One Facet of Twitter: Keeping Up with the Industry
Twitter has been a topic of conversation lately around the water cooler, for reason soon to be revealed. I think that it is interesting that the “I ate crispix for breakfast” meme is still around. I wanted to counter with just one of the many ways that I employ Twitter—professional development resource.
As someone who works in the web world, Twitter fits nicely in my tool kit. After all, it is folks like us that created the service that is currently winning the Webby People’s Voice battle for the entire internet. Twitter is a representation of what the web has become: real-time, democratic publishing platform and the finger on the pulse for the planet. I use Twitter in many ways, but one of my favorites is as an aggregator for the cutting edge in web design and development. Follow my workflow outline to see how I have put Twitter to work for me.
Step 1: Someone Knowledgeable Posts Something Interesting
At its core, Twitter is a publishing platform. The idea behind the service was as a mass text-messaging status update system. So yes, networking has always been integral to the service, but the network isn’t very valuable without the communication. Twitter allows an industry leader, like Smashing Magazine, to publicize their own content (new articles), share cool things they stumble across, and take the temperature of the industry via polling. There is no lack of publishing platforms out there, but Twitter allows shorter bursts of conversations or valuable content to be pushed to the entire Twitter universe (75 million users, as of January.)
Step 2: The Network Feeds Me the Content
As a life-long nerd, face-to-face communications have never been a strong suit. However, I don’t find myself any better adapted to networking with lost chums via Facebook. However, the ability to locate and follow interesting thought leaders appeals to me greatly. Twitter’s built-in search, suggestion tools and @replying has opened a new world for me by introducing me to brilliant minds in our field with very little effort on my part. In fact, @replies and retweets quickly expand my own network by shedding light on the networks of the influencers. If some random chap I have never heard of can enlighten @smashingmag, then perhaps I should at check out their feed. At the moment just finding interesting publishers who can enlighten me and push me in my career is as much networking as I need. Perhaps one day I will be a Twitter influencer, but that is the subject of another post.
Step 3: Twitter Acts as Niche Content Lens
Recently, Twitter unveiled the Lists function, which allows you to group other twitter accounts anyway you would like. I have setup different buckets for my social contacts, science news (NERD!) and industry leaders. Given five minutes between meetings or during my commute, I might scan my work resources list to see any 140-character chunks jump out at me. Of course, this one lists gets on the order of 100 tweets a on a Monday; an average Friday is probably closer to 300. This volume is impossible to keep up with, but psychologically I have been able to let go of this. I think the ethereal nature of Twitter allows this while my brain nearly explodes every time I open my RSS reader.
This concentrated list of content that only pertains to my interest in professional development allows me to quickly stay on top of the state of the art, while allowing me to continue to use Twitter in a more traditional fashion as well.
Step 4: I Bookmark the Shiny, Process and Save
So if I only allow myself 30 minutes or so a day to scan Twitter, how can it represent a valuable resource? Luckily another new Twitter feature has swooped in to save me. The Favorite feature, nearly identical to Gmail’s star system, allows me to take the naturally ethereal content of Twitter and save it for later review. Commonly I will scan my work resource list on the morning commute and in tiny breaks throughout the day. Given bigger windows of time, the afternoon commute and my last logon of the day, I review my favorite tweets from the day to see if the language that caught my eye has any real value to me. If the body or link contained do in fact seem valuable, I will keep the favorite label applied. If the tweet linked elsewhere to an in-depth article that can’t be fully processed during the review period, I capture the link using a ‘Read and Review’ list in my Google Tasks system. I review this list periodically during dedicated times of research. If the tweet or link contained have no value, I will remove the favorite label to remove the noise from my favorite list signal.
The Favorite feature allows me to hold on to interesting tidbits even if I can’t process them immediately and keep a running list of the information that has the most value for me.
Step 5: I Share with the World
If a particular tweet has lots of value, I will often retweet it in order to spread the word or thank the source. This is most likely when a tweet offers breakthrough information that relates to a project that I am currently working on.
Hypothetical Step 6: Harness the API
I am not yet taking advantage of the Twitter API, but I certainly could harness this tool to do really interesting and novel things with my work and favorite lists. For example, I could create widgets for my own sites that share the valuable content that I have stumbled across. Or, I could create custom applications that were focused on making the above outlined process more efficient. Additionally, as the MIT Technological Review noted, researchers are exploring ways to capture, filter and analyze the “torrent of information”.
Not Just for Justin Beibers Any More
To be honest with you, I still don’t know what a Justin Beiber is, so I must not be a l33t tw33ter yet, but I have found Twitter to be valuable resource for me as I grow in my job. Sure I post original content too, but right now it is the resource nature of Twitter that I am getting the most return on.
