Embracing the Twitterverse

Remember my disdain for Twitter? Well, I might have to eat my words on that one. I've been using Twitter much more regularly for the past six or seven months, and I'm a convert.

The problem with my Twitter usage prior to this past winter was that I wasn't really committed. (Yes, that sounds slightly obsessive, but bear with me.) I looked at Twitter as Facebook-light and started out by just following people I actually knew. Big mistake!

One of the best things about Twitter is that, except for the very small number of people who block their tweets from everyone but approved followers, you can follow anyone, and anyone can follow you. Rachel Maddow, Joel Stein, The New York Times - all I have to do is click "follow" and I can see everything they post! (Not that any of the three are following me, but then, their tweets are a lot funnier/more interesting than mine.) Breaking news, project updates from my favorite non-profits, latest posts from columnists and bloggers I love - what's not to like? I stumble across great people to follow all the time, either by looking at who my friends are following or seeing an interesting re-tweet and following the account that originally posted it.

And it turns out Twitter is a great local resource. One of my public lists is compiled of accounts that feature great things to do in DC, from my (former - sniff, sniff) Pilates studio, which tweets great deals on classes to Curbside Cupcakes, a cupcake truck named Pinky that drives around the city and tweets its location and the flavors still in stock.

Basically, Twitter does a great job of accomplishing one of social media's most difficult goals: it creates a solid sense of community online, often among strangers. If I'm watching NCIS by myself and want to geek out about something that happened to someone other than my cat, I can tweet, tag it #NCIS and follow that hashtag to see what other NCIS-watching tweeps (Twitter peeps - yes, the Twitter lexicon is a lot geeky and a little scary) think about the episode. I often tweet about running and list "runner" as a descriptor in my profile, which has led to running/outdoorsy Twitter accounts following me, which has in turn led me to some great resources for running support networks, runner-friendly recipes and articles on giving my training a boost or preventing injury. (On the flip side of all the great content I get by following new people, I can also share my own content - namely, this blog - with people who would otherwise never come across it. It's a nice give-and-take.)

And, as weird as it seems on a platform that limits you to conversing in 140-character bursts, Twitter conversations are kind of fun, whether they're with friends about how much fun you had with them on Saturday, people you haven't seen in years about a shared interest or hashtag discussions about race etiquette for runners. Of course, there's also a lot of daily minutiae (my most recent tweet at the time I'm writing this is about a woodpecker in our front yard), but there's so much other content that comes with it - TIME articles, amusing sarcasm, political updates - that it flows by quickly and enriches the whole experience.

Long story short: I've come to love Twitter and I highly recommend giving it a chance.

I've temporarily posted a gadget in the left-hand column that links to my Twitter account, @JessalynP. I think it looks a little odd, so I'll probably take it down in a week or so, but for now you can see all of the random inanities I send out into the Twitterverse without actually going to Twitter.

Twittering (or is it Tweeting?) for Change

I think we all know that social media is addictive. Facebook is the college student's "time suck" and constant distraction. LinkedIn is full of questions on a myriad of topics, all just waiting to be answered. Care2 and Change.org offer endless opportunities for doing good with the click of a button, whether it's saving several square feet of natural resources or discussing ways to effect change in a certain area of social justice.

And then there's Twitter. Twitter, which is basically a global discussion of everything under the sun, being carried out 24/7/365 (that's 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year in the shorthand of text-speak).

I've had a Twitter account for almost a year (twitter.com/jessalynp), but have only "tweeted" 29 times, mostly because I get so overwhelmed by everything I've missed whenever I log in that I close the window again without doing anything other than crossing my eyes at the page. Today though, I read a great post from Heather Mansfield over at Change.org's Nonprofits 2.0 on how non-profits can use Twitter, and have vowed to dedicate a few minutes a day to tweeting...at least professionally.

On a personal level, all of the everyday mumbo-jumbo that's tweeted, most of which is irrelevant by the time I get home and actually read it, frustrates me more than anything else. Yeah, it's great to keep up with what people are doing and there are some people whose tweets I have sent to my phone as text messages so I can stay up-to-date on their lives in real time, but I'd really rather take five minutes to read and/or send an email than read about someone's day in such an impersonal manner. Backwards. In 140 character bursts.

For non-profits though, I think Twitter can be an invaluable resource.

