Several weeks ago I read a blog post by Mark Schaefer that highlighted four keys to Twitter success. While unfortunately there was no link directly back to the research he mentioned, the four ideas had a lot of common sense appeal and have kept me thinking about how I use Twitter and email to optimally communicate with people at work and with my broader professional network. Thanks for the great food for thought, Mark!
The four points were as follows:
While Mark’s post is unquestionably worth reading in it’s entirety, the first and last points have really stuck with me. In part their appeal lay in the fact that I value fewer highly relevant tweets that do not all arrive at the same time from the same person. One of the reasons I was curious to see the original research was that I wanted to see if the research suggested why when even an #FF sends 6 tweets in a row that I tend to just skip right through them. Moreover, my response to even high quality tweets sent in series fosters a near spam-like reaction in me. I imagine I am not alone in this regard and perhaps Dr. Hanna’s research sheds further light on this.
The net effect of reading this post is that I still only check my RSS feeds twice a day but that I make better use of Twitter applications that allow me schedule when my tweets are sent. Tweetdeck and Hootsuite are two applications that make this easy to do.
On the email front, I like to work when I’m thinking about something so that I can then relax and not think about it anymore. A former head teacher used to call this the “one touch strategy” where you try to only touch a task once so that you don’t get burdened by having to keep track of too many loose ends.
Even though I might like to work when I’m thinking about something, my colleagues don’t necessarily want to receive an email from me at 6am on Saturday morning just because that’s when I’m on a task. Send Later, an add-on for Firefox’s Thunderbird mail client, enables me to touch something once and have it delivered to the recipients at an “optimal” time. Optimal in this sense means that my email won’t unnecessarily interfere with someone else’s time-off but enables me to manage and move on when I need to.
Just think of the difference in appearances between being that no-life guy that sends work email at 6am on Saturday morning to being that guy that has a life but manages to get it all done anyway. – AC
Adam Clark is a school counselor at Yokohama International School in Yokohama, Japan. Find out more at http://whoisadamclark.com/who-is
Posted On: Saturday, February 26th, 2011
Posted In: Technology
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