“Twitter is _______________.”
That was the question posed by Jonathan Becker — J.D., Ph.D., and distinguished guest at the Bammy awards — on the night he took over ADLT 641. My response to that question is Twitter is finally clicking for me!
This past spring semester, the Adult Literacy and Diversity class took on Twitter as a new literacy to explore. While Twitter was not brand new to me then, I was still very much in the lurking phase — or put in a more academic way — still very much in the peripheral participation phase. In a series of blog posts at the end of the semester, I reviewed When and Why I Started Tweeting, Who I am on Twitter, and Where I Think Twitter Falls Short. Since then, the first and second ideas haven’t changed much, but I would like to take another stab in defense of Twitter now that we’ve gotten to know each other better.
By no means have I joined the ranks of Dr. Becker among the Twitterazzi, but I am having more substantive conversations on Twitter, sharing more, and beginning to understand the concept of back channeling (aka tweeting in class). And I geeked out big time when I was recently RT’d by @jeremyhobson from Marketplace Morning Report!
Since those posts back in May, I have doubled the number of people I am following and nearly doubled the number of people following me. I haven’t completely figured out the etiquette, if there even is one, for following people back who follow me. Usually, I will check out their profile, and if I see recent posts that look interesting, I’ll follow them. However, I am still one of those “old school” types who only checks Twitter at night on my laptop (mostly due to having a personal “dumb” phone). The company I work for has Twitter blocked while management continues to struggle with how to capture tweets for FINRA purposes since we are in such a highly regulated industry. All that to say, the time I can devote to catching up on all the tweets I miss during the day is limited, so I am still selective with who I add to my feed.
Where I see great opportunity for Twitter and me is in the ability to tap into a professional community of practice. As I have mentioned ad nauseam throughout this program, I am hoping to make a career change, and while many in the professional network I have built over my 20+ year career in marketing will continue to be relevant, I am looking for ways to expand my contacts within the adult education / training field, and esp. with my budding passion for all these cool social media tools, I think Twitter will be a good place to start. It’s kind of ironic that I started exploring Twitter as a way to stay current on marketing trends and now plan to use it to put my marketing career behind me.
Joanne Even's Blog 
Wally Wallace
September 23, 2012 at 10:52 pm
I have a long way to go to come anywhere near where you are with Twitter but I am jumping on board, nevertheless. I do see how it benefits in building professional contacts and broadening one’s knowledge through a “community of practice”. Must also admit, it can be just plain fun socially. Thus, I’d say, “Twitter is a great tool which increases in usefulness as one develops more skill in the using thereof.”
bwatwood
September 24, 2012 at 12:16 pm
Twitter is a great tool for building your professional network, but it is one of several. No pun intended, but there are a lot of linkages between Twitter, LinkedIn, and blog commenting. To me, it is less about picking the tool and more about building the networking practice.
J Even
September 24, 2012 at 9:34 pm
I have definitely been exploiting the connection between LinkedIn and Twitter! LinkedIn has been the backbone of my professional network for years. Because of the regulated nature of the industry I’m in, though, if I list the actual name of the company I work with in my LinkedIn profile, then I have to use my work email on my LInkedIn account… and all communications sent through my work email are saved for a minimum of 3 years (thank you, FINRA). So… Twitter helps me “cheat” on my current profession with the one I desire since I do not mention my employer in my Twitter profile, nor am I following (or followed by) anyone at work. 😉
jshill2
September 25, 2012 at 9:38 pm
Jeremy Hobson??! Niiiiice. 🙂 I am hoping Twitter will start to “click” for me, as well. If I can just get past these glitches with my account, I think things will become remarkably better…. we shall see!
J Even
September 25, 2012 at 10:26 pm
Yeah, that really stinks that your efforts to get involved are being thwarted by Twitter gremlins. 😦 Hang in there!
boundlesscognizance
September 25, 2012 at 11:38 pm
Nice blog post! I enjoyed reading your evolution of Tweeting! I am staring here and now with Twitter and so far it’s been alright. I don’t feel like it’s really clicked quite yet for me, but well it’s been a whole week. I am amazed at the regulations in your industry. I think that it is worse for you than in mine!! I can at least say where I work 🙂
Jeff Nugent
September 29, 2012 at 8:29 am
I think that there is a huge give an take in the relationship (if you can call it that) that I have with social media technologies. They can be immensely rewarding and incredibly time consuming. It seems that the latter begets the former…and I don;t always have the time to invest the way I’d like. I feel like I continue to be at the early stages of figuring it out for myself…I’ve grown comfortable with the varying engagement and disengagement.
lsniestrath
September 30, 2012 at 6:10 am
Phew! Incredibly time consuming is right! I’ve been looking at class blogs for over an hour now. I work from the bottom up as I know that position certainly has something to do with the number of visits and comments.
I shared the same frustrations that you did with our participation last spring. I assumed that it was presented in the manner that it was so that we could understand what adults feel when being presented with a new literacy to tackle. Very frustration at first, but very rewarding when the system FINALLY clicks.
I was in a work environment that also filtered out anything relating to social networking. However, the system has finally relented and has agreed that students are allowed to use them in class with teacher approval. I need to ask my former colleagues what they are now allowed to access. I can certainly understand your frustration with being out of the loop until the end of the day.