How to fail fast on Twitter: an easy-to-follow one-step recipe!

At last … the information you’ve always wanted: how to get un-followed on Twitter.

If you use Twitter, you’re familiar with the following scenario: someone follows you, and you find out via email, or some other software you’re using for the purpose (unless you’re automating Twitter, which is usually a bad thing in itself, but we’ll deal with that another day).

You take a look at the user’s stats, and if he or she has a decent number of tweets in relation to following and following numbers, you consider following back. You also check to see if the user is following way more people than are following him or her … because that’s usually a sign of someone trying to game Twitter to develop a big megaphone without putting any significant energy into earning that megaphone.

Sometimes when you’ve done this step, and even noticed that the user’s tweets are potentially of interest to you, you notice something else. Like this, for example:

I followed this user, then read a few more of his tweets. Lo and behold … multiple repeat Tweets.

This is a sign of a user with one or more problems:

• Boring
  This person does not have a lot to say … but like the boring person at the party that you can’t detach yourself from, insists on saying it over and over.

• Lazy
  This person probably actually has a lot to say, but is too busy or otherwise occupied to put appropriate attention on Twitter. So she is putting her account on autopilot and just repeating the same thing over and over again without the bother of having to think up (or experience) new things to communicate. This is the broken record (remember those round spinning black things) that keeps on keeps on keeps on keeps on …

• Forgetful
  This person just says the same thing over and over again … like the old sales guy who has chatted up (sorry, networked) so promiscuously and with so little emotional investment that he forgets who he has told his stories to, and keeps repeating the sames ones to you every time you meet.

• Rude
  This person doesn’t care about the signal to noise ratio, and doesn’t care what any one individual might think of his or her behavior. It’s all about the mass to this person, and to get to mass attention, they’re repeating everything twice or a hundred times, like old-fashioned advertising spewing out mindlessly and repetitively to an essentially unknown audience.

As soon as I saw all the repeat tweets, I un-followed this user. The funny thing here is that I’m actually interested in some of the topics he’s covering. But his behavior smells like spam.

Moral of the story? Old methods may not work in new media.

Amsterdam

Early this week I had the chance to spend a day in Amsterdam on my way to Cairo for the Intel Learning Alliance Summit.

Amsterdam is (of course) very beautiful, and it’s an amazing walking city. I took the train from Schipol airport to Amsterdam Centraal station, and then booked onto a canal tour. After that I walked around the city for 3-4 hours.

As per usual, I serendipitously happened across the Anne Frank museum and immensely appreciated the opportunity to slowly and contemplatively go through the house where most of the Franks lived their last few years.

Here are a few photos I took:

Note: if you view the photoset on Flickr, you’ll get the photo titles and comments.

Someone always has to be first

Next time, could it be you?

Time for futility and insanity

I have been reinvigorated lately by following Hugh McLeod, the Limey-turned-Texan artist, idea vendor, marketer, and self-described CDF (CrazyDerangedFool).

In this economy and in the overwhelming crush of ideas and messaging, you have to be a little crazy, you have to be a little off-the-wall … you have to STAND OUT from the deafening crowd in order earn the attention necessary to tell your story.

That’s why this recent cartoon of his really speaks to me. George’s first plan better be to re-name himself, jump out of line, change clothes, and break out of the ordinary. But – here’s the key – George’s new George needs to not be another mask marketers wear, but a return to what makes George unique. This level of authenticity, coupled with a real eccentricity, gives George a chance.

Perhaps the crazy ideas are better just because they’re crazy. Perhaps the ordinary plans and ordinary ideas will die just because they’re ordinary. As Seth Godin said a week or so ago, the problem is that you are boring. I am boring – we’re all boring … when we’re simply repeating the party line, doing the standard thing, following the company protocol, going through the motions.

What’s going to make people sit up? Pay attention? Work with us? Hire us?

Here’s a big clue: it won’t be boring. It won’t be standard. It won’t be average. It won’t be a commodity, and it won’t be something you can buy at Wal-Mart.

This, from Hugh’s own experience, is remarkable:

• Drawing cartoons on the back of business cards started off as an act of futility.
• Getting an English tailor to blog in the hope of selling more $5,000 suits started off as an act of futility.
• Launching a national UK supermarket wine via the blogosphere started off as an act of futility.
• Getting Microsoft to re-think about who they are using nothing but a single cartoon started off as an act of futility.
• Choosing a highly irritating puppet to launch a major new French wine started off as an act of futility.
• Convincing one of the most respected publishers in the world to turn a blog post into a hardcover book started off as an act of futility.
• Getting West Texas cowboys to start drinking South African wine started off as an act of futility.

Now. What am I doing that is futile and crazy?

What are you doing that is futile and crazy?

Let’s start.

This ad agency “website” rocks my world

Some will hate it and some will love it. But many will talk about it:

And yes, booneoakley.com translates to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Elo7WeIydh8. Bold – very bold.

(Saw it here.)

Google Wave

If you were inventing email today … what would you make?