I have trouble using asynchronous tools to communicate now.
I impatiently stare at my screen wondering why an email hasn't been responded to yet, I sent it at least 2 minutes ago for gods sakes.
I essentially don't use Facebook anymore as it just feels so *slow*. Regardless of the fact that you can make a comment, a Facebook status is not really about having dialog. They are more like rhetorical statements. I could use Facebook chat, but the people on Facebook are known quantities to me, there is no sense of open forum.
If you're not present at the moment that I want to talk my first thought is to just keep moving forward, having to send you a communication *now* that you might not respond to until some undefined moment in the *future* starts to feel like wasted effort. It's not of course, but my brain is definitely rewiring itself in regards to expectations about how I communicate. It must be similar to how it was when telephones became commonplace and inexpensive. If you were just being conversational you didn't pick up a piece of paper and start to write a postal service letter in longhand. You got on the phone. If it was more formal, more thought through, or you needed to make a specific point on the other hand you definitely reached for something with a sense of permanence like paper and ink.
When I need to purge a thought in any amount of detail I dump it here. This blog has become the equivalent of me on stage giving my presentations. It's a one way conversation initially. The blog comments are the following Q & A session where it must be on topic, and there are a limited number of people willing to raise their hand. And Twitter is the after party where everyone is comfortable pitching in, topics are all over the map, and perhaps I'm given a link to come watch you speak on your stage where I listen, maybe raise my hand during Q&A, and then we repeat the cycle. Maybe I discover a new friend, a new partner, or a new customer. Maybe I debate with someone I disagree with. And maybe, just maybe, I run into those people every now and again who improve me as a person as well.
I hear all of the time that this serendipitous approach to engaging on twitter is fine, but it's not business. That's ok with me if you feel that way. There are a lot of ways to utilize twitter as a business. If you're a customer service rep on twitter, or a big branded account you certainly don't want to go around saying some of the things I do. But as an *individual* in a business my view is that it's at the after-party where business gets done. You're not going to approach me while I'm on stage presenting. You might engage with me in Q&A but only in a formalized focused way to arrive at a specific objective. But at the after-party you have a group of like minded souls, discussing their lives/work/dreams which will invariably overlap with one another at various touch points in such a way that they can benefit from one another. That benefit can take many forms, perhaps a job, a project, or a friend. It may be apparent immediately, or it might not rear its head for years.
And for the same reason that everyone avoids the high-pressure guy with one objective and a stack of business cards at the real life after-party, people on twitter will avoid that same guy. So relax, and enjoy the after-party. Keep your objectives, but maybe you should make one of those objectives being open to serendipitous encounters. If you don't make a little room for it in your itinerary it can never schedule a meeting with you.
Matt Ridings - @techguerilla
{p.s. - Using words like serendipity gets me about as close as I can get to sounding like a social media treehugger without spewing my nachos across the room.}
