All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

Those old enough to remember the 1980 famous Stanley Kubrick film from the Stephen King novel The Shining starring Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance, remember these were the words the crazed the  frustrated writer Jack typed over and over as he crossed the threshold into madness.

Have I turned into Jack? Am I all work and no play because I prefer less numbers of personal tweets?

Yesterday I posted a blog about sharing personal information as status updates. I referenced Jeremiah Owyang, Internet Analyst who works for Forrester as an example of someone I truly respect and follow but I was not so keen on the detail of some of his personal updates.  In fairness to anyone I would write about (which is rare, as I stick to strategy, process, content and technology), I gave Jeremiah the heads up in an email. With 39,000+ followers on Twitter, a great blog site and a guessed avalanche of email volume, I thought my communication might just be glossed over or missed because of sheer volume Jeremiah gets each day.

Surprising, Jeremiah not only read my email, he commented on my blog and then posted a Tweet and authored a blog about the topic of ” How much should we share?’

The tweets and blogs set off a a great discussion with many followers and readers contributing to conversation. The results were mixed and you can judge by reading both comment sections yourself however, there are trends and interesting observations to be shared for anyone using social media streams.

1. Social media is a powerful medium that is truly undefined. There are no protocol rules.  It was suggested maybe a new protocol of #P be used on Titter to identify personal tweets.
2. Those commenting on both blogs tended to be OK with a balance and blend of business and personal tweets or stream updates
3. It was pointed out that Facebook tends to be used more for personal networks and Twitter for business. I agree.
4. Many suggested using two twitter accounts, one for personal, one for business. Not a bad idea but I hate the thought of managing another focal point of social media.
5. Grouping Tweets would be nice on one account on an outbound basis. this way personal and business could be separated.
6. Social media is swift, powerful and influence can be enormous and impactful. I run a boutique consulting firm based in Denver and my blog is intended for my client base as a library of thoughts to help them when they cross the bridge to implementing an Attention Connection™ System. My normal readership hovers around 225 readers. Thanks to the interactions yesterday, my readership shot to over 1685 for the blog post, I had more than 100 twitter direct messages and I picked up more than 100 followers on Twitter and many  new subscribers to my blog. A powerful connection to an internet person of influence.  A lesson we all can learn from.

A point I forgot to make clear yesterday to Jeremiah is I don’t mind some personal tweets but I don’t want to see true professionals be tuned out because they are now lumped into the same bucket with the attention hounds who call themselves celebrities.

I think its sad state of the world that actors and sports personalities are the top followed people on Twitter and their contribution to the world is so shallow compared to people like Jeremiah, and countless others who are contributing each day. I want to hear their contributions. Not what some shallow fool had for lunch.   I wont even mention their names or link to the attention hounds  as it makes my stomach turn. You know who they are.

When it comes to reading stream posts about what someone ate for lunch, there is only one guy I care to hear about what he ate and that is a client and friend of mine, Shawn Phillips. If you have not met Shawn, you should. He is 45 years old, a body that is ripped as a Greek God and a true expert on nutrition and health. He has authored several books, has the best performance fast food and will be featured in the May 2009 edition of Success Magazine.  Now there is someone who is worth hearing about what he eats and drinks!

Ok, so maybe it’s true, I am all work and no play. So hear it goes… a personal drop.

I spent the evening watching my 10 year old son Beck play basketball last night. I had nothing to eat while doing it and sat by no one interesting other than Joe’s dad.

Ok, that did not hurt too much. Maybe I can try it again tomorrow. Hmmm.

Keep the conversation going, leverage social media to it’s fullest.  Post what you want, be happy and be relevant to some.

Until next time, stay connected.