Twitter is a little but goofy for me. I understand the concept,but I have had a hard time buying into the implications of what it could be used for. I totally understand its usefullness for marketing and even embrace it for some of the things we do at my church. But as a real conversation and community I have paused and asked questions like do we really need to know what song you are listening to right now, the coroor of your underwear or the way that your feet smell after being in ski boots all day?
I think that some of my negitivity comes in because I was a rather early adopter of Twitter and early on had it set to post students thoughts while away on mission trips to our ministry blog so parents could read, post to update facebook, get the word out about changes in meeting times and things like that. these things were cool, but still a little lack luster when you think about adding another social network monster to your life. That was all before the hashtag “#” got up in running in a way that could be a conversation starter or igniter and before news outlets began tweeting stories.
A couple of weeks ago at Annual Conference I was determined to use twitter as more than a poll, or status update and try and allow it be an avenue of conversation. Those of us tweeting at the event used the tag #bwcumc2011 and began a conversation. Because of the real time feedback and connection, twitter became for me more than what it had in the past. It was more than advertising or a subastute for txt messaging. It was neat to hear the opinions, responses and profound statments of others tweeting about the goings on of conference. It made some interesting connections and improved my view on the socail tool.
I did however think on more than one occation that we should have also had a hashtag for snarky and scarcastic comments to go to just to lighten the mood at times. My bias here is that I feel scarcasim is one of my primary spiritual gifts maybe next year the fun ones can go to #RUKiddingBWC.
Now my gears are once again turning about ways to use this in a ministry context that adds value to the conversation and faith development without just being something “neat” we can to with technology.
This was the first time that I have used twitter as a conversation.
2 Responses
I think that what you describe is Twitter’s best use. Real time responses and interaction around a common stimulus and the ability to see a larger conversation by theme. I will admit that is when I use Twitter the most and about the only time it can beat something like Facebook for an online tool of community. I will likely be tweeting my annual conference!
Chris – reserve #RUKiddingBWC for 2012 now! I love it.