Thanks to those lovely people who have got back to me so far. I have received tweets from @Heather_Waring and @VandyMassey, a blog comment from @jackiecameron1, responses on their own blogs from @sizemore and @karynromeis and this video mssage from @virtualleader. It’s a nice start, but I contacted 60+ people through twitter and I’m aiming for a higher response rate. I’m not surprised though, as I’m aware that I don’t do enough of the ‘twit-chat’ that @documentally told me is so essential to building a meaningful network through Twitter. I only swap small-talk with a minority of the people that I follow, so it’s natural that the majority of my connections don’t rush to respond when they receive a direct message from out of the blue.
Perhaps a direct appeal will help garner some more responses?
This is the second video I’ve made of myself talking and once again the ‘title screen’ has captured me gurning horrifically. I’m sure there’s more to come.
The people I enjoy following on Twitter are the folk who are the best at answering the question that lies at the very heart of the tool itself…
What are you doing?
People like Tom Barrett, Karen Romeis and Jackie Cameron tell me what they’re up, the ideas they are having and the challenges that they might be facing. I’m interested in what they have to say, perhaps because they are able to convey that they are interested in what they are doing. They show passion and they speak about learning with passion, which makes me feel I can learn something from them.
Many of the people I follow on Twitter I have sought out because they work on the fields of coaching or learning and development. I’ve picked up some really good ideas from them. For instance, it was Mike Morrison tweeting about his post on Pecha Kucha that gave me the idea of using this structure at work. Too often though, I feel that a lot of the l&d people I’m following are just churning out endless ‘thought for the day’ style tweets: inspirational quotes, management tools, theories and maxims. I feel like I’m being force-fed ideas which mean nothing to me. It’s just noise.
The frutstrating thing is that I’m sure I’d have lots to learn from these people, if only they would tell me what it is that they’re up to rather than trying to blind me with their knowledge and the strength of their networks.