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One of our most read posts is Beirut’s “Why Do People REALLY Tweet? The Psychology Behind Tweeting!” and it tends to illicit a varying range of reactions to it. Dr. Shawn was one of those people who stumbled on it and couldn’t help but call it a “load of donkey dung” but it was written in such a way that made us interested in contacting Shawn and getting him to re-post some of his articles over at our blog because he’s a man with a perspective.

It was interesting to read his blog and get an insight into how medical professionals use social media and how it’s impacting their business, communication, and how they tame s0cial media to meet their needs rather than follow the crowd when it comes to its usage. In this post he shares with us how he utilizes Twitter, and what he wants to achieve with his usage of the service.

==> Link to the original article.

* Note: If you have a Twitter, Facebook or social media related post that you think is worth republishing on Thoughtpick, just drop us an email.

As published on Dr. Shawn’s Blog:

Wake up in the morning feeling like P Diddy…

Grab my glasses,

I’m out the door, I’m gonna hit this city

Before I leave, I check my Tweet

For some follows back

Cause if they don’t, Then I feel

Like a total jag…

Today I noticed that, due to all those incessant follow back hash tags, a D-List porno “actor” has more followers than I by about 20,000 people. My first response was, Oh COME ON…What?” Then I had to laugh at myself, take stock of why I even cared…Do I care? Why am I on Twitter? Is it to get followers, attention, or is it for me as an outlet? If I care, why do I care? Am I really envious of a porno actors following? So I did some self assessment.

A Twitter Raison d’être

Why are you tweeting?

The first thing I decided was why I am on Twitter. I had been thinking over blogging for a while. I wanted to and had things I wanted to discuss and keep record of and share with others. I beat around the bush for some time with it. Deciding to co-author our book really gave me the push forward I needed. I spent some time researching blogs as to how people were doing them. A recurring theme while checking blogs was Twitter Twitter Twitter. So I joined Twitter to see what the fuss is about. My boys have Twittered for awhile, but joining social networking sites has never been my cup of tea as time is valuable to me and my friends and family are around me daily so the need for constant communication wasn’t important. What I didn’t expect was to see how many informative link sharing there is. Many colleagues in my profession are on Twitter sharing thoughts, medical research, informative commentary and current trends and topics. I was hooked.

I took a lot of flack at first for finally succumbing to a social networking site, but then I was inundated with the “coolness” of it all. I decided to pave my own way on my Twitter journey and began Googling topics and people I would have a direct interest in. I would add them on Twitter and one find would lead to a few more and so on and so forth. Within a week, I was fully functioning on Twitter with Tweetdeck and Twitlonger etc. I knew how to add, remove, make lists, join lists, block and recognize spam. What I missed initially was how many people follow you JUST to get a follow back or to extract your followers list as their own. So I began being more practical and observant of who I added, as to why I add them and who follows me and why. It’s very noticeable that many people on Twitter add, follow, follow back etc without ever caring who, what or why. THAT is the part of social networking I have absolutely no interest in. I only want people on my list to follow if they bring something to the table that intrigues my interest or makes my brain happy. That being the case, I will never have 15,000 people I follow because truly, that is just plain insanity. Who has time to read that? If you don’t have time to read it, why is it there? Of what significance is it to you? Those you do have an interest in get lost amongst the drivel.

The Follow-me-follow-you Game

Follow Me

When I add someone, I want them to feel appreciated; I want them knowing I read their information. If I didn’t they would not be there. So that is a fine balance for me. My life is about manageability and balance. I believe in all areas of our lives we should know our boundaries. Then we are less likely to make those in our lives, or in this case on our Twitter Favs, feel undervalued. I believe the salt of a man is his ability to provide security, love and respect to all he touches on a daily basis. That includes people you add into your life even if via Twitter. No person has to be seen to be heard. The internet taught us that a long long time ago. So in this instance, I haven’t changed or manipulated my values at all.

Would I like 150,000 followers following me hanging on my every word? Maybe, that would be kind of exciting, but I would feel guilty as it would be impossible to follow them all back. What I would like is a good number of people following me that think I have worth in my ideas, actions, and communication. Those people would be people I follow back because then we have a symbiotic Twitter relationship that only leads to positive value for all concerned. It keeps you grounded in reality, boundaries, self worth and of value/importance to others.

Adding with respect

Don't you deep inside feel that way?

