Independent Thinking » Tweets

Robin Hood: Men in Tights, OpenGov, and the Twitterverse

Daria Steigman — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 12:37:36 +0000

There’s a scene in Robin Hood: Men in Tights when the merry band of men is trapped in a banquet hall. Prince John has just called in reinforcements: a seemingly invincible army of clanking armored men. Robin Hood looks for a moment, and then shoots an arrow at one. They all fall like dominoes.

Yesterday the Library of Congress announced that it intends to archive all public tweets. Alan Silberberg tweeted that live digital information being archived at the Library of Congress “should make people see what a sea change we are living through.” Tom O’Keefe tweeted that the development is “great for psychology, technology, sociology, and history studies.”

They’re both right, of course. This is a watershed moment in the influence of digital media and an acknowledgement that each of us is a mover, shaker, and content creator. Like letters from civil war soldiers in an earlier era, tweets from Sudanese dissidents building support or tweets from people reacting to breaking news (think election night 2008, for example, or the responses last month to congressional passage of health reform legislation) can offer insights into both history and our psyche long after we’ve moved on to something new.

As the news broke, however, my first thought wasn’t to what this announcement means but to where it came from. Would this have happened now if there hadn’t been a concurrent push for open government and data transparency, or are Gov 2.0 and OpenGov initiatives the dominoes that set this curating push in motion?

Photo by Jo Jakeman (Flickr).

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Decoding the Twitterstream

Daria Steigman — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 18:41:29 +0000

Why is everyone’s first instinct to think that Twitter is silly and self-indulgent? Admit it, you probably felt that way once–or still do.

I’ve been pondering the Twitter start-up barrier the last few days as I pull thoughts together for a conversation I’m having on Thursday with University of Maryland PR students. And, since I’m on Twitter, I’ve been chatting with a few people on the topic.

I got a lot of clarity from this brief back-and-forth with Mary Deming Barber:

@dariasteigman Thanks for the rec. I am really enjoying the conversation on Twitter since I started connecting w good folks. #followfriday
[from @mdbarber] 12:24 PM Apr 17th from Nambu in reply to dariasteigman

@mdbarber I think that’s why it’s hard for newbies to get started. You have to figure out who to interact with, build up your community.
[from @dariasteigman] 12:27 PM Apr 17th from TweetDeck in reply to mdbarber

@dariasteigman I agree. People look at the public timeline which makes no sense. Our job now is to show them how to build the community.
[from @mdbarber] 12:33 PM Apr 17th from Nambu in reply to dariasteigman

Eureka! We all start by looking at someone else’s timeline, filled with strangers having conversations that are disengaged from us. Obviously, we can’t build a “demo” community every time we need to explain Twitter to someone — but we need to be aware of the disconnect and take steps to demonstrate why our timelines work for us.

That’s my challenge for Thursday, and for every time I talk to a student, client, prospect, or friend who gives me a blank look or rolls their eyes at the mention of a tweet.

Any ideas? What steps do you take to decode the Twitterstream?

On Twitter: Can You Have Too Many Followers?

Daria Steigman — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 22:23:56 +0000

First there was a debate about LIONS (LinkedIn Open Networkers) on LinkedIn, and now there’s dialogue about collecting followers on Twitter.

Guy Kawasaki generated a huge conversation with his post last week onÂ theÂ topic. His advice ranged from tweeting top social media folks (“all you want to do is appear like you have a relationship with them to enhance your credibility”) to repeating your tweets throughout the course of the day. Less controversial were Kawasaki’s tips on establishing yourself as a subject matter expert and using the right Twitter tools.

My issue with Kawasaki’s post is that its focus is largely on the vanity of collecting followers and not the quality of the conversation. And he’s by no means alone in voicing this perspective. I’ve seen a number of people tweet or retweet that they’re close to a milestone number, and will you please follow them too?

Why should I? Are you interesting?

If you have 5,000 or 25,000 followers, how many are you listening to — let alone engaging with?

I know some people with multiple followers who are superheros in their ability to engage their online communities. Or they’re providing so much useful information to their followers that it makes sense to follow their tweets even if it’s primarily a one-way communications channel. But they’re the exceptions.

I don’t know at what number you max out and start filtering tweets so you’re really only engaging those followers in your inner community. And while I can list a number of ways that having lots of followers can be of value, I just think we each need to make sure that value flows both ways.