Andrew’s right – Twitter in particular and social media in general are such overwhelming and customizable experiences that it’s really bewildering when you first try to get involved and leverage it for business goals. One of the things I really enjoy about working with authors, (aside from the fact that you can count on them to do some of the writing for you – because let’s face it, public relations is about writing compelling copy in exactly the right way – and then tweaking it and repurposing it and coming up with yet another catchy angle that will help you reach another segment of your target audience) – where was I? Oh yes – while authors (not the ones I work with!) may sometimes be a bit off in the EQ department, they’re rarely slouches when it comes to IQ.

This means that if they’ll listen, they learn. Before you know it, they’re teaching you things. I’ve learned a lot about how to behave on Twitter from Stuart Clark, and I used him as a shining example when I was working with Andrew on his initial Twitter training, namely:

• Thank people for retweets (RTs) and for follow Friday (#ff) recommendations.
• Always check your @messages. Engage with the people who are seeking to engage with you. Always be gracious. Don’t get involved in gossipy and churlish pissing matches.
• Let people on Twitter get a little glimpse of who you are as a person, not just an author flogging a book – let your passions show a little bit.

So I’m delighted to pass on a couple of great posts that Andrew found and tweeted re authors and social media.

The first is Holly Robinson’s Huffington Post article on a writer’s first year with social media.

The second is Penny Sansivieri’s Twitter primer (also a HuffPo post).

As for Stuart? Well – as he’s about to make the transition from non-fiction to fiction author with the first of his three novels about astronomy and science giants, he too is reading and sharing more information about not just astronomy and cosmology, but is also beginning to engage with fiction readers, by sharing this review of Juli Zeh’s novel about two competitive physicists, Dark Matter.

The best thing about working with writers? Establishing goals that support marketing objectives is a dawdle. It’s not about building brand awareness or shifting public opinion. It’s about selling books. And by selling I mean sharing. Because readers are passionate people with an insatiable desire for their next fix. And it had better be quality stuff. Writers are the folks who supply that demand, either through content creation or content sharing. I’m so glad they exist. I’m even more glad I get to work with some of them.

While I don’t agree entirely with the analysis by Jeremiah Owyang, former Forrester analyst, now Altimeter Group partner, I couldn’t agree with him more when he says Twitter is ‘being treated like a chat room’ by most marketers, ‘not a marketing platform.’ I do think the SWOT portion in particular is less than comprehensive, and I’d like to quibble about the line re ‘Usage by tech savvy, media, and celebs.’

Why quibble about that? (At this point something I’d written got lost between drafts; I’ve tried to reconstruct it in the rest of this paragraph. Just, you know, to make sense!) It’s not that I disagree that – I’m going to call them geeks, not the ‘tech savvy’ because if you own a computer for personal use you’re tech savvy, media and celebs have the largest number of followers, tweet the most and make the greatest use of Twitter. It’s just that I don’t necessarily think they make the best use of Twitter. Most media outlets still automate their tweets, don’t interact with their followers, and don’t get that it’s an interactive medium. Ditto many celebrities. And the geeks – well – again – there’s a lot of navel gazing and infighting amongst Twitter’s earliest adopters and most vehement proponents. And Twitter’s growth isn’t coming from these people; it’s coming from the non-geeks who are beginning to realize social media presents an opportunity. (That’s not quite what I said the first time but it’s what I was trying to say – and where did it go to anyway – between-draft limbo?)

Twitter’s greatest strength is actually the power it gives the user to customize her/his own experience with the medium. Trending topics notwithstanding (you don’t have to even glance at them), what makes it a brilliant platform is the fact that it allows you to listen to and connect with only the interesting people at the party and pay no attention whatsoever to the egregious bores, the time wasters, the hysterics, the gawkers and the ambulance-chasers (no, I don’t mean personal injury lawyers, I mean the people who thrive on fomenting controversy/scandal/gossip).

