(todo un detalle el “chino” al final del video…

¡No importa dónde vivas, VOTA!

In March of 2008, we started TuDiabetes because we saw that too many people with diabetes were feeling isolated instead of benefiting from the shared experience they could have by connecting to other people touched by diabetes.

Today, Diabetes Hands Foundation‘s networks allow members to find support locally and globally. Our more than 23,000 members describe the TuDiabetes family as a lifeline, a source of guidance, a sanctuary, and even a college education! We proudly connect advocates, artists, dreamers, thinkers, and people touched by diabetes of all types so that all of us may live a more expansive life with diabetes.

I sit back and reflect on where we were five years ago and where we are now:

- I have learned to stay flexible, both about my diabetes (not pretending to be perfect) and in the way we do things on TuDiabetes and the Diabetes Hands Foundation (adapting to changing circumstances, challenges, and signals along the way).

- I am more hopeful than ever: I have had the opportunity to talk with (and share the conversations on video) with some of the world’s most brilliant minds working to make our lives better and one day have diabetes be a thing of the past.

- I have witnessed the power of social media beyond socializing: seeing how connected people touched by diabetes now feel better understood and more empowered. Who would have imagined this when MySpace was the big thing?

On our fifth birthday, please help us keep going strong in our mission to improve the lives of people living with diabetes worldwide.

If all members of TuDiabetes donate $5, we will raise more than $100,000. Our goal is less ambitious: we are seeking to raise $20,000 before the end of March. So we ask you to give us 5 dollars, or more if you can.

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Thank you for your support! And here’s to another 5 years!

]]> http://askmanny.com/2012/03/its-the-birthday-of-tudiabetes/feed/ 1 http://askmanny.com/2012/03/alzheimers-complaints-of-a-dutiful-son/ http://askmanny.com/2012/03/alzheimers-complaints-of-a-dutiful-son/#comments Sun, 25 Mar 2012 00:01:45 +0000 askmanny http://askmanny.com/?p=4048 Continue reading →]]> I have been struggling for a little over a year now… well, I may have been struggling for longer than that, but the past 16 or so months have been a particularly uphill struggle. My mom is now 82 (she would kill me if she knew I was sharing her age online… again!).

In late 2010, she moved to the Bay Area, where I live with my family. Since then, we started noticing clear signs that her memory wasn’t completely working the way it used to. When you consider this was someone who had a memory that I almost wished she didn’t have at some points (if you know what I mean), this was a major change for me as her only child.

In 2011, things got to a point where a change was clearly needed: her memory lapses got too scary and potentially dangerous to her and to others. She stopped driving and eventually, we found her a great independent living residence within 20 minutes from us and got her an amazing geriatrics doctor, Dr. Ann Chodos. Since then, her memory hasn’t gotten better but we have learned little bits here and there of how to cope with it.

The excerpt of the documentary Complaints of a Dutiful Daughter below gives some hints of things you can do as a child of a person experiencing clear signs of dementia and/or Alzheimer’s.

Besides this excerpt, you cannot find any more of the movie available online for streaming. Also unfortunately, the documentary can only be ordered here.

Show your OUTRAGE to UNITE for a Healthy Future, Sept. 18 in Central Park, NYC:
https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=242368832453916

Climate change cannot be ignored.

iMatter March intro from iMatter March on Vimeo.

In early May, there will be a Closing Tea event and the exhibit will go on a few days more beyond then. For more details, visit HereInTheForest.com.

Alberto Vollmer: Project Alcatraz from TEDx Silicon Valley on Vimeo.

One of the tree sculptures in the interactive installation "In The Forest"

“Do not touch, please!” Ever heard that phrase at an art gallery? If you have, this Earth Day (and in fact, all of April and part of May) you should come by The Art Thou Gallery on Solano Ave. in Berkeley. A group of six artists from the East Bay have created In The Forest, an installation featuring 2D and 3D sculptures of trees suspended above the gallery floor that visitors are invited to interact with. You can see an example of the sculptures in the gorgeous image above…

At In The Forest, visitors are invited to explore the exhibit through touch, sound and sight, shifting the configuration of the sculptures on the suspended tracks, altering images, video, audio recordings and even adding live sound to the installation by voicing into amplification tubes extending from above.

