How a SL/Facebook/Twitter Mashup Brought Peas on Earth

Okay, green is not my color. Especially not pea-green. But I am wearing my pea-green T-shirt in honor of Susan Reynolds (Tynan Clary in Second Life), who has been living her breast cancer drama, from suspicion to diagnosis to surgery to recovery, through the mini-blog Twitter, the social network Facebook and the crazy virtual world of SL. Why peas? Because after her biopsy, Susan used a bag of frozen peas to soothe the pain, and it grew into a movement. The T-shirt was a gift from Susan’s RL daughter Michelle Wolverton (Chel Pixie in SL), who created it in her mom’s honor. Mom and daughter in SL … they’re a potent combination!

Susan’s willingness to be open and up front about her experience has brought together a huge network of friends. Some have met her in RL, a few are related to her, like Chel, but most of us know her only through her wry, witty and unflinchingly honest posts. Most of us in Susan’s many networks can’t do much more than wish her well on her cancer journey, but one positive step we can take is to click the “donate now” button. So, one of her virtual friends, Connie Reece (Reece Llewellyn in SL), set up the Frozen Pea Fund the week before Christmas, which in its first week collected more than $3,500 from 118 friends around the world. The money will go to fund research and cancer programs through the American Cancer Society; donations may be tax-deductible in the United States.

Susan, a “Media Maven” in the Washington, D.C., are, is a true believer in virtual and social media., although I’m sure she didn’t set out to become the poster girl for the ways virtual networks can connect people in real ways. Make that pea-ple… Susan’s friends also got green in a big way by creating pea-green avatars and posting the pics on Flickr.

I don’t remember anymore exactly where I met Susan … probably from her posts on Twitter that I scavenged using Twitter’s keyword-scan program that snags any post mentioning SL and Second Life. (Read about it here.) In any event, it’s another reminder of what makes SL different from other online games … can we now agree that SL really is not a game???