Tag: on the web

Twitter experiment

Do you use Twitter? How do you use it?

A lot of people talk about it so I tried for a month. I read some guides then started posting every day.

I went a networking event to ‘live tweet’ and got some new followers that way.

After one month of having a good go at it, I’ve decided that it’s not for me right now.

It’s been fantastic, getting a constant stream of news, ideas and links about my clients, my industry, my interests. It’s also very gratifying to get followers you respect and have never met.

Spending attention on Twitter meant I strayed from my previous information diet of emails, podcasts, blogs, newspapers. I missed that so I’ve decided to go back to it.

My information diet somehow more manageable if it doesn’t come to me in an easy-to-digest form like the Twitter stream. Perhaps it’s like choosing to eat wholemeal bread.

What I have learned:

  • If you have a distinction between your ‘professional’ self and ‘personal’ self, Twitter is ideal for the professional one. However, it seems that more and more people don’t distinguish between those two personas.
  • Don’t follow The Age unless you’re disciplined enough not to click on every link (it’s all interesting). Same goes with other news websites, I suspect.
  • Definitely ‘live tweet’ at events. It’s a great way to get people coming up to meet you.
  • Think about using Twitter if you don’t already have an established routine of following industry news. Twitter is an all-encompassing information channel.

I think I’ll use Twitter occasionally but I’ve uninstalled the app from my phone. No more tempting bright blue bird.

Behaviour change: Karma Cup

I saw this interesting Starbucks behaviour change initiative via the Futerra blog: Karma Cup.

As I understand it, every Starbucks customer that arrives with a reusable cup marks off a cross on a black chalkboard. The 10th person to arrive with a reusable cup gets his or her coffee for free.

This initiative is the result of a competition started in April. Apparently, ‘Starbucks was sponsoring the contest as part of its aim to serve 100 percent of its hand-crafted beverages in reusable or recyclable cups by 2015.’

Here is a link to a summary poster of the scheme.

Starbucks Karma Cup - how it works
Starbucks Karma Cup - how it works

Sounds fun. The winning initiative was only announced yesterday so I hope someone reports seeing this in action soon!

Blogger’s block

I have blogger’s block.

I am unsurprised that other people have coined the phrase ‘blogger’s block‘ well before me. It’s an obvious one, isn’t it.

I remember when I was first on the internet. I was trying to create a character for a text-based role playing game and I remember thinking, ‘Wow, someone’s already chosen the name ‘Gandalf’.’

My brother and I tried dozens of internet handles. We ended with ‘VampireSmurf’. If we waited another week, VampireSmurf probably would have been taken.

No longer am I surprised that every idea I have is already on the internet.

This is cool. Use namechk.com check the availability of your username of choice on a whole bunch of sites.

Wow. There’s a joanium on a site called PictureTrail. Otherwise, all those joaniums are me. joanium is probably the nearest thing I’ll ever have to an original internet thought.