Here We Go.

After months of preparation and anticipation, the big week is here. This little experiment has been chugging along, not without hiccups, but for the most part steadily and reliably. It's been really interesting to see the diversity of participants and juxtaposition of posts thus far. We hope you're enjoying this project and finding value in it.

To date, we've been intentionally quiet here on the site and on Twitter. The primary reason for this is because myG20 is about you, not us. That will not change, but this week we will act (to the best of our ability) as a conduit between participants. Look for ReTweets of cool posts and blog entries containing interesting imagery produced by people on the ground. We're really excited to see where this project goes over the next few days. Thanks for participating.

As always, send questions/comments/recommendations via Twitter or email. Over and out.

New Search Categories Added

As previously stated, the goal of this project is to create a dialog among participants. So last week when Twitter user and myG20-ist @davidseals posted the following message, we got to task!



Ask and you shall receive. If you now look directly below the embedded Twitter stream you'll see several preliminary search categories such as art, food & music. Basically, the search option mines all #myG20 posts for keywords relating to certain topics. We thought it might be cool to add a few emotion/inflection-based options as well, so we threw cool, love & questions into the mix.

When we announced via our Twitter stream & Facebook page last week the addition of these initial categories, we also requested that users send over any ideas we may have missed. Some really great ones came rolling in such as @PittsburghFDN's transit, @rimabean's coffee, and @aerdin's views. We plan to make this search feature of the site as robust as possible, so we included a "Submit Category" button. Feel free to send any thoughts or ideas about potential categories to us for consideration.

Again, thank you all for your support and interest in this project. Happy myG20-ing!

That's great. But what now?

So, yesterday myG20.org went live. In the first 90 minutes of public accessibility, more than one hundred of you posted to the site via Twitter. Pretty impressive. Some pretty cool content emerged in that short time such as the Harris Theater Haiku produced by Pittsburgh Filmmakers, a fairly extensive guide to seven cool Pittsburgh neighborhoods, and a lighthearted (albeit somewhat serious) banter about our quality Steel City cupcakes. Some great valuable content was produced and shared by you, the people of Pittsburgh and beyond. That's the point of all of this.

But the real strength of this site will emerge as ground-level communication starts rolling in. This is where you can help. We are now seeking members for a global street team. We've created several different myG20 Street Team Kits to help get the word out locally, nationally and internationally. If you're interested in receiving a kit filled with myG20 goodies & operational tactics, send your address to myG20.org@gmail.com and we'll get the appropriate street team kit out to you ASAP.

Oh Hai!

Hello and welcome to myG20.org! Our goal with this project is to create a place for people to connect -- a place for people to look to find cool things to do, interesting imagery, and the potential to communicate with like-minded others, both here in Pittsburgh and elsewhere. This project is not so much about the G20, but more about the people and things here in Pittsburgh that drove President Obama to select this city to host the summit. There was a reason. In fact, there were thousands of them. And you are it.

In the weeks leading up to the summit, myG20 will be about sharing Pittsburgh with the world. Feel free to post about things you feel deserve attention -- the hidden gems, the off-the-beaten-path destinations, the unique Pittsburgh that is often overlooked by conventional media and traditional visitor guides. Ask questions of each other. Enter into a dialog about, "Why Pittsburgh?"

In the days leading up to, and those during the summit, myG20 will take on a noticeably different feel and form. As the whirlwind of the G20 summit descends upon the city, myG20 will become a real-time guide to Pittsburgh produced by the people on the ground. As spontaneous events, performances and destinations occur, it is our hope that myG20 will serve as the hub of citizen journalism and open documentation of this very significant event.

And finally, myG20 was developed and is supported by two organizations (1, 2) that consider themselves artists and artist-friendly. It is with this spirit that we hope you use and find benefit from the project.

All the pertinent directions and information is located in the right sidebar. So have fun, experiment and enjoy your authorship. Please report any bugs, hiccups or issues to jeffrey [at] mattress [dot] org. Thank you.