Your Twitter experience will undoubtedly be entirely different from mine, and that’s the beauty of it. I follow a diverse and fascinating group of: global media outlets and journalists; scientists; quilters; authors; Vancouverites; local folk; PR, marketing and social media types; publishers; museums; people I know in real life; people I don’t know in real life; people I’d like to know in real life, and people I probably wouldn’t care to meet. At one point I was following people on Twitter so I could keep my eye on them for competitive intelligence reasons. I’m not doing that any more. Life is too short.

I should also point out that I’m an extremely fast reader (although I retain little), and that I assimilate information well via print and text. My aural comprehension is almost nil. But I actually got through an average of 2500 pages of reading a week in third year university as an English major. I know there are other people like me.

One of the best points in the analysis cited is the boilerplate: ‘Everyone has a morning ritual…I invest two hours reading, thinking and blogging each morning. I hope this helps you cut through the noise – if it was helpful, please pass it on, email to colleagues, tweet it, and blog about it.’

This may well not be your idea of a morning ritual (it wouldn’t be most people’s – long hot showers and gallons of coffee would probably be more like it; getting yourself, your children, and your pets cleaned, dressed, fed and dispatched is usually part of the equation too).

Social media is probably not your area of expertise. If it isn’t – and if you haven’t got the time or the will to adequately research it – it can be bewildering, pointless, ineffective and exhausting. This great post by Mhairi Petrovic of Outsmarts lists some of the pitfalls of social media and provides some great suggestions on how to avoid them.

Of these tips, I’d have to say ‘develop a strategy’ is the most important. I’d also add: hire a consultant to help you develop your strategy. Unless you don’t value your own time at all, getting caught up in the never-ending party on your computer is going to leave you short on sleep, frustrated, lacking in perspective, and probably no closer to achieving your agreed-upon goals. No consultant worth his/her salt is going to pretend they can help you achieve an impossible goal – or fail to tell you when your expectations are unreasonable.

This week on Twitter I’ve watched a major UK cell phone provider make a horrific mess of customer service by over-reliance on Twitter as a way to deliver customer service. I’ve also seen two major media outlets deal ineffectively with a spammer and watched friends who did something good get their feelings hurt and become embroiled in a small but pointless controversy that’s undoubtedly interfered with their productivity today.

Time is time and money is money. I’ve always contended that since time is the one truly non-sustainable and non-renewable resource we’ve got, my time is as valuable to me as yours is to you, regardless of our respective incomes or hourly rates. While Mrs. McCooeye, Grade 8, was right when she wrote on my report card, ‘Ruth would get more out of Reading Club if she put more into it,’ there was a presumption on her part that I wanted to get something out of it. I didn’t. I just wanted to read. But if you’re investing your personal or your corporate time (and your organization’s resources) in social media, you’d better want to get something out of it, i.e. have a goal. At the very least you should make sure you’re not doing harm to yourself or your organization via social media.

How can you find the right consultant? Ask people you know who’ve used one. Check their blogs, their Twitter feeds, and their LinkedIn profiles. See if you like what they have to say about their areas of expertise and if you like the way they conduct themselves in the public mediums in which they engage. Ask a consultant you’re considering using if you can talk to or email some of her/his clients. Try to get some idea of how the consultant works best – and if your organization/project fits in with the consultant’s interests and expertise. Compatibility matters almost as much as expertise. Put in the front end time to find the right consultant so you can work smarter rather than harder.

I know that last sentence may seem not only counter-intuitive (consultants are supposed to be vying for your business, not the other way around, right?) but wrong-headed. If your budget is big enough, the detailed RFP route may still be the way to go. It’s a process I no longer participate in, because I’m not willing to spend a week’s time researching and writing a proposal, and I’m neither interested in nor equipped to work with large companies on megaprojects. But that’s just me.

To find any of these chats, log on to Twitter and use your search function to search for them by hashtag (on the far right, under your profile you’ll see a search function – type in #solopr or #litchat). Scroll through the tweets and you’ll discover the chat moderator, whom you can then start following, and the regularly scheduled time for the chat.

