WWdN reader beccaelizabeth e-mailed me this morning:

Recently, at the Galactica One convention, Sam Witwer, who plays Crashdown on Battlestar Galactica, said he got into acting because of meeting you when he was 11 or 12 and a Next Gen fan.  He was getting a tour and the guy said something like ‘Next Gen is filming over there. We can’t go there.’  But then you were in your trailer and you talked to him.  He was really enthusiastic, saying how at the time of course Wesley was his favourite character, and he got to meet you and youtalked and were nice to him.

Someone else in the audience mentioned your website and your books and told him (and the other 100+ people in the hall) how good your books were, and that no he didn’t work for you in any capacity.

Your fans get everywhere.  Including good TV shows.

She has a full report on the con in her livejournal (which, she disclaims, is not her best writing. Seems fine to me, but what do I know?)

I love it that lots of people got to hear about my books and website (*wave* to any of you who are dropping by for the first time) and I love it that Sam not only remembers this interaction with me, but still tells the story! It’s a wonderful example of why it’s imporant to treat people the way you want to be treated. It’s also an example, when compared to my experience with WFS, of how lasting an effect these encounters have on people.

In other words, use whatever you have for good. That’s your lesson of the day.

Another example of the communication power of blogs has come up. Read this post at blogging.la about Screamfest at City Walk:

[After much waiting and confusion] the Screamfest people show up. Lots of hustling and
mix ups and craziness and we finally get out tickets and head to the
theater. Since we were one of the first 25 people there we get a free
DVD of Land of the Dead: The Directors Cut which is pretty
cool. Did I say first 25 people? I meant only 25 people. Anyway, we
find seats and are excited when the first trailer is for a Land of the Dead

XBox game. Caryn and I decide we must own an XBox just to play this
game. The trailers end and rather than the movie starting, the main
menu of the DVD shows up on the screen. So I guess we’re watching the
DVD. Which doesn’t fit on the projected screen. And no one is pressing
play. So the menu loop is just looping. for about 5 minutes. Finally
someone hits play and the movie starts, it’s about 7:20 at this point.   

As a bonus we don’t just get the movie opening credits, we get
subtitles too! The movie starts to play and there’s no vocal track.
Background sounds yes, no people talking. This goes on for 10 minutes
or so before they finally stop it and bring back up the house lights.
Someone apologizes and says they are working on it. Lights go down and
the movie starts again, from the beginning, with subtitles. This time
the subtitles are in spanish. And there’s still no vocal track. There’s
obviously people in the projector room messing with something but
nothing is working. Light come back up, then go dark and it starts from
the beginning again, with the same problems. It’s now almost 8PM and
the next movie is supposed to start at 9:30 so we’re wondering how they
are going to deal with this. After the fourth false start they give up
and say we will all get refunds and they are sorry but they don’t know
what the hell is wrong. I hear someone with a Screamfest badge say
something about "they must have given us one of those boxes of messed
up promo DVDs or something" – I look and yep, the free DVD we were
handed on the way in is promo stamped. Fun! He then goes on to say that
"with all these different formats and versions today there’s no way to
know what will work and what won’t, so what can people expect?" What
can people expect? I paid $75 I expect someone to spend 10 seconds and
make sure the movie actually plays PRIOR to me sitting there waiting to
see it!
 

According to one of the organizers, "They refused to give us a print and we’d already sold tickets so we were lucky the DVD came out on Tuesday…" so they used the DVD for a public exhibition, which I think is illegal. Sounds real professional, doesn’t it? It gets better, when they try to get a refund:

Things
start getting really cool here because no one bothered to tell the kids
at the box office they were to refund anyone so they are refusing and
telling people to step to the side so they can deal with the next
customer, completely ignorant to the fact that the next customer was
also there for Screamfest and wants their money back. We demand the
manager. He shows up and starts apologizing and handing out refunds. I
give him my receipts and he hands be a refund receipt… for $22 bucks.
Hold your fucking horses. I point out that I paid $75 for 6 tickets so
$22 doesn’t quite cut it. He looks and says "Oh! You bought tickets
from Screamfest directly not from us, I can’t give you anything back"
and rips up the $22 credit. He says I have to take it up with the
Screamfest people directly because he and the theater have nothing to
do with it.

