I don't want to belong to any club that would accept me as a member. --Groucho Marx
I am a lifelong Groucho Marx fan... When I was in High School I once cut classes to spend the entire day on line in front of a Manhattan movie theater just to catch a fleeting glimpse of a frail, elderly Groucho walking the red carpet at the re-release of the Marx Brothers' 1930 classic film, ANIMAL CRACKERS. I have been "Groucho" at many a Halloween celebration and costume party. When I first created an account at Virtual World SECOND LIFE and saw that "Marx" was one of the available surnames I was able to secure "Groucho Marx" as my Avatar.
As much as I admire Groucho, however, I have to disagree with his famous quote above. I would join a club that would accept me as a member! As a matter of fact, last night I joined a club that welcomed me as a member: Social Media Club.
Alex de Carvalho and Social Media Club founder Chris Heuer organized the launch of Social Media Club South Florida and the inaugural event attracted about 40 Floridians for an evening of engagement and great conversation. With chapters all across the globe, Social Media Club is doing a great job of "...building an organization and a community where the many diverse groups of people who care about social media can come together to discover, connect, share, and learn."
If you are looking to turn your online Social Networking into some real world social engagement don't be like Groucho. Go ahead and join the local Social Media Club, and if your area doesn't have one yet, go ahead and contact Chris to find out how you can start a chapter!
Here is Chris talking a bit about the origin and purpose of Social Media Club:
Update: Here is some audio of the conversation at Social Media Club South Florida as recorded by Chris:
I've been making a concerted effort to leave more comments on the blogs I read, and recently I commented on a post called "The Future of Social Media: Hope Or Hype?" at Jason Falls' great Social Media Explorer blog. My comment touched on some discussions I recently had at a breakfast with Jeff Pulver, where we were discussing different real world applications of "Social Media."
HYPE, HYPNOTISM OR HYPERBOLE?
Social Media is fun and addicting, so it is no surprise that the active participants love to talk about it, examine it, analyze it and obsess over it. Hell, here I am writing about it. Guilty as charged! But what is Social Media? As I wrote in my response to Jason:
Hi Jason. Great post. I think the reason this Hype question even exists is that "Social Media" is really NOT a standalone industry or sector, even though many folks are trying to position it as such. IMHO Social Media is not an industry.
Well, if it is not an "industry" what is it? I continued:
Social Media really refers to a set of technology driven tools and services that simply allow us to do what we have always been doing -- interacting and engaging with friends, family, associates and customers -- but with Social Media we can do it in a much more efficient, easy, cost-effective and far reaching way. Faxes were better than snail mail, and email is better than faxes, but they all enable us to communicate and exchange messages with others. Social media is like that on steroids, making it almost ridiculously simple to engage with an almost unlimited number of folks, removing all barriers of time, cost and place. Social Media provides the ability to listen and engage faster and better than ever before, and EVERY industry can use the tools and services... not to be a part of Social Media, but to leverage Social Media as a part of what they are already doing, to do it better!
Clearly, I believe there are tremendous personal and professional benefits to using Social Media, but the key is not as much being "active in Social Media" but rather, how can you make Social Media become a part of your activities.
What's your take? Is Social Media an Industry? Please add your thoughts to the comments, and if you like reading this blog, please subscribe by email or RSS.
Image via WikipediaIn this age of bloggers breaking news before CNN and so-called "Citizen Journalism" often trumping the evening news, is it at all surprising that a "Press Conference" held by "BigFoot Hunters" would attract literally dozens of seasoned journalists? Not at all. News happens NOW, and news is published globally NOW and if you are not right there right then like the paparazzi popping pictures and posting your posts and twittering your tweets it is too late. You missed the scoop and are left with the poop.
Thus, the BigFoot bozos took center stage and center ring at the self-perpetuated media circus surrounding a longstanding legend with huge shoes to fill. BigFoot was not only spotted, but found! As the breaking news chilled the dog days of summer, BigFoot himself was chilling on ice in an over sized Coleman cooler at an undisclosed location. As the journeyman soldier Marcellus sort of said in HAMLET, "Something is rotten in a state of decomposition..."
