From these two seeds my network and this business have expanded far more than the first five years.  Let’s look at how one of the shining stars of social media, Twitter, impacted my business.

Tweeple

Twitter impacted my business by connecting me with new clients and colleagues.

Clients

I have never met any of these clients in real life. I had never met or heard of them outside of Twitter and that remains true today.  This ruled out a lot of folks that I met on Twitter and then met in real life at Boston or Cambridge area events for example.

• Three WordPress migration projects and hosting clients and one WordPress MU project in California
• Three WordPress migration projects in Tennessee
• Three WordPress design and custom programming clients in Massachusetts
• One custom WordPress project in Texas
• Two WordPress MU projects in Arizona

These clients have received web services in the area of website or blog hosting, blog migration, custom WordPress design and programming, Thesis theme customization, merging a blog and website and a custom WordPress MU and BuddyPress installation.

Colleagues

The following list is again very restrictive and includes only folks that I know through Twitter and have never met in real life.

• Two colleagues in Colorado for total of 12 projects
• Three projects out of Arizona
• One project out of Texas
• Two  projects out of Wisconsin
• One project out of the Netherlands
• One project out of Illinois
• Two projects out of Florida
• One project out of Michigan

Partners

My entrepreneurial spirit has also grown since 2007 thanks to social media.  In April 2009 I joined with a partner to form BlogWranglers and we have completed at least 10 projects as of this writing.  Our introduction came through a mutual friend on Twitter.  Our work focuses almost entirely on blog platform migration and blog moves. For example migrating from Movable Type to WordPress or from one hosting provider to another.  He also became a hosting reseller for JBS Partners and has brought in many new hosting clients.

My go-to guy for a lot of development work on WordPress is in Oregon.  Once again we met through Twitter somehow.  We have worked on nearly 25 different projects together since March 2009. This has added a lot of horse-power to JBS Partners’ ability to take on new client work.

Summary

The above are solid numbers that add up to thousands and thousands of dollars in services and revenue that are a result of using Twitter effectively.  It may not be for everyone but I really like Twitter and social media and it has been very good for my business.

These numbers  are not something that happened just because I am on Twitter.  The numbers represents a lot of hard work and I will admit it is work that you could do on Twitter or Facebook or Linkedin or wherever you choose to spread your entrepreneurial wings in the social media space.

You can find me on Twitter as fairminder

What’s your take on social media and entrepreneurs? Can it be useful?

Twitter Searching

twitoria- Unfollow people who have not posted a tweet in week, 2 weeks, 1 month, 2 months, 6 months or a year.

tweetbeep – Alerts.  Track any time someone mentions you, your products, your company, anything, with hourly updates!

tweepsearch- Search friends and followers, or just a keyword in all bios currently indexed.

whendidyoujointwitter – Enter a user name name and see when the twitter account was created.

backtweets – searches for links on twitter, even shortened ones.

twellow – List your profile, search twitter, followers, friends, groups also includes a profile editor.

Anonymous Tweeting

secrettweet- A place to tweet anonymously – crazy, scary and hilarious tweets.

Twitter Hashtags

tweetchat- hashtagged tweets are aggregated into on place. You can tweet and it adds the hashtag for you. Great for events and webinars.

tagdef – look up the meaning of a hashtag, like #redsox, but we know what that one is.

Twitter Polling

twpoll- Create a poll and send it on to your Twitter followers on.

For more see Rachel Levy’s big list of Twitter tools

If you liked this post, you may also like Twitter Tools to Share with your Followers

as well as How Your Twitter Profile Can Attract Followers

Retweet This – This GreaseMonkey script makes retweeting a snap on the web. Adds a nice little Retweet button to your Twitter webpage. Note, it inserts “Retweeting”. I edit this to the now standard and much shorter RT, instead of Retweeting.

When I take the time to figure out how to edit the source file, I will update it here. RT is better than Retweeting.

