A Twitter Social Contract

I've been on Twitter for a little over a month now. As always, I've been watching and observing. This past week I stopped doing daily twits (yes, I know what it's suppose to be called and I also know enough psycholinguistics to know why it suppose to be called that).

Let me go on the record right now as offering that I do believe Twitter is a useful service. A friend, Matt, told me he gets feeds from NASA (you just know that one would get my attention, didn't you?), weather conditions from a bunch of sources (very useful if you fly kites wherever you go, that), breaking news in specific areas of interest, ...

And here's the rub for me. I started doing some random searches of what people are posting through Twitter. Not news services, but people because, well, last time I checked, I'm a person.

First, I loved the "See what's happening -- right now." on the Twitter search page. It reminds me of NextStage's early tag lines, "Learn how the world thinks...now!". Beyond that, looking at people's posts, I had to start asking myself, "How does that information impact my life?"

I know it's becoming de rigueur to slam Twitter right now. That's not my point. I wrote above that I believe Twitter provides value. I also think people are slamming Twitter now because a) it's becoming ubiquitous and b) the majority of people still haven't figured out its usefulness in their lives, therefore sides are being drawn.

So, anyway, I was reading these twits and determining value. And everybody who knows me knows I consider myself boring and dull. I mean, look at some of my twits; "Spending this morning going over outgroup specifications to decide if we should include them in some tests." (now there's a breath holder, don't you think?), "I'm suppose to be going through some vision research and instead I'm Skyping with Rene." (Whoa! Stop the presses!) and "Finishing up data compilation on 'professional test-taker bias' so I can send The Good Mr. Kaushik (@avinashkaushik) a paper." (Hey, I know important people!)

At one point, the social researcher in me came to the fore. Some people may have heard me present on social contracts, unstated agreements of conduct that people accept because they tend to benefit all. I'd like to offer a Twitter Social Contract, if I may.

Heck, I'll offer it even if I mayn't because it'll help me and, if you can understand "Don't feed someone when you're hungry.", then you can understand the principle that what truly helps me will help others around me.

So here's my Twitter Social Contract; I won't twit unless I truly believe the information might be useful to you, which of course means whatever I twit will have use to me.

Which is why I twitted this.

Please contact NextStage for information regarding presentations and trainings on this and other topics.

Upcoming Conferences:

• teaching a Masters Class among other things at the iMediaConnection Brand Summit 7-10 June 09 in Colorado Springs, Colorado
• doing a presentation on Machine Detection of and Response to User Non-Conscious Thought Processes to Increase Usability, Experience and Satisfaction - Case Studies and Examples at the Towards a Science of Consciousness 2009 11-14 June 09 in Hong Kong, China
• presenting a formal research paper entitled Machine Detection of and Response to User Non-Conscious Thought Processes to Increase Usability, Experience and Satisfaction - Case Studies and Examples at The 7th International Conference on Computing, Communications and Control Technologies: CCCT 2009, The 2nd International Multi-Conference on Engineering and Technological Innovation: IMETI 2009 10-13 July 09 in Orlando, Florida
• The 4th Annual SNCR Research Symposium & Awards Gala at Harvard University in Cambridge, MA, 5-6 Nov 09