Monthly Archives: May 2009

I am a geek: user generated edition

Posted on by Sarah Cooley
32

So I know that there are more people who would love to proclaim on video that they are geeks.

I need to get a copy of the I AM A GEEK script (or someone can transcribe it and send me the text)

Then record your video and place the file (MPEG 4 please) in the drop at drop.io/iamageek (the password should be iamageek)

UPDATE:

I got a copy of the official script. It seems like we might want to add our own lines so here is what I am proposing. If you want to read the original script (or just parts of it) please do so, and if you want to come up with your own original lines to put in then that’s great. We will have to just work it all out in the editing.

I got the script from Lon Harris who co-wrote it with Shira Lazar. Also the official twitter account for I am a Geek tweeted this yesterday:

Which brought a ton of interest to what we are trying to do. They are excited to see the finished product.

So here is the script:

Hey.

My name is _______ and I am a geek!

I’m not a nerd or a spaz…

and I don’t hang out all day in my parent’s basement…

and drink Mountain Dew and energy drinks…

and I don’t play Dungeons and Dragons or Magic the Gathering,

although I’m sure they’re really really fun.

Don’t judge me based on my lifecast

I have a Tumblr blog,

not a MySpace account.

I speak Python and CSS, not Klingon,

Java Script is not a play about coffee

I can proudly help you leverage your personal brand.

I believe in communicating, not Super-Poking…

I have followers not friends

And by the way tweet is a verb, twitter is a noun

Just owning a Nintendo Wii does not make you a “gamer”

Just because I’m constantly connected to my iphone doesn’t mean I’m not listening.

And yes, there is an app for that.

You write a blog post, not “a blog”

And it is pronounced “meem,” not “mimi”

This is already way over 140 characters

The Internet will not steal your identity

The World Wide Web connects 1 trillion web pages, 2 billion Flickr photos, 150 million blogs, 36 million Facebook profiles and 5 million Twitter accounts

And I just got all that data on Wikipedia, but you don’t have to take my word for it.

end script

If you have any questions please leave them in the comments or email me

I AM A GEEK

Posted on by Sarah Cooley
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Just thought I would share this video with you all. It was put together by a group of people calling themselves THE SOCIETY FOR GEEK ADVANCEMENT

THE SOCIETY FOR GEEK ADVANCEMENT was founded upon the principles that we should all embrace our inner and outer geek and have fun while doing it. As individuals who love learning, innovating and believe in possibility as well as change, the second step of responsibility is to “be the geek that keeps on giving”. As a member of SGA, we work together as a global community to provide the tools and help others realize their true potential too!

“I AM A GEEK!” is a collaborative video project bringing together some of the biggest creators, personalities and web celebs taking on the online world.

“I AM A GEEK”, like all geeky side projects, started out as a tongue and cheek video we spent way too much time on and were going to simply throw out to the wild wild interwebs. But as more people came on board, the question of using “social media for social good” seemed to become more relevant. With Twitter and other social networking sites like Facebook blowing up by the second, it’s not only possible to get noticed and create “social capital”, but to use that for a greater good. Individuals now have the opportunity to be heard and bring awareness and attention to causes like they never had before.

After watching, “I AM A GEEK!”, we hope you are entertained, laugh a little or a lot.

We also encourage everyone to “be the geek that keeps on giving”. We’ve connected with a Room to Read, a great charity started by former Microsoft exec, John Wood, which builds libraries and schools for children in developing countries. You can give in many ways- by RT, blogging and passing on this Geek Advancement message to others, buying an “I AM A GEEK” t-shirt with proceeds going to Room to Read and/or by donating what you can now.

And if you would like to be a part of a user generated edition of this video there are instructions here

Anatomy of a Tweetup

Posted on by Sarah Cooley
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The other night I attended a tweetup. What’s a tweetup?

A “tweetup” is a local meeting of Twitter users, usually announced ahead of time. Tweetups can take place any time or any place, and usually everyone in the area is invited. It helps give social networking a more palpable environment and allows local Twitter users to meet each other in person.

So why would you do this? Why would you want to publicly announce on twitter that you were going to be somewhere and that you wanted complete strangers to come meet you there?

A tweetup usually starts as a desire for twitter users to meet IRL (in real life). Sometimes it’s a group of friends, sometimes it’s just a random group of people.

The tweetup I attended the other night started out simply because my friend Tim (@tspatz) wanted to see his friend @newscred, who was in NYC from out of town, and Tim wanted some of his friends to meet him.

So Tim DM’d some of his friends on twitter with the time and place. This quickly turned into a tweetup when the conversation went public on twitter.

Everyone that had been invited was tweeting about the tweetup and the result was really interesting.

Just like anything else on twitter, tweetups spread in an interesting way. I like to call it the re-tweet effect. (it’s kind of like a game of telephone)

If I tweet something it has the potential to reach the 1,800 people that are following me. However, my friend can re-tweet it and then all of his followers will see it as well.

So at this tweetup we had a few different groups of people that had formed organically based on how the tweets about the tweetup went out.

The tweet I sent out looked like this:

sarahcooley: RT @WaltRibeiro: TONIGHT Lunasa NY 1st ave b/t 7th and 8th St. @ 7pm! Let’s do it! #tweetup #nyc I’m on my way there now!

But some re-tweets looked like this:

jerrylore: RT @newscred: Entrepreneur/hacker #tweetup tonight atLunasa in the East Village #nyc , 6pm. Free beers on NewsCred if you come early!
So while I was told it was just a group of my friends getting together, it was presented to some people as a hacker tweetup (a community that I am not really part of) So because of this tweetup I was able to meet a new group of people that I would have normally never met)

P2 for WordPress

Posted on by Sarah Cooley
6

I use WordPress for this blog because I like the flexibility of it. I consider WordPress a blogging powerhouse! It can do anything you want it to do. So when I saw the P2 theme for WordPress, I was a little surprised.

I came across the theme through a post on Matt Mullenweg‘s Blog.

A group blog theme for short update messages, inspired by Twitter. Featuring: Hassle-free posting from the front page. Perfect for group blogging, or as a liveblog theme. Dynamic page updates. Threaded comment display on the front page. In-line editing for posts and comments. Live tag suggestion based on previously used tags. A show/hide feature for comments, to keep things tidy. Real-time notifications when a new comment or update is posted. Super-handy keyboard shortcuts. Helvetica Neue for you modern font lovers. And more to come…

The theme would remind anyone of twitter, so I wondered what the benefits of having a blog like this would be? I see how it would be very easy as an internal blog for a company or group. Matt said on his blog:

It completely transformed how Automattic works internally and I think is one of the most valuable things we’ve adopted in the past year. I’m on the road a lot, and sometimes my only connection is checking the mobile-optimized P2 on my iPhone.

But how would this theme play out on a public facing blog? What would be some good uses for it?

I think it would be interesting to see these features as a part of a regular wordpress blog. For example if I wanted to host this kind of a conversation on my blog, but I still wanted to have traditional blog posts, you could select P2 as a post type. I think that would be really interesting.

I would love to hear everyone’s thoughts on this, and get a look at some cool ways that this theme is being used.