Events | Chris Aldrich

Reposted Planned Parenthood Hosts Fall Benefit by Outlook Photos (Outlook Newspapers)

Planned Parenthood Pasadena and San Gabriel Valley hosted its annual Fall Benefit at the Langham Huntington Hotel in Pasadena on Saturday.

Hundreds of donors, advocates, and community and business leaders turned out for the event, which marks the organization’s 85th anniversary serving 24 communities. Stephanie Dencik and Stephanie McLemore served as the event’s co-chairs; Sheri Bonner is the local organization’s CEO.

Emcee Cristela Alonso shared her stories of finding care as a Latina and local high school students Amanda Estevez and Nick Sanchez brought the audience to their feet with their transformative experiences as Peer Advocates, serving as resources for sexual and reproductive health information in their schools and communities.

Other speakers included Dave Quast, PP Advocates board member and long-time advocate, and Dr. Leah Torres, a Utah-based OB/GYN whose health advocacy had helped bridge divides across conservative and progressive communities, states and countries.

see additional photos.

An IndieWeb talk at WordCamp Riverside in November 2018

I’ve submitted a talk for WordCamp Riverside 2018; it has been accepted.

My talk will help to kick off the day at 10am on Saturday morning in the “John Hughes High” room. The details for the camp and a link to purchase tickets can be found below.

WordCamp Riverside 2018

Saturday, November 3rd & Sunday, November 4th
hosted at SolarMax, 3080 12th St., Riverside, CA 92507
Tickets are available now

Given that “Looking back to go forward” is the theme of the camp this year, I think I may have chosen the perfect topic. To some extent I’m going to look at how the nascent web has recently continued evolving from where it left off around 2006 before everyone abandoned it to let corporate silo services like Facebook and Twitter become responsible for how we use the web. We’ll talk about how WordPress can be leveraged to do a better job than “traditional” social media with much greater flexibility.

Here’s the outline:

The web is my social network: How I use WordPress to create the social platform I want (and you can too!)

Synopsis: Growing toxicity on Twitter, Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica scandal, algorithmic feeds, and a myriad of other problems have opened our eyes to the ever-growing costs of social media. Walled gardens have trapped us with the promise of “free” while addicting us to their products at the cost of our happiness, sense of self, sanity, and privacy. Can we take back our fractured online identities, data, and privacy to regain what we’ve lost?

I’ll talk about how I’ve used IndieWeb philosophies and related technologies in conjunction with WordPress as a replacement for my social presence while still allowing easy interaction with friends, family, and colleagues online. I’ll show how everyone can easily use simple web standards to make WordPress a user-controlled, first-class social platform that works across domains and even other CMSes.

Let’s democratize social media using WordPress and the open web, the last social network you’ll ever need to join.

Intended Audience: The material is introductory in nature and targeted at beginner and intermediate WordPressers, but will provide a crash course on a variety of bleeding edge W3C specs and tools for developers and designers who want to delve into them at a deeper level. Applications for the concepts can be of valuable to bloggers, content creators, businesses, and those who are looking to better own their online content and identities online without allowing corporate interests out-sized influence of their online presence.

I look forward to seeing everyone there!

🔖 Collaborative Workshop for Women in Mathematical Biology | IPAM

Bookmarked Collaborative Workshop for Women in Mathematical Biology (IPAM)

June 17-21, 2019

This workshop will tackle a variety of biological and medical questions using mathematical models to understand complex system dynamics. Working in collaborative teams of 6, each with a senior research mentor, participants will spend a week making significant progress with a research project and foster innovation in the application of mathematical, statistical, and computational methods in the resolution of problems in the biosciences. By matching senior research mentors with junior mathematicians, the workshop will expand and support the community of scholars in mathematical biosciences. In addition to the modeling goals, an aim of this workshop is to foster research collaboration among women in mathematical biology. Results from the workshop will be published in a peer-reviewed volume, highlighting the contributions of the newly-formed groups. Previous workshops in this series have occurred at IMA, NIMBioS, and MBI.

This workshop will have a special format designed to facilitate effective collaborations.

Each senior group leader will present a problem and lead a research group.

Group leaders will work with a more junior co-leader, someone with whom they do not have a long-standing collaboration, but who has enough experience to take on a leadership role.

Additional team members will be chosen from applicants and invitees. We anticipate a total of five or six people per group.

It is expected that each group will continue to work on their project together after the workshop, and that they will submit results to the Proceedings volume for the workshop.

The benefit of such a structured program with leaders, projects and working groups planned in advance is based on the successful WIN, Women In Numbers, conferences and is intended to provide vertically integrated mentoring: senior women will meet, mentor, and collaborate with the brightest young women in their field on a part of their research agenda of their choosing, and junior women and graduate students will develop their network of colleagues and supporters and encounter important new research areas to work in, thereby fostering a successful research career. This workshop is partially supported by NSF-HRD 1500481 – AWM ADVANCE grant.

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
Rebecca Segal (Virginia Commonwealth University)
Blerta Shtylla (Pomona College)
Suzanne Sindi (University of California, Merced)

IndieWebCamp NYC on 09/28-29

Want to see what the bleeding edge of the web and the future of social media looks like? Join an inclusive and welcoming group of creators at IndieWebCamp NYC on 9/28-29 either in person or live streaming.
https://indieweb.org/2018/NYC

📅 RSVP yes to Workplace Happiness is Your Best Business Strategy by Valerie Alexander

RSVPed Attending Workplace Happiness is Your Best Business Strategy by Valerie Alexander

Fri, Aug 24, 2018, 8:15 AM

According to Gallup, American employers lose $450-550 billion a year by failing to create positive corporate cultures that foster accomplishment, autonomy and appreciation in the workplace.

Employee Unhappiness leads to:
• Higher turnover
• Excessive absenteeism
• Poor customer service
• Theft
• Workplace bullying and violence
• Increased workers compensation claims
• More on-the-job injuries

…and a myriad of outcomes that have no line item in the budget, but still reduce productivity throughout the workplace. Engagement, job satisfaction and worker happiness matter to the bottom line.

This talk will give employees and managers the skills to create a positive work environment through simple adjustments and practices anyone can do, no matter the workplace. Whether in an office, a hospital, a restaurant, classroom or construction site, these techniques work!

In the U.S., the average loss due to unhappiness and disengagement is $3,500 per employee per year. When it comes to happiness, is your workplace above or below average? Can you afford to let it stay that way? Make happiness a priority in your workplace today, and reap the rewards tomorrow.

📅 #OpenEd18 – October 10 – 12, Niagara Falls, New York

RSVPed Might be attending #OpenEd18 - October 10 - 12, Niagara Falls, New York

The OpenEd18 program – with over 350 presentations, posters, roundtables, lightning talks, panels, and symposia – is available for review below. In order to fully engage with the program – to make a personalized schedule, connect with other attendees, etc. – download the OpenEd18 app:

in your web browser

on your iOS device

on your Android device

👓 The harm of harmless jokes | lu popolvuh – Medium

Read The harm of harmless jokes by lu popolvuh (lu popolvuh – Medium)

A #MeTooSTEM story about requesting a change in tradition

I’ve followed bits of this story for a while since it touches on an area I follow, but I had no idea the harassment was so terrible. The Romeo and Juliette business is just deplorable.