As I've mentioned before, I've been using Twitter for probably about a year now. I first started largely out of a compulsion to satiate the curiosity that comes with the desire to be innovative coupled with the peer pressure of working with people who are more forward thinking than I. I would be lying if I said that I didnt think it was stupid at first, but over time the "what are you doing" battle cry took hold of me, resulting in the closet twitter addict that I am today.
Twitter, like all social networking tools, comes down to awareness. An awareness of what people are doing - sometimes people we've never even met. Its a conversation starter. A glimpse into that which you would not otherwise see. It connects people - but in a highly informal, ultra-twitch manor, filled with moderately asynchronous broken conversations and half thoughts. Its brevity is one of its strengths, but also, in some ways, a ceiling. After all, how much can you really say in 140 characters? How much depth can there really be to "conversations" that can only span 2 sentences at a time? Or so I thought...
A few hours ago a conversation began on Twitter between a few members of the Penn State twitter community. The conversation was simple enough - some playful banter about the promotional sticker books that will play a part in this year's TLT Symposium. There was nothing particularly unusual or memorable about it. Just an exchange among colleagues - the kind of thing that, as a part of Twitter, happens all the time and will almost always trail off into obscurity in due time.
But this particular conversation didnt trail off. The discussion of stickers eventually bled into Symposium Blogging shirts. The Blogging shirts soon become requests for more types of shirts. Shirts became coasters. Coasters became beer steins. Before anyone was the wiser this simple discussion of stickers had turned into 4 pages worth of a unified twittersteam - all of it accompanied by the impromptu live development of an entire catalogue of TLT Symposium gear.
Somewhere... somehow... the conversation had ceased to be a 140 declaration of what this group of no more than 10 people were doing. It had become an online community event - begotten of a few simple questions, a mutual interest, and the willingness of one man to turn a few stickers into a line of merchandise for nerds. It wasnt about anything game changing. It wasnt particularly deep or meaningful in and of itself. But it was an event, happening live for no other reason than it could be. An experience between people that I have a strong suspicious had, like me, stopped casually observing twitter and committed themselves to being a part of it all unfold. Thats powerful.
I've seen or heard of twitter being used to do a lot of things. But never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine that it could serve the purpose it served tonight. For a few hours, Twitter stopped asking "what are you doing", and became a place where we were sharing an experience. Not listening to a colleague note the happenings or a conference, or a friend giving their impressions of a ballgame. Not people sharing drinks at a bar or talking in a meeting room, but rather an experience that played out in the living rooms, offices, kitchens, and cars of all the people involved. All together and yet no where near eachother sharing in this totally unremarkable happening, together. And all in 140 characters or less.
I've long since been a firm believer in the power and potential of the online community. But for me, there was something special about watching last night unfold. Something unexpected - one of those rare times when the techo junky who never says never sits back and smiles and says "I'll be damned" as he soaks it all in.
I'm not sure what the rest of the people who took part in tonight's Twitter event thought about it. Maybe the sense of awe I'm feeling shows that I never really got what Twitter was all about in the first place. But regardless it was an revelation that opened the mind of someone who thought himself open minded. A reaffirmation of the power of the online community and a rethinking of what it takes to build one. And perhaps above all, a reminder that I am privileged to do what I do with the people I do it with - even the ones I've never met.
Who knows if this post makes any sense. But it was too mind blowing not to write. Thanks to everyone who was a part of experience.
Twitter, like all social networking tools, comes down to awareness. An awareness of what people are doing - sometimes people we've never even met. Its a conversation starter. A glimpse into that which you would not otherwise see. It connects people - but in a highly informal, ultra-twitch manor, filled with moderately asynchronous broken conversations and half thoughts. Its brevity is one of its strengths, but also, in some ways, a ceiling. After all, how much can you really say in 140 characters? How much depth can there really be to "conversations" that can only span 2 sentences at a time? Or so I thought...
A few hours ago a conversation began on Twitter between a few members of the Penn State twitter community. The conversation was simple enough - some playful banter about the promotional sticker books that will play a part in this year's TLT Symposium. There was nothing particularly unusual or memorable about it. Just an exchange among colleagues - the kind of thing that, as a part of Twitter, happens all the time and will almost always trail off into obscurity in due time.
But this particular conversation didnt trail off. The discussion of stickers eventually bled into Symposium Blogging shirts. The Blogging shirts soon become requests for more types of shirts. Shirts became coasters. Coasters became beer steins. Before anyone was the wiser this simple discussion of stickers had turned into 4 pages worth of a unified twittersteam - all of it accompanied by the impromptu live development of an entire catalogue of TLT Symposium gear.
Somewhere... somehow... the conversation had ceased to be a 140 declaration of what this group of no more than 10 people were doing. It had become an online community event - begotten of a few simple questions, a mutual interest, and the willingness of one man to turn a few stickers into a line of merchandise for nerds. It wasnt about anything game changing. It wasnt particularly deep or meaningful in and of itself. But it was an event, happening live for no other reason than it could be. An experience between people that I have a strong suspicious had, like me, stopped casually observing twitter and committed themselves to being a part of it all unfold. Thats powerful.
I've seen or heard of twitter being used to do a lot of things. But never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine that it could serve the purpose it served tonight. For a few hours, Twitter stopped asking "what are you doing", and became a place where we were sharing an experience. Not listening to a colleague note the happenings or a conference, or a friend giving their impressions of a ballgame. Not people sharing drinks at a bar or talking in a meeting room, but rather an experience that played out in the living rooms, offices, kitchens, and cars of all the people involved. All together and yet no where near eachother sharing in this totally unremarkable happening, together. And all in 140 characters or less.
I've long since been a firm believer in the power and potential of the online community. But for me, there was something special about watching last night unfold. Something unexpected - one of those rare times when the techo junky who never says never sits back and smiles and says "I'll be damned" as he soaks it all in.
I'm not sure what the rest of the people who took part in tonight's Twitter event thought about it. Maybe the sense of awe I'm feeling shows that I never really got what Twitter was all about in the first place. But regardless it was an revelation that opened the mind of someone who thought himself open minded. A reaffirmation of the power of the online community and a rethinking of what it takes to build one. And perhaps above all, a reminder that I am privileged to do what I do with the people I do it with - even the ones I've never met.
Who knows if this post makes any sense. But it was too mind blowing not to write. Thanks to everyone who was a part of experience.
I'm micala on twitter, and I LOVE this post :)
I was part of this whole conversation and it's exactly and precisely what I love about online communities.
It's people coming together to be more than the sum of their parts. It's a powerful, awesome experience.