Case-Notes from the Artsy Asylum

Randy Pausch's Death and Our Own Last Lecture

Randy Pausch, the Carnegie Mellon professor whose "last lecture" made him famous died today, almost a year after he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer,

When he gave this Carnegie Mellon commencement address in May, he had lived three months longer than the three to six months doctors had predicted, leading a friend to say he was “beating the Reaper.”

“We don’t beat the Reaper by living longer,” Pausch said. “We beat the Reaper by living well.”

It's difficult - at least for me - to see people with cancer deteriorate and die - even those I do not know. Randy looked good in the video above, in contrast with Tony Snow's last appearance before he died earlier this month of colon cancer that had spread to first his liver and then elsewhere. Tony was gaunt and had aged twenty years in my eyes. Even NPR's always insightful and frank Leroy Seivers now considers the pros and cons of hospice, and has a home health aide four times a week.

But Randy was upbeat and seemed unfazed by what the rest of us are overwhelmed by. And that gives us all something to consider.

My message in reflection: Please love others and live well while you can. Give generously of yourself and your spirit. Adopt a cause or two. Be present to what's happening around you and not distracted by the latest shiny thing of the blogosphere.

It's easy to be engaged by internet popularity, blog stats, being included in lists and invited to functions. Things are nice to own. But will that really matter when you face the end of the road?

Like Randy Paush who was only 47, or others we know who were suddenly stricken and died much earlier, we never know when an unexpected diagnosis - or a bus - will mark the end of our time here.

Let's make today even - simply this day - one that we'd be proud to call our last.

And then tomorrow.

Second Life, ooVoo and Connecting Around the World

Chatting with Phillip at ooVoo yesterday I was telling him that my husband Bill was impresed with the technology and the people when he experienced ooVoo day with me in February - in fact so much so that he had already used ooVoo to hold a voice and video meeting involving participants in three of his offices.

Phillip said that some new goodies will soon be released that may make these conferences even better, and I passed this on to Bill who, though not the IT guy in the firm, feels that his department can be served by some new looks at the way they approach communication across multiple states and different offices.

This conversation came to mind later when I was catching up with virtual worlds expert and futurist Tao Takashi's blog (mr topf in Second Life)

In talking with Jeanette Gibson, Director of New Media Communications at Cisco they cover options for interacting with employees around the world

 Jeanette: ... In Second Life for example, I can meet with teams in Europe and feel more connected to them.

mrtopf: How does that compare to e.g. video conferencing, phone conferences etc.?
Jeanette: I’d say that Second Life is better than a phone call or webcast. You get the sense of physical proximity. But it’s not as good as our Telepresence technology that is virtual meetings, you can see the real person. With globalisation this is so critical, having many ways to reach people.

mrtopf: Telepresence though is a bit too expensive for many right now but it looks impressive.
Jeanette: yes, it’s for large businesses now, companies that have many branch offices and need to connect, it’s $100,000 -$300,000. But someday we’ll have telepresence in our homes.

You know, I'm not the tech guru here so I have to ask about the difference between the video conferencing via computer that ooVoo does and the teleconferencing that Jeanette and Tao are talking about. Sounds like one primary difference is lots of dollar signs.

Beyond the dollar signs people have fun meeting in Second Life and also via ooVoo - will video conferencing ever be the same?

And ooVoo is putting their dollar signs in a pretty important place, donating to the frozen Pea Fund, which counts for something as far as building community.

In the end, with ooVoo, as with Second Life, the fun is in the process of participation- no matter where we chose to have the conversation. The most important thing is to take part.

Reciprocal Roasting With Scott Monty

Scott Monty, the Bostonian Crayonista  representing ooVoo when they became the first corporate sponsor of my beloved Frozen Pea Fund is leaving Crayon to become the Director of Social Media for Ford Motors.  This seems like a big time move to me, even if Crayon is a cutting edge company and Ford is, well, Ford.

(KIDDING, Scott!)

Scott is one of the nicest guys you'd want to meet, which I found out during My ooVoo Day which happened shortly after my surgery for breast cancer. I was still very sick on the first day, February 10, 2008 but it was the day that kicked off more than a week of six way video conversations via internet thanks to ooVoo technology. Since we were raising money to fight cancer, I was there sick or not, and Scott was there to suppport me no matter what I needed.

Who knew that just five months later, Scott would be leaving Crayon to take on the prestigious spot at Ford?

In the world of social media everyone's a kidder and we do feel that we have a connection that overrides the fact that it's harder maybe to know people that we've never run into in the grocery store. It's an odd kind of connection, but a sincere feeling nonetheless so when I learned about Scott's new job I knew I'd miss his being a Crayonista I could ask for special ooVoo perks.

