STAR WARS™: The Old Republic™ officially launched Dec 20th. It is a massive multiplayer online game that has amassed over 100 awards. Here is an excerpt from the launch press release from Electronic Arts.

"A stunning Star Wars universe. Thousands of hours of gameplay. Gripping stories. Engrossing dialogue performed by hundreds of talented voice actors. BioWare, a label of Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: EA), today is proud to turn on the servers for one of the most anticipated games of all time, Star Wars: The Old Republic, winner of over 100 awards from critics around the world. Last night, fans lined up around the block on the eve of launch at retail outlets in New York, Paris, London, Austin and other cities across the world, celebrating the debut of the game with gatherings complete with costumed characters and memorabilia giveaways.

As part of its launch, creative people from EA/BioWare thought up a "Freeze Mob" in New York City's Time Square. About 20 professional actors dueled with light sabers as Sith Lords and Jedi Knights. Then about 100 fans joined in the fun to create a very memorable and unique experience for the impromptu audience. You can view the video on YouTube. 

I was in Starbucks yesterday for an early wait-for-my-car-to-be-fixed morning. To my right was an empty, single chair and table.

As I started cleaning up my laptop and drinks to retrieve my fixed car, a man came up to me, smiled, and said, "Is this seat..." And before he finished, I said "No." 

He looked at me a bit strange as it was unoccupied. I processed his facial expression, and then said, "Yes, it's open."

And then I said, "Sorry, I should have let you finish." He smiled.

I answered without actually listening to the entire question. What he said was, "Is this seat open?" Most people say, "Is this seat taken." And that's how I answered the "expected question."

We all should "sharpen our saw" every once in a while. Perhaps I should be like Bart Simpson and write on the chalkboard 100 times, "I will be a better listener." 

I recently found TweepsMap and found it to be a fascinating application. Provide your Twitter name and password, and in less than 30 seconds, you'll have a world-wide view of your Twitter followers.

As I would expect, the majority of my followers are from the United States (~78%). Since I have done programs and consulting in Canada and the UK, I have a higher number of followers, both at about 5%. 

You can switch between a Map and List version with a click of a button.

What does your TweepsMap reveal?

Here are three different advertisements from September and October. Each has and is generating signficant exposure on YouTube, from media, and from consumers. The first one is for Sony's PS3, second for French mineral water Contrex, and the third for electro-rapping band LMFAO. Each is telling its story in its own way. What can you take away from these and apply to your own communications?

Sony posted its Playstation PS3 commercial "Michael" on YouTube on 5 October 2011. In less than a month, 9,968,581 have watched the ad. Even more incredible...it got over 3 million views in its first 24 hours. Sony included a caption, "When they tell your story, what will they say?"  Click on the image or here to watch the video on YouTube. The ad features two American soldiers from WWII as they walk carefully through a forrest to a stone building, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. They pay the bouncer, a woman who sort of glares at them, and enter a room. The room turns out to be a bar filled with the favorite PS3 game characters. And the characters are swapping stories about "Michael." Michael turns out to the be "you" the gamer. The ad celebrates more than the great games, it is celebrating the people who play them (and of course buy them). The Deutsch agency out of Los Angeles, California produced the ad.

This is an advertisement from French water company Contrex (click on the image or here to view the YouTube video). It starts off much like a publicity stunt. You see a Paris square then focus in on a big building with a long row of pink exercise bikes out front. Curious women then climb on and begin pedaling. As more women pedal, more pink neon wires light up. The light starts at the stationary bike and shoots forward to the building showing an outline of a very fit, and handsome man. More women get on bikes and a few men. A record starts playing high energy music. The man starts dancing and begins to take off his clothes in a strip-tease like style. The women starting laughing and shouting and pedaling faster. He strips everything off down to his underwear/pants, swirls them around, and repears with a sign "placed" strategically that reads something like "you have just burned 2,000 calories during the exercise."

Everyone laughs and of course, drinks Contrex mineral water, a brand owned by Nestle. One of the benefits Contrex touts is that it helps people lose weight because of its high calcium content. It's innovative, fresh, lively, and entertaining...with a very clear, easy-to-grasp message. The ad was created by the Marcel agency. Launched 2011 Sep 22, in a little over a month, 8,317,346 people have viewed it on YouTube. Contrex has a link to its companion Facebook campaign site.

The music video from LMFAO is called "Sexy and I Know It."  Released on YouTube on 2011 Sep 16, the video has been watched 73,466,296. CAUTION! This video is a bit graphic and quite visual with men in speedos and women in short skirts/tight pants. It has over 218,000 comments. It's #1 on the YouTube 100 count. The band has a well-integrated trans-media messaging platform in  Twitter, iTunes, Internet, YouTube, Storefront, and Facebook. LMFAO is grammy-nominated, electro-rapping band from Los Angeles. This song is from their new album, "Sorry for Party Rocking." Their music is called Party Rock — "unapologetically partying their faces off with hilarious results. The title-track explodes with bastardized R&B grooves mashed up against ‘80s synths, dance-floor pounding beats, and crunk-like rhymes about living the wild life. With ample help from London chanteuse Lauren Bennett and Hollywood producer GoonRock, the following “Party Rock Anthem” makes good on its title with an insta-hit trimmed in flashes of electronics, buoyant beats, and lyrics that celebrate and encourage decadent behavior." (from the iTunes description) (click here to watch on YouTube or the image)

Based on several requests, we are publishing last week's Tip of The Week as a blog post...

