The drive was long. Chandler, my lovely coworker, and I were on our way to Netroots Nation in San Jose. We grew bored pretty fast so to occupy ourselves, we sang pop-forty songs and made a few stops at California tourist destinations including the mountainous landscapes of Santa Barbara and "Garlic County" off the 101. Northern California was a majestic blanket of sun washed hills busting out of the earth. This scenery and car ride left me at peace, fully engulfed in thoughts as I thought about the weekend ahead: what's going on at Netroots?

Well, today was the first day of the conference where over 2,000 progressive activists gathered in the halls of the San Jose Convention Center. Seven of our NationBuilder organizers are here to share the story of what we do and to share literal sweet M&M treats, too. And to my delight I got to give them to folks like Howard Dean and hip hop artist / blogger / designer, Laguardia, from Miami.

Participants listen to panels on topics ranging from the future of organizing to the killing the press release, which was the first panel I attended, and frankly, the most refreshing and original panel discussion of the day. 

Kill the Press Release began with a brief history of the actual origins of the press release (for instance, did you know that the hastags at the bottom of a traditional press release are to offer a clue to the type setters that it's the end of a document?) to the contemporary ideal of of a social media-driven press release. This in-depth discussion was a unique and empowering combination of the historical to the present, in an eloquent presentation packaged in a 120 minute punctional call-to-action by the one-man-show of Hustle Labs' Chris Cassidy. 

To me, this current analysis of communicating to reporters made perfect sense. We are indeed a generation of short attention spans, online connectivity, and immediacy. Why wouldn't we reach out to reporters on Twitter and abandon the infamous Wire for Facebook?

Although the sun is still shining in San Jose at 7pm, the evening is growing late. Happy Hours in conference land introduce the late night networking parties, where we'll most likely sing karaoke well into the evening. And so, with this in mind, I will leave you with the anticipated karaoke song of the evening and probably weekend: Do You Know the Way to San Jose?

Until tomorrow. If you'd like to find me for some sweet treats, tweet me @julieniemi and we can talk about online organizing or punk music. Your call.