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Twittering Work/Life Balance

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Started 3 years ago by joev
Latest reply from putneyswope

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joev
Merion Village
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I just started - jvcmh - using twitter this morning. I've been lurking around for a while on it, and I can really see the benefits to both my work self and home self.

My question is: how do all of you manage that divide in social media? It seems that more and more, people are merging their work lives and personal lives - and that's not really something I'm terribly interested in doing to the full extent. I don't have a problem sharing work stuff with friends, but I am a little uncomfortable sharing personal stuff with work acquaintances. Do you have two twitter accounts? Do you tweet your work-self primarily, or is it a mix? To what extent do you self-censor?

Posted 3 years ago #
Roland
Clintonville
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Sure. It's easy to balance. Set your twitter status to private and then you'll get to approve anyone before they can follow you. Don't accept invite from people you don't want to see. Easy as pie.

My Twitter use is a mixture of work and personal chatter. I use Facebook for my personal stuff. I use LinkedIn for purely professional. Don't link the status updates and you can really cover all your bases.

Don't become a twitter whore!

Posted 3 years ago #
lifeliberty
Here
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can someone explain the twitter thing to me. i just don't get it. Seems to me that twitter makes you the star and everyone you send stuff out to is your fanclub. Do people really want to know what you are doing that badly? or do twits just want to think that people care what they are doing all the time?

I'm not bashing, i don't care what people do really, I just don't 'get it'.

Posted 3 years ago #
JonMyers
HCMC ✈
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Life - for me it's using text and images to create conversations.

Posted 3 years ago #
swan
London
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haha!

Posted 3 years ago #
michaelcoyote
!seabus
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lifeliberty wrote >>
can someone explain the twitter thing to me.

I use it like a slow speed public chat. For me it's very similar to Internet Relay Chat (yeah i'm olde skule like that), and i use it in a similar way. It is far more flexible however in that you decide who you follow and can limit who sees your posting. It is also easily updated from most mobile phones.

I do have it connected to my Facebook, but I'm considering removing it. I don't really update a whole bunch now (1-3 times a day), and I'd kind of like to use it more than i want to update FB.

As far as Personal/Professional, that's easy.. Twitter is personal. I might mention work issues on Twitter, but i tend to keep them separate..

Posted 3 years ago #
lifeliberty
Here
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I can understand it as being a new form of communication, but for me, I don't think I'll ever 'get it'. I have a myspace page (set up during a bout of bordom) that I've visited once in maybe a year(I need to take it down, I just never think about it). I guess I just like my privacy. I communicate with email and text and the old school way of just picking up the phone. I don't get why i would ever feel the need to tell 20 people everytime I took a dump.

Posted 3 years ago #
joev
Merion Village
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For me, Facebook has been a way to catch up with people I wish I had kept up with all along. I'm really bad at that, but Facebook is low effort-medium payoff. Myspace is junky - no wonder you haven't found value there - I couldn't find it either.

Twitter is interesting. It seems like few people are successfully twittering about several topics. Anyone who knows of an exemplary multi-subject twitter pro, please let me know so I can follow.

Posted 3 years ago #
somertimeoh
Harrison West
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I get a lot of my news updates through Twitter because I can see it on my blackberry even when my phone's internet doesn't work (which is like all the time!!!). I don't tweet all that much, but I like hearing about what people are up to, where they are out and about in case I want to join up.

I added jason_wcmh after the whole twitter thread on the home page and his updates are pretty interesting - mostly police dispatch related stuff. It's a lot though, so I'm checking more than I used to because the list of 10 I can see at one time turns over a lot faster now than when I was just following my friends.

