Group items tagged

Twitter is a collection of remarks

Microsharing reduces the emotional and intellectual distance between people and helps them become more engaged, connected, effective and collaborative

As increasingly larger communities engage, rich streams of information generated become resources in their own right. Data can be queried, followed, stored, researched and referenced to provide critical insight, knowledge and tracking of market opinion. The resulting datasets enable early discovery of latent problems, innovation capture, real time tracking of product awareness, breaking news, ad campaign effectiveness and dozens of other business applications not yet widely understood.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

I think where I’m going with this is that I worry that the ed. tech. blogosphere is reasonably saturated.  Related to Darren Draper’s post on Twitter Set Theory, I feel like there are some central figures whose spheres overlap considerably and a whole lot of us outsiders trying to penetrate that inner circle.  It’s as if folks like Will Richardson, David Warlick, Wes Fryer, Vicki Davis, Dean Shareski, Stephen Downes, Chris Lehmann…(and, yes, you Scott) are having an awesome cocktail party conversation and I’m standing on the outside staring over their shoulders and listening in, trying to get a word in, but not penetrating that conversation at all.  I know there are LOTS of us on the outside looking in. 

My theory is– don’t worry about getting your voice out there, or comments, or rankings, or even being invited to the right parties (inner circle) — rather focus intently on children, your vision, and leaving education better than you found it. Concentrate on helping those within your sphere of influence to make principled changes in education that is in the best interest of kids.

Twitter is direct. I can work out lunch arrangements or a meeting about a business opportunity very quickly, with multiple people, from anywhere, as long as I have at least SMS access. This gets at the heart of what Twitter is... Twitter is another level of indirection (for you C programmers), or another layer (for you networking people), for connecting people, and that, combined with its simplicity and ease of operation, makes it very powerful. It's a big lever and a light touch is all you need

Finally, Twitter is a powerful tool for "grass-roots" information. All of that connectedness and genuine interaction leads to a lot of real-time information sharing, everything from restaurant criticism to traffic reports to emergencies, with real results. Real people help each other, inform each other, etc. This is what the media have picked up on and part of why they now can't speak a sentence without saying something about Twitter.