I ALWAYS answer DM’s, “mentions” etc. I think that is as important as a common hello. It lets those who hear you, see you, include you in their Twitter lives know they have worth. In conclusion, I know if I wanted to disrobe and flash my junk on the internet in a movie, avatar or live cam, I would have a gazillion followers, but I chose not to thank you very much…lol I’ll chug along and add and follow and be followed respectfully forwhat is in my mind, not my pants. That ladies and gentleman is a choice I am very happy to live with.

And now, the dudes are lining up

cause they hear we got swagger

But we kick ‘em to the curb

unless they Tweet like Mick Jagger

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I happened to be involved in an interesting case study on “Digital Storytelling”.

Guy Kawasaki is preparing the last draft on his new exciting book “Enchantment : The Art of Getting People to Do What You Want”. Last week, I was discussing storytelling with Guy for one of the chapters in his book. I suggested him to read a good article I’ve found on the subject, written by Rick Braddy. Guy has tweeted the article in Alltop and renamed it “How to use storytelling for a product intro”. Unsurprisingly, the article went viral in no time.

Rick Braddy has dedicated a post on that. He says that “after several years of investing in my blog, it’s great to see I’ve finally struck a chord and people are excited about incorporating storytelling into their marketing”.

We can learn much on Digital Storytelling from this case study.

Storytelling needs not only a well written memorable tale, but also a catchy title which is instructive “How to use” and is directly connected to needs (”a product intro”), an effective distribution channel (Alltop is one good example) and of course, a well respected teller (or ambassador in this case, which can bridge between different cultures- business, marketing and digital).

That’s all on “How you do storytelling on storytelling…”

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There’s been an important and relatively sudden change taking place over the last couple of years in the way that we interact with the Web. While direct access or search activity has been (and still is) the most common way that we access the content and applications of the Web, new ways have been rapidly growing and competing with how we work online, both at home and at work. These new models, exemplified by social networking sites like Facebook or mobile apps on platforms like the iPhone, Palm’s new webOS, and Android, seems to be heralding a change in the way that we work with our IT systems in the enterprise.

See what the implications are and what you can do about them.

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Since Google Wave’s unveiling in May, it was quite interesting to try to figure out heads or tails of how the application will be received once it’s released. And now, we are inching closer and closer to when it opens for the general public. Closed Beta testing has been open for a few chosen developers who have been actively providing feedback on Google products. Will Wave be able to create a tsunami upon its release?

So what is Wave?

Wave, in the word of its co-creator, Lars Rasmussen:

Google Wave

“Here’s how it works: In Google Wave you create a wave and add people to it. Everyone on your wave can use richly formatted text, photos, gadgets, and even feeds from other sources on the web. They can insert a reply or edit the wave directly. It’s concurrent rich-text editing, where you see on your screen nearly instantly what your fellow collaborators are typing in your wave. That means Google Wave is just as well suited for quick messages as for persistent content — it allows for both collaboration and communication. You can also use “playback” to rewind the wave and see how it evolved.”

Wave’s Engulfing The Islands of  Sharepoint & Lotus

Given that we trust Google to provide us with intuitive user interfaces within a very low learning curve, its entry into the corporate world will be quite smooth and exponential - if we only consider those two facets - more about that later on.

The threat it poses is probably the greatest to IBM and Microsoft’s collaborative Business software. Combined with the other Google services and its source nature, it promises to take cloud computing and social networking to the next level.

Some of the features that excite us the most:

1. Switch seamlessly between IM and email: There are many times in which you are faced by a worker who doesn’t want to reply immediately to you, by coupling IM and Email you will be able to catch those people online and have a record of the conversation in one application.
2. Play back a conversation: Business correspondence tends to evolve and involve new people all the time, what is sad is that certain parts of the conversation get lost or truncated. Having the ability to play back the entire conversation as it happened will definitely be a game changer.
3. Share a conversation across different platforms: Want to share it with your Gtalk buddies? Post it on Facebook or your blog? It will be so simplified and will include its own embedded API customizations that will make the ability to move from collaboration and creation to final product and presentation much more efficient.

Wave Interface

So Is It All Brisk And Blue?

Not Really. While the Google team is working hard to make Wave deliver on all of its promises, some of the biggest challenges facing them are issues of privacy and security. Security will specifically be a thorny issue when moving sensitive commercial data into the cloud. Historically, it’s in Google’s DNA to make everything searchable and by doing so circumvent some corporate security policies.

The other issue is that of privacy; am I going to be sharing everything by default? Is it easy to make my conversations private? Can I de-list someone from the conversation? The way Wave works raises a lot of questions when it comes to privacy that will hopefully be ironed out in time for its public release.

Another minor issue is that currently Wave doesn’t integrate with regular e-mail, which could problematic if they don’t figure out a way to fit in the final product.

