Here are my Twitter Follow Friday people recommendations for this week: #ff
Jane McGonigal
Although we haven’t met (yet), I read an awesome article in Wired UK magazine about a game designer in California named Jane McGonigal who is attempting to save the world by designing games that in order to level up and win, you are required making changes in real life that benefit society as a whole. You know… little stuff like poverty, hunger, global warming.
There is a really powerful speech she made at TED a couple months ago, and being as my new job is in the game industry, her speech really made an impact on me.
What really got me is when she referenced Malcome Gladwell’s book “Outliers” and talked about how as Gladwell stated, it takes roughly 10,000 hours of practice for someone to become an expert at something. Then she referenced statistics on how much of time is spent by teenagers playing video games and suggested how amazing the world would be if all that time spent perfecting their game play could be used for solving problems in actual life instead of just in virtual worlds like World of Warcraft.
Very cool stuff and a very interesting and refreshing person.
Website: http://blog.avantgame.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/avantgame
Matt Lawrence
I connected with Matt Lawrence the owner of the business social network Biznik this week. He was nice enough to offer me a free month trial membership, which I happily accepted. I mentioned checking out Biznik last week and since then I have really been enjoying the community there and it looks like there are a lot of really interesting people there to meet.
Matt seems like a great guy and actually contributes to the community as well, so it was refreshing seeing a social network owner actually being involved in his own community. Imagine that?
Biznik Profile: http://biznik.com/members/matt-lawrence
Twitter: http://twitter.com/BiznikTweets
Deborah Drake
Deborah Drake is a Writing Marketing Coach & Business Catalyst that I also connected with on Biznik. She does weekly webinars as well as hosts a Writer’s Support Group for Reticent Bloggers in Bellevue, WA.
Website: http://deborahdrake.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/deborahdrake
Billy Burke
Maybe you’ve heard of Billy Burke? I did a website for him a little while back.
Oh yeah, he also happens to be the actor who plays Charlie Swan, Bella’s father, in the Twilight Vampire Movie Series, not to mention a slew of other movies. Anyway he has his first solo album coming out June 22 and so I couldn’t resist giving him some props. If you sign up to his mailing list on his website you can download a free mp3 of his latest single. Also a little bird told me that he has a lot of other cool stuff planned for mailing list subscribers. Check it out.
Website: http://www.billyburke.net/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/billy_burke
Who did you connect with this week?
