Comments on: It Ain’t About the Technology

By: Property Management Software

Property Management Software — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 14:19:16 +0000

I can’t seem to bring myself to jump on the twitter bandwagon. Anybody remember the days before cell phones when everybody didn’t know everybody else’s business realtime?

By: Mind your networking manners « Media Update - The Blog

Mind your networking manners « Media Update - The Blog — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 11:27:25 +0000

[...] Sexton explains this well in his article – stating there is no need to ‘understand’ the rules of social media; we merely need to [...]

By: Grant M. Waldman

Grant M. Waldman — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 16:57:17 +0000

Very true! Social networking is a great way to communicate.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 19:18:17 +0000

Kathleen,

The analogy isn’t perfect, but it is useful in showing the kinds of tweets that most people would appreciate – they are roughly the same kind things that your officemates would like tossed out as an observation, comment, “check this out” heads-up, etc.

And knowing that is essential to understanding the difference between one’s tweets being “about me” and being about “what I’m doing.” Frankly, most of us don’t have a cult of personality. So unless your twitter followers are limited to only your close personal friends, tweets about you are probably more clutter than anything.

But taken at a higher perspective than the prosaic and literal, tweets about what you’re doing ARE interesting to a large number of people. I may not care to receive a tweet saying that you’re frustrated, or that you’re working on a PR piece for a client, but I might find a comment about a recurrent client communication frustration that you have fascinating.

Chances are that the 12 non-acquaintances who follow you are doing so because they are interested in your thoughts and insights. By picturing them working at a cubicle next to you, you can get a better idea about what would be worth tweeting to them and what may be viewed as distracting “noise.” What your twitter followers learn “about you” should primarily be learned by hearing a particular “voice” and point of view behind your thoughts – not from receiving half-hourly updates on your life.

More directly, while you don’t have to tailor your tweets to a specific audience, it does help to realize that you are broadcasting these things out to an audience, and I find my cubicle analogy helps me picture that and to keep in mind that, “it’s not about me.” I just wanted to pass the technique along to my readers.

- Jeff

By: Kathleen Hanover

Kathleen Hanover — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 18:32:36 +0000

Granted, I’m a Twitter newbie, but Jeff, your metaphor doesn’t hold up. One cannot choose ones’ cube neighbors (and thus the conversations one overhears), but following me or not following me on Twitter is entirely your choice. I don’t feel obligated to tailor my tweets to your taste. Frankly, they’re about me and what I’m doing. If what I’m working on doesn’t interest you, then don’t follow me. I have 16 followers at the moment, and I only know two of them personally. How the others found me an decided I was fascinating enough to follow, I have no idea. And even if I wanted to tailor my tweets to these strangers, how would I go about it?

By: Jeff

Jeff — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 01:39:50 +0000

That’s a great point, John. I agree that the “What are you doing” prompt leads people in the wrong direction. You friends line is great, but I think it relies too heavily on the “that I might be interested in” part to turn the first phrase into an honest invitation rather than a snarky comment. Something similar to that phrase or its general spirit would definitely be an improvement over what Twitter is currently using.

By: John

John — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 20:08:47 +0000

Jeff – maybe you should talk to Twitter and have them remove the voyeur tag line “What are you doing”. A friend’s favorite line that he tries to put in conversation when possible is “tell me something I don’t know (that I might be interested in)”. But Twitter using that line might lose them 90% of their business, eh wot?

By: Fearlessly Stupid

Fearlessly Stupid — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 19:24:31 +0000

JS … Isn’t TWIT the root word of TWITTER?

By: Meryl K. Evans

Meryl K. Evans — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 18:43:33 +0000

That makes sense, Jeff. People don’t really notice you unfollowing them (unless they have fewer than 100 followers). @redcrew also mentioned http://twalala.com as another option.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 18:30:28 +0000

Meryl,

Thank you so very much for the tool – that’s awesome. To answer your question, I wanted to follow this person based on a small sampling of comments, which were good, but I had no idea how prolific he/she was and how many of those tweets would be more noise than signal. That said, I don’t want to offend the person because I think relatively highly of them. I just don’t want to listen to all the chatter.

Hope that explains it. And thanks again for the tool. Thank Joanna, too

- Jeff

By: Paul Hydzik

Paul Hydzik — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 16:39:16 +0000

The technologies that thrive are the ones that serve our human side. It’s about people, not technology. Wish I had a dime for every time I’ve had to remind my clients and students about that one. Thanks, Jeff.

By: Meryl K. Evans

Meryl K. Evans — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 16:10:04 +0000

Thanks to @joannayoung, try http://twittersnooze.com/.

By: Meryl K. Evans

Meryl K. Evans — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 15:47:06 +0000

Jeff, why follow a person if you don’t want to read their tweets? I remember reading about something that can do this — but I can’t for the life of me find it.

By: MHB

MHB — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 00:49:00 +0000

agreed, great parsing Jon. i do worry that too much time is spent in the industry understanding people’s relationships with technology, and too little time aiming to understand people themselves.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 17:54:16 +0000

Jon,

I couldn’t agree with you more. By the way, is there a way to block someone’s tweets without having them know their tweets are being blocked (i.e., without offending them)?

- Jeff

By: Florida

Florida — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 17:02:32 +0000

Speaking of technology and twitter, I’ve seen just about every possible twitter API usage you can think of. There are two websites devoted purely to just listing the other sites that use their API.

By: Nick Stamoulis

Nick Stamoulis — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 15:41:35 +0000

It is def. important to always add something educated and useful to a group conversation otherwise you could get shunned by the group.

By: Jon Bischke

Jon Bischke — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 05:21:39 +0000

I tend to play very close attention to the signal-to-noise ratio of the people I follow. They may post something good every now and then but if it’s interspersed between 10 posts about their dog then it’s just not worth it to follow them. Likewise I’ve tried to be more conscious lately of providing as much value as I can through my stream.

Incidentally, @jonbischke if you’d like to follow!

By: Conficker

Conficker — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 04:23:08 +0000

At first I hated Twitter, and now I’m not so opposed to it. I’ve created like 5 accounts just to reserve my name and wife, and a couple others.

By: Inspired Living

Inspired Living — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 02:23:32 +0000

Thanks for this, I hadn’t considered using the network until you mentioned it. Looks great!