In praise of brevity (thoughts on Twitter in considerably more than 140 characters)

Like many other people in recent weeks, I’ve seen and heard a lot about Twitter, the highly flexible micro-blogging platform that has a real feel of open-sourcery about it in the ways that its users have taken it, turned it and created conventions for its use.

I’ve had a Twitter account since March 2007 (check out my impeccable geek credentials here).  Back then I didn’t really understand what I was supposed to be doing or achieving, it was a little too free-form for me.  I like to know what the goal is and set about achieving it.  I tried it for a while and eventually got bored, much as I suspect many of the new converts will.  But the hype has brought me back to Twitter and this time, a little older and wiser, I’m experimenting with making it work for me.

My first job was to throw out assumptions about what I should be doing, including answering the question Twitter actually poses (”What are you doing?”), approaching it as a Facebook-style ‘must get lots of followers to prove my self-worth and interestingness’, trying to have conversations with people or use it as a social research tool, and worrying about doing it ‘right’.

I’m sure others have been faster to catch on, but there is no ‘right’.  Do what you like.  In the same way as regular blogging, there is space for those who send updates on their new kitten’s bowel movements, companies to ‘engage’ with their market, and private individuals who just want to see what they can do inside a 140 character constraint.

It’s this last grouping that I’ve plunked for.  My blogging isn’t about trying to make tons of money or create a personal brand.  Rather, it’s a way for me to enjoy and develop my writing with a modicum of exposure to outside criticism, just to keep me honest.  The creative constraint is the long-form, prose format.  The same is true of Twitter, except the creative constraint is the 140 character limit.  The fact that a few other people might see what I do, in the same way as the blogging and when you tell everyone you’re going to give up smoking or lose weight, creates some external accountability that makes it not ok for me to degenerate into posting kitty pictures.

So I’m doing an update about once a day.  I’m effectively writing a micro-blog post, an erudite thought in 140 characters or less.  It’s a fantastic format, enforcing a real clarity of expression in pursuit of ultimate brevity.  Like a French sauce, when you’ve finished boiling the thing down you’re left with a highly concentrated product that combines the elements of all the ingredients in a very few drops.  Or else you have a meaningless, contextless mess.

While I might not blog all that frequently, I refuse to accept that I cannot create 140 characters of content on a daily basis.  Particularly when I have the excellent prompts from Plinky available to spark my imagination.

If any of the above has made you desperate to follow my pithy updates on Twitter, you’ll find me hanging out here.  And for any other Twitter users, go ahead and leave a comment on how you’re riding the Twitter wave of awesome.

photo credit: action datsun

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