BHS Grad Shares His White House Adventure

Berkley Patch Twitter follower and graduate Brent Pliskow recently had the opportunity to visit the White House during .

Pliskow, a 1998 BHS alumnus who lives in Ann Arbor and works for General Electric, was invited to participate in a Tweetup on Tuesday in Washington, D.C.

A Tweetup is an event where users of the social networking website Twitter get together in person to talk and Tweet, which consists of sending out short messages via the site.

"Last week I checked my Twitter feed between meetings. Scrolling through a list of 140 character updates, I came across one from the White House which read:

Announcing our next #WHTweetup: Watch #SOTU live at the @WhiteHouse & attend a panel with admin officials after. Apply: wh.gov/tweetup

On a whim I visited the link and provided a 140 character response as to why I should attend. I don’t remember it exactly (ironically, I found out neither did many participants), but it was something along the lines of 'Once if a lifetime opportunity for a #30something, #ITProfessional, from #Detroit' (I thought the use of hashtags was clever and showed I understood the technology)," Pliskow wrote on his blog.

Twitter users add hash tags in order to group their comments with others on similar topics.

"By Thursday evening I received an email with a subject reading 'Congratulations! You’ve been selected to attend the State of the Union Tweetup'," he wrote.

Pliskow, a former Berkley resident who grew up in Huntington Woods, arrived in D.C. on Monday and spent the next day taking a tour of the White House and meeting fellow Tweetup participants. Pliskow estimated that approximately 100 people participated in the event Tuesday night.

"It has been a very exciting day so far, complete with a tour of the White House (saw Bo, the presidential family's dog) and met with Aneesh Chropra (first Chief Technology Officer of the United States) and Mike Krieger (creator of Instagram)," Pliskow e-mailed Berkley Patch before the Tweetup began Tuesday.

During the president's speech, the Tweetup participants busily Tweeted their thoughts, helping to shape discussion on the social networking site. After the State of the Union concluded, they were joined by Obama Administration officials for a panel discussion.

Pliskow blogged: "After the speech concluded, the cameras turned to us (literally). Streamed live on the White House web site was a panel discussion with Senior Members of the President’s Administration. Administration officials included:

• Mark Zuckerman, White House Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Council
• Roberto Rodriguez, Special Assistant to the President for Education Policy
• Brian Deese, Deputy Director National Economic Council
• Ben Rhodes, Deputy NSA for Strategic Communications and Speechwriting
• Jen Palmieri, Deputy White House Communications Director

and, a surprise guest…

• Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education

I didn’t have an opportunity to ask a question, but enjoyed listening to those that did as well as the responses."

Pliskow had volunteered to ask questions of the administration officials on behalf of Berkley Patch, if possible.

"Overall, the entire experience was overwhelming," Pliskow blogged. "Still, I wouldn’t change anything from the day (except maybe my shoes … my feet and ankles still hurt)."