Tag Archives: connection

Connections over time

Last night we connected with friends we haven’t seen in over a decade. The conversation immediately evaporated the years between visits. Our daughters were essentially meeting for the first time with only a vague memory of having ever met before. It didn’t matter, the conversation was rich, and enjoyable. How is it that 10 years can melt away so quickly?

I’ve had similar experiences with friends whom I’ve only connected with online. Then we ‘meet’ and it feels like we are reconnecting, rather than connecting for the first time face-to-face. And after that first meeting, the online connection gets even stronger. The relationships we develop with people seem to create a lasting impression that time does not interfere with.

Friendship is the glue that holds people together across time and space. A bond that holds people together with the effort to connect when geography permits, and that geography is getting less and less restrictive… As we left the restaurant, our friend said in all seriousness, “Australia is just 15 hours away.” I think that distance might be travelled before another decade slips by.

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I just went back and read ‘A letter to friends‘ that I wrote just over a decade ago as we headed to China, shortly after my last visit with the friends above. Seems I was thinking along the same lines, even back then.

12 years on Twitter

The early years of Twitter were wonderful. Back when I was following between 150 and 300 people, and most of them were following me back, Twitter was a conversation. I can remember coming home from work, going to my timeline, and following it all the way back to the last tweet I’d seen earlier in the day so that I wouldn’t miss a tweet.

I ‘spoke to’ Claudia from Argentina, Alec, Kelly, and Dean from Saskatchewan, Kim from Thailand, Wesley from Oklahoma, Sue from Australia, Rodd from Ontario, Miguel and Shelly from Texas, and Bryan from my own school district.

When these educators and others that blogged as well as tweeted shared a link, we would all go to it, read it, comment on it and retweet something that we added to the ‘conversation’.

I’m not a fan of nostalgically romanticizing the past, but that era of Twitter was so exciting and engaging. Now, I rarely get comments on my blog posts, and quite honestly I’ve reduced my own commenting too. Now I share a link and it is retweeted faster than the article could have been read.

My main timeline is ignored, with tweets flying in faster than I can possibly read them. The volume of tweets worth reading has decreased, with misleading but catchy, and retweetable headings and motivational quotes taking over from conversations and learning.

I still love Twitter, and it is still my go-to place to connect and learn from others when I’m online. But, 12 years in, I miss the power of this network to engage me in deep learning filled with rich conversation. However I also recognize that my focus has changed too. I transmit more than I converse, I dabble more than I engage. If I’m honest, I probably could not have maintained the engagement I gave Twitter at that time for 12 years.

For those new to Twitter, I hope that my book, Twitter EDU, can help you get the most out of it.

For those who have been here a while, how has twitter changed for you?