Time Management in the Era of Social Networks and Microblogging: A Morning in the Life

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6:00AM. Wake up. Coffee. Pop Tarts in the toaster oven. Check that all of my computers have operated without interruption all night long — ensuring that I haven’t missed a Facebook update, an instant or skype message, or, God forbid, a Tweet. Submit reluctantly to the social niceties of “good morning, dear,” “have a great time at school, kids,” and the like. Uggh.

6:45AM. Thank goodness they’re all gone. Time to settle in for a session at the TweetDeck. Here’s a screenshot of this “without-which-life-would-lose- all-its-meaning” tool for managing your presence in the microblogosphere.

Crank up Pandora.

Check out the Twitscoop. No I did not say TwitterScooper. Inside the TweetDeck, this awesome tool reveals in a cool “tag cloud” what is “Buzzing Right Now” [sic] on Twitter. I see an irresistible term, and decide to click through: “hump.” Though I expected quite another topic to be driving this kind of chart on the Twitscoop radar, I click through to find out that it is merely a global celebration of “hump day,” which is how people who don’t yet know that they are about to be laid off refer to “Wednesday.”

Come on people… Repeat after me… “I love my job, I love my boss, I love my company.” What is wrong with you?

Anyway. There is one interesting “Tweet” amongst the other mid-week celebrations, from Twitter user “nematome,” which reads: “Happy Hump Day! My hump, my hump, my hump.” So I click through. There’s some really good stuff here. From his bio:

“I’m a technical communicator. I haven’t missed a day of blogging in 5 years. I line-dance and two-step. I love my life.”

That’s encouraging. A few excerpted tweets:

• I need java and not of the script kind.

• @andreaball Or, He told us that Helen had said, “When I gave David the ball, he said to me, ‘No, keep the ball in your court.’”

• @andreaball He said, “I wouldn’t call it a ’slow boat to China,’ but it wasn’t very fast at all.”

• Your heterosexuality & Kenny Rogers’ The Gambler lesson in a flowchart. New blog entry: http://dailyafirmation.live…

• “When and how did you first know you were a heterosexual?”

Twitter displays “tweets” in reverse chronological order, suggesting that “nematome” is: a) a sociologist by night; b) a screenwriter in his sleep; and c) a programmer by day. This is what is possible with Social networking and the new media! Time for a new riddle of the Sphinx!

OK. Though entertaining I find “humping” a dead end. Next big tag cloud item to check out: “sheep.” Thousands are tweeting on this topic suddenly. This could be good. Amongst the usual references to sheep (”men are men and sheep are scared” kind of thing), I learn that the spike has to do with an old story. You probably remember it:

It all started in August 2008, when Aleksandra Vdovina’s five-month-old sheep – just because of sheep stupidity – ran off, got onto a road and was accidentally hit by a Ford car driven by neighbour Oleg Kuznetsov. The car was slightly damaged, and the poor animal died.

What, you don’t remember this story?

Another dead end.

Do you know anyone who does this kind of thing habitually?

7:30AM. As if by a bolt of lightning, I am startled into consciousness that I have to try to drum up an additional consulting project. Better focus my activity on what’s happening amongst the “New Media Elite,” the superstars of the blogosphere, web marketing — the crowd some call (I not among them) “The Tarts of Tweet,” or “The Big Twits.”

I “follow,” which is Twitspeak for “stalk,” a lot of Twits — one of which has a URL like mine (www.getelastic.com). roxyyo tweets:

“I’m reading my own tweets in an attempt to get to know myself better.”

I put that in my calendar for later on today.

Twitter veterans all know the names “Scobleizer,” and “guykawasaki,” “chrisbrogan.” I take about an hour and a half to check into the tweets they have issued between 9:02 and 9:02 and ten seconds.

9:00AM. All of this leads me to a really valuable nugget, a HUGE list of resources attempting to assess the measurement of social media. I check out whostalkin.com and realize there is a lot of fear within the enterprise environment: fear of litigation, exposure, brand damage — because of the free-wheeling nature of social subnets.

10:00AM. I’ve been digging into the idea that fear is on the critical path at many non-bleeding-edge organizations considering social media strategies and actions. Can I come up with an analysis and some methodologies that will help reduce this fear? Should I?

Part of the moral code of social networking is the giving back. In my parlance, and as “humped” mercilessly in my free e-book, this means acknowledging that your online affect or identity is about the dynamic between three things: presence, authority, and reputation. Presence is about being there: where are you on the network? Can you be found? Where to you comment / contribute / cajole others? Authority is the ego: what expertise to you project, what experience and value do you believe you offer? I pick some of the interesting topics of the day and offer pithy remarks or challenges for about an hour.

Most noteworthy during this particular session? Read and reflect!

10:05AM. OK the tweetdeck is chirping away, but the time has come to “step back from the workstation.” I have five 12×18in prints to make and mount — which will be culled from some of the work I discuss over at the photography blog. Thanks for reading.

Tagged as: Fear of Social Media, Microblogging, Social Media, Time Management, Tweetdeck, Twitter