6 Ways to Help the Gulf Coast Today...

Photo Credit Kris Krug / Static Photography. Photo on Flickr. View more photos from TEDxOil Spill Expedition on Flickr.

Here in the Gulf Coast, the effect from the oil spill is overwhelming. An entire way of life is gone forever. It’s not an overly dramatic statement. The entire fishing industry will never recovery and people who have worked on the water their whole life (or whose professions rely on water-based industries) are now without a viable way to make money. What’s worse is that many of the areas hardest hit are actually the same areas hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina. What that means is that many of those communities are still repaying loans from Katrina and are unable to take on a second loan from the SBA, even with deferred payment.

A phrase heard from natives about natural and unnatural disasters that have attacked this region is, “When CNN goes away, the lawyers come out to play.” How tragic and deplorable to think that if the national media veers their attention that BP won’t hold itself accountable for decimating the livelihood of thousands of families, recreation activities for the entire region and destroying the wildlife and wetlands that the entire country depend on to keep our fragile eco-sysytem in place.

I therefore implore you to do what you can to keep this topic top of mind. That can mean using your own social networks to tell stories, re-share photos taken, signing petitions to lawmakers, making donations to nonprofits doing direct relief work, create ways for your industry or business to give back and keep pushing forward. The “disaster fatigue” is upon us that sets in during enormous devastation and I applaud so many of you out there reading this for your hard work and precious time in helping those who need it. You inspire me.

Yours in better times,
Sloane

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Edited from an original post published on June 20, 2010 as a NOLAlicious special edition called “Gulf Oil Spill Special Edition.” For more information on NOLAlicious or to sign up for the weekly e-newsletter, visit our website NOLAlicious.com.
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News Updates

From The New York Times Interactive Map to the Oil Reporter Mobile Application, there are many resources gathering information and sharing photos, videos, blog and news updates from the entire Gulf Region. One site to bookmark is WWOZ’s BP Oil Disaster Resource and Update page. You can find more information like what is listed here that can help build your own resource guide of information surrounding the disaster.

Donate

There are many small community groups making an immediate impact in the Gulf Coast region where your donations will be put to use immediately. To help you, follow this Twitter list of organizations to support. Another great opportunity to give is during Monday night’s 2-hour CNN telethon special. You can direct your donations to one of three national nonprofits, National Wildlife Federation, The Nature Conservancy or the United Way. If you remember, the CNN Haiti telethon raised over $5 million, and these national endeavors are critical fundraising channels for giving back on a national scale.

Gatherings for Good

Follow @TEDxOilSpill, or attend the event June 28th in Washington DC where leaders around the country and across industries including government agencies, NGOs, and environmental groups are coming together to tackle the tough questions raised by the recent and ongoing environmental catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico. Topics will include mitigation of the spill and the impending cleanup efforts; energy alternatives; policy and economics; as well as new technology that can help us build a self-reliant culture. There are 72 Meetups happening around the country that day (including this one in New Orleans) so you can participate where ever you are.
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First Quarter Review: Top Posts...

Starting in April, I think I’ll summarize my top posts from the past month, but as part of the series of posts reviewing the first quarter (and promise to myself to be reflect and commemorate more), here are my favorite 11 posts (so far) from 2010.

