Something I'm reading at the moment has me reflecting on the nature of Internet participation in a professional capacity, and as long as I have Twitter open: There exist a few balancing acts that you do when you're in a professional space.
-
-
Note that, while you are your own self, it's probably better to think of your Internet spaces not as an extension of yourself but a *shared* space between you and the people who you hope to meet. You can manufacture that space, in a way which optimizes for what you want.
Show this thread -
Some people argue loudly on Twitter. Consider whether it optimizes for your instrumental goals to do so; do not do so unless it optimizes for your instrumental goals. This goes for other things that you may be tempted to do on the Internet.
Show this thread -
Strive for a really high signal to noise ratio. Someone mentioned recently that their perception of my Twitter account is "like a blog." That's not an accident; Twitter is an explicitly professional space for me. I exercise discretion like I would at an IRL water cooler.
Show this thread -
I don't do an explicit count of how many slice-in-the-life tweets I'm allowed before talking about SaaS marketing, but there's a purpose for smalltalk. There's an infinite variety of perfectly fine use cases for a smartphone which don't belong in a professional presence.
Show this thread -
The most useful key on your keyboard is backspace. I used to delete an HN comment prior to posting for every one that saw the light of day, and I wrote *a lot* of HN comments; "Does this really add to the conversation?" was the implicit bar.
Show this thread -
Write more. It is a professional skill and improves with practice. Write more of the kind of thing that you want to write in the future. (This is another "If you spend most of your time being mad on the Internet you will be rewarded with..." observation.) Own what you write.
Show this thread -
I often wonder, from a product perspective, whether we're creating products which empower people to have successful interactions with them. Consider the words "My mentions", which expose a mental model which underpins a lot of specifically toxic behavior on specifically twitter.
Show this thread -
Twitter actively cultivates asymmetric conversations: every user is encouraged to believe that *they* are free to express themselves and that, simultaneously, they have their own little walled garden called My Mentions and that acting upon this space is a transgression.
Show this thread -
And does Twitter optimize for a product which would protect these intuitions of how it works? No, Twitter almost appears to optimize for breaking this, e.g. by limiting user visibility into how you're wading into Other People's Mentions.
Show this thread -
An aside about assymetric social network use: the most important insight I've ever heard about a software product was, I think, Yishan Wong on Facebook. Paraphrase: Everyone believes in a superposition of how privacy should work on Facebook.
Show this thread -
They simultaneously believe that *their* information should never be exposed in a surprising manner *and also* that they should be able to access all information about anyone they are interested in with no more than ~2 clicks.
Show this thread
End of conversation
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.