Return to Twitteration
Last week, I mentioned Twitter 101, an introduction to all things Twitter at Loyola. I now feel semi-hosed and apologize to anyone who got involved with this through me and shares that feeling. Really, I came away with the impression that the whole event was a ploy by Naked Pizza to get 150 people to try their pizza, and anything having to do with Twitter was secondary. It was only discussed for its marketing possibilities (for as long as I was there, but some who stayed say that remained the thrust), and one of the things that most needed to be addressed wasn’t. “Twitter expert” Tiffany Starnes spoke of how to Twitter, but no one I heard talked about how to read Twitter.
Those who are skeptical can’t see the forrest for the reports of what someone had for breakfast. I think of Twitter as a scanner or CD radio – a lot of information’s being put in the world through it, and if you try to follow it too closely, you’ll get lost in the details. I tend to monitor it, skimming – something easily done when the posts are 140 characters or less.
In this way, Twitter mirrors the Internet, where the interesting and valuable is surrounded by continent-sized clumps of trivia. It also, like much of the Internet, represents efforts to get conversations started by putting thoughts into the world and hoping for a reply. I won’t argue with anyone who considers this a lot of talking with little listening, but since listening is also a dying art, I wouldn’t hold the marginal coherence of the tweets crossing your screen against Twitter; what you’re reading is a few hundred people trying to start conversations at the same time.
Carl Wilson at Zoilus.com wrote of his preference for Facebook, and I find it more satisfying in ways. But because I know everybody who is following me on Facebook, it feels insular. We might not all share values and backgrounds, but I know what values and backgrounds I share with each of my Facebook friends. There are more people I don’t know following me on Twitter than people that I do know, making the experience closer to a reach out into worlds and communities I don’t know. That doesn’t automatically make the twitterers’ breakfast interesting, but there’s also the possibility that it might be.
I agree with you completely, Alex, and I also apologize to anyone who got roped into this thing through me.
The event was nicely summed up by the “Twitter expert” who stressed the importance of “listening,” asked everyone in the room to add her to their Twitter feeds — and then packed up her gear and left immediately after her presentation.
Last night I ran into someone from Loyola, who felt insulted by some anti-Loyola comments from a speaker after the university had volunteered the space and opened a hall for the day.
Comment by Kevin Allman — July 19, 2009 @ 2:29 pm
Alex, I absolutely agree that the beauty and value in social media is in listening. I hope that I left attendees with an idea of ways to manage this deluge of information and find insights and conversations, whether professionally or personally.
I felt horrible for leaving, but the event conflicted with a local tech grassroots effort called BarCamp. I am not affiliated with Naked, but when they asked for my help, I was eager to jump on board because it seemed like a great cause. I think that WDSU is being very proactive with their hurricane preparedness messaging and using social media to arm people with valuable information in the event of a crisis. I am very supportive of those efforts.
I have already had some great dialogue with attendees and my urge to Follow me was to engage anyone who wanted to get involved.
I am so sorry to hear that you had a bad experience and would love your feedback and input. I regularly teach people how to use social media tools and am always open to ways to improve.
PS The “expert” thing is totally hilarious. Crafting 140 characters shouldn’t qualify anyone as an expert. I am an enthusiast for sure, but hardly an expert.
Comment by Tiffany Starnes — July 20, 2009 @ 7:03 am
alex -
a ploy to get 150 people to try our pizza? r u kidding? we spent over $1,500 getting this event together and not counting the hours spent. it was an experiment. we direct mail out to 20,000 plus people a month – do u actually think 150 people in a room at loyola make a difference in our business? we did this to see if it would be interesting and a lot of folks enjoyed. we did because nobody else is doing anything remotely similar for the general public. is offbeat trying to do anything other than complaining about free events?
Comment by NP — July 20, 2009 @ 3:13 pm
As a cosponsor of the event, I was asked to have my company help promote Twitter 101, as well as prepare a presentation to be given that day, both of which I did. I brought my laptop and spent my Saturday afternoon to participate in what was billed as a community event.
At Loyola, it was clear that organizers had either forgotten or intentionally omitted our company’s contribution. Both the two “social media” experts on hand (co-organizers) spent a great deal of time talking about the importance of authenticity and listening in social media, but neither of them bothered even to introduce themselves. As Tiffany pointed out above, her talk about the “beauty and value” of listening was followed by a quick exit to another engagement after she had managed to project the Twitter handles of her clients on the overhead and urge the attendees to sign up for their business Twitters.
The two speakers who actually had valuable information to impart (and weren’t just promoting themselves and their clients) were the webmaster from WDSU-TV and a representative of the governor’s office. Both of them had about 5 minutes apiece in a 2-hour-plus program.
In the 48 hours since then, I’ve been pitched proposals and party invites by two of the organizers, who seem to have absolutely no idea how clueless and completely lacking in the most basic manners they have shown themselves to be.
I’d be very interested in pairing with Alex or whomever to present a public Twitter gathering that’s not a Potemkin event designed to market the companies of the organizers. My time was wasted, which is their fault; but I roped my company into lending its name to Twitter 101, and that’s my own fault. For any who came based on the publicity we provided, I sincerely apologize.
Comment by Kevin Allman — July 20, 2009 @ 5:17 pm
[...] Alex Rawls wrote an interesting post today onReturn to Twitteration | Louisiana Music DirectoryHere’s a quick excerpt [...]
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