The standard method of contacting members has, for decades, been direct mail, which works amazingly well but usually takes at least six weeks to get written, printed and mailed. This means the information in direct mail letters has to be fairly generic, otherwise it runs the risk of being completely outdated by the time members receive it. And getting members to respond in a way that's timely and meaningful both to them and to the organization they support is difficult.

A few years ago, non-profits began emailing, which is great - it takes hours instead of weeks to respond to something that's happened and members can express their opinions much more easily, through online petitions, emails to political leaders, etc. But members' responses are still fairly limited to whatever channel the non-profit has open to them at any given time, and non-profits often struggle to stay current in a world that's become used to the 24-hour news cycle.

With Twitter, a 140 character post from Washington about a bill hitting the floor in Topeka or a court decision handed down by the 9th Circuit can get people thinking and RTing (ReTweeting - basically the "RE:" of Twitter) from Honolulu to Tokyo: What will a moment of silence mean for students in Kansas public schools? Should there be one? And why exactly is it okay for that giant cross to sit on public land? ...or is it okay at all?

With a non-profit's followers responding more or less instantly (and the non-profit hopefully replying in return, when a response is applicable), non-profits and their members can engage in real time. They can discuss not only the outcome of situations relevant to their missions but how to influence those outcomes before they take place - and how to move forward after the fact.

In a world that deals in sound bites and tag lines, Twitter might just become the non-profit sector's best friend, and the 21st century tool it needs to effect change, or at the very least to start a discussion about it.

The "25 Things" Thing

Okay, for those of you who aren't on Facebook or don't check it very often, this is sort of the new, social-networking equivalent of a chain letter. (And actually kind of similar to my second post.) In middle school and high school, extensive surveys with completely random questions (from "What's your favorite flavor ice cream?" to "Do you believe in ghosts?") are more popular and - at least in my time (it's depressing that I can say that in all seriousness...) - got sent around to everyone's email lists and often generated rumors about who had a crush on whom, or who might be dating or start dating soon or have recently broken up without telling anyone.

The deal with this Facebook version is that you write 25 things about yourself, covering whatever topics you want, then tag 25 people (including anyone who tagged you - 'tagging' is basically putting them on a list of people you want to read what you're posting), who are all supposed to then do the same.

There's no real point to it, but it's fun - thinking of 25 things about yourself that everyone doesn't already know can be challenging, especially if you talk as much as I do! So consider yourselves tagged, and do with this (your answers, not mine!) what you will: post it on your blog, email it around, go around the dinner table and think of things you may not ordinarily tell your family about yourself or each other...or don't do anything at all, it's up to you!