• Three Exciting Announcements: This is the post where I announced NOLAlicious (now at it’s 15th edition and growing rapidly), my contract work with FSC Interactive on the Ochsner Health System social media strategy team and my segment on LPTV for social entrepreneurship. In 3 months, these 3 projects are among my favorite.
• Dear Future Me: Of all the future me’s I write, this one by far is my favorite. It was also a big step to share it, and I felt really brave for putting this foot forward and challenging myself to be more open and honest.
• Crisis Camp New Orleans: After the earthquake in Haiti, I knew I had to get involved. I looked around and asked friends and after about 72 hours heard about Crisis Camp. Since I was (and still am) new to New Orleans, I knew I needed to enlist someone to help make a local event like this a success and finding a great partner to do that was wonderful. Putting on Camps are a lot of work with a lot of reward and it was truly amazing the spirit of the people who came out that day to help create technology tools to help emergency response teams in Haiti.
• I’m the new MySpace Wall Street Journal Citizen Journalist for Davos! What is there even to say? I truly was overwhelmed and amazed by the response I go from friends all over the place who voted for me, supported me, sent me notes of encouragement. It was an opportunity of a lifetime and I can’t even being to describe the way that attending Davos changed my life and my perspective on the world. My biggest wish is to attend again, it was remarkable and huge thank you again to everyone for your support in helping make this dream come true.
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Looking for 2-3 Web Designers for Quick Turnaround...

Two of clients of the marketing agency I’m contracted with here in New Orleans, FSC Interactive are looking for a quick turnaround to redesign their websites. I want to help them out because first, their products and companies are awesome, second because we all know that a clean slate on a new website can make all the difference for growth. For the right candidate this is an amazing opportunity to get involved with fast growing companies in the growing New Orleans entrepreneurial atmosphere. Web designers can be located anywhere, being on-site is not a requirement.

Brief details are below, for more specifics email me at sloane@fscinteractive.com and I’ll reply back to candidates that would be a good potential fit.

Project 1 is for a growing ethical retail company with a product being sold in multiple states to redesign a site with e-commerce including a log-in system for wholesalers. Web site turnaround time is under 1-2 months with a decent budget.

Project 2 is for a fast-growing technology solutions company to redesign a 5-7 page website to be built in wordpress or drupal. The budget is reasonable and the project deadline is 4-6 weeks from now.

Both companies are looking to make fast decisions, so if you have bandwidth, contact me ASAP for more details. Proposals are due MONDAY and decision will be made by Wednesday next week.

Lagniappe –> Looking for an intern for summer 2010 for FSC Interactive. Position and responsibilities could range from college student to MBA depending on candidates. Please email me for the job description.

UPDATE 3/1/10: Thank you to EVERYONE for your interest. The inquiries were fast and quick and from really talented firms across the country. Both contracts were successfully awarded in large part due to this post and incredible network of talented designers that read this site and are in my network, so let me say in advance THANK YOU!

FeelGoodz awarded the website to Good Work Marketing and Schedulist awarded their website to Vector 9.

Stay tuned for more opportunities from upcoming clients and projects I have on my radar.

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World Economic Forum Highlight Reel Day 2...

Continuing the thread about what an amazing opportunity it is to attend the World Economic Forum, see the highlight reel above from WEF’s YouTube channel featuring some of the biggest names in global leadership and governance in the world today.

The biggest names are heavily guarded with security and usually being whisked away to one room or another, but approachable if you can get their attention for just a moment. Walking down a hallway I’ve passed rooms where French President Sarkozy is meeting with the CEO of the World Economic Forum, Klaus Schwab. I walked into a room yesterday with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak in a briefing with BBC Correspondent Nik Gowing about his ambitions for his G20 leadership and his vision for South Korea’s future. I stumbled upon a seating area where I was looking to rest for 10 minutes in one open chair and instead entered into a conversation about nuclear proliferation and how to work with governments in developing countries to stop making nuclear weapons with the Founder of Space Adventures, Eric Anderson, the Founder of Operation Hope, John Bryant and the Crown Prince of Norway, Prince Haakon. I grabbed tea with the CEO of News Corp and then we, together, scoped out and finagled ourselves into the second row of a session where Former President Bill Clinton was speaking on the state of Haiti.

And that list only goes to about 4pm!

