rsvp | Chris Aldrich

📅 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

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📅 RSVP to WordPress Pasadena General Meetup, July 2018. We Have A/C, Why Fight it, Edition

RSVPed Attending WordPress Pasadena General Meetup, July 2018. We Have A/C, Why Fight it, Edition

Tue, Jul 31, 2018, 7:00 PM
Cross Campus, 85 N. Raymond Avenue · Pasadena, CA

WordPress Pasadena is back in beautiful Old Town Pasadena at one of the first (and finest) Co-Workin' spaces in town, CrossCampus (http://www.crosscamp.us/).

Bring your curiosity, your questions, your swell attitude and lots of potatoes. J/k, just bring your smiling faces. Please read the info below as it pertains to our meetup format and FAQs.

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📅 RSVP to Just Build the @#$%&!!! Thing — Rapid Prototyping at the Supplyframe DesignLab

RSVPed Attending Just Build the @#$%&!!! Thing -- Rapid Prototyping at the Supplyframe DesignLab

Friday, August 3, 2018
8:30 AM to 9:30 AM

The DesignLab is a facility in Old Town Pasadena, created by Supplyframe to be a place where the most complex of hardware products can be developed in a focused way. Every product takes a unique path on the journey from napkin sketch to a satisfied customer, but universally each path requires testing, mistakes and iteration. The speed at which that occurs is the competitive advantage every entrepreneur needs when creating the perfect product for their identified market.

This talk will discuss the capabilities of the DesignLab and the way testing, mistakes and iteration have evolved the lab itself. For those who are thinking about developing product, or have people in their network that are looking to do so, we'll also detail the how product developers get access to the DesignLab through the Residency Program.

RSVP to Virtual Homebrew Website Club Meetup on July 25, 2018

RSVPed Attending Virtual Homebrew Website Club Meetup on July 25, 2018

Are you building your own website? Indie reader? Personal publishing web app? Or some other digital magic-cloud proxy? If so, come on by and join a gathering of people with likeminded interests. Bring your friends who want to start a personal web site. Exchange information, swap ideas, talk shop, help work on a project…

Everyone of every level is welcome to participate! Don’t have a domain yet? Come along and someone can help you get started and provide resources for creating the site you’ve always wanted.

This virtual HWC meeting is for site builders who either can’t make a regular in-person meeting or don’t yet have critical mass to host one in their area. It will be hosted on Google Hangouts.

Time: July 25, 2018 7:30 pm PDT to July 25, 2018 9:00 pm PDT
Location: Google Hangouts (link to Hangout TBD)

I hope the following can come and join me:
David Shanske
gRegor Morrill
Greg McVerry
William Ian O’Byrne
Clint Lalonde
Aaron Davis
Doug Beal
Cathie LeBlanc
John Johnson
Taylor Jaydin
Kathleen Fitzpatrick
Alan Jacobs
Dan Cohen
Asher Silberman
Micah Cambre
Michael Kirk
Scott Gruber
Chris Bolas
Michael Bishop
Khürt Williams
Eddie Hinkle
Aaron Parecki

I’ve never done it before, and I’ve never received one myself, but I’m going to send some invitations (via webmention) to folks to join me. I’m curious how the original post will handle it and what Semantic Linkbacks will do and what it will display. Semantic Linkbacks is set up to display RSVP:Invitations, but I’m not sure what will happen. So this post will serve as a test and we’ll see! Is anyone else supporting invitations (sending or displaying)? In the future I could see supporting an Event Invitations page similar to my Mentions page which displays all the events I’ve been invited to.

Incidentally I’m noticing that there’s also an issue in the latest update that RSVP’s on prior event posts aren’t facepiling like they should/used to.

RSVP for DrupalCamp LA 2018

RSVPed Attending DrupalCamp LA 2018

The Los Angeles area conference for all west-coast things Drupal — July 21-22, 2018

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RSVPed Attending Innovate Pasadena Friday Morning Coffee Meetup: From Carmen Sandiego to Vroman’s: Why I Write Fiction for less than Minimum Wage

Fri, Jun 15, 2018, 8:15 AM at Cross Campus Pasadena

For much of his life, Ken Goldstein was the consummate Silicon Valley insider. In the 1990s, he worked at Brøderbund Software, in charge of all things related to the Carmen Sandiego franchise of computer games. When Brøderbund was acquired by its rival in 1998, Ken moved to Disney Online where under the mentorship of Michael Eisner, his team launched Toontown and the entertainment giant’s other early forays into interactive online entertainment.

In 2006, Ken took the reins as CEO & Chairman of Shop.com, a comparison shopping marketplace with a patented single cart checkout solution backed by Bill Gates, Amazon.com, Yahoo and Oak Investment Partners. In 2010, Shop.com was acquired by Market America where the marketplace continues to thrive.

Then Ken returned to his true passion: writing. With a nod to social realism, he set out to paint the world of technology madness in authentic fiction. His first novel, This Is Rage, was published in 2013 and optioned for Broadway. His second book, Endless Encores, was published in 2015. His third book: From Nothing: A Novel of Technology, Bar Music, and Redemption, releases on June 12, 2018.