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/26500

Search Twitter - Keep track of all mentions of your Twitter name.

http://search.twitter.com

The following syntax will limit the search to mentions of your name by other people only, thereby excluding your own tweets. In the following example, the username is fairminder. The search string means to exclude from the search the name fairminder when the mention is from fairminder, but search for all other mentions of fairminder.

-from:fairminder fairminder

Twittelator Pro for the iPhone – great tool http://www.stone.com/Twittelator/

Not being entirely intuitive, here a few powerful tricks that I had to look up.

• Reply = Tap once. On the next screen, tap the reply arrow at the top left.
• Scroll down = tap the arrow in the footer.
• Scroll all the way up = double tap the header, where the time is displayed.
• ReTweet = touch and hold the screen. ReTweet and Copy Tweet options become available.
• Add Follower = You meet someone IRL you want to follow. On the Accounts screen, click on <your twitter handle>’s Tweets. Mine says “Fairminder’s Tweets”. Double tap your own avatar (photo). Type the new Twitter name in the Follow field.

There is lots more help here;http://www.stone.com/Twittelator/Twittelator_Hints_Tips.html

Hashtags Add #redsox to the end of your RedSox tweets. Then use Twitter search, listed above, to quickly find all of the Tweets related to the RedSox. Sports games, conferences, meetups and other live events will often start the hashtags flying.

Twitter Karma is great for reviewing who you are following and who is following you. You may find folks that have not tweeted in three months and want to unfollow them. You may find folks you talk to regularly but you have not followed yet. Good information discovery tool.
http://dossy.org/twitter/karma/

A lot of folks love TweetDeck to create following groups.

Free Twitter Background Designer: Create a custom background with images and text in a few minutes and upload it in your Twitter settings page. http://freetwitterdesigner.com/

What tools can you not live without?

Enter the Dell Latitude E6500.

Shopping

Aside from performance, my shopping was motivated by price, low price.  This is my primary computer and gets hooked up to a 21 inch monitor. I don’t travel but once a year, so weight is not a factor.

I looked at the typical retailers; Best Buy, Circuit City, Costco, Sony Style, the local computer store, even Apple to get some perspective.

I looked online at ToshibaDirect.com, NewEgg.com, SlickDeals.net, BensBargains.net, CheapStingyBargains.com and others.

In both cases they had a few models from a few brands, take it or leave it.  Many systems had 60% or even 75% of my ideal feature set, but none had 100%.

Best Shopping

I found the Dell Outlet offered the widest range and greatest quantity of optional features and available laptops.  I could quickly sort for the features that appealed to me.  I could make the choices that I wanted.

Shopping for a refurbished computer meant that the prices were very low.

A special Dell Outlet 20% discount on Latitudes I learned of on Twitter ended my shopping days, thankfully.  Follow @DellOutlet on Twitter.

My Twitter Personal Shoppers

I had a lot of help along the way, mostly through my Twitter buddies.  A shout out to most of them follows, including;

@dellservergeek Many Tweet Q and A

@Bruceericatdell Hour long phone call after a few Tweets

@chrislackey Mulitple Phone calls and lots o IM. A good friend.

@lisawood Tweets and IM.

@OnSiteStudios Many, many Tweets

@zestor Many Tweets.

And many more Twitter buds than I can list here offered one or more replies to my hardware and configuration questions.  Thanks to you all. I really appreciate your input.

I know that the folks at Dell will be happy to assist you as well.  You will have to ask the other folks individually because they have jobs that are not at Dell.

Ordering

It just so happened that as my research was culminating I learned that there would be a 20% discount offered on Latitudes at the Dell Outlet in a few days.

I had scoped out the inventory pretty well and printed out my top five choices and made a little feature grid as a kind of crib note.  I didn’t know if there would be a mad rush. I had read somewhere that Dell had sold over a million dollars of computers through Twitter.

On the day of the discount I checked the @DellOutlet account moments after posting the discount code and ordered my laptop.  The code worked too.

I ordered on Monday. It arrived Thursday afternoon. I chose the 5 to 7 day shipping option for $20. It arrived in 3 days.  That’s cool.  Well, they didn’t have to build it did they?  Just ship it.

