Sarah Austin

From research, design, hardware, and development, I live and breathe IT every day. Many people call me a lifecaster because I’m using tech tools to share every day ordinary moments of my life with the world. My whole life is recorded by software, hardware, and data transfers about what I’m doing.

Being a freelance video editor, software and hardware improvements can make the difference of what I can and cannot produce via the computer. I love Apple software and also software for PC’s, however, I’m more of an Apple girl today with exactly five excellent Apple computers.

I’m a fan of saving paper. We are moving away from print and closer to using electronic data transfers for information exchange. Having lots of computers is not always necessary, unless you are transferring massive amounts of data. When uploading data to my server, I like to keep the computer running without having to multitask.

Ever since I was 12 years old my friends and family looked to me for support with their computers. Today, I study and investigate computer information for reporting on various new outlets. I’m an online video journalist. You can see my work regularly on Forbes.com and Pop17.com. In the past, I was the head of video- video editor for the west coast- for Gawker Media, including Gizmodo. My favorite video project was the iPhone launch.

Recently, IT has been more than study for me. I’ve been dabbling in tech design and development. I’m the lead designer for the video player and the Facebook application game. Development and design are key elements. I learned how important communication and management become when running projects that I do not fully understand. I know a little HTML and CSS and am learning HTML5. However, most of what the developers on building the facebook games I’m not an expert at. I do reading and research so that I can speak the language and communicate with them.

Design is one of the other elements that IT is about. Other than the software that designers use, there are more tools available for people who want to design from their browser, software, or application. There are logo generating sites and easy tools to crowd-source design communities. I’ve organized several design competitions with my audience before and generated great results.

Finally, I’m seriously in IT when it comes to networking. Isn’t IT all about social media these days? My social network communities on Pop17 are really powerful and influential online. I have worked very hard for over 5 years in Silicon Valley to gain access to certain individuals and build strong interpersonal relationships. I have about 1,000 strong tech contacts that I regularly communicate with and 500,000 monthly video views to Pop17 live seminars. On twitter we have 30,000 followers and I was even featured in Vanity Fair as one of America’s Tweethearts. Today, I think of IT leaning more towards social media than ever before. Social media is the biggest trend to look out for right now.