The first thing that made me smile was how willing Caine was to do his art regardless of how the world responded (it didn’t). Caine didn’t care. The goal wasn’t to be accepted, the goal was to do it right…”

The last trip I took to San Francisco, I was pumped to fit in a day at RockHealth’s Health Innovation Summit for their CEO Day. I was only there for a few hours but spent the rest of my week enthusiastically telling anyone who would listen (and some who didn’t have a choice) about the cool tools I saw there.

Do you realize how huge this is?

They’ve managed to make health and technology massively interesting and exciting.

This is HUGE.

Beyond BeBold’s work in health/tech (TranslatedHealth and Global Mothers), through my family’s experiences in haphazard hospital systems I have a personal stake in transforming healthcare through technology. I speak regularly about how technology can hold governments abroad accountable in human rights, but it can just as vital here at home. We’re at the forefront of some incredible changes in healthcare and technology is going to be catalytic to breaking some arcane structures that serve no one well.

This is all to say, RockHealth is hitting the East Coast this summer. You can apply to join the fun here.

Here’s the program description… who can resist this? It sounds like the recipe to a good summer to me.

Use your powers for good

Do you have an idea or startup that’s working to solve a health-related issue? Join us for our first summer program in Boston, sponsored by Merck. You’ll gain to access our unrivaled community of experts, get a $20k grant to help cover expenses, enjoy shared office space at Harvard Medical School and connect with a diverse network of entrepreneurs to transform your idea into a business.”

Next time, folks. There are no words to how great my co-panelists are, I can’t wait to check out Brian’s guide for using tech in warzones and our amazing, awesome, hilarious moderator Deanna is one of the best media technologists around. Mark eloquently summarized the spark behind our work in tech and human rights: “We are about upgrading our humanity and our own freedom.” This was a great crew.

Major WINs of SXSW (beyond seeing Jay-Z OMG!!!!) was LIVESTRONG’s session, Cheryl Contee’s 21st Century Giving Panel (with Twitter, YouTube, CrowdRise and the UN Foundation) and the amazing oasis from the hustle and bustle: RockHealth’s ZenDen.

The rest of the time at SXSW I felt like I was living in a perpetual family reunion. I twice saw my mentor from my public radio days and then ran into my old boss (actually my boss’ boss) from NPR randomly walking down opposite sides of the street on my way to a Women in Politics & Technology Meetup. At dinner, I finally got to meet the incredible force of generosity and kindness Tanya Tarr. We’ve “Internet” known each other (and our mutual love for Jim Lehrer) for awhile now but it was beyond gratifying to finally meet her in person and give her a hug.

There were some major fails (Homeless Hotspots, much?) MIA shuttles and bad weather to name just few but my SXSW experience was on point.  I deliberately sought out lessons from outside my silo of politics/tech to see how or if I can apply new methods to my work and I got that and more.

Generally, I like being by myself but at SXSW, you’re never really by yourself. Hotel lobbies were meeting hubs, free Chevy rides turned into random gab sessions, it was hard to get time to process but you’re constantly getting inspiration inputs. And some of those points came from my friends like, Janessa Goldbeck who is biking across the country to raise awareness on the importance of foreign aid in international development, she’s speaking nonstop to veteran’s groups and communities across the South and building a huge following along the way. I took a pedicab to see friends from Web of Change and talked all night about work and testing new boundaries in online outreach. At Foursquare’s party I danced for hours with old friends from San Francisco I hadn’t seen in years and in the street ran into an NLCer in town to talk about film and politics.

I’m still amazed at all the big, impactful ideas floating around Austin. Welcome to SXSW, it was nonstop. It was inspiring. And it was exhausting. I was glad to head home, my voice basically gone and my mind still swimming with ideas and sparks of inspiration.

The full session and panel on Diaspora from the Horn of Africa is here. It’s long, but fascinating. It might be smart to jump to the parts with a panel moderator.

