Flexknowlogy

Several folks in my Twitter circle have been discussing the pros and cons of Public vs Protected Twitter updates. The whole thing seems to have been started by Scott Leslie, who shook up our Twitter miniverse by protecting his updates(!). Chris Lott jumped in and posted an interesting perspective on his ‘blog with the provocative title, Donning the Twitter Condom, and D’Arcy Norman highlighted some of the distinctions between Twitter vs the Blog, resulting a healthy amount of back-and-forth commenting both in Twitter and on ‘blogs comment fields.

In a nutshell, Twitter allows users to set their Twitter posts to be Shared on the Public timeline so that anyone and everyone can see them, or protect them. The question is, does Protected updates limit a person? Is it counteractive to what Twitter is supposed to be? What is Twitter supposed to be?

My perspective is that Twitter needs to provide both via a flickr/vox-like public, friends, family, friends and family, and even private messaging option. As it stands now, Protect update is above all frustrating (until you get used to the fact that it usually doesn’t matter if your Tweets are public because most people don’t care) in its limitations; it certainly doesn’t allow for the sort of compromise in publishing that I envision.

The first day I used Twitter I sensed this weakness, checked the settings, and knew immediately I had to have mine protected. Much of it for the reasons D’Arcy describes: [semi]privacy in Twitter allows for more candor, spontaneity, and perhaps even an occasional ribald or off-the-cuff comment than I would indulge in on a blog–either posting or commenting.

But I’m also naturally a very private person, and there’s plenty about me and in my personality that I do not wish to share with strangers, let alone the public. Sure, like everyone I crave attention and recognition at some level, but I personally prefer to temper that craving with a strong defense of personal control. Twitter is publishing whether you like it or not; trying to distinguish it from publishing a blog article by virtue of intention is simply fooling yourself.

As for meeting new people and expanding the social network I must say I don’t feel I’ve been inhibited by my privacy. I explore lots of folks just by browsing the ‘Following’ of other friends and ‘followed’ colleagues. Additionally, I believe even with privacy Twitter has substantiated distant or loose connections I have with probably a half-dozen individuals.

I follow just over 18 active people, and that’s just about my threshold for msg intake (I still can’t read all their msgs). A little more than a dozen follow me, and that too seems to be just about my limit for a potential audience–at least as far as Tweets are concerned. As just about everyone else has observed, anything better/larger/broader than a Tweet should be published on a blog.

So what’s Twitter for? To me:

1. Simplified, spontaneous/rhythmic journaling (output; private/semi-private)
2. Micro-blogging (output; public/semi-private)
3. Idea-sharing/cognitive apprenticeship (input; public)
4. Substantiating one’s social relationships (active/passive interaction; semi-private)
5. Expanding one’s social network passive/active interaction; public/semi-private)

Of course, there are more reasons or applications than this, in different priority, and probably better phrased too, but this is how I apply Twitter: a medium that’s somewhere between a private journal and a ‘blog, something that’s like instant messaging but innately more archival and group-networked. It’s very very good, perhaps a life-changing tool (for good or ill?), but certainly not perfect.

As I was wrestling with the privacy of my own Twitter account yesterday I found that marking one’s updates as private did not prevent those whom I follow from following me.

My frustration prompted me to think about if and why I would want to follow people whom I wouldn’t necessarily want to follow me. I looked at my list of followers, which is more than double my list of following, and I had a tiny epiphany: there are some whom I follow not for social reasons, but for professional reasons. I want to know what they are talking about. I want to know what they are thinking about. I want to know what they, as experts in their field, are doing.

Based on that knowing I can reshape my behavior to emulate the practices of the experts.

Of course, in the best case scenario, one gets only infrequent updates that are related to one’s fields of interest, but when they do come it can be affirming, when it matches one’s own practice, or correcting, when it exceeds or is more complete than one’s own practice. I’ve begun to monitor my incoming updates more carefully for this small realization.

I’ve begun monitoring my own reaction to the updates of those who I am curious about or interested in, and I have reflected on some my reactions that have been positive.

Examples:

• ddraper, an edtech guy from right here in Utah, projects constant enthusiasm and energy for his work and his field. Coupled with his zealous blogging (I swear, he averages 4 blog entries a day!) ddraper keeps me alert and on my toes. If I see another blog post from him, I’ll have to conclude that he in fact just an AI script on a Mac.
• johnkrutsch, skydiamond, sleslie, diamond_mind, brlamb, and others are often posting up new or obscured technology, or commentary thereon. The big payoff for me of course is finding an application for it in edtech that I hadn’t thought about before. Or getting inspiration for new ideas that help push me forward. Or making new contacts by referral (I added this in because right after posting this entry I got an update referring me to someone I’d never heard of who is “thinking along similar lines”). Twitterers that provide this kind of relevant news or information are like mini-blog, but more without all those words and symbols surrounding the good stuff.
• While zeldman’s updates are primarily concerned with the mundane, when he comments on his involvment in Web design and development, from consulting to speaking to just working with publishers and clients, his presence exudes expertise; one can gain bits of web professional wisdom from these glimpses into his daily life.
• fncll for me reflects the on-going saga of an edtech trapped in an artist’s body (or is it an artist trapped in an edtech’s body). His updates are (probably unconsciously) balanced between those that look to the cutting edge of educational technology, and those that reflect on the world around us from behind an artist’s lens. That’s food for the soul; that’s what keeps us going.

These examples suggest that there is some real learning potential for the cognitive apprentice in following experts or even colleagues on Twitter. But if you look at my actual update history the “good stuff” illustrated in these examples is frankly few and far between. At any rate, at best my argument could only conclude by suggesting that following encourages continual practice, inspires new ideas, and fosters currency.

Yet I want it to extend further. I wondered how I might apply this idea of cognitive apprenticeshop via Twitter to my Web design students. Having taught Web design for many years I am convinced that in addition to needing all those good basics of visual design theory, accessibility, usability, and of course XHTML and CSS my students really need to embed themselves in the community of web designers. They need to watch and observe the experts as they work, and unless there’s some secret hotbed of constant chatter focused on Web design and development I think Twitter will fall short for this particular audience of learners (beginner to intermediate).

Certainly the social aspects of professional practice can be fostered through Twitter (what those exactly are and how they could be measured I can’t say), though I wouldn’t encourage them to start sending direct messages to folks they’ve never met. And it’s possible that some of the question and answer type stuff could be accomodated by Twitter. It may be that simply through Twitter-mediated contact with their peers–primarily within class or within the program–they can stay motivated and learn together. They’ll have similar questions, they’ll be able to swap war stories, they can share new information, contacts, and even jobs.

I am optimistic that the “stickiness” of Twitter (or the addictiveness, as Kathy Sierra argues) may sustain a community of peers, whereas forced, in-class, creepy-treehouse style social networking usually fails. If students carry on with Twitter as their skills develop, as they graduate from the program, and as they gain experience and greater proficiency in their professions, the community that was germinated in Twitter may end up containing the very luminaries, experts, and professional colleagues that Twitterers like myself so appreciate following daily.