So until Google manages to address these issues the Wave will not crash the Sharepoint dominance in the corporate world.

So When Can We Dip In?

Wave will not be open for the public until later on this year according to the Google Blog, but you can sign up now to be one of its first users (or testers) by going to http://wave.google.com/ and requesting an invitation.

What are your thoughts about Google Wave? How quickly do you think you will adopt it? and how do you think it will impact your Web usage?

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Despite Having 300 Million Members, Facebook is Not The Largest Social Network
In my opinion, online social networks have three distinguishing features:  1) They have profiles that enable people to express their identity 2) Ability for people to connect to these profiles 3) To be successful, there’s a greater value created by a group of people sharing than as individuals who do not.

This week, Facebook announced it has ballooned to 300 million users, far more than MySpace and certainly Twitter.  Yet, I want to assert that Facebook isn’t the largest social network, email is (we’ve talked about this before).  Recent numbers from Microsoft showed that the number of active users (although the definition of ‘active’ isn’t explained) exceeds 375 million users for Hotmail.

When you combine all of the email networks from Gmail, Hotmail, AOL, Yahoo, and the millions in Outlook at corporations all over the world –it dominates over Facebook.

Not Everyone Agrees Email and Social Networks Are The Same
I took the conversation to my own community in Twitter, and while the majority seemed to agree others respectfully suggested that “email is not a social network because:”  1) It’s private, not public, 2) Lack of profiles, and  3) Lack of discoverability of people. I’d like to quickly address why I stand by that email is the largest social network:

Social networks can be private.  Just like in real life, some communities are not for the public.  In fact, Facebook is a closed social network, very little of your personal information can be seen by the public.  Secondly, some of the most successful social networks are deployed inside of companies, just ask folks like Telligent, Mzinga, Awareness, and Jive.

Email does indeed have profiles. Many argued that email doesn’t have a profile, yet, consumer email clients all offer profiles.  For example, see Yahoo’s, Microsoft Live, (which can spur from a hotmail account) and the Google profile.  We’re encouraged to put our handle, name, location, and other demographic information.  The second place to look is within the signature of each email you receive, people put their name, company, title, contact information and whatever else they want to self-express.  In both cases people opt-in to put that information in, and make their profile information accessible to those they want to share it with.

Email profiles are discoverable and social. Some who don’t believe email is a social network will argue that the profiles are not easy to find.  A social networks will help like-minded users find each other, and some social networks even recommend others to follow. Take another look corporations that have deployed exchange server have a large directory with individual names, profiles, and groups that they belong to.  You can search for titles, locations, and groups to find who in a company may have similar needs to you.  What about in the consumer space? Yahoo encourages it’s mail users to ask and answer questions from each other –even if you don’t know them directly.  In fact, in my Yahoo profile, there’s an area that suggests people I should connect with, one which is Shel Israel, who is certainly a friend, and Microsoft Live recommends people “like you” to connect with.

Agree or Disagree, Email and Social Networks Intertwine
A few more indicators that email and social networks are starting to merge: For public social networks like Facebook, Glassdoor, Yelp, and Twitter, email is a pre-requistite to register.  Messages that you receive in Facebook or Twitter, often end up in your email stream.  Email portals are already developing social features around them, have you seen the Yahoo homepage?  It’s starting to look like a social network.

Recommendations: Approach Email and Social Tech in an Integrated Strategy
It’s too easy to focus on the shiny microblogging tools and cast incumbent technologies by the side.  Savvy communicators should factor in how email and social networks fuel each other, they should:

• Interlace email and social efforts. In your marketing efforts, make it easy for people to share content both on social sites and through email.  Use the sharethis feature on your websites encouraging people to post content on social networks –or email to each other.  In your email marketing, make it easy for people to also share the information on their social networking profiles.
• Prepare for applications to be build on email platforms. Recognize that email portals are becoming social platforms, and brands will soon build or sponsor applications that interact with Yahoo Mail, Microsoft Live, and whatever comes next.
• Focus on the relationships between individuals –less on the medium.  The medium isn’t as important as the relationships between the people.  When Twitter goes down, some shift to Friendfeed, or Facebook to communicate, people have a way to find each other regardless of the medium or channel.

I hope this triggers an interesting discussion, even if you don’t agree. Would love to hear a global perspective on mobile usage, how does that factor in?

Update: On a related note,this study indicates that email usage is being eroded away by social networking sites and instant messaging. This is the type of data that will send email providers scurrying to the product roadmap to quickly integrate into the social web as quickly as possible.

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