How To Agree, Disagree & Remain Friends On Twitter: 3 Unique Perspectives. [Part 3]

We’re all using Twitter to achieve our goals.  Camaraderie, networking, and promotion are the top three for me.   From my perspective, camaraderie must come first.  If we don’t have that, how are the other two even possible?

We all come from different backgrounds, believe in different things, have different areas of expertise as well as inexperience.  But we all are working diligently–much of our work utterly invisible to the Twittersphere–on things we only have 140 characters to “plug”.  Tweets need to pack a punch in order to get noticed.

I’m a meditation instructor and yoga therapist; as such, I watch my thoughts a lot.  This was a fabulous opportunity to see how my mind, emotions, and nervous system got involved in the unfolding events.  With such enticing tweets flying by, there was plenty of room for me to insert my own interpretation into whatever I read!  And I did indeed react quite negatively a few times.  Ultimately I took my ball and stomped home!

The environment is a topic of deep passion for many people, myself included.  Nonetheless, when we’re only fed bites of someone else’s entire experience, more information is needed before we try to engage in truly meaningful interaction.  This isn’t a time to react.  It’s a time to RESPOND.

In situations like today’s, I’m reminded of the early discussions of Netiquette.  Perhaps Twitter needs its own rules of conduct.   Here are my ideas:

1.  As JoAnn and Regina say, take it off Twitter.  Exchange email addresses or find another means of interaction.
2.  Stop for a second: Is the tweet really the meat of the topic, or is it a “news headline” DESIGNED to get a reaction from you?
3.  Know yourself.  Are you having a bad day?  Reactionary to the topic at hand?  Then cool off first.
4.  Don’t publicly tweet anything you wouldn’t say to that person’s face at a dinner party.
5.  Don’t publicly tweet anything you wouldn’t want to receive yourself.
6.  Make sure you have all the facts before you respond.  Remember these are just snippets, not the full story.
7.  If you tweet publicly about a heated topic, ask, “will this benefit the greater good or just scratch an itch I have?”
8.  Keep your goal in mind.  Why are you tweeting?

While Regina feels she may have butted in, I personally was happy to see someone else jump in and add to the conversation.   I was appreciative of her apology but found it unnecessary.   My response to her was,

And, really, if we’re here jointly sharing what we learned, isn’t that true?  We’re all better for it.

Thank you, Regina and JoAnn, for an enlightening afternoon, and for your friendship, which wouldn’t have happened if not for Twitter!

Michelle Gilbert
Sarva Natural Artisan Soaps
info@sarvasoap.com
http://www.sarvasoap.com |  http://sarvasoap.wordpress.com

Regina’s and JoAnn’s perspectives will be featured in part 1 and part 2