Nu U Consulting
Training is for dogs. Learning is for life.
Too Chicken to Tweet
05/06/09 11:24
I love new technology and generally embrace it early on the uptake curve. I had the first personal computer on my dorm floor, an early cell phone that came in a black vinyl bag that the phone had to be attached to in order to work, and my iPod is one of those first-release jobs (the old one that only came in one color and doesn’t play video that I can’t bring myself to trade in for the shiny new red Nano I desperately covet).
But I have to admit, up to now, I had been too chicken to Tweet.
At first, it was a mindset thing. I thought of Twitter like I did Juicy Couture and low-rise jeans—these are really cute, and when I was 20 I would have loved them, but when father time pushes you across that 40-line, some stuff just isn’t for you anymore. It’s true to say, I had typed Twitter as the place where all of the bored kids were going once their parents and even grandparents started to take over too much virtual real estate on Facebook. I figured, let them have their space.
But Twitter usage is fast becoming mainstream and dragging a host of mature demographics along with it. A March 2009 MediaFile blog at reuters.com (http://blogs.reuters.com/mediafile/2009/03/30/twitter-older-than-it-looks/) reported that, “Twitter devotees are grayer than one might expect: The majority of Twitter’s roughly 10 million unique Web site visitors worldwide in February were 35 years old or older, according to comScore. In the U.S, 10 percent of Twitter users were between 55 and 64, nearly the same amount of users as those between 18 and 24, which accounted for 10.6 percent of the total.” Increasingly, too, despite a lot of opinions to the contrary, the service is being used aggressively by a variety of marketers. (For a really good article about how marketers can effectively use Twitter with good links to both examples and opposing POVs, check out this piece from Ann Handley)
Despite all this, something had stopped me. From the start, I’ve appreciated how critical Twitter could be to communications in certain situations—in emergencies, for life events, etc. But the thought of all of that every day text junk food that’s addictive but nutritionally suspect had me worried. While it’s possibly interesting and maybe a whole lot of fun to know that Oprah “woke up smiling,” I’m not sure in what context it’s actually useful.
Still, my business is all about learning. And you can’t judge anything properly until you give it a shot. So this week, I role modeled my best behaviors and exercised my free right to tweet. I opened an account and bravely logged my first post:
Latest: Attempting rapid mastery of twitter. Old dog, nu trick. less than 5 seconds ago
It was completely painless.
About 30 minutes into my Twitter odyssey, I had my first follower. Now 40 minutes later, I have one pressing question: Where are the rest of you?
Crystal Schaffer wants to keep up with you on Twitter.
To find out more about Twitter, visit the link here.
But I have to admit, up to now, I had been too chicken to Tweet.
At first, it was a mindset thing. I thought of Twitter like I did Juicy Couture and low-rise jeans—these are really cute, and when I was 20 I would have loved them, but when father time pushes you across that 40-line, some stuff just isn’t for you anymore. It’s true to say, I had typed Twitter as the place where all of the bored kids were going once their parents and even grandparents started to take over too much virtual real estate on Facebook. I figured, let them have their space.
But Twitter usage is fast becoming mainstream and dragging a host of mature demographics along with it. A March 2009 MediaFile blog at reuters.com (http://blogs.reuters.com/mediafile/2009/03/30/twitter-older-than-it-looks/) reported that, “Twitter devotees are grayer than one might expect: The majority of Twitter’s roughly 10 million unique Web site visitors worldwide in February were 35 years old or older, according to comScore. In the U.S, 10 percent of Twitter users were between 55 and 64, nearly the same amount of users as those between 18 and 24, which accounted for 10.6 percent of the total.” Increasingly, too, despite a lot of opinions to the contrary, the service is being used aggressively by a variety of marketers. (For a really good article about how marketers can effectively use Twitter with good links to both examples and opposing POVs, check out this piece from Ann Handley)
Despite all this, something had stopped me. From the start, I’ve appreciated how critical Twitter could be to communications in certain situations—in emergencies, for life events, etc. But the thought of all of that every day text junk food that’s addictive but nutritionally suspect had me worried. While it’s possibly interesting and maybe a whole lot of fun to know that Oprah “woke up smiling,” I’m not sure in what context it’s actually useful.
Still, my business is all about learning. And you can’t judge anything properly until you give it a shot. So this week, I role modeled my best behaviors and exercised my free right to tweet. I opened an account and bravely logged my first post:
Latest: Attempting rapid mastery of twitter. Old dog, nu trick. less than 5 seconds ago
It was completely painless.
About 30 minutes into my Twitter odyssey, I had my first follower. Now 40 minutes later, I have one pressing question: Where are the rest of you?
Crystal Schaffer wants to keep up with you on Twitter.
To find out more about Twitter, visit the link here.