Crow Communications - Control the Light, Not the Prism, to Manage Perception

30 @ 30: Gary Gygax – The Legend I Knew

I am in stunned shock as I learn of the passing of another legend and personal hero within a week, Gary Gygax. The details I have are scant, but I know from my last correspondence that he was in good spirits though in poor health. I just did not know how poor.
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I was a fan of his Role Playing Games, Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, Star Frontiers, Boot Hill, Top Secret, Gamma World as well as some others that came out after it was established that there was a market to sell a game that existed only in the imagination. I asked Gary about this pioneering of a “conceptual concept” sale and he laughed in remembrance. How do you explain what a role playing game is when games used some form of equipment: Twister’s spinner and mat; Monopoly money and board; poker chips and cards…. Imagine the introduction: “Hi. You don’t know me and I have something you have never heard of and cannot see and when you play you cannot touch. Will you be part of my distribution network?” And whom would you approach to sell the rulebooks for such a game? Book stores? Toy stores? FAO Schwartz?

All those years ago.... It was an inspiring phone call I had with my hero that evening, now, as a man considerably older than the 14-year old who played the game at lunch breaks and after school. I had grown up and my appreciation for what it meant to be E. Gary Gygax in the 1970s was deeper with my experience as an adult. How did he handle his PR back in those days with the Tom Hanks’ film and the talk shows supplying him with a crisis that Theosopically assailed his very product concept and one he could not avoid? There was no rule of PR back then. It was not a Tylenol repackaging and transparency moment, which would later become the Gold Standard for PR students to follow. These were spiritual attacks, gathering the unseen forces in salvos of rhetoric and judgment against a conceptual game, conceptualized individually by its every individual player. How do you handle that kind of crisis in the international media? How did I become who I am? What lessons did I learn looking at hypothetical problems and operating from different points of view simultaneously? Could there possibly be any other job for me other than public relations consulting using my creative problem solving and verbal communications skills? He had heard this line of flattery before from lawyers, businesspersons and, not the least, computer technicians.
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After the RPG concept was widely understood, I remember the personal computer games started. First there were Prose games then there were graphics. Is it any wonder I can see the corollary between my experience as a player and AUTOCAD? I seemed to be running that software in my head at every game session, seeing the different POV in solving problems and imagining the textures from spoken words.
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You know, from Poland to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin the time difference is something like 7 hours. My 23:00 was his 4pm. I could have gone on speaking to him and listening to his story for longer but as a responsible adult I had to be up in the morning and shoulder my responsibilities. He did not see life quite like that, laughing that he never grew up and that made all the difference to his success. What a wonderful way to look at life towards the end. Maybe I should have cared a little less about the time then and remained in that moment?
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Hindsight is 20/20 isn’t it? But the most important skill is foresight, which brings me inescapably back to Ernest Gary Gygax. And it always will.
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photo by Alan De Smet
.PLAYER NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO
javascript:NPR.Player.openPlayer(87901434,%2087901395,%20null,%
.WALL STREET JOURNAL
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120486500666119109.html
.NEWSWEEK
http://www.newsweek.com/id/119782/page/1
.FORBES
http://blogs.forbes.com/digitaldownload/2008/03/gary-gygax-dung.html
.THE BOSTON GLOBE
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/03/08/my_escape_to_the_dungeon/?rss_id=Boston+Globe+–+Today%27s+paper+A+to+Z&referer=sphere_related_content&referer=sphere_related_content
.THE TORONTO STAR
http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/Buzz/article/326529
.

