The thing about Twitter that I keep trying to explain to people,
People being,
the ones who go like "but why do you want to put something on Twitter? Is it cause you don't have any friends... blah blah... "
and
the ones who go like,
"Twitter is definitely a great way to keep posting all day long about my company" and
the ones who just act surprised when I tell them
"Oh ya I found that out on Twitter... I am going to meet some twitter friends.... I will check that on Twitter".... and so on
So the thing I keep trying to explain is that when everyone is tweeting the little quirks that people have which can't or don't actually get shared with anyone comes across and it creates a little pool of quirky people who have now shared their quirks with each other. The quirk that drew this matter across to me was tweeple making up words!
So in my circle of friends I am probably the only geek who actually makes words..
Sorrible: It was so horrible that I am sorry to be part of it or I am so sorry that it was so horrible :D
Assholy: Don't have to explain this one.
Now imagine my surprise when I see tweets like this,
:) Twitter is fun!
Managing many twitter accounts... one thing I have realized whether it is lead generation, conversing or building followers it all boils down to every individual tweet... whether that one tweet is interesting enough to gain a reply, spike the persons curiosity or even get them to follow.
Its all about those 140 characters.
No, I am not exaggerating, cause I have seen it in so many different situations and platforms. The same message wrapped in a different way - lose the 'pitching attitude' from it or become that tad bit informal and all of a sudden there is a real JUMP in how successful it is.
Crucial to take the time and pay attention to the conversation, how you are forming your words and then your sentences. After we take that much care.. it boils down to the listener/reader...
As listeners we need to give people a chance, cause they may be bad with simple semantics.. so look beyond the words at the aura :D (sorry that was a joke... the joke is that I don't really know how we can look beyond the words... I mean its damn tough to gauge a persons 'heart' or real intentions at least for me..)
What do you think guys and girls... ever seen this when socializing over new media?
Haven't been blogging in the last few days was working on some projects. Today I missed blogging. I am glad this happened cause I started blogging for a reason not because of any professional requirements. As I have mentioned earlier also my profession being social media, sometimes my blog seems to be a great add on to it, but I think its much more. Its me communicating with the world.
Good to get back to basics. Do you sometimes feel that life keeps taking you along with all its requirements of Job, Money, Family, Society, Relationships? I think its most crucial to take time out and be with yourself, to see that all these requirements are just that. A bunch of requirements, they are not Life nor are they Me.
Chris Brogan recently wrote a post Redrawing, where he mentions how corresponding and responding to every tweet, blog comment, email and message is too much for him and he will have to cut down. Well he is taking this step late :p cause I stopped doing that some time back. I do give it a lot of time, but there is an order of hierarchy to which I respond. I am going to give it out here, so you can make the best advantage of that :D If you do I might then have to change it though!
Email: I read everything, but replying to all is seriously difficult due to 'Inbox Overload'. This is still I think the best way to get in touch with me, anyone can send me an email from the Contact form (link on the header).
Twitter and Facebook: I respond to almost everything on these. I said 'almost' cause often there are lot of messages which perplex me, I don't know what to reply so I often stay mute.
Responding to Facebook messages has become easier after their new layout, before I did not reply to those promptly either.
Blog Comments: I read all of them, I may not reply sometimes cause I feel often these comments are not direct messages to ME. It is more for the article, so they will be useful for the next readers.
LinkedIN: Low response rate, in fact even now I know there are couple of messages waiting there for about a week. Couple of them are job offers, but sorry guys I barely sign into linkedIN, when I do I check out my Groups and such. I pretty much forget to reply, also I don't like the message replying user interface on LinkedIN.
IM: I remain invisible on Gchat and Facebook chat. Once in a while I open the gates and go visible with Pidgin...
This hierarchy of course, is Moot if the content of the message is very important or striking.
What about you people? Do you prioritize messages according to the medium you receive them from?
Wow look at this image of the internet cables!
Trivia: The longest internet cable starts from Norden in Germany to Keoje in South Korea it connects 32 different countries with 39 landing points!
Read a lovely article today about how the internet has changed writing in the 2000's. It brings to fore a really important aspect of internet, web and the social boom about how people are constantly communicating through the typed word! Formulating a status update, chat message or comment, typing it down and ENTER! Its out into the world, for people to read!
Especially in the younger social network savvy generation this leads to a developed skill in communicating/writing albeit in their own slangy or sms language.
Read the Article!
At the same time, people are mastering more kinds of writing. Other technologies that grew more popular this decade required a different mode of expression: Instant messaging invited a breezy, fast-thinking tone; blog comments (again, the thoughtful ones) sharpened our debate skills; Twitter enforced even more economy onto our words. In all of these, we were nudged toward something all writers aspire to: a strong, distinct voice.
