What was I thinking?

In my last blog, way back in April, I expressed enthusiasm for social media, but questioned the concept of following. Well, I've since come to see a place for following in my life as well as developed a much greater appreciation for Twitter, something I wouldn't have thought possible a year ago. I thought I'd post my thinking here.

I blogged before that I wouldn't want to follow anyone unless I thought they were extraordinarily interesting and even then wouldn't want to see all their thoughts. Well, I've come to realize that are some people out there who I find extraordinarily interesting and, upon examination, it appears they only tweet meaningfully.

This leads me to my second point concerning Twitter. The headline on their web page above the field where you enter your tweets asks What's happening? But while streaming "what's happening" in your life may serve some social and commercial purposes, I'm generally much more interested in What are you thinking? Further, thanks to Twitter's analytics, information about what you're thinking can be aggregated with what I and others are thinking to get a sense of what the crowd is thinking, which is often even more interesting.

On a related point, I used to think Why tweet if no one is following you? and Why blog if no one is subscribed to you? I can now answer that question, at least for myself. First, when you tweet or blog, you contribute to the collective consciousness and the collective memory which can be subsequently analyzed and searched. It's quite possible and likely that no one will find individual value in your contribution today, but if you are thoughtful, chances are others will find at least collective value in your contribution in the future.

It also provides a diary of sorts - a record of your key thoughts. It will literally let you answer the question What was I thinking? which can be a helpful memory jogger and allow you to see patterns which might otherwise not have been apparent.

So I tweeted for what I think is the fourth time in my life today and I tweeted about an extraordinary individual who is the only non-relative I'm "following" on Twitter on this point. I expect I will tweet more in the future and expect to follow a few others as well.

I Don't Follow

We've started using Yammer at my place of business. For those of you not familiar with it, Yammer is a Twitter-like social media tool. The key differences between Yammer and Twitter from my perspective are that:

• Yammer establishes a separate communication space for each place of business
  
• Yammer postings are not limited in length
  
• Yammer supports the notion of "groups"

I should say up front that after being initially skeptical, I'm now a big fan of using social media technology at work. I think it has tremendous potential for enhancing individual and corporate learning and productivity.

But this post is about the notion of "following", which I just don't get, at least in the business context. When you "follow" someone, you see everything they post, independent of the subject matter. To me, this feels like the intellectual equivalent of "stalking".

While there may be some exceptional people in the world whose every public utterance is worth pondering, I'm not aware of any and I certainly haven't run into any at my workplace.

Even outside the workplace, the idea of "following" strikes me as creepy. For those who I love deeply, such as members of my family, I'd still like to give them some "space". I don't think it's healthy for them or me to know their every post in every context.

For public figures, my relationship with them is typically associated with some specific activity they are engaged in, be it politics or science or whatever. Following them on all topics just because I have an interest in one topic of theirs makes no sense.

The only precedent for "following" from my perspective is the way in which fans follow celebrities via popular media with the aid of paparazzi. While such following is legal and arguably the price of fame in a democracy, I don't see it having a role in the workplace.

Which brings me back to Yammer. While Yammer has copied this notion of "following" from Twitter, with all its problems, it has also introduced "groups", an important concept that has deep roots in both electronic and non-electronic media.

I love groups. Groups provide focus and enable people with similar interests to gather and share in a way that's recorded so that others can learn from it at at later date. If "following" has a meaningful role to play, I think it is in conjunction with groups.

Depending on the membership of a group, I may want to follow all the posts in the group or just some of them. For example, for high traffic groups, I might want to follow only the postings of certain people to that group.

I'd also like to see the social media equivalent of a "restraining order". I'd like to arrange for the postings of certain people not to appear on my feed, so I can enjoy my groups without having to tolerate postings of people who have proven themselves to be gadflys, bullys, etc.

One final note to anyone who may found this as a result of following me on Yammer. Yammer has a default option whereby, when you initially join, you can follow the "top 20 posters". At some point in time, I entered this collection of people and, as a result, started getting hordes of followers. If you're following me, chances are that's why, and to you I would like to say:

• There's an "unfollow" option on Yammer
  
• If you "unfollow" me, I will not be offended. If anything, I'd think well of you, although odds are that I will never know
  
• If you want to continue to "follow" me, that's ok, too. Please just understand that when I post something to a group, I'm directing it at the people who joined that group with the assumption that they have a particular interest in that topic
  
• If I ever have something to say that I think is worth broadcasting to the general population, I will put it on the company feed

Don't hold your breath on that last one, though. Grabbing the attention of thousands of people, even for a moment, is not something I see myself doing except under the most extraordinary of circumstances.