Reassuringly Expensive
I attended an “industry event” last week. In conversations over coffee I learnt that BT has a social media policy that is 32 pages in length, and written in pure legalese: “the party in the fist part” etc.
Whereas Zappos‘ social media policy is “be real and use your judgement”.
Guess which company is renown for great customer care, and which one isn’t.
The Social Network is the recent film from David Fincher about the founding of Facebook.
Tim Van Damme recommended the soundtrack on Twitter, and at $5 – yes $5 – it seemed a veritable bargain; quick preview confirmed that to be so.
It’s a dark suite of electronica, which having since seen the film doesn’t quite fit at times, but somehow that works for this film – possibly due to the quality of the music in its own right.
I particularly like the version of In The Hall Of The Mountain King which accompanies a tilt-shift view of Henley Regatta in the film.
Highly recommended – download now.
Having worked to bring Barclaycard into the world of social media I was gob-smacked when I saw this tweet from what appears to be NatWest’s offical Twitter account; although it isn’t a verified account I hasten to point out.
Amazing, even for NatWest.
How they choose to respond to this will be very telling. If they have a social media strategy does it include damage limitation plans? Only time will tell.
Well that didn’t last long. Just two days into my self imposed Twitter exile I instinctively tweeted upon news of the updated MacBook Pros; only to realise a few moments later that Twitter was off limits. In interweb parlance I am full of “FAIL”.
What I found in my few Twitter free days was that I didn’t miss it as much as expected. I didn’t have cravings or withdrawal symptoms despite going cold turkey. I found that I can take it or leave it and I’ve decided to take it.
Twitter has become a part of my day, a part of my way of doing things. It’s a source of news and review; a focussed, personalised mini RSS feed. If I have a question Twitter will often closely follow Google when I’m looking for an answer, and those answers have the added weight of peer review or authority.
So no more of this Twitter tooing and froing.
Now I just need to find a way of removing Gowalla and Foursquare tweets without un-following people.
I wrote a while ago about a friend taking a Twitter vacation, another leaving altogether and my resultant thoughts and feelings about Twitter. Now I have decided to do the same; as of today I’m starting a one week ‘leave of absence’ from Twitter.
Whilst this week is an experiment to see how I, a one time Twitter addict, get on; I don’t have any specific reasons for deciding to take a break and possibly turning my back on Twitter. It’s a combination of things that has led to a rising sense of “meh?”
I’ll report back in week about how it’s gone or is going.
I was interested to read that my friend Mike Rhode is taking a “Twitter Vacation” following closely, as it does, another friend’s Twitter exit.
Mike explains his need for a Twitter break:
I’ve sensed lately that I need to take a step back. I’ve caught myself constantly checking my Twitter mentions, working very hard to tweet something of value and scanning my live feed in Tweetie for something, anything interesting to read.
Mike goes on to say:
While that’s typical Twitter user behavior, I’ve felt this incessant attraction to scanning random tweets and replies at all times to be distracting my focus from more important things in my life right now.
I can identify with Mike’s feeling of compulsion to check Twitter often, perhaps too often, and for the desire for there to be something new and interesting to read. This reminds me of a talk about Technology and Psychology by Suw Charman-Anderson at FOWA two years ago. Suw described a series of common ‘symptoms’ connected with email which I think many of the audience could identify with; it transpired that there were the psychological symptoms of addiction.
Andrew’s reasons for leaving Twitter share a theme with Mike’s: that of ‘mental bandwidth’ and time. But Andrew also had issues with the content and perceived value of what he saw being Tweeted. In an email he explained:
For me, social media, and Twitter in particular, is becoming a billion banal internal monologues being broadcast to the world. I think there is a serious risk of us all becoming infantilised. We are not talking to others, just ourselves. With a few exceptions, there is no real “conversation” going on.
I was also not sure what I was contributing by talking about what I was “doing”. It started to feel childish and pointless.
I now see Twitter as a waste of valuable processing time in my already cluttered head . I’d rather spend time with real people – thinking, arguing, and just being with them and not worrying if I need more than 140 characters to make a point.
Interesting, and again there are some sentiments with which I can sympathise.
Why I find Mike and Andrew’s thoughts and actions so interesting is that I a phase of wondering about Twitter, and what it means for me. I’ve ditched all other social media sites and accounts. I took particular enjoyment in deleting my Facebook account; now that is a place devoid of conversation and full of banal, superficial rubbish. So that Just leaves Twitter.
I don’t have any problem with what people say on Twitter; if I don’t like it, don’t find it interesting or of value or if somebody tweets too much I’ll unfollow that person. I manage the signal to noise ratio with extreme prejudice.
I’ve just found that the Lists functionality on Twitter allows me to put people into lists without having to follow them. So I can keep my main Twitter feed clear of clutter, but still have easy, occassional access to people that are of interest. I’ve recently found a number of Formula 1 and motor sport journalists and teams that are highly interesting to a petrol head like me. I’ve been able to put them into a motor sport list so I can get my racing fix without having my main Twitter feed full of testing updates from Valencia for example. This facility is transforming how I use Twitter.
The compulsion to check Twitter and the associated time-suck is an issue I can completely identify with. I recently started a new job that is wonderfully busy, and now I really can’t afford the time during the day to check Twitter as much as I used to; my streamlined main Twitter feed and use of lists is going to help me quickly catch up at the beginning and end of the day.
I don’t see myself stopping using Twitter or even taking a break, but instead I’m controlling more carefully when and how I use it. Twitter should be a tool to use how you see fit: be it a news source, a place for conversation with friends, micro-publishing platform or a combination thereof and more.
Most of all I’ve been fortunate to meet and get to know some great people through Twitter. Some I’ve met in person, some our conversation has moved to email and IM, but for many it’s just a Twitterthang and I’d miss that too much to stop.