Hey! but he might be able to help me get a deal on a miata. When I told him this he suggested a Pea Green model for himself. That's the way our conversations go. I tell him how clueles I am about some tech issue and make pea jokes while he shows me his kids artwork. Yup, I'm the perennial social media nana and Scott has me pegged.

So although going to Boston for the Roast for Scott wasn't in the cards for me, I sent my regrets and asked everyone to give Scott a hug for me. It turned out to be a good thing. It was the only way I missed the barbs sent in the direction of the participants. I contented myself to watch the tweet-stream related to the quips and jokes coming out of the assembled geeks, notably those from another nice-guy young enough to be my son - almost - Doug Haslam

Of course I should have known we could count on video by Len Edgerly via Vimeo who documents every event from reading his Kindle on the beach to what his character's doing in Second Life. Here Scott Roasts the Roasters who got together to give him a good natured Social Media sendoff on his way to Detroit.

Scott Monty Roasts the Roasters from Len Edgerly on Vimeo.

ooVoo Means Community, Connection, Conversation, Comedy and Cause

It started on February 10th, which happened to be my sixtieth birthday and about sixty days since my cancer diagnosis. It was a hard time. But it was also My ooVoo Day which actually turned out to be ooVoo Week

I spent six hours interacting in six way on-screen conversations with the great people who read my blogs and tweets and it was more fun than a barrel of monkeys even before I ooVooed with Joe Jaffe who entertains while conversing.

What can I possibly write about what ooVoo, Crayon, Scott Monty, and their Big Idea meant to me? I can say: Community, Connection, Conversation, Comedy, and Commitment to a Cause. But the video says the rest.

During that week bloggers ooVooed with friends and fans. It was amazing. Then as if we hadn't already had enough fun, to thank bloggers hosting chats ooVoo donated an unbelievable $30,000 to the Frozen Pea Fund Fund established to support Cancer awareness, research and education.

This donation was made in honor of blogger and cancer patient who happened to be...me! . Although I could not be there, my husband and our daughter Bill and Kate Reynolds were part of a check presentation ceremony to the Frozen Pea Fund at Blogger Social in New York in April.

And not to sit on their laurels, ooVoo is right there in the community, making connections and planning more opportunities to connect. As we find ourself in election year, next up in June is a Political Edition of My ooVoo Day With.

I can't wait to see the momocrats in action.And who will take them on? Is there an opening for a new group called republidads in the making? Trust ooVoo to provide a forum for them if there is. 

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Dont want to miss it? Go to http://www.oovoo.com/ to download ooVoo

Video as Bonding Tool

Not every online communication and community building moment is about connecting with potential networking buddies who will lead to clients and customers and commercial success.

Some of the most poignant times for me lately, and ones that use new media in a way I didn't expect it to be useful to me, involve the videos my elder granddaughter and I made when she and her mom were staying at the parental abode a few weeks ago.

It turned out that Kelsey liked to make videos, and the flipcam was right up her alley. The image here is from a video we jokingly call "the spoon"

She talked off camera about potential things we could discuss in future videos, including how kids feel about their families; about how cancer is scary for people of all ages; how moms having babies change things for grandmothers and children but make us worry and think about our relationships and where we'll fit in the picture after the baby comes too.

In short she had many good ideas.

There is a real potential for youtube, Viddler and flickr to develop into tools that are not simply places for showing photos and videos. They're serving - for me at least - as a tool for encouraging dialogue.

Part of my current dialogue is a video of my new granddaughter and Kelsey's baby sister, Emma. It's just another way of sharing who I am with my community. This teeny baby and her very big sister are a big part of my life, and connecting with them from the start - and then leaving something behind to document that and for them to have always is a tremendous priority.

Nana loves you, girls. . .

Why I Love The Internet

When Kindergarten Skills Rule

Blogging and tweeting thoughts about what had been dubbed Good People Day* wasn't an option. Yesterday was spent focused on how the heck I was going to get through the next few months of more diagnostics, more cancer docs, now pain management docs.

I'm living with breast cancer that could be anywhere. It sometimes feels like I am under water.

Last night after the drama and decision making I was asked a couple of questions about Art Tags and I started thinking about what Good People Day and Art Tags have in common. In spite of the sobbing during the day, I knew that there were good people pulling for me.

Tangible signs of support

No they don't live in the neighborhood, but they're not figments of my imagination either. Things like art tags - see:Caring and Connecting -  are symbolic of the connections to a much wider world of not simply good, but wonderful people.

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You don't have to knit an afghan, send a potted plant or bake cookies to show someone you care. Jotting words, stamping letters and playing with glue and color on a simple shipping tag does the same. Who knew that we'd return to kindergarten skills when we wanted to share bits of ourself with our communities?