How do you think social networks particularly affects the communication skills of a person? Moreover do you think that the newer generation will be better at writing and networking skills due to social media?
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If you are planning to have a difficult conversation then it must be important, otherwise you probably will not have the conversation. If the person you want to talk to is far off, then one option is to talk via the web, however there might be certain aspects you may have not considered,
- The First Reaction: With email, IM you would completely lose out on the first reaction. Even with a web cam often you can barely make out the persons features so as to get how they have reacted.
- Response Delay: As the first reaction is lost, even later there is a delay in response which would affect both sides. Most of the voice, video chats that I have had always had a delay time, where I could hear the other side a few minutes later, moreover the video quality is usually quite bad. This delay in responses can become quite taxing when in a difficult and important conversation.
- Misunderstandings and Clarifications: Especially in IM it often happens that the other person may not get your messages or you might not get their messages, due to a technical glitch. Sometimes the language used might give a very wrong impression. Some words like sick, ridiculous are actually used as a compliment by some! The only way this can be avoided is to have a voice conversation where you can make out the tone etc...
- Option to Avoid: The person can avoid replying. Have you sent important emails to which there was simply no reply? Its quite exasperating and you having taken the efforts to have the conversation yields not much results. It also leaves you wondering whether the person checked the email and then did not reply or has he not checked the email at all.
- On the record: Emails, IM's can all be kept for 'record'. They can be shown to other people. If this is not something you might be comfortable with then better not to have these online conversations!
Generally its worth making a long distance trip and having these talks face to face. If its not at all possible, then do it over the phone. I have found mobiles to be quite reliable for ISD calls. If you and 'they' have a good internet speed then video/audio web chats can suffice.
Have you had such difficult conversations online? What was your experience?
You might also be interested in my older posts:
- Having Difficult Conversations
- 5 tips to have clear online communications
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Communicating online, brings in some challenges different from face to face conversations. Even on the mobile where you can't see the persons face you can make out voice modulations, pauses, spontaneous stuff that they might mutter and any other real time stuff.
Online communications are like type-written letters all formal looking. Using it for timepass and other non-formal communications can often lead to misunderstandings.
Some things to pay attention to while conversing online..
Emoticons: One of the most common ways that feelings are expressed in the digital medium is through these: :D :) :P :| >:|
A serious statement with ':p' can make it seem like a joke, a funny statement without a ':)' can seem as an insult.
Couple of problems with these emoticons:
- People are beginning to 'think their emotions' i.e. when you laugh over a chat conversation there is a thought that now I am laughing so I should put a ':D' or a 'ROFL'. Obviously these thoughts are not present in an offline scenario.
- Inappropriate usage: Lot of people that are too active on the web are beginning to use LOL, ROFL as a response generically. So now a days when someone types LOL, it really doesn't imply the person finds it funny. It could also mean that the person is being sarcastic about how 'not' funny this is. There is no way for the other person to know this over online communication!
Punctuations: These punctuations have been used in any sort of writing even before computers and internet came along. People all over the world fluent with the language can understand the meaning of those punctuations. Online the usage of these punctuations should be the same as far as I can understand. Sometimes if the matter is very, very shocking then it can be followed by '!!!!!!!!!'
Lot of people I find use '!!!!!' behind a 'hi' on chat so they should I guess put '!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!' for something shocking.
My point being that just because punctuation rules don't apply on the net it will lead to clearer communications if they are used in a moderate and usual manner.
Colloquialisms: Using slangs, foreign language words can be confusing and/or misleading to people who don't get them. I often tweet in Hindi, but I presume they will be ignored by my non-hindi reading followers.
Serious Matters: Often something that I might not take too serious might mean a lot to someone else. So always good to keep that in mind before saying something which someone else could take offense to.
A flip side to this is that people also need to cultivate openness to hearing something that means a lot to them mentioned in a different light, cause after all, mingling (online or offline) leads to idea exchange!
Moody Statements: These are something to be really careful about, when a statement is written down to express a mood they tend to be curt. People who are not in that sort of mood may not get what you are trying to say.
Better to re read whatever you are writing and then publishing it.
Do you have any other tips to have clear communications online?
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Recently came across an interesting article about how Internet is badly affecting people's concentration and ability to focus. People are getting used to small snippets of information like tweets, status updates. Instant communications like email, IM chats are simply distracting people for long patches of time. They are not able to read long articles, reports.