Features

CPU – My first goal was a faster CPU.  I wasn’t clear on the value / performance curve so I didn’t know if I should look for a 1.8, 2.0 or 2.4Ghz CPU.    I got bits of advice here and there and decided to shoot high.  My laptop has an Intel Dual Core Duo 2.53Ghz CPU. It has two cores, so it’s like a 5.6GHz CPU.

HD – 5400 RPM Hard Drives are pretty standard.  I knew that 7200 is faster but needed to learn if heat or battery usage were relevant issues.  I decided they are not.  My laptop has a 7200 RPM SATA HD.  Disk size was not a concern because the standard (160GB) is well beyond my requirements.

OS – I have a Dell desktop with Vista that my wife and kids use. I use XP day to day. I don’t really like Vista, partly because I don’t know it as well.  Lots of people said skip Vista, get XP and that suited me just fine.

Shopping for XP is another story.  Very few stores offer it.  Online you have a better chance.  However, at Dell Outlet, you can search for systems with XP Pro and Vista Business.  I really liked that.  Vista only was a deal breaker.

RAM – Don’t care.  I looked for as little RAM as possible because I planned on buying 4GB from Crucial.

Video - The debate here is interesting. There is no question that embedded video is not superior to a separate video card.  However, learning whether I could tell the difference or had a NEED for a separate video card was well nye impossible.

The shopping was very challenging for this component at the Dell Outlet Store.  You can search for 0, 128, 256 or 512 MB of RAM for your video card.  However, the E6500 offers an NVIDIA Quadro NVS 160M.  Chris clued me into the fact that this is a separate card, which would be much better than the embedded Intel video that is also offered.  Being 160MB, it does not show up in any of the searches except for when you search for All.  I felt this video offering was very hidden.  Thanks to Chris and @zestor for helping me see the difference.

Wireless – The network packages varied as well. The gang on Twitter got me sorted with the alphabet soup that is wireless networking. B A G N in order of acceptance.  Well, N is not widely accepted just yet.  I chose the card that offers A G N.

DVD/CD – This model offers both 8X and 24X speeds.  You have to know that both are available to get the faster one.

Battery – Again two sizes are offered 6-cell and 9-cell. More cells are better. I got the 9-cell for more battery life.  What I forgot to remember is that the larger battery is a feature. It sticks out the back of the laptop a good inch or so. Not an issue because the power and network cables are right there anyway. It just surprised me.

Power – Again two powers are offered, 65 watt and 90 watt.  The 90 watt will charge faster.  I got the 90W.

Display – There are a few offerings here. I chose the LED display (1440×900) for a better view than I have now.

L2 Cache – This is memory for the CPU to work with.  More is better. The E6500 I chose has lots, 6MB.

FSB – The Front Side Bus, again faster is better. This one has a 1066MHz FSB.

Back-lit keyboard – That just sounded cool. However, I haven’t figured out how to turn it on yet. (Update: I figured it out)

I managed to get a configuration without a fingerprint reader, for which I am grateful.  Above is not an exhaustive feature list, just the ones that I considered.

Here are the full specs right from Dell.

Dell Latitude E6500 Setup and Quick Reference Guide

First Impressions

Arrival in three days was awesome. Glad I didn’t pay for expedited shipping.  Providing an initial delivery date of three weeks. Not so awesome.

In the box is the laptop, a simple Setup and Quick Reference Guide and the following CDs.

1. Dell drivers
2. Dell Webcam
3. Cyberlink DVD
4. Roxio Creator 9.0 DE
5. Windows Vista 32BIT SP1
6. XP Pro SP2

Unpacking, I was impressed by the industrial sized power cord. It is very thick and powerful looking.  The “brick” is flat which will make for easy travel.  I don’t remember paying extra for the blond hair under the transformer strap though.

Power Up and Installation

First thing was to install XP Pro.  That was short and easy having done it plenty of times. I enjoyed the Monks humming along, encouraging me. Thanks for the background music Microsoft.

