The Lindens Exist!

Wow! I have not met one....but TWO...Linden creatures!

I was beginning to think that Heretic Linden was the only employee at Linden Labs (which is OK cuz' she is wicked cool; the name ALONE should tell ya how cool she is :-)

But, now I have met a SECOND one! Claudia Linden, a newish educational Linden-goddess working with the mysterious Pathfinder, held a meeting inworld today. I didn't know about it...well, until 10 people immed me and asked, "where is the meeting with Claudia Linden?" One person said, oooooohhhhh, I thought YOU were Claudia Linden. Another person this week told me that they thought I worked for Linden Labs. So, let the record show...I, Desideria Stockton, do not work for Linden Labs. However, they are free to offer me a job if I can keep summers and Fridays off, can work from home, and don't have to teach MLA formatting :-)

So, I am reading a great book. I used to read before Second Life. This is by Margaret Atwood (tied as my fave author with Gloria Naylor). I like Maggie A because she uses lots and lots of parenthetical phrases (like me, woot woot), and she has curly hair (like me, woot woot), and she is Canadian (which I am not, but I love ice hockey and one of my best friend's is French Canadian...so all that has to count for something). Anywho.

I often feel like I am Negotiating with the Dead when I am trying to wake up my son. But, alas, this is the name of her book about A Writer on Writing. So, the first line of the before-you-dig-in-quotes-page-to-see-who-the-REAL-readers-are is a quote from The Agony of Flies by Elias Canetti, "The act of naming is the great and solemn consolation of mankind." Well, now ain't THAT the truth!

So, in between rounds of Superman Supercaper Hopscotch (just don't ask), I collapsed in a heap at the picnic table hoping the boys would think big and use their newly purchased implements of digging to scarf up the weeds. I thought about these names, our use of them, and what Branding has to do with education.

I am not a Linden (see above). But, if I WERE a Linden, I would pick an easy name to spell like O (for "O Linden come here!"). Poor Claudia...she had to answer soup to nuts kinds of questions. But, because she IS a Linden, everyone thought she had the corner market on answers. And, what, you may ask was her answer? CHECK WITH SLED! Yuppers; even the Linden girl realizes that the BEST resources out there are the educators using it! So, if you are not a member, go sign up (but create an email account just for it). And, if you want to meet with educators in REAL time, come to the conference THIS FRIDAY...it is 24 hours...and it is FREE. Just sign up first so we know to get you a gift bag!

I realized again last night that NO ONE knows how to pronounce my name....not even me! I pronounce it Dehzzah dare eeee yah, but Adey pronounces it Dezzzee der ee ya. It matters more to him since he writes poetry and he has to find the time to rhyme it (har). And then I thought for a second that LL should let you change your last name when you partner, but then realized that the rate of divorces in SL is higher than the rate of partnerships, so I scrapped that idea and being a big fan of hyphenation think that the name Desideria Stockton-Maddaloni-Linden quite suits me. But, that is a heckuva lot to type into SLexchange.
Desi works just fine, and as a person with a boring name like Beth (which is not short for anything), I have ALWAYS wanted to sign my name with little loopy hearts like the GenX Jenni, Tammi, and Ami girlies that I went to school with back there on the cusp of the digital native movement.

So, anywho.

My ramblings. What's in a name? Ask the Branding Specialists :-) It is all about a tag, the name, the stuff. The Lindens stay away because the brand there is that they must know more than we do. But, educators, themselves, have a pretty good brand on their own.