So…I showed this wee slideshow to open up our panel at 140 | The Twitter Conference today (great conference, btw) to demonstrate the essence of what I think is the reason that Twitter has captured our imaginations.
It’s not the links or the deep wisdom or the celebrities or the customer service stuff supplied by the companies on Twitter that makes it amazing. It’s the connection I feel to the people I follow when they make me smile, or feel sad or feel passionate about something. It’s the constant display of humanity sliding by on my screen daily. I know when someone thousands of miles away is feeling frustrated at work. I feel the elation a virtual stranger is feeling when he finishes that race he’s been training for forever. I share that funny moment that person I miss hanging out with has…and can feel closer to her for it.
The other stuff is gravy. If it weren’t for the interesting tidbits and connections I feel emotionally to the people on Twitter, I wouldn’t tune in so religiously and catch the great New York Times article or the fact that one of my favorite artists is coming to town. If all I got was customer service on Twitter, I’d only tune in when I had an issue. But because of the ambient intimacy of the connections…the real human experiences being shared daily, I may also tune into the ‘commercial breaks’: this company doing good stuff and this person launching that cool bit. It’s a bonus, but not the core of what draws me in.
Twitter is, if nothing else, a series of sheep throwing awesomeness allowing for mondo exchanges of whuffie, with commercial bits and bobs stuck in here and there to also make it lucrative enough in the marketplace so we can afford to keep on about our daily adventures. And some may say, “Sounds ridiculous!” but I say, “No…ridiculous is the notion that everything has to be boiled down to a transaction and thank GOD something came along to demonstrate the importance of interaction for the sake of connection without a value judgement or a pricetag on it!”
If we go and suck the humanity out of Twitter, it WILL go away. It will cease to be interesting and you will have no goshdarned place to put your productive/lucrative bits anymore. It’s not that I’m all googly eyed about the touchy-feely, it’s that I recognize that the touchy-feely – the throwing sheep – is the BASIS of what makes us bloody happy. The other stuff we stick in there to be able to pay our rent and buy fancy things that make us appear to be happy. And if we want to continue to reap the benefits here, we need to stop sucking the social out of our social media spaces.
It’s not just the nice thing to do…it’s necessary.
Word.
Beautifully articulated, Tara!
It *is* the people and the connections that draw us in, make us feel closer, link us more intimately and humanly. Your description of “commercial breaks” in the conversational tidbits is so right on!
There are tons of interesting bits to click and awesome things to learn along the way, but the main reason we are so tuned in to Twitter is to connect with people’s lives.
I’m glad your conference went well today & hope you find a Star Trek captain’s chair.
Sending virtual hugs from thousands of miles away!
That is quite possibly THE bestest slide deck. Ever.
Thank you so much for sharing not only your slides (which made me snork a couple of times) but also your you… you are so the awesome!
This should be printed out, sealed in plastic (maybe one of those SpaceBags), and put in a time capsule.
In 500 years, when aliens arrive and want to know why this “Twitter” thing was so important in bringing an increasingly overwhelmed and disparate populace together, they can just read this slide deck.
Every time I think I’m good at presentations, I look at one of yours. This causes me to 1) cry myself to sleep, and 2) remove most of my slides and all of my words.
Thank you for standing up for JOY in Twitter. Don’t stop believing.
Still want to interview you for my live Twitter interview series (#twt20).
Hilarious!! and the fact that I found your deck from a tweet makes it all the better!
Alison
tis awesomesauce with like pudding on top.
I kept reading them outloud to @alaw…
thank you!
I don’t think I really got it about Twitter til I discovered you and @kanter and realized I want to be you guys when I grow up:-). It will be a long time til I’m using Twitter to promo anything I do – first I have a lot of listening/learning to do. Kinda cool that it’s the lady from Intuit that gets it that Twitter’s a place for real connecting (or is it cool of Intuit to employ the lady that gets it??)
Cheers.
@learningashland
@Wendy
Thanks. Yeah. I’ve been at Intuit for 3 months and been tweeting for 3 years.
This is great! I must admit to being a Twitter hater now and again. Like, do I really need to know what someone is making for dinner? But these tweets are like potential Seinfeld episodes, and I love it. I guess there is hope out there… perhaps the problem is not Twitter, it’s the peeps I’m following!
Following ~1400 folks, did you take screenshots over so many months in preparation; or were these crowdsourced? Because it seems like a lot of work for the former, but easy to accomplish with the latter.
Otherwise, as Jeff commented up top: Word(s).
That is quite possibly THE bestest slide deck. Ever.
@Ari
Those are all in my favorites. I just ‘fave’ them when I love them. It makes it easy to go back then in a day and screenshot a whole wack.
T
Wow – what a great slideshow. It’s amazing the time we’re in when we can share a funny or touching moment with someone halfway across the world.
There is much more that I can add to this…thank you for articulating these sentiments so well.