Ariel Waldman

No, not a reference to my female cycle as I’m sure the rumormongers had hoped! I’m 3.5 months late on figuring out my new year’s resolution.

In my previous personal post, I stated that I wasn’t sure what 2009 was going to be for me yet. I think it has taken a few months to crystalize around the concept of vulnerability.

It started with the realization that I am a lot less shy than I used to be just a couple of years ago, and how silly I was for being shy over small stuff. I began to embrace being vulnerable within my dating life, from telling someone I used to have a crush on them to Twittering about someone I met that I thought was cute to asking a guy why he went on a date with someone else and not me. All things I used to be absolutely terrified of doing. While I anticipated feeling incredibly embarassed, the process of pushing past my threshold became surprisingly addictive and gave me a huge wave of relief. I suppose it goes in step with all the rainbows and unicorns that are supposed to appear when consultants tell brands about the benefits of being “open”.

In the exploration of vulnerability, however, I’ve discovered that it’s much more difficult to be vulnerable when it comes to work – this is an observation in other people as much as it is myself. As said at SXSW by Ben Brown, the difference between self-employed and unemployed is in your head – but that doesn’t make it any less difficult to announce to people your paycheck status when you’re trying to say, “no, really, I need more things on my plate”. And with me, I know I have trolls and stalkers who are just licking their fangs at the delight of this vulnerability (but of course, they’re also the ones who are the first to attack me every time I experience any recognition/success).

And while a low-to-no paycheck status might be great for creativity, “unemployment” can be like being sick: you have all the time in the world to do whatever you want to do, but like being sick, it’s difficult to focus past the cloud of needing to take care of yourself. This isn’t really a complaint, so much as my personal description of what it’s been like to be on the low-to-no status for a few months. I suppose this makes my other resolution to be to keep producing lots of stuff and putting it out there in the face of this financial “fog”. Good thing I have a shit ton of awesome ideas and people around me

(the title, a reference to XFN. the picture, a reference from 2007 to my excitement to move to San Francisco.)

I’ve been debating for a while writing a post that is more personal. I don’t typically like blogging about myself, as evidence through my writing at Shake Well Before Use, and most of my personal life can be obtained through Twitter already. I always think “no one cares” to read about me – there’s so much far more exciting stuff out there to be consuming! However, I love reading my friends’ blogs and the idea that they have someone that enjoys reading their more introspective moments in hopes of gleaning some insight.

2008 was an interesting year. Interesting sounds so terribly boring. By “interesting”, there were ups and downs, some of which were captured on this site.  In work, there were a lot of great, new, rewarding experiences that I truly cherished and hope to continue. I’ve now worked in multiple industries: advertising, technology, science, government, and I could be an arse and stretch it to culinary with CupcakeCamp . But, by the end of the year, I felt like I was having empty nest syndrome – NASA CoLab went into hibernation from being a program, Pownce shut down and Yahoo! Brickhouse, where I often coworked, was figuratively demolished.

In dating, it was a year of biting the bullet and putting myself out there – both ways. I walked out of one situation, realizing I valued my independence and all the things I wanted to accomplish more than anything. I walked in to another situation, and for once lifted both of my feet off the ground.

Outside of income-related activities, there has always been my personal work. In years past, blogging took up most of my time (at my peak, I was posting 6 times a day). In 2008, I unintentionally transitioned from blogging to creating projects like Spacehack and CupcakeCamp. I can’t explain the amount of positive energy that is generated by being part of something that generates so many passionate people. Dare I say that it is no longer about the content or the context – it is about the community.

While I miss blogging as often (and I’m seriously considering starting a community management column), I realize that this is in step with why I moved to San Francisco in the first place. I wanted to be around people who actually created things rather than just talked about what everyone else was creating. I also realized that my move to SF was very much following in my mother’s footsteps. After watching Milk (a very emotional movie to watch after Prop 8 passing) and conversing with my mother about what it was like to live through that time in San Francisco, she told me that the first time she walked down Telegraph Avenue, she felt she had finally found home.