I actually don't agree with this, cause in any job, if not the internet distractions then there are other distractions. When there was no computer were there no distractions? Didn't people come and talk to each other? If they did it could be coined as 'distraction', if they didn't it would be isolation. Isn't it?
In a really busy office, I am sure the people were interrupted a LOT with new memos, work, files, personal chats, secretary stuff etc.. Its the same , if a person is busy on the internet they are interrupted a lot by emails, chats, tweets etc... If they are not that well connected then they will not be!
I remember before when I was not into social media, I barely got any emails, tweets, orkut notificatons. Was this less distracting? No. It was because I had nothing going on, in the net world!
When I have made many connections, have work assignments and have connected with a lot of friends etc.. on the net, I do get loads of email and tweets and facebook notifications. I am glad for these, cause they bring me work or a greeting from someone or foster my friendships.
Yes some amount of it is distracting but that needs to managed as other offline distractions are managed.
An interesting video I saw on TED about social networks being used in offices. How it fosters the basic intimacy between loved ones,
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Socialness brings in many people in our lives. Many of these people become closer than the rest. Many a times its needed to ask ourselves whether we are with the right people. They could be our in-laws or office colleagues or some new friends. These are some insights I got while I was in such a situation, at the Isha Yoga Center. (Read my experiences there). Some signs to look out for....
- Are they promoting the right people?
See which people are being promoted within the group. Whether they are 'right' or not is subjective. However if a lot of the people being promoted or encouraged or liked are not 'right' according to you. Then probably the group is not 'right' for you either.
- What happens after a conversation with them?
Do you feel left out, unheard or disturbed after talking with these people? If you do then it is not a good sign. It is not necessary that you agree with them but even if you don't meetings, talks, conversations should end on a positive note where you have understood the other side. You should feel heard and trustful about their reasons.
-The Unexpected factor
How often are actions by the group unexpected for you? If the things that they are doing are too unexpected then you are not able to gauge these people. Especially if they are disturbing incidents then its a red alert that you need to reconsider being with this bunch of people.
- Can you talk well about them?
Can you easily gush out some positive and interesting aspects of these people or organization? If not then maybe they are not a positive or interesting influence in your life.
- Is there bonding happening beyond your sphere of work or relationship matters?
If it is office colleagues then you should be bonding over a talk of movies or Mafia Wars. With in-laws there are tons of ways to extend the relation into some friendly chit-chat. Go traveling with them etc.. Even with a boss you can bond over a geeky talk abt Google or something. These are the aspects that bring closeness and warmth between people.
However if all or most of the above aspects are simply not happening then the people are not right for you and life is too short to spend with the wrong people! Best thing you can do is wish them all the best and Leave! :)
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Marc Benioff, the CEO and co-founder of Salesforce talks about how essential communications is in his company! Salesforce is a pioneering company providing SaaS applications. It started with an idea in 1999 and is now a 1 billion dollar industry. One of the first SaaS companies that is profitable. The tips are worth not only a read but also implementation!
Commit to transparent communication. Customer relationships take work, and a big part of that work is dedicating yourself to constant communication with customers and prospects, says Benioff. "We invited them to come in and see what we were working on. We asked them to test it, and we made changes based on what they said. Having this kind of inclusive communication—sharing and listening— from the beginning set the tone for our entire company." According to Benioff, salesforce used this feedback to make fast changes—"intelligent reaction."Read More.Tell classic stories. Most reporters don't care about a tiny startup, and that's why Benioff never positioned himself as such. He told a classic David-vs.-Goliath story. "We gave the media something different. We gave them something new. We always positioned ourselves as revolutionaries. We went after the largest competitor in the industry or the industry itself. We made our story about change. We were about something new and different that was good for customers, and good for the community. We talked about the future." Although the media landscape is changing, Benioff believes there will always be a need for content. The delivery model might be changing, but exchanging and sharing stories and information remains as important as ever.
Make your own metaphors. According to Benioff, simple metaphors are a terrific way to communicate your message. "I spend a lot of time creating metaphors to explain what we do. For example, early on I explained what we did with the metaphor "salesforce.com is Amazon.com (AMZN) meets Siebel Systems." Later when we launched AppExchange we called it "the eBay (EBAY) of enterprise software." Anyone can create their own metaphors, says Benioff. "Just remember to test them before you put them out there. Try a few and run them by customers, analysts, and people in your network to make sure they work."
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Have not been able to write too many blog posts on #communication due to work, brothers marriage and some other responsibilities! its actually a lot easier to jot something down about social media. Communication blog posts need me to take time out and really think.