PROOF? WE DON'T NEED NO STINKIN' PROOF!
Inspired by the attention these hacking hunters were able to arouse around some large feet and Halloweenie fur, I set upon my own search for Sasquatch (or in my case, SASS-quatch). I set about meandering through the steamy mangroves of South Florida in search of my own evidence that BigFoot exists...
As if the above video is not compelling evidence enough, I was also able to capture two crystal clear photographs of the actual BigFoot. You can see these startling and dramatic EXCLUSIVE pictures HERE and HERE.
Now that I have put my (big) foot down and squashed the matter of Sasquatch once and for all, I am getting ready to go to work on my next expose... proving that long before the current Phoenix mission there was already tangible evidence oflife on Mars!
Recently I went on an Everglades Hike with the Florida Native Plant Society to look for a Ghost Orchid. I know nothing about plants and know nobody in the organization, but the prospect of a nature hike through the Everglades in search of a rare plant (the same elusive Orchid that was at the root of the film ADAPTATION) seemed like a neat thing to do on a sunny Saturday morning. The emailed instructions were clear: Bring a walking stick. Wear shoes you don't mind trudging through knee-deep mud (and bring back-up footwear for afterwards). Be aware that there will likely be snakes. Snakes???
So Sue and I drove west along Alligator Alley to the appointed meeting area. We gathered with the rest of the group and followed them down an unmarked dirt road driving five miles into the Everglades. Along the road we saw many alligators in the canal alongside, and at one point a few deer came charging out of the woods on the other side. Yep, it was going to be a nature hike!
After parking our cars by a trail entrance, we walked. Jack, our guide, wore a well-worn hand held GPS device from a lanyard around his neck, the modern day equivalent of the compass mounted on plastic I once carried as a Boy Scout. Before we were too far down the trail, away from our vehicles, Jack once again reminded us that the Everglades is a swamp, that we will be trudging through mud that could be knee deep in places... and that there will likely be snakes, so keep your eyes open and watch where you step before you step. He instructed us to use the walking sticks not so much for walking, but rather to poke the mud ahead of us to ward off unseen slithery friends.
I turned to Sue, "Who's idea was this, anyway???"
We trudged on. After walking ninety minutes or so, Jack informed us we were ready to head off the visible trail and into the swamp. At this point, we were to be relying on Jack's familiarity with the area, and his dangling GPS, upon which he had marked a few waypoints where he thought we'd have a good chance of spotting a ghost.
WHO YA GONNA CALL?
Ghost Orchids are apparently very rare indeed. They only bloom in optimal conditions, and then only during two weeks a year. Many seasoned botanists have never seen one in bloom in the wild. Perhaps many seasoned botanists are much smarter than I am and know better than to invade the murky habitat of cottonmouth water moccasins.
As we got to the point where the mud was calf deep, and every cautious step resulted in an audible "THWUP" as my foot was plucked from the muck, Jack started to call out the snakes as he saw them, and led us on a circuitous route through the swamp to avoid their path. At one point, we had to walk through the mud while about two yards away, two large cottonmouths lounged on some rocks amidst the winding root system of an old tree. As the sun dipped in and out between the tall vegetation of our jungle-like environ, it was hard to make out which bits of thick roundness were the snakes and which were the tree's tentacle like roots. Suddenly, it was easier to tell, as one of the snakes lithely slipped into the water, just a few feet away.
DON'T WORRY ABOUT THE SNAKES YOU CAN'T SEE (EVEN THOUGH YOU KNOW THEY ARE THERE...)
STAY FOCUSED ON THE SNAKES YOU CAN SEE!
