360DigitalInfluence

This week, Internet Week is taking place in New York, bringing the city’s bright young things out and about for a “festival in celebration of NYC’s thriving Internet industry and community.”

This is the third time the festival has taken place in the city, and this year occurs at a time of great optimism and digital innovation in and around the Big Apple. The exciting thing for us living and working here is that the energy of the city that never sleeps, is driving technology innovation, the new social movement and a feeling of optimism – certainly demonstrated by the festival line up this week.

The jam-packed schedule includes events from product launches to panels, demos, art shows, and a first time official HQ hosted by Yahoo! and other brands, showing their support for the event. All the big - and little, we are not size-ist - names from across the social web are here taking part in the ongoing conversation.

And the truth be known, it’s not all taking place during these seven days in June. Every single week, there are meet ups, tweet ups, breakfasts for Women in New Media, late night co-working sessions for developers, live and web streamed forums, education sessions, tech discussions and more; something for anyone working with and around the Internet at any time of any given day in New York City.

Entrepreneurs are thriving on this buzz and bringing to market social tools and companies at an amazing rate. Foursquare might have been launched at SXSW but it was born and now is the new poster child for East Coast social innovation. The city itself is looking for a new chief digital officer. The world famous secretive social scene in New York, has opened up with the Twitterati as the people to know about town rather than the secret restaurant concierges.

I hope to see you out and about at the remaining IWNY# events this year, and look forward to what the year ahead will bring. Here’s to Internet Week 2011.

This past week I had the pleasure of attending a few of the NY400 events in New York City, including the H209 Water Forum. The H209 conference was dedicated to bringing Dutch and American environmental and engineering experts and policy makers together to explore ways to tackle 21st century water-related challenges, and develop solutions for a sustainable future. A mouthful I know – and definitely not the sexiest topic – but I learned some interesting facts on water-management that made me take a second look at the relevancy of the issue and ways to use my DI skills to bring awareness of it online.

continue reading