Twitter This or Twitter That

High speed personal blogging is here and it is growing fast. In fact, a few folks already have a MILLION people following their every post. How long did it take radio or even television to develop a truly loyal following of one million or more? Years and years, I am betting. In case you did not see the recent race to be the first to have one million followers on Twitter here is the story; and here is viewpoint on this recent event.

Wow, perhaps we should back up a bit and just explain what Twitter is. As is my custom, let’s turn to Wikipedia for a decent answer. In case you do not have time for the full article here is the essence:

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read other users' updates known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length which are displayed on the user's profile page and delivered to other users who have subscribed to them (known as followers). Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends or, by default, allow anybody to access them. Users can send and receive tweets via the Twitter website, Short Message Service (SMS) or external applications. The service is free to use over the Internet, but using SMS may incur phone service provider fees.

We are still early in the development of this new medium and its use for the nonprofit world. Is it an internal team building tool or can it be used by large constituent groups? One fact is clear. Twitter is a fast and easy way to communicate to as many followers who want to receive your 140 character news updates and opinions as possible. Any tool that is being used by growing masses must be explored by our sector in my opinion.

Here is another opinion on 5 ways to use Twitter for good.

I always recall a mentor of mine by the name of Terry Butler who helped us with our original business plan for eTapestry. We thought we had a good plan, even if it was fifty plus pages of our wit and wisdom. In one of our early meetings he asked us to shorten it to a one page summary. Then in our next meeting he had the audacity to ask us to reduce our idea to one paragraph! Just think, if we had been communicating via Twitter rather than email, we would have had it down to 140 characters or less...

I wonder how many future mission statements or NPO taglines will be the result of a tweet or two from some loyal Twitter follower. Time will tell...

Many of you have heard my infamous and now just plain old story of being the eager young salesman who was asked to introduce the fax machine to the legal community of Indiana more years back than I care to recall. Perhaps it will shed some light on what can happen with new and fast growing technologies. Once upon a time I began the process by diligently garnering an appointment with the largest law firm in the state. When the fateful day arrived it turned out to be quite a hot muggy summer afternoon. After passing out my shiny new business cards (boy was I still wet behind the ears!), I proudly announced that in the near future every business card in America would have a fax number on it. They actually started laughing!

Based on that reaction, it was time for the highlight of my presentation to begin or I ran the risk of being asked to leave immediately. I called my office and told them to fax me a legal contract. The machine beeped, then burped, then spit out a grainy, barely legible shiny sheet of paper with the large letters at the top, "A Contract to Buy 10 Fax Machines from Jay Love". I then made another claim that within a few years virtually every contract in America would be signed and delivered via a fax machine. One of the partners lit up a cigar, blew some smoke in my direction and proudly stated, "Not in my lifetime, kid!"

By the way, that particular law firm ended up with a room full of faxes a few years later. Guess who was smiling then? Do you think that law firm has formed an opinion on Twitter or Social Networking sites yet?

I for one think NPO’s should experiment with every popular form of communication. Such new media is often where deeply rooted passions for a cause can surface and rapidly spread. Having a million Twitter followers cannot be all bad...