afordrunning

Fellow Twitterers, Facebookers, Tumblrs, Flickerers, and Posterousies – Social Media is not the forum for you to clear your mental cobwebs or deep-seeded issues. Of course, the occasional “my plane is 16 hours late”, or “another one of my socks just caught on fire…AGAIN!” rants are completely acceptable. But, in general I think we should share some info/laughs/opinions but please, please cease and desist with the vomitous therapy posts.

Here’s how to tell if you are a candidate for Psycho of Web 2.0. Stand back and look at your stream of output – do you see a thread? Does that thread sound like a person ready to jump off a tall building, or take a long nap in a running car with the garage door closed? It’s time to start talking to someone else – or at least keep it to yourself.

If you’re on Twitter you’ve probably seen the commonly used hashtags (#) written into tweets, and maybe wondered what they were. Hashtags are like Tags for Twitter. It’s a common way to identify your information across a broader community. 

One of the most common hashtags is #followfriday – appropriately called out on Friday as a recommendation for some user another person thinks worthy to follow. In that vein I am suggesting a whole week’s worth of Hashtags, or a way to make people laugh and alienate your followers.

#MoodyMonday  - for those Tweeple who like to bring everyone down with their 140 characters.

#TorrentialTuesday – for those prolific people who tweet more than they breathe. 

#WeaklingWednesday - so you can call out people who do NOT bring it.

#ThankfulThursday – for those Tweeple who spend most of their words kicking positive quotes.

#FreakFriday – for those people whose tweets make you feel like you’ve stepped into a tell-all confessional booth.

The State Department wants their employees to blog now. NOW? That’s so slow it’s almost pre-trend. But, their rules are many and anxiety is high that someone will say something that starts WW3. This is not a statement on the government in that most every company I know has similar tendencies in controlling the message about themselves and their people. News Flash, nobody cares about you like YOU DO.  

This isn’t a diss on social media and it’s exploration either. But a governor to the expectations that we have through the medium. Business in this environment is not the same as hanging a website that’s been copy-written, proofed, and analyzed prior to execution.

Yet we still want to control what the conversation like we have in all other aspects. Our contemporary business leaders are asking for ROI, buzz, and quantifiable metrics all rolled up into the cool new tools. Seriously? Nobody knows what this will end up like once it gels, but what I do know is that jumping in with a “business gloss” mentality means the original purpose of having a “conversation” shifts the terms of the engagement from real to pseudo. 

Are your employees going to say something you don’t like, most likely. Will they make new connections, gain a better understanding of their business environment, and learn to communicate with the marketplace more effectively? If done right and you let them. So if you want to keep the terms of conversation safe, controlled, and measured then send a fax. If you want to truly let your people discover their voices, bring in other perspectives, and maybe – just maybe enjoy two way communication then just let go.

Controlling conversation is like mandating religion…they both lead to revolution. So the question is which side of the gallows would you like to be on?

aford on twitter's bird

Thanks to Twitter and good co-workers my new blog is 12 days old and just hit 1200 hits.

I am passionate for people to get on Twitter and create their own set of followers and followed tweeters. (FOLLOW aford ON TWITTER HERE) Twitter is a micro-blogging platform that allows only 140 characters for messages given and messages received. Twitter asks the question, “What are you doing?” when you finally create a profile. That question is a bit misleading once you really figure out what you want out of Twitter. Because you might want to know what someone else is doing? You might want to know where the best place to find a deal online might be? Or, where the  next meeting is at? You pick it, Twitter is the info-philes source of choice for cutting edge, early adopters. All I can say is act now, before your grandma gets in and kills the flow. 

I have also found that one of the best ways for those of you who spend a good portion of your day away from your desk  to keep connected via Twitter is through your mobile device. Now I know that Blackberry has an application called Twitterberry – but since I use the iPhone I will talk about the apps that I have found “ridonkulous” and the one I have finally settled upon. 

1. Tweetie – My personal favorite because it gives you a clean looking interface, great functionality, and has yet to fail me on a single post…well, maybe one post. Still – this is the new go to guy for me through the phone.

2. Twitterriffic – This one has all the bells, buttons, and whistles with a desktop client to boot. I didn’t like the lack of ability to reply in direct message to users without using the dreaded and oft failed ‘D’ functionality.

3. Twitterlator – Didn’t like the way this one segmented out my twitter feed. Ugly and lacks some functions. 

4. Twitterfon – Failed often and seemed to crash on some critical message moments. Also doesn’t sync with your actual Twitter account. Shows messages as active after you have already read them.

5. Twittervision – The best thing about this application is the world view it gives as tweets come in from around the globe. The worst thing is you can’t just see you feeds easily. So you get two Japanese tweets, then a dude from France and finally some “Nancy” from Delaware. It’s randomness is cool when you start up, but after you have an established following list you really want to hear what those people have to say. I will say the desktop page is neat.

What is Your Digital Footprint?

And the next piece is my Flickr (actually Twitter – thanks James)friends imprinted on a coffee mug – of course.