One of my instinctive objections to Twitter is that it will destroy the English language as we know it - just a minor gripe then. Distilling thoughts into a mere 140 characters offers very little scope for beautiful prose or wonderful soliloquies that help the imagination and the soul to soar.
Actually, I'm not sure whether all of that really matters in the greater scheme of things. Twitter is a fact of life - I use it very frequently, yet I still seem to be capable of writing proper sentences, that linked together create real paragraphs, that one by one deliver a narrative thread, that when read in sequence make some degree of sense and tell a story. At least, I think that I'm still capable of all of that - others can judge for themselves.
In fact, much more likely to destroy the English language as we know it are people who don't know how to use it properly. I'm by no means making a bid to be the next Lynne Truss. Although I think that I just about get by (and get away with getting by), for now I defer to the inestimably excellent Mr Stephen Fry, who is to front a new BBC series about language.
In sharp contrast, there are some people in the public eye who do a very good job of persistently persuading us all of their ignorance. They bite into the English language, masticate a bit and then spit out their own mangled version of it. Step forward Sarah Palin. In the grand style of George Bush Jnr, whom I must say I never misunderestimated, Mrs Palin appears to have invented a new word. I'm sure that she will repudiate that claim, or maybe she will refute it. In truth, she is more likely to 'refudiate' it, while at the same time pointing out that English is a living language and that Shakespeare invented new words.
That comparison of herself with the Bard of Avon is impressive and as modest as we've come to expect from Mrs Palin. She does seem to be impervious to the approbrium that she brings down upon herself. Clearly, she is well prepared to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, though I'm not convinced that she has the conscience that does make cowards of us all.
This whole amusing development seems to have 'gone global' thanks to a tweet by Sarah Palin. So, perhaps Twitter can actually help us defend and preserve the English language by highlighting its abuse. My fears were unfounded. I can relax. To sleep, perchance to dream.
Showing posts with label Twitter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Twitter. Show all posts
Tuesday, 20 July 2010
Wednesday, 24 March 2010
My name is @chrisjlines and I'm a tweetaholic
My name is @chrisjlines and I’m a tweetaholic. There, I’ve admitted it and I’m dealing with it. For a good while now I have been a frequent user of Twitter. I tweet under my own name, on behalf of clients and with some thematic usernames – in fact, I tweet using about 16 usernames. Before anyone starts wondering how I find time to do anything else, I don’t use all of the usernames all of the time and even when I tweet using several I can do so with several accounts at once on my Tweetdeck. That’s my justification and I’m sticking to it.
Why do I do this and what does it achieve? Good question. The answer is I’m still finding that out. And that is one of the most fascinating aspects of Twitter. The continued rapid growth of the service and all that is associated with it sometimes masks the fact that many people and organisations are still simply trying to get to grips with how it all works, or could work, for them.
The escalation of Twitter gives it undoubted potency, for good and bad. It can be incredibly effective in spreading news and generating a collective voice on a wide range of topics, but that can be just as malevolent as positive. I could start listing some of the best examples here, but they already feel like really old news, which is another of the good/bad points about Twitter. The rapid churn of content means that a hot topic one day can be completely forgotten the next. I’m sure that the team at Paperchase remember the storm that recently centred on their brand (as will the designer and design agency involved in the story), but do many other people recall it and has the negative publicity really harmed the company?
Paperchase attempted to use Twitter to engage with customers after the incident, under the @FromPaperchase username. At the time I write this, they have tweeted a grand total of four times (their last tweet was on 16 February) and each tweet now links to the same landing page on their website. So, a) they still don't understand or take social media seriously (actually their attitude is somewhat disdainful based on this evidence) and b) the furore hasn't had a lasting impact on their business. Unless they've gone bust and there's no-one left to update the Twitter page!
The escalation of Twitter gives it undoubted potency, for good and bad. It can be incredibly effective in spreading news and generating a collective voice on a wide range of topics, but that can be just as malevolent as positive. I could start listing some of the best examples here, but they already feel like really old news, which is another of the good/bad points about Twitter. The rapid churn of content means that a hot topic one day can be completely forgotten the next. I’m sure that the team at Paperchase remember the storm that recently centred on their brand (as will the designer and design agency involved in the story), but do many other people recall it and has the negative publicity really harmed the company?