I recently read an article I thought I should share with you all. This article is from Harvard Business Blogs, which by the way are a place for some good and thought provoking articles! It talks about being at the end of a verbal attack and how to make the best of it.
http://blogs.harvardbusiness.
What do you think? Do you have any ways you deal with such situations?
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A recent NY times article looks deeper into creativity! A research shows that mingling with different groups helps foster innovation and ideas.
"People who live in the intersection of social worlds, are at higher risk of having good ideas." says Ronald S. Burt, a sociologist at the University of ChicagoRead another analysis of Burt's study: Collaborative networks produce better ideas.
The ability to ideate seems directly related to:
- how diverse and heterogeneous your connections are
- how adept you are at transferring info and practices from one group to other
- drawing analogies between the groups different aspects
- combining the similarity of the groups
Such info exchange and socializing would require good communication skills!
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Today morning in my mailbox was a very mundane looking mail 'reply-wave' - My Google Wave preview invite! In my past posts you can see how excited I have been abt Google Wave!
Initially wave was kinda confusing, cause my contacts were not online, but then got a few of my twitter friends on it. So now we are waving together, they have discovered ways to play Sudoku and all kindsa stuff. I am not exactly clear how it works.
The chat speed is real time, as in you can read what I am typing as I am typing it... and the UI is definitely more interesting than the usual IM chat boxes! You can see in the below screen shot, the chat can happen in different parallel strings... in the same wave.
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My last conversation was on getting into the right perspective to have difficult conversations. Moreover you can also think about props! It sounds cheeky and stuff but these things might really help! These things are not MUST haves and different things work for different people but, give it a thought at least.
Food: Food works for me, I don't mean take your lunch plate there. Some snacks like salted cashews, chocolate bar, chips, a fruit while having these talks are great. It helps relax the mind (for me). Even chewing a gum might help.
Shawl/Jacket: A warm stole, jacket helps give a cozy feel. So if you are a shawl person then go ahead and take your favourite one with you.
Water: Always remember to carry a small bottle of water with you, especially if you think you might cry. Also it might help you to take a micro break where you drink some water...
Cap/Hat: It hides the face :p That might hamper though... but if it works for you then its cool
Mobile/Digicam: Helps a lot to have something to fiddle with. It can also get distracting though.
Light Music: You might like light music playing in the background. Try taking a walkman or laptop with you.
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Not a lot of people know that Twitter is actually a very hustling bustling ecosystem in its own! While there is a lot of discussion about it as a marketing tool, viral nature etc.. only a true twitterati :p would know it as a buzzing city square where people meet and mingle.
Twitter traditions:
Follow Friday: Every Friday tweeple tweet about interesting people they are following on Twitter. So every Friday you will see follow friday trending. If you are active, you will probably get a FF recommendation every now and then.
Music Monday: Every monday tweeple tweet about their fav music! You can see #musicmonday trending every Monday. Good way to get some new interesting stuff to listen to.
Games:
Often there are games being played like #twanuvaad where people were tweeting English translated Bollywood dialogues :p It soon began trending thanks to the Indian twitterers
There are sex games/tweeting sessions as I mentioned in a previous post.
Twitter Festivals = Twestival:
This is when twitterers meet offline, have a fun night and also donate for a charity event. There is a global twestival for a charity called Water and now local twestivals are being organized in different cities all over the globe. There was one at Mumbai recently. (Sorry couldn't blog it!)
In fact you can support the twestival in your city, just check it out on their website whether your city is part of twestival local, if not you can become a centre and raise finds for a local charity!
Live news source during Crisis!
Twitter becomes a real-time communications channel in terms of crisis. We saw that when Mumbai had real bad rains couple of months back. Amongst many examples is that of the Iran Election riots, in fact even now people are tweeting about #iranelections.
Tweetups
Offline meetups of twitterers is called Tweetups. Recently I went to a couple of them that happened close to my house. Fun!
Vocabulary... or should I say twocabulary? :D In fact see one of the many twictionary!
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Came across a really interesting blog post today from Sonia Simone
It made me think about what exactly is marketing? Conventionally I thought of it as the prequel to selling. Where you say all the good stuff and leave out the bad stuff and then ask them to buy whatever you have. The problem with this thought is that, this is NOT what I do!"I wasn’t that into marketing (I’m the worst salesperson in the history of the human race), but I was into communication, and hanging out with customers, and answering questions, and making the product work better for them.
It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out that all that stuff was marketing." Read More
(I am a social media marketeer)
The above idea about communicating, trying to make a product better however is much closer to what I do! So I am now a- thinking about what marketing is!
Any thoughts?