Something physical to hold in your hand is a very special reminder you of the people with whom you have contact but images on a computer screen serve a similar function.When I see an avatar pop up on the screen showing the image of a pea I know someone's thinking of me. When someone has a birthday, balloons, cakes and photos of them fill the twitterstream in tribute.

The world is filled with Good People. How could we ever name them all though? It's enough that we know they're there.

See more examples of Artist Tags

* Good People Day

Caring and Connecting in The Dance Of Life

Last week when I was at one of my lowest points I got a gift in the mail. I was feeling alone and scared and at that very moment whatever forces in the world responsible for such things took charge and I held in my lap a beautiful book unlike anything you've likely seen. I held it near my heart.

In 2002 I began working remotely with two groups of artists online. These artists shared materials and techniques that were new to me and as we worked together I kept reflecting on my long time interest in the idea of community and connecting in new ways.

Over the course of the next four years we collaborated on a number of projects including many which were published.

But as good as these relationships were for me on a creative level, the time and energy spent interacting was taking its toll. As my energy level decreased I was led to delve further into what I'd been preaching in the physical world about creative marketing through new ways to build community and to connect.

My focus gradually shifted to learning more about ways to interact online and encouraging others to do the same. Some group members began to publish blogs. Some have authored books, taught classes, produced CDs, given seminars.

But many came together recently to create a different kind of book for me now during my cancer treatment. It  epitomizes both the ties we have to creation, innovation and even adaptation, but most of all to caring.

This video both shows the art tag book they created and demonstrates my emotion and gratitude for their work and generosity.

Can Twitter Be Explained In Plain English?

From Lee and Sachi Lefever comes this great video that explains the basic appeal of the micro-blogging platform twitter - in essence what it is about it that is interesting as one first gets into it.

 

Then in the a perhaps even more interesting comment section of Twitter in Plain English viewers discuss what it is about Twitter and the video that piqued their interest

On the other hand, Dean Shareski a well known tweeter who has risen to the top of the tweeterboard as @shareski totally disagrees with the simple presentation. He writes in his blog:

"I know, he can’t share it all in the time constraints of that format, but I’d have to say that if I didn’t know what twitter was, I’d watch that video and say, “that sounds stupid”. That’s how I‘ve always felt about any explanation."

The thing is - I agree with both points of view. Twitter in Plain English tells the basic story of twitter. And twitter works just that simply for some people - and probably for most of us in the beginning that's exactly how it functioned, and how it hooked us.

Even Lee Lefever's introductory story of how person A follows person B and learns about their taste in sports or books hints at something about how twitter goes beyond what one would initially expect and  - like a virus we're not protected against - quietly and without warning deepens our involvement.

There's the hint in even the most simple explanation that we may hear about other people too, thus expanding our network, our base of friends, our caring about other people we have never met.

So the power of twitter is really in seeing the potential and acting on that. It's in the connections and the sharing that comes after the snippets we share. It's in the follow through. And continuing the conversation.

That story might be a bit much for Commoncraft to take on in the In Plain English series.

But it could be a Commoncraft play in three acts, showing the trickle down effects of the twitterspere.

I'd love to see that story. It might feature some of my twitterfriends, sitting at a long table extending out into the distance. The conversation would just keep going and the ideas would keep flowing. Because that's the way it is in real life too. It happened to me.

photos by Bill Reynolds, taken in Austin TX in February 2008.See more at flickr

The Problem With Social Media is The Social Part

The problem with the bloggosphere, and the twitterspshere - and all the Social Mediaspere is that it's personal.

And the good thing about the bloggosphere, and the twitterspshere - and all the Social Mediaspere is that it's personal.

When you start sharing your life, your dislikes, your favorites, your tags, photos of your events - well, people respond. They identify with you - and you with them.

And then it gets messy. They get hurt. They reach out to you when you're feeling lousy. They confide in you when they are in pain. They collaborate with you on projects, ask you to write chapters for their books, and generally get entangled in your lives. You make real connections that go way past the virtual world.

This week a couple of things happened that drove that home to me. I went to Austin for meetings and came home leaving behind friends to whom I felt a real connection. The kind of connections I hadn't felt in years.

A day later one of them was stricken with an illness we don't yet understand and which has her unable to do anything except rest and try not to be scared to death.

At the same time I was hearing about my friend in Texas  I was opening a box from another online friend from California. She'd packed an elegant lunch-pail for my convalescence.

And there's just no way to show you this except to show you a video of me and the lunchbox in real life. because like it or not, our online friends are our real life friends. We care about them, and cherish them. It's the power and the reality of social media.          (photos above courtesy of Kim Haynes).