Posted in 30 @ 30, Authenticity / Integrity

March 4, 2008 at 23:42

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Linked-In to Pay It Forward

The first "LinkedIn Live Warsaw Pay It Forward Event" was held on Leap Year Day, 29 February, 2008 in the Blue Cactus Restaurant’s private room. It began at 18:00 with two handfuls of guests arriving earlier before even I, which was very gratifying to see because it was my first indication that my concerns for an enjoyable event were merely my own fears. In my time in Poland, I have experienced big cultural differences between the culture of Canada and Poland and I was fearful that my Canadian hopes would be too high. Thankfully, none of my cultural concerns were realised. The room remained charged with positive energy from the time I arrived until the last person left. Here is the way it unfolded: Between 18:00 – 18:30, Aneta Bereda and I had registration duties. Admittance was granted to everyone who brought a wrapped gift. I signed in pre-registered attendees; tracked the attendee guests; and noted the gifts as well as collected them. The process was smooth and orderly, and all received their welcoming glass of wine. Then the event was opened by the Blue Cactus Restaurant Maitre ‘D, Małgorzata Pilaszewska. We enjoyed a whiskey tasting, courtesy of Tudor House after registration until 19:05. Apart from being chair of the Wilanow Rotary PR committee, Martyn O’Reilly is a Whiskey Ambassador. This means he has the opportunity to travel the world hosting whiskey tasting events on behalf of Scottish distilleries. This April he will be sailing on the last leg of the Clipper Round The World along the American West Coast so all you Californians be prepared. Martyn did his usual bang on job entertaining and informing those gathered before having to rush to an embassy function. That’s why he’s in formal dress. After the whiskey tasting, we got to know each other a little bit before the buffet was brought out at 19:15. Everyone came up to the microphone and introduced someone in the room before they formed a cue for food. After the introductions were complete, we mixed and mingled. Aneta carried me through this part because I am by nature a shy man. God help you if you get me talking on public relations however! By 20:05 the Country Office Director of the Regional Environmental Center, Ms. Marta Kaczyńska, began her presentation. If you were not there, you missed a powerful presentation about what this organisation is doing for the environment in Poland both at the grassroots level and in helping guide legislation. Since Poland entered into the European Union, the local office of REC has become more directly responsible for the programs implemented on Polish soil. It is amazing what a small office can accomplish. Like Ms. Kaczyńska said, they can always use volunteers! And I cannot imagine a better way to network – can you? Thanks to Four Seasons floral shop and Ms. Monika Bartnik at SLodkie Upominki for the flowers and chocolates we presented on their behalf to our guest speaker Ms. Kaczyńska. Mr. Michał Dorszewski, representing Doctor’s Associates, generously gave Ms. Kaczyńska free meal tickets to Subway Restaurants for her tireless volunteers, and Mr. Patryk Nosalik made a donation of 400.00 PLN to the REC through his own personal initiative. Well done Patryk! With the opportunity to Pay It Forward to the REC fresh in our hearts, we turned to the gifts and door prizes. Monika Witecka at Unilever donated Dove Summer Glow skin care products for everyone in attendance. Michał Dorszewski won two uniquely designed coffee cups from Villeroy and Boch . Who says what goes around does not come around! And the winner of the dinner for two from our gracious and generous venue host was Mr. Leszek Tumkiewicz. Leszek has a reputation for being a big networker in Poland. Now he can do one-on-one networking over dinner! The best part of the evening, for me, was the giving of gifts. At the end of the gift giving in which all participated, there remained four gifts. At this point it was agreed upon to distribute these among the restaurant diners. So a small group of four Linked-In’ers disbursed throughout the restaurant and handed out the gifts to some very delighted people. I cannot tell you how proud I was of everyone to do this small gesture. Everyone seemed to have a good time, many telling me how much they enjoyed the event, a few saying they would like to see another and some volunteering to help create the next one. There was a final total of 36 persons to enjoy the hot buffet and share in the gift giving. The Blue Cactus Restaurant sponsored the event to the tune of 3,745.00 PLN, and the total of prize sponsors for the evening was a whopping 2,985.00 PLN. That’s a $1,000.00 USD folks! Much of the credit for sponsor seeking goes to Aneta who handled this task along with her other daily PR duties as President of Crow Communications Polska. Now, I want to give a secret "thank you" to my colleague, Mr. Chuck Hester – the famous LinkedIn Live – Raleigh guy. Chuck, you do not know this but I was competing against you. Before this one, I had not staged an event in a very long time. Your Pay It Forward networking a quarter of a world away inspired me to do this one and to mirror your theme. It worked because everyone involved really immersed themselves into the spirit of giving but it started from you. This was nothing like it ever seen in Poland. Thank you, Chuck, for the gift of inspiring me!

Slides below courtesy of the photo-technical wizardry of Mr. Michał Bukowski and the photography of Małgorzata Kwiecien and Leon Paczyński.

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Posted in Authenticity / Integrity, Consumer Promotions, Special Events

March 1, 2008 at 11:11

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30 @ 30: William F. Buckley, Jr.

Source Item: CBC
Brian Williams NBC Nightly News (below)
William Buckley: 30 @ 30 America has lost a giant, lauded House Minority Leader John Boehner in a written statement and I suppose that is true. No matter what area of the political spectrum you tend to hang out at, you knew when WFB made an eloquent appearance. He was like an gentrified English Panini rainbow to listen to with the promise of better articulation at the end of it – finer than golden apples as a modern King Soloman might wax. He reintroduced American BoobTubers (before YouTubers) to the richness that was the English language before it got dumbed down and trammeled to an eighth grade level by fog; grounded from achieving the stratosphere of composition by the advertising cloud machines that shackle communication formulae to an LCD. In short, he was a joy to my young ears growing up as he proselytized to the power of English with a pontificating Conservatism derived from and his staunch Roman Catholicism no doubt.

With his passing, I am left only with my nostalgic memories of Sunday TV: Firing Line, and Wide World of Sports which are recalled in the personalities whose images still burn in my mind Buckley, and Cossell.

Like Cossell, Buckley could be extremely fun to watch (here for 18 minutes, & see a clip below). Neither man was afraid to confront issues though their style of confrontation differed: one had an irascible everyman’s manner while the other displayed himself as an aloof intellectual spider slouched to the side of his chair waiting for the time to strike with flashing eyes and smiling teeth. The nearest thing to this juxtaposition on American television in the 1990s was the placing of Jeopardy before Wheel of Fortune every evening.

I cannot help but to wonder what is ahead for American English speakers who receive their instruction from a surround sound of television when the sitting President can hardly enunciate and one of the best American speakers of the language has died at 82 and English was his third language.

Google Video:

I was actually looking for the panel with Jack Kerouac but this clip is entertaining as well.

For Buckley on Buckley have a listen to A Life on the Right: William F. Buckley on NPR (2004)

Posted in 30 @ 30, Rhetoric / Elocution

February 27, 2008 at 20:01

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Practice Posting

and an image here: [But I messed up the format -> How did my post do that on its own? Something wrong here. ] While I found something interesting to read on the guerilla news network here: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8148 No, I did not experience any jump. Go to www.mozilla.org and install the firefox web browser. Its way better than your stupid Internet Explorer. * I guess the jump was in the visual editor. I do not experience it now either. Good work! Ahoy Ahab! StarBuck’s Competition Vintage Schlitz: says it all, doesn't it? Ok. checking for formatting problems. But what do you exactly mean by formatting problems? * Look directly below. Down the right side of this post I see the "edit" "date stamp" bookmark… etc. Should be in the footer. It is along the right side. Hi Vivek, This problem was caused by the image. It was something about the height & width of the image. Apart from that I do not know. The image "height & width" was removed this morning. It is fixed but I do not know why height & width caused a problem in the CSS code but it did. I do not know why the problem was fixed after height & width was removed. It would be good to know "why." This problem may be linked to others.