Open Your Beak and Tweet: A Story of Self-Overcoming

This guy's finally on Twitter. I know I'd follow him. Photo: Jesse Crowe.

If you’re like me, and you’re looking for work in communications, you’ve probably been told ad nauseam that self-branding through social media is a must. In media writing, at least, it’s a given that if you don’t tweet, blog, or maintain a web profile of some sort, you’re falling into obscurity before you can even hit the ground running.

Sure, social media platforms are still very new in terms of their application to business. We all know they open the avenue for direct customer feedback, and the conversion of web surfers into users. But they’re far from being universally monetized.

Still, these tools are clearly shaping the way we connect. It’s obvious that they have to be integrated into corporate strategies. For the aspiring young professional, there’s more than enough reason to be perceived by potential employers as a habitual social networker. These days, one often has to brand oneself through these platforms to make any industry contacts. For a face-to-face communicator, that can be a bit of an awkward passage.

In recent weeks, this has been a stark reality for me, specifically with the short form blog Twitter. Lately I feel like people have been shouting its name from the rooftops while I’ve been out, combing the city for copywriting gigs. So I signed up. I knew that if I didn’t hop onto the tweet wagon, I’d feel like the village idiot meeting with any PR firm or ad agency. But admittedly, I’ve been slow to respond to the craze. Before I talk about my ascent into the Twitter Clouds, let me rationalize my initial hesitation to open my “beak” and tweet.

There is a certain type of creative content maker, an individual, who finds this quip machine increasingly unappealing. Now this type of person, myself included, is not entirely cynical. They’re often just as interested in popular culture as anyone “on the pulse,” and much of the time, they’re equally good at what they do. Because of their disdain for the overexposed, I can relate to their apprehension.

The fact remains that we are in a period of rapid media development. Things are mutating into new versions of themselves faster than I can click “post.” To me, any backlash is inevitable, if not fair. I’ve certainly sported my anxieties regarding World 2.0.

For a time, I couldn’t help but cringe at Twitter. There was just something about its “professional” orientation that made me groan. To me, it was a conduit for the obscenities of on-the-go self-promotion.

It’s just so easy to use the thing badly, I thought. More precisely, it’s easy to use Twitter out of boredom. Not only this, but the pressures of parading one’s capabilities, interests, and connections to a growing list of contacts can suck the fun out of producing content.

With this in mind, it’s not too hard to see Twitter as a potential turnoff for some very bright people – people who may be more dedicated to their craft than their popularity. There are, after all, billions of individuals who aren’t even on Facebook, let alone Twitter. There has to be more than a handful of creative/technical people who aren’t on board. Some of them are my friends. For instance, when I finally signed up for Twitter last month, one very capable media practitioner I know said – and I quote – “ew.” They may not be the visible majority but, contrary to the myth of the “plugged in” urban professional, they are for real.

Though I’m not looking to profile these types of individuals, I thought it relevant to bring them up in some detail. Why? I identify with them. But in order to do what I’m good at for a living, I know that I have to use Twitter to brand myself as a writer sporting more than just an eye for grammar.

Consequently, it’s best for me to map the pitfalls of this medium so that I can use it to enhance my long form content, without producing clutter. It’s important, then, not to relegate a certain kind of skepticism to the write-off bin. After all, it’s one thing to brand something that is external, objective, abstract etc. It’s another thing entirely to brand myself.

I'm a brand new man. Photo: Jesse Crowe.

To do this, I have to be aware of ‘Kalan’ as a presence, not a person, and that means I have to be critical of how I’m coming across to my widening network. That’s what’s so weird. Branding as such is not the issue. What’s strange about professionally bent social media is, specifically, the act of embracing a sort of hyper-projection of oneself.

Suddenly the people you know are your audience, and you are your own marketer. You can’t over saturate them.

If you’re in an independent band, you know this very well. Although a band is something beyond its individual members, it’s an extension of their personalities. Since so many bands have to act as their own publicist, it can be tricky to use social media tools without contributing to a level of clutter.

As a musician and music fan, I’m exposed daily to a deluge of band related status updates through Facebook and Twitter. This has no doubt played its part in my predisposition against rampant tweeting. But this goes for others as well.

