Hi. Who are you?

Ask me about the story, that’s all I’ll say.

Life in San Francisco has been so…funny. In every possible good way.

The name Tara Hunt might not ring a bell, but for those of us on Twitter, the handle @missrogue surely does.

Tara is a marketer, blogger, speaker, social media maven and someone who has done a damn fine job marketing herself.  A few of her accomplishments:

• Co-founded Citizen Agency, a virtual marketing consultancy specializing in community-centric strategies
• Co-founded Citizen Space, a popular co-working space in San Francisco
• Has more than 35 speaking engagements under her belt, including SXSW Interactive, Web 2.0 Expo and Gnomedex
• Currently the 14th most popular Twitterer in San Francisco, and 319th overall
• Penned The Whuffie Factor, a book about using social media tools in a corporate marketing setting – out April 21, 2009

It’s the latter accomplishment that I spoke to Tara about earlier this month at NetSquared, an initiative of TechSoup that aims to promote using the Web for social change.

My aim of the interview: Understand (and help you understand!) what the heck whuffie is and why we should care:

@missrogue on Makin’ Whuffie from aziari on Vimeo.

I think Tara’s parting advice is so important – be human.

Be human, you ask? Yeah, how can I not? But personally, I’ve found it challenging to “be real” using social tools within a corporate environment. It takes practice.

Do you agree with Tara? What do you think is the worst mistake someone can make using social tools within marketing?

Being the new gal in town can be a daunting task. Trying to pretend you know the *supposed* VIP sitting next to you. Finding joints to hang at. Making new friends.

So, on Thursday I set out to get some pointers from someone who’s “been there, done that” and made my way down to the Girls in Tech event.

Leah Culver, the speaker of the evening and software engineer at Six Apart (which acquired Pownce, the micro-blogging company she co-founded, in late 2008) was kind of enough to lend me some of her tips and tricks for working as a tech gal in San Francisco -  from events to attend, to people I should grab a drink with, to her favorite coffee shop.

And, apparently, it’s all about the cupcakes: