An Open Letter To George Lucas

Re: Moratorium on the Star Wars Trilogy

Dear George Lucas

The other day I was having dinner with some new acquaintances. Before you ask, dinner was delicious. Afterwards our hostess popped in a DVD of the film Office Space (not yours) which in some native societies is considered a masterpiece. These societies are also heavily into programming and spend most of their time writing something called “code,” so any sort of designations as to what denotes art and what doesn’t is questionable.

But as we were all watching the film, we experience what can only be called a ‘mind-meld’ where we found ourselves all laughing uproariously at the same bits or even in expectation of certain bits. Concurrently, we found ourselves challenging each other to a strange but visceral game of trivia as we watched, asking one another things like “What’s that actor’s name again?”, “Didn’t the guys who wrote this also write…?”, “What year did this come out?” and “Did anybody else notice something funny about those brownies we had for dessert?”

There we were, sitting together in the same room and watching a film – not by ourselves in a dark apartment, alone – but having an “Experience” and enjoying every moment.

This reminded me of a time, gosh, several years ago now, George, when I was in Denver for work and some friends and I went to a re-release of Star Wars. I am of the generation that saw Star Wars the first time around in the theatre as a kid. I was a very YOUNG kid. And of course we were all in awe of the film – enthralled by the story, the characters, that scary Darth Vader voice and the AMAZING special affects. At the time. ahem.

And so there I was, sitting in this theater in Denver, an adult, and the place is packed. And we’re all enjoying the film but in a totally new way. People are actually laughing! I can assure you that as a ten year old – ok, the cat’s out of the bag – I never laughed at the, shall we say, burgeoning acting skills of Mark Hamill, It would have been sacrilege! Besides we were too young to know the difference. But now people WERE laughing. And they were also cheering! And – right on! – BOOING the bad guys! “Take THAT storm trooper!” And some even resembled the characters in the film – I can only assume the sheer mind-blowingness of seeing Star Wars all those years ago forever altered their personal style choices. At any event it was an awesome night. An awesome night.

And so what I’m asking George, is that you let us show the original trilogy, Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi in a movie marathon here in San Francisco never to be matched again in the annals of science fiction film history! – the trekkies don’t have the GUTS to do it. We’ll even give the proceeds to charity. And think of the poor kids who are writing code and have never had the opportunity to see the Star Wars films on the big screen, smack in the middle of a pack of exuberant force-o-philes. Are you going to let them suffer any longer, George? Are you?

I say no! I say let us have permission to show your masterpieces (at absolutely no cost to us) so that a new generation may bask in the green and red light of the hero’s journey. And make cool light saber noises while they do it.

Thank you for your time and may the force be with you.

Geeks4Good

Cupcakes! In Honor of My 2,000th Follower

Now I’m not all hung up on numbers of followers. But I am interested in fun and meaningful engagement on twitter. So in that spirit I will be sending my 2,000th follower a dozen cupcakes. That’s twelve frosted bits of goodness. I only hope my 2,000th follower lives in my post code!

All I ask is that the lucky recipient will take a photo of him/herself with the cupcakes and share them with the people they love.

My Rules For Twitter

Because I Am The Keeper Of All Knowledge And You Should Be Happy I’m Imparting My Pearls Of Wisdom To You, You Puny, Puny Little Person

I’ve only been seriously active on twitter for about 3 months though I’ve actually been a registered user for over a year. You can find me tweeting under @BraveGirl. In that time I have been given lots of helpful advice and have read many blog posts regarding how to use twitter with titles like: “twitter etiquette,” “how to choose who to follow on twitter,” “when not to follow someone on twitter” and my personal favorite “twitter: you’re doing it wrong.”

And so, in the spirit of telling other people what to do, and because we should all be using twitter in exactly the same fashion, here are my rules. Feel free to implement them at your leisure.

RULE # 1

NEVER follow someone whom you have not ascertained – through careful study of their tweets of the last six months, a thorough reading of their 7-9 blogs including all the associated archived entries, and a quick sift through their garbage on the curb – that you do indeed share the same passionate love for ruby on rails and iphone apps. If you have nothing in common with that person, or maybe, a polar opposite ideological world view, then perhaps you may want to consider not following them. Case in point: this is what resulted when a user called @Repurblican recently began following me:

@BraveGirl: why would @Repurblican follow me when I’m a democrat/liberal? When reps truly become again the Party of Lincoln i’ll give two monkeys

@Repurblican: Because the GOP needs to do a better job of making its pitch, and talking to people who disagree with the current one is step 1

@ BraveGirl: good luck with that.

@Repurblican: Thanks

@BraveGirl: @Repurblican completely missed the sarcasm of my last remark

@Repurblican: don’t think I did

@BraveGirl: you’re smarter than the guy at the top of your party then. But who isn’t? except the knobs who put him there I suppose.

@Repurblican: ah, gotcha. You just called Bush voters stupid.

