I have two ideas for turning what happens on Twitter into compelling TV. I shared one of the ideas on Twitter this morning:

I got two types of responses. Social media folks understood why it could be a good show because they see examples of peoples lives being positively changed or at least inspired every day. Other folks weren’t certain anyone could squeeze more than a single episode out of the idea.

Last year Amanda Rose organized an event called Twestival to raise money to provide clean and safe drinking water to over 17,000 people in developing countries. The event raised over $250,000. Since then Twestival has raised nearly half a million dollars. An episode about Amanda Rose and Twestival would start with a tweet and end with people filling bottles with clean water in a village somewhere.

May 20, 2009 Drew Olanoff was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Drew has a sense of humor about the cancer and started blaming everything from losing his keys to Twitter being slow on his cancer. He asked other people to blame things on his cancer too using the hashtag #blamedrewscancer. Drew’s goal is to raise $1 for every tweet blaming something on his cancer. Another episode would tell Drew’s story.

When Nashville flooded a couple of weeks ago, Pete Wilson tweeted a request for volunteers, hammers, trash bags and brooms to help with cleanup. Hundreds of people showed up to help. There are stories to be told about that.

Those are three examples that made the news. Other amazing stories of people connecting and helping each other in very special ways happen every day on Twitter. To me nothing is more interesting that hearing people’s stories about going through pain and coming out the other side stronger and with more depth.

I’m throwing my pitch out to everyone because I don’t mind if someone other than me makes it happen. I’d love to work on a project like this, but I’d also like it if someone else wants to make it happen.

The quick pitch is Extreme Makeover Home Edition meets Twitter meets On the Road with Charles Kuralt.

Do you have an amazing Twitter story to share? Leave a comment!

Researching and writing The Brief usually takes us half a day or more. Shooting takes about 30 minutes and post production (editing, graphics, compression and uploading) takes about three hours. Check the Twitter transcripts. It’s pretty well documented.

This week, we’re slammed because we have an unscheduled trip to New York on Thursday and Cali has a speaking gig on Wednesday.

What’s the likelihood some friends of the brief would like to submit some stories to wiki {at} geekbrief {dot} com? We’re talking completely written stories with an attached product graphic or screenshot and links to sources so we know we’re not plagiarizing.

It seems like a fun experiment. If you’re interested in playing along, write a story about a gadget, Web application, game or piece of software. Length should be about five sentences long (keep the brief in Geek Brief). Include graphics or screenshots and links to your sources. Send it via email to wiki {at} geekbrief {dot} com.

You’ll be putting words in Cali’s mouth, so gold stars go to writers who are funny and still wholesome. Cali will edit you just like she edits me, but you’ll get the credit on the show and links in the shownotes on GeekBrief.TV.

One time, I worked at a non-profit organization where I had the opportunity to write a speech for Laura Bush. Hearing your words come out of someone else’s mouth is magical.

Ultimately, this experiment could lead to writing work for a future Geek Brief Gadget Blog…I’m just saying!

As a loyal devotee to the Cult of Mac, I can’t say I embrace open source in reality…only theoretically. Apple is what you get with intense closed control, but I still have a huge place in my idealistic heart for open source so I wrote this song parody called, Imagine, The Open-Source Edition.

Here’s the link to download my silliness in MP3 format.  

And here are the lyrics:

Imagine no rights management
It’s easy if you try
No monopolistic business practices
For what you buy at Fry’s
Imagine all the coders
Coding for common good.

Imagine there’s no Balmer
It isn’t hard to do
No market war with Google 
Or bidding for Yahoo!
Imagine all the users
Searching their own way 

You may say that I’m a dreamer
There are others out here too
If all the code was opened
Not owned by a powerful few 

Imagine no proprietary systems 
I wonder if you can
No need for holographic security stickers
No barcodes in need of scans
Imagine all the coders
Sharing all the code  

You may say that I’m a dreamer
There are others out here too
If all the code was opened
Not owned by a powerful few.