Deep in the Geek Forest

I have never written about twitter because I feel less than an expert but yesterday's crash had me and a couple of my clients rather twitter-pated. And not in a Disney-good way. It is interesting how quickly humans become accustomed to certain behavior and how easy it is to rile them up when that behavior has to be altered or censored for just a short time.

And while I feel less than an expert, I am usually tweeting every day and communicate regularly with several people and groups of people using twitter. That is more than can be said for many individuals. I find myself advising clients to create a twitter profile as soon as possible. Use it now, it's free and it's new tech, and it's free. I like to pummel them with the free part. Teaching them about hash tags is another story completely. "Hash tag? Isn't that called the pound sign?" or "My mom told me that was the number sign." Yes, I know. Just call it hash tag for twitter, ok?

Disruptive Innovation. Hard to accept and once you have accepted, even more difficult to let it go and move on to another, newer - bigger - better, technology. Remember the fax machine? The mortgage companies are hanging on to that dinosaur for dear life. What about the typewriter? I walked past an office window earlier today and there, sitting at the assistant's desk, was a typewriter. At first I thought it was just for show - an antique on display and then I realized that poor assistant was still using it - ugh... Remember holding your hands up high enough and how difficult it was to actually pound down those keys... I went back to my office and kissed my PC.

Where do you sit in the current revolution/evolution? If you are reading this, you obviously, on some level, embrace social media. But there are so many aspects to what technology has done for human resources, for recruiting, and business, in general. CRMs have replaced desktop rolodexes (or is that rolodi?), paper/hard copies of résumés have been replaced by soft ones... Even CRMs have evolved from a downloadable CD to your PC, to being an SaaS --> cyber access - - online app.

I sat with one of my clients and two IT professionals at a recent Ribbon Cutting ceremony for an online business that was launching. I asked, half-joking, "So, do you think we will ever run out of cyberspace?" They pondered my question, started to laugh, stopped themselves, looked at each other, then back at me and said, "That's a good question." Then I popped off about being a cyberspace realtor and selling space, raising the prices when the stock market or gas prices soared. They just looked at me. Cyber-geeks. The geek forest has definitely evolved but it is not quite as deep nor as affable as it used to be...

by rayannethorn

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Permalink Reply by Maureen Sharib on August 7, 2009 at 5:17am

Hmmm...remember that ad on TV a coupla' years ago about the guy who reached the end of the Internet? Hilarious thought maybe, then. Kinda' sobering thought nowadays.

I've been thinking lately about technology. How maybe "flash trading" has the odds stacked on Wall Street against the average investor. How the world is leveling with people connecting, buying and selling all over the world into what is beginning to feel more and more like a centralized database. About the end days and the Hopi tale that in them the world will be covered by a spider's web.

Not "as deep nor as affable as it used to be"? Yeah, I'd agree with that.

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Permalink Reply by Recruiting Animal on August 7, 2009 at 11:25am

Rayanne, I'm still not able to post full messages on Twitter. It seems to accept the odd short message from me or a URL sent from cligs my URL shortener.

I'm worried that this might be bad for my brand or, God forbid, that some of my followers might have a hard time doing without me as I am a source of constant cheer to many people. eg

@BillBoorman - @Animal Not getting your tweets anymore. Are you still tweeting? Havent unfollowed.

Rayanne, dear, what do you suggest?

I did manage to get out this test message, quite by accident, and as you can see it was well received

@StephanieALloyd - I can't believe you just posted that link.
and I can't believe I clicked on it.

@MervynDinnen: one of world politics' burning questions...
RT @Animal: http://cli.gs/bLSmrv Very funny. True?

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Permalink Reply by Doug Kerken on August 7, 2009 at 11:42am

2nd comment in two days for me. Here goes.

Twitter going down yesterday changed my life forever. All the tweets that I read, click, and laugh at, and retweet, and all that stuff, were simply not there. I stared at Tweetdeck wondering if it were going to come back on. It never did.

How did I cope? Went to recruitingblogs.com, updated my profile, posted a new pic and chatted with the very people who I stalk on Twitter all day. I shared some thoughts, maybe scared some people, but hey, it was different. And best of all it was refreshing.

Thanks Twitter for failing to be perfect and forcing me to go outside my little comfort zone and get in on the Recruitingblogs action. I probably should have done some real work, but this was more gooder.

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Permalink Reply by Mat von Kroeker on August 7, 2009 at 12:08pm

I've been working with computers and IT since it first came out (remember "cyberpunk parties?? we used the first billboards at a few parties I remember-- BladeRunner??) -- and nothing surprises me any longer about the trends and new toys that industry sells us in the context of the "fascination" with new, shiney things we can push, and touch, and fondle, etc. Twitter is a new toy-- there is no "need" for Twitter, no matter what a marketing firm might come up with just to get as much market share as they can before Twitter sells to the highest bidder.