I can only imagine how Euan Semple felt at the end of our
live tweeting session yesterday. As Silagh put it, it was complete chaos but
somehow it turned out to be a great experience. Our class was able to have a
fully engaged conservation with Euan, the author of “Organizations Don’t Tweet, People Do” who was physically over
3,000 miles away in London. Looking back in retrospect, it was amazing of what
Twitter was enabling us to do at that moment. Our class of about 25 students
was throwing questions left and right at the author and receiving almost
instantaneous responses in return. Since each student was operating under his
or her own Twitter handle, we were able to demonstrate the individual power
that each of us so-called own dispute using the common hashtag #ENT195 to share
and form a community within our class. Overall I would consider our
live-tweeting session with Euan Semple a success from my perspective.
After reading the first twenty chapters of Semple’s
“Organizations Don’t Tweet, People Do” a few chapters really stuck out to me. I
found Chapter 13 titled “Ooh, That’s Interesting” particularly fascinating
because I felt a connection to what he was discussing regarding blogging and
being much more perceptive and thoughtful about what is happening to you and
around you. This phenomenon he explains helps us filter out the sea of
information around us and adds layers of context to the meaning of information.
For me personally I’ve realized to blog for the sake of blogging when I have
absolutely nothing to say is not only a waste of my time but also a waste of my
reader’s valuable time. Instead I should be blogging when I am very passionate
or interested in a topic and feel as though I have something valuable to say so
that not only will my readers enjoy reading my posts but that they will return
back consistently in the future to check up on my blog.
In this same chapter, Semple expresses “Who follows you back
is also important in this world of networks. Who follows you matters more than
how many.” That made me feel
better about my Twitter and Blogger accounts being particularly new to both
tools and in the process of trying to acquire more followers. At the same time I recognized that
I need to “add more signal than noise” to add value to my accounts in order to
encourage the “right” people to follow me... It's a work in process. During our live-tweet session with
Euan, I asked him who he thought were some of the most influential individuals
who followed him. I was a little disappointed in his vague response of “wouldn’t
want to name drop- but a surprisingly high number of smart folks”. Obviously he must have been referring to the highly intelligent students in #ENT195 ;)
There's a relatively easy way to find out who @Euan follows - just look at his Twitter profile, and poke around a few of their sites. It may take a little time, but you'll see who he engages with certain topics. Of course, he meant #ENT195, too.
ReplyDeleteI, too, was amazed at his ability to find order in the chaos. Try live tweeting. It's a hoot!