I moved to Austin in summer 2009, but I’ve felt it was my destiny to live here since 1986, when the Dead Milkmen’s Eat Your Paisley! was released. On “Six Days” the band sings about all the crappy cities they’ve visited. But the final verse is about Austin:

I loved it in Austin
I wanted to stay
Cheap rent and Lone Star beer
Lots o’ places to stay

(Complete lyrics here.)

Cheap rent is a thing of the past but we still have the beer, and so much more. In 2003 I married a Texan (and Austinite of 10+ years), then lived in Seguin, TX for a bit (escaping to ATX every chance we got), spent four years back east, and now we’re finally where we belong.

I realize I’m a complete interloper here, but thanks in large part to Twitter and, more recently, membership in the Austin chapter of the American Marketing Association, I’m beginning to feel part of the community. And since I’m a (mostly) silent partner in Grupthink, I felt it was appropriate to build a Grupthink community for my fellow Austinites.

Visit austinites.grupthink.com.

In Grupthink communities you ask open-ended question (i.e. not yes/no) and then allow the community to add, vote upon, and rank answers. Newspapers are beginning to use Grupthink to power their “Best of (City)” issues. It’s all a great deal of fun once the community reaches critical mass.

Anyway, if you’re in Austin, or if you like Austin, or if you’re at least pretty sure you can find Austin on a map, please join in. If you don’t want to create yet another user ID you can log in with Facebook Connect.

Thanks. I love you, Austin!  

Some of my colleagues in marketing asked me to share my knowledge of
the web—everything from HTML to social media. They think it will help
them in their careers, and it will. But I plan to make them suffer.


On your feet, soldiers!

This next drill is even more self-serving than the last. But it’s my blog, I am the drill sergeant, and what I say GOES. It is also more fun—although your having fun is the least of my concerns.

You have one week to complete ONE of the following tasks:

1. Earn 50 karma points on Reddit;

OR

2. Earn 50 Grupie points on Grupthink;

OR

3. Post something on Twitter that gets retweeted.

Post proof of task completion in the comments section of this blog post. Extra credit for completing more than one of the tasks.