1. The ecosystem and the power of connections
2. A culture of the hivemind towards greater collaboration
3. Dynamic, not static, communication, and
4. Clear signals in your content

1. Innovation
2. Improved collaborative processes
3. Adaptable business process and of course
4. Customer growth, retention and sustainability.

Guest Post from Jake Jacobson

Jake Jacobson with Jim Felt of Felt
Bicycles in Monaco prior to the start of
Stage 1 of the 2009 Tour de France.

Flashback two years to July 2008, and I was faced with an exceptional opportunity and exciting challenge as an outdoor/fitness PR specialist and blogger for Garmin International . I was sent to the first week of the Tour de France to promote and chronicle Team Garmin, the world-class professional cycling squad founded by Slipstream Sports that had just taken us on as title sponsor the month before. Armed with a laptop and the assumption that every worldly hotel has wifi, I set out to share news and insight about Team Garmin’s Tour debut.

The first of several shortcomings in my quickly hatched plan was clear from the start. Though it ends in bustling  Paris , the Tour often starts in much smaller towns. And we were in an even smaller town outside of that small town. The hotel lobby had wifi. But not the hotel I was staying in. So the morning of the first stage, while I was feverishly mooching wifi, Slipstream chairman Doug Ellis made a short, prophetic suggestion. “You should try Twitter.” He explained that with Twitter, you don’t need a laptop, a global aircard or a neighboring hotel lobby. All you need is a phone and something to say in 140 characters or less. For a username, we landed on @JakesJournal as a reference to a familiar section of Garmin.Blogs.com and a reminder that readers were following the actual person doing the talking. My crash course continued as we loaded into the van until I finally felt comfortable typing my first safe but somewhat intriguing Tweet: “driving stage 1 of tour de France with Team Garmin”.

That first day, six people started following me. I was elated. Someone was listening. I tweeted from the finish line, the pressroom and helicopters high above the peloton. By the time the Tour wrapped up, I had around 60 followers. I cheered when another would sign up. I cringed when the number would drop. With each emotion I wondered what I had said to cause the action. Fortunately I had Ryan Ressler – good friend, brilliant writer, dedicated colleague and early adopter – to help. He reminded me that personality and transparency are crucial in social media, while salesmanship and  advertising are better left to their respective departments.

I also get lots of emails with subject lines like “Time to Sleep Well” or “Succeed in a BIG Way”. And wow, to my surprise, when I opened these they were ads for, you guessed it, Viagra and Cialis that looked like this:

Tricky eh? I would have never expected a Viagra ad with the word BIG in the subject line. So, OK, this is really lame spam and I don’t think anyone reads these and I don’t think the senders really expect to get many responses either. But what about “spammers” who expect to get responses to their unsolicited ads they send to us. I get plenty of email from advertisers who believe that I’m really interested in their products or services. They may be a legitimate company selling a real product or service, but did I ever ask for this? No I didn’t. So why do companies waste their time trying to sell where they don’t have permission to sell? The better question is, why do companies try to sell to me if we don’t have a relationship?

This little romp through my junk mail folder made think of how companies and individuals are trying to sell on social networks these days. I can’t tell you how many people follow me on Twitter and lead off their conversations with me with a direct message that reads something like: “Thanks for following me. Now turn your Twitter account into a cash machine! http://somelamelink.com” or “Want to know the secret to SEO success, check out http://seo_loudmouth.com” and my recent favorite “Thanks for following me, Chris! Squirrel Chair Feeders are both entertaining and I donate proceeds to Make-A-Wish”.

I mean really, what’s with the rush to sell to me or anyone else on Twitter? Why is it that so many people and companies think that their very first interaction with folks on Twitter has to be an opportunity to sell? Why not get to me know me first? Chris Brogan put it very well when he Tweeted this about to trying to sell too soon: “In relationship terms, I’m reaching out to shake your hand and you’re trying to put your tongue in my mouth.” I couldn’t have put it better myself. Slow down partner, can’t we just be friends first?

So here’s my message to social media marketers and those who are trying to sell on Twitter: Do me and everyone else on Twitter a favor; we don’t mind if you’re trying to sell or do your marketing using Twitter, but please stop sticking your tongue in my mouth every chance you get. I’m just going to end up ignoring you anyway and you’ll be wasting both your time and mine. The better approach would be to work hard on building trust and relationships in the social media world. Then, if I really like you and what you have to say, I’ll come to you for whatever it is you’re selling…and maybe I’ll even kiss you.