When Twitter grinds to an almost-halt, the chats can be a frustrating experience. But that doesn’t happen all that often these days, and the wonderful thing about the chats is the commitment the moderators make to ensure they happen on a regular basis. My hat is off to the lovely Kellye Crane, for instance, who not only organizes the #solopr chat every Wednesday from 1-2PM EST, but ensures she’s got a backup if she’s travelling that day so the chat can continue.

New to Twitter as of Tuesday, November 24 is #askdrstu, a series of five scheduled chats led and moderated by Dr. Stuart Clark, author of the award-winning The Sun Kings: The Unexpected Tragedy of Richard Carrington and the Tale of How Modern Astronomy Began.

Five chats are planned for 2009, on Tuesdays beginning November 24 at 1PM EST (10AM PST, 6PM GMT).  Each week the chat will focus on a different popular astronomy topic. The first relates directly to the subject matter of The Sun Kings: “What level of influence does the Sun have on climate change?” Stuart will share what he’s learned from fellow scientists Henrik Svensmark, Mike Lockwood and : Kalevi Mursula in Bruges, where he recently moderated a debate on space weather and its effect on earth’s climate.

The other four chats are scheduled for December 1, 8, 15 and 22. Subjects could/will include topics he explores regularly in his role as a science journalist: ‘What is dark matter?’ ‘What defines a planet?’, and ‘Why isn’t Johannes Kepler better remembered?’

Whether you’re an astronomy buff or neophyte, you’re guaranteed to learn something by participating in the #askdrstu chats.

And if astronomy’s not your cup of tea, check out the hashtags used by the smart, funny people you follow on Twitter and find a chat that does make you want to join the conversation.

Naturally, as a PR person, I’ve taken advantage of the opportunity to follow as many media outlets as I can. A huge portion of any public relations practitioner’s daily task is to monitor and review media, constantly taking its pulse, identifying trends, and, frankly, analyzing bias. That bias, incidentally, is endemic to the human condition, and can include not only the way in which an event or an announcement is covered locally, regionally, nationally, and globally, but also whether it is covered or not, when and where coverage appears (front page, section front page, above the fold, below the fold, left side, right side – all these factor into whether an article is going to be read or not, and by whom).

PR folk don’t just monitor their clients’ media coverage – they monitor their clients’ industries and socio-economic trends in general. That and the fact that they tend to be smart people with heightened literacy skills is how they can advise you that 2009 is probably not the best time to try to launch your luxury sedan and perhaps step up production of your serviceable, stalwart vehicles.

Conversely, of course, in the depths of a recession/depression, the need for escape from the brutal realities of foreclosures, repossessions and personal bankruptcies means that entertainment trends will often follow a very different course. Think Dynasty, which launched in 1981 and ran till 1989. Think about the fact that shoulder pads have recently made a comeback in women’s fashions, and that the term ‘bling’ was coined at time when property values in North America rose to ridiculous and unsustainably high levels before an inevitable crash. Who wore more bling than Alexis and Crystal Carrington? (I should mention I don’t consider myself any kind of economic expert at all – but when you’ve lived through two or more recessions in your lifetime, you start to figure out that what goes up usually comes down sooner or later.)

In 1981,  at the peak of an inflationary cycle that had lasted throughout the 1970s, some Canadian companies not renowned for either their generosity or their high profit margins were handing out standard annual increases of as much as 12 per cent to retain staff and – well – because they had to, because the price of everything rose and rose and rose. And then that bubble burst, and the 1981-1982 recession in this country was considered the deepest and longest recession of the Canadian economy since the Second World War. 

In precisely the same way traditional advertising media buyers look long and hard at readership demographics, PR practitioners need to focus their efforts to reach their clients’ stakeholders. Reaching those stakeholders through traditional media is still one of the ways to do this, although it’s not now – nor has it ever been – the only way to do so. Social media provides a cost-effective way to potentially reach a lot of those stakeholders as well. Unfortunately, it’s not a particularly time-effective way.

