Meeting tweeters
It's been awhile since I've been the "new person" in an established group. I got to experience that this evening by attending my first 304blogs Tweet-up. It was at Capitol Roasters in downtown Charleston, an establishment I'm pretty familiar with. I still don't like that they changed their hours last fall, but I wasn't going to let that stop me from meeting these folks.
I'll say first of all that I don't use Twitter, really don't see the point of it, and really don't have any plans to use it. I'll point out that I used to say the same thing about blogging, and here I am. I've obviously changed my mind there. I now see blogging as a new platform for an old habit, so it's a more natural fit for me personally and has turned out to be rather enjoyable. A few people asked me what my Twitter id was and I said I didn't have one. Nobody recoiled in horror, so I guess it's not a sin to attend a Tweet-up without actually tweeting.
Let me add that I hate the verbiage which goes along with the Twitter culture. Let me also add that I used to hate the word "blog" and never really got used to it, but have (reluctantly) come to accept it for what it is.
One of the things I immediately noticed about the attendees was they all work and play in some form of media. I met a few IT folks (and not of the "yep, I can fix your computer" genre), a librarian, one of the voices behind WV Public Radio's mic (which was completely obvious to me as I listened to her speak), and a virtual administrative services provider. Lots of laptops, netbooks, and smart phones — and a healthy mix of OSes, which is about what I expected, though I think I may have been the only one using Linux. Eh.
I enjoyed being around these folks. I enjoyed hearing others talk about what they're doing on the web. I realized at some point that not being a Twitter-er wasn't necessarily a bad thing, as it's just another means to get the message out there. So it wasn't just about what people are doing on the web, it was what they're doing to get their message out to the world — and how — whatever the message is.
The art and science of communication is fascinating to me. It's not just about words — it's about pictures, music, art, advertising, digital signals, web standards. We've been doing it for millennia. Cave paintings of bison, stories around a campfire, didgeridoos, hieroglyphics, monks copying manuscripts in silence yet spreading their words across the world, Gutenberg, Dali, Debussy, Tesla, Berners-Lee. Words, of course, are my preferred way — my musical talents consist of calling crows with a blade of grass, and I can manage crude stick figures suitable for the aforementioned cave paintings. And now, they are words on the web, perhaps an inevitability given who I am and how I tick.
As for the message... I'll figure that out as I go along. I don't know that I have one or even need one. For now, it's good enough to know I'm not alone in the quest.
Comments on "Meeting tweeters":
Glad I'm not the only one who hates modern technology lingo! Such as TXT...by the way, you got rid of ONE letter. I'm sure that's a massive time saver. I refused to use the word "blog" for years and years. It sounds like a disease. And have you ever met anyone who says "lol" aloud? Ugh.
With all of that said, I do tweet...oh, the shame...# Posted by Lisa on August 20, 2009 @ 09:30:26 EDT.
The word "blog" always makes me think of boogers for some reason. "Hey, you have a blog hanging out of your nose."
# Posted by Brad Mills on August 20, 2009 @ 13:32:49 EDT.
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On Goodbye, Blossom, Martha said: We can still dress up and go to Laury's. Or Aubrey's. Or even Soho's, if/when I get over being mad.