NpTech Tag Summary: More Chatter About Twitter

See the full version here.

NpTech resource sharing and conversations are getting more and more distributed.   This past week there was a lot of Twitter chatter in different nooks and crannies in NpTechosphere.   Here's a brief summary:

Send in the Twitter Clouds

Here's a nifty little cloud generator from Adam Cohen's post musing on the future of Twitter.   It reminded of a recent thread on a nonprofit tech listserv about Twitter. Looks like the some of the frequent words I use begin with T- Twitter, Thank, Thanks, and Think.   What are yours?  Would be interesting to see an NpTech Tag Cloud from twitter, probably not as easy to generate as the collective NpTech tag cloud from del.icio.us. 

Is Twitter a Broadcast or Conversation Tool?

Nonprofit technology professionals have a split opinion on the answer, judging to the snippets of conversation I've seen in little distributed pockets across the web.   Maybe it is both.

Conversational Approach:  You actually write original content for your tweets as opposed to using a RSS-powered utility.   I wouldn't necessarily call it content, but to you type 140 characters conversations.

Broadcast Approach:  Some feel that Twitter is a great way to push short tidbits to people's mobile phones and your followers.   Brief messages that 140 character call to actions - sign this petition, donate now, stop by our booth in the exhibit hall, etc.  The messages are short, to the point, and can be easily spread or "re-tweeted"

Some strongly feel that Twitter should not be used as a one-way communication tool and that it is about engaging supporters or followers.   I'd offer these brief tips:

1.  Don't tweet about yourself
2.  Be funny, engaging, witty, or share information
3.  Ask questions
4.  Summarize and share back responses
5.  Say thank you

Marnie Webb has a post with some great tips about how to decide who to follow.  Tip 2 is great advice, but it doesn't scale if your account is open (on the public time line) versus protected tweets.   Also, as your network grows, it starts to take up a lot of time to vet each request.  I'd add a 6th point - add your twitter address to your business card.

Twitter Tool Roundup

I've been meaning to explore the tools listed in Jeremiah Owyang's My Essential Twitter Tools.  I like the categories he uses:  Client, Search, Conversations, Aggregation, Tagging Content, Location Base and Alerts.  Marnie Webb has a blog post summary of the twitter tools and tutorials used by her followers with brief descriptions.  Anna at NTEN writes about Twitter Links that helps roundup links from Twitter users who are top social media users and makes them look pretty (does it do pattern analysis too?). 

Twitter for Organizations

There was an interesting thread on the emerging technology list started by Marnie asking the question, "What powerful non-personal/social uses of twitter can you imagine?."   Some excellent pointers referenced in the discussion:  Twitter as Tech Support, or  Twitter As Customer Service.   The benefits to Twitter for internal organizational or team use or community of practice use may include its ease of use to informally share information, get information, ask questions, or get feed back in a timely manner. 

The social presence or team building aspect of Twitter is also a plus - for information that is not strictly work or time sensitive, what has been called the social water cooler.   It is not so one dimensional like blogs tend to me.  It gives your community a glimpse into people's lives beyond the shared professional interests that we have. It can make your connection with people deeper and varied, particularly if you working remotely or if you are in the same physical location but all are busy staring their computer screens for hours without having a gathering point. 

The drawback is that Twitter along is not great for retrieval yet.  That's where having a place to summarize and tag (blog and social bookmarking or possibly the hash tags) come in.

Some drawbacks.  Twitter's public design makes it hard to imagine as an internal or intra-organizational tool (although private groups features like this might just change that) - why not just use IM or IRC?   Further, even as an internal tool -- that is your tweets would only be read/seen by people in your organization or members of a particular group - are there cultural changes needed.  It requires a bit of bravado, comfort with the org-wide exposure, and a willingness to have a constant dialogue going on alongside your work.   This is an evolutionary step for those who have been blogging and using the social web, but what about newcomers?

Remember Twitter Is Still Mediated Conversation (if you can call it conversation)

As the CyTraps Lab Blog reminds us in a marvelous reflection on the trade off between conversations and getting things done - and technology-mediate conversation and face-to-face interaction --  Neither commenting on blog posts, using micro-blogging with Twitter or e-mailing can replace a conversation between two people. Neither tweets nor e-mails are as rich as face-to-face conversations.  This long, but thoughtful (and slightly ludite) post offers some tips at the end for setting limits on twitter and social tool use.

