2010 February | uber.la

Feb 27 2010

Sacrificing Twitter for the Greater Good: Signal-to-Noise Improves (Update v1 3-1-10)

Category: community building, connections, how do i?, social media, speed the web, tech opinion, tech reviews, tools — jmacofearth @ 7:43 am

dropping followers like hot potatoes with managetwitter

managetwitter.com: we gain some we lose more.

Update 3-1-10: It appears I'm losing about 10 followers a day on average, as the tweeps catch up to the fact that they themselves have been unfollowed. (new chart at bottom of page)

I've done it again. Right here, just weeks before the announcement of the Texas Social Media Awards and the start of SXSW I've gone an unfollowed over 4k followees on Twitter. I am sure the affect on my followers will be quite dramatic as well. So here's why I did it.

1. Life is too short to be trying to read everything.
2. Everyone is so stoked about BUZZ because they get to be selective about who they choose to include. (Duh, how'd we get so over-followed in the first place.
3. Discovery is the biggest rush with social media, so if I unfollow a ton of folks I get to rediscover them again! wOOt!
4. I believe who you follow is as important as who follows you.
5. Good Twitter tools are hard to find.
6. All the folks I unfollowed were probably auto-dm bots anyway.
7. I probably do not deserve the number of followers I have. (Well, that one's a bit tongue-in-cheek, but…)
8. Take a bold action. None of this unfollowing by the 20-per-page, as Twitter.com (hell) would have it.

So what is going to happen from here? Oh my, all the people who are concerned about who's following and who's not following will start dropping me in huge waves. Thus my ranking, my status on the Twitterholic in Austin list is going to plummet like a rock. And I will drop back into the goop from whence I came.

Then something remarkable is going to happen. I am going to discover some new cool people to follow. Some of whom I have not followed in months. Some of whom I've never followed. And some of whom I've followed, unfollowed and followed again.

And that's the fun of it.

Here's a comparison of my followers vs. followees as reported by twittercounter.com.

All that said, I hope you stick around. I hope you tweet good stuff. And I hope we continue to enjoy the conversation.

But I will understand if you UFM. As a close friend said recently, "I tried to follow you, but you are insane. Half the time I have no idea what you are talking about. It just made me feel confused and dumb."

I hope that's not the affect my range of tweets has on you, but I do understand if it does. I do.

@jmacofearth
permalink: http://bit.ly/sacrificing-twitter

I hope you can find a lot of great reasons to follow me, and my rants on Twitter and about Twitter. Here's my little collection called The Twitter Way.

And I'm also putting together a list of TwitterTools, the one's I know and love. I call this the TwitterMatrix.

This massively coordinated unfollowing was powered by ManageTwitter.com. Bless them for developing a new tool to manage our accounts at more than 20 peeps per page, like Twitter.com. Now we can get some unfollowing done, by golly!

+++

Here's the newest chart as of 3-1-10. I have changed the scale to be only 1 month, to show more clearly the pattern as my followers begin to drop off, primarily because I have unfollowed, not because I am tweeting differently, or doing anything spammy. It's just a fact, if you unfollow me I'm likely to unfollow you. If I'm paying attention, that is. And if I care.

My chart of follower loss since the purge.

Tags: 20-per-page, confused and dumb, discovery, follow me, good tweets, good twitter tools, google buzz, manage twitter, managetwitter.com, over-followed, over-tweeted, passionate unfollowing, range of tweets, rants on twitter, rediscover, signal-to-noise, sxsw, sxswi, Texas Social Media Awards, that's the fun of it, the twitter way, trending, twitter discovery, twitter fail, twitter hell, twitter.com, twitterfail, unfollowing, who follows you, who you follow

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Feb 25 2010

eHealth on Facebook? How will user-generated content influence health care?

Category: community building, connections, social media, trust & reputation — jmacofearth @ 4:00 pm

This is a new concept for me. A recent post about my ear pain and poor diagnosis from my first doctor visit generated this exchange with a friend and professional colleague.

