Grant Robertson · new media superhero

“You couldn’t fool your mother on the foolin’est day of your life if you had an electrified foolin’ machine” - Homer Simpson

Gotcha. Happy April Fool’s Day

I’m excited and a little sad to announce that I’ll no longer be leading Download Squad for Weblogs, Inc. I’ve been talking to Robert Scoble quite a bit since SXSW, after my business card put me on his radar and, I’m happy to announce I’ll be starting my new position at Fast Company as Shel Israel’s producer as of tomorrow. Shel is an amazing, intuitive and insightful guy who I admire very much, as is Robert. I’m honored to be invited into their team and I’m enthusiastic about the direction in which we’re headed.

It’s been a great ride at Weblogs, Inc. I’ve led Download Squad for a little over a year, doubled traffic, hired an incredible team of bloggers and taken the site in new and interesting directions. As hard as it is to swallow, I know in my heart that what I’ve helped create has outgrown me. Download Squad needs far more competent leadership than I can provide. I’m creative; a content guy, not a team manager. So, I’m really happy to say that in conjunction with my departure, Download Squad has scored a top piece of talent to take my place. Starting tomorrow, Download Squad’s new lead will be Aaron Brazell who formerly led operations at b5 Media. Aaron is an amazing guy, dynamic, sharp and super motivated. I know he’s going to take good care of the team I’ve worked so hard to build, and I wish him every success in his new position.

To my friends at Weblogs, Inc and my bloggers at Download Squad. You’ve all meant so much to me. So long and, thanks for all the fish.

It’s on, baby. The quest to make Atlanta the most Twitter connected town on the map is in full swing after last night’s impressive two-Tweetup duel.

The Tweetup I organized, at Taco Mac Lindbergh, had a respectable 14 people in attendance. Not bad, considering I had no idea how many interested parties there would be when I started planning and, didn’t pick a venue until Monday. By complete and total coincidence, there was a second Tweetup/beer and pool bash going on at the same time, organized by @rustytanton and @shelbinator. The fact that Atlanta can support similtaneous Tweetups without exploding or leaving one Tweetup without any attendees is really impressive. In the end, I think the rivalry helped promote both events. It also led to some fun trash talking between the two groups.

We talked, we laughed, we did what the social web is meant to facilitate; socialize. Then the rivalry hit top gear. I was checking Twitter on my blackberry when I saw this tweet from @shelbinator. The gauntlet had been tossed down, the game was on, the Tweetups would be judged not on the quality of attendees, of conversation, of interconnection. Nay, the real Tweetup battle would play out in the most base rating of human attributes, boobs.

Rate, rank and evaluate in the comments. I think we clearly win but, you make the call. Public commentary, FTW!

Splinter Tweetup Boobs:

Our Tweetup Boobs:

Thanks to everyone who showed up, and to everyone who contacted me to say they’d make it to the next one. We’re definitely doing this again. Also, big thanks to Paul Stamatiou for taking pictures, since I was too lame to bring a decent camera.

Remember to pay your bar tab! @qthrul was nice enough to make it easy, so don’t forget to Paypal him your share of the damage.

IMG00213, by Grant_Robertson.

This very blurry picture is proof that I met Mark Cuban. Fear.

The weird thing? He was a little drunk. A few seconds before this picture was snapped in Austin, he told me my hair smelled nice. He’s right, my hair does smell fantastic but, it’s not the sort of thing you expect to hear from a millionaire playboy. Crap. Maybe I missed my chance? I don’t know who that girl was on the other side of him, but I’m guessing that if I really had to, I could take her.

Mark, call me.

IMG00222, by Grant_Robertson.

Promoting yourself at conferences is hard. SXSW is an especially tough field to compete within, as it’s crowded and full of the best and brightest among the blogosphere.

I nearly blew it. I forgot to order slick cards in time for the show, and I went into panic mode. Sometimes, panic brings the best inspiration to the table. Laying in bed two days before I left, I realized I had a perfect opportunity to stand out. Everyone — and I do mean everyone — would have amazing cards with pretty graphics, slick logos and clean cut edges. So, why not go the other way?

