Steve and I attended Ignite Boulder 5 last week, and in my opinion, it was much improved over number 4. This time, I arrived early enough to enjoy some of the beer (even though we had to pay this time), and while trying to find some seats, I spotted a whole section of seats available at the front. Being a recent student, I automatically assumed that no one was sitting there because no one ever wants to sit in the front (in school, at least, although I never had a problem with it). So I dragged Steve to the front and we promptly sat down to enjoy our beer. It soon became apparent, though, that the section was reserved for volunteers and speakers (even though there were no signs that I could see). We were both really uncomfortable throughout the first half of presentations, and as soon as break rolled around, we hightailed it out of there to go sit on the balcony. Oops?

Overall, the presentations were great. The first couple had me really laughing, although they weren’t really informative in the practical sense. It’s unfortunate that the few that truly were informative were not received as widely as those that were more silly and humorous. The last one, “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Accept that a Googolplex is a Really Big Number” by David Walton was my favorite, and I felt it combined information and humor in a really great way.

After the presentations came the live music. The first band, “The Autumn Film” had a really nice sound, but I didn’t feel their sound was appropriate for an “after party.” It was just much too slow, and as someone on the Twitter feed commented, it would have been much better as pre-party or intermission music. Steve and I left before the second band came on, as we still had to make the drive back to Denver/Fort Collins. Overall, I really enjoyed #5, although #6 would have to have some really amazing-sounding presentations for another trip to Boulder to be worth it.

Soapbox time.

One thing that has always irritated (and alarmed) me is the increasingly large population of people who have resorted to using instant messaging and texting lingo in everyday situations (also known as Netspeak). While I can understand the desire to shorten words like “your/you’re” to “ur” or “for/see/why/you” to “4/c/y/u” when using Twitter or text messaging, I am absolutely astounded at people who use this style of conversation in places where it shouldn’t be used.

Case in point: While I was in school, a friend of mine was writing a letter to her professor asking about office hours. It went something along the lines of “i was wondering when u were going 2 b in ur office so i can stop by and get the notes. plz let me know, thx.” I honestly couldn’t believe it. A professor? You’re sending an email like that to the very person who is trying to educate you? That’s almost as bad as sending an email like that to a boss or client.

Don’t even get me started on the fact that many people cannot use English properly to begin with (I always die a bit inside when I see someone use “you’re/your” incorrectly, let alone “there/their/they’re“), but on top of that, soon people won’t know how to spell most words in the English language. “Thank you” will soon become “thx,” “because” will become “bcuz,” and anything ending with the letters “ks” will soon be replaced with the letter “x.”

Granted, I don’t always use proper capitalization or punctuation when chatting through IM or text, and I make my fair share of spelling mistakes. I do, however, know how to spell the words I learned in grade school and how to properly use them. And when writing emails to people outside my immediate circle of friends and family, I ALWAYS make sure to use proper capitalization, punctuation, and spelling. Why look like you never made it past fourth grade?

Again, while I generally do not have a problem with people using this sort of conversation style in character-limited mediums (though I myself can never bring myself to type “ur” – I tried it once and almost cried), I simply cannot believe how widely used it is becoming in mainstream media.

I wonder how much money I could make from a Netspeak rehab program?

This post is a week (or two) late in coming, but I wanted to write about the first annual Ignite Fort Collins that I attended a few weeks ago. I had been to one Ignite before (in Boulder) and had a lot of fun, but was super excited to see one coming to Fort Collins… I was even able to convince Steve to go along with me (the promise of free beer helped). After a tasty dinner at Cafe Mexicali, we made our way over to the Drake Center.

I have to say… the Fort Collins event was a lot classier than the one I had been to in Boulder. There was live musicians playing the cello and violin, a fancy bar area, and a table with cheeses, fruits, and vegetables. Of course, Steve and I immediately made our way to the bar area to take advantage of the free beer.

While we were killing time before the presentations, I noticed a woman who I had met a few times before through work-related functions, so I went over to say hello. It turns out her husband was Brian Schwartz, whom I had read about that morning in the Coloradoan regarding his new book, 50 Interviews: Entrepreneurs, in which he interviews 50 different entrepreneurs (duh) asking them anything from whether they started with a business plan to how much they started with. I was able to grab a signed copy from him for my boss (who was one of the people he interviewed) before I left.

