I try to be balanced on new technology and ideas, trying to find the middle ground between hype and usefulness, time and money, fun and work. When Twitter first came out I didn’t pay a lot of attention besides my usual reading about what’s new, not being a blogger at the time and not having a need then for ‘micro-blogging’. Since then the world has changed, both for Twitter and for me. Twitter seems to have morphed into something beyond micro-blogging, what my friend Steve calls sidewalk conversations. And me, my job and interests have changed such that blogging is both fun and work, and I’m in the idea/thinking business, so reaching a larger audience both makes sense and appeals to my sense of trying to do better.
I’ve put it off for a while for a few reasons:
So while I’ve had reasons (and in truth have just enjoyed being stubborn about it!), all my friends seem to find value in it and I don’t see any of them as easily hypnotized (well, maybe one or two!). I’m at the beginning of a mental re-org, deciding what things to continue, what things to adds to my list, and importantly, what things will get removed next year. Should Twitter go on the list?
And by the way, the title isn’t a typo!
I’ve always thought it made sense for events; announcing last minute changes and adhoc meetups, reminders about upcoming events during the day, less certain about just day to day stuff. I’ve got two events coming up, SQLSaturday #21 and the PASS Summit, so I’ve had it in mind to try there anywhere – which means learning how the Twitter thing works. I’ll be doing some reading this week to try to learn the basics, and I’ll give it a try through the end of year and then write up more notes. As I do it, I’m going to try to understand more about it:
Ah, checking Twitter already are you? Sometime between now and Friday evening I’ll post something on Twitter. Something interesting? That remains to be seen!
It'll be interesting to see what you think. It's definitely worth trying for #sqlsat21 (that'll be a good hash tag for the event. BTW - #sqlpass is the tag for the SUMMIT. We've already decided on that. There is also a #sqlsaturday hash tag as well.
Yes, yes you should twy it.
Ha glad to see you're slowly coming around to the idea. If you'd like drop by my mini-session on Saturday, Twitter and SQL:A Perfect UNION where I'll be glossing over the value of Twitter and social networking and how it can benefit DBA's and devs.</sales pitch>
I was a Twitter-phobe. I was pestered by friends to twy it and I said "I don't have time", "seems stupid", etc. Until SQLPass 2009. I saw how people were truly networking and making the tool work for them, so after the summit I signed up. I now have an *invaluable* network of SQL Server DBAs who I communicate with daily. I learn a lot from other people's issues and get a chance to help someone out, real time, on occassion. My professional life is better because of it. Give it a TWY :)
I've recommended it, and I'd still do it. It's a virtual group: the water cooler, sidewalk/hallway conversation, etc.
You can tiptoe in, maybe try it more real time at SQLSat21. I wouldn't use device updates, but rather get a client for your desktop/phone, and check it a couple times a day.
I get ideas, see interesting links, etc. from Twitter. I've been surprised how often I see something interesting on there. It's also a good business item, in that you can broadcast new content, or events, or sales, to an audience. Promotions, etc. can come through, and when balanced with some interesting information, you can build another marketing engine.
I think that Twitter can be a ginourmouse waste of time. As Jason Massie and others have pointed out, it's interesting for conducting very limited real-time surveys ("How many of you use Service Broker?"). I don't know about you, but I'm too busy keeping the world's largest domain name registrar <g> afloat that I don't really have time to post to twitter, and I don't see too much value in it. I mean, how much value is there in letting your followers know you are at #session5? What it's good for is building a "personal brand," which you've already done.
Jorge, of course, will be able to shoot my opinion full of holes the size of a small planet, but that's my take on it.
I don't Twitter and don't think I will in the future but to paraphase the eternal phrase, "it may depend". I'm already in information overload mode between all the blogs coming in, newletter subscriptions, and research for work. Don't think I can handle a constant stream of "notes" in addition to the aforementioned and the company IM.
You should definitely try it. You've already got more followers than a lot of people, and you haven't tweeted once :)
It'll be interesting to see. I like the challenge of finding ways to make tools work for me. One big question for me, which will be more powerful long term - being able to broadcast ideas, or read ideas (posts) from others?
I think that there is great marketing potential in Twitter. You should definitely use it for posting short announcements for OPASS, SQL Saturday and End To End Training.
I personally try to stay away from "Sitting on the front porch" or "Staring at my goldfish" type of postings. :D
One hint: If you do jump in to the Twittersphere protect your tweets. There is a lot of junk-mail people who will follow you otherwise.
I don't protect my tweets, and ignore the junk mailers. It's too hard to weed them out, in my mind, so I ignore them. Hasn't been a big problem for me.
I would definitely like to see a SQLSaturday twitter account, and I'd recommend Co-Tweet, or Tweet-SQL as a way of scheduling out some tweets to remind people of events, changes, etc.