Posted 3 years ago #
chrisgillespie
Short North/Victorian Village
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I'm with you LL. I don't get it. I realize lots of folks really enjoy it, but I find these things to be overwhelming. I recently had setup a Facebook page to view an invite. I shut it down after only 3 days, because I just really didn't want to see all the incoming information or feel obligated to reciprocate. Part of it is just that I didn't grow up with this. Part of it is that I'm a busy person, totally anal about responding to emails and phone calls, and I don't want another thing to "have to" keep up with. I'm not attracted to the aspects that draw many: I enjoy seeing people I haven't seen in a long time if I run into them -- but I don't feel any need to seek them out if I didn't bother to keep up with them so far. I'm established in my career, and looking more toward retirement than getting ahead, so even the business networking aspect holds no appeal for me. At the moment, I don't think I'll ever get into twitter, facebook, myspace, etc. HOWEVER, I certainly got into CU pretty easily, huh? So maybe I'll change my mind eventually. I think the difference, though, is that I don't feel like I have to stay on top of CU most of the time, since it's usually not directed at or from me. Clearly, these are great tools for the folks who use and enjoy them (networking, finding old friends, just chatting when bored, or even being a star with your own fanclub -- with the number of friends listed for an ego boost, and I'm sure there are other reasons why these are growing in popularity)...I'll just be the old fart talking about "in my day..."

Posted 3 years ago #
JonMyers
HCMC ✈
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Saw this tool.

Twitter Hawk

It essentially sniffs out people talking about your topics on Twitter and sends an automated @ reply on your behalf.

One of the problems with Twitter and any other social platform supported by open APIs is that the market practices, standards and best practices have no prayer of catching up with the speed at that developers are extending the functionality of the platform with tools such as this.

Posted 3 years ago #
Tigertree
771 N. High St.
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Are you all participating in the scavenger hunt tomorrow?

Posted 3 years ago #
Roland
Clintonville
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What scavenger hunt?

Posted 3 years ago #
Tigertree
771 N. High St.
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Seriously? Check out the Shop Short North blog for details. That seriously was because I thought I was getting a little spammy, not to be mean.

Posted 3 years ago #
MikeReed

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I can see how from strictly a consumer (of information) perspective some of these tools (esp. Twitter) can seem pointless.

When you start looking at them as a platform or protocol and engage in also being a producer it gets interesting. When I say producer I mean something specific- just posting content isn't what I am getting at. I mean trying to monetize it, build on a platform, create ingenious new ways to communicate (or create your own- the ultimate) as the means to a specific end.

Just like readin' and writin' are kinda interesting, but the great American novel, or a haiku, or a joke are more interesting and sophisticated uses of language- at face value, some of these things are huge time sinks with little point, but in synthesis with a little innovation they can get very interesting.

I say just be who you are. Let it all hang out. Go for broke. Throw away anything you have at stake early in the game and then you be someone who plays like you have nothing to lose.

Posted 3 years ago #
lifeontwowheels
Highland West
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OK, I've joined the evil. Now I can see what this is all about.

Posted 3 years ago #
thefightinglibrarian
Running after the 'Bus
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I do struggle with keeping my personal and professional life separate when it comes to social networking. I try to keep my Twitter and my Facebook personal, but I work in a field where huge numbers of my colleagues are "playing" with 2.0 technologies because they affect our jobs. But it's not playing for me-- it's how I socialize, make plans, and share with friends. So I often find myself accepting the invitations of colleagues because I don't want to offend them, but then locking down my profile so they can't see anything anyway.

Posted 3 years ago #
th0m
Beechwold
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Follow me th0ma5 :p

It is like crack without the itching.

Maybe it is like the old finger protocol

Posted 3 years ago #
Bear
The woods
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thefightinglibrarian wrote >>
I do struggle with keeping my personal and professional life separate when it comes to social networking. I try to keep my Twitter and my Facebook personal, but I work in a field where huge numbers of my colleagues are "playing" with 2.0 technologies because they affect our jobs. But it's not playing for me-- it's how I socialize, make plans, and share with friends. So I often find myself accepting the invitations of colleagues because I don't want to offend them, but then locking down my profile so they can't see anything anyway.

That does seem to be the Achilles' heel of social networking. When one sees people whose status updates are all work-related, over time one does tend to think, "Wow, you need to get out more." But completely non-work-related status updates run the risk of conveying the opposite impression.

I fiddled with Facebook for a while, developed a love/hate relationship with it, and finally blew up my account. Since then, the people who really wanted to know how I've been doing have picked up a phone or dropped me email, and vice-versa. It's not very Web 2.0 of me, I know, but I kind of like it that way.

Posted 3 years ago #
th0m
Beechwold
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It's not very Web 2.0 of me, I know, but I kind of like it that way.

i think that is a very noble thing and i will defend anyone's right to choose the way they want to communicate.

Posted 3 years ago #