I won’t go into a full review of Klout, but I did want to point out a few highlights of this service.

• You can see who you influence
• You can see what topics you are most influential on
• You can see how you compare with your friends

As an example, my Klout score is 55. Klout states the average score is in the 20′s. Does this mean I am super active across all of the social networks that Klout measures on? Nope. But it does mean I am active to a degree with engaging friends in conversation and topics alike across social media platforms.

Do I use Klout? Yes, yes I do. Mainly to see the ebb and flow of my score by how I engage friends across various social media platforms. If I were a business, I’d be interested in how my company is engaging it’s audience. There is value to Klout.

So, do you have Klout or not? It will vary based on if you care about your impact in social media. For many, it won’t matter. For many, it will.

Klout is a service that I find measurable value in. Carry on Klout.

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Gone are the gut-wrenching, mind-bending panic attacks.  I am so thoroughly geek that I have previously mourned the outages.  Lately my attitude has undergone serious degradation, sinking from the once experienced OMGWTF to a more apathetic status of Meh.

Although I am rather cavalier about the outages, I still use these times of Twitter-exia to come up with new ways to poke fun at Twitter and those of us who use it.  What fun is a ridiculously obsessive self-absorbed addiction if you can’t humiliate yourself and others like you when given ample opportunity to do so?

Can I get an Amen?

During one recent outage I looked over at my amazingly geeky other half and said, “I have the perfect alternative to that idiotic Fail Whale.”   I proceeded to explain what I believe to be a new and greatly improved Twitter Failure Mascot – one with less sweet and more meat – less happy and more snappy – a snark among snarks wrapped in the familiar net of doom and gloom.

Yes, my friends, the goofy and somehow happy-to-be-a-failure Fail Whale has been replaced by his snarkier cousin, Fail Seaman.  I believe that there is an animated version in the future, complete with Twitter related snarky commentary.

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Do you view following as a commitment and unfollowing like a broken promise — or worse — a divorce?  Do you watch your follower count and immediately unfollow anyone who has unfollowed you as if to say, “AHA! You don’t deserve to have me as a follower when you don’t follow me!”

What does following mean to you?

Most of us have had it happen.  Someone you converse with on a regular or fairly regular basis – you might even consider this person a friend – stops following you.  Maybe you tried to send a DM and couldn’t.  Or maybe you’re obsessive-compulsive frantic and oh-so-devastated over the loss of even one spam or pr0n bot follower and endlessly review your follower count, your follow-to-followed ratio and your follower growth metrics.

One…One Thousand…One Meellyun? Meh.

I don’t fret over my follower count.  I routinely clear out spammers and other questionable accounts as well as unfollow random tweeps whose conversations I really don’t want associated with me.   I’m sure that’s snobbish to some.  I’m not a Twitter Saint by any means.  But if you’re tweeting about how much pipe you laid last weekend while you were drinking like an Amish junior college freshman, straight off the farm and very curious about life in the big city, pretty much, there’s not a commonality there that I want to explore.

If that description fits you – first – wow. I might want to meet you – just for research purposes – under some very secure circumstances.  Second, unfollowing you is not a judgment of you, your lifestyle or your value as a human being.

The people I follow add value to my Twitstream for professional and personal reasons.  They are peers, mentors, role models, industry leaders, amusing and engaging people I just can’t live without.  Most of the people I follow also follow me and I converse with them on a regular basis. Of the handful who are not following me, I have conversations with some of them on occasion.  All of these folks I follow so that I can glean knowledge and understanding from their expertise and experience.  It’s a priceless opportunity that I feel very fortunate to enjoy.

My twitter-style?  I do discuss some technical geeky things in my stream, but for the most part, Twitter is a way for me to make real connections, forge and extend relationships, and contribute to a wonderful microuniverse of my own design.  This means a good bit of my “conversation” is personal, odd commentary on what I see or what I’m doing.  I act as a resource or a commentator when asked.  Interactive. That’s me.

