Blog Post: A serendipitous place to hang out in the social network.

Twitter continues to be a phenomenon that receives mixed reviews from those trying to "get it."  David Letterman got some buzz when he and Kevin Spacey discussed using Twitter on Late Night.  In impeccable Letterman form, David called it a "waste of time."  A Time magazine article described Twitter more poetically, as a "serendipity engine."  And from another blog that I follow, I read the following:  "I get on Twitter. ... I decide that I am going to officially give up 'marketing' in favor of hanging out. Which is kind of what I was leaning towards anyway."

Like many "Tweeps," I once signed up for Twitter, didn't "get it," so I didn't do much with it for a while.  I began using Twitter again this year, inspired by a keynote speech in which New York Times tech columnist David Pogue (@pogue on Twitter) discussed the power of Twitter.  During his speech, he demonstrated how he could get an answer for a question within 10 seconds of his asking.  Mind you, it wasn’t a complicated answer; he asked how he could get rid of his hiccups.  But literally, within 10 seconds, he had several responses.  You can read about his Twitter experiment here. 

I thought: “I want to be able to do that with eLearning.”

Separately, I had also StumbledUpon a list of eLearning specialists who use Twitter. Thinking about who I wanted to have as my network of experts, I started following the first few pages of people on that list.  Not all of them, mind you. I did make a point to check their bios, and see what they posted on Twitter.  If their posts weren’t related to eLearning, or training design in general, I didn’t follow.  If they were, I began following.

Some of these people followed me in return for my following them.  Presumably, this is because they saw something interesting in what I tweet(Twitter-speak for a post on your Twitter feed).  In all probability, most of these people followed me just because I chose to follow them, an acknowledgement that perhaps there would be something mutually beneficial for the two of us to share information. 

The key to Twitter is relevance. 
     First, know who you are.  
     Second, know what’s important for you to know. 

We'll discuss this a bit more in the second of our Summer Social Series (facilitated next Monday for free to ASTD-OC members).  This will be a seminar that blends setting oneself up on Twitter, getting Tweeps, sending Tweets to those Tweeps, and discussing how to apply this social media resource to fit your needs. 

Perhaps the challenge in "getting" Twitter is that there’s no formulaic model that expresses the one thing Twitter is.  It’s not about being something;  it’s about what it can be.  And that’s what you make of it.

More information:

• Details on the Twitter seminar:  www.astdoc.org
• Yes, you can follow us @astdoc.
• Our Twitter co-facilitator, Mel, has a BusinessCasualBlog where he shares more insights on the matter.