Three weeks of tweets for a Domino guy
Category Twitter
So after following a "what's the point" thread for a week in a forum of management consultants, I thought I would share initial impressions and a couple interesting stories from my time on Twitter - all of 3 weeks. I signed up long ago (to lock in the @lotusrockstar name) and then dived in this month as an experiment - which will probably morph over time. By no means will I become a social networking guru - I'll leave that to Chris.
First - I belong to a few "communities" in my life. One is the IBM Lotus community in the software world, one is a group of "mentorees" of consulting guru Alan Weiss, and then there are a few subsets, niches, etc.
I started using Twitter in earnest when I finished a particularly intense customer engagement that had me distracted for 7 months. Distracted as in, over half my time was dedicated. I'm not usually the point person on delivery - at least I haven't been since I was solo - so that's what I'll call intense. I decided to give myself a couple months of self-improvement by coming to the Mentor Summit, making educational business trips to Boston and Atlanta, and going to the Million Dollar Consulting College in April. But I digress.
On Twitter, I spent 4 hours per day for 5 days in "immersion" training, figuring out the best ways I could use it to enhance my business while also learning etiquette, and the social and personal relationship aspects. I chose to follow some folks in each of my communities. I picked an appealing look for a background (yes I took that photo myself!). I found an easy-to-use "client" for Twitter - TweetDeck - to make using it easier. Then I started the tweets.
I would classify my tweets (about 125 to date) as 25% personal "What are you doing..." in a literal sense. Talking about work or Vegas in general - giving a rotten review to La Provencal in the Paris Hotel - stuff like that. 75% have been focused on one business initiative or another. I have done the following:
1. Connected with several "new" people working with the technology areas in which I'm focused
2. Kept my finger on the pulse of my industry with standing search queries on some important (to me) keywords
3. Announced our annual conference dates & locations, pushing more people to the website
4. Pushed people to a particularly important blog entry I labored over, producing good feedback
5. Raised $1,800 for a charity in 3 hours with 7 minutes' notice
6. Gave kudos to a few people who really care if they publicly get it from me
7. Gave one-sentence advice at least five times, and pushed a few people to some of my company's offerings
8. Registered a second Twitter account in the name of the conference (@CollabU), to provide real time updates to interested parties
I've dropped down to 15-30 minutes a day or so of real usage, mostly thanks to TweetDeck which lays everything out nicely (a second monitor helps with this when I'm at the office).
I've heard the arguments from a lot of people "why do I care if John is getting on a plane, Suzy is going to bed now" etc. Understood completely - and if you don't care about that, you mentally filter that out. I'm sure not too many people cared that last Tuesday at 3:23 PM, I was thrilled that Southwest Airlines was giving away free beer for St Pat's day. Well, maybe Bill.
Just something to consider if you're squarely in the "why would I care" camp...Twitter and other social media are like going to a cocktail party, like one I went to Thursday at the Mentor Summit in Vegas. I expect to talk to lots of people, care about what some of them have to say, filter a lot of personal stuff that doesn't affect me while looking interested (how rude!), and come away - if not inebriated - with a few nuggets of great information, some great new contacts, and an idea or two out of the social interaction we have in a group that size. This dynamic - and EVERY networking event you've ever attended - is very similar to consistent use of social media in a targeted fashion.
Assuming you accept the premise that the cocktail party is like using Twitter...would you skip the cocktail party with your colleagues and new people you don't know, because some of what you might hear is irrelevant to you? Aren't the pieces of good information, "intel", and new contacts worth the filtering you have to do? I personally believe it is, so will choose to close this blog entry and go tweet about it.
P.S. #5 is the one I'm most proud of.
@ Copyright 2009 Rob Novak
So after following a "what's the point" thread for a week in a forum of management consultants, I thought I would share initial impressions and a couple interesting stories from my time on Twitter - all of 3 weeks. I signed up long ago (to lock in the @lotusrockstar name) and then dived in this month as an experiment - which will probably morph over time. By no means will I become a social networking guru - I'll leave that to Chris.
First - I belong to a few "communities" in my life. One is the IBM Lotus community in the software world, one is a group of "mentorees" of consulting guru Alan Weiss, and then there are a few subsets, niches, etc.
I started using Twitter in earnest when I finished a particularly intense customer engagement that had me distracted for 7 months. Distracted as in, over half my time was dedicated. I'm not usually the point person on delivery - at least I haven't been since I was solo - so that's what I'll call intense. I decided to give myself a couple months of self-improvement by coming to the Mentor Summit, making educational business trips to Boston and Atlanta, and going to the Million Dollar Consulting College in April. But I digress.
On Twitter, I spent 4 hours per day for 5 days in "immersion" training, figuring out the best ways I could use it to enhance my business while also learning etiquette, and the social and personal relationship aspects. I chose to follow some folks in each of my communities. I picked an appealing look for a background (yes I took that photo myself!). I found an easy-to-use "client" for Twitter - TweetDeck - to make using it easier. Then I started the tweets.
I would classify my tweets (about 125 to date) as 25% personal "What are you doing..." in a literal sense. Talking about work or Vegas in general - giving a rotten review to La Provencal in the Paris Hotel - stuff like that. 75% have been focused on one business initiative or another. I have done the following:
1. Connected with several "new" people working with the technology areas in which I'm focused
2. Kept my finger on the pulse of my industry with standing search queries on some important (to me) keywords
3. Announced our annual conference dates & locations, pushing more people to the website
4. Pushed people to a particularly important blog entry I labored over, producing good feedback
5. Raised $1,800 for a charity in 3 hours with 7 minutes' notice
6. Gave kudos to a few people who really care if they publicly get it from me
7. Gave one-sentence advice at least five times, and pushed a few people to some of my company's offerings
8. Registered a second Twitter account in the name of the conference (@CollabU), to provide real time updates to interested parties
I've dropped down to 15-30 minutes a day or so of real usage, mostly thanks to TweetDeck which lays everything out nicely (a second monitor helps with this when I'm at the office).
I've heard the arguments from a lot of people "why do I care if John is getting on a plane, Suzy is going to bed now" etc. Understood completely - and if you don't care about that, you mentally filter that out. I'm sure not too many people cared that last Tuesday at 3:23 PM, I was thrilled that Southwest Airlines was giving away free beer for St Pat's day. Well, maybe Bill.
Just something to consider if you're squarely in the "why would I care" camp...Twitter and other social media are like going to a cocktail party, like one I went to Thursday at the Mentor Summit in Vegas. I expect to talk to lots of people, care about what some of them have to say, filter a lot of personal stuff that doesn't affect me while looking interested (how rude!), and come away - if not inebriated - with a few nuggets of great information, some great new contacts, and an idea or two out of the social interaction we have in a group that size. This dynamic - and EVERY networking event you've ever attended - is very similar to consistent use of social media in a targeted fashion.
Assuming you accept the premise that the cocktail party is like using Twitter...would you skip the cocktail party with your colleagues and new people you don't know, because some of what you might hear is irrelevant to you? Aren't the pieces of good information, "intel", and new contacts worth the filtering you have to do? I personally believe it is, so will choose to close this blog entry and go tweet about it.
P.S. #5 is the one I'm most proud of.
@ Copyright 2009 Rob Novak