What are your best tips for engaging people on twitter?   What Twitter tools do you find best for what task? How can you imagine Twitter for internal/intra organizational team support?  How else might you imagine Twitter for nonprofit organizational work?

The NpTech Tag started as an experimental community tagging project in 2005. A loosely coupled group of nonprofit techies and social change activists decided to use the tag "NpTech" to identify web resources that would create an ongoing stream of information to promote and educate those working in nonprofit technology.  Through TechSoup's Netsquared project, blogger Beth Kanter, was commissioned to write a weekly summary.

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Comments

[Johnathan B]

I'm curious as to your take on JustMeans (justmeans.com). I've just starting hearing a lot about it, and want to know if you think its a valuable service for my nonprofit.

[Zana Green]

Beth - I'm curious as to your opinion of JustMeans (justmeans.com) as a social media platform and toolkit for non-profits. I've heard mixed things and want to know if its something I should pursue for my non-profit.

-Zana

[Beth Kanter]

Hi Zana and Jonathan:

Do you work for JustMeans? Have you been hired by them to leave comments on nonprofit tech blogs? If so, please identify yourself as such. If not, why would you both randomly leave a comment on a post a Twiter. Please help me understand?

[Amy Gahran]

My main rules for Twitter are:

1) Don't be boring

2) Be useful on a daily basis

3) Appreciate and highlight others.

:-)

- Amy Gahran

[Marnie Webb]

Nice roundup of the conversation and tools, Beth. I'm still struggling for the reasons people would want Twitter to behave like IRC or IM -- I mean, isn't a part of the point the public nature and the 140 character constraint?

[Adam Cohen]

Beth - great overall round up on Twitter. I agree with your point about retrieval - it's very much a real time tool for engaging in conversations, but tracing history on conversations had is difficult. Some of the twitter search engines like summize and tweetscan are helpful but it is very difficult to go back more than a few days. I started a blog to have a "parking lot" for ideas, some that originate through twitter. They complement each other a lot, actually.

One more interesting point - in @charleneli and @jbernoff 's new book called Groundswell, they continually refer to the value of twitter being the access through SMS and mobile. I like that I can continue the conversation that way, but 90% of the time my twitter use and engagement is not via mobile.

The adaptation to private grouping to leverage internally will be a tough one to overcome if that feature is ever built, but it can be done, especially in smaller and more adaptable organizations. The fact that companies like EMC are leveraging an internal wiki/blog platform make me feel it's not out of the question though.

Thanks again for the thoughtful post!

[Beth Kanter]

@AdamCohen,

Here's the thing, when I'm using Twitter on my phone or mobile - when I browse for ideas versus conversation - stuff that I want to remember or capture - it is very hard - maybe my phone software .. not sure. I end up retweeting so I can easily find it.

I capture most of the tweets that I want to reflect on to blog posts

[Jeane Goforth]

Just started using Twitter over the last week. I can see it's value, but am struggling right now just to accomplish the must-dos for each day and am running out of time for monitoring my tiny organization's web presence. I agree with a twit from Stacey Monk yesterday that the personal info is valuable to me in getting to know the people I'm following--making the connection stronger. For me, I doubt anyone cares that I'm sharpening bags full of colored pencils so the kids will stay in their seats, but I often jot down a quick note of what I'm doing just to prove I'm still paying attention.

[Adam Cohen]

Hey Beth - You are so right - I browse on twitter on my blackberry pearl and find that I see links I want to save and conversations I miss because I only see 5-6 posts at a time. The more 'friends' I have the harder it is to do anything other than 1 way reporting. Hmm...I smell an opportunity for a more useable mobile app!

[Beth Kanter]

Adam: I wonder if it does the Iphone?

[Martin Smith]

For those two people who left random comments about JustMeans on this blog, it is not the place to do it and it makes us look bad. In this world it is called astroturfing, or shamelessly promoting a product. I would encourage both of you to get in touch with me or another JM staff member (msmith@justmeans.com). We appreciate the support if you are trying to get people to know about us, but this is not the right way to go about doing it.

[Adam Cohen]

Hi Beth - Not to be a comment hog ;) but a follow-up recommendation on a mobile tool: http://m.slandr.net. Not only do they refer to twitter in a Boston accent ("mobile twittah!") but it has an easy interface to review direct and reply messages. Best feature: It's also the first one I've found that allows you to mark tweets as favorites using the normal 'star' functionality on twitter's website. This has been very useful for saving something for later. It has other functionality about updating locale that I haven't explored. Downside: Twitter has disabled the "Older" API, so all you see is recent posts.