This is a longer version of my Monday column in The Gazette:
People approach change in a fascinating variety of ways.
Some of us spend much of our lives trying to change the world. Some eagerly adopt the newest tools, techniques and toys. Some change reluctantly but resolutely because they know they have to. Some lie low when change is afoot, hoping if they are silent change will bypass them. Some loudly defy or even mock change without so much as bothering to understand it.
I find myself at varying times in the first three categories. Occasionally my heart wants to lie low and avoid the change, but my head recognizes that as folly and always wins that argument. I think and hope I avoid blustery defiance because it looks and sounds so silly.
In my life of watching change and reactions to it, I can’t recall a trend that has flipped the loud defiance switch as often as Twitter.
I blame this partly on the name. It’s a silly name that has spawned an endless string of silly related names – tweeps (the people who follow you), tweets (your updates), retweeting (passing along another person’s tweet) and so on.
Jill Geisler of the Poynter Institute, thinks journalists would have responded more readily “if Twitter had been born with some heftier moniker – you know, like ‘teletype’ or ‘wireservice,’ and tweets were called ‘toplines.’”
I like the name and I like the discomfort it gives people. That’s because I love watching human nature at work and Twitter brings out some fascinating wrinkles of behavior. When I write about Twitter on this blog, I frequently receive comments from people saying my staff should stop “wasting time” on Twitter and do some real reporting.
My father (probably parroting one of his parents) used to tell me that it was better to sit there looking stupid than to open my mouth and remove all doubt. You could take that advice wrong and think you should never speak up. But Dad was not a quiet man himself and encouraged me to speak up when I had something to say. But his point was that when you don’t know what you’re talking about, be quiet and learn, rather than saying something stupid.
Those people who say Twitter is a waste of time haven’t bothered to learn how quickly you can use it or how it can save you time.
A Canadian journalist, Corey Larocque of the Niagara Falls Review, wrote dismissively last week about Twitter, calling it the “flavour of the month.” (You can tell which side of the Falls he writes on by how he spells flavor.)
I’ll give Larocque credit. He did some secondary research on Twitter before he wrote. He found me online and cited some of the reasons I say journalists will find Twitter useful. (Because he dropped my name, a Google news alert called the column to my attention.)
But Larocque didn’t actually gain any valid firsthand experience with Twitter. He went further than some Twitter critics do, creating a profile (though he didn’t even identify himself as a journalist or post a photo of himself) and tweeting a couple times (noting in the first that the novelty had already worn off). That’s it – two tweets and he followed 11 people. Time to open his keyboard and remove all doubt.
The Center for Media Research last week sent out a “research brief” with the headline “Twitter Just A Blip So Far.” The brief went on to cite a Harris Poll saying that “only” 5 percent of Americans are using Twitter. The brief could just as easily have noted that 15 million Americans use Twitter – more than double the combined print circulation of the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, USA Today, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times combined.
Here’s how fast Twitter can bring you the news (from a Rafe Needleman blog that I linked to from Twitter, of course): In the Twitter offices in San Francisco on March 30, engineers noticed the word “earthquake” trending up in tweets. Seconds later their building started to shake. The earthquake was 60 miles away in Morgan Hill and Twitter spread the news faster than the tremor itself could travel.
I don’t care how silly the name is. I want a chance to have the news — and spread the news — that fast.
Good Story, Steve,
I’ll admit the tweets and facebook and even my own blog (unfinished) are a bit too much and not attractive enough to keep me on a keyboard when the spring sun shines.
However, in a few short strokes, I can group all of those that I follow, check things out quickly and get back to the day at hand.
On a rainy day, I’ll update photos, profies, tweets and retweets.
It’s certainly beating the acronym decades where there was an acronym for everything from having a business lunch, to self improvements, team building, trust and QIP…..
Quality Improvement should be at the heart of everything we do….
These processes never make us the best, only better.
We have to learn by some who thought they were the “Best of the Best.”
Old Buffaloes like Enron, GM, failing banks and Chrysler come to mind..
Our next challenge is effective listening, really listening to listen as opposed to getting in the next word.
It is just another task to tackle in the series of daily improvement processes that should become the “flavour” of striking good balance.
Up around the bend.
John Korkie
Here’s my experience with Twitter and change:
Overall, I had been of the mindset that if I can’t truly figure out the existing technology, I don’t have any business trying out and learning anything new. (That would keep me at the VCR/cassette player level.)
Professionally, I love being a journalist and playing a part in its role of being a public service and information provider, but I also knew that newspapers, one of which I work at, were struggling.
The paper I work at is the Gazette, which brought you on as editor to lead us through a pretty big organizational transformation.
I remember hearing you talk a lot about Twitter in your introductory meeting with the staff here, and in your first meeting with us a few weeks later (during the week of the floods) you said that we all need to prepare ourselves for the changes that will be coming.
Well, I want to be a journalist but I also want to be employed (and by that I mean I want this paper/news organization to continue operating so I have a place to work), so essentially, my mindset was, “If the new guy in charge is talking highly of this Twitter thing, I better get going on it.” I still needed you to explain it to me, of course, in that initial one-on-one meeting I had with you (which you had with everyone).
(Side note: I actually recall hearing a segment about Twitter on BBC’s overnight broadcast, and I’m pretty sure this was before you arrived. My mindset then: “I’m just barely trying to figure out stuff like MySpace; I can’t learn another one right now; maybe this new thing is just a fad, and I’ll wait and see.” I’m pretty sure it was Twitter they were talking about.)
Well, fast forward to now, and Twitter is growing by leaps and bounds and being mentioned everywhere. Whether people like it or not, they’re talking about it, which is a testament to its impact.
And you were speaking highly of Twitter almost a year ago when you arrived at the Gazette. I think that says something about your insight.
[…] Some of our people realize, and are pushing for, the need for fundamental changes. Others recognize that even relatively simple new tools, like Twitter, create amazingly deep concerns. […]