First thing installed was Firefox.  Now I have to go install a lot of software.

Conclusions

A bit early for those. But both of my kids commented on how ugly it is.  What they don’t know is that it will be 10X faster than my current system.  I don’t care that it is black and square. It is a business laptop and not many people will see mine.

It looks solid and reliable and it will be fast and serve my needs for years to come.  Did I say it will be fast?

What features do you look for in a computer?

Where do you prefer to shop?

Today, I can confirm both customer and colleague relationships initiated through Twitter as well as many friendships and even money in the bank. Here is how that all changed, after a Twitter primer.

What is Twitter?

Twitter falls into the category of social media applications. This communication tool allows you to keep in touch through short messages that can be sent to many people instantly.

You can update three ways: to all subscribers, directed to one person, or sent privately to one person. Updates are 140 characters maximum. (As a reference, the text immediately preceding this parenthetical note is 139 characters long.)

When you first open your account you are missing the most important component of a useful Twitter account – people whom you follow and people who follow you.

How do you find people to follow?

Below are six suggestions for finding people to follow, but first a little business-focused contemplation. Think about your purpose and motive. This will help you focus on following the right kind of people. Two important business questions are:

Do you want to follow people with similar interests, in the same industry?

or

Do you prefer to develop a group of followers who will benefit from your products or services and possibly hire you?

Most people tend to reciprocate followers, so keep the Golden Rule in mind. Follow the kind of people whom you want to be followed by.

1. Follow a couple of people you know, such as the person who introduced you to Twitter. Follow me @fairminder.
2. Follow their friends. Observe conversations and then choose new followers from among the people others are talking with.
3. Upload your contact list to Twitter to find people on Twitter whom you already know. Follow #2 above again.
4. Visit TwitterPacks. It lists all kinds of Twitter folks according to special interest.
5. Search on Twitter for your city or town name along with the state, and review profiles to find new people to follow.
6. Visit this TweetScan. It’s a more advanced twitter search site.

Number 2 above is a successful method because it includes some measure of social validation as you move from friend to friend of friend, rather than guessing whom to follow. You know the old saying, “Birds of a feather flock together”? It really does apply here.

What should you say?

Twitter is a microcosm of life and has the potential for an equally wide range of subjects to be shared.

Feel free to jump in and send an update to someone in response to an update that you read. Or simply answer the question that Twitter poses: “What are you doing now?” Keep it interesting and related to the purpose and motive you established earlier. What you read on Twitter may inspire you to start a new conversation.

Here is a small sampling of what you may find or contribute on Twitter.

• Breaking news – News of the Chinese earthquakes hit Twitter long before traditional news outlets.
• Interesting links to a photo, audio, video, website, blog, forum post and more.
• Local meeting information – I enjoyed many meetings discovered on Twitter.
• Messages of encouragement – Tragic personal news can generate condolences from around the globe.
• Absolute rubbish – Not so interested that there are now three spiders on your wall.
• Tech help – Many have received answers to tech questions right away.
• Friendship – A listening ear, someone who will respond.
• Weather updates – Timely, accurate reports from far and near.
• Affinity groups – For example, fitness groups encouraging each other.
• Sports scores – We love those Red Sox.
• Reviews and recommendations – Comments on books, movies, products, etc.
• Directions – You are likely to get a helpful reply from a local.
• Polls – Simple polls that gather interesting information.
• Discounts and special offers – People and companies send out both.

So what happened with me?

I followed people, wrote updates, joined conversations, offered sports scores and website-related advice, asked for technology help and sought out talented people to help serve the needs of my clients. It was especially fun when I later met Twitter friends in real life. Now the Following and Followers numbers on my account are approaching 1,000.

What most people seem to be interested in is how money was made through Twitter. It began by sending a helpful update that was well received.

Shannon sent an update that said, “Hey, check out this website I just designed.” I did and then sent along a few suggestions for improvement. Shannon said he really appreciated these suggestions. Keep in mind that his update was not directed at me and I didn’t know him then. It simply went zipping by at a time when I was “on Twitter.”