After some introductions and announcements, the presentations started. I enjoyed nearly all of them, but the ones I enjoyed the most were “Money Saving Advice from a Cheapskate” by Ryan Wanger and “Public Speaking or Death” by Tanis Roeder. I have to admire anyone brave enough to get in front of 150+ people and talk (about anything). I have a few great ideas for presentations in my head, although I’m not sure I’d ever be brave enough to get up there and talk for 5 minutes. Although maybe after a few beers? :)

The next Ignite Fort Collins will take place on August 27, so mark your calendars. Tickets are free but sold out extremely fast last time, so be sure to get them early. Follow twitter.com/IgniteFC for more information.

It seems everyone is talking about Twitter lately – What is Twitter? How will Twitter make money? What will happen to Twitter once it goes mainstream? Twitter, Twitter, Twitter… – so I’m going to go ahead and jump on the bandwagon and add my own two cents.

My friend Henriette just wrote a great post on her blog explaining the differences between Facebook and Twitter. Her post got me thinking, because it was only two weeks ago that I attempted to explain to my mom what Twitter was, and I found I had a hard time doing so. I KNEW what Twitter was, but I couldn’t explain it very well, especially to someone who is not as technically inclined.

Henriette nailed it right on the head when she said,

“You can explore people on Facebook. You can explore people on Twitter. But where Facebook is great to find out a lot of stuff about people based on a context, Twitter is great at exploring people based on conversation and interactions.”

A lot of people think Twitter is stupid (ie, my coworkers), and to give them credit, much of the stuff that is posted IS pointless (many of my own tweets included). However, what makes Twitter great isn’t the individual tweets a person makes, but the collective of tweets and the interactions you are able to make with complete strangers (and companies). As I tried explaining to my mom, “It’s like texting, chat rooms, and message boards combined.” Not a very great explanation, but it worked for her.

I also enjoy Twitter because it provides real time media reporting and channels. I knew about the plane crash in the Hudson river and Lance Armstrong’s recent injury hours before my coworkers read it on CNN. At SXSW, I was able to see which parties were the ones to be at, could read comments and questions regarding a particular pane, and was able to interact with other people in line for Diggnation – in real time.

How will Twitter make money? I don’t know. Gary Vaynerchuk posted a great video on his theory, and Jason Calacanis posted an interesting mockup of his idea. I would also imagine Twitter also has massive amounts of data relating to any one subject, and could pull that data and present it in a clean and concise manner to a company that wants to know what people think of their brand (although that company could easily do it themselves with the search feature, but the companies who don’t know how to use Twitter may be willing to pay).

Personally, I love Twitter. I do recognize that what I tweet about – and what many others tweet about – is pointless, but there’s also something beautiful in the simple and mundane part of every day life. I know that no one cares what I ate for breakfast, and saying so will not affect anyone else’s life in any particular way (except possibly others who are also passionate about breakfast burritos!). But at the end of the day, I feel apart of something. The fact that people care enough about what I have to say (no matter how mundane) to follow me is amazing, and makes me feel like I have a voice on this big thing we call the internet.

Follow me on Twitter! :)

While I was at SXSW, I picked up on the idea that branding yourself is important, especially if you are an entrepreneur in any way, shape, or form.

Well, duh.

But the chatter I heard wasn’t so much about why it’s important to brand yourself, but how to do so in the best manner possible. Aside from speaking with and listening to some wonderful people at SXSW on this subject, I’ve also read several articles on why I should be using my real name instead of an online handle (the articles revolve around Twitter, but I believe the idea can be carried across all platforms). The reasoning behind this idea is that as people begin to put more and more information about themselves on the web, it is becoming less and less important to distinguish one’s real self with one’s online self. This struck a chord with me as I found it completely true, which led to my decision to change my online name.

Even so, letting go of peachsoda has been hard. I came up with peachsoda03 when I was in the seventh grade (the 03 stood for the year I graduated high school, because really, when you’re in seventh grade, high school graduation feels like it will never come). I had been struggling for a year or two with choosing an online alias I truly liked, until I came across a website called Applesoda. “That’s clever,” I thought. So I did what any girl in seventh grade would do; I copied the idea and modified it to my liking. Hence, peachsoda03 was born (if I remember correctly, I had to add the 03 because peachsoda had already been taken… damn AOL),. It has been my identity since.

I think the reason I liked peachsoda so much was that there was nothing else like it (that I came across at least, aside from Applesoda which soon went away) and have been told on more than one occasion that my name was cute/clever/memorable/etc. However, I also feel that by retiring peachsoda, I am starting a new, more grown-up chapter in my life, and that is exciting.

So, in celebration of this new chapter, I am introducing www.jenniferwilhelm.com with a brand new design. Please let me know if you find any errors, as I’m not perfect and have most likely become blind to my own mistakes at this point. I’ll also try to post here more regularly… Twitter seems to have taken over my desire to blog, but that’s another post for another day.