@Repurblican: (attempting to find common ground) Hopeless film geek, eh? Of what’s in theaters what should I go see? Avoiding Valkyrie, thinking The Spirit.

@BraveGirl: @Republican you may want to check this one out. www.bushbrain.com

@Repurblican: does not compute! does not compute! Must continue to try and convince staunch liberal to buy into and blindly follow corrupt and unethical political dogma. Must buy another pair of baggy khaki trousers and shirt with polo horse embroidery!

From your lips to Karl Rove’s ears you adorable, automotonic lemming.

RULE # 1b

If you’re going to try and persuade people to support the republican party, learn to spell “republican.”

RULE # 2

REGARDING the Gods of twitter: all of you are aware of Their existence, and none dare speak the names of these holiest of holy Beings. Their followers are many. It is more difficult for one to enter Their inner sanctum than it is for Steve Wozniak to pass through the turnstyle at the teacup ride at Disneyland. The rule is: you may follow, but do not EVER @TwitterGod lest you be riven through by Their icy, cold-shouldered disdain.

To Them you are like the gnat buzzing in the ear of a giant.

You do not signify. You are not germane. You are a freckle on the protozoa that feeds off the fungus between the toes of the Colossus. Learn it, live it, love it.

RULE # 3

YOUR tweets must add value. In order for anybody to take you seriously on twitter you must approach your tweeting as if you are actually the Associated Press. Only relentless tweets of links to special, top-secret news sources like The New York Times, Reuters, CNN, Fox News and the BBC – you know, the ones that only government operatives and Jesus Christ have access to – will you become a credible and valuable member of twitter.

RULE # 4

ONLY tweet 3.38 times within a 12 hour time span, excepting  months ending in the letter “N” at which time you may tweet two tweets for every tweet of @GuyKawasaki, unless of course there’s a full moon in which case you must drink for every tweet posted by a user with the photo of a dog for its avatar.

RULE # 5

SOCIALIZING on twitter: if you insist on having a conversation via public tweets, and do not switch over to DM after the initial response to your first tweet, you will be killed.

So there you go. My five rules. I’m certain you will find them helpful as you speedily navigate the hairpin online highway toward your destination of becoming one of the more exciting and popular people on twitter. Please remember not to violate any of these rules or you will be shunned and ostracized by everybody who’s anybody and only real estate agents and Mon aVie marketers will want to follow you. Now, get out there and tweet, you rascal!

I’m Engaged! With Twitter!

I’ve just finished reading Scott Porad’s  blog post: Seven Things that Influence Whether or Not I Engage with Someone on Twitter.

And I liked it. In it he outlines some very common sense guidelines to make you a more attractive relationship candidate. On twitter, that is.

Now we all know that twitter is a hugely valuable marketing/branding/relationship-building tool. And it works  really well IF you ENGAGE.

A plethora of twitter-related apps have cropped up, promising to maximize your followers, make it easy to engage with them and minimize the time spent on twitter so that your productivity is propelled into the stratosphere.

These applications may succeed in netting a gross of new followers but those who rely too heavily on apps are shooting themselves right in the reputation.

Real value lies in building successful, reciprocal relationships. And that means making a little effort to meaningfully engage. But what is engagement?

Let me begin by defining what engagement isn’t.

1. It isn’t auto reply DMs to new followers. Canned “thanks for following me, now read my blog/buy my product/elect me as your favorite (yet another) twitter conference attendee” drive me up the wall. My reaction is to dropdown to the unfollow button.

2. It isn’t using an app to auto-retweet every post that mentions you. If someone is kind enough to mention @BraveGirl, I feel the right thing to do is to actually respond with a custom made, pertinent and potentially amusing reply. Why? Because I’m interested in building relationships with value. Not in the number of followers (spam bots) that are riding my coattails.

3. It isn’t not following back followers who reach out to you via mentions. Follower count fever has gotten out of control, yes. But to not follow someone who reaches out to you in an attempt to build a relationship is just plain rude. I don’t care if you’re God. Follow ‘em back.

4. It isn’t only reaching out to others to sell your amazing ebook/join your MLM scam/plug your event. Relationships are not just about you, you, YOU! Like my dad says, “In dancing, it’s the man’s job to make the woman look great and in marriage it’s the husband’s job to make the wife feel great.” Tossing aside the confusing gender aspect in that pearl of wisdom, in relationships, it’s about giving. If you give, eventually you’ll get yours.

5. It isn’t a corporate logo blasting one way company announcements/product information/links. People have relationships with people, not corporations.

As I began by telling you what engagement isn’t, now it seems I have to define what engagement is.

And it’s so simple I’m hugging myself in pure delight!

It can be summed up nicely in the following tweet from @doverbey:

“I’m going to try and engage an unknown (to me) follower every day for the rest of the year. Please engage me back.”

Easy peasy.