Blogworld 09 - Thursday Keynote - Laura Fitton

OK, here we go! Can a little tuxedo cat keep up with a steady stream of presentations and keynotes and blog through the day? You bet! Caffeine ingested, power cord plugged into the wall, wireless connection made, let's boogie!

After some admin notes from our Vicar of Victory, Laura's on. Here are the key points from what she had to say.

Rick Calvert, a man who rocks.

• Laura claims her life was totally changed by Twitter. She was a stay-at-home mom who decided to restart her consulting business. Or something like that. I was still setting things up, so I missed some of her intro.


• She's jazzed by Twitter's ability to connect people all across the world. In fact, if you're not tweeting and connecting, you're cheating the rest of the world of your talents.


• Mentoring is a key part of all of this. By making these connections, we now have the ability to mentor people all across the World. There are things you can do that other people need and want to learn.


• What people will do for love is what drives her.


• Umair Haque is referenced.


• If you don't connect, you cheat the rest of the world of your talents and something awesome won't happen that would have had you connected. Similarly, if you don't connect, you cut yourself off from all kinds of support and love from others.


• Laura's really energetic and fun, but you don't have to be, all you need to do is connect and make yourself available to others and others available to you.


• Laura's formed a group from these connections that is doing awesome things. Well, more wacky and fun than awesome to me, but still, it's way cool what she's done with her connections.


• What is your superpower?

What she's not saying, but what is the theme of the talk is using these new tools like blogging and Twitter and Facebook to increase the opportunities available to you. From there, it's a matter of having a positive attitude to sieze these opportunities. Twitter and blogs haven't changed what it takes to provide water supplies to the city of Des Moines, the physical acts of producing things and services still exist, but the opportunities available for you to participate and contribute in things all over the world will leap out at you and beg you to grab them if you just make the decision to connect.

Laura is a fun speaker and makes you feel good.
Update: Here are some more points.

• Twitter disrupts isolation.


• Twitter gives us a gloabl sensing the detecting system. The ability to follow the Iranian protests was a good example of this.


• My take: She talks a lot about how things change with the connections from Twitter, but the big things that are coming right down on top of us - the penalties we pay for thinking we can have things we haven't earned - might not be tractable through things like Twitter. On the other hand, the medium is a way to influence society. Hmmm ...


• Don't repress yourself! Share what you're doing so mighty forces of connections can come to your aid!


• She used the example of Iran, but that's not exactly a success story. The protestors got shot and the Obama Administration stood by with their thumbs in their mouths.


• Laura is a wonderful altruist. Her four key words are Listen, Learn, Care, Serve. Amen, Laura.