I don’t know what 2009 will be for me just yet. I’m filled with so much energy to release right now, so that’s exciting at the very least. December was a personally painful month that I’ve now let pass through me (like a storm, as one of my dear friends put it). All I can (and care to) concentrate on now is what I’m here to do and the people who need to hear what I have to say.

Lately, I’ve been dreadful at updating my blogs with what’s new in my life. What I said in July seems to still hold true a few months later:

“My frequency of blogging has gone down lately. Is it because of the pervasiveness of microblogging? For the most part, no. The answer is that I’m consuming a LOT more information than outputting, which leaves little time to share all the great things I’m learning about at the end of the day.”

The most recent update in my world is that I decided to resign my contract with my employer today (when you work with NASA as a contractor, you’re hired by a separate company that then contracts the work to NASA). Being the first “outside” blogger/social media consultant I know of being brought into NASA, I ran up against policies from my employer that made it impossible for me to do the job NASA hired me to do. My employer’s policies for digital interaction are outdated, exemplified by the apparent prohibition of instant messaging and social networks during work hours. The policies and mindsets are written in such a way that it makes the use of Twitter akin to playing Solitaire at work. As well as being effective communication protocols that actually increase productivity and open collaboration, they are already receiving widespread usage within NASA. Due to the non-negotiable factor of these policies, it is with regret and deep frustration that I leave this role at NASA, as everything I had understood about their desire to be involved in social media filled me with enthusiasm and excitement and I relished the opportunity to bring my expertise to a new field.

I am not the first social media person to run into these types of issues in government services that affect me doing my job. Tara Hunt has a blog post from 2007 on “The Brown Act of 1953: how this positive policy now negatively affects civic collaboration“.

Despite the unfortunate situation, I feel that the space community at large is truly wonderful and full of potential for social media, transparency and collaboration. The end goal of my program at NASA was to make NASA more open so people will begin to utilize NASA’s vast amount of data (98% of everything they do is available publicly, just not well-communicated).

This is also an interesting time to be involved with technology policies and the government. I intend to write a blog post in the coming weeks that goes into more detail on my personal experience over the last few months and analysis of why government maybe isn’t ready for 2.0 just yet (but they’re eager to be).

TechCrunch today posted Barack Obama On Tech Policy. A few quotes to pull out that I find especially relevant to my experience:

• “Create a transparent and connected democracy”
• “We will put government data online in universally accessible formats”
• “To seize this moment, we have to connect all of America to 21st century infrastructure”
• “If we make technological literacy a fundamental part of education, then we can … ensure the next generation of scientists and engineers is being educated right here in America”
• “Together, we harness technology to confront the biggest challenges that America faces, just imagine what we could do!”

For now, I will continue imagining what NASA can do on an informal basis

I just wanted to make a brief announcement on what’s new in my world. Beginning today, I’m working full-time under the CoLab program at NASA! A bit about what CoLab is:

“NASA CoLab serves as an advisor and consultant to groups within NASA, building direct and open collaborations between the public, and NASA scientists and engineers. We use technology to facilitate public contributions to NASA activities, programs and missions.”

I’m very excited to work with such a talented team on projects that have a ton of potential.

FYI, I will continue to serve as Pownce’s community manager as well as keep up with my current writing projects with this new position.

Have a great rest of the week!

Arielwaldman.com launches today! This will be a place where I talk about social media and related topics. I will continue to blog at Shake Well Before Use as well, but there was a demand for having a site more tailored to my personal opinions and adventures – thus this site was created. I will most likely be updating this weekly instead of daily, so feel free to subscribe via RSS.

This blog is currently in the midst of being set up. In the meantime, you can find me at:

Shake Well Before Use

Engadget

Pownce

Twitter

LinkedIn

or send me an email!