Ken will talk about his new book, his time in and out of Silicon Valley, his experience running some of the most beloved properties in online entertainment, and share some of the key school-of-hard-knocks lessons that made him both a successful tech executive, and later on a successful author. Feel free to ask him really awkward questions about what it’s like to survive in the unforgiving worlds of literature and technology. Hint: technology is way easier!
Vroman's Bookstore will be on site with all of Ken's books available for purchase.

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📅 RSVP to WordCamp Los Angeles 2018

RSVPed Attending WordCamp Los Angeles 2018

Are you ready for WordCamp Los Angeles 2018 even though we’re still a quarter of a year away! We are too! And we’re excited to announce that early bird tickets are now on sale.

Today, we’ve released 70 General Admission and 20 Beginner’s Day tickets. The $40 General Admission tickets will give you full access to WCLAX on Saturday and Sunday, t-shirt, swag, coffee, snacks, and lunch. The $50 Beginner’s Day tickets will — in addition to providing you with General Admission on Saturday and Sunday (and all the swag and eats that come with it) — will get you into the limited seating Beginner’s Day on Friday!

We’ll release more tickets in June but if you grab em today you’re guaranteed a ticket and some early-birds-only swag!

I’m pretty sure I just bought the last of the early bird tickets for WordCamp Los Angeles. Everyone else will have to wait for the general release sometime in June now.

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📅 RSVP to The (Bumpy) Road To The Robotics Revolution | Innovate Pasadena

RSVPed Attending The (Bumpy) Road To The Robotics Revolution

Fri, May 25, 2018, 8:15 AM to 9:30 AM
Cross Campus, 85 N. Raymond Avenue · Pasadena, CA

The robotics ecosystem is evolving, as technological advances have paved the way for the robotics revolution. Soon, robots will be part of our everyday lives. Despite these advances, robots are currently about as exciting and easy to use as the command line on the personal computer. We're in the "DOS days" of robotics. So what is the Windows of robotics? How will end-users unlock the potential of personal robots in their homes and workplaces?

In this talk, Dr. Ross Mead will discuss the technological advances paving the way for the robotics revolution, and the robotics hardware companies leading the charge along that path. He will also introduce the software innovations in development at Semio to bring robots to life. Finally, he will provide candid insights on personal setbacks as an entrepreneur working in an emerging market within an emerging market.

Biography
Dr. Ross Mead is the Founder and CEO of Semio. Ross received his PhD and MS in Computer Science from the University of Southern California in 2015, and his BS in Computer Science from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville in 2007. Ross’s dissertation work focused on enabling autonomous socially assistive robots, specifically, on the principled design and computational modeling of fundamental social behaviors (such as speech, gestures, eye gaze, social spacing, etc.) that serve as building blocks for automated recognition and control in face-to-face human-robot interactions, bringing robotic characters to life. His research provides the foundations upon which Semio software is being built.

Semio is a Los Angeles-based software startup developing the operating system, app ecosystem, and developer tools for personal robots. What Microsoft Windows did for personal computing, what Android did for smartphones, Semio is doing for personal robots. Semio software allows robot content developers to rapidly create and deploy robot apps, allows robot manufacturers to easily integrate with those robot apps, and allows robot end-users to transparently access and use robot apps entirely through natural language, including both speech and body language.

Semio seeks to accelerate the mass adoption of hardware robots into homes and workplaces, finally delivering on the vision of robots in daily life that people have always dreamed of.

Beyond Semio, Ross serves on the Board of Directors for two non-profit organizations: (1) AI LA to promote artificial intelligence in the Los Angeles community; and (2) the KISS Institute for Practical Robotics to promote robotics and STEM in K-12 education around the globe, with a focus on underrepresented populations. In 2018, he co-founded the Social Robot Community Slack team to spark an international community around robotics and natural language technologies. Previously, Ross also served as a technical and scientific advisor to Disney, Intel, and National Geographic, among others.

Email: ross@semio.ai
LinkedIn: /RossMead
Twitter: @RossMead

👓 The Future of Publishing | LitFest Pasadena

RSVPed Unable to Attend The Future of Publishing

The Future of Publishing
May 19 @ 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm

Six small presses with a wide range of specialties—fiction, children’s books, literature in translation, poetry, cookbooks—talk about the challenges and opportunities in book publishing in the near future, and how they’re looking to innovate and look beyond the corporate Big Five publishing model.

Featured Guests: Neela Banerjee, Kaya Press; Ariana Stein, Lil Libros; Ross Ufberg, New Vessel; Tobi Harper, Red Hen Press; Julia Callahan, Rare Bird Books; Colleen Dunn Bates, Prospect Park – Moderator

Wishing I hadn’t gotten myself committed on Saturday to go to Knott’s Berry Farm so I could attend this in the afternoon.

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📅 RSVP to WordPress Pasadena General Meetup, May 2018

RSVPed Attending WordPress Pasadena General Meetup, May 2018

Tue, May 29, 2018, 7:00 PM: We're back with our general WordPress Meetup! This month we'll be talking about all sorts of stuff, WordCamps, GDPR, Gutenberg and anything else that's on your mind that's fit to chat about.