And that, I think, is where the problem arises and the crimes against Twitter begin to be committed by many mainstream media outlets (and some individual journalists) who’ve hopped onto the Twitter bandwagon.

The Nieman Journalism Lab and Kirk LaPointe of the Vancouver Sun are doing a fine job of monitoring the demise of traditional media (print in particular) and of suggesting and evaluating  potential new business models that might help newspapers survive. Not all of them are going to make it though: the last month has seen a 10% shrinkage of North American print publications. CanWest Global is trying to unload two British Columbia television states and has ceased its morning and mid-day news broadcasts. The Christian Science Monitor announced it’s going to cease publishing a print edition before the middle of 2009, and the New York Times is mulling printing papers three to four times a week rather than seven days a week. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is up for sale, and has been for a while.

But in the meantime, every traditional media outlet and its second cousin twice removed has hopped onto Twitter (the latest local entrant is talk radio station CKNW in early February 2009). And what are they doing? With some notable exceptions (and I’ll get to them in a minute), they’re treating Twitter like a broadcast medium. They’ve got their automated tweets all set up and they’re blasting out four to six news items at the same time every day. Whoosh – CBC’s tweets go out. Whoosh – the Georgia Straight sends out a blast. Whoosh – The Guardian does the same thing.  Then BBC News starts up – and BBC SciTech – and then BBC Health. And suddenly you’re scrambling to read 40 articles at once and have so many windows open you can’t count ‘em (or see them). And then they subside for another six to 24 hours and it all starts up again. It’s the virtual equivalent of copious projectile vomiting.

Here’s the odd thing though: most of the journalists on Twitter are writing how-to articles about it – not so much how to get more followers or Twitter etiquette (although some of them presume to do precisely that), but ‘benefits of Twitter’ articles. My question is, how could they possibly know what the benefits are, when most of them have completely and utterly missed the point of social media? Which is that it’s about exchanging information, not about blasting out broadcasting messages. The lethargy that may have been inferred from only one person in 1000 actually writing and mailing a letter to the editor doesn’t mean the other 999 don’t have opinions – and social media has enabled the expression of those opinions to an unprecedented degree. Except – newsflash – when you make it difficult for people to talk to you, they’re going to talk about you. And more often they’ll do so in unflattering terms than in flattering ones. Because if you knew anything about my field, public relations, and two of its specialties, community/stakeholder consultations and issues management,  you’d know how very important it is to empower people by giving them the opportunity to be heard. Often that’s all people really want. They don’t expect their opinions to influence large corporations’ strategies or government policy, but they do want to be validated by being listened to in a way that doesn’t smack of tokenism. As far as broadcast media is concerned: do you have any idea how many people shout at their radio and television stations? And then either turn them off or switch to another station when they hear broadcasters spouting idiocies?

Here’s another controversial thing I’m going to say: marketers who don’t really understand the range of public relations activities can just STFU about public relations people trying to ‘control the message’ and that era being over. Because I’m tired of hearing that nonsense from the very same folks who created lifestyle advertising and who know SFA about the range of public relations activities (email if you don’t know what those acronyms stand for). It wasn’t a PR person who invented the slogans, ‘Coke. It’s the Real Thing’ (what, the real killer combo of caffeine and sugar?) or ‘At Ford, Quality is Job One.’  Those were advertising/marketing folks. In the meantime, it was PR people, listening intently as always, who would have alerted GM to the fact that, um, people in the auto repair industry and in body shops across North America were sniggering that GM stood for ‘got money’ not General Motors as they watched an endless procession of GM cars come in time and time again for expensive repairs and body work.

