by Christine Cavalier
on 9 December 2008
Via email, from my friend “Alice”:
“Okay people I am counting on you to give me some honest answers. I keep going back & forth, back & forth about wanting to join Facebook. There is a huge part of my curiosity that is making me want to join. There is also a side of me that does not want to worry about people in my past requesting to be my friend. Basically, there is only 1 person I keep in touch with from high school & that is how I want to keep it. What is the whole etiquette about denying friend request? Has it been a more positive experience than a negative one? Does it suck up a lot of your time? I am a computer addict, so I worry that this will be another thing to soak up my time that could be spent elsewhere.”
So many great questions covering so many current issues we all face. I asked this question on Twitter; my podcasting buddy Michael Gaines (@istarman) reminded me that Alice could avoid her fellow alumni by registering under her married name only. (Sidenote: Annie Boccio, another Push My Follow podcaster, wrestled with adding her maiden name to Facebook a few weeks ago. Her high school friends weren’t finding her, so she added it. On Twitter, she mentioned she felt odd using her maiden name again.)
Alice is not one of us; she is what I call a ‘normal person.’ She isn’t a social media person, but she is Generation X and computer savvy. She’s a stay-at-home-mom and she is relatively shy and private. She’d like to use Facebook as a way to keep contact with her real life, intimate friends.
What are your suggestions for Alice?
by Christine Cavalier
on 8 December 2008
My peeps in the Philly start-up tech community are an inventive and generative bunch. They will be the essential power behind building the city’s creative economy.
Their latest start up effort is concentrating on charity. “Geeks Who Give” is a local organization consisting of nothing but a bunch of social connections between techy and creative geeks. Their food drive tomorrow has been getting some major press.
If you are in the Philly area and can spare a can of soup for the well-established charity Philabundance, come on down to National Mechanics tomorrow night (Tuesday, December 9, 2008) anywhere between 6 to 9 p.m. At 9 they start the tech karaoke, which I hear is a blast!
It’s amazing how quickly this community can come together, with no budget, no 501c status, no real board of directors. The city government should tap into them for solutions on how to move the city’s economy forward. If there is hope for a brighter future for Philly, it lies with this group of people. (Actually, on Sunday I told The Big Canvas people from the Great Expectations project that they should come to one of the IdeaBlob sessions if they want to get innovative ideas on how to promote and spread arts and culture appreciation in the area.)
Don’t forget! TweetUp tomorrow night! If you don’t know anyone, email me or come and find me there. I’ll be wearing some sort of purple shirt/sweater, of course. We can chat and I can introduce you around! Bring a can with you, and I’ll give you a nice kiss on the cheek! 🙂
by Christine Cavalier
on 7 December 2008
I never enter contests, especially not writing contests. It’s usually too much trouble. 
Sitting around last night watching TV, I wrote up an entry for super-geek Chris Pirillo’s contest. He’s giving away a bunch of major HP swag. The entry with the most comments wins. It’s as simple as that. Pretty fun. My entry is fun, but it isn’t controversial nor tech heavy enough to elicit enough comments to win. Chris is also value-rating the comments, so silliness doesn’t count. It was a productive exercise though. I joined Chris Pirillo’s GEEKS! social network several weeks ago. It’s an active community, albeit too large and disproportionately male. You should check it out. It’s got a good open source vibe. My entry is entitled “How to Raise Kids and Propagate the Geek Species 201.” It’s a tongue-in-cheek syllabus for a “Geek University” course where I use geek terms to explain “five main guidelines on how to properly raise geeky spawn from pre-alpha stage to formal launch and Initial Public Offering.” Check it out.
by Christine Cavalier
on 4 December 2008
I was tagged by my friend Paisano for a photo meme. Here’s how it works: You go to your Flickr.com photostream (don’t have one? Sign up! It’s free, and Flickr has a great community and fun groups!), go to the 6th page, find the 6th photo, and post it.
Here’s my 6th page’s 6th photo.
I’m the Community Manager for the elementary school’s PTO, so I take a lot of pictures! Every year, the school has a costume parade at Halloween. It’s so fun! There is fierce competition for the funniest costume, the most original, etc. The kids really get into it. There isn’t one kid in the school that doesn’t dress up, and it’s a huge school.
by Christine Cavalier
on 3 December 2008
Today I was hit by the cold, hard fact that my kid will be an infinitely better writer than I’ll ever be.
You can go on about how it is impossible to compare writers, how it’s like comparing people, everyone has different strengths, blah blah blah. I know. But there is such a thing as natural ability, and when it comes to painting images with words, my kid is miles ahead of me, or, at least where I was at that age. My kid will just continue improving at an astounding rate, whereas I will trudge on with what I’ve got. I will improve, hopefully, but not enough to even compare with my kid’s raw talent.
Take the following poem for example. The imagery is rich. This is a first draft.
My Daddy
By L.C.P.
When my Dad gets home I see
his fun glowing eyes
It makes me beam
I love my Daddy.
When my Daddy gets home he
smells like colorful candy.
Then he gets into his home clothes,
he becomes a piece of the house.
I love my Daddy.
When he throws me up in
the air I close my eyes and
fly.
I love my Daddy.
“Home clothes” and “becomes a piece of the house” bits had to be the best for me. No way I was writing stuff like that in 3rd grade. I was definitely writing; My 3rd grade teacher said that she will be taking my novel off the shelf one day (I never forgot this, thanks Miss Chaya!). But I didn’t have the insight into imagery and symbolism to be able to write like that.
As I said, my kid is just going to keep improving. People will remember my kid’s writing far more frequently than they will remember mine. I guarantee it.
This is ok. It’s the way it should be.
