Upcoming Presentations   August 12, 2010  --  My Tourism Currents co-founder Becky McCray and I will speak about "wired" press trips and blogger fam tours in Lubbock, Texas at the TACVB (Texas Association of Convention and Visitor's Bureaus) annual conference. August 31, 2010  --  I'll conduct a social media workshop at the Rockdale, Texas Chamber of Commerce. September 19 - 22, 2010  --  I'll be speaking at the TTIA (Texas Travel Industry Association) annual Texas Travel Summit in Galveston, Texas. October 14,  2010  --  My Tourism Currents co-founder Becky McCray and I will teach a one-day social media for tourism workshop at BlogWorld and New Media Expo in Las Vegas, Nevada.  We plan to cover listening online, connecting with bloggers, press trips/fam tours plus a hands-on video session. November 12, 2010  --  It will be all about case studies: three parks and recreation facilities that use social media effectively to promote their destination, at TRAPS (Texas Recreation and Park Society) in Garland, Texas. November 17 - 19, 2010  --  I'll speak about better blogging at the very first SoMeT....Symposium on the Use of Social Media in the Tourism Industry, in Loudoun County, Virginia.	Tourism and Social Media Presentations   September 16, 2009  --  I spoke on outreach to writers and bloggers at the Texas Leadership Institute's course "The Tourism Equation: How Tourism + Your Town = A Strong Local Economy" in Bastrop, Texas.  Here is the course outline PDF. October 19, 2009  --  Slides from my luncheon keynote ("The Great Equalizer: How the Social Web Helps Any Destination Play in the Big Time") and afternoon workshop ("Sorting the Noise: How to Find and Hear the Online Voices That Matter") at the Oklahoma Governor's Conference on Tourism in Tulsa, Oklahoma are now available for viewing on my SlideShare page. October 27, 2009  --  I presented a three-hour workshop with Becky McCray on social media tools for tourism at the Oklahoma Red Carpet Country regional tourism annual conference, followed by a lunch keynote about new developments in tech that I think are important for tourism professionals to be aware of - those slides are on my SlideShare page. December 10,  2009  --  I presented a session at the Girlfriend's Guide to the Business of Blogging Webinar series....Let's Get Visual: How Flickr and YouTube Can Amp Up Your Blog.    December 14, 2009  --  With nine other Austin communicators, I talked about my 2010 predictions for travel and tourism at the Austin Social Media Breakfast.   February 19, 2010  --   At the annual Austin Women in Tech business conference, I spoke about how technology is changing the travel experience.  April 19, 2010  --  As part of the IBTTA Education Series (International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association) I spoke at their Organization Management Workshop on a breakout panel, "Rockin' the Web: How to Effectively Create and Maintain Your Online Communication Tools."    April 21, 2010  --  As part of an ongoing series of professional development events offered by the Association for Women in Communications (AWC) National Headquarters,  I presented an "Ear to the Geek Ground" webinar; a peek over the tech horizon to investigate some of the big changes in technology and social media that will in turn drive changes in communications.  April 30, 2010  --  My Tourism Currents co-founder Becky McCray and I presented a high-level strategy session at SOBCon in Chicago: "A Business is Born and Branded," about the creation and launch of Tourism Currents, our social media training site for tourism professionals. We then moderated a follow-on discussion panel and worked with small mastermind teams on the development of their own businesses.  May 11, 2010  --  It's always a good time talking to Web developers and other techy types at Refresh Austin; at this meeting my topic was successful freelancing in a freeloader world: "No, You May Not Pick My Brain: Drawing the Line Between Free and Paid."  June 26, 2010  --  I was on a panel of experts discussing good search engine optimization (SEO) for travel blogs, at the sold-out Travel Blog Exchange conference in New York City.  My focus was SEO specifically for video and images.   July 8 - 11, 2010  --  At the Texas Festivals and Events Association (TFEA) annual conference in Houston, I held an all-day workshop on Managing the Technology Explosion, and a shorter 1.5 hour workshop profiling three organizations that do a particularly effective job using social media to promote their festival or special event.
Sheila Scarborough moderates AWC Austin social media panel On March 18, 2009, I moderated a panel about social media that featured Eileen Smith (Texas Monthly.com,) Steve Golab (President, FG Squared) and Michelle Greer (overall winner, Texas Social Media Awards) at Austin's Association for Women in Communications (AWC.) For details, see this link to our Social Media Panel: Everything You Always Wanted to Know But Were Afraid to Ask	One of the finest learning and networking events in the world is the South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) tech conference in Austin, Texas, every March. On March 14, 2009 I spoke at SXSWi about successful and compelling travel blogging.  Both I and fellow panelist writer/photographer Pam Mandel had a great time discussing Blog Highways - Travel Blogging for the Wanderer to an overflow crowd.   ******************************    On March 11, 2009, my Every Dot Connects colleague Connie Reece and I hit Austin's distinguished Metropolitan Breakfast Club with a double whammy of our social media insights - "Email is for old people" and "Follow the bouncing blog post." It was the Club's second-largest turnout ever for a presentation!  Click here for the PDF sheet with our speaker information.
I spoke to a variety of faculty and students about using social media/Web 2.0 tools for better communication, at the Mass Communications Conference October 21-23, 2008 at Texas State University in San Marcos, TX. My fellow panelists were journalist Omar Gallaga (Austin American-Statesman) and human resources/corporate recruiting expert Kim Haynes (Bulldog Solutions.)	On Tuesday, August 12, 2008, I spoke about writing for the Web at the monthly meeting of Refresh Austin. It was a spectacularly talented group and I really enjoyed the meeting. Refresh Austin is an "organization of Web professionals working together to foster new ideas and refresh the creative, technical and professional aspects of their trade." Some recommended writing resources from the presentation are on this post from the Refresh Austin Web site.
In July 2007, I was a speaker in Chicago with Christine Kane and Carmen Staicer at the annual BlogHer blogging conference, about "Finding and Following Your Blogging Passion." Our panel was liveblogged and featured on the Silent "I" blog, by SeniorWriter and in The Fish Pond.	On September 25th, 2007 I was on a panel with Dwight Silverman, interactive journalism editor of the "Houston Chronicle" TechBlog, and Lionel Menchaca of the Direct2Dell corporate blog. We spoke about life behind the keyboard at the monthly Austin chapter luncheon of Women in Communications.