In fact, he asked me to be an advisor on his next project. I agreed and he was so pleased that he paid me 50% more than he had originally offered. He subsequently went so far as to write an unsolicited blog post recommending my services. Wow, all this born out of 140 characters.

As the conversation expands, it is not out of the ordinary for it to move from Twitter to email, IM, telephone and in-person meetings.

Initially Twitter did seem like it was for the birds. I understood Twitter no more than I can understand the birds outside my window right now. Friendly folk on Twitter and in real life showed me otherwise.

I hope that you will also learn that Twitter is not for the birds, but a valuable tool for your business and social tool box. Come join the conversation! I promise to reply.

Jim Spencer
JBS Partners
“Fairminder” on Twitter

What has been your experience on Twitter?

This article first appeared in the August 13th , 2008 issue of the High Rankings Advisor newsletter. Many thanks to Jill for sharing her wide channel of distribution. Many readers opened accounts with Twitter in the following days, and over a hundred have followed Jill and I on Twitter.

You may also be interested in reading other posts here;
Twitter Tools to Share with your Followers
How Your Twitter Profile Can Attract Followers
Twitter related services
What is Twitter? (from Sept., 2007)

Or visit www.TweetAdvisor.com for more tips, tricks, news and opinion on Twitter and the tools and applications that we all use.

Generally when you follow someone on Twitter they will either follow you automatically or investigate you and then decide.

Let’s look at some ways to configure your profile to encourage people to follow you, rather than scaring them off.

Here is an image of my Twitter profile for reference.

Twitter Profile Sidebar

People are looking for something in common, something specific, or something entirely different from what they are accustomed to. If you don’t fill in this information, then visitors have less information to make a good decision (which would be to follow you).

About

Name: Extra points for a real name that seems authentic. Someone that hides thier identity makes me suspicious.

Location: I have a certain affinity for certain locations. I also just feel better knowing where in the world someone is. Sometimes knowing it is well past bedtime in that part of the world is useful.

Web: Link to your website, blog, or your account on Linkedin, MySpace, FaceBook or whereever people can find out more about you.

Bio: This is an important area with 160 characters to fully utilize. Let people get to know you, find something in common, discover an interesting fact about you. Provide as many details as you can. Have a sense of humor if you like.

Stats

This is another important source of information for the potential visitor. It is best to try and keep the Following and Followers numbers relatively similar. You don’t have to follow everyone, but if the ratio gets beyond 5 to 1 or even up to 10 to 1 people will assume that you are a spammer using a robot to follow new people really fast. That’s not good.

Twitter is about the conversation. No on wants or expects a conversation with a spammer or robot.

Following: Follow as many or as few as you like. This is not a contest with prizes for the highest numbers.

Followers: Do your best to maintain some semblance of balance between Followers and Following

Favorites: Real people favorite a few updates.

Updates: Once you start keep at it. A profile with one update is not that appealing. Keep at it over a few days and fill up a page on a variety of subjects that interest you.

Potential followers will also read a few of your updates and scan the Following avatars to see what is going on or not going on in your account.

Summary

Complete the About section with useful information so that people can get to know you and will engage you in conversation.

Don’t look like a spambot by following a thousand people on the first night you open your account. Take your time. It’s not that far from real life here. You have to open up a little to start the conversation.

See you on Twitter @fairminder

If you like this article, please see my Twitter article that was first seen on High Rankings Advisor – Is Twitter for the Birds? A Tweet Tweet Tutorial It makes a business case for Twitter.

What suggestions do you have to improve a Twitter profile?

The Scene

A free meeting of over 600 people. The event is sponsored by the Venture Capital firm Venrock. There are a lot of VC’s on the floor as well as folks in every related Internet line of business you can think of. Most attendees are in the mobile and web communities. You could bump into a graphic designer, someone in PR, banker, entrepreneur, mobile platform programmer, social media specialist, newspaper writer and so on. A lot of early-stage company folks come to see others like themselves.