Now what? Do I concern myself with the snake(s) in the water that I cannot see, or do I remain focused on the snake I can see, and ensure that I do not disturb it and potentially provoke an attack. I chose the latter, slowly sludging by, keeping close tabs on even the slightest movements of it's slithery scales. We passed safely, our encounters with the snakes remaining only visual, and our adrenalin levels admittedly on the high side.
Eventually, we came across a beautiful Ghost in full bloom. Jack, and the budding botanists of the Native Plant Society were abuzz and in awe. They had found the holy grail they sought! I, on the other hand, was thinking about the snakes, and the lesson I had learned. Don't worry so much about the challenges you cannot see, and thus perhaps cannot control. Rather, stay focused on the challenges you can see, and focused, you can conquer them.
Which snakes/challenges are you focused on?
Here is an Animoto video from the pictures I took on my Quest For The Ghost Orchid:
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When I discovered Podcasting in 2004 I was immediately hooked. When I discovered Podcast fiction I was addicted. I was in on Scott Sigler's EARTHCORE from the very first episode, and not only have I listened like a good Junkie to every episode of every podcast novel he has so brilliantly spewed forth, I have gone on to become good friends with Scott. I have been fortunate to meet many of the Podcast novelists whose work I admire, including Seth Harwood ("Jack Wakes Up"), Mark Yoshimoto Nemcoff ("Number One With A Bullet", "Shadow Falls", "Diary of a Madman"), Tee Morris ("Morevi") and the inspiration for this blog post: creator of the uber popular "7th Son" Trilogy, J.C. Hutchins.
I first heard of "7th Son" when a promo ran during one of Scott Sigler's podcasts (I can't recall if it was ANCESTOR, INFECTION, or THE ROOKIE - you should listen to them all to check). I listened to all three 7th Son novels and was a fan of J.C.'s clonederful stories when, as fate would have it, he responded to a recruitment ad I posted on Twitter and YouTube. As a result, J.C. and I now work together at Myxer. (You can read more about that here.)
I am truly inspired by the creativity and great work these talented writers put together and offer to the world for free. On many occasions I have dusted off something I have written and contemplated turning it into a podcast novel of my own, but I've never gotten off my procrastinating butt to do so. Until now...
J.C. Hutchins has launched a ground breaking creative project with his "7th Son: Obsidian" series. He has extended the fictional world he created in the 7th Son trilogy by inviting other authors, podcasters and fans to create content based on a particular event in 7th Son - A nationwide blackout. In J.C.'s words: "On November 19, 2007, the U.S. suffered a coordinated terrorist attack, and was plunged into a nationwide blackout. The country devolved into chaos..."
When J.C. introduced his "Obsidian" project it lit a flame deep inside me, and a story started to brew. The sleeping wordsmith in the dark corners of my brain had been awakened. The result is a short story called "LOVE THY NEIGHBOR," which I recorded as my very first attempt at Podcast fiction.
I am honored and delighted that J.C. thought LOVE THY NEIGHBOR was worthy of being a part of his 7th Son Obsidian project. I hope you will listen to it and let me know what you think in the comments below. (P.S. there ARE some of George Carlin's 7 dirty words in LOVE THY NEIGHBOR)
Here is J.C. Hutchins' 7th Son Obsidian presentation of LOVE THY NEIGHBOR
Like many folks, I spent Friday, July 11th frustrated that I was unable to instantly and seamlessly purchase the iPod Touch software update and enjoy the wonders of the new App Store... but alas, it was not to be. In order to vent my frustrations against a suddenly rotten Apple, I wrote this Haiku:
Apple update day... My Touch cannot get in touch. Sometimes life just syncs!
But this story has a happy ending! Today I was able to complete the update and bless my Touch with 2.0. I have loaded it with apps galore and I have reveled in the glory of a Touch worth touching. So today I present a new Haiku:
Touch update complete. The Apple is now shiny. Sync-ronicity!
If you have an iPhone or an iPod Touch what was your update experience like? Leave a comment and let me know. Or better yet, leave a HAIKU of your own!