Each day is like that here. A glorious amount of over-information that I imagine will continue to permeate and sink in for months to come. Tomorrow is the final “official” day of panels. It’s hard to believe it will soon be over and I’ll be back in New Orleans, telling everyone about all the good New Orleans gospel I’ve been spreading to anyone who will listen about all New Orleans has to offer. But not yet. No sir, no yet. For now, I edit and upload videos, I edit and upload photos, I write and hyperlink blog posts to share with all of you. I sleep (barely) and eat (sometimes) and buck up to soak in all the Davos has to offer working through the exhaustion and the wall and the feeling that as much as I’m absorbing is as much as I’m missing.

I’m already plotting my return for 2011.

Don’t forget to watch my video interviews of some of the best and brightest leaders of today and tomorrow on the MySpace blog.

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The World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland...

Let me share something here that I’m not sharing over on the MySpace blogs. Rather let me gush for a second. Davos is truly spectacular. There is something about an invite-only conference that allows every attendee to walk up to one another and say hi, introduce yourself, make conversation. Everyone who is here has done something special to be here. Sure, there are a few lucky ducks (like myself) who have found there way here, but heads of states and CEOs and global leaders all under one roof make for very interesting conversation.

Which leads me to my next point – the people here care very much. There are a lot of conversations about just about everything you could imagine. Water conservation and sustainable of global fisheries, the future of the middle east, what the World Cup in South Africa this summer can raise awareness of current hot topic issues in Africa, the crisis in Haiti. There are a million things happening in the world right now and chances are someone here is an expert in that field.

There is a dark side here too. Or rather a pessimism. Last year, 9 of the global CEOs of banks were no-shows. They couldn’t, wouldn’t, shouldn’t have shown their faces in the wake of such a catastrophic global financial meltdown and so weren’t here. Last year, the infamous and exclusive parties featuring vertical wine tastings or grand-cru french wines were canceled. It was deemed inappropriate to be lavish and thought to shed a negative light on the conference. CEOs of global companies meet here in Davos, this tucked away Swiss ski town and who knows what happens behind closed doors.

But let me say this. There is a line from a TED Talk that I love that goes, “It’s too late to be pessimistic. It’s too late to think we can do nothing. We must look forward to the future. We must look to building something greater than what we have today.”

That is the essence of Davos. Optimism that the work everyone is doing here is inspiring something greater for not just the next generation but 7 generations out. Among these leaders within their communities, I feel as if anything is possible for myself. I feel a freedom to be bold, to keep pushing forward, to have faith in what I believe is my own personal mission in life – helping people discover cause and ways to give back. Here, anything is possible and if I take away one lesson from Davos, it’s an almost “Santa Claus like spirit” where we believe what we want to believe. And so I choose to believe in hope. I choose to believe in the future. I choose to believe in you.

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Crisis Camp New Orleans Happening Today!...

Today, CrisisCommons is hosting “CrisisCamps” around the country and in London, England and Bogota, Colombia, to provide support for Haiti. Here in New Orleans, we had to get involved. After all, who knows better about devastating natural disasters than this city?

I’m proudly co-hosting today’s event with Robert Fogarty and Barrett Conrad with Launch Pad New Orleans hosting the event space. New Orleans Tech and LPTV (the weekly webshow here in New Orleans around entrepreneurship) both supported the event by spreading the word and Evacuteer sponsored breakfast and Naked Pizza is bringing lunch.

What is CrisisCamp?

An open, collaborative event held in “barcamp” style with CrisisCommons to provide local and international responders, Haitian community leaders and non-governmental organizations an opportunity to engage with operations on the ground in Haiti. Tools and resources created by CrisisCamp volunteers can enhance responders’ decision-making capability, transparency and collaboration.

This weekend and next, CrisisCamps will be happening in 12 Cities across the U.S., Canada, England and Columbia. CrisisCommons.org also has resources to facilitate setting up camps in other areas.

If you want to participate or just learn more about the camps check out:

• Crisis Commons Haiti blog
• Crisis Commons Wiki
• Twitter: @CrisisCampNOLA and @CrisisCamp
• Facebook: CrisisCampNOLA Fan Group
• Eventbrite from today’s event: CrisisCampNOLA

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I’m the new MySpace Wall Street Journal Citi...

