Rob Campbell directs SMOjoe on the fringe of ARC. That could be the 
opening sentence of a wonderful science fiction story. In this futuristic fantasy thriller, a hero nicknamed Arob, the Son of a Beekeeper runs a starship called SMOjoe that orbits a lush fertile planet codenamed ARC. The colonists have just arrived here and have seeded their first plantations (don’t worry, its sustainable growth and the natives were placated with good jobs and benefits) and Arob, the captain of starship SMOjoe social media is sky writing and sending out plasma light signals to all available merchant ships – Planet ARC is open for trade!
The metaphor is obvious and bears no scrutiny. Fortunately the non fiction version is equally exciting, and doesn’t suffer from space pirates or mutant crop infestations which I couldn’t bear to tell you about. The truth is simple and straight forward; Rob Campbell is building a company that uses social media to tell stories on the internet, and so is Billie Mintz.
Rob met Billie through Mitch Korman
A real estate developer and social coordinator named Mitch Korman introduced me to Billie Mintz in the first part of this decade, and then we reconnected in Oct 2008.
I’m pretty sure Billie was at the May 24 2004 party at 90 Gilgorm when I sparked off a 21 Roman Candle salute to Mitch in the backyard of his upscale home. That was indeed memorable, and might serve as a beacon to properly illuminate the origins of our friendship in the fog of time.
We bumped into each other in Canadian television when I was a union film technician, and Billie was an actor on Degrassi and freelance filmmaker with good indie producer connections… I served The Man and built scaffolding for bubble gum commercials, while he made his own movies around which those commercials could be sold, and so deep down I knew he was cooler than me.
Billie’s early business cards were very cool
I remember Billie’s first business card really impressed me; it said ‘Next Mountain Pictures’ or something like that, and it simplified his gumption right in the title. You know I admire brevity, and so I won’t say anything else.
The Gist of this Post
On the periphery of these Artists who are busy Raising Consciousness there’s a shadow called SMOjoe that builds social presence for companies on the internet. What’s interesting is the change that’s occurring in the soft struggle for change that’s occurring between Rob Campbell and Susanna Kislenko /Billie Mintz. After looking for picture credits and discussing tone and content and theme these people have changed the way Rob Campbell runs SMOjoe. And I know my star ship has impacted the way ideas are packaged and delivered on ARC. For example just look at that sexy blue colored MyBlogLog social widget on the right hand side of the screen. As you can imagine that was hours of my time tweaking the tender javascript to appear blue and 300 wide. I had to start a conversation in Get Satisfaction.com to find the page that hosts the social widget and there’s another tip for the techies.
Look out for Space Pirates! Let’s meet Michael Cayley
This story doesn’t have an ending and that’s because we’ve only just begun. But it may be the end of the beginning. Perhaps events at Friday December 18th ARC Institute Holiday Party at their offices in downtown Toronto tonight will be the start of Chapter Two?
I’m bringing an expert with a vision. I’ve invited Michael Cayley to join me tonight, and he’s accepted the invitation. Michael is a ‘one match fire’, and if I spark talk this guy could set the place alight with next generation social networking concepts. You can read about Michael and the SCVA on Canada Blog Friends index.
Andrew Nisker is the filmmaker behind Garbage.
Andrew Nisker will be there too, I hope. Billie and Susanna and I sat down with Andrew at Hemmingways on Weds Dec 10th at 5pm. Andrew made the film called Garbage which has been well received by green media and various societies for social change all over the world. It was indeed remarkable to listen to these two visionaries / storytellers share ideas and concepts over tea. I’m certain Andrew will be invited to join Artists Raising Consciousness which benefits CSR expert storytellers with increased funding for their future film and video projects.
SMOjoe and ARC
SMOjoe has affected the way ARC Institute blogs, and in turn has been infected with a proclivity toward full disclosure, and the unprofitable habit of volunteering articles and blog posts for positive change.
