“At SWSX, the new Twitter is… Twitter”

Was scanning some of the stories coming through my feeder – and ran into this. My topic for our class wiki was Twitter, and writing that entry got me interested enough to start using it, so this story’s timing seemed pretty serendipitous.  

It’s startling to hear how a storm was brewing on Twitter even before the moderator had finished her discussion, and even better she responded to these comments later. The “real-time” crowd response that Twitter provides in this story will, in my opinion, become a much more visible technology in the news during this year, particularly due to the election coming up.

I really think Twitter is going to blow up, in a way much larger than it already has. What I’m envisioning is an almost national craze with TV audiences being swept into Twitter, like enormous instant messenger discussions. 

Obviously, IM technology has been around already for a long time, so why would it become a bigger deal now?

It all comes down to the numbers. While we have traditionally used IM messages to speak to one person, or at best a handful of people simultaneously, Twitter gives you the capability to organize and/or join massive discussions far beyond the microscope of IM and cell phone text messaging. This results in a very interactive experience with the formation of “collective intelligence”, and I think the appeal of this type of public discourse is in-line with popular tastes.

We can already see it occurring across the scope of the blogosphere, and I think Twitter has the potential to match or exceed what blogs have done because it’s synonomous with an already accepted, popular form of technology (Instant Messenger). Blogs are everywhere, but there is still an significant part of the population that hasn’t used it, or that doesn’t care to. I think this is largely due to the prevalent “junior high school  journal” picture that most people have when hearing  about writing blogs, a notion that will decrease as blogs continue to get more popular. However, a lot more people feel comfortable with Instant Messaging or text messaging because it’s use was more widespread among a broader scope of the public, particularly among the generation of the 90s. That’s why I believe Twitter is at a tipping point.

We already see interactive voting in real-time TV shows and up to the minute blogs from sporting events and political events - imagine the same concept but in a much more audience-oriented way. Giant (and probably sponsored)Twitter discussions on everything from TV reality shows to presidential debates, where the audience creates a responsive and dynamic ”hive-mind”. In turn, the program or event being watched could then react to this reaction!

This already happens whenever you see candidates leave the stage during commercial breaks on TV political debates -it’s in their interest to gauge crowd response. What I am imagining is a step beyond this, where the people watching at home take an interest in being heard during these kind of situations. Perhaps I am taking this out of proportion in terms of scale, because the SWSX story mentioned above did occur among a group of frenzied technophiles. I’m just thinking the eagerness expressed by the “Twitter mob” to tear down Sarah Lacy while still in the middle of the SWSX event is an emotion everyone can relate to, not just the technology crowd. So I don’t think it’s difficult to see this brand of real time, inclusive crowd interaction becoming very popular though Twitter, or through a Twitter-derivative. And because of the upcoming presidential debates, the time is ripe for such a trend to breakthrough.

Look into it if you haven’t already, unless you think I’m speaking jibberish. In that case, leave a response -

Nerdy Times with CSS/HTML

My experiences with HTML and CSS are largely a result of my current job, where I now deal with both concepts on a daily basis. When I began the job, I only had a passing knowledge of how either worked, and most of my previous knowledge was from a course I had taken in high school that, unfortunately, I had not followed up on.

However, I’m pretty impressed with how far I have come with working with CSS/HTML. The company I work for does almost all of its marketing, lead generation, and selling on the internet, so I was expected to pick up the needed skills without taking too long to do so. Over the course of several months, I picked up the basics using a combination of continuous trial and error, internet research, and help from co-workers. Whenever I ran into a problem, I would always first try to troubleshoot the problem firsthand. This included a great deal of tinkering within Dreamweaver (which is what I have almost exclusively relied on, even until now) and looking up FAQs or tutorials online. Most of the time, this approach was very effective. If I couldn’t work through it myself, I would turn to my nearest co-worker, who was far more knowledgeable on the subjects and was always willing to lend a hand. Well, most of the time; sometimes I couldn’t help but feel a slight sense, “Another f-in question?” coming from her direction.

Nonetheless, this mix of self-learning and outside assistance has proven very effective, and I feel confident now working within the basics of HTML and CSS. I would like to invest even more time to develop CSS style sheets of my own, as I find their application far more exciting than basic HTML. Unfortunately, most of the CSS files at work have been deemed “official”, meaning that I have very little room to go in and modify existing styles or create new rules of my own. I imagine this will be an intriguing aspect of my own personal website when the time comes to begin building that.

I find it especially ironic that now I’ve become the CSS/HTML mentor to a more recent hire in the company, a position I have been relishing when I remember how much of a noob I originally was.

Some particular problems that stick out in my mind over the course of learning CSS/HTML on the job: CSS rules that affect text and table margins, “default” HTML properties for things like cellspacing and cellpadding, and learning the standard format for how CSS rules should look and be referenced. I even remember the day, long ago, that I stumbled upon the target=“_blank” command for links. Good times. Good, nerdy times.

I still have a good deal of intricate things to learn however, and even now I still get a slight thrill whenever I am able to solve a problem on my own. Kinda lame, but those “Aha!” moments at work are what I consider the most rewarding aspect of my job, because every time it happens I know I’ve just learned something that will help me indefinitely.

Enough With Stuff – GTD thoughts

At first glance, I couldn’t help but roll my eyes when I started to read David Allen’s summary of what is Getting Things Done. It seemed like the standard plug used by product evangelists everywhere: “Here’s a life changing concept that I will summarize in the most glowing fashion without giving you any real clue of what it is about! Would you also like a set of Japanese kitchen knives while you are here?”

Plus, it made me fairly uncomfortable that you were required to cough up your home address and proceed through an online checkout system for a free PDF. As someone who regularly deals with e-mail lists, I know how why he’s asking you to pass over that information, but that’s exactly why I wasn’t going to hand it over.

Anyways, I finally did find a much better definition of what GTD is from doing several FAQ searches, and the concept, while insulting obvious, seems surprisingly effective. The discussion of what “stuff” is and how it negatively impacts a productive workflow really resonated with me, such as phrases like “you find yourself putting out fires” as a description of handling to do’s. I regularly find myself in such situations and tend to just handle my most immediate, pressing concerns. And indeed, it really does create an ever-present worry that taxes your mind – it always seems like there’s one more thing I have to do, with only a vague assurance that I’ll get to it “sometime”. I would definitely describe my day-to-day activities as being poorly organized.

Because of these descriptions reading similarly to what I am experiencing, I looked deeper into some of the mechanics of the system. I’ve always used lists to organize my deadlines so this also was a naturally appealing aspect of GTD, though I wish I had been able to learn more about how to assign these different lists based on importance or immediate relevancy. Lists are only as powerful as their ability to categorize tasks based on importance, and while I was able to get a brief summary of some of the different list names (“Projects”, “Next Action”, “Pending”, etc.) I found the explanations insufficient. However, I will most likely submit to Allen’s Orwellian demands and provide my address after all, because I am intrigued enough and very tired of “stuff”.