Twitiquette: A Short but Helpful guide to Twittering Conference Meetings

Man oh man was there a lot of twittering going on at ALA midwinter. Ain't it great that so many librarians are using Twitter to shed light on the decision making going on in Committees and let the rest of the organization know -- in real time -- what's getting a thumbs up or a thumbs down, who's arguing for what, and why.

Revolutionary.

As Karen Schneider brilliantly put it, (ALA) "Council may not be interested in transparency, but transparency is interested in Council." All good. All good.

Since this radical real-time transparency thing is all still kind of new to some of us I thought a short guide on the etiquette of live twittering of committee business might be helpful:

1. Twittering the real-time decisions of your committee: GOOD
   
   
2. Twittering snide, insulting, remarks about your fellow committee members while they speak: NOT GOOD
   
   
3. Twittering snide, insulting remarks about your fellow committee members while they speak and marking it with #ala09 hash tag to ensure that the widest possible audience sees your comment: REALLY VERY NOT GOOD

Yes, this really happened. No, I'm not naming names. I can tell you this though: My respect for the committee member that was twitter-slagged remains in tact intact. My respect for the slagger is in the toilet and I'm reaching for the handle.

I'm still deciding how (or if) to address what happened. Any suggestions are welcomed.

Photo courtesy of: http://flickr.com/photos/anndouglas/422445833/

Tags: twitter, etiquette, netiquette, twitiquette, libraries

Meme: Twitter is Like...

I started a little meme on Twitter on Thursday, which David Free picked up on and posted about over on his blog, David's Random Stuff. I thought I'd add a little (brief) backstory and fill in some of the tweets that David missed. (One of the interesting things about Twitter of course, is that depending on who we follow or who follows us, we all saw - or didn't see- different responses. )

Like David, I'm not naming names, but I thought it would be interesting to add timestamps to give everyone an idea of how this played out chronologically. I think there were some brilliant comments, so I hope the authors step forward and take credit.

Brief backstory: Janie Hermann and I were chatting about the lack of recent posts on LG and Janie jokingly suggested that maybe Twitter, the great sucker of time, was to blame. I threw out the comment that "Twitter is like therapy... without the progress." Janie suggested (dared?) that I share that thought on Twitter. I thought it might make for an interesting meme so seconds later (at 11:10) I threw it out there to the 50 or so people in my twitterverse. This is what transpired:

• NEW TWITTER MEME: TWITTER IS LIKE... (I'll go first) Twitter is like therapy... without the progress. (11:10)
  
• Twitter is like ADD without the Ritalin (11:19)
  
• Twitter is like Jaiku.... I'm bad at analogies (11:23)
  
• Twitter is like whippits (11:24)
  
• Twitter is like a celestial bulletin board. (11:24)
• Twitter is like a crack addiction without all the mugging, prostitution, and running from the cops. (11:26)
  
• Twitter is also like Paris Hilton: slutty and unfortunate. 11:26)
  
• Twitter is like your drunk uncle at Christmas, sometimes you want the madness to stop, but you still wanna see where it's going. (11:30)
• Twitter is like passing notes during class. (11:31)
• Twitter is like [name redacted] - You don't like it until you try it (11:32)
• twitter is like the background noise of the universe, kind of a low murmur that lets you know you're not alone (aww!) (11:37)
• Twitter is like cheating on your blog (11:38)
• Twitter is like crack for procrastinators. (11:41)
• Twitter is like sex without a condom. Sure it's fun, but you will probably regret it later. (11:42)
• Twitter is like.... so. y'know. ... What was I doing? (11:43)
• Twitter is like compressed infobursts, effin ay! (11:45)
• Heck, Twitter *is* compressed infobursts (11:45)
• Twitter is like an inside joke: no one gets why you do it unless they do it (11:46)
• Twitter is like sucking out my braaains... (11:46)
• Twitter is like being stuck in a massive kaleidoscope- ooh something shiny! (11:56)
• Twitter is like drinks with @dwfree - makes you feel all nice and warm inside (12:04)
• Twitter is like drunk sex w/ a friend: not nearly as intimate as you expected it to be, but still sexy & satisfying. (12:04)
• Twitter is like drunk sex w/[the person who just posted about drunk sex.] (12:09)
• Twitter is like being in a room with your "friends", saying something really loud, and hoping that someone hears you. (12:18)
• Twitter is like having 10 IM windows open at once. (12:27)
• George Costanza: "It's like going to the bathroom in front of a lot of people and not caring." Jerry: [pause] "It's not like that at all." (12:28)
• Twitter is, like, another reason I, like, totally, looove innovation (12:39)
• Twitter is like a party in my phone! (12:39)
• Twitter is, like, totally awesome. (ok really i'm done. lunch over) (12:43)
• Twitter is like the sound a tree makes when it falls in the forest -- whether anyone is there or not. (12:48)
• Twitter is quotidian packet hops (12:51)
• Twitter is like finding out your favorite candy bar now comes in smaller easier to eat packaging...for free (12:55)
• Twitter is like is like a bus full of crazy people talking to themselves. Except you get to choose who is on the bus. (1:12)
• (Twitter is instant gratification.) (1:12)
• Twitter is like a dry skin condition. It itches, and the more you scratch it, the more it itches. (But it feels soooo good to scratch...) (1:22)

Tags: twitter, libraries