There are also a number of folks I don’t know who follow me.  I’m not sure why they follow me.  Some folks are more voyeuristic.  Or they are snooping for scandals.  <LOL>  If I am not following someone and they engage me – I do interact.  Once I get to know someone I will follow them if we share the daily things that add to my stream.  Again, this isn’t a judgment.  I still read other streams of folks who follow me that I don’t follow. I just don’t do it daily.

Be true to YOU

The fact that I am goofy, geeky, and for some a bit too chatty or offbeat has occasionally led to some folks unfollowing me.  I’m a flibberty gibbet and I get that some folks like it a bit quieter or perhaps don’t want to hear about #geeklove.  It’s all good, yo!  I still converse with those folks.  They just don’t see my occasionally pneumatic post frenzies.

As I mentioned before I don’t obsess about it, but sometimes I notice.  Like today.

Twitter is being a bad little beastie with OAUTH and API issue galore.  The frequency and duration of the pain we all feel has increased signficantly since The Day That Twitter Died.  There have been all sorts of odd happenings including changes in message counts and follower counts, delays in tweet updates in the public stream and the ever-disappearing trending topics (that aren’t actually true trends since Twitter has filters on them but that’s a whole ‘nutha can ‘o tabacky!)

Today Twitter was PMSing again and behaving quite frightfully at times.  As a result I was on the lookout for oddities.   After noticing a random decrease of 4 followers I went on a quest for information.  Nothing.  Hmm. Curiosity peaked as I continued on my journey to discover who unfollowed me.  It turned out that there may have been some suspicious accounts removed, but there was one…one unfollower…who was a real person.

** GASP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OH NOES!!!!

I may have to cry now because I am diminished by this injurious action! < /sarcasm>

Yes, I’m being silly.  I’m working on a 2 day sleep-deficit and I’m giddy.  But in all seriousness, this  unfollow caught me by surprise. It’s someone I really like, enjoy conversing with when he is in a tweeting mood, and not only did he unfollow me, he unfollowed @g33kguy!

I thought about it for a bit and grumbled to myself as I tried to figure out what egregious Twitter-Crime was committed by us that necessitated the removal of us from his Twitstream.  After wishing the pox on him (I jest) I thought, you know, we probably annoy the crap out of him.  Or we offended him.  Or, he only followed us in the first place because we goaded him into it (also in jest at the time).  I just wish he would have said, “Hey y’all yammer to much” or “Hey all this talk about love makes me heave” or “You guys aren’t worth my time”.  I totally respect that level of honesty and find it disheartening and frustrating when I don’t know why.  < /nosewrinkle>

Since I know you’ll ask – yes I have dropped off a few streams without explanation.  One posted such offensive content that I was concerned about hitting the filters at the office or having my kids walk up behind me and see it.   Another did something that designers and developers do not tolerate – they lifted an idea from us and used it as their own.  It’s not that the idea was unique.  It’s that there was never a conversation about, “Hey, I know this is your thing, but I’m thinking I’d like to do the same thing. Are we cool?”  My answer would have been 100% yes.  It’s the sneaky crappy way it was handled that chapped me enough to say FINISH!!! (inside joke).  Other than a smattering of unfollows, I love my community noisy, busy and full of color!  So bring on the tweets!

WHEW!!

If you’re still with me after this verbose ignivomous monstrosity, thanks for reading.  No really, thank you!  Hopefully I entertained you a bit or distracted you.  Oohh…shiny ball!

The point of all these letters and squiggles is to make you think by asking you one question comprised of 22 words: Do you follow to increase your count or do you follow because the individual you are following adds value to your Twitstream?

Until next time, chew on that!  I’m out.

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It’s no longer breaking news that there was a series of DDOS attacks on the internet last week.  I didn’t notice it so much on Facebook because (1) I’m not on there as much and (2) Facebook often seems slow and bloated to me.  But my beloved Twitter? Oh yes, I knew it was dead.