One musician/journalist I know articulates his growing trepidation towards the combined use of Facebook and Twitter as a promotional bundle: “I am becoming more and more wary of it,” he almost confesses, “because I’m starting to look at it as a bunch of voices speaking to each other at the same time, and I am picturing myself screaming at people about my band. I personally would probably find that annoying.”

Still, it’s become very clear to me that the more social media I know, the better. Many businesses use LinkedIn or Twitter to find the best candidates and, as articles like this will tell you, it’s just the beginning. So here’s how I found my peace with it.

I started to tweet roughly once a day, a piece of news or a relevant observation, exclusively to elaborate on the subject matter explored here. In doing this, I realized that I can use Twitter as a touch point between myself and the people I want to work for. I then began to apply the short form blog to my current job search.

Since social media is one of the skills I’m trying to sell, I figured that the industry leaders I want to connect with are likely on Twitter. Initially, I’d send them a personalized cover letter, linking to this blog. That did result in one very good meeting at an agency. But now, I’m inclined to ‘follow’ up, literally, by following my potential employers on Twitter.

I know from my experience as a marketing writer that this audience is naturally interested in keeping tabs on me, simply because I represent a part of the talent pool. I can e-mail them all I want, but if I show them that I exist through the very technology they want me to know, we’re all better off. That way, the cover letter retains some kind of immediacy, especially if my target doesn’t click the blog link in the body text. Through Twitter, I can somehow become more real as a candidate.

Hilariously enough, I now like this platform a lot. In fact, I like Twitter as a form more than I like Facebook, because, by design, it’s more of a news feed. Plus, it’s completely targeted, because I choose what I see. This short form blog is, in fact, very helpful as I hone my ability to write leads. It forces me to be relevant in what I post. Conan O’Brien says something to that effect in this interview, and it’s clearly worked for him in the wake of The Tonight Show.

If I believed in astrology, I would say it’s apropos of my sign, Libra, to obsessively seek balance in my use of Web 2.0. Twitter works out for me because I don’t use it all that casually. I see it as a ticker to augment my long form blog writing. It’s also more friendly and direct than editorial style, which can be useful in extending one’s web presence.

To double back for a second. I mentioned that, recently, I had a meeting at an ad agency. Here’s what I took from it.

The working world is hungry for the newest ways of applying social media. These forms have certain conventions but, again, they don’t have a standardized business model. In turn, lots of firms are going to be open to experimental projects utilizing blogging, Twitter, and so on, to engage habitually interactive audiences. What does this mean for bold young talent?

Open space.

The more one can pinpoint both the advantages and potholes of specific social networking tools, the more desirable one will be as an employee. We’re getting to a point where there is so much personal content to promote that we often forget to reflect on why we’re using a specific platform. As we move into a post Web 2.0 society, we need to keep in mind that new avenues of direct communication will continue to pop up. We can work to define them, or let them mutate into the dreaded agents of clutter. It’s the new frontier, and I aim to get me a brand.

The e-Book Cometh

This book heap will barely dent your tablet's memory. Photo: Jesse Crowe.

It’s no secret that today’s consumer is becoming accustomed to the all-in-one device. Music, video, and communication tools are portable and constantly present. But with the advent of “tablet” products like Amazon’s Kindle, Sony’s eReader, and Apple’s iPad, the book is now marking its territory on the digital frontier. These days, e-literature is sold as a file, from anywhere, via wireless internet.

Because we’ve seen media like the CD and the printed news all but die out, the advent of the e-book has spawned both anxiety and speculation regarding the future of major publishing. Since it’s now only a matter of getting a book file to the reader’s device, an author can eliminate the middleman through a pointed use of social media.

But with this huge leap away from the top-down system of traditional publishing, it’s easy to gloss over a question of loss that comes with the digitization of this medium. Before we look at the paper book for its distinctive qualities, let’s take a step back and talk tablets.

Since one e-book takes up a relatively low amount of disk space, a single tablet can carry several thousand works of literature, with instantaneous access to e-stores carrying hundreds of thousands of additional titles. For students who have to balance school with work, this can be a welcome time saver. One can easily cross-reference multiple texts without undergoing a five book juggling act.

