It’s that time of year again! For the geek and social media set, March means one thing: South by Southwest Interactive, or SXSWi for short. In this month’s issue of Her Nashville magazine, I share with you the new tech concepts and applications–including Quora and JumpScan–that I hope to learn more about next week. Here’s a teaser:

Quora:
The early adopter geek community is positively beside itself over this “continually improving collection of questions and answers created, edited, and organized by everyone who uses it.” Once you sign up for a free account at Quora.com, you can “follow” and start conversations about topics and questions (and relevant answers) of your choosing.

Quora was co-created by Charlie Cheever, a former engineer/manager at Facebook, and the goal of the site is to create a sort of collective, ever-expanding database of all knowledge. It sounds good to me, but I’m not yet sold on how non-spammy and useful it will actually be. Stay tuned; I’m sure Quora’s marketing and development folks will be out in full-force at SXSW this year.

JumpScan:
I’m not sure how practical or mainstream this technology will ever be, but I’m intrigued by new applications like JumpScan, which turns Quick Response (QR) Codes into virtual business cards. JumpScan is in Beta, so it is still working out the kinks, but the gist of it is this: sign up, create a profile, receive your personal bar code-type thing and post it on the Internet somewhere.When folks scan your code using a smartphone scan-reader like ScanLife, their phone’s browser will open up your profile, giving that person easy access to the information you chose to share (it is a much more streamlined process than I’m making it sound).

I’m newly fascinated with QR code technology and hoping I’ll discover more creative marketing and reputation management uses for it this year.

Read the full column here!

You know how sometimes you want to do something, but then decide you’re not going to just to spite someone? I see this happening a good bit with technology hold-outs. One main reason: they are sick of being nagged about how “out of touch” they are, so they decide (if even subconsciously) to prove the Social Media Disciples wrong. They’ll get along without the Internet or Facebook just fine, thank you very much!

In my January Her Nashville column, I offer up a few tips on the best ways to share your geekish enthusiasm and convert the tech-less masses without starting a technology revolt. Here’s a teaser:

Don’t be pushy
When you lead the horse to water, don‘t try to shove him in the pool. It’s poor form and ineffective: the horse is only going to get angry and certainly won’t ever trust you around anything resembling a lake. The same is true for the Internet. You’ll be much more successful in your effort to convert your non-techie peers, relatives or clients by showing them that it’s safe to jump in. You, and a host of well-respected others, are already surfing around, and the water is fine.

Applaud their approach
If someone was afraid to swim and finally dove in, you certainly would not criticize their form and choice of swimwear. Think about this the next time a friend finally ditches their flip phone for a Droid or creates a Facebook account with a status they rarely update. It’s not when they “joined,” what technology they use, or how they compare to others that counts. The fact that they are giving technology a chance is the real achievement. So, avoid the temptation to dictate a preferred, one-size-fits-all social media strategy. You may be an newly converted iPhone fan, Facebook poker and hashtag addict, but not everyone else has to be. Read More…

I’m prone to exaggeration, but believe me when I say the Amazon Kindle is about the most amazing piece of technology I’ve ever held in my tiny hands. You must go buy one.

Seriously, do it. You’ll not understand how freaking cool this thing is until you own one. You’ll not be sorry, in fact, you’ll be addicted to reading again.

You know how you go through those phases of constant bookish-ness…then it fades. For me, it was always a matter of instant gratification. When I want a book, I want it now. The Veruca Salt in me is completely satisfied by the Kindle.

The Amazon Kindle is the kind of technology you can cuddle up with–yes, even with a cup of tea. It’s not heavy like all the Harry Potter and Twilight books you’re reading.

More good news: if you are embarrassed to be reading the aforementioned works, your secret is safe on the Kindle. No one can see what you’re reading.  So feel free to consume Eat, Pray, Love for the third time. Read More…

Sure, Google is taking over the world, but how they’re doing it is so freakin cool.

Have you seen Social Search? Check out the video below and then tell me you don’t think this is about the neatest/ slightly creepiest/ a tad too personal-ist thing you’ve seen in a while.

I ran a social search for “Nashville” and got a list of all the relevant blog posts, news articles, Tweets, etc. that my social networking connections (that I have given my Google profile access to) are associated with. IT WILL BLOW YOUR MIND.

I love it; I’m using it in Google Labs right now and I’m about to pee my pants — in a this-is-all-too-close-for-comfort kind of way.

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I’ve now had four days on Google Wave (if you want a quick primer, go here) and I really dig what it could mean for future office collaboration and editing. Not to mention how it will change the way we think about email.

It’s hard to explain what Wave really is, but I’m having fun with it. At this point though it’s very much like hubby describes it: “a glorified chat room.”

We’ll need more folks Waving with us (only 10 of my contacts have Wave access) — and more features, Gmail integration, etc — before we’ll really discover and appreciate its potential. In the meantime, a few quick observations:

Potential use I love most:

Live editing – in theory, you could invite the five folks who have to review and approve your copy/press release/statement/etc. to a Wave and everyone could tear up your draft make their edits while the everyone else is watching in real-time. Within minutes, you could have an approved draft for release; and if someone wanted to see how those edits were made, by whom and in what order, you can invite them to that Wave to “play back” the conversation.

Thing that scares me:

Folks must watch you type: at this point, anything you type is visible to the person you are Waving with — as you are typing. So all those typos and Freudian slips will unfold like a train wreck. Not cool, Google. I’m ready for that little “Draft” box to actually be clickable so I don’t break out into a sweat when I start putting thoughts to pixels.

Oh, and I’m not ignoring you JM, AH, Matt, TL, etc. Although I received my Wave invite because Dave shared one with me, I don’t yet have invites to send around. If/when I am granted some, I’ll share! I promise!

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In this town there is a Meetup, Tweetup, Festival or Twestival every night — at least it seems that way. Over the past three months, we’ve been hitting up social media happy hours like nobody’s business. In fact, Team Newman was recently included in a verbal listing of “the usual suspects” at “these kinds” of D.C. events. We weren’t sure if we should be flattered or embarrassed.

So far, we’ve: attended the NextGenWeb re-launch party, taken a free trip to New York courtesy of @SouthwestAir, partied with Social Media Club DC, eaten tasty brie at #Hyatt4Good, giggled at the DCBlogger’s Meetup, won a free dinner at the @destinationDC Tweetup, declared a winner of our very first Twitter contest and even started a Meetup group for digitally minded DC Flacks. Oh, and along the way, we’ve made some incredibly smart and talented new friends.

Yep, The Hill is alive with the sound of geek-ness — this particular social scene is just another reason why we heart The District. What’s your favorite thing about D.C.?

The folks at Verizon Wireless let me the Chic Geek test out the HP Mini for a few days – and unlike the Blackberry Storm test of 2008 – I actually have nice things to say about the thing. Read all about it and check out a picture of my husband acting like a goober!

Oh, and I couldn’t help but giggle as I posted a link from the Chic Geek blog to the the new Twitter for Business site. Oh, Twitter. You know you are tired of explaining yourself when you create a communications tool that does nothing but make the case for why you are a relevant communications tool.

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