So what did I do?  Like any good geek I panicked, I cried, I moaned, I wailed.  I paced the floor aimlessly, babbling to myself about the end of the world as we know it, the TRUE Twit-pocalypse was upon us, dontchaknow…  (Do I need to insert sarcasm tags to avoid the sarchasm I think may ensue from those unfamiliar with my wit?)

At any rate, at one point I sang to myself, “The day that Twitter…died.”  <insert eyebrow raise and pondering face>

I make up a lot of song parodies, but rarely write them down (bad geek).  This time I did.  Many thanks to @MadBrad, @lwcavallucci and @Daily_Pinch for encouraging me to publish this.  Brad – I know you said to YouTube this, but I am video challenged.  There is always another parody in my back pocket, so maybe the next time.

So with many apologies to Don McLean, below is the work product of my Twitterless time:

The Day that Twitter Died

A long, long time ago…
I can still remember
How that tweeting used to make me smile.
And I knew if I had my chance
That I could make those tweeple dance
And maybe they’d be happy for a while.

But August made me cry a river
With every Tweet I tried to deliver.
Bad news from the TweetDeck;
I couldn’t type one more peck.

I can’t remember if I cried
When I read about the twidowed site,
But something touched me deep inside
The day that Twitter died.

So bye-bye, Twittter access denied.
No more TweetChat no more TwitPics
The Twitterverse has now died
Them good ol geeks were mourning the API
Singin this’ll be the day that I die.
This’ll be the day that I die.

Did you write the Book of Tweets,
And do you have faith in the geek l33ts,
If the Twitterati tells you so?
Do you believe in Twitter polls,
Can Twitter save your mortal soul,
And can you teach me how to tweet real slow?

Well, I know that you’re addicted now
`cause I saw you tweetin all over town.
Your iPhone was a blaze.
Man, I love that touch interface.
I was a lonely twitter n00b punk
With a flip phone & my network sucked,
But I knew I was out of luck
The day that Twitter died.

I started singin,
Bye-bye Twittter access denied.
No more TweetChat no more TwitPics
The Twitterverse has now died
Them good ol geeks were mourning the API
Singin, this’ll be the day that I die.
This’ll be the day that I die.

Now for 3 hours we’ve been on our own
And dust grows thick on ev’ry smartphone
But that’s not how it used to be.
When Kawasaki tweeted for the restless mobs,
With a phone he borrowed from Steve Jobs
In a tweet that came from you and me.

Oh, and while Bill Gates was looking down,
Eric Schmidt stole his geeky crown.
Tweetchat was adjourned;
No tweet trend was returned.
And while Scoble read a book on quarks,
The tweeple gathered in the park,
And we texted dirges in the dark
The day that Twitter died.

We were singing,
Bye-bye, Twittter access denied.
No more TweetChat no more TwitPics
The Twitterverse has now died
Them good ol geeks were mourning the API
Singin, this’ll be the day that I die.
This’ll be the day that I die.

The chaos caused by hack attacks
The ‘Net was now most surely doomed
YouTube played a funeral tune.
We sent email and launched IM,
To bemoan the most certain end
Of every tweet we’d ever sent

While the hackers kept up their attacks
The world wide geeks were working fast
We tried to tweet once more
Oh but all we got was a 504.
cuz when we tried to give them our appeal
Those bastards still refused to yield.
Do you recall what was revealed
The day that Twitter died?

We started singing,
Bye-bye, Twittter access denied.
No more TweetChat no more TwitPics
The Twitterverse has now died
Them good ol geeks were mourning the API
Singin, this’ll be the day that I die.
This’ll be the day that I die.

Oh, and there we were all in one place,
A twitteration lost in interwebz space
With no time left to start again.
So come on: Ev be nimble, Biz be quick!
Ev and Biz sat on a javascript
Cuz scripting is a hacker’s only friend.

