Now Using Twitter

I'VE STARTED TO USE TWITTER. I plan to use it for microblogging -- the brief, remaindered links that I have usually stored up and then posted in bulk, leaving Seat1A for longer items. I've updated my blog template to include the five seven most recent posts to my Twitter feed, and if you'd like to follow my feed you may do so here.

While Twitter is a recent Web 2.0 rage, the user community is still comparatively small. Still, usage has increased dramatically of late, and I'm starting to notice more of the geeks in my circle using Twitter. One of these is Michael Hyatt, who is not a personal acquaintance but someone whose blog I follow. He recently posted a Twitter 101, which follows two other posts on the topic. The Wikipedia article on Twitter also is a nice primer.

Frankly, I just love the ability to post via a text message from my phone. I so often see random things on the road and think, "That's a great Seat 1A post." Now I can fire it off with a simple text. The 140 character limit is also a nice creative constraint, forcing a sort of blog haiku form.

WATCH THIS NOW. (Thanks to Andy S. for the link.)

A Logarithmic Expansion

David Sifry, founder and CEO of Technorati, is writing a series of posts on the state of the blogoshpere. Excellent and well-crafted stuff. Start here and proceed forward. Something to note: at the end of July Technorati was tracking over 14 million blogs. Something more incredible: the number of blogs is doubling every 5 months.

That's a logarithmic expansion, folks. Soon everything in the connected world will be blogged, logged, and Googleable. Everything.

It also lends creedance to Ray Kurzweil's law of acellerating returns ...

Singularity

Things you've suspected but not yet had a name for: Technological Singularity -- technological change so rapid and profound it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history. Also worth reading via the same Wikipedia article: Kurzweil's essay on the Law of Accelerating Returns:

Although technology grows in the exponential domain, we humans live in a linear world. So technological trends are not noticed as small levels of technological power are doubled. Then seemingly out of nowhere, a technology explodes into view. For example, when the Internet went from 20,000 to 80,000 nodes over a two year period during the 1980s, this progress remained hidden from the general public. A decade later, when it went from 20 million to 80 million nodes in the same amount of time, the impact was rather conspicuous.

As exponential growth continues to accelerate into the first half of the twenty-first century, it will appear to explode into infinity, at least from the limited and linear perspective of contemporary humans. The progress will ultimately become so fast that it will rupture our ability to follow it. It will literally get out of our control. The illusion that we have our hand "on the plug," will be dispelled.

[Via Reynolds]

The Relationship Economy

While working with some clients on their approach to relationship management recently I forecasted that, with books like Love is the Killer App (a must read) and Never Eat Alone doing so well, relationship management was going to quickly become the new vogue in leadership and personal development. We are, it seems, moving into a "relationship economy" where (as Tim Sanders says) your "network is your net worth."

You can see some of this today at Fast Company Now, where Doug Sundheim posts some tips for making the most of others:

1. Go through your contacts and jot down a few people you'd like to learn from.
2. Invite them to lunch.
3. Let them know you'd like to take advantage of them (bet they don't hear that every day).
4. Ask them provocative questions to get them to tell you their story.
5. Try to leave with one or more ideas you can put into action.

All good advice. But I'll forecast what I forecasted in my conversation with my clients last week: as the compelling and useful principles of relationship development take the business world by storm, "let's do lunch" is going to be something you increasingly say (and hear).

And like all business trends, when a new cheese comes along many people's interest in managing and fostering relationships will peak and then decline. As a result, authenticity and commitment become critical: do not set an expectation of regular contact with folks in your network if it's not an expectation you plan to meet. And be aware that those with whom you seek to connect are also the subject of similar requests from others. My general guidelines:

• With the exception of people you need for reasons of pragmatism, foster relationships with people you truly enjoy. If you're trying to regularly connect with people you don't genuinely  like and want to see, you won't be able to keep up the veneer.
  
  
• Be organized enough to stay in touch: depending on the relationship, you'll need to connect with someone weekly, monthly, or quarterly ... otherwise the relationship will begin to degrade.
  
  
• Realize you can't connect with everyone. Gladwell writes about the rule of 150, and in my experience that's about right: if you try to have truly active relationships with more than 150 people, the quality of those relationships will suffer. (It's like raspberry jam ... you're welcome to spread it around, but it gets thinner as you go.) Of course, you can use proxies for contact ... like a blog or holiday cards ... but they only go so far.

For years, my metaphor for relationships has been a garden. People are like flowers. Plant the garden with ones you enjoy and like to see, tend to them with care and regularity, and know you can only do so much.