It’s also not the marketers, the advertisers, or journalists who do crisis communications, and have to deal with the very real trauma of people struggling to do the right thing when disaster strikes, whether it’s a train derailment, a product recall, or an avalanche. If people didn’t need help in time of crisis, we wouldn’t have firefighters, ambulances, police cars equipped with sirens, Search and Rescue volunteers or standing armies, would we? In the feeding frenzy that ensues when media descend in a crisis, it’s the PR people who direct the dissemination of information to everyone who needs to know – and believe me, it’s not usually the general public who need to know first. It’s staff and their families and those trying to find out what’s happened to their loved ones. And they deserve to hear the news in a caring, individualized, and compassionate way that is targeted at them, not as part of the 6 o’clock news aimed at a broad demographic and designed to increase readership/viewership. If you’d like to get a flavour of the depth and breadth of public relations activities that are not marketing communications-focused (i.e. not about supporting marketing efforts or, I’ll confess, what those of us who aren’t really into marcomms describe a little snottily as ‘pushing product’), follow my former boss on Twitter, @boydneil, or start reading his blog, especially posts like this one, in which he tackles the issue of corporate reputation management and demolishes the idiotic utterances of people who know nothing about the subject but continue to prattle. Some people are even more articulate when they’re ‘exercised.’

Marcel Lebrun has a lovely post here about what actually constitutes listening, and he makes the point I was initially trying to make much more succinctly than I’ve done. Part of listening is responding. And if you’re a media outlet or a journalist crowing about how many followers you have while you’re following less than a tenth of those people, you’re talking at people, not conversing with them. You’re like the playground bully shouting everyone else down.

So – paragraphs ago I promised to talk about the good, not just the bad and the ugly. Here’s a list of mainstream media folk who are doing it right on Twitter – and doing right by the Twitterverse:

Mathew Ingram, former tech writer for the Globe and Mail, now the Globe’s new communities editor.

What he’s doing right: everything. He listens. He engages. He follows lots of people. He checks his @ messages and responds when appropriate. He passes on useful/helpful/interesting information he’s received from others (retweets, or RT in Twitspeak).  Could you please speak to the rest of the Globe and Mail folks and help turn the projectile vomiting into barely audible burps though? Thanks. @mathewingram

Alexis Madrigal, Wired Science writer and author of an amazing forthcoming book on the history of green technology.

What he’s doing right: everything. He listens. He responds. He says thank you. He’s actually quite extravagant in his praise. (That Tweet you sent about me made my year, Alex). @alexismadrigal

CKNW AM 980, local Vancouver talk radio station.

What CKNW’s doing right: They got onto Twitter and searched for folk to follow. There was some nonsense being tweeted about their unfollowing people and following them again and unfollowing them and following them to build their number of followers. I saw no evidence of this – nor did it make sense to me. They started to follow me, I followed ‘em back – we haven’t fallen out of love yet, despite a tweet or two I’ve sent out about my disdain for talk radio.

The fact that I’m a public broadcasting, Globe and Mail, Jane Austen-adoring intellectual snob who’s never made it through to the end of a single talk radio show doesn’t matter. Some of my clients need to reach CKNW’s audience (some of their shows have had the highest audience reach in the entire province of British Columbia), and I don’t allow my personal taste to adversely affect my work on behalf of clients. (And I do listen to the segments when my clients are on talk radio. And to as much of it as I can bear.)

Within days of establishing a Twitter presence, CKNW did a Twitpoll asking people how they wanted to be communicated with. You can’t kiss a radio station, can you. Pity. And then they took the advice of the folks who responded. ‘You have spoken – 74% of you want a Tweet of our show lineup with brief description & link to show page. Done!’ 

Right now, CKNW is following 2000 people – and being followed by only about 1161. Way to go, CKNW. Not only that, but when I sent them an @CKNW message today in response to an item they’d tweeted, they replied and we – gasp – had a conversation! Also doing some really neat things regarding breaking news, namely alerting folks to breaking stories and asking for information/updates/photos to be tweeted to them. Like this one:  ’Vandals have targeted the 2010 Olympic countdown clock in Downtown Vancouver. If you are in the area Tweet @cknw and send photos.’ One teeny tiny suggestion for improvement: let us know who’s doing the actual tweeting, who the humans behind the typing fingers are. @cknw

Granville Magazine Online, ‘Sustainable city living magazine and website. Tweets by digital editor Hilary Henegar.’

