cafe in Cambridge in 1995, will present preliminary results from UNOFFICIAL survey regarding 12 reforms proposed at ConnectNYC by Brad Inman and economist Robert Shiller.

More info at http://planyp.us/plans/709252100420-real-estate-round-table

Upcoming meetings & events:

• February 5: Yvette Wohn on the Korean news & social site Ewhaian.com: “Integrating hyperlocal news with social networking”
• TBD: Renee Lloyd on women in technology & brainstorming about a possible “She’s Geeky” conference in Boston.
• At some point, we should take advantage of Berkman’s RockBand set and have a music party in lieu of a normal meeting.
• It’s getting to be time to have another dim sum gathering, too.
• See the Berkman Calendar for other upcoming Berkman stuff.
• Feel free to publicize related events here! Let Erica or j know, comment, or add them yourself if you have an editor account.

Because it’s hecka cold out and nobody really wants to stay out late, and because I am trying to shake a cold, we’re not going to meet tonight, 1/15.

We WILL be meeting next week, 1/22, for a roundtable led by our own Bill Wendell on the evolution of the real estate industry in the online era. We’ll hear from folks who went to REBarCamp last week, and discuss emerging technologies. Bill has set up a wiki with much more info:

http://planyp.us/plans/709252100420-real-estate-round-table

A special visitor, Diane, hopes to learn about what other nonprofits are doing with their Web sites and that we can provide some constructive suggestions about how the Mount Saint Agnes Theological Center for Women can harness some of the cool technology available today.

Upcoming meetings & events:

• At some point, we should take advantage of Berkman’s RockBand set and have a music party in lieu of a normal meeting.
• It’s getting to be time to have another dim sum gathering, too.
• See the Berkman Calendar for other upcoming Berkman stuff.
• Feel free to publicize related events here! Let Erica or j know, comment, or add them yourself if you have an editor account.

Let’s try for a meeting this week. Since December is often a very busy and chaotic month for many of us, let’s make this gathering the last meeting for the year. Happy (& safe) holidays!

For topics, a hodgepodge: Burning questions, sites to show off, what’s happening with the job market, and updates from anyone who attended:

• 12/6: BarCamp Manchester at the Unviersity of New Hampshire from 9:30 a to 4 p
• 12/6: LSC at MIT presents a free screening of the new animated movie Bolt followed by a lecture from one of the animators at 7 pm in Building 26 Room 100 (PS–LSC is showing Serenity on 12/10 and 12/12.)
• 12/7: DevHouse Boston 5, Betahouse, Central Square, 10 a-8 p

or any other cool events.

Upcoming meetings & events:

• At some point, we should take advantage of Berkman’s RockBand set and have a music party in lieu of a normal meeting.
• It’s getting to be time to have another dim sum gathering, too.
• See the Berkman Calendar for other upcoming Berkman stuff.
• Feel free to publicize related events here! Let Erica or j know, comment, or add them yourself if you have an editor account.

j can’t be at Berkman Thursday night, so let’s plan not to meet.

Get your geek fix instead at:

• 12/6: BarCamp Manchester at the Unviersity of New Hampshire from 9:30 a to 4 p
• 12/6: LSC at MIT presents a free screening of the new animated movie Bolt followed by a lecture from one of the animators at 7 pm in Building 26 Room 100
• 12/7: DevHouse Boston 5, Betahouse, Central Square, 10 a-8 p

Upcoming meetings & events:

• 12/6: BarCamp Manchester
• 12/6: LSC at MIT presents a free screening of the new animated movie Bolt followed by a lecture from one of the animators at 7 pm in Building 26 Room 100
• 12/7: DevHouse Boston 5, Betahouse, Central Square, 10 a-8 p
• At some point, we should take advantage of Berkman’s RockBand set and have a music party in lieu of a normal meeting.
• It’s getting to be time to have another dim sum gathering, too.
• See the Berkman Calendar for other upcoming Berkman stuff.
• Feel free to publicize related events here! Let Erica or j know, comment, or add them yourself if you have an editor account.

Blog group will not meet on Thursday, November 20, or Thursday, November 27.

As always, suggestions for topics and speakers are welcome!

I’m still sick, and j is not available to lead this week’s meeting, so with my extreme apologies, I’m canceling blog group for this week.

However! You can still get your weekly dose of Berkman & geeky socialization, by joining the greater Berkman community Friday evening for Information Superhighway:

Harvard Free Culture and the Internet Company LLC Proudly Presents…

INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY ONE
A Gathering Of Boston Tech Like It’s 1997
October 24, 2008, 8 pm – Midnight
Berkman Squared, 50 Church Street, Cambridge MA

Boston is full of cool Internet people. Why aren’t they meeting each other?

INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY is Boston’s monthly party gathering hackers, activists, artists, designers, nonprofits, startups, academics and general geekery to hang out and connect with one another.

*No agenda, no networking, no presentations. Just free beverages, food, ideas and cool people.
*Best of all the price is free, like your first 1000 hours of AOL.
*Extra Beenz For Wearing Some Vintage Web 1.0 Gear

With Featured Guests and Organizations:
– Jonathan Zittrain (Berkman Center) (http://futureoftheinternet.org/) (http://cyber.law.harvard.edu <http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/>)
– Mel Chua, SJ Klein, Seth Woodworth (OLPC) (http://laptop.org/)
– Beth Coleman and Kevin Driscoll (Comparative Media Studies, MIT) (http://cms.mit.edu/)
– Nate Aune and Jon Pierce (Betahouse) (*http://tinyurl.com/42w4pt)
*- Christina Xu (MIT Media Lab, extrACT Project)
– Diana Kimball (dianakimball.com <http://dianakimball.com>)
– Steve Garfield (Boston Media Makers) (http://bostonmediamakers.wordpress.com/about/)
– The Barbarian Group (http://www.barbariangroup.com/)
– Brett Stilwell (Pecha Kucha Boston) (http://pechakuchaboston.org/blog/about/)
– Alec Resnick (Nublabs) (http://www.nublabs.org/)

Apologies for the late notice, but I’m making the executive decision to cancel tonight’s meeting. We had an open agenda scheduled, and my ongoing health issues (nothing horrific!) mean I’m too tired to lead a meeting tonight. j and I are working on some good topics for future weeks, and as always welcome your suggestions!

Erica

Kristen Taylor from the Knight News Foundation will tell us about the Knight News Challenge. Below is the email she sent to the blog group discussion list with details about the meeting.

“The Knight News Challenge (http://newschallenge.org) is in the third
year of a program that gives away $5MM a year to innovative online
projects that support online news, community discourse and social
media in specific local communities.

Find out how to apply, share ideas, and talk with the Knight
Foundation Online Community Manager (Kristen) and previous News Challenge
winners from the area this Thursday.

The contest closes November 1st, and you can work through your idea
before applying in the News Challenge Garage incubator site
(http://garage.newschallenge.org).”

A special thanks to Lisa Williams for coordinating this meeting!

Upcoming meetings & events:

• Want a cool internship? Berkman is hiring!
• At some point, we should take advantage of Berkman’s RockBand set and have a music party in lieu of a normal meeting.
• It’s getting to be time to have another dim sum gathering, too.
• See the Berkman Calendar for other upcoming Berkman stuff.
• Feel free to publicize related events here! Let Erica or j know, comment, or add them yourself if you have an editor account.