Paperchase attempted to use Twitter to engage with customers after the incident, under the @FromPaperchase username. At the time I write this, they have tweeted a grand total of four times (their last tweet was on 16 February) and each tweet now links to the same landing page on their website. So, a) they still don't understand or take social media seriously (actually their attitude is somewhat disdainful based on this evidence) and b) the furore hasn't had a lasting impact on their business. Unless they've gone bust and there's no-one left to update the Twitter page!
Only the really major Twitter trending topics seem to make any sort of longer lasting imprint on the collective consciousness (#trafigura, #welovethenhs etc). Almost everything else on the service is like the life in a day of a mayfly – ‘born, eat, procreate, die’. Sure, there is a significant number of Twitter heavyweights who command millions of followers and can, with 140 characters or fewer, transform the Twitter fortunes of others. It’s like the ‘Delia effect’ all over again. But there’s also a staggering volume of tweets and links and comment and ranting and comedy and filth and solicitation and the rest that’s read by almost no-one (other than the author).
So does Twitter really help people connect with the rest of the world and become part of a big, sharing community? Or is it actually isolating us a little bit more from real contact and real relationships? Some people are deluding themselves that it's the former. Reading all those tweets by celebrities and other opinion leaders that they follow doesn't really mean that they are connected - the communication is, 99.9% of the time, still one way. If that sounds a bit grouchy, it's not really meant to - I actually think Twitter is fantastic for all sorts of reasons, but we do need to be honest about what it is and what it isn't.
So does Twitter really help people connect with the rest of the world and become part of a big, sharing community? Or is it actually isolating us a little bit more from real contact and real relationships? Some people are deluding themselves that it's the former. Reading all those tweets by celebrities and other opinion leaders that they follow doesn't really mean that they are connected - the communication is, 99.9% of the time, still one way. If that sounds a bit grouchy, it's not really meant to - I actually think Twitter is fantastic for all sorts of reasons, but we do need to be honest about what it is and what it isn't.
Sometimes, reading content on Twitter makes me think of radio ’phone in shows, which I passionately dislike. Because there are, on the surface, no real consequences resulting from ‘mouthing off’ in tweets, Twitter is like a very big halogen lamp to a huge swarm of extremist moths.
People express some very strident views and make outrageous statements with apparent impunity, which can lead to some very entertaining/alarming ‘twitterfeuds’. I managed to get dragged into one myself recently. It was quite fun for a while, but then became very tedious. Safe to say, in the Rentokil related discussions between @paul_a_smith and @LINGsCARS, I remain firmly positioned on Paul’s side of the debate and the relatively mild insults that were aimed at me by Ling made no impact, other than to reinforce my existing views. So, no harm done there then.
However, we’re now moving into a General Election campaign and I am already seriously disappointed by the level of dialogue emerging from many activists on Twitter. ‘Activists’ is an important distinction as there are many commentators and candidates who contribute plenty of excellent, relatively balanced content. As for much of the rest, it’s all so blinkered and insulting to the intelligence.
I started following @BevaniteEllie using one of my accounts and while Ellie deserves ten out of ten for passion, persistence, conviction and being prolific, I find her propagandist approach to tweeting both annoying and alarming. I only single out @BevaniteEllie because I’ve been monitoring her output – I know that there are similarly single minded tweeters among the ranks of all parties. And of course, there’s an easy solution to this – I should stop following her.
But my point is that the attitude of Ellie and others like her adds nothing to the political debate – it just accentuates and, if anything widens, the divisions. It either preaches to the converted or winds up the opposition – that’s all. And if the UK is heading towards a hung parliament, as many pundits predict, then come May, these wildly flapping and fulminating moths are going to have to find a way to work to work together. Now that should be interesting.
People express some very strident views and make outrageous statements with apparent impunity, which can lead to some very entertaining/alarming ‘twitterfeuds’. I managed to get dragged into one myself recently. It was quite fun for a while, but then became very tedious. Safe to say, in the Rentokil related discussions between @paul_a_smith and @LINGsCARS, I remain firmly positioned on Paul’s side of the debate and the relatively mild insults that were aimed at me by Ling made no impact, other than to reinforce my existing views. So, no harm done there then.
However, we’re now moving into a General Election campaign and I am already seriously disappointed by the level of dialogue emerging from many activists on Twitter. ‘Activists’ is an important distinction as there are many commentators and candidates who contribute plenty of excellent, relatively balanced content. As for much of the rest, it’s all so blinkered and insulting to the intelligence.
I started following @BevaniteEllie using one of my accounts and while Ellie deserves ten out of ten for passion, persistence, conviction and being prolific, I find her propagandist approach to tweeting both annoying and alarming. I only single out @BevaniteEllie because I’ve been monitoring her output – I know that there are similarly single minded tweeters among the ranks of all parties. And of course, there’s an easy solution to this – I should stop following her.
But my point is that the attitude of Ellie and others like her adds nothing to the political debate – it just accentuates and, if anything widens, the divisions. It either preaches to the converted or winds up the opposition – that’s all. And if the UK is heading towards a hung parliament, as many pundits predict, then come May, these wildly flapping and fulminating moths are going to have to find a way to work to work together. Now that should be interesting.
Tuesday, 7 April 2009
The lost art of communication?
On the curve
I read an article in the Newcastle Journal last week that made we wonder where I am on ‘the curve’. This article reported a presentation in which a digital media ‘expert’ called Joanne Jacobs claimed that bloggers are ‘old and finished’. Great – I only started mine recently and already I’m at the wrong end of the curve, or worse, behind it. That’s if Joanne Jacobs knows her onions of course. The report in which she was quoted came from a conference held at The Sage Gateshead called re:boot re:place. According to the Journal, Joanne went on to say that, because bloggers are finished, ‘people are moving towards Twitter’. Well now, I tweet too, so perhaps that puts me back into a better position on the curve.
You know what, I shouldn’t worry about this too much. I have never been desperately concerned about how ‘on trend’ I am – anyone who has witnessed my choice of hairstyle (and I use the second syllable here cautiously), music and ties over the years will understand that. The choices I make about my use of digital media are based on whether a) I can understand and engage with the platforms myself, b) I think that they can add something of value to the communications mix for my business and the businesses of my clients and, c) I have something of interest to communicate through them. Reading this, you may judge that I have mis-calculated on that last point. But I hope not.
This all brings me neatly to Twitter. Fad, phenomenon, irritant, viral nirvana. All of these and the rest. I use Twitter a lot and I believe that it has real relevance now to my trade, but I’m not obsessing and I aim to always use it responsibly and in a communal way. There is an ethos of sharing that is integral to Twitter, allowing information and insight to pass quickly to many people – I hope that fundamental principal remains a constant and it is what I mean when I refer to responsible use. Someone from the world of PR who has consistently been ahead of the curve when it comes to social media is Ste Davies, founder of 3W PR.
Ste recently spoke about the relationship between Twitter and PR at a conference and then kindly shared his thoughts with the rest of us via Twitter. The presentation, Twitter and Public Relations, is still online on Ste's own blog site. It’s definitely worth a read and, along with a lot of sage practical advice, includes a few great ‘car crash’ examples of people using Twitter without due care and attention – slides 44-46 had me wincing instinctively.
I have embraced several forms of social media and will continue to use them extensively. However, there is a big part of me that is a traditionalist and I worry about the impact that these new forms of communication are having on society and in particular the written word. Suddenly, the point that someone wants to make has to be synthesised and distilled into a mere 140 characters in order to be communicated to the world. Incidentally, that last sentence came to 151 characters, so is too long to qualify as a tweet.
I enjoy reading well structured, cleverly composed copy that uses imaginative language, multiple clauses and ‘sparkles’. Even more, I love creating lively prose myself – writing is one of the real pleasures of my job (whether it is a pleasure to read or not!). But Twitter simply doesn’t allow for such elaboration and other social networks certainly don’t encourage it. This approach to communications will become habit and aspects of it will (and already do) infect the written word elsewhere.
Younger (though not exclusively) generations already text rather than email (as opposed to email rather than write a letter). And it's not just written communications that are affected by this developing trend. Use of the spoken word is changing too and a new programme on BBC2 called The Lost Art of Oratory explores this theme. The Beeb has also just launched a search for the UK's best young speaker - that could be interesting.