What Granville Magazine Online’s doing right: everything. I joked with Hilary the other day that I was so delighted with the way she was managing Granville’s social media strategy that I was going to create an award just for her. Here’s your Roofie, Hilary. You’re genuine, you’re attentive, you’re a very real person, and you’re someone I look forward to meeting and to working with on behalf of clients. Hilary does all the right things: doesn’t just blast out links to Granville articles, she tweets and retweets items of interest, pays attention to her followers, asks questions, even responds to blog post comments via Twitter (as well as on the posts themselves). I warn you though Hilary that I’m a bad influence and will try to persuade you that this giving up coffee thing is just plain silly. @granvillemagazine

CBC3, the online arm of the radio network.

What CBC 3 is doing right:  They’re not very active on Twitter, but they’re paying attention. When I had trouble listening to a podcast, they were very responsive, suggested what the problem might be, and have earned my gratitude for so doing. I’d like to give the rest of the CBC the same review, but I’m afraid that despite seminars on social media CBC’s conducted for its staff both in Vancouver and Toronto, for the most part they’re not getting it. One of the main motivations for this post was the Tweet sent out by Nora @SparkCBC (you know, the show that’s about ‘technology, trends, and fresh ideas’) towards the end of today’s Twitter demo for Toronto CBC-ers: “Wondering if Twitter is just full of marketing people and PR people.” Well gee, I guess you’d have the answer to that question if your follower:following ratio was a little better than 1232:151. Or if you ever read or responded to your @ messages. Would you like me to introduce you to the science community on Twitter? Help yourself to some of the folks I follow/am followed by.

Oh and by the way, I’m totally shocked to discover that CBC’s online web presence has outsourced its comment monitoring and moderation – it does explain a lot though. While I faithfully read my CBC news emails twice a day, I can’t often bear to read the comments. Usually when nasty and stupid comments are posted other commenters will do a pile-on, but that isn’t exactly what should be happening – and I’ve seen a lot of truly insensitive remarks on a variety of issues, not just the one linked to above. I won’t be the first to point out that you are Canada’s publicly funded news source – well – the lawyers will sort that one out and something will be learned from the exercise. @CBCRadio3

And finally, Darren Waters, the BBC Technology News web site editor, deserves a special mention. His follower:following ratio isn’t all that great, 2208:470, but that’s his business. He checks his @ messages and responds to them, he consults his followers (Question: how would you like BBC News to engage with Twitter? Answers in a Tweet please?) – the man even says thank you (Thankyou everyone for all your comments about using Twitter at BBC News. I’ve pulled together some thoughts for the bosses.). Oh and his birthday is February 3. And he’s not fussed – cake or cookies. But he’s mad keen about rugby and his support for Wales verges on the pleasantly rabid. His presence on Twitter is refreshing. I particularly liked it when he accused another British (non BBC of course) journalist of breaking an embargo. And to his everlasting credit, I have never once seen him tweet about the number of followers he has (yes I’m talking about you, @rory147). Perhaps it’s because Darren knows that editing, like public relations, is one of the helping professions. @darrenwaters

Note: Twitter follower/following numbers accurate as of 9PM PST Thursday, February 12. Posted tweets were cut and pasted from Twitter streams. I’m not even going to get into the fight between the PR person and the former National Post reporter that ensued this week. This is, for the most part, a PG-rated web site.

Technology-enabled, we are able to do things at blindingly fast speed that would once have taken hours, if not days, of work to assemble and collate.

This morning I awakened to an email announcing the launch of the new 2020science site, with this celebratory post by Andrew Maynard, announcing Obama’s inauguration as a red-letter day for science and technology.

