The Calm within the Storm

I spent a few hours today at the downtown studios of Front Row Tampa Bay, a stone’s throw from the Republican convention. It is bringing together an impressive set of panelists from technology and political arenas.

I had a chance to spend a few minutes with Will Weatherford, the next Speaker of the Florida House and with Chris Herring, of the digital agency, Barkley REI which is running the Social Media Command Center of 60 reps who are monitoring social traffic with Tampa Bay related hash tags. He told me they did the same for Kansas City during last month’s Baseball All-Star game. He’s invited me to a tour of the technology like Radian6 and Spiral16 they use later in the week.

What was remarkable was I was able to get downtown this morning. The outer bands of a hurricane, especially in the northeast quadrant can spawn nasty tornadoes. They also bring heavy rains. As Isaac passed to our West, its outer bands stayed over Miami/Fort Lauderdale and other places East of us. As I left the parking lot, it was beautiful with the sun out and I left the window down, and had the cops stare as Led Zeppelin played in the car. Getting there in the morning I saw the security force outside every downtown building and emergency vehicles at every corner. Since a number of schools and government agencies were closed due to Isaac, the traffic was actually a dream.

It is a remarkable week for our community. I am excited to be part of both our storms.