MMMeeja.com has a great utility that will let you map your Twitter followers. Fun stuff! Mine is above, but get yours at their site.

An old presentation, but a great one. I read this a couple of years ago, but saw it on Slideshare this morning and had to share.

Austin CarShare's first Prius gets ready for service, 2007

I was saddened today to hear that a non-profit in Austin that I helped many times over the years has closed its doors. Austin CarShare, which began in 2006 (actually the concept was worked on for about a year before that) and became the first non-profit car-sharing service in the southern United States, closed at the end of July because it had run out of operating funds.

From the Austin Chronicle news item covering the event:

“Saddled with substantial debt and facing declining ridership, Austin CarShare informed its members on Tuesday that it has permanently ceased operations.

…A letter sent to ACS members on Tuesday noted that during a six-month pilot project with the city in 2009, “use of ACS vehicles saved 2,000 gallons of gasoline and kept 40,000 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions out of the air.”

This is highly disappointing, as I participated quite a bit in the launch of the service, designed the organization’s visual style, helped to create some of the messaging and was a Founding Board Member. I had good experiences with the service and remember using one of their Scion fleet to get to a job interview in far north Austin last fall.

Unfortunately, the service faced competition from Car2GO, a carsharing concept funded quite well by Mercedez-Benz owner Daimler, and it was a little hard to compete.

Many energetic, hard-working Austin community leaders participated in the founding and operation of Austin CarShare over the years, too many for me to thank here for their contributions individually. I would like to express my gratitude to Elliott McFadden, however, who came up with the concept and worked tirelessly to get it started after seeing the success of Philly CarShare in Philadelphia.

UPDATE: I noticed tonight that Brandi Clark Burton, another founding board member, also wrote about this. She declares Austin CarShare a success even in its ending:

By all accounts from surveys conducted over the life of the organziation, the progam accomplished everything it set out to do – hundreds of thousands of vehicle miles traveled were eliminated, dozens of cars were removed from the road, participants drove less, rode transit, walked and carpooled more, they also sold vehicles they owned and delayed planned vehicle purchases, and saved money on transportation.

People that have worked with me more than a few times know that I can be somewhat of an introvert, at least until I get more familiar with someone. However, even with this “liability,” I have often been tasked with leading groups and projects – and been quite successful at it.

That is why I was excited today to find there is a blog that focuses specifically on the concerns of introverted leaders like myself. Appropriately enough, the site is called The Introverted Leader. Written by Jennifer B. Kahnweiler, the site shares insights on how introverts can manage their leadership roles. Recent topics covered have included advice on managing introverts, networking for introverts, and other useful resources.

Highly recommended for anyone who manages as an introvert, or deals with introverts on their staff.

Ever meet someone that would beat themselves up over small mistakes? I had an incident like that in my work this week that reminded me why it’s never a good idea to stress out over the little things. If you spend 30+ years being harsh on yourself for misspelling a couple of words in a press release, well, you may not actually live those 30 years actually.

Having been a small business owner in a field that could be considered fairly stressful, political communications, it always surprises me that kinds of small errors people will let ruin their entire day. I have made my fair share of typos and other mistakes ranging from downright silly to really really bad over the years myself. Once a mistake is made, address it quickly and honestly, make any reasonable correction possible to make things right, and move on! Learn from what happened and do better next time.

A more eloquent take on this can be read in a Q&A at Corporette.

It has been a little while since I had to look for WordPress themes and I really need to find a new one. The current theme here is Dojo, which is just the theme I use when I can’t think of a better theme to use. The handling of text is not quite right on this one. I just need something very simple, clean and writing-oriented and low-maintenance.

A few years ago when this site was used mainly for urban planning discussion (mainly to work towards better Homeowners Association rules at the Mueller development in Austin), I used Mandingo. For AustinOnTwoWheels, I used PrimePress and modified it quite a bit. Themes have changed a lot in the past few years though and I feel like I’m missing out. The Twenty-Ten default theme seems really good, but only when it is used at WordPress.com sites.

Ideas welcome.

I will be part of a panel discussion at the Fond du Lac Association of Commerce AC University on Tuesday, July 27. The topic for this class is “Social Media – Is it worth it?”

Description from the AC Website:

You hear it everywhere. “If you have a business, you JUST HAVE TO jump on the social media train.” But do you? And if you do, is it easier said than done? Many businesses and organizations don’t have a lot of personnel to throw at this challenge. Our panel will discuss the burgeoning world of business marketing on social media. They’ll discuss how to make an impact in social media with limited resources. They’ll review how you can tell if your time and efforts are effective. And they’ll provide first-hand experiences and lessons learned.

Date:	Tuesday, July 27
Time:	7:30 am – 9:00 am (McLane Meeting Room – Fond du Lac Public Library)
Cost:	$25 AC Members $35 Non-members of the AC

Beth Myers Landbo, director of marketing, FCEDC
Audra Hoy, account executive, BrownBoots Interactive, Inc.
Marcus Sanford, internet marketing associate, BCI Burke Co.

Audra and Beth are terrific and brilliant, and this should be really informative for businesspeople who are wanting to get started in social media marketing but not sure what to do. We are covering topics including choosing what social media sites to get involved in, setting goals and objectives, assessing results, time management, and others. See you there!

I am currently reading Leadership from the Inside Out as part of my MBA curriculum and I have to say I am getting a lot more out of the book than my other main text so far, Coaching for Performance. It could be that I am less prone to understand leadership methods that stem from sports, or it could just be that I am more likely to listen to business philosophies that are a little more spiritual in nature. The main point of Leadership from the Inside Out is that to become complete leaders we all need to determine what our core values are and act in line with those values. Otherwise, we are just “going through the motions” and are likely to find ourselves questioning our whole reason for our work and lives sooner or later (and perhaps not liking the answers).

Perhaps I will make the time to write a full review in a few weeks, but for now I leave you with a quote from the book:

“…Of all the principles supporting sustainable leadership, authenticity may be the most important. It can also be the most challenging. Most people never realize that it’s an area of their lives that needs attention.”