“Each individual is acknowledged and felt In the Forest,” said Kaitlin McSweeney, one of the installation’s creators. “We hope the exhibit will inspire visitors to consider how their presence is felt and is significant in the environments we live in every day.”

The artists all met through the 23HAM collective, and have known each other for well over a year. “The collaboration among us started many months ago. Now we are excited to see how people will interact with the installation as it continues to evolve,” said Andreina Davila, one of the other artists.

This Friday, April 22, come celebrate Earth Day between 6 and 10 pm at The Art Thou Gallery (free admission). Enjoy hors d’oeuvres and beverages, be part of the creation and support local Bay Area art and music by celebrated local bands Whiskerman and Foxtails Brigade… In The Forest.

About In the Forest
The exhibit and pieces were conceived and created by Andreina Davila (my wife, whom I am SO proud of!), Claire Tompkins, Chrysta Giffen, Drew Dara Abrams, Kaitlin McSweeney and Susanna Davy. Adam Scradam offered precious technical support.

Update (April 21, 2011): A version of this post just got published on BerkeleySide.

• Nonprofit Technology Conference (organized by NTEN, in DC)
• JDRF Government Day (organized by JDRF, also in DC)
• Ideas Economy (organized by The Economist, in Berkeley)
• Web 2.0 Expo (organized by O’Reilly Media, in San Francisco)

How did I do this without going broke with plane tickets and conference registration fees, more importantly putting my family in a far distant second place? The answer to this question has a lot to do with the reason I put the word “participated” in double quotes: I really wasn’t physically at the conference (in all cases, except for a morning that I actually did swing by the Web 2.0 Expo Exhibit Hall).

How can you be at a conference and not BE there?
An interesting trend I’ve observed this year is that more and more portions of conferences (in some cases all the presentations on the main stage) are being streamed online:

• NTC online streamed a fair number of sessions at a cost of $150 for NTEN members, aside from the amazing coverage of the conference through attendes via the #11NTC hashtag on Twitter.
• JDRF Government Day made the JDRF Government Day Blogger Roundtable session available for free via Ustream and also helped those of us on Twitter to follow the conversation through the #JDRFGovDay hashtag.
• In the case of “Ideas Economy”, all main stage presentations (there were a number of breakout sessions) were streamed through FORA.tv at a cost of $150 (early bird passes). Twitter conversations about this conference could be followed through #ideaseconomy.
• As for Web 2.0 Expo, their Exhibit Hall pass was available for free if you used a discount code they offered through Twitter and all the keynotes were streamed (are being streamed, as a matter of fact, as I write this). The hashtag #w2e served as a container for comments about the conference on Twitter.

Can you really BE at a conference without BEING there?
This is a tricky question because ultimately you do get what you pay for. Was the experience and the lessons I took with me from “participating” in these conferences comparable to the opportunity of being THERE? Heck no! I couldn’t network equally. For sure, I couldn’t attend all sessions I would have been interested in and talked with the presenters (if I sat close enough to the podium to run for it at the end) with more specific questions for them or to get a chance to meet them personally.

But also, I didn’t spend as much money AND I didn’t travel, except for the BART ride from Berkeley to San Francisco for Web 2.0 Expo! This seems like a convenient tradeoff for me considering that I work on a (very) limited budget and the fact that most of the time conferences are not worth attending every year, but (I’ve found to be the case) every other year.

So, though a first take on this trend of conference content being made available online at a lower cost may make you think that the business model for conference organizers is being questioned, I see it differently. They are growing their audience and bringing in additional income that was not available to them until streaming technologies have made it more affordable to offer this kind of content live.

What do you think is going to happen with conferences in the coming years?