The event includes five minute presentations from three “Main Dishes”. The audience gets to ask each presenter two questions. Often the audience yells out, “How do you make money”. Some speakers are confident in their revenue models, others, not so much. Most of the time, the crowd groans at the answer.

Before and after the “Main Dishes” there are pioneering “Side Dish” presenters around the perimeter of the room. Here innovative web companies present their products and services to an eager audience one on one.

How to succeed

Be social. Reach out to meet new people from beginning to end.

I remember leaving the ballroom at the end of the event and this gal simply asked me what impressed me. I answered and she and her posse and I ended up at the dinner table. I made a few interesting friend, many of which I now see regularly. Leave a comment if you can guess any names here.

The ballroom is packed. It is hard to move around. It is very loud. But, just remember, everyone is here to meet new people. Why not be one of those people?

I met some new people that were very interesting and talked with some great friends as well. It’s these repeated small touch points that allow relationships to grow over time.

This is also a very good venue to find a job or employees.

One of the better advantages of attending is to find a group to go out with afterwards, so that you can really get acquainted.

The next Web Inno, as it is affectionately called, will be on September 15th, 2008 at 6:30pm in Cambridge. Come out and see what’s new in technology and meet someone new.

Ever want to compare who is following and who is not?

Twitter Toolbox is the answer

A nifty Firefox (and Flock) plugin that adds a sidebar with three tabs.

Compare Twitter followers and following in three ways

1. Who are you following, that is not following you?
2. Who is following you and you are following them?
3. Who is following you, but you are not following them?

Install Twitter Toolbox and compare the following and followed.

::Update:: This tool has not been updated for Firefox 3. ::Update::

Here are two alternative web solutions for comparing Twitter followers and following that are awesome. Listed in order of preference.

Twitter Karma has a nice interface that lets you see who you are following, who is following you and the combination of both. It will also show you Friends in the same way. Easy to understand.

My Tweeple takes it a step further and also allows you to ding Twitter accounts that you feel are spammers. It keeps a vote count allowing you to use this information in deciding to follow someone or not. My friend Shannon wrote this and he is open to suggestions for more features. The guy has talent.

1. TwitDir - allows you to search for Twitterers.
2. TwitterMap - shows a Google Map of Twitterers and their Tweets.
3. TwitterVision - shows a Google Map live view of Tweets around the earth.
4. TwitThis is a plugin to allow blog visitors to send a Tweet about your blog.
5. OutTwit – allows you to use Twitter via Outlook
6. Snitter - an Adobe AIR powered Twitter tool w/ additional features
7. TerraMinds – search Twitter for your friends or specific Tweets

To see more interesting uses of Twitter see this article at Read / WriteWeb

What is your favorite Twitter Mashup? Really?

Who did I meet again?

Stephen Turcotte of Backbone Media.

Laura Fitton of Pistachio Consulting

Chris Brogan of Chris Brogan

Andrea Mercado of www.librarytechtonics.info

Mr. Best

John Cass of PR Communications

Jeff Glasson of www.diecastaudio.com

Who did I meet in person for the first time?

David Cutler of www.eatmedia.blogspot.com

Yianni Garcia of Social Media Guy and Digital Influence Group.

Jeff Glasson of www.diecastaudio.com We had never met in person.

Larry Weber, the founder of the Digital Influence Group and author of Marketing to the Social Web has had a long, successful and well connected career. He told some great stories during his headline presentation to the audience of 50+ social marketing movers and shakers. He was credible, humorous, occasionally humble and far seeing. I look forward to reading his book, which he was kind enough to hand out and autograph. Thanks for the book and for hosting the event Larry!

What did I hear?

• The web is not another channel like tv, radio, print, direct mail etc. One way media.
• The social web is a two way conversation.
• Social media and marketing will kill the traditional media listed above.
• Building community is key.
• The Large company “need to control the message” will have to break down.
• Marketing is influencing opinion through compelling content.
• Marketing is a set of dialogues.
• A mix of user generated and professional content will become more common.
• Larry does not blog or use Twitter. He said CEO’s should not blog. Line folks should.