Oh, and as I watched them highjack ev’ry page
My tweets were steeped in a snarky rage.
No geek born in hell
Could break that hacker’s spell.
And as DDOS morphed into the night
Ruining Twitter’s website
I saw the Hacker laughing with delight
The day that Twitter died

He was singing,
Bye-bye, Twittter access denied.
No more TweetChat no more TwitPics
The Twitterverse has now died
Them good ol geeks were mourning the API
Singin, this’ll be the day that I die.
This’ll be the day that I die.

I met a geek who tweeted the blues
And I asked her for some happy news,
But she just surfed on down the road.
I went down to the Apple store
Where I’d learned of Twitter years before,
But the man there said that Twitter wouldn’t load.

And in the streets: the lolcats screamed,
The spambots cried, and the bloggers dreamed.
But not a word was spoken;
The Twit Apps all were broken.
And the geeks that I admire most:
Jobs and Schmidt and our Twitter Hosts
They caught the last train for the coast
The day that Twitter died.

And they were singing,
Bye-bye, Twittter access denied.
No more TweetChat no more TwitPics
The Twitterverse has now died
Them good ol geeks were mourning the API
Singin, this’ll be the day that I die.
This’ll be the day that I die..

They were singing,
Bye-bye, Twittter access denied.
No more TweetChat no more TwitPics
The Twitterverse has now died
Them good ol geeks were mourning the API
Singin, this’ll be the day that I die.

Note to original thought thieves: I have proof that I wrote this. Don’t make me send my cousins after you.  Or the law.  kthxbai.

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Twitter is an immeasurably valuable tool for networking that has become an incredible lifeline for me and for our business.  Or it was.

Today, Biz Stone in a Twitter Blog post, informed the Twitterverse of a “small settings change“.

We’ve updated the Notices section of Settings to better reflect how folks are using Twitter regarding replies. Based on usage patterns and feedback, we’ve learned most people want to see when someone they follow replies to another person they follow-it’s a good way to stay in the loop. However, receiving one-sided fragments via replies sent to folks you don’t follow in your timeline is undesirable. Today’s update removes this undesirable and confusing option.

Confused? That’s understandable and exactly why we made the update.

Let me try to be succinct and direct: WTF?

 
I can understand why some folks might be confused with the settings and do not want comments from folks they don’t follow to appear in their streams.  Make a change to the default setting to assist those folks.  Don’t handicap those who actually use Twitter to network and create organic, thriving communities of commonality like DCTH or UI/UX.

If this dys-functionality had been forced on me sooner, there are a lot of AWESOME people I never would have met.  Yes, that’s met as in face to face, in real life, outside the virutal world of Twitter.  I never would have experienced Jared Spool’s wicked humor or learned that Aussie’s called beer coozies stubby holders or that @cavallucci_hat is snarky.  I never would have gone on a photowalk in Olde Towne Portsmouth or spent a perfectly good Saturday geeking out with a bunch of brilliant UI/UX  minds, trying to drink in every bit of knowledge they could share.  There are friends I would not have if Biz and Ev decided to tell me sooner that the way I network is undesirable and confusing.

This is a huge failure and one that I hope is reversed.  This lastest change actually rips the soul from Twitter and leaves it on the floor to die.

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It’s called Social Networking

 
I know a lot of people don’t get it.  They don’t get the Web. They don’t get the blogosphere.  And most especially, they don’t get Twitter.  Numerous people in my so-called “real” life have been led to believe that I lost the last bit of sanity I possessed because I dared to espouse the virtues and wonders of Twitter.

I gave up trying to explain about the power of the Internet, how to connect with people online, how screen names and pixels become part of ”real” life to those who think I’m crazy for living such a “connected” life.  In all honesty, if it seems completely bizarre to you, there’s probably nothing I can say that will change your mind.  If you can’t fathom how people can become friends, intertwine their lives, fall in love, grow businesses, extend their social circles through their online activity, it is highly unlikely that I can alter your way of thinking.  You won’t think the crammed inboxes of my 15 email accounts, 20 domains, handful of blogs and participation in various social networks are cool things.  You’ll likely be concerned and you’ll probably ask me why I can’t disconnect and encourage me to spend more time “in the real world”.  Even in the rarified IT atmosphere in which I move during daylight hours my peers view me as one of “THOSE” people.  You know who “THOSE” people are, right?

