FCW Insider: A quick catch-up

I came back from Williamsburg, Va., yesterday, where I was attending the annual IAC Executive Leadership Conference. I have much more on that, including my take on what the “kids” had to say -- read Kelman's take from the same forum here.

Before I get to the numerous ELC items, let me catch up on a few things that I have not had the chance to get to and deserve attention.

* Fires. One can't help but be horrified by the fires in Southern California. As a California native, my heart goes out to the people affected. There is some amazing coverage online. It’s definitely worth checking out NASA's Web site. It really gives you a sense of what is going on.

The LA Times has used mashup tools to post fire status information on a Google map. See that at latimes.com/firemap.

The state of California has a great Google map with information about the fires.

Get more information at www.calfires.com.

USDA's Forest Service has a map tracking fires around the country -- all the attention is focused on California.

And this from Wired's blog about residents turning to Twitter.

San Diego is surrounded by raging wildfires, and local residents are frantic for up-to-the-minute news. But with the local media overwhelmed and the national media offering scant details about local services, some crafty Web users are turning to Twitter to get the word out.

San Diego residents Nate Ritter and Dan Tentler have been busy posting rapid-fire updates to Twitter as they gather information from friends and roam the streets to offer firsthand reports. The microblogging service, which lets users send out short, burst-like updates to a group of friends, has proved to be an invaluable tool for distributing information.