This passage from William Gibson’s short story Johnny Mnemonic was the inspiration I needed:

I put the shotgun in an Adidas bag and padded it out with four pairs of tennis socks, not my style at all, but that was what I was aiming for: If they think you’re crude, go technical; if they think you’re technical, go crude. I’m a very technical boy. So I decided to get as crude as possible. These days, though, you have to be pretty technical before you can even aspire to crudeness. I’d had to turn both those twelve-gauge shells from brass stock, on the lathe, and then load then myself; I’d had to dig up an old microfiche with instructions for hand- loading cartidges; I’d had to build a lever-action press to seat the primers -all very tricky. But I knew they’d work.

So what did I load my shotgun with? Humor. I decided to tell the story of how I’d fucked up, forgotten to print cards, and beg for forgiveness; all in one paragraph. And hey, it couldn’t hurt to take a shot at Robert Scoble while I was at it, right?

This is my, “Oh, crap! I forgot to print cards for SXSW!” card. Laid out in romantic old-school fashion using tape and a Xerox machine, this card was forged on paper crafted from only the finest pelts of the most adorable baby seals and printed with ink containing the blood of Robert Scoble, god of first person pronouns. It may or may not possess magic powers. Please hold this card dear as a souvenir of my absentmindedness and an invitation to stay in touch with Download Squad”

It was pithy, reasonably short, and gave a bit of insight to my personality. I had no idea how it would be received, but I love to experiment.

The verdict? It worked. In a sea of slick business cards, my crudely crafted calling card stood out, stopped people in their tracks, and made them pay attention. I got more compliments on my card over the week than I ever could have hoped for.

Yesterday I found that Darren Rowse of Problogger had even given my card a shout out in his “How to Promote Yourself (and Your Blog) at a Conference” video, which was a huge honor. Weeks after the SXSW glory has faded, my cheap and easy business card still has legs.

The moral, “If they think you’re crude, go technical; if they think you’re technical, go crude.” I can’t wait till next year. I won’t do it exactly the same way, but I’ll certainly take a lesson from this victory pulled from the steely jaws of defeat.

WhiteMenorah.jpg, by oskay.

Tonight I fixed the comment system on my blog, which has been broken for a shameful period of time. I also updated my aging (and antiquated) blogroll, and re-wrote my about page. Even my press one-sheet has been updated, thanks to my faithful personal assistant Michelle Wolverton.

Holy crap, I almost appear organized. How did that happen?

Update: Turned off that yuckie login to comment requirement. Ah, that feels better.

Just released another Squadcast episode. This one covers GTD email tips, tools and features an interview with productivity consultant Matthew Cornell.

Also in the mix, new graphics I made over the last week. We’re finally getting there. We shot three (three!) episodes worth of content this weekend, and we’re feverishly working on ideas for the next shoot. Before the end of the year we should have a backlog of produced, ready to release episodes. FTW!

Look for Amber Rhea in an upcoming episode called, “So you think you can Podcast”. We also taped interviews with Dalas Verdago from Vimeo, and Kristin Shoemaker (Download Squad’s own Linux Librarian.

Home PC security threats - Ben Feinstein of SecureWorks from Download Squad on Vimeo.

If the threats mentioned in this interview don’t scare you, you’re not paying attention. Drive-by downloads? Scanning internal networks via Flash embeds? Jesus, I’m glad I’m not a network admin anymore.

Huge thanks to everyone who helped out on this show. Ben Feinstein, Elizabeth Clarke, Christina Warren, Victor Agreda, Brad Linder and the whole Download Squad team.

We’re rockin it on planning future video goodness, so stay tuned.

The more I get into digital filmmaking (if you can call The Squadcast filmmaking) the more I realize I have a ton to learn. Trolling Youtube for DIY videos on steadycams, dollies and the like, I ran across this gem: The $25 steady cam.

Great stuff, but what really freaked me out was the soundtrack. It’s the CCMixter megacollab, done by CDK and about 18 other mixters, which heavily features some sample packs from RCA stereo commercials of the fifties that I created in 2005. Of all the little guerrilla fair use projects I’ve ever done, that little sample pack has the most amazing staying power.