Texas Social Media Awards 2010

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

On Sun­day, March 14th the Austin-American States­man held the 2nd annual Texas Social Media Awards dur­ing SXSW. Cel­e­brat­ing folks who in one way or another have made an impact in their com­mu­ni­ties or indus­tries with Social Media. I am hon­ored to have been rec­og­nized. In the judges words,

“Jen­nifer is dri­ving the social media space in San Anto­nio. It’s rare that you find an event in the city that hasn’t been orga­nized or touched by her in some way.”

My thanks to every­one for being part of this incred­i­ble jour­ney. Who knew back in 2005 when the com­mu­nity build­ing around the new media space began that it would evolve to this level? Not me. Folk ask me how I got involved in com­mu­nity build­ing and I always go back to my start in pod­cast­ing in 2005. My need to talk face-to-face with other folks who were just as excited and pas­sion­ate about pod­cast­ing as I was led me to cre­ate the San Anto­nio Pod­cast­ing Meetup. I have my won­der­ful hus­band, John aka @designminded to thank for the idea to start that first group. From there it led to the first Pod­camp in the State of Texas and so on. There have been many peo­ple who moti­vated and inspired me to “do a camp”: Michael De Leon spurred on Pod­Camp San Anto­nio. Erica O’Grady inspired me to have a Startup Week­end . Whur­ley, Gio­vanni and Cody Marks Bai­ley encour­age me to have a Bar­camp. It was the per­sis­tent Con­nie Reece who guided me through the process of launch­ing a local Social Media Club Chap­ter and Bryan Per­son who thought it might be a good idea if San Anto­nio had a Social Media Break­fast chap­ter. These folks inspired, encour­aged and men­tored me through the process of com­mu­nity build­ing. I hope to have done so to oth­ers in turn.

They say no man or woman is an island and that has never been more true than when it comes to social media and com­mu­nity build­ing. I am extremely proud of the robust, thriv­ing and giv­ing com­mu­nity we have in San Anto­nio. It is cer­tainly indica­tive of what I have found in other parts of the state and coun­try. The com­mand­ments of camp is: “Learn, Share, Grow” and the motto of Social Media Club is “If you get it, share it”. The key word in this is  SHARE. I truly believe that as long as we as a com­mu­nity keep this in mind in all of our endeav­ors we will con­tinue to see suc­cess that is ben­e­fi­cial for all.

At heart of it all. I am thank­ful. So, I will end this post as I started it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Photo by Rodolfo Gonzalez/AMERICAN-STATESMAN

Tags: Austin, austin-american statesman, sxsw, texas social media awards, tsma