RE: https://phpc.social/@imabug/117453706312804212
@jared is gone, long live Jared W Smith.
I forget the year, 2007? 2008? BlogHer was going to partner with ConvergeSouth in Greensboro NC. CS would have a one day conference focusing on reportage and civic engagement on a Friday and BlogHer would have a day about tech topics on the Saturday in the same space with a shared ticket. A few weeks before the event, BlogHer wasn't happy with presales so they canceled their part of the event.
Kelby Carr of Type-A Parent and I jumped in to organize a replacement event. We split up the day. She programmed the morning and I did the afternoon. I got Mur Lafferty to come over from Durham to keynote my half, but the very first call I made was to Jared Smith. He enthusiastically volunteered to do a session on chromakey (not nearly as common back then.) He brought a big portable green screen, showed how he used it in his broadcasts and then left it up. Anyone interested could take some footage with their own devices and take it back home to play with it. It was fun and it really energized the room.
That was my experience with Jared. He was a ball of infectious energy. Every single CREATE South that we held in Myrtle Beach, Jared presented at. He showed up whenever we asked and sometimes without being asked. Although he focused on Charleston weather he was one of my sources whenever a big system approached the coast. He was a great guy.
I hadn't seen him in person in a long time. He was one of my first follows when I joined Mastodon because of course he was already here. He was such a fixture of the coastal SC grassroots tech scene that it is hard to think about it without him. A bright light has gone out.
Update: Thanks to @patrickokeefe for pointing his contemporaneous blog reporting that points out most of these facts are wrong.
Don did the session I was thinking about, and Jared was Kelby's first call not mine. The truth that remains is that Jared was an enthusiastic force of nature who showed up at event in Charleston, at ours in Myrtle Beach and as far away as Greensboro. When energy flagged, you could count on him to buoy things up.
