social – Bayside Chronicle

Fog City

“I myself did not become alive, until I discovered my invisibility.” That was the quote from Liam Edward Brady that grabbed my attention. It hit the nail on the head for me. I was at the time in a process of self discovery, trying to understand who I was, coming to terms with turning 40. (I am still on that journey and almost 41 yikes!)

Fog City is an inspired short movie from Director Liam Brady.

The plot: “An amateur ballplayer makes a strange discovery on the beach and spends his otherwise ordinary day navigating a distressing moral gray area.”

Through the movie we follow Jimmy Darcy and how his experiences influence his perspective.

This project came to my attention through Liz O’Neal, a colleague and friend. She announced she was producing the movie. An awesome opportunity for such a bright incisive and intelligent lady. So I figured I’d throw some money at it through Seeds & Sparks, which is being used as a site that helps Independent Movies raise funds to get made. Its a community driven service. I didn’t have that much to throw at it but did what I could.

But the more I read about the movie and talked to Liz about it, the more I wanted to see the movie get made. I wanted to contribute more than money. So now I am acting as an Advisory Project Manager for Fog City. I am assisting in Project Managing by advising on best practices for planning, resources management, budgetary controls. I’m the guy with the Gant Chart. Its’ the boring part, but I am good at it and it helps get the movie made.

What drew me in too was the huge Irish American connection to this movie. The director Liam, has an Irish passport, Liz is a Irish American and even the lead character has an Irish American background. The United Irish Cultural Center in San Francisco is lending huge support behind the movie.

Now as late as I am to the party I am going to try and get this movie to have its International Premier, in Cork.

But in order for that to happen the movie has to be made. We have just less than six days left to raise $32,480.

We’re 45% there having raised $15,078.

But we really need help. I would love to see funding come from individuals in Ireland who would like to see this movie made. I appreciate times are extremely tough out there. But for those who can spare $10 or more as a donation or loan ( Seeds and Spark is a pretty flexible way of raising funds) it would be greatly received. Plus you can get anything from a postcard from the set to being named an Associate Producer, depending on ho much you donate or loan.

I do hope we can see funding come from the Irish Community. This is a great movie that has to be made in my view. And if you do help us hit our target on time I promise I will move heaven and earth to have the film have an international premier in Cork . That would be an awesome culmination of a community based short film. And I am sure Liam, Liz, cast and crew would love the excuse to visit their ancestral home. Plus I sincerely believe the subject matter will hit home and resonate with a lot of people in Ireland (and around the World) . if you feel as I do please contribute. And thank you for reading this post.

Well today it’s official. We welcome 75 new members to The EMC Elect! See the list here

This is a great day for EMC in its recognition of it’s advocates. Plenty of EMC Elect members will tell of their experiences and delights about becoming an EMC Elect and how great the program really is.

Today, I am telling a personal story from my perspective about EMC Elect and what it means to me.

Well it means an awful lot to me and here’s why.

I really never considered myself to be the guy to advocate social in EMC or be a community manager for that matter. It just sort of happened to me.
As it did I established a great rapport with Customers Partners and EMC’ers I never expected to. These people are professional colleagues, mentors, and dear friends. Engaging in the Support Community was enlightening. The encouragement from that community has led to me being the Community Manager I am today. Up until I started working with Matt Brender on Elect, to me the Support Community on the ECN Support Forums was the most important social channel for me. To be honest, that Community and the many awesome people that engage there were my priority. I became a passionate Community Manager, willing to advocate on behalf of and protect my Community. No other channel really mattered to me. I stepped up and blogged and got socially engaged to champion this community and tell all that if you’re engaged with EMC Products this is the only place to be. Engaging on twitter however led me to widen my scope. And it is the culmination of announcing the EMC Elect members, that really brings home how far I have come.

Twitter was the first social channel I used where I made connections that were not related to work and I subsequently met said connections in person. These people were as awesome as my ECN Support Community Members. I learnt that the ECN community is one channel. and that there was community driven EMC support and tech discussions happening off the reservation. Brilliant stuff I knew other ECN community members would want to know.

Now recently during the judging for EMC Elect one of our founders, an ECN Support Forum legend told myself and Matt Brender that he had spent ten hours evaluating nominees in one day. Matt and I were apologetic to that founder for the sync on his time. He replied, that this is not what he meant. He said thank you for this opportunity. Our Founder found nominees with external blog content that he found to be invaluable. He had not realised the breadth and value of content relating to EMC technical stuff could exist outside of the Support Community. It blew myself and Matt away. We never intended this to happen, but it is one of the single benefits that calls out how amazing EMC Elect is. Matt and I were fiercely trying to represent our existing points of views and our silo’ed mindset on our perspectives. That’s not to say we did not see the value of the others communities, but we felt individually that our “place” was where it’s at! Upon hearing this from our founder that changed irrevocably. We realised EMC Elect not only rewarded well deserving advocates, it brought different people on different Social streams together and the community grew, exponentially. And will continue to do so. other Founders, who only engage externally to EMC discovered amazing content on the ECN Support Communities they never knew about too.

The benefits of EMC Elect to EMC, its customers, partners & employees is very powerful. It creates a newer more vibrant collaborative community mindset for people engaging with EMC. I am awestruck by it and so proud to be a part of making it happen. I am am somewhat overwhelmed by the amazing people and the tenacity with which EMC elect has been received. It’s a little bit scary as i feel responsible for this Community. But Ia mso happy to be a part of it and will be a very passionate Community Manager and advocate of EMC Elect alongside Matt Brender.

In Golden Globe style I have to thank people. Mainly you the Community members, but also our illustrious founders for trusting Matt and myself. Thanks to the amazing support of two amazing ladies, Stephanie McBride and Mary Kilgalen for their sterling tireless work behind the scenes for EMC Elect. Thanks also to Brace Rennels and Chris Gardner for the immense support and direction and “go for it” encouragement behind this project. Thanks also finally to my amazing wife and kids for loaning me out to EMC to have fun like this.

Enjoy EMC Elect 🙂 I will!