Guess what? I’m the new MySpace and Wall Street Journal citizen journalist. To attend the World Economic Forum in Davos is truly the opportunity of a lifetime. I would like to thank MySpace, the Wall St. Journal and the World Economic Forum for offering me this opportunity. I’d like to thank the judges, especially the 6th judge – YOU. So many amazing people in my online network voted for me and I wouldn’t have this opportunity without your support. Thank you.

From the press release on the MySpace Journal blog:

LOS ANGELES – December 18, 2009 – MySpace today announced that Sloane Berrent, a 30-year-old resident of New Orleans, is the 2010 winner of its second annual “MySpace Citizen Journalist” competition. Berrent, who was chosen from a pool of contestants from the United States and the United Kingdom, will travel next week to the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland as a special correspondent for MySpace, The Wall Street Journal and the World Economic Forum.

Berrent will join the Davos press corps and use the MySpace platform to report on conference news and interview world leaders about issues relevant to the global MySpace community. She will document her Davos experience via blogging/vlogging on MySpace (http://www.myspace.com/myspacejournal), and on The Wall Street Journal online.

“It has been a lifelong dream of mine to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos,” said Berrent. “It’s an incredible opportunity to report on world leaders and the future of the global economy. In the aftermath of the devastating earthquake in Haiti, I’d like to focus on the world’s role in the recovery effort. I’d also like to explore how economic development, specifically, microfinance and educational opportunity, play a role in changing the face of world economies and helping to break the poverty cycle.”

What do I get? What happens next?

As the winner of the “MySpace Citizen Journalist” competition, Berrent will receive:

· Invitations to the Young Global Leaders opening conference and various media events
· Attendance at private meetings with editors from the Wall Street Journal and News Corp executives
· The opportunity to document the experience in written and video blogs on MySpace and the Wall Street Journal online
· Syndication of her MySpace blog via WSJ.com

Much more to come, can’t wait to share my experience with you.

Your Causemopolian,
Sloane

P.S. Going to Davos? Know anyone who is? Leave a comment or email me at sloane (at) thecausemopolitan (dot) com.

Dear FutureMe...

An “under the radar” online service I love (I mean obsessed-in-love with) is called FutureMe.org. It’s simple. You write yourself an email to be delivered to yourself at some point in the future. It can be next week, next year, I guess indefinitely as long as the service stays running and your email address is current. You can mark your letter private or public (your name isn’t included but then you might not want to write anyone else’s name which would show up in the body of the letter).

I’ve written the Future Me some powerful stuff (it seems I know how to push my own buttons) but this one below knocked my socks enough that I wanted to share it. Share it because, I believe, in the moment I was writing it that I was writing it to ME, but also to anyone knowing that change is a-coming and trying to come to grips with that and wanting to overcome potential fear but not sure how.

I received this letter on January 1, 2010 from myself written in November, 2009.

Here we go.

Dear FutureMe,

It’s the start of 2010. Another decade. And you’ve been in New Orleans one month now. Are you secretly freaking out? I just wanted to give you a little pep talk from yourself from one month before. Because tonight, I’m sitting at Hidden Valley DYING without human contact and you’re waiting for your life to begin.

There is much to be excited about in New Orleans, new job opportunities, new horizons, building friendships, possible relationships, a new place to called home. This is what you want. This is what you fought so damn hard for all year – clarity to make a decision about what you want to do with your life.

It’s New Orleans. It’s always been New Orleans. You know when you fall in love it’s like getting hit by a bus. New Orleans captured your heart from that first visit. Don’t judge it, don’t make it into too much, just enjoy it. Some things CAN last forever. Don’t be scared of forever or of commitment. You can do this Sloane Victoria.
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Three Exciting Announcements!...