Social Media Business Models

1. Large companies will underwrite communities
2. Advertising
3. Subscription

Summary

It is good business to meet people in person.

Users will be in control

Blogging, forums, Facebook, Ning and other community building platforms will continue to grow.

Expect to see the web consume traditional media.

What are you doing to allow visitors to engage with you? What makes you hesitate? What benefits have you seen?

Sometimes the only way to learn something new is to try it. That is the approach I chose with Twitter. Here is the story.

I opened an account in April 2007 (not an early adopter) and abandoned it out of shear ignorance. After meeting my Twitter evangelist friends in September I decided to give it a try.

Chris sent a message on Twitter, called a tweet, to let the folks know that he had met me and I was worth following. I had 20 Twitterers following me in about an hour.

Explain Twitter

Twitter is a micro-blogging social media tool.

You can send a message out that is a maximum of 144 characters.

It will be sent to anyone that chooses to “follow you.

How I started

I opened a free account. While out in real life I meet some Tweeters, by accident.

I visited them on Twitter, read their profile page and clicked the “Follow” button. From then on I see all of their Tweets. Most are quite judicious in their tweeting, so it is not overwhelming at this point.

Now, every time they send a Tweet (yeah, a message through Twitter) I see the message.

“Following” is voluntary. So, is following no longer.

When you follow someone, they will often follow you. It is a sort of courtesy, but not automatic.

There are a few metrics associated with each account.

• How many follow you
• How many you follow
• Number of favorites you follow
• Direct messages.

I ran across one account that showed over 7,000 for the follow and following stat. Yikes.

In addition to sending message to everyone that follows you, you can send a message to one person by adding a “@” before their Twitter name. Then the message goes only to them.

Laura answered a handful of questions in the first few days. This combined with observing how others were using Twitter left me feeling relieved. Thanks Laura.

A Huge Laugh

The first Tweet that I ever sent, back in April, was short and sweet indicating that I was adding memory to a slow computer.

The first Tweet that I received was Laura saying that she was laughing her “head” off at the five months intervening and agreeing that the computer surely was slow. Five months slow. She included a nice welcome to Twitter as well.

I was laughing, which really endeared me to the potential of Twitter.

So What is the Verdict?

The jury is still out. What has impressed me?

1. Received two referrals for potential clients
2. There are many Tweets about local social media events in the Boston area
3. Discovered some useful resources – people and web sites
4. Provided needed information requested by a Twitterer
5. Received updates during events that I could not attend
6. Discovered a few locals that I look forward to meeting in person
7. Opened my eyes to micro-blogging
8. The need for a Crackberry became obvious for mobile Twittering. Mobile’s half the fun.
9. Twitter as a source of immediate assistance grows as you have more “followers”. Lost in New York?
10. Early Twitter adopters are professionally tech focused and evangelistic

I think the benefit is really dependent on who you follow and what you are looking for. I appreciated real time updates from an event I could not attend.  Chris described being lost in NY and getting directions immediately via Twitter.

How do you use Twitter?

Happy Twittering from fairminder!

Social media for Firefox places five indicators down in the status bar, near GreaseMonkey and SeoQuake etc..

Manual / Automatic – Click it while you are surfing and it provides the count.

Manual / Autmatic – Automatic is the best choice when visiting Digg, Reddit, Stumbleupon or del.ico.us because the tool inserts the counts below each listing on the page.

Digg – Displays how many Diggs

Reddit – Displays how many votes

StumbleUpon – Displays how many reviews

del.ico.us – Displays how many book marks

You can also click on each icon to vote, bookmark etc. the page your are visiting. How cool is that?

Keep socializing, but not so much as to pollute the waters.

I sat in the audience listening to the six minute descriptions of each business, with the ear of an investor, multiple consumer personas, reseller, vendor or as part of the management team. I found with some offerings there were reasons that “this just isn’t going to fly”. Others caught my fancy, despite having zero interest in the product or service.