Over the past two years, I have had the good fortune to get to know Bert Decker. He is an amazing person with an incredible background. If you haven’t heard of him before, Bert Decker is a national communications expert, best selling author and entrepreneur. He founded the 100 person communications training company Decker Communications, Inc. He has been featured in the NY Times, Business Week, and on 20/20, as well as being the communications commentator for the NBC TODAY Show for the Presidential Debates. He has been a communications coach to Charles Schwab, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, former Mattel CEO’s John Ammerman and Jill Barrad, Olympians Bonnie Blair and Tom Dolan, SF 49er All-Pro Brent Jones, and dozens of other executives And he is the best selling author of “You’ve Got to Be Believed To Be Heard” and “Speaking With Bold Assurance“. Bert graciously agreed to do a ten question interview with me and here are his insights on a wide range of topics.

(1) In your book “You’ve Got to Be Believed to Be Heard” you refer to “The New Communicators”. Can you explain what a new communicator is? Can you give an example of your favorite New Communicator?

New communicators connect with EVERY audience – no matter the setting – in:

• behavior

• content

• interaction

In our Decker Method courses we call it the messenger, the message and the medium – they all are one. A new communicator creates a communication experience that is energized and action oriented.

Three great New Communicators are Steve Jobs (business world), Guy Kawasaki (tech/author world) and Bono (celebrity world.)

(2) So, that covers the good communicators. Who would say is having the most trouble these days as a communicator and why?

• Richard Fuld, Lehman Brothers CEO – closed, arrogant and aloof when he testified to Congress.

• Caroline Kennedy – she lost her bid for the NY Senate seat with a monotone, halting delivery, unfocused message and a mess of ‘ums’ and ‘ahs.’

• Timothy Geithner – stiff and cold. He is not a good messenger for this very important and controversial message.

(3) There has been so much said about Barack Obama’s oratory skills in the past year. Would you consider Barack Obama to be a New Communicator?

No, he’s a good orator, not a great communicator. I’ve reviewed him often (check out Bert’s review here) and it’s fascinating – Obama is President largely because of his 2004 Convention speech, but he STILL does not use the teleprompter well (here’s Bert’s detailed take on Obama’s use of the teleprompter) And when not speechifying, he usually communicates in a professorial manner, with a halting cadence, and also many ums and ahs. Occasionally he is energetic and open and light – but rarely. So ironically, the one who became President because of communication (read oratorical) skills needs to increase his connecting skills.

(4) If you could give one bit of advice to Mr. Obama, what would it be?

• Learn to use the teleprompter so it’s not a ping-pong match – 4 seconds to one side and 4 seconds to the other.

• Leave pauses instead of filling space with non-words.

• Vary rhythm and pacing of voice – energize not professorialize.

(5) You have become a fixture on Twitter in the past year (BTW, I love your Tweets). How do you see the rise of social media tools like Twitter and Facebook impacting communications over the next few years?

I see Twitter (not Facebook) as the dominant communication tool for both text and speaking. It’s a powerful business/personal communication medium in it’s current form as text only, and will become EXPLOSIVE with the right app (the new Nambu is promising – that’s the direction it will be going.) But it will change the face of the speaking environment.

(6) Do you believe there is going to be a new breed of new New Communicators who will use social media tools to connect with people?

Yes and no. First the no – the majority of people will use the text only email/Linked-in/Twitter etc as text only – will not incorporate it holistically.

And yes, the New Communicator will embrace the social media tools (Twitter mostly) in ALL of their communicating environments – but they will be smart about it, and understand there is a difference in text, voice and in person communications – learn the differences and use them intentionally. Most people communicate at the unconscious level – our goal is to make it conscious.

(7) It seems that a big buzz these days is about the use of Twitter at conferences and presentations. What are your thoughts on the rising use of Twitter during presentations?

Twitter is going to be very powerful in expanding (or disrupting) the conference and formal speaking environment. I blogged on that here – but more is yet to come. Big business (most of our clients) are not used to using Twitter in meetings and speeches, but no longer can anyone say ‘laptops down.’ People will Twitter whether you like it or not, so you have to incorporate that in your ‘experience’ and be intentional. Those who become good at it can enhance and expand their speaking – but it will be a rocky road for awhile. Those who use it well will succeed mightily.

(8) You attended SXSW in Austin, TX earlier this year. What were the top insights you gained at SXSW this year?

One of the most amazing conferences I’ve attended (out of thousands!) SXSW Interactive was peak energy, peak connections and peak engagement. 30 meetings going on at a time, 50-75% of people in most meetings/speeches were tweeting on laptops or cells. Podