It might be the geekiest thing I’ve ever done.  And it was one of the more enjoyable and instructive experiences I’ve ever had online.On Day Two of SXSW, Jay Bushman (@jaybushman), an interactive storytelling consultant and the founder of the experimental narrative site, www.loose-fish.com, approaches me and asks if I’ll play Obi-Wan Kenobi in a tweet-up of the Star Wars Death Star scene he and a group of his friends are staging the next day.  (Jay got the idea after an exchange of tweets with the actor and geek Wil Wheaton.)  This little ‘game’ takes place concurrently with the SXSW keynote speech by Nate Silver and while we are doing it, ‘#swstarwars’ becomes the second highest-trending subject on Twitter, ahead of Silver’s keynote, behind only ‘#sxsw’ itself.

While it proves nothing, nor does it take into account the person-to-person interactions of the hundreds of people who attended Silver’s keynote, it does demonstrate the power of active participation over passive observation.  People from all over the world begin playing along, in multiple languages.  After an hour and a half, we finish tweeting the Death Star scene.  The group following the thread picks up right where we leave off and begins tweeting scenes from The Empire Strikes Back.  This game continues for at least five more hours, demonstrating the power of a productive game to take on a life of its own.  This playful scenario conceived by Jay models how brands doing business in the Networked World have boundless opportunities for inviting participation in their narratives.  For me personally, as only a Twitter dabbler, it was an education in the tweetswarming around subject matter that can take a game from unknown to known around the world in an hour on its platform.

You can follow the entire thread (63 pages worth of tweets!) beginning here.  For the duration of the game of us who played a role in it replaced our Twitter profile pics with photos of the characters we were playing.

What are the Rights of Man and the Liberties of the World but Loose-fish?
What all men’s minds and opinions but Loose-Fish?
What is the principle of religious belief in them but a Loose-Fish?
What to the ostentatious smuggling verbalists are the thoughts of thinkers but Loose-Fish?
What is the great globe itself but a Loose-Fish?
And what are you, reader, but a Loose-Fish and a Fast-Fish, too?

- Moby Dick, Herman Melville