The Mind of Mierow

Twitter Experiment, part 2

I think I finally have all of my thoughts on this little experiment put together. Hope you enjoy my ramblings.

The last time I used Twitter was Feb 24. I count out 48 days since then. In order to help myself, I removed any Twitter apps I had on my laptop, desktop, and cell phone. I also removed any shortcuts and links that I had saved. While this wasn’t foolproof, it did go a long way in helping me avoid Twitter. I also hadn’t thought out all the rules that I was going to follow, so I did find out about some tweets through friends and coworkers, but I didn’t log into Twitter (or a Twitter App). Overall, my personal goal was to not tweet or check my stream to see what others were doing.

Day 1 was by far the toughest. I was feeling that I was missing out on something. I felt like I needed to check Twitter. While I didn’t have twitches or anything like that, mentally I felt like I needed to do something with twitter. Having gone through a similar cycle when I’ve given up caffeine for awhile, I could tell right away that this was a sign of addiction for me. I hadn’t thought too much about how Twitter was really impacting my life. Looking back at it now, I see that I actually gave up some forms of personal communication for an electronic one.

It got much easier after that first day. Thankfully I didn’t get any headaches from this withdrawal unlike the times I’ve given up caffeine. After a few days it really slipped my mind. I was doing other things to keep myself busy. Downtime was spent reading through RSS feeds, or catching up with friends through e-mail and Facebook. I spent time reading books. Nothing on a Kindle, pdf, or any other electronic format – real books!

This time away from Twitter also gave me an opportunity to sit down and think about where Twitter has come from (for me in particular) and what might happen with it as it grows. One of the first things I realized was that I was probably following too many people. You can see that I’m following a whole 278 people. For some that is a huge number while others will say, ‘That’s it?’. This is something that I will have to go through and evaluate as I start getting back into Twitter. I know that there are some people who use Twitter as a numbers game. That’s great, it can be used that way, but then are you really listening to the harmony you like, or just all the noises of a large city? Take the sounds of New York City for example. If you stand on Park Ave you’ll hear a variety of sounds. If you concentrated you might actually be able to pick out a specific sound, but you’re not going to be able to concentrate hard enough to only hear that one sound. You’ll always start hearing other sounds until it becomes so common that you are no longer paying attention to it. It becomes background noise that you no longer listen to. What I’m trying to evaluate for my own use of Twitter is – what do I want to listen to that is actually going to benefit me personally & professionally?

Over the past 7 weeks I also have seen how many people have started using Twitter. It seems everyone from clothing companies, to news stations, to everyone in Hollywood has started to use it. Now that ‘everyone’ is using it, will it become the new form of IM? Has it reached a point of ‘jumping the shark’? Will it now inspire innovation in communication? Why did Twitter win and Jaiku/Pownce/etc fail? Could the wins and failures be compared to Betamax vs. VHS? or HD vs. Blue-ray? What about using Twitter to make real connections with others? How many people actually meet their tweeps? How are emotions conveyed across text? Is something like Seesmic the next version of this type of community that wants to not only follow the famous, but be heard around the world? Or will Seesmic fail because people are afraid of putting their real face out there? Will people remember their time on Twitter 30 years from now?

My thoughts ran through a number of questions. Many of them will probably never get answered, and that’s fine by me. I took this time to help myself get a focus on what I wanted to get out of Twitter.

I was reminded today that I will soon be able to use Twitter again. It isn’t because I was kicked off, or forbidden to use it, but rather that I decided to give up Twitter for Lent. While some people may see this as no big deal, others thought I was crazy for even trying. I even suspect a few people thought I wouldn’t make it.

Before Lent I had was using Twitter on a non-stop basis. I used it so much that my wife new what it was and was able to explain it to other people without having used it herself. I haven’t gone back and looked at the stats, but I think that I probably sent out a Twitter message (known as a tweet) 4-5 times a day on average. That doesn’t include the time that I spent reading up on what other people were tweeting.

I’ve written down a number of thoughts that I’ve had during this time. As I look at the list of questions and ideas, I know that I’ll have to write them all down, just so I can tweet them out and see what others think

The past couple of days I have been thinking a lot about things that could be done to help out the communities in which we live. I’m not even thinking of huge projects, but something that could be done on a smaller scale. I started thinking of things that an individual can do. Then I thought ‘what if these same things could be done by a small group’? My mind then jumped to what groups am I involved in that could participate.

Being the geek that I am I immediately thought of Social Media Breakfast (SMB). For the past 5-6 months I have given a few hours a month to meet with people from SMB and learn from them. My mind began to race with all the possibilities of what could be done. Image if this group of 60 or more people decided that they would do one of the following:

• donate blood/platelets/plasma
• spend time at a children’s hospital/homeless shelter/etc
• bring non-perishable food to the next meeting to be donated to a food shelf
• donate 1hr/month to educate their local school about technology/social media/etc

I’ve read about tweet-ups for all sorts of different reasons. Why not a tweet-up that helps others around us. I don’t believe that I can change the world, but that “we” can do things to help each other out. I am positive that this only touches the tip of the iceberg on ideas for ways that people can help their communities. I am also sure of the fact that not everyone is receptive to such an idea. I cannot simply walk into this group and say “let’s do this” and expect people to be on board.

I don’t know yet how or if such an idea can be used. As I said in starting this, it is simply something that has been on my mind. I’m sure I’ll continue to wrestle with the ideas, and look at other groups and ways to get involved. The great thing about social media is that I don’t have to shout for this message to be heard. My small chirp can be taken, used, changed by people that I don’t even know. That is the power of human connection through technology.

I recently began reading Wikinomics. I’m only about 1/3 of the way through, but it is an amazing read. Since I work at a university, and I have many family & friends that work in education, I have started to wonder about the possibilities for using some of the ideas in this book in education today. The book actually talks a little bit about this (at least in what I’ve read so far). While I was able to find items like this and this, I’m not exactly sure that my ideas of open source education would work at the college level. I guess I’m not even sure what all my ideas are yet.

I also think in order understand part of where the ideas come from, a great book to preface it with is The World is Flat. This helped me get a grasp on changes I had been seeing in the world, but not understanding the bigger picture. I can’t wait to see where all these ideas and conversations lead to.

I’m at a point in life where I’m tired. Physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally.

I’m not sure yet what this means for me, or how I can hold myself accountable to responding to all of this in a good and healthy way.

Here is what I do know. The strength, patience, peace and understanding that I will need comes from my heavenly father. He has guided, guarded and sustained me through each day, and I know that He will continue to do so.

When darkness seems to hide His face,
I rest on His unchanging grace.
In every high and stormy gale,
My anchor holds within the veil.

“My Hope Is Built”. Words: bio(“Ed­ward Mote”,”m/o/t/mote_e”)Ed­ward Mote, cir­ca 1834; first ap­peared in Mote’s Hymns of Praise, 1836.