Ah, right.  That would be me.  Make no mistake: I am proud to be one of “THOSE” people.

You’re going to do what?

 
John Cachero, a Hampton Roads-based photographer who shoots weddings, portraits and special events all over Virginia, is one of “THOSE” people too. Thankfully.  At some point in the past couple of months, John jumped into a conversation HG and I were having with Ty about doing a Tweet Up somewhere between here and his neck of the woods out at the beach.  John is a photographer, and a bit of a geeky one at that, so he fit right in with the often frenetic exchange of quips and quotes.

A few weeks back John mentioned something about a photowalk.  It sounded like a good idea because I have this awesome Canon 30D that I don’t use nearly enough.  He initially thought June, but then came back with a date in early May.  So some rather inert bit of commentary about a Tweet Up was turning into an invitation to come out to Portsmouth on May 3 to go on a photo walk.  Coolness.

HG and I were like little kids on Christmas Eve.  We really didn’t want anyone to know how completely geeked out we were about this.  It seemed a bit…um…desperate I guess.  We didn’t want anyone to know how completely dorky we were so we kept our excitement quiet.  We especially kept it quiet from those non-Web anti-Twitter people. They would have had us committed for driving 2 hours to meet up with people we didn’t “know”.

Let me just say – it was fabulous. John is an incredible host and everyone who attended was great! We walked around Olde Towne until the downpour came.  Then thanks to HG and Ty, we were able to stand on some random Olde Towner’s porch until there was a break in the rain.  We scrambled back to the Bier Garden to commence an early breaking of bread.

My point in all this is that Twitter is a SOCIAL network.  If you don’t use the social part of it, you’re missing out.  We have made some awesome new friends because we were willing to invest in a single afternoon beyond what we do online.

Although we had some non-Tweeps in our group, the list of tweeps in attendance is below. If I left someone out, please let me know. I will update the list and add you!

@johncachero
@sourapplemedia
@djweso
@dolceshan
@iamtiff
@ericfadden
@shuttergirl
@LlamaKid
@SaMi_Am
@FreakMike
@iso757
@ciophoto
@youngck
@kristy10
@g33kguy
@g33kgurrl

The shared gallery from the #HRVA Olde Towne Portsmouth Photo Walk is viewable on Flickr.

Tomorrow HG and I are on our way to DC to attend RedUX DC.  We will be meeting up with @sourapplemedia, @lwcavallucci and @chriscavallucci.

Social. Networking. You should try it.

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According to the media Twitter is the latest, hippest thing for individuals and businesses.  The flood of news items and the resulting buzz has resulted in a corporate rush to leverage the power of Twitter. Finding your favorite business on Twitter is no longer a surprise. 

This mad dash to attain high visibility on Twitter prompted me to delve into the ways companies are using Twitter.  While some seem to understand how to leverage Twitter, a review of corporate streams uncovered a sad trend:  Many inhabitants of the Exec Suites have missed what is truly useful and meaningful to their business and brand.

It is common for marketing departments to track what is being said about their company and products.  What is different about Twitter is the fluid nature of the medium.  The comments are broadcast into the Twitterverse and millions know about them as soon as they are said.  News travels much faster these days and the viral nature of Twitter can be difficult to reverse.  Make no mistake – bad buzz in the Twitterverse can do damage to individuals and businesses. 

Having a Twitter account for a business or corporation is about more than just being there.  It’s more than tracking what is being said about you, your brand, your products.  Having a corporate face on Twitter is only meaningful when you use that presence to enhance your brand.

Getting it right

Do your executives use Twitter?  Do they understand the power of the medium?  From my observations and experience Communispace CEO Diane Hessan, tweeting as CommunispaceCEO, gets it.

