Holdin Out for a Hero Blog

This Sunday I had the great honor of being featured in Laura Tellado's Holdin Out for a Hero blog.  I am humbled and thankful to all of the amazing folks that I have met over the last decade online that have made this work possible.  Also, by way of clarification the founder of LATISM (Latinos in Social Media) was Ana Roca Castro.  She and Louis Pagan were really two of the most influential people to birth LATISM.  I came along as the third member of their team/board as they began the efforts to formalize the organization.  Together, the three of us recruited the other members of the now seven member strong LATISM board and subsequently I had the distinct privilege to step into the role of the organization's first ED.  Below is an excpert from Laura's post.

Day 295 Kety Esquivel (of LATISM)


Lately I’ve had the the frequent impulse to write about people who are moving others to do positive things on a large scale. I truly believe social media will play an even bigger role in the near future in getting people connected to one another, and it will be a new chapter in corporate and philanthropy books alike.

One woman who is doing her part in changing the way that people communicate and spread the word about important issues is Kety Esquivel...of Latinos in Social Media (LATISM).

A trailblazer Latina, Esquivel has founded, co-founded and sat on the board of numerous non-profits.

According to the official Web site, LATISM is the largest organization of social media professionals of Hispanic origin.” The brains behind the operation is Ms. Esquivel, who previously worked as the New Media Manager for the National Council of La Raza (NCLR).

Esquivel also co-founded the Institute of Progressive Christianity and the Sanctuary and, according to The Huffington Post (which she contributes to), she has “over fifteen years of experience in the non-profit, private and political sectors.”

Additionally, she founded CrossLeft.org, a Web site for progressive-minded Christians who want to speak out on some of our world’s most pressing issues.

I had only heard of the LATISM hashtag on Twitter, #latism. I learned of Kety and her fabulous work in moving Hispanics forward along with the changing technology when my friend, Christian Henríquez, interviewed her for his show, One Voice Radio. Since then, I’ve participated in a few LATISM “tweeting parties” online, and have become part of the bigger community Kety is fostering on the Web.

Read the rest of the post.

Keys to Twitter: Second in a Series of Trainings on New Media

In May of this year, I hosted a two hour training on New Media.  Many of the folks who attended that session asked me to do a series of trainings, including a session on Twitter.

Based on popular demand, on Monday the 28th of June I will be hosting a two hour training.  The topic for this month's session will be Twitter.  

Per the participants request, this is the second in a series of trainings on new media.  I am hoping to schedule at least one training per month.  If you have participated in any one of my trainings, you will save $20 on the cost of enrollment. 

Click here to RSVP.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

Sleepless in the Beltway: A Tale of Twitter, Facebook, Earthquakes and Insomnia

Last night I could not sleep for the life of me.  So, I decided to be productive and work on a few blog posts as well as check in with my tweeps on Twitter and my friends on Facebook.  Being in the beltway I was unaffected by last night's SoCal earthquake, however, a few other problems stood in my way.

#1- Twitter was acting up.  Tweets and DMs would not go through.  The whale was up and down and up and down.  All of my old tweets disappeared, leaving only a message for my followers to nudge me to tweet.  (How ironic is that?)  And although purportedly the tweets were not posting, in reality tweets were being posted multiple times (I woke up this morning with several repeats of the same tweet.)

#2- Facebook was acting up as well.  Although I did not experience the brunt of it, I saw others post stories of their suffering. 

#3- To top it all off, my Sprint overdrive device was acting up and not working for the second time in the last few days. 

NYCityMama tweeted:

Facebook is out of whack and Twitter keeps crashing.  Kiss and hug your loved ones y'all.  The world is ending.

When the news of the SoCal earthquake came in by way of FB of course I put it all in perspective.  Although there have been no injuries from the earthquake reported to date, a 5.9 earthquake is much more serious than a Twitter fail whale.  However, it was obvious to everyone myself included how inextricably our life, social circles and consumption of information news and otherwise are tied to these new technologies.  The exercise is no longer hypothetical.

Al and Tipper Gore - Musings from a New Bride

Yesterday my beloved sent me a text asking me if I had seen the news on twitter - Al and Tipper Gore were getting a divorce.

Folks mused,

"Who gets the internet?"

"Who would have thought that Bill and Hillary would last longer."

"I am so upset."

As someone who is just entering this bond called marriage for the first time in her life and as an abashed fan of the Al and Tipper romance, I too was sent reeling by the news.  

A few takeaways for me were as follows:  

1- No one ever knows what is truly going on between a couple except for the couple. 

2- Marriage is not a cake walk - even after, or perhaps especially not after 40 years.

3- Anything can happen along the journey, no matter who you are.

I don't know why Al and Tipper decided to call it quits after forty years.  

I do know that for many of us the news was particularly devastating because in this modern age where few marriages last theirs "seemed" like one that was working despite of their great political success and that gave the rest of us hope.  

Now we are left to our own devices and left to fend for our partnerships on our own.  

I still plan on getting  married overseas in a few months.  

I am doing so with eyes wide open.  I happen to be marrying a great man who is kind, generous, patient and incredibly loving but even so we still have our ups and our downs.  (We are after all human.)  I am hopeful that our marriage will last more than forty years, to the end of our lives where we both get to swing on the porch as old people holding hands; and though anything can happen along that journey, no matter who we choose to be I am hopeful that we are able to make it through, despite the odds, unscathed.  

Marriage is not a cake walk- that we both know well but I am hopeful that we are able to make it through as a couple.

As for Al and Tipper, I wish them all the best and much happiness.  Thank you for being a role model for us for so many years and thank you for having the courage to do what you both thought was best.