The Twitter conversation is multi-directional, continuous and fragmented.
I
started noodling around with the text for the introduction to Popcorn Content.
This
is just a part of it. If you have the time and inclination to comment, I would
love to hear your feedback...
==
It
has been suggested that Twitter is like a party or some other gathering, where
you wander around in the crowd, saying hi, sharing a few words and picking up
snippets of conversation from those around you.
If
you step away, you miss some of the conversation. That’s OK. In fact, you can
never get to hear everything, because no one person is connected to or followed
by everyone else.
So
you hang around the people you are most interested in.
The
party analogy is pretty good, but it’s incomplete.
The
party model of connecting with people is two dimensional. It is a group of
people who all know the host and many of the others who attend.
But
with Twitter, millions of people are holding these virtual parties
simultaneously.
Imagine
fifty people holding a party on each of the fifty floors of a high rise, but without
the floors and the ceilings, and with every other party being equidistant from
your own.
Everyone
who is attending your party is also the host of his or her own party, on a
different floor, at the same time.
His
or her party comprises his or her “followers”.
You
share many of the guests, across different parties, but not all of them.
While
you can host only your own party of followers, you can attend many different
parties simultaneously.
As
a networking model, this is a beautiful thing.
It
allows you to find an ever-growing group of connected people who interest you
and may be interested in you, and in what you do.
When
you write your 140 characters or less, you’re not writing a short article, you
are taking part in an interconnected conversation.
The
Twitter conversation is multi-directional, continuous and fragmented.
Like the party analogy--maybe even give a nod to the international aspect by hearing bits of conversation in parties taking place in entirely different buildings.
And... cool that when a person makes a small-talk party comment (tweat) they know it is not just to the guests in their immediate vicinity, but to their entire party crowd.
Reply to this
Having conversations on Twitter forces us all to slow down and think
through what we want to say. It also helps us parse through discrete
pieces of a conversation, one at a time, in order. I can remember
having fights where I spew for 10 minutes and realize I misunderstood
something on point 1 of 3,456 points I just made in my favor.
When we're forced to only speak for 140 characters, we are forced to
do that "active listening" thing that cognitive behavioral scientists
are always talking about. If I say 140 characters, I must wait for a
140-character response from you before I continue. Your response makes
it clear whether or not you understood me. I can either clarify or
continue, stepping through my complaint in smaller chunks (remember
the "finding a book in the library" discussion?).
This helps slow down the emotional spiral into anger or another
extreme reaction. I tend to get elated less on unfounded claims when
parsing through a discussion on Twitter. I've learned to be more
patient, too.
This has impact in customer service.
When someone complains using Twitter, he
only has 140 characters to log that initial complaint. This forces the
complainer to focus on the issue at hand, and whittle out the personal
attacks. Then, someone who responds can deal much better with that
initial 140-character complaint. Rather than allowing someone to rant
onandonandon for 20 minutes without getting to the point, Twitter
customer service also slows down that emotional spiral that results in
verbal arguments, too.
@linkerjpatrick mentioned on Twitter that he has looked back on some forum
posts and email responses that are also victim of the emotional
spiral. Endless ranting is _not_ healthy. Popcorn conversations help defuse
the rant and remove the emotional response, allowing the conversation
to focus on the factual and the bottom-line requests.
Popcorn content can shape things outside social media. I'm actually looking forward to
people talking in person much like they talk on Twitter... in smaller
chunks, listening more.
Reply to this