Most geeks I know use Firefox except when testing for cross-browser compatibility.  Recently I was frustrated with a browser-related issue that required me to switch to IE in order to participate in a community hosted on Communispace.  In geek circles we often gripe about IE  so I shared my frustration with my other geek friends via Twitter. 

On April 10 at 3:07 PM Eastern, I tweeted:

At 3:24 I saw this pop up in my Twitter stream:

Surely this had to be a joke.  No, it was not a joke. Diane Hessan is not only on Twitter, she uses Twitter to track what is being said about her brand.  I should also mention that unlike some other high profile executives, Diane Hessan tweets for herself.

Following the above two tweets Diane and I exchanged messages publicly and privately regarding my browser issue.  She gathered some high level details along with my email address and forwarded my information to her Help Desk.  I assumed this was the end of it; that I was being shoveled off into “Help Desk Hell”.  I was pleasantly surprised when I received a message a short time later from the Communispace Help Desk asking for additional information.

It was a holiday weekend, and as a result I didn’t get the opportunity to respond to the email.  On Monday morning I received a second email about my issue.  I have to admit that I was pleasantly surprised to receive the follow up email.  Most Help Desks have trouble responding in a timely manner to those who are persistent in contacting them.   I dropped the ball and didn’t respond to the initial inquiry email, yet I had one waiting for me on Monday morning as a follow up. 

In the end, the issue was known but not documented in a community FAQ.  I received information about the issue as well as some future enhancements that would eliminate the problem.  My suggestion for the addition of a browser FAQ was met with “funny you mentioned this” because it was being developed and was expected to roll out soon.

So what was right about this?  It was right from top to bottom, beginning to end.  The rather meaningless-to-most comment about Communispace was caught by Diane.  She was genuinely interested in my issue.  She engaged me as one of her customers, gathered information, and forwarded it to a very capable Help Desk team for resolution.  The Communispace Help Desk engaged me, collected additional information related to the issue, provided an explanation about why the incompatibility occurred and closed the issue to the customer’s (my) satisifaction.

How do you define Twitter success?

From my observations of and experiences with other businesses active on Twitter, Diane Hessan is the embodiment of Twitter success.  She TRACKS her brand.  She IDENTIFIES the buzz.  She ENGAGES her customers.  She FOLLOWS THROUGH with her promises to assist in a very GENUINE way.  No single one of these things makes her participation a success for the Communispace brand.  It is the combination of these things that enhances the brand and will contribute in very tangible ways to the success of the company. 

Communispace has a good foundation already which is obvious when I evaluate the various experiences I have had over the past few years.   If your business and your brand aren’t solid to begin with, you can’t expect Twitter to fix that or to somehow automagically make you into an industry superstar.   If, however, you wish to find ways to make your business and brand stronger, consider how Diane Hessan has approached her presence on Twitter as a viable model for Twitter success.

For more information about Diane Hessan’s Twitter experience I recommend her April 22, 2009 article in the Leadership section of Forbes: Yes, I’m A CEO Who Really Uses Twitter.

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• Using twitter in any niche – Social Media Simplified: Awesome video on how to use twitter.
• What Can Twitter Do for You? More than you might imagine
• Five Reasons You Shouldn’t Tweet Professionally

Every day I find more and more Twitter news and commentary, the most prevalent of which is the “proper” use of Twitter.  That’s right.  In case you haven’t already heard, there is evidently a right and a wrong way to use Twitter.  Of course, you can pose that question to 100 different people and get 150 different answers but don’t worry your pretty little head about that.

They may rescind my geek card for sharing this knowledge with you, but I stand unafraid and willing to do battle in the interest of truth and Twitter.  I am going to break with the group-brain mentality and deal you a little bit of reality – that’s a load of crap.  While I believe there are Twitter users who are without a doubt bandwidth thieves (i.e. spambots) there really isn’t a single “right way” of being a tweeting fool in the ever-expanding Twitterverse.  There are simply preferences and recommendations – which in no way equates to “the right way”.

