"...(T)he exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?"
I've always thought that Twitter's own tagline is a misnomer, of sorts. Increasingly, I'm thinking the tagline should change to be more like, "...what interests you right now?"
For me, Twitter has grown to become a source of new information and knowledge. Not just about information and knowledge about what my contacts are doing, but also about topics that seem important to them at the moment.
In this on-going series, I've compiled my top 10 list of most interesting click-throughs in the past week. These have been gleaned from all the cool folks I follow on Twitter. To help introduce you to some of them, I've include links below to their Twitter ID. They're cool and I'm happy to encourage you to follow them, too.
Top 10 Twitter Click-throughs Nov 22 - Nov 29, 2008
- tweetsgiving.org. (@akipta). Why interesting: They raised over $10,000 in just 48 hours--enough to fund a new classroom in Tanzania. How'd they do it? Through the power of Twitter and social media. No matter how you slice it, that rawks, guys.
- Change.org (@decart). Why interesting: The link on the left is specifically to the cause of human trafficking on the change.org web site. (That also happens to be a personal cause through association with my wife, who works for a non-profit addressing those kinds of issues.) However, the whole site is worth taking a look at; it's another great example of using "crowdsourcing" to change the world.
- e-Learning for Kids: free courses for children globally. (@jpapakalos). Why interesting: It's a site hosted by a global non-profit foundation dedicated to "fun and free learning on the internet for children ages 5-12 with courses in math, science, reading, health and computers." And that's cool.
- PostSecret. (@phdebre). Why interesting: A site that posts the secret thoughts of people who submit them anonymously on a postcard. (I knew about this before but had forgotten about it. It's worth a visit if you're learning about it now for the first time.)
- The 2008 report from the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE). (@tawnypress). Why interesting: Download the report from Helge Scherlund's e-Learning News Blog. Read his summary, but also read page 12 of the report-- the sections on "Promising Findings" and "Disappointing Findings."
- Video interview: Guy Kawasaki on the Power of Twitter. (@stejules). Why interesting: He said this: "Social networking, specifically Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and those kinds of things, I use only one of those, I use Twitter..."
- BusinessWeek.com - Help Needed for a BW Story. (@johnabyrne). Why interesting: How often does a major international news publication ask for our input on a story? Well, it probably happens more often than we think. But, I've been pretty impressed with John Byrne's (Editor in Chief, BusinessWeek.com) use of social media in the evolution of the businessweek brand; it's an example of an organizational leader who "gets it."
- Alltop News and Announcements Email List. (@guykawasaki). Why interesting: It helps those of us who auto-tweet Alltop listings to customize which tweets we send. I'm all about mass customization.
- Blog post: Don't Be That Guy. (@shannonpaul). Why interesting: Because, I keep running in to "those guys" who round around shouting their messages about what they want from their social network contacts without giving much in return or listening to the community. You definitely don't want to be "that guy."
- Blog post: Were You Taught How to Network? (@jpapakalos). Why interesting: The idea about introducing "networking" skills (in a social/professional sense) into the academic curriculum is an idea whose time has come.
Are you a fellow "Tweep"? Follow me on Twitter (@melaclaro).
Or, connect with me on LinkedIn: LinkedIn.com/in/melaclaro.
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