Go Forth and Create, 2012 Calendar

My entire life I’ve been reminded what a wonderful, incredible privilege of birth I gained being the first in my family born in America. I heard the stories, watched my siblings struggle navigating the immigration maze and remember moments of my childhood playing tag inside the waiting rooms at the immigration offices. Like this article mentioned, my family arrived to the US via my father’s political asylum, but it was far from a smooth path to citizenship. And yesterday, after years of paperwork and meetings and filing and then refiling documents again and again it was made official and now my entire family in America can call themselves American.

“When I exercise, eat well and get enough rest, I thrive. Repeating those things every day is how I show myself love.”

While I absolutely agree with that, I’m aware enough to know we all reach flow in different ways so I want to learn and ask:

How do YOU thrive?

This weekend I headed to Baltimore to give a talk at a women’s event about getting more young women engaged in community change. Great time with wonderful women and I’m glad I could do it.

But driving over, I feel like I forgot how far away Baltimore is. At one point I said out loud, “I cant believe I’m still in this car.”

I actually really like Baltimore. I used to work there and really the reason I fell out of love with the city is because while I worked in Baltimore, I never actually lived in Baltimore. I was an extreme commuter. And as a result of wasting a vast share of my early twenties on the Beltway for a job I loved, I am now the complete opposite. Now I would very rarely cross the Potomac if it weren’t for my family in Northern Virginia and a sister in Maryland. My new dream is to completely get rid of my car and rely entirely on walking and a Zipcar membership.

Making the drive back and forth in one day wiped me out and got me wondering just how in the hell do I make that drive many, many times each week? And more importantly, what made me think that this was an appropriate way to start my working life?

When friends ask me for advice about making crazy commutes for wonderful jobs my advice is always this: Don’t do it. For three weeks, it will be fine. And then, somewhere on the Beltway slowly creeping home in a torrential downpour, you will feel like death. And no, I am not being dramatic. You’ll see your friends less and a bad commute will put you in a bad mood and that mood will slowly seep into your non-work life. You’ll eat crappy food and gain weight. And things like the great job that made the drive worthwhile, will slowly sour since who can be a high-performer after battling traffic for over an hour straight? I was lucky, technology is borderless and I wasn’t required to work from the office everyday but no matter how you slice it, the costs outweigh the benefits.

Really, between a dying social life and a family you never see because you’re always driving or decompressing from a drive, the main thing extreme commuting murders is community. And we all need community to succeed and thrive in both work and life. If work or travel slowly erodes away moments of your life when you can come together with people you care about to learn, grow and just be then what the hell are we working for?

Yesterday, getting crepes at my old lunch place and I thought if I had to do it all over again, I would just move to Baltimore. Bloom where you’re planted, style.

Because the one thing I missed the most from Baltimore (besides the crepes, go, it’s divine) was the fact that my office was above the Charles Theatre, a great independent movie theater. At the end of the day, I’d walk to my car and realize my hair, clothes, everything smelled like movie theater popcorn. I had no friends in the city to laugh over this small, random, fun fact. And by the time I would get home, the fun popcorn smell was gone, my mood was sour and I was exhausted only ready to climb into bed and do it all over again tomorrow.

Now my office is a short ten minutes away (about to be shorter! we’re moving!). The other day I was leaving the office to meet friends and I saw three guys walking down the street in traffic juggling with a fourth guy following along carrying a boom box blaring fun 80s music. I stopped and watched both impressed and braced for disaster on 14th street. Nothing happened and when I found my friends I still had this amused smile on my face.

Life is just too short to not have community to share the fun and random.

And speaking of random, I’m glad this post gave me the chance to share the video of my friend Karl dancing to work. All part of the Crazy Sustainable Commute movement.

(Photo Credit)

Getting recognized alone was an honor, getting to share the celebration with good friends was just a bonus treat. I feel like I spent the entire week ending my sentences with exclamation points (!!!!). There was a luncheon for honorees at the St. Regis Hotel in Washington that I brought my dear friend Heidi to share the fun.  Pro-tip: have a Heidi in your life. Things are just better that way.

And best of all, I got to go on and on about the good work happening at End Famine (!!!!).