Some folks seem to believe they own Twitter or at least own the single right way to tweet.  Eh, no.  They prefer certain types of communication, certain messages, certain folks with whom they wish to affiliate themselves.  More power to ya’ and rock on with your bad selves.  Just do me a favor and quit whining about how other people use Twitter.

Twitter is a frenetic stream of detached, collective consciousness.  If someone thinks it, they’re likely tweeting about it.  If you don’t want to hear about it don’t follow that person.  Ignore them.  But let them be.  Does it matter if no one but that person’s mother cares about what they have to say?  Nope.  But it evidently bugs some people enough that they have to write articles about the right way to participate on Twitter.

The only bit of advice I have can be summed up as the 3 B’s:

Be authentic. Be true to who you are. It’s fun to have alter personalities, but let you shine through. Don’t try to reinvent yourself.

Be genuine. Don’t fake empathy or outrage.  Be intellectually honest and don’t stir pots just because you can.

Be careful. Consider what you say before you click that button.  Once you say it you’ve lost the ability to take it back.

Simple, right? Happy tweeting!

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I don’t remember the exact reason why I created my account. I think I was bored that day and I really wanted to understand why people were so geeked out about Twitter. I have been a blogger off and on for a number of years as has HG. We had recently resurrected this blog and as of now, I am writing the bulk of the articles while HG does real work (LOL). I do expect more content from him soon (hint, hint) so beware that there will be an added measure of geekiness to be imparted soon.

So I created my g33kgurrl account. When I first logged in I sort of cocked my head and thought, “Yeah, okay. Whatever.” But then I started looking around a bit and found some people with similar interests. I started viewing streams related to my interests and thought, “Hmm…this could be interesting.” By the end of the first day, I was hooked.

That’s right. I said by the end of the first day I was hooked.

So why Twitter and why should you tweet? Let me start by saying that Twitter and tweeting is not for everyone. It’s not a content or subject matter issue. Twitter is about and for whatever and whomever feels inclined to put themselves out there. If it is something you think about or are interested in, it’s almost guaranteed you will find someone or many someones on Twitter who are discussing the same thing. It’s more a preference in terms of communication, communication styles, how much you value networking and how tethered you are to technology. Being an ADDer helps too, but that’s an entirely different blog entry.

Twitter is a conscious stream of vibrant conversation – vibrant to those who are engaged in or by subject matter that is being discussed. It reminds me a lot of nights of wine and endless conversation/debate in college when we were so wrapped up in saving the world or curing cancer or coming up with the next new thing to take the world by storm that we forgot about sleeping.

Another thing about Twitter – it is addicting. If you have a personality like mine – or HG’s – you are in need of constant mental stimulus. I need to be doing about 10 things at once to feel half way alive, so it really gets me geeked to have so many people to talk to and network with over the course of my day. I have also gained a tremendous number of resources and contacts who I feel are invaluable to me in a very short period of time. That network is the main reason Twitter works for me – because I am reaching more people in a very real way, learning and contributing to other geeks like me.

Decide what role Twitter will fill in your life – whether it is personal or professional – before you head into it. If you are really looking to network on a professional level, you may want to seriously consider setting up a separate account for the more personal tweeting. I don’t mean strip away all personal comments and keep it sterile and businesslike. You won’t catch anyone’s attention by acting like an accountant (unless you are an accountant and then, maybe…) You need to be who you are, but in the business/professional sphere some conduct will be likely to turn off would-be followers. Consider what you want to put out there, and stick to it.

Lastly – about followers and following – engage people on a personal level. Seek out and reach out to people who share your passions and do so in a genuine, authentic way. Don’t worry about the number of followers you have or how important your contribution is. Share, be real, and you will create a microcosm – your very own unique Twitterville in the ever-growing Twitterverse.

Share and Enjoy

Share and Enjoy