LinkedIn is the number one business social media site in the world. Today, there are over 120,000,000 members with an average of 1,000,000 joining every day. If you are new to LI or not generating the results you want from your profile, here is a list of tips.

The tips are designed to improve your profile to help you find a job. The list also has numerous tips for anyone seeking to improve his/her profile.

We suggest you identify the best tips for you. Then prioritize what you will do in what time frame. 

Whatever you need from LinkedIn, be deliberate with your time and how you interact with the LI network. Please let us know if you have a favorite from the list or have a suggestion for us to add to the list by adding a comment below.

• Add into your profile articles and publications you wrote
• Add into your profile presentations you gave via SlideShare.net
• Ask for recommendations
• Build relationships with your network by sending articles of interest
• Build relationships with your network by sending interesting questions and answers
• Build relationships with your network by sharing content from your blogs
• Build relationships with your network by sharing content from your favorite groups
• Build relationships with your network by sharing content from your newsletters
• Build your reputation by answering questions with thoughtful, education-focused responses
• Change the website link for your blog from "My Blog" to a proper name such as "The Chief Storyteller Blog"
• Change the website link for your company/personal site from "My Company" to a proper name such as "The Chief Storyteller® Website"
• Change the website link for your LinkedIn public profile to a proper name/organization name such as "http://www.linkedin.com/in/thechiefstoryteller"
• Change the website link for your Twitter account to "Twitter" or your Twitter name such as "chiefstorytellr"
• Check and correct grammar
• Check and correct spelling
• Check and correct readability (use Microsoft Word's Readability Tools)
• Complete your profile (LinkedIn research shows members with complete profiles are more successful in securing employment and complete profiles show up higher in search results)
• Connect strategically with selected LiONs (LinkedIn Open Networkers) to expand your network
• Consider including your LinkedIn address in your email signature
• Consider including your maiden name (women) in your profile name. This ensures people who knew you before you got married can still find you
• Customize your professional headline (it is critical to have a compelling and engaging headline...this is what people who search see first adjacent to your picture)
• Consider upgrading your account to LI Premium
• Download Box.Net and then include your cover letter and resume
• Expand your network by adding people that are like-minded
• Expand your network by adding people you know
• Fill out your educational history
• Fill out your employment history, from right after college to present
• Get advice from some of the smartest people in the world (any LI member can answer your questions)
• Help write your recommendations to ensure it is on-message
• Identify and include keywords relevant to audiences that will search for you
• Invite people to join your network with customized text…every time
• Join alumni groups to ensure you stay connected with high school, college, and graduate friends and colleagues
• Join groups for personal development
• Join professional groups important to your career success
• Leverage advanced search functionality to locate/connect with people with experiences and education like yours to see where they work and where they worked
• Look through your connections’ connections for good-fit additions for your network
• Omit your personal information that may lead to identity theft (e.g., birthday, marital status, and address)
• Participate in group discussions
• Perform competitive intelligence research on the target organizations before applying for a position
• Perform competitive intelligence research on the target organization's competitors before applying for a position
• Perform competitive intelligence research on people (e.g., hiring managers) before applying for a position
• Perform competitive intelligence research on interviewers before your phone screen or in-person interview (e.g., read profiles, do Internet searches, read articles, and read blogs they wrote).
• Perform competitive intelligence research using the LinkedIn reference check tool on interviewers before your phone screen or in-person interview 
• Perform competitive intelligence research use advanced search to find current employees. Send a personalized request for a telephone call to discover more information about the prospective organization
• Perform competitive intelligence research use advanced search to find former employees. Send a personalized request for a telephone call to discover more information about the prospective organization
• Put your value proposition/elevator speech in your summary
• Search frequently the LinkedIn job opportunities
• Send notes to people in your network when you see status updates or changes to his/her network
• Share news with the appropriate Groups (use the share news function)
• Spend time (a lot) on your specialties (very important section)
• Spend time (a lot) on your summary (very important section)
• Take advantage of the knowledge in the LinkedIn Learning Center http://learn.linkedin.com/
• Take advantage of the New User Guide from LinkedIn
• Track the statistics for the number of times people click on your profile under "Who's Viewed Your Profile" on the home page
• Track the statistics for the number of times you show up in a search under "Shown up in search results" on the home page
• Turn off your update notification in your settings (people don't need to know when you update the little things...turn it back on at any time if you prefer)
• Use a professional looking photograph
• Use action verbs (just like in a resume)
• Use the "Follow Company" feature to stay current with organizations you have an interest in joining
• Use the LinkedIn reference check tool as a source of reliable references
• Use the update field selectively to let your network know of significant events and activities
• Use the "Saved searches" option to save your favorite search queries
• Use the "Saved jobs" option to save the job wanted advertisements for your favorite companies and positions
• Use your personal email address for your account. This ensures you will always have access to your account 
• Visit the "What's New" section on LinkedIn monthly to learn what changes are coming/have been implemented
• Visit the LinkedIn blog to gain insights and to learn more about changes coming
• Write recommendations for people in your network