In a little more than 12 hours, I'll fly to Atlanta. Then to Paris. Then to Conakry, Gunea. Then to Freetown, Sierra Leone. I leave home on Saturday and arrive in another time, another place, another dimension. Excited, to be sure, but also a little nervous. Not about the travel so much-- I've traveled internationally a fair bit before. But more about the technological luggage I'm bringing with me.
My team's job is to spread the word for Heifer, by all means. Typically, I do that in traditional media-- print, audio, video. While technology has certainly changed those mediums over the last few years, THIS medium is a new one for me. Sure, I facebook (like my kids), and e-mail and upload and download. But this is serious. So I hope you'll indulge me while I practice on you a little. Think of it as a small investment. The payoff (I hope) will be much better, more worthy and thought-provoking posts from the field. I will be blogging in this space and tweeting (or "twitting," as I like to call it), taking photos and video, and collecting information for longer-format pieces later on.
I will first inflict upon you a very short video taken at my desk.
My final dry run will be to upload a photo of some Heifer water bottles. I had hoped to take them with me to the field, but just couldn't fit them. Well, that's how I'm attempting to make this relevant, at least.