Yesterday, I traveled to New York City to attend Brand Camp University–a national conference series centered around branding, technology and entrepreneurship.

The conference is the brainchild of tech entrepreneur and personal branding strategist Hajj Flemings. I first learned about Hajj through his appearance on CNN’s “Black in America: The New Promised Land – Silicon Valley”, in which he was one of featured tech startup founders.

As an aspiring tech entrepreneur, and someone who understands the critical role that branding, technology, and entrepreneurship can play in your success in today’s digital age (whether you are building a startup company or looking to create change in your community), this is a conference that I was sure I could get a lot of value from.

I wasn’t disappointed!

The day included a series of panel discussions and talks from a diverse group of industry leaders, including startup founders, media personalities, marketing and social media strategists. The topics ranged from building businesses around your personal brand to creating inspiring online video content to overcoming challenges faced by women and minority entrepreneurs. Each discussion carefully honed in on the conference’s theme: Build, Innovate, Grow.

At the end of the day, I left the conference inspired to grow my ideas and passion for technology into something greater.

Here are a few of my key takeaways from Brand Camp:

1. Devote time to your passion. This one’s pretty self-explanatory.
2. Create Social Proof. Although a key element of the digital age is being social, it’s not just enough to talk about your ideas, your brand or what you do. You have to create a space where people can see and experience the work that you’re doing. This could be a website or online portfolio of some kinda–be creative! This lends a greater sense of legitimacy to your brand and ideas, and helps people to connect with those things more.
3. Be a great storyteller. This sort of ties into the previous point about creating social proof. It’s important to craft real, relatable stories around your brand and ideas that people can connect to. You can do this through careful and creative use of social media.
4. Develop your “Why”. For example, it’s not enough to just market yourself as a blogger these days. Everyone’s a blogger. You need to identify the things that compels you to blog, and what you’re looking to achieve through doing so. Once you’ve figure that out, you’ve arrived at your “Why”, and that’s the thing that you should nurture and market. You can apply this thought process to anything, be it a startup company or your personal brand.
5. Monetize. Identify at least three ways that you can generate revenue from your passion.

On one hand, I feel like I’ve forgotten how to do this, why I do this. On the other hand, well, I’m not sure. I do know that I miss it, though. The lights have been out long enough around here. Proceed and continue, I shall.

I hate to break my silence here on the blog on such a somber note, but as a fan, I’d be remiss if I didn’t take this moment to pay homage to the man, the legend, the greatest entertainer of my generation, The King of Pop, The King…Michael Jackson.

Hours later, and the thought of his passing is still as shocking, numbing as it was the first second I heard it reported, and later confirmed across the media last evening.

And today, as I look around and see manifestations of the undeniable impact that he had on our culture, on music, on people, I can only think that this may well be the most devastating loss that we’ve ever endured collectively as fans of music. That is, since MJ impacted everyone, regardless of race, culture, generation, location or musical preference. All boundaries were transcended on his watch.

I mean, just with my generation alone (true 80’s babies), you’d be hard pressed to find individuals who, at some point in their lives, didn’t try to emulate him on a talent show stage or dance floor (hell, sometimes breaking into an MJ dance move was just instinctive); who didn’t own a screenprinted t-shirt bearing his image at some point in their lives or other memorabilia; who didn’t want to dress as him atleast once for Halloween (respectfully); who didn’t have an extreme appreciation for the Thriller video (though most of us were way too young to remember when it premiered); who didn’t go to school buzzing about the “Black & White” (the morphing sequence) or “Remember the Time” (the cameos and guest appearances) videos the day after they premiered on Fox; who didn’t wish they could hang out with the dude just once (no *pause* necessary). I could go on and on.
I’m not sure how much music he was able to record in the time leading up to his planned comeback, but if there is some I hope that it receives a proper release.

Peace to his kids, the entire Jackson family, and the millions of devoted and loyal fans around world, who I count myself among, that admired and respected him, as both a person and an artist.

If not for every official Michael Jackson video on YouTube having the embed feature “disabled by request” at the moment (I’m guessing the content owners are trying to keep the views local), I’d end this by posting one of my all time favorite MJ vids here, Bad.

Instead, here’s a clip of him at the 2007 BET Awards, making a surprise appearance alongside his idol James Brown. James was in shock, the crowd was in shock; it was a thrilling moment all around, and also one of MJ’s last televised performances. RIP:

Make that $2-million on Doom against Wayne.

I’m in Austin, TX at SXSW Interactive, the mecca of all things tech/social media/web2.0, blogging on the fly in a hallway lined with bloggers, twitterers, and podcasters in the humongous Austin Convention Center. Simply stated, this conference is unlike anything that I’ve ever experienced in my life. To be surrounded by so many people who share my passion for the web is exhilarating! And what’s more is that there are so many dope things to be had, and experienced at just about every turn here–from the latest and greatest web apps and services, to films, games, parties and schwag (tons of it)! It’s only my second day here (first full day of panel discussions) and, while this may sound kind of corny, already I’m beginning to feel rejuvenated. I’m remembering why I fell in love with blogging, why I created Gureala, and most importantly, the power and possibilities of the web. It’s beautiful.