Then we have the environmental argument. The digitization of paper books wastes far less in terms of increasingly expensive natural materials. This is clearly a selling point for many readers, not to mention a societal and ecological necessity.

In terms of functionality, you can zoom in and out of documents, making text size comfortable. You can easily mark or search excerpts, making notes as ideas are sparked. You can chose to see a single page in portrait dimensions, or simulate the look of an open book and “leaf” through. Whatever you want. With the iPad specifically, you can even change the font style.

But in spite of this, there’s something alluring about a book I can flip through with my fingers, hearing the pages turn, seeing the notes I’ve physically written in the margins, even smelling crisp new paper, or the mustiness of an old hardcover. This very distinct aesthetic experience makes me question the boundless digital library we get with tablet technology. It’s as if the notion of “a world at our fingertips” is what’s really being sold, and it’s supposed to accelerate our reading and drop our jaws.

If you’ll allow me, I want to turn briefly to the work of Latin American author Jorge Luis Borges for an image.

In his short story “The Library of Babel,” Borges presents us with a universe composed of cramped hexagonal libraries, connected by sleeping compartments, treacherous spiraling staircases, and surrounded by infinite space with no definable centre. The narrator wanders the Library, searching for the book of his life. “Like all men of the Library, ” he says, “I traveled in my youth. I have journeyed in search of a book, perhaps of the catalogue of catalogues; now that my eyes can scarcely decipher what I write, I am preparing to die a few leagues from the hexagon in which I was born.”

Dark? You bet. But “The Library of Babel” can be an interesting frame for the universe of text we’ve inherited. Not only does this world follow us around in our daily use of speech, but now it literally comes with us when we take our tablets out for a walk.

It would be very easy to posit these devices as potential contributors to our own Babel. With so much access, one could argue that we’re headed towards a generalized understanding of literature, unsure of what we as individuals are even looking to gain from it.

However, it’s pointless to say the e-book reader will be the end of critical or even attentive reading. It’s equally imprecise to call the consumer a zombie, since there are so many ways of using media. But since we’re so used to niche marketed content, we sometimes forget that the printed page becomes very personal to the individual. It has its own subtleties that can’t be found in “e-ink.”

Kalan finds his page. Photo: Jesse Crowe.

For example, with print you’re at the mercy of an editor and his taste. The font size, style, and spacing are all fixed elements that either work for you, or make your read a headache. Though this may seem limiting, it can allow for an element of challenge that is – I think – conducive to a reader’s growth.

If we can approach media as organized space – as shapes and gaps set together to convey meaning, or to be somehow operated – we can see the book as a sort of landscape to be conquered. In this fixed realm, a person may have to endure the seven point font selected by an editor in an attempt to cram Dickens or Dostoyevsky into a mere five hundred pages. One often has to underline, highlight, scribble, book mark, or even dog-ear to keep track of details. Most tablets, on the other hand, provide not only customizable font features, but prearranged space for note taking.

As convenient as this can be, it undermines the spontaneity that comes with scribbling down a thought. In a way, the “note” application tells you where to put your ideas. It keeps you organized. You don’t scrawl, but type your asides, and they’re presented immaculately in a kind of pop-up window.

But I know lots of people who can’t read without scratching their thoughts into the margins. By penning the page, these folks can better retain the layers of a text. What’s more, they can personalize a book with their own shorthand. When I etch notes, I’m carving on the cave wall. I don’t aim for exactitude like I do when I type because I’m not operating a computer. I’m writing.

The Kindle is far less private. This device encourages me to share “meaningful” passages with my entire Facebook network. There is actually a feature dedicated solely to this.

And when we have something like the iPad, we get an even more seamless mediascape. In this space, a reader gets not an “e-book,” but an “iBook.” Naturally, the customer is encouraged to peruse the iTunes library once he or she is plugged in. In fact, the product’s website can be quoted as saying “a great song really pulls the story along.” The consumer is supposedly in a universe of endless possibilities that allows for the customized packaging of media, down to the font of a book, without the hurdle of some meddling editor. It seems as if Apple is trying to associate the entire history of content with its own libraries.