I turned on the television and with, my usual uncanny luck, was just in time to catch Obama being sworn in as 44th president of the United States. I also logged on to Twitter so I could participate in the reaction of 237 people and media outlets I follow.

It was a singular experience, and one I found quite moving. This was no attempt to capture the event in any sort of a factual way: it was, rather, a real-time response to the words that were being proffered to us by now-President Obama. People tweeted the words and phrases that most resonated with them. Here are the ones that caught my attention:

• We will restore science to its rightful place.
  
• The world has changed, and we must change with it.

And this passage:

• [H]ard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism – these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility – a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world…

Within moments of the speech ending, I read Tim Harper’s reaction to Obama’s speech – science as saviour: “Without the technological foundations upon which to base ideas all we have is, well, dot.coms and whatever we just lost in the current crisis.”

The algorithmic analyses of Obama’s speech began. Here’s Lewis Shepherd’s wordle of the speech. And here’s a fascinating comparison of George Washington’s inaugural speech with Obama’s – very apt since Obama quoted at length from GW. Get your minds out of the gutter – the real GW.

Then there’s David Meerman Scott’s thoughtful inclusive language ratio comparison of Obama’s first speech as president with the other GW’s last as 43rd president of the US.

There were ribald comments from @Slate (including some less-than-complimentary cracks about Aretha Franklin’s milliner), some instantaneous assessment of the speech, its delivery, and Obama’s overall performance, and there was a tweet about a Gwynne Dyer editorial from @GeorgiaStraight that I found truly tasteless on the subject of terrorism. I’m not going to link to the editorial because what I found tasteless about it was the timing of the tweet: at a moment when it was so clear that people around the English-speaking world were rejoicing at the fact that “…a man whose father less than sixty years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take …” the oath of office as president of the USA.

@raincoaster was the first of my tweeps to post the entire text of the speech. Someone else posted a link to the ‘baby-faced wunderkind’ who’d written it.

The irony for me is that the last time I specifically tuned in to see an event as it was happening was Princess Diana’s wedding in 1981 – got up at 5:30AM to watch it. But watching the inauguration live (even though I consider television before 5PM to be an abomination, sorry Breakfast Television and Canada AM) brought back so many memories of events of my childhood, when catching something on television was an eagerly awaited event and sometimes involved the suspension of the school day or even – gasp – getting to go home early to watch: Neil Armstrong taking his one giant step for mankind, the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, the 1972 Canadian hockey victory over the Soviets, as they used so quaintly to be called, the Bay of Pigs invasion, the breathless updates on the kidnapping of Patti Hearst and the antics of the Symbionese Liberation Army.

It’s wonderful that we have preserved our sense of event and can share these moments in new ways. But if you feel you need the antidote to Twitter about now, here are some tips from the Conversation Agent blog.

I heard via CBC Radio that some folks got together in a local Vancouver theatre to watch the inauguration live on the big screen. Why, might I ask, was I not invited to that party? Not that I would have gone….

And this just in from @alexismadrigal via @dsearls: a Word Tree of the speech. Fascinating stuff. And need I say, proof that our utterances matter?

Frank Eliason, tweeting as @comcast cares, has often been cited as a model of how corporations can use social media. Reading the article, I understand why – Eliason ‘gets it’ – he knows Twitter is a tool he’s added to his arsenal. And he’s not saying it’s the only tool in his toolbox.

Despite the acclaim, Eliason stresses that Twitter is not a replacement for phone and e-mail help. “This is just one way people have gotten to know us,” says Eliason. “It’s a little more personal. More back-and-forth discussions, and it’s less formal. And it gives immediacy to interactions.”

It’s another way to listen, learn, problem solve, and retain customers. Comcast will still be answering its phones, responding to email and snail mail, updating its web site, and doing all the things successful businesses have always done.

I’ve created a substantial body of links here on using Twitter for business – check them out if you’re interested. You’ll also find some non-Twitter links. Still fascinating, though.

Update: another Business Week article on how various CEOs are using Twitter, this one by Douglas MacMillan.