Wednesday, November 18, 2009

WISHCRAFT'S 30th BIRTHDAY BASH - THE GLOBAL TWIP

We put up a special website for it at http://www.barbarasherwishcraft.com/ and you'll find many letters there and entries on (yet another of my) blogs at that site.

There's even a cute pdf eBook that will show you some of the wonderful things that happened and give you a sense of the excitement. I've updated it slightly so you can visit it again without me being embarrassed. I've included that with a bit more detail here:

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The 24-hour Global Twitter Idea Party happened last March and was exhilarating and exhausting. We launched one dream after another as we systematically moved through every time zone on the planet, engaging the services of superb hard-working volunteers including Success Team leaders with multi-language skills.

(There's a terrific free PDF eBook about the whole thing on the home page at www.barbarasherwishcaft.com that includes a nice example of a dream launch. (You'd better copy and paste that URL. It's got an illogical spelling hidden in there. I did it on purpose, for reasons not interesting enough to explain here, but if you're dying of curiosity, you know where to find me: @BarbaraSher on Twitter)

Where was I?

I really want to do another TWIP in 2010, I'm thinking New Year's Eve and into the next day, 24 hours like before, but my assistant (who organized the whole thing) has threatened to quit and the many wonderful people who pitched in to make it happen aren't answering my calls, so, you know, it's not definite.

It was a production, I admit. It included teleconferencing for the whole 24 hours to accommodate people who didn't have computers, as well as tweeting like lunatics for people who only had computers, which meant we were darting between messages so everyone knew what everyone else was saying at all times. Someone would call in to ask for help getting a new job in Kansas, their message would be heard by all teleconferencers including the TWIP person in charge of Twitter online -- but to make sure she heard it, the helper in charge of telephones would shout it out to her on a private line -- and he or she would frantically type it in and wait for responses (and oh boy did we get responses).

Then the Twitterer would shout out the responses to the teleconferencer -- or did we tweet it so the telephone person read it -- who can remember these things?

Anyway, it should have been a disaster. Instead, it was a triumph.

Everybody was having a ball. It was the best party ever, I'm sure of it, so it seems very sensible to do it on New Year's Eve.

But apparently people do other stuff that night. I've never understood that.

For now, you can be part of the ongoing TWIP by searching Twitter for#ideaparty. Tell us your wishes and obstacles and we'll try to make your dreams come true. We're not bad at it, and it's free. The big problem is that everyone wants to solve problems but not enough people are asking for help, so be a mensch and go ask for something. Why would you not do that?

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Go take a look at www.barbarasherwishcraft.com if you're of a mind. I tell some pretty good true stories of my beginnings as a writer/speaker in the blog there and my heroes (aka my readers) have told their stories, way more interesting, under 'Love Letters.'

If you've ever wanted my job, and I hope lots of you have because I'm happy to help you get it, their stories will show you how right you are.

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