Surprising Suggestions from Twitter-land

One of the reasons this is such a good place to work is that every once in a while, for no apparent reason, somebody does something to show that your work is appreciated.

A few minutes after we finished our broadcast in New Orleans last Saturday night, I got an e-mail from Rob Laycock. Now, Pacers Sports and Entertainment is a big corporation, which means we have a bunch of fancy sounding titles we hand out to people so that they can sound important when they talk to other suits from other corporations. Rob does have one of those titles, but titles are irrelevant on the planet where I reside (don’t bother trying to find it, as I’m the sole inhabitant), so I couldn’t tell you what it is. However, I do have my own title for Rob: Wonder Boy. I mention this so you’ll know to whom I refer as we go here.

So anyway, Wonder Boy sends me (and a few others) an e-mail that says he has decided to reward us (I told you he was important, no?) for our good work by dropping a dozen tickets for Wednesday’s Chicago game into our accounts. A thoughtful gesture, no doubt about that, and I’m sure the others that got the e-mail had no problem deciding how to disperse this unexpected bonanza. Ah, but they’re normal people with a wide array of friends, and – if anything – they might have more allies and associates than they have available tickets.

I, on the other hand, am a solo act with odd habits and a general inability to connect with folks. That this bothers me not in the least is a topic for another time, but in the context of this story it means that I have a dozen tickets to a pretty good game the day after Christmas (which, unfortunately, would up being postponed, but that’s not really relevant to the story), and there’s really not anybody I feel like giving them to. Fortunately, this is 2012, not 1982, and there is a resource out there ideally suited to help me with this issue.

Twitter.

In the grand scheme, I have relatively few followers on Twitter. But I have given my personal tickets away from time to time, and my Twitter followers have always come up with creative ways to get that done. So, after consulting with Wonder Boy and getting the thumbs up, I turned to them for suggestions in this situation and they responded with great enthusiasm. The suggestions ranged from the self-absorbed:

@sloovy44 Yes. You should give me two, that way you only have to give away ten!

To the off beat:

@getrealprez Guess @MikeWellsNBA head size contest?

@djMylesB First 12 ppl to get a Mark Boyle Tattoo? Bonus tix for location?

To the tempting:

@WovenDimensions  Best Christmas cookies we can bring for you to the game?

@KevinLee23  Best gifts for radio crew?

Uh….yes, that is the real Kevin Lee. And, no, I doubt that he’s ashamed of himself. At least not as ashamed as he should be.

And then there was this:

@BoilerColts  Give them to kids at Riley

This is the beauty of social networking. In all likelihood, I never would have come up with this myself, but it’s perfect. And in all fairness, @BoilerColts wasn’t the only one to hatch an altruistic plan for these tickets, but I thought his idea was the best. I’ve been on Twitter for a while now, and I’ve come to not only enjoy it, but — at least to some degree — even rely on it. It’s a great way to exchange thoughts, and for someone with my aversion to crowds and strangers, it allows me to engage in dialogue without ever having to actually meet people. Now, that may make me anti-social, but I can tell you this: seeing such great thoughts from people like @BoilerColts and others is almost enough to make me reconsider my preference for solitude.

Almost.