TASK 1b: Reader in Professional communication technologies (part 2 - Twitter)

Continuing on from my first blog on this task. There was a Web 2.0 application that I haven't ever indulged in and I thought it was time to check it out. Twitter - "Instantly connect to what's most important to you. Follow friends, experts, favourite celebrities, and breaking news," is what the home page told me. Twitter is a world of communication where people shout about something through a status update, a community where people follow each other and comment back and forth. This whole process is called tweeting and unlike facebook, there is no friend requesting and accepting needed. If you are tweeting on twitter, your audience is the whole world of the twitter. This means all access is open, from celebrity to professional contact, if they're tweeting, you have access to the information. Yet again the idea is present, no matter how different  a persons background or status, everyone is part of one big community and are free to communicate. The more this happens the more the web platform breaths, it relies on activity to allow it to live.

I then remembered a recent conversation I had with close friend and fellow actress, Helen Colley. She was advised to open a twitter account, it was recommended like it was the latest must have for an actor. Helen had decided to go ahead with the idea. When my work began on this task, I couldn't stop thinking about Hellen Colley and how she was getting on with her new Web 2.0 platform? I emailed my enquiry to her and pasted below is my reply...

Hi Ahmet.

One of my New Year's resolutions this year was to get a bit pro-active about my career.  I felt like it was time to actually have a go at "making things happen", as they say, rather than just chilling out with a cup of tea waiting for my agent to call - which let's be honest ain't that often!  A mate of mine who is really pro-active had been on at me to join Twitter for ages.  Now, to be honest, I even find Facebook a bit of a drag at times - feeling the need to check it, and comment, and post a status... and that's essentially just keeping up with mates.  So was this Twitter malarkey going to be a bit of a drag too?  Well, the main reason I decided to give it a go was because this friend had said Twitter was the best new way of networking within the industry, without actually going up and making idle conversation with an important yet complete stranger in the hope that they might pull you in for an audition, or, God forbid, give you a job - a past time which generally makes me cringe.  So, I joined Twitter.  I gave it a bash in the hope that a contact or two would be made, or an audition might be sought.  Well, it's been nearly a month since I created my profile, and I seem to have given up a bit already! I have found that in order to get the most out of it, you have to be logged in for a fair amount of time, and quite frankly, I've not got an iphone so I'm not on the internet all day, plus I've got better things to be doing!  I think you have to be tweeting interesting, anecdotal, funny or controversial things in order to be considered worth following.  This concept in itself, like the "how many friends have you got" thing with Facebook, I find a little patronising - a cyber popularity contest if you will.  I simply can't be bothered to compete.  I can't be bothered to think things up for the sake of it and don't really want to be telling all of tweetsville what I am having for my dinner!  Plus, the absolute drivel that you have to trawl through in order to find anything really worth reading, like a casting for instance, is quite irritating. 

 

On a more positive note, when I do have a little scroll through the people I am following (and I have tried to keep it as business orientated as possible), there are a few jobs, auditions, news items which interest me.  Plus, I can advertise myself as an actor, and lots of my actor/director acquaintances are on Twitter, so I spose it may come in handy at some point.  Unfortunately, I have yet to really network on Twitter.  I don't think it's all it's cracked up to be, or maybe I'm just not putting in enough effort in order to get anything out - very possibly the latter.  But I spose I will keep my account active as there's no point closing it down.  As yet, it hasn't made a blind bit of difference to my career, and I still find the whole self-promotion thing a little on the cringy side.  I'm much happier having a cuppa waiting for my agent to call! Maybe I'm in the wrong business?!

  
For the first time in my learning so far, there is a bit of bad press for communication technology. I guess some people just don't want to buy into Web 2.0 culture. I'm learning it can be perceived as self celebratory or intrusive. Still, you can't ignore the latter part of the email that confirms that people in her industry are using this web tool and improving her professional network is possible, should she want to use it.