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.