I try to be balanced on new technology and ideas, trying to find the middle ground between hype and usefulness, time and money, fun and work. When Twitter first came out I didn’t pay a lot of attention besides my usual reading about what’s new, not being a blogger at the time and not having a need then for ‘micro-blogging’. Since then the world has changed, both for Twitter and for me. Twitter seems to have morphed into something beyond micro-blogging, what my friend Steve calls sidewalk conversations. And me, my job and interests have changed such that blogging is both fun and work, and I’m in the idea/thinking business, so reaching a larger audience both makes sense and appeals to my sense of trying to do better.

I’ve put it off for a while for a few reasons:

• I already have too much on my plate (job, oPASS, PASS, SQLSaturday, blog, monthly editorial for SSC, family, hobbies)
• It’s felt like a fad, and while fun to try fads, I’m cautious about things that require a continuing investment of time
• It feels like another task switch, and as much as I like to think I’m a multi-tasker, I really value uninterrupted time and just dealing with email is hard enough
• Where’s the money? I’d be more interested if I could see a sustainable revenue model
• Twitter people remind me of the Star Trek episode The Game!

So while I’ve had reasons (and in truth have just enjoyed being stubborn about it!), all my friends seem to find value in it and I don’t see any of them as easily hypnotized (well, maybe one or two!). I’m at the beginning of a mental re-org, deciding what things to continue, what things to adds to my list, and importantly, what things will get removed next year. Should Twitter go on the list?

And by the way, the title isn’t a typo!

I’ve always thought it made sense for events; announcing last minute changes and adhoc meetups, reminders about upcoming events during the day, less certain about just day to day stuff. I’ve got two events coming up, SQLSaturday #21 and the PASS Summit, so I’ve had it in mind to try there anywhere – which means learning how the Twitter thing works. I’ll be doing some reading this week to try to learn the basics, and I’ll give it a try through the end of year and then write up more notes. As I do it, I’m going to try to understand more about it:

• Am I deriving business value from it (though may not be tangible and not an easy question to answer)?
• Am I having fun doing it?
• How much time am I spending on it and am I willing to remove that time from something else if more than 15 mins a day?
• Which tools make it easier/less time/more effective?
• Am I getting information there that I wouldn’t otherwise and is worth the time (think of missing a conversation between colleagues, sort of)?

Ah, checking Twitter already are you?  Sometime between now and Friday evening I’ll post something on Twitter. Something interesting? That remains to be seen!