Well, I’ve been hustling and it’s starting to pay off! And I have a feeling this is only the beginning (cue backup singers). I have a few more exciting announcements on the way, and a few more projects to tell everyone about, but let me fill you in on three exciting new opportunities on my plate and ways you can get involved, give me feedback, and get engaged with my projects.

1) NOLAlicious. This is a collaboration project with Taylor Davidson and Carl Nelson. NOLAlicious is our take on New Orleans through the eye of a tourist and the emerging soul of a native.

NOLAlicious is a weekly newsletter that we’ve created to highlight upcoming events around town. Carl, Taylor and I all spoke on the same panel at TribeCon and at the time, I turned to them, my fellow digital-nomads-in-crime and we talked about what it would be like if we were all here, in New Orleans, in person together. Tired from our travels and reveling in the comraderie of experiencing this city together, we realized that intellectual curiousity came hand over fist in New Orleans and that could, quite possible, satiate our wanderlust. We would have each other and this amazing city and new friends and new experiences.

When we all did in fact land here by year’s end, we wanted to capture those experiences and share them. We wanted to force ourselves to continue to see New Orleans with a fresh perspective even after the initial newness wore off. NOLAlicious was born.

Sign up NOW to receive the very first newsletter which goes out tomorrow. And if you have tips, please send them over to me at sloane@nolalicious.com.

Other ways to connect? Our tumblr features photographs from around town, we have a Twitter @NOLAliciousness and a Facebook Fan page HERE.
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New Environments Are Hard...

Dream to reality. What a hard step and transition to make. It was a step that I was scared about moving to New Orleans, because after all, there is a reality line that I’m crossing, right? The step between “I love it so much I would love to move there” and the actual “Hey friends and family, I’m moving to this place I talked about all the time.”

Back in the spring, I had this inkling, this feeling, that New Orleans was the place for me. And it scared the living be-breejus out of me, but I let it sit with me. I kept on with my life and my adventures, but it sat with me.

And slowly, every place I looked there was New Orleans. A restaurant across from my hotel in Bangkok called New Orleans, the Tulane grad in Manila I met and became friends with. Scoring a 504 number with my magicjack. The list continues. It channeled me and I channeled her.

I can think of many B&B’s and trips I’ve taken through the years when I met someone and when prompted why they moved to the place they did, San Juan de Sol, Nicaragua to Chugchillan, Ecuador – usually the response is something like, “I just came here and knew.”

I never thought that would happen to me. I mean I loved living in Los Angeles. Don’t think for a moment I didn’t. And if I were a millionaire maybe I would have stayed forever. Lived in Brentwood and sent my daughters (future me wishing) to Archer and continued my yoga practice at Power Yoga and hiked Temescal every day. But it wasn’t sustainable. I wanted to buy a house. I wanted to be in a place where I could get from point A to B without calling for god to give me grace and forgiveness as I crawled along the 10. I wanted the IDEAS of these things even if I didn’t think I could have them the moment I arrived.

I miss my friends in LA terribly. I know I’ve been gone for most of this year but seeing as how I was traveling it didn’t really sink in how permanent my move was. I miss my shortcuts. I miss knowing what place I can go and grab a quick and healthy dinner. I miss being able to exhale at the knowing.

It’s all new. It’s scary. I made my dream a reality and it’s still sweet and it’s still amazing but the part that’s really real is how nervous, apprehensive and emotional the whole journey is. I’m doing it. I’m living every day. I’m out there “getting at it.” But it’s not easy and it’s not always fun. But it’s life. A wild and wondrous life and if I have to howl at the new moon sometimes to get through the night to see the next day, then so be it.

Because new environments are hard. The outcome can be that much greater, but it’s the risk that stops many of us from following through. Know that it’s hard for everyone. You’re not alone. I’m not alone. It’s just like our parents told us, one foot in front of the other. One day to the next. And we keep going.

16 days in New Orleans and counting.

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