This one's off-topic. (Though, I could see it easily supporting a blog post about post-implementation learning support systems.)
All you who support end-users, or have ever done so in the past will appreciate this.
God knows, many of you have helped me in the past. Your patience is truly inspirational. Picture yourself in the role of help desk, supporting someone as thick-headed as moi.
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Don't tell my wife. If she catches wind, I won't hear the end of it. I can hear her now, "...you can remember the WORLD WIDE WEB'S BIRTHDAY, BUT YOU CAN'T REMEMBER MINE?!"
Well, in my defense, I didn't really remember the web's birthday, either. It came to me in a similar way that I "remember" the birthdays of my friends and family members: collabortively through social media.
If you have a Facebook account and have entered your birth date information in your profile and you connect with me on FaceBook, that critical piece of information automagically shows up in my event calendar.
So, I put it back to my wife, are you connected to me on Facebook? Hmmm...?? Why not? (Unfortunately, somewhwere there must be a law in quantum physics that evidently exempts her from this otherwise air tight reasoning. At the end of the day, I still end up sleeping on the couch.)
So it was in a similar way that I found out about the 20th birthday of the World Wide Web. But, instead of coming through Facebook, it came through one of my contacts on Twitter and a link to Marshall's post on Read Write Web.
To celebrate, I did some quick searches to see if I can find a baby picture. And, I think I actually found it!
As near as I can tell, below is a snapshot of little baby WWW on March 13, 1989. Awww... such a cute little tyke (if not a little intimidating).
And, in that baby-speak sort of way that many uncles address young adults, I observed outloud, "My! How you've grown!"
And then I asked the FAQ that many uncles like to ask the younguns, much to their consternation: "what does little WWW want to be when she (he?) grows up?"
And the answer, voiced by the parent, seemed really ambitious: We want him to grow up to be Linked Data. (See video below.)
Wow, I thought. You sure you wouldn't rather want to be a fireman or an astronaut? Linked Data seems like a lot to byte off. ;)
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The title in Jesse's video below is long-ish and might be titled differently but I think it's worth watching and forwarding.
Jesse's got some good info there about maximizing Twitter. And, he does it in a way that meshes with my philosophy of social networks: pay it forward.
If you don't have the 8-1/2 minutes to watch it, then at least through the highlight below. In a few short bullets, I've tried to outline my key takeaways so I can pay forward some things Jesse's post taught me that I didn't know just moments ago:
First, I think the title of the video should've been: "How I maximize the help I give to people in my Twitter network Using These Tweetdeck Tricks."
Second, the approach here presupposes you've downloaded and installed the free Tweetdeck application. (If you don't use some type of third-party app to manage your Twitter network, I think you're really making it hard on yourself. By not doing so, you're bypassing some of the automated and grouping features that are available to you through these third-party apps.)
Filter, Filter, Filter.
That said, here's the gist of the video: Filter, filter, filter. Put some thought into keywords and/or phrases that will allow you to find people who may benefit from what you know. Or, from who youknow.
"http:"
"When you think about it, one of the benefits of following so many people is getting access to really great information... these are 15,000 real people with real minds who are surfing the internet and most of them are tweeting the most relevant and most interesting links that they find..." ~Jesse Newhart
I lifted the quote above from Jesse's video. What a great mindset for social networks.
In the "All Friends" column of Tweetdeck, click the filter button and type the keyword "http:".
What this does is to filter away all tweets in the column except for those that have some kind of url in it. When you think about it, someone thought enough about that url to create a link and post it on Twitter; in most cases, they've included a brief description.
If you find their description of that url matches your interests, click-through and see what it's about.
Now here's the bonus round: think about the people in your own Twitter network. Take a moment to consider if they could benefit from your new discovery.
If yes, then retweet it.
"rt @"
Speaking of retweets, another keyword you might use is "rt @". (Notice the space before the "@" symbol.) The reason for this is, in Tweetdeck, when you "retweet" someone's message (i.e., sending a copy of someone's post to your network)...
... it pre-pends the retweeted post with exactly those letters. ("rt @")
So, by using "rt @" as your keyword filter, you'll get a list of tweets that is being retweeted by people in your network. That then gives you quick access to, essentially, information that has, in some way, been vetted by others.
Think about it, if you've ever retweeted someone else's post on Twitter (a "tweet"), then you know that, by and large, you did so because you looked at a post or link someone else tweeted and found it interesting. Then, with that interest in hand, you made a conscious decision to leverage your own Twitter-cred (online credibility/reputation) to share it with those in your Twitter network.
That's essentially the same process others go through when they retweet someone else's post for you to discover.
The hope is that, if you find it worthy of retweeting, it will similarly be found to be interesting by at least one other person in your network. Better yet, that it might actually end up helping someone.
"?"
Another keyword filter you could consider is filtering on the questionmark symbol ("?"). This filters for you a list of tweets from folks who are likely asking a question.
Quite simply, it gives you an opportunity to help someone.
Again, with the right mindset, you can either offer your own response or, if you don't have an answer yourself, retweet it to your network with a request that someone help with their own answer.
"Please"
Typically, the keyword "please" is associated with a request for some kind of action. For example, here's an excellent example, especially in the current economic climate:
Other very worthy variations I've seen have included support requests for donations or support to worthy non-profits, requests for retweeting amber alerts to help find an abducted child, one request I came across was actually for a fellow Twitter-er's missing family member (?).
So, bototm line: There are a lot of people out there. Many who need help. But the travesty is, I'd venture to say there are many more of us who have help to give and don't know it.
And, by leveraging the power of the long tail, helping someone, as it turns out, is much less costly and perhaps much farther reaching than many of us might have otherwise thought.
Perhaps other keywords have come to mind while you were reading this article. Please share them by clicking the "comments" link below.
If you liked this, or any of the articles on this site, pleasesubscribe! Are you a fellow "Tweep"? Follow me on Twitter (@melaclaro). Or, connect with me on LinkedIn:LinkedIn.com/in/melaclaro. Got friends? Forward this post or save it to any of the bookmarking sites below.