The wave of the future. A friend *hears* I have an ear ache and reaches out to make sure I am getting appropriate care. And now I am asking for a referral.

@jmacofearth
permalink: http://bit.ly/FB-eHealth

7 Connective Practices – What If We Stayed Real Close? #TEDxAustin #TEDxATX #TEDx #TED

Category: community building, connections, lifestreaming, social media, teaming & leadership — jmacofearth @ 7:07 am

The #TEDxATX hash-tag or alternatively #TEDxAustin is beginning to trend down… But what if we didn't let the magic stop? What if we decided to dooooo something to stay connected?

Here's my plan: Don't Just TEDx, TEDeveryday!

As I wrote in an earlier post, the buzz of a great conference begins to wear off and those who were not part of the event begin to show irritation at how we keep bringing up the "event they weren't at." I want you to know you don't have to let go of the feeling of TEDxAustin. Nor do you have to let go of the people and connections you made. You & I *can* stay close!

In a week or so the hash-tag will be a ghost town and the pages that are currently lit up with busy connectors will be attracting fewer and fewer eyeballs. (That's how we used to refer to visitors from an advertising perspective–back in the day.) And your vivid emotions will either be rekindled by a deliberate practice or not.

So what is it that we can do to build our web of connectivity so that we don't have to disconnect?

Well, that, my friends and fellow travelers is the 5 billion dollar social media question. A conundrum really. And let me sum it up with an idea:

7 Connective Practices as inspired by TEDxAustin, 2010

1. We gathered, we shared, we exchanged glances, tears and contact information. (event)

2. In the afterglow of the event we came to realize that a power greater than ourselves could bring us to sanity. (affirmation)

3. As we began to reach out to our fellow TEDxAustin-ers we began to understand them better, we began to build connections beyond TEDx. (effort)

4. HERE'S THE TRICK: Through sustained effort and commitment, we colluded with others to make changes, we not only agreed to "stay close" we committed to concrete actions and re-gatherings. (commitment)

5. We continued to re-connect and re-commit on a regular basis. And we acted on the ideas and connective good we discovered. (fearlessly forward)

6. We ALL AGREED THAT cynicism = death. And that sarcasm, and sometimes well-meant humor, is a close cousin to the negativity and anti-light that is cynicism. (be a positive force)

7. FINALLY: We all move forward with plans and actions that bring us *closer* to each other and *a lot closer* to our calling. (self-examination and self-actualization)

I know for me Steven Tomlinson's performance at TEDxAustin was a peak. And the reason was he called me from where I stood at that very moment. And reading the posts and inspirations that came out of TEDx, I know that many of my fellow TEDers had the same feeling. And then what happened? We went out into the RED Reception area and we DID BIG, we CONNECTED BIG, we FELT BIG.

So as you move more deeply into the next phases of your life, post-event-high, ask yourself if your action is towards or away from your connective purpose, or as Steven put it, "your calling." And from that perspective make a decision about your actions. Do that repeatedly, continuously. And listen to the answers. You MAY in many cases choose the action that is not in alignment with your "soul work" but your longing for the soul work will deepen. And the next time you are faced with that choice it might be an opportunity to grow.

One core principal of Steven's talk was the relationship between calling and career. Even with all the best intentions, and hard work, we might not get where we want/need, or *think* we need to be, financially. And that is the gate that keeps many of us making the choices away from our passions. But the challenge is to BE BIGGER!

Grow, stretch and find a way to lean into the pain of NOT doing what you want to do.

Then do what you have to do: a: to provide for yourself and your family; and b: to step towards your dream.

@jmacofearth
permalink: http://bit.ly/TEDx-BE

IAMACONNECTOR.COM has a growing TEDxAustin page: TEDxAustin Connect (please join and ask for admin rights, and you can add your connections from this masterful event!)

The official Flickr stream of Kirk Tuck images from TEDxAustin is UP!