Sunday, October 19, 2008

5 Days of Tweets and Still All A-Twitter

Five days into trying twitter and I'm even more smitten.

It abounds with possibilities for business, although an entire generation of sales and marketing folks may have to retire before twittering becomes standard operating procedure in that sector. But perhaps with smarties like Chris Brogan and his colleagues at CrossTech Media championing new media tools for business development, change will happen sooner rather than later. That's my hope.

Moving right along.

On Wednesday, I twittered with a group watching the presidential debate. Very handy to be a sociologist! I was able to read, analyze, and sort the flow into categories pretty quickly. Quickly? Understatement. This is a very fast medium. That experience got me thinking about how conference or meeting-based twittering would need to include training about how to get and stay focused.

What does this have to do with church and building community? I'll get to that in another post.

Here, I'll note that I installed TweetDeck to organize my tweeps into categories. Tweeps = people using twitter. I'm following 49 folks involved with new media, or church communications, or ministry. I also added to my list folks who self-identify as sociologists.

How many people are following me? By today: 20. Ruth, who started twittering within 12 hours of me, has 33 tweeps following her. "It's because I'm a gimp," she says. She thinks her disabilities rights knowledge and activism is generating a following for her micro-blogging. Her aide wants to see if it generates any hands-on assistance.