In the final analysis, I fear that we are losing a lot by gaining Twitter, Facebook and their like. While I accept a degree of the inevitability of that, it is also one of the reasons that I will continue to blog. I can express myself at will and at length – if you decide that what I produce is tedious, then you don’t have to read any more. Meanwhile, I’m already planning future blogs on the state of the media and The State of Play, and what makes a good song (in my humble opinion). I really don’t care where that puts me curve-wise and I certainly don’t feel finished, or too old.
I read an article in the Newcastle Journal last week that made we wonder where I am on ‘the curve’. This article reported a presentation in which a digital media ‘expert’ called Joanne Jacobs claimed that bloggers are ‘old and finished’. Great – I only started mine recently and already I’m at the wrong end of the curve, or worse, behind it. That’s if Joanne Jacobs knows her onions of course. The report in which she was quoted came from a conference held at The Sage Gateshead called re:boot re:place. According to the Journal, Joanne went on to say that, because bloggers are finished, ‘people are moving towards Twitter’. Well now, I tweet too, so perhaps that puts me back into a better position on the curve.
You know what, I shouldn’t worry about this too much. I have never been desperately concerned about how ‘on trend’ I am – anyone who has witnessed my choice of hairstyle (and I use the second syllable here cautiously), music and ties over the years will understand that. The choices I make about my use of digital media are based on whether a) I can understand and engage with the platforms myself, b) I think that they can add something of value to the communications mix for my business and the businesses of my clients and, c) I have something of interest to communicate through them. Reading this, you may judge that I have mis-calculated on that last point. But I hope not.
This all brings me neatly to Twitter. Fad, phenomenon, irritant, viral nirvana. All of these and the rest. I use Twitter a lot and I believe that it has real relevance now to my trade, but I’m not obsessing and I aim to always use it responsibly and in a communal way. There is an ethos of sharing that is integral to Twitter, allowing information and insight to pass quickly to many people – I hope that fundamental principal remains a constant and it is what I mean when I refer to responsible use. Someone from the world of PR who has consistently been ahead of the curve when it comes to social media is Ste Davies, founder of 3W PR.
Ste recently spoke about the relationship between Twitter and PR at a conference and then kindly shared his thoughts with the rest of us via Twitter. The presentation, Twitter and Public Relations, is still online on Ste's own blog site. It’s definitely worth a read and, along with a lot of sage practical advice, includes a few great ‘car crash’ examples of people using Twitter without due care and attention – slides 44-46 had me wincing instinctively.
I have embraced several forms of social media and will continue to use them extensively. However, there is a big part of me that is a traditionalist and I worry about the impact that these new forms of communication are having on society and in particular the written word. Suddenly, the point that someone wants to make has to be synthesised and distilled into a mere 140 characters in order to be communicated to the world. Incidentally, that last sentence came to 151 characters, so is too long to qualify as a tweet.
I enjoy reading well structured, cleverly composed copy that uses imaginative language, multiple clauses and ‘sparkles’. Even more, I love creating lively prose myself – writing is one of the real pleasures of my job (whether it is a pleasure to read or not!). But Twitter simply doesn’t allow for such elaboration and other social networks certainly don’t encourage it. This approach to communications will become habit and aspects of it will (and already do) infect the written word elsewhere.
Younger (though not exclusively) generations already text rather than email (as opposed to email rather than write a letter). And it's not just written communications that are affected by this developing trend. Use of the spoken word is changing too and a new programme on BBC2 called The Lost Art of Oratory explores this theme. The Beeb has also just launched a search for the UK's best young speaker - that could be interesting.
In the final analysis, I fear that we are losing a lot by gaining Twitter, Facebook and their like. While I accept a degree of the inevitability of that, it is also one of the reasons that I will continue to blog. I can express myself at will and at length – if you decide that what I produce is tedious, then you don’t have to read any more. Meanwhile, I’m already planning future blogs on the state of the media and The State of Play, and what makes a good song (in my humble opinion). I really don’t care where that puts me curve-wise and I certainly don’t feel finished, or too old.
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