To Tweet or Not to Tweet?

Not just Twitter actually, but any type of social media.  Some form of the subject question seems to come up on a semi-regular basis, probably more so in circles where the age creeps upwards and usage of social media is not a de-facto way of life.  The question came up recently where I work, so I thought I'd put a somewhat more reasoned answer in one of the forms of media that sparked the question.

Cutting right to the chase - why do I tweet, blog and book?  There is no one easy answer.  I took my time entering the field of public posting, attempting to make sense of it all first.  I doubt I've made perfect sense of it all now.  However, I think I have learned some things and can provide a "how it works for me" answer.  So in no particular order, here we go:

• Staking out a claim in cyberspace.  With a name like mine, there are not too many of us with the same name - but somebody had to be first.
• Preventing XPFA.  Short for Cross-site Personality Framing Attack.  Semi-related to the point above, follow the link for a not only a good explanation, but the original coining of the acronym.
• Connecting with old friends.  I have found and been found by friends that I'd known all the way back to Junior High.  We'd disconnected for various reasons, mostly unintentional and benign neglect.  The boundary free nature of social media provided a way to reconnect.
• Staying connected with current friends.  Short quick status updates initially seemed like shouting into cyberspace.  Over time, face to face meetups started to include conversations seeded from something that had been posted.  Instead of eliminating in person connections, social media has enhanced them.
• Keeping my friends.  I previously had the habit of occasionally sending out mass emails to various groupings of friends and family with everything from vacation pictures to political views.  I'm a realist, probably a lot of time they were just deleted.  Social media allows the recipient to tune how, when and if they view content you share - maybe helping me keep a few friends in the process.
• Professional connections.  I spent a couple of decades with a large international business that I still very much admire.  However at the time I was there, it was very much inward focused, not participating and thereby missing out on a lot of good people and ideas in the industry as a whole.  Focused national organizations and business networks provide a way to maintain connections and share very specific ideas.
• Giving something back.  It goes without saying that like most people, I've learned a lot through other people posting their experiences to the internet.  Not that anything I've put up is necessarily unique or special, but it just might give someone another perspective to consider.

Overall, it has been a very positive experience.  In addition to the benefits above, I've been contacted by persons who found my words to be useful and found my content cross linked in positive ways.  Being more in the public space has resulted in some harvesting of my name into various bogus listing services, but so far no harm done.

Sometimes blogging can still seem to me like answering questions that haven't been asked.  I started this post with one and will end with another.  Whether you consider yourself a reader, subscriber, follower, connection or friend - are you yet a writer?  There are a lot of choices, don't try and make too much sense of it, just get started and what is important will become clear.

Enjoy.