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This blog started out as an attempt to communicate with the world. I planned it to be more about my work i.e. social media and online stuff and some personal, whacky things like my maggi recipes and eco-friendly ideas.
I have lately been thinking about how important communications is in Life! So I am planning to make this blog a little more oriented towards communications (besides its header :) ). Probably put a few blog posts on interpersonal communications that play a huge role in people's lives. Let me know how they are coming up... and keep your feedback rolling!
I will still be putting down my social media articles, as I come across new interesting stuff on the Web.
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Just returned from Coimbatore. This trip was for a purpose of having certain conversations, that too really difficult ones. These conversations are probably one of the stepping stones to 'growing up'. There is no help in these conversations, there is only your own intelligence, sense and unhelpful emotions (which crop up every now and then). Often they are of a sensitive issues which requires all kinds of delicacies in conversing which you might not even know existed until you face the situation!
So whether it is asking your boss for a raise, or telling your parents about something they won't approve of or breaking up with your spouse. Here are some tips, from all my preps to have difficult conversations.
- Why are you having this conversation?
This is important cause it gets you in the right perspective. Firstly be clear, are you talking because it means something to you, is it because of some work that needs to be done, or because it means something to someone else or whatever? Clarifying this with the person you are talking to will help a mutual understanding about why this conversation is happening.
- Why are you talking to this person?
Is it because he is a friend, authority, concerned person? This will help you focus on what you should be talking. If it is some official conversation then better not be too personal etc.. If it is clear in your mind then probably the conversation will remain relevant for that person also rather than it becoming a one way stream of you talking and the other guy not knowing what to do.
- What do you want from this conversation?
Is it to settle a matter only or do you want something more like an explanation or apology or you just want to bring something to their notice. Do you want a definite answer about something? Any monetary refunds? Once you are clear about this, then this will steer the conversation, and take it to an end.
- How emotional do you want to get?
Talks can often become heated or argumentative. They can lose any purpose and become scattered. If you don't mind fighting to make your point then its ok, but if it is your boss, you probably can't do this. So keep in mind the extent you want to go, emotionally to assert your point of view. Also remember that if you get angry you might say many things you might regret later...
Some conversations will inevitably become emotional so its better you be ready for this. This will make it easier for you to manage your emotions.
- Time Out
Be prepared to bail out of the conversation. Often discussions can start getting out of hand, where they don't make sense or the other person is getting too aggressive or violent. Or whatever they are saying might be taking you off gaurd, in which case just call a time out. Saying 'I am not prepared to answer this' or ' I need time to consider this answer' can often be a much better option than blurting out something that is not true.
For most of the above points you need to be clear to a certain extent about yourself, so take time out to be with yourself First!
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I have previously mentioned twitter trending topics, but I feel that this feature of twitter is so powerful that I should make a full fledged blog post on it.
What is it?
As everyone on twitter tweets, about work, daily events, life, news etc.. on the right hand sidebar of the twitter web console, the 12 keywords which are being tweeted the most are displayed for everyone to see.
As the 10 most popular keywords keep changing so do the twitter trending topics.
So what?
Well to think that I know what globally twitter people find most important, gives me a lot of idea about what really gets people talking. What are people into!
Moreover if some really big event happens like - the Iran elections (and the ensuing riots) then how would I know abt it??
Newspapers have a global page which I never really read! It is the 10th or 11th page! So I had no clue abt the Iran election disaster until I kept noticing #iranelections trending on twitter.
My first thought was that Iranians must be celebrating or something, but after the topic was on no.1 position for more than 1 day I got curious and searched to see what exactly are people tweeting with regards to #iranelections?
This is when I found out about the Iran situation, which by the way they are still facing, and the topic is still trending.
After that Michael Jackson died and MJ, Michael Jackson etc was trending on twitter.
Today the rain situation in Mumbai became really bad and many Mumbai twitter people are tweeting the current situation wherever they are. So reports of flooding here, this road is clear, here a tree fell etc etc... is pouring in.
There were also funny tweets like it is waterblogging on twitter :D (@manuscrypts)
So #mumbairains is now trending on twitter (BTW I started that hashtag :) ). So now the people in Mumbai can have an up to date idea about what is happening, moreover they can send tweets out to find someone who is stranded in the same area as they are, or figure out safe roads to take while traveling etc..
Also globally just a few twitterers in Mumbai, told the 20 million people and more that it is a raining emergency in Mumbai!
Spam
Of course lot of spammers got all excited and started spamming the #mumbairains... this needs to be looked into by twitter admin, but despite that the feature is still very powerful.
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