1. "I hate peas." Not really, but I do love the movie 10 Things I Hate About You. It might be an addiction.
2. If I could move to a French-speaking country (or a handful of European countries) tomorrow, with a job or scholarship lined up and none of the hassle of visas, shots, moving things and getting rid of furniture, I would do it in a heartbeat. I have no idea whether or not I'd want to stay forever, since I love the U.S., but I'd definitely enjoy a few more years of living in another culture that feels like home.
3. I'm something of a hermit. Put me someplace comfortable with books I like, a computer and/or writing implements, and creative things to do (musical instruments, things for knitting, sewing, scrapbooking, etc.) and I would be perfectly happy for at least a week. Probably a month.
4. But, I also love spending time with my friends. In a perfect world, I would spend every evening at a café, à la française, with a group of friends and talk for hours.
5. I can't stand the idea of someone not having a positive opinion of me. Whenever I'm afraid someone might think poorly of me, I get really flustered and guilty (I never said it was logical!), and am upset until I can figure out a way to prove to them I'm a good/productive/whatever-positive-adjective-applies person. This makes teaching nerve-wracking for at least the first half of the semester.
6. I'm really surprised whenever someone pays me a compliment, and my knee-jerk reaction is to deny whatever positive thing they've said (again, not logical). I've been getting better about it in the last few months, but it's still difficult for me to take a compliment.
7. I would love to live in the same metropolitan area as my family. Our family is small but has generally been very spread out, geographically, and I think being able to do something ordinary like drop by for Sunday lunch or to lend a movie would be amazing.
8. Books are my addiction. Don't get me wrong, I like clothes and shoes too, but books are less expensive, give you more and last longer. Plus, bookstores are usually fairly quiet, and no one cares how long you spend browsing. Department stores echo, boutiques usually blast headache-inducing music and salespeople try to hurry you along every five minutes.
9. I want kids, I don't feel like my life would be complete if I didn't have or adopt kids at some point, but I'm not totally sold on the idea of getting married. I think it's a wonderful institution and works amazingly well for couples who genuinely love one another and have solid pre-marital relationships as well as well-established individual identities (of whom I'm lucky enough to know several who've been married for years, and some who are getting married in the next few), but I also think far too many people get married because they're afraid of being alone or think it's just what you do once you've gotten to a certain point in your life or in a relationship.
10. I hate being sick, and am usually convinced I can ward off illness with willpower alone. I deny that I actually am sick until I've gotten to the point where I can't possibly stand another minute without medicine, then I take the medicine and go back to trying to pretend I'm not sick. By the time I admit that I'm sick, I'm usually carrying a box of tissues and a cup of tea around with me everywhere I go. (This weekend and yesterday being a case-in-point. Ick.)
11. I can take a ridiculously long time to make decisions and often overanalyze to the extreme, but once I've definitively made up my mind, I'm completely convinced I've made the right choice.
12. In the same vein...I'm very, very stubborn. About just about everything.
13. I hate, hate, hate, HATE hot, humid weather (tough luck for 3 or 4 months of the year in DC, right?). I dislike temperature extremes of any kind, spoiled child of the Southern California beaches that I am, but if I have to deviate from 65 degrees and sunny and it involves humidity, I usually prefer 20 degrees colder to 20 degrees warmer. At least when I'm cold, wearing sweaters and drinking hot things can make me warm. Although take away the humidity, and you can flip that. (N.B.: My body gets a little more used to gross DC summer every year, and this past summer didn't actually bother me that much - in part because it was pretty mild - so I may have changed my mind about this by next winter. We'll see.)
14. Totally at odds with my hermit side... I love talking to people. It stems from being a people person and generally interested in what makes them tick, and is why I actually enjoyed waitressing, particularly in cocktail (that's the tables near the bar, for the uninitiated), because people who sit there tend to be in less of a hurry and are often happy to engage in conversation with total strangers.
15. As a direct result of that, I'm one of those people who can't mind their own business and will answer a question I overhear in someone else's conversation if no one who's part of it can (like, "How many more stops to the Smithsonian?", "What's the deal with the changing of the guard at Arlington?", "Why are there so many people on the Metro at 5pm??", "Do you think the weather will be better tomorrow?").
16. I'm a culture junkie, and I mean that in the broadest sense of the word. Plunk me down in the middle of a city or town and I'll happily wander around, people-watching and absorbing the feel of life there for as long as you'll let me.
17. The first thing I do when I go somewhere new (if it's up to me) is go for a long walk and soak up the sights and sounds of wherever I am. Actually, that doesn't apply only to new places. I walk more or less the same route through Paris right after I get there, whether it's been a month or several years since the last time, just because it feels like Paris, and I love it. And I do the same thing in Manhattan Beach whenever I'm there.
18. The second thing I do when I go somewhere new is usually decide that I'd love to live there for awhile. So far, the list includes Paris, Arles (even though I can't pronounce it convenablement), New York, Seattle, Victoria (B.C.), Prague, London, San Francisco, Monterey... I think the logic behind that is that during the #17 wanderings I end up falling in love with wherever I am, and want to feel like I belong there.
19. I was really shy as a little kid (ex: it took me more than two years of attempts to actually join the K-3 kids' choir at church, because I didn't really know anyone and it terrified me), and still have random moments of inexplicable shyness.
20. Dating completely baffles me and I'm terrible at it, except for the talking to people part.
21. I desperately want a dog, but don't live in a big enough apartment to have one, or know enough about where I'm going to be for the next few years to be able to think about getting one yet.
22. My favorite thing about living somewhere with four actual seasons is seeing daffodils (and cherry trees!) bloom in the spring.
23. Inconsiderate/oblivious people are my pet peeve, and it drives me nuts that there are exponentially more of them in large metropolitan areas than there are in small towns. You'd think living practically on top of each other would induce politeness, because everyone deals with large groups of people on a regular basis. Instead, it makes people more self-centered and prone to stepping on one another, not holding doors, cutting people off, ignoring people who clearly need help, etc.
24. When I cry for an extended period of time, my eyes get really intensely blue. If they were that color all the time, without the crying, it'd be awesome.
25. This thing took me a ridiculously long time to finish. Possibly because some of my answers were much more involved than was necessary...