@commammo is my Twitter handle, and in just a couple of weeks, it’s already seizing me and throwing me to the ground.
Bloody addictive, that! The interesting thing to me is that the discipline of 140 characters seems to result in cogent, pithy headlines, often linking to other valuable material. The instantaneous nature of the updates and the ability to “hashtag” common content allows me to follow threads of conversation surrounding, for example, conferences.
This week, there was a social media conference in D.C., IABC’s 2009 international conference and the AMEC/Institute for PR European Summit on Measurement in Berlin. I followed two of them on Twitter — #smas09 and #bms09. I felt like I had a colleague on site distilling the most salient and important points for me. Pretty interesting stuff!
It’s a very different experience, particularly because instead of one colleague I had several (@RichardBagnall, @KDPaine, @Johnab) — each of whom brought their own perspectives and opinions into the fray.
Twitter is a bit of a “time suck,” as the desire to “see what’s happening” leads to a fair amount of woolgathering. But I’m certain that this is valuable. At least, I hope it is — otherwise, I’m wasting productive time!
Tags: communication, following conference, Twitter