Speakers

SNIF Labs caught my fancy. They produce a dog tag with an accelerometer that monitors and uploads to the Internet your pet’s daily movements. You can tell when your dog is sleeping, eating, playing and so on. The info is presented on a web site where you can interact with other pet enthusiasts. Fun idea that I would tell a dog walker or someone who loves pets and technology, but nothing I need. I don’t want a dog.

Frame Channel provides software to allow you to feed images and text to a wireless connected picture frame. Imagine an LCD picture frame at the grandparents house and you control what is displayed, including, sports, weather, stocks, images from AP and National Geographic images, your own phots and more. It is advertiser supported – ads in the bedroom, or you pay a small subscription fee. The catch is, there is no way for the grandparents to control the images as they fly by. What if they want to look at a photo of the grandkids. Well, they are captive until it comes around again. That is a show stopper for me. Otherwise, a cool idea that reminded me of the display screens you see in modern elevators.

Design My Room featured the most effective and experienced presenter, by far. The product was also the most developed. In addition they already have many major brands, celebrity designers and other factors in place and providing value to the visitor. Upload a photo of your room, or use a stock graphic and then add flooring, wall color, drapes, area rungs, appliances and more. Looks quite useful.

To read about other presenters go here

Speaking

On my way out the door I met Laura Fitton, who coaches speakers. We agreed that a couple of the presenters, with an attentive audience of over 600 people, did a poor job of maximizing the potential benefit of the opportunity.

• Who is your target market?

• What is your core message?

• What can you say that will be memorable?

• Speak clearly and directly to the audience, not from a note card.

• Tell the audience what you want them to do.

• Be enthusiastic and authentic.

Speaking First

Our host David Beisel is a venture capitalist with Venrock. Thanks for the free event David.

He began the meeting by surprising the crowd by simply stepping up to the microphone and introducing himself after a faintly heard, “we’re going to begin”.

My suggestions for the next great meeting:

• Find a catchy signal (air horn, play music, quiet coyote or something) to let folks know that it is time to stop networking and sit down. If all else fails, dim the lights twice.
• Allow more than two questions – these folks have a lot of ideas, lets hear them.
• Provide some standard data points about each presenter, preferably on paper or else/also on the web site.
  • What is the funding situation – self funded, vc funded, need funding, profitable and so on?
  • What is the business model – how they will make money?
  • What kind of technology is in use – storage, programming technology, communication etc?
  • What is up next for them or what do they need – need money, staff, ideas, space, partners, affiliates?
  • A significant quote about the originator’s purpose and motive – why did they start this?
  • Is it meant to be profitable?
• Behind tables. I know it is conventional wisdom to stand in front of your display table, but I don’t like it.
  • You are blocking your own table
    • I can’t reach for a tear sheet, card or flyer
    • I can’t see the display on your table
    • I can’t walk around the room because everyone is out in front
  • If you are behind the table, I know for sure that you work with the company represented
  • Stand beside your table if you feel you need to be “out there”, rather than hiding behind your table
  • Maybe the room needs to be larger so people can circulate more easily

Speak Louder

After the event I headed over to the deafening CheeseCake Factory with some new friends. They are official Twitter evangelists.

I opened an account back in April and did nothing with it. I did one Tweet and thought “what is this all about?” and moved on .

I met Chris Brogan at an SEO Meetup in Arlington, MA and he evangelized about Twitter. He provided clear explanations to my questions, but I wasn’t moved enough to do anything about it.

Last night Chris, Laura, Andrea, Susan and I think Doug gathered for a meal. Twitter, Twitter, Twitter. I got the inside scoop and figured I had better “try it” again.

Laura was good enough to follow up with an email about Twitter, (Andrea followed up with a LinkedIn invite) . So, I now follow the four of them on Twitter and posted one Tweet. More later about Twitter.

Thanks to my new Twitter friends – Andrea, Chris, Laura and Susan. Cheers. It was, will be fun.