It’s logical to wonder if this blogger is just pissed for one
reason or another. He could be exaggerating or misrepresenting the
situation or whatver . . . but this blogger is Sean Bonner, who has a
spotless reputation (and is a close personal friend of mine, so I trust
him even more.) Therefore, Occam’s Razor
says that these promoters really screwed the pooch. There could be a
good explanation, because shit happens with these things, but as of
2:17 PM on October 21st, there is nothing on their blog that even
mentions the problems last night. There are, however, announcements
about other events taking place this weekend. Hmmm. I hope that they’ll
make good on their promise to provide full refunds to the people who
couldn’t get them at the theatre . . . if they care at all about
their reputation, I’m sure that they will.

There are a ton of events scheduled for the rest of the weekend —
events that I’d really dig, like a screening of Friday the 13th — but there is no way they’re getting any
of my money until those refunds go out.

So we have another example of the importance of the reputation economy. If I just read their website, I’d be totally into Screamfest. But now? Until they give me a good reason to change my mind, Not so much.

Sean Bonner has a great post at the SBdC about the power of blogging.

[This] was just e-mailed to my by Dana in NYC. It’s pretty amazing…

"One of our authors Tessa posted last week about having a
delivery man force his way into her apartment and demand all of her
money as a tip. The delivery man was with the extremely popular
internet based NYC grocery service Fresh Direct—everyone I know and
everyone they know uses this service (which incidentally has a strict
no tipping policy) so there was a lot of shock, dismay, outrage over
this incident. Tessa’s posts were linked to on Gothamist and Gawker
although she chose not to go to the newspapers about this incident. She
went right to Fresh Direct who told her that the delivery man would be
re-assigned. Many of our readers were upset that this man could deliver
to them next so yesterday I posted information on how to contact Fresh
Direct and demand a better resolution from them. A lot of people told
me that they followed my suggestion and wrote to Fresh Direct about
this too. And just now I just got a mail from Fresh Direct management
assuring me that after an internal investigation that the offending
driver has indeed been fired.

Imagine this same thing happening as recently as five years ago. Based upon their initial reaction to the complaint, it is likely that without the flood of concerns from other customers, this company would not fire an allegedly dangerous employee. (How irresponsible to even consider reassigning him!) Without the blogs, how could she get the word out far and wide? The mainstream media? Unlikely. And even if the victim had been able to get attention from some mainstream
news media, it would never have the immediacy and wide reach of
communicating it on a blog. Who knows how many other doors this guy would have kicked down before he was stopped!

Whenever I am interviewed about my blog, or blogging in general, I always try to get the interviewer to grok that the real power in this medium is that anyone can communicate their opinions, fears, outrage, silliness, or whatever is important to them with a large, self-policing peer network. There is such overwhelming power in communication, if that power is treated responsibly.

That is why blogging is important. That is why it’s exciting, empowering, and cool. For better and for worse, the rules of communication have changed. So far, I don’t see a whole lot of evidence that the mainstream media or current corporate masters of the universe understand that. I wonder when they’ll get a clue(train).

Just a quick reminder that tomorrow’s WWdN Friday Game at PokerStars is set to go at 7:00 EDT.

What: WWdN: Decker711 Invitational
Where: PokerStars.
When: Friday, October 21st. 7:00 PM EDT
Password: monkey
Tournament number: 13788952
Buy-in: $10+1

I
hope that the later starting time can accomodate a
few more players than last week. Remember that this is a semi-private
affair, open to anyone who knows the password is monkey.

This is always fun. Head over to TK421.net, and find out which Sci-Fi or Fantasy character you are.

Apparently, I am John Sheridan.

An experienced survivor who has maneuvered around many obstacles, you are looked
up to by those who rely on your good judgment.

In the last few years, we’ve stumbled. We stumbled at the death of
the president, the war, and on and on. When you stumble a lot you tend to look
at your feet. Now we have to make people lift their eyes back to the horizon and
see the line of ancestors behind us saying, "Make my life have meaning,"
and to our inheritors before us saying, "create the world we will live in."

I know it’s a silly online survey, but I was surprised at how much I identified with those words, and I was very grateful that I wasn’t Wesley Crusher (not that there’s anything wrong with that.) So if you’ve got a few minutes to waste, head on over and tell us who you are.

(Thanks, Ocean!)