Obviously, this is where the consumer friendly transparency of the brand breaks down. With iPad, you’re not just reading the story, you’re reading the device itself. The experience of Apple literally frames the page. This goes for Amazon’s Kindle and Sony’s eReader as well.

So what can be written about these flat-screened book banks? A web of stories can now follow you out the door. But who even needs twenty books at once, let alone thousands?

To be fair, these devices don’t discourage us from closely reading one text at a time. However, they might bring us dangerously close to skimming every book ever written. The stuffy academic isn’t exactly an appealing figure to me, but neither is the tourist. These products may tempt us to spend a few days in Nietzsche, a week in Dan Brown, and so on, wandering the library like Borges’ narrator.

Yet the future is digital. We can’t really hide from it. But because of this, we have to become more aware of how we’re consuming things. If the tablet is here to stay, we need to see it as a medium respective to the book. It can be convenient and pragmatic, but it doesn’t necessarily pull the narrative along as well as its predecessor.

I have to say, an editor’s decisions can really work to communicate setting. When coupled with good art direction, fonts and formatting can make me feel like I’m in the story. For example, when reading Dostoyevsky or Dickens, I want to feel like I’m sifting through industrial era print. When I’m reading Leonard Cohen, I want to hold the early ’60s in my hands.

As a final thought, the book is something we’re inclined to pass down. I know I’m enthralled by old print, especially when it’s been previously read, or even marked up by a complete stranger. The feeling of something “loved” makes this medium a sort of time capsule. Picture yourself flipping through a book once held by your grandmother. A tablet doesn’t offer that.

The book’s potential to be possessed is what separates it from the tablet, which can only be replaced. Yes, the e-reader has its advantages, but we have to ask ourselves what we’re looking to gain from the practice of reading itself before we toss our paperbacks into the recycling bin.

How about you? What does reading mean to you? What can a tablet offer you that a book cannot, and vice versa? Will the book ever be replaced?

“911? This is The Phone calling. I think I’m dying.”

Kalan makes a call. Photo: Jesse Crowe.

The telephone. Have you even used one in the past year?

Before I come across as the presumptuous type, it would be in my best interest to specify that when I say “telephone” I mean the device that, until recently, existed for the sole purpose of making a voice call.

Today, at least for the urban youth, the so-called phone is a Swiss Army knife of mobile media tools. The phone encompasses many forms of communication which sabotage the oral/aural operation of the traditional technology. Texting, e-mail, and singular net apps like Facebook now rule the handset. With this, we are privy to a multisensory experience at every point of use, and the telephone amounts to little more than one single (and specifically vocal) “screwdriver” in the “knife.”

As a friend of mine noted the other day, it’s not uncommon for people in their twenties to use their cells exclusively for messaging and Facebook, with no recourse at all to the voice call. In spite of this development, many of us use the word “phone” to refer to the mobile device in its totality. The irony here goes almost without saying. The handsets we have are computers more than they are telephones, and the use of the physical voice has been cut down dramatically through the convergence of telephony and visual media.

And yet, the carryover of the old school label doesn’t come as much of a shock. It’s not exactly as if our SMS machines have killed telephony completely, even if it is rapidly disappearing. We of course need a convenient way of referring to these objects since the terrain is only beginning to shift. It would be ridiculous to start saying things like “hey, wanna pass me my mobile net unit?”

That said, it’s interesting that we seem to relate to these objects as telephones, as well as the next thing. Our label for them cannot help but conjure up memories of a somewhat archaic, end-to-end device. Yet it appears frequently in many of the current marketing tags (“smartphone”, iPhone, Windows Phone) as well as in colloquial chit-chat.

Though this kind of observation runs the risk of becoming semantic, I feel that our re-use of the word phone is telling. It suggests that current consumer technology is moving so quickly that, in order to keep up, we need a link to what came before. The mobile device, with its emphasis on social networking, is completely restructuring the way we connect. It could be alarming without a familiar point of reference.

Think back to the days of the hello/goodbye telephone. This machine could only be used at certain hours of the day, and everything was more or less on the same grid. It was the phone. I could talk to you.

Today, I’m available to connect with my social or professional circle at every waking moment. I can experience multiple conversations for indefinite periods. We’re like a bunch of super-evolved psychics, speaking in ESP. The intrusiveness of making a call is no longer a necessity for us. If I get a text at five in the morning, it’s now my own fault for leaving the ringer on.

Because of this constant access, we’ve become accustomed to commenting on everything. We have imploded the democratic forum through Facebook Mobile, and we carry it in our back pockets. These days, everyone has a net voice, and we’re encouraged to let it sing. There is now only my phone, which is eerily synonymous with my self.

When we say the P word – when a wireless marketer tacks this tag onto their brand – there is a twofold effect. It’s comfortable, casual, and rooted in a classic technology. It’s even necessary for quick referral. But ironically, it obscures our movement from a general, more universally experienced piece of equipment to something incredibly customizable and personal.

Why is this significant?

Marketing. We are in the era of a niche user that didn’t exist in the days of the land line. Brand loyalty to the interface is running rampant because the digital consumer is targeted on the basis of his or her routines.

Blackberry, for example, attracts the on-the-go professional with its premium text service. This feature runs exclusively on a private data network (PIN) and combines the elements of e-mail and instant messaging dubbed most relevant to the business person. It’s intensely personal to the user because it is in many cases the conduit for work. Essentially, it gives its target easy access to the practices that come with careerism (mass e-mails with attachments, self-branding through Twitter, etc.)

When we get into a product as distinct as this, we can speak of a certain tribalism that’s common to its users. One will say “my Blackberry” at least as much as “my phone.” The brand name now means the device. This illustrates an enormous shift from the experience of a fairly streamlined medium to something with a possessive quality. Such loyalty, of course, exists for the iPhone user as well. But it comes from a more cosmopolitan, early adopter type, with a taste for the most “intuitive” touch screen technology, and content.

We’re all well aware of these brands. They’re top-of-mind with me, at least, when I think of the smartphone. But because they’re so very clearly purchased for their ability to package various media, it’s easy to see them as depositories for our information. The iPhone is pure gold for the data mining market researcher who can track our interests through apps like GPS, iTunes, Song Identifier, and so on.

But on a broader scale, the more I can use any device to tweet, update my status, or shop, the more likely I am to reveal my interests to marketers.

In the States, mobile loyalty programs are becoming all the rage for seasonal retailers. A recent article at www.mobilemarketer.com outlines an SMS oriented Valentine’s Day campaign that harnessed the immediacy of the text to traffic people into flower shops. The backstory here is that, with mobile internet, people are using their devices to shop (especially during gift season) when they’re already on the move.

Picture it. You’re a busy husband looking for flowers. You come across the website of Store X. If you sign up for its loyalty program, you’ll be sent e-coupons that entitle you to great deals on roses (F.Y.I. the retailer is looking to dump them anyway, because they’re going to die). You get the e-coupon. It directs you to the store, and boom: present city. A solution to your problem hails you conveniently, just as you’re out doing errands.

The type of device required for this kind of marketing is intensely interactive. It’s nothing like its predecessor, yet it needs to be understood as the continuation of the phone in order to be palatable. McLuhan said this best: “What’s really visible in new situations is the ghost of old ones.” The telephone has become visibly limited, but it’s been included in the new devices because it’s familiar to our senses.

In sum, even if I refer to my handset by its brand name alone, I know in the back of my mind that it’s a smartphone. This category works to reinforce a belief that the telephone is here to stay – that it’s just changing. But I’m using my voice less and less, and I’m not connecting with people any better. I’m just more aware of them.

The bottom line is this: we have a vast array of communication options available in a pocket-sized device that’s developing at warp speed. Tomorrow’s version of the handset will yield even more. Whether we’re planning a marketing campaign or simply organizing a date with friends, we need to reflect on the appropriateness of each tool in the knife before putting it to use. It’s a good habit to get into, because we’re moving into an era of increasingly fine strands of interaction. The channels for keeping in touch will continue to take on specific purposes as more develop, and it would be sadly ironic for this kind of device to muddle real communication.

Anyone want to share some experience? When has texting or social networking been most conducive to face-to-face interaction? In what situations, if any, have you found yourself texting when you’d rather be calling?