Why I Use Twitter

Twitter is the most important and popular trend on the internet right now. It is such a simple service that many people are skeptical of its usefulness. On the other hand, millions of people worldwide are finding new uses for Twitter everyday. I was once a skeptic, but I have found a use for twitter and would like to share it with you.

In a nutshell, Twitter is a service for broadcasting a message of 140 characters or less. This message can include text, emoticons, links, and Twitter commands. If you use Facebook or LinkedIn, then you have already been introduced to this concept. Twitter is similar to a status update on other social network websites. You can use Twitter as an alternative status update; I use an application that automatically transfers my Twitter status to my Facebook profile.

If you just yawned, give me a second. That is not the end of twitter, that is the beginning. The fact is, few people in the Twitter world care what your status is. What they want from you is useful information in 140 characters or less. Do you have something to say? Do you have an agenda? We want to hear it. We have chosen to follow you, now preach away.

What would you say? If you believe in a certain ideal or brand, you can send out brief messages about your cause. You can send out links to news and blog articles that you think should be read. You can send links to pictures that support your cause. This is your shot to write headlines, reach out, and be heard globally. Better yet, your message is broadcast in real-time at the speed of light. People will be reading your message as soon as you are done typing it.

Going Viral Have you heard the term "going viral" as it relates to the internet? Think of it this way: You have just discovered a fascinating piece of information that you know is of interest to many people. There are many ways to transmit this information, and Twitter may become the media of choice in the near future. All you have to do is capsulize your message in 140 characters and hit enter. Everyone following you will instantly receive the message. Some of them will like the message so much that they will "retweet" the message to their followers. Some of those followers will "retweet". The "Six Degrees of Separation" applies here: if the message is interesting, it will spread like wildfire.

Search My next post will drill deeper into how I use Twitter, but I want to mention here that Twitter is an important tool to add to your research toolbox. Searching Twitter will add an important new dimension to your research: The dimension of real-time. If you need timely information, I doubt you can beat Twitter for finding video, blogs, and news articles since they are sent out over Twitter immediately after they're posted. Additionally, the culture of Twitter ensures that you will find obscure and unique resources that a search in Lexis-Nexis or ABI Inform/Global would never turn up, and would be buried too deep in Google.

Look for my next post, where I explain exactly how I use Twitter.

Web 2.0 and the President of the United States

Like him or hate him, you have to be at least mildly curious about the President posting on YouTube and other web 2.0 mediums. The idea that a message from the most powerful office on the planet could "go viral" and be seen by millions within minutes of recording, without the expense of live TV, is going to be huge. The President can post a video in forums that allow commenting, and generate discussion among billions of people about his video.

If you trust Obama, then you can be excited that he will be able to get his message out and counter any criticism far more effectively. If you do not trust Obama, then there may be something to fear. Someone who is good at manipulating the masses now has a method of doing so on a grander scale and perhaps more thoroughly.

The ultimate question: will this new method of communication allow a manipulator to dupe the masses, or will this lead to greater transparency and make it harder to "spin" the message? What would ahve happened if either of the Bushes used this medium, or Reagan, or Clinton? Consider how Iran/Contra, Monica Lewinsky, The Bay of Pigs/Cuban Missile Crisis, and the signing of the Declaration of Independence could have been managed with access to Web 2.0!

Looking forward to your thoughts!

Are you reaching, or just teaching?

Are you reaching your students, or just teaching them? That begs the question: can you teach your students without reaching them? I mean, if you are simply lecturing, assigning homework, and handing out letter grades without analyzing your methods and strategically reaching your students, do they actually learn?

You are a teacher, even if that is not in your job description. For instance, I am the most important teacher my kids have (along with my beautiful and intelligent wife.) Therefore, I need to be cognizant of that as a parent and try to reach my kids in ways that are relevant to them in order to achieve the educational objectives that are important to me. I can talk all day long and say many wise and valuable things, but if if my kids are not listening, then all I have done is made noise and wasted oxygen. I have to think about how I can reach them.

I am a teacher at work, as well. My customers are often my students when I try to sell them a new product/service or if I try to increase they satisfaction with something they already have. I also am a teacher to my coworkers and managers who look to me for information or process improvement. Am I effective? That all depends on my delivery. How can I improve my delivery? That is a question that I must consistently ask.

What got me thinking about all of this is a video that my professor shared in his class. It is geared toward traditional classroom teachers, but it is relevant and applicable to so many different roles, especially parents. It basically describes how students in school today have a completely different paradigm on how they view the world and gather information, and traditional methods are barely reaching (barely teaching) them. It them describes how we can improve our teaching methods to really reach, and teach, our students in profound ways through unorthodox methods. It is definitely worth the next few minutes of your life:

The link at the end is worth visiting to: http://t4.jordandistrict.org/t4/