Rochelle Grayson

Over the past week, I’ve noticed some great new ways people are using twitter and twemes. Building on my earlier post about flash online communities, people are now organizing groups, not just for quick events, but for causes and things they firmly believe in. One that caught my eye yesterday was #freetibet. This is a great example of people determined and passionate about a cause using the power of twitter and twemes to get their message out.

This week, I also received an email from Mike Sansone highlighting the tweme #quotable. Here’s what Mike said in his email:

Have a favorite quote? Use the tag #quotable and share it. Or place the quotable widget on your site.

What a great way to inspire others and recognize those nuggets of wisdom or moments of genius! On those days when things just don’t seem to be going well, it’s a nice to review the tweme and pick out some inspiring quotes!

And, finally, we are only one week away from Mother’s Day! I received another email from Anne Gentle, who is launching the tweme #mom to recognize the funny and precious tales of mothers. Here’s her description;

A mom friend and I are starting a tweme called “I’m the Mom Who” or “I’m the Mom Whose” which we’ll shorten to #mom – to tell funny tales of parenting in time for Mother’s Day. While there may be a few guilty confessions in there, the goal is to gather funny sayings from your kids throughout the day, or recount funny scenarios, not to pour your guts out or tattle on anyone (including yourself!) in 140 characters or less. Here is an example:

I’m the #mom who has the 4-year-old son who wants to buy his preschool teacher a gift certificate “For Zales, for diamonds!”, for the holidays.

I’m thrilled by all of these new uses and encourage you to think about ways you can organize, recognize and inspire others! Social media tools are quite powerful and small ideas can blaze through the networks and have incredible impact! Try it on for size; the results may really surprise you!

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

For most of us in social media, the challenges of an attention economy are well understood; we often hear “attention” is our currency and in very short supply. Trying to capture attention, promote viral conversations, engage an audience and ultimately, increase our networks and awareness are difficult goals to achieve. Many of us have heard that people in the online world suffer from “Attention Deficit Disorder” (ADD), which results in people skimming web pages, snacking on information, only reading bullets, etc.

Given this trend, micro-communications seem like a great answer to this ever-shrinking attention economy. Things like Twitter, Facebook status updates, and micro-blogs like Tumblr should really help us to address this issue. (In fact, I’ve even heard rumblings that “Blogs” are dead, but that discussion is for another post .) While micro-communications are a great way to perhaps grab people’s attention, there still may be something missing.

This was highlighted for me as I was reading “twitpitches” on Friday. A twitpitch summarizes your elevator pitch into 140 characters, usually a link is also included, and you post it to Twitter and tag it with “#twitpitch”. (Naturally, I followed the stream of twitpitches on Twemes .) I must admit that while I liked the concept of twitpitches, there was still something missing. Maybe it’s just that many people have not taken the time to communicate the essence of their pitch, or that 140 characters is too short. But, I definitely felt like I needed to hear more.

Then it hit me, most of the posts were missing the “Art of Storytelling“. In social media, we are constantly saying that to get the most out of these tools, you must participate! This idea is very much along the same lines; you need to participate because you need to create that never-ending story – the story of your life, the story of your thoughts, the story of your moments of genius, etc. – Your Story, however you define it! And, that cannot be summarized into 140 characters such that most people find it compelling and engaging. If you are lucky and/or very skilled, some might, but most of the time, we need to read and hear more.

So, what does this all mean? Yes, we live in an attention-starved economy, and micro-communications are great in capturing attention, as well as allowing us to dole out our stories in snack-sized pieces. However, do not forget that the most engaging and influential personalities are the ones who can build compelling stories (in many cases, bit-by-bit) and those who can take readers/users/listeners on an interesting journey!

Don’t just give me a short description, give me something that intrigues me, piques my interest! I don’t have a lot of time or attention; so, do make it worth my while!

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

It’s been great seeing the evolution of twemes.com! Over the past several weeks, we’ve had many people (and groups) pound on it and give us some great feedback. Thanks for all the feature suggestions and tweaks…keep them coming!

What has truly intrigued me, however, is how people are creating adhoc and instant communities. The most obvious example is at conferences, where audience members can twitter about panelists, have sidebar conversations, and generally just connect with the other people present. But, we’re also starting to see “Flash Communities” emerge around quite short or fleeting events of interest, e.g. the Oscars tonight. Currently, there is a long list of twitterers getting ready to twitter the red carpet and tweet their comments using the #aa08 tag. I’m sure many in this group may not follow each other’s tweets post-Oscar, but it’s cool to see how twemes.com is enabling twitterers to quickly pick a tag and create an “Online Flash Mob” around an event of interest, only to disburse and move on to the next event of interest.

Have you participated in a “Online Flash Mob”? What did you think of it? Did you make some interesting new friends? Do tell!

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

So, I started my Twitterati experiment a few days ago and realized quite quickly that I am having a hard time keeping up with tweets and all the respective responses. And, I’m only following 72 people! I don’t know how those of you following thousands do it!

Instead of giving up, I decided to create a solution. Something that would allow me to organize the fire hose of tweets and responses. This morning, I launched Twemes.com (with the technical assistance of my husband, Geoff ). Using “#” I can tag and begin a tweet conversation (or meme) and follow the responses on the Twemes.com website.

For example, given that there are so many posts about CES currently, wouldn’t it be nice to aggregate some of these tweets and see what the Twitterati all have to say in one place! I’ve started an initial CES tweme using #CES. Include this in your tweets and your thoughts/responses will be added to the list. I also started another tweme called #best-of-ces. I know this is coming…why not capture people’s suggestions while it’s still fresh?! So, using Twemes.com, I say, “Let the conference season begin!”

I’ll be playing around with twemes over the next couple of days. So, if you see some odd tweets from me, feel free to either respond and try out the system or simply ignore . If you are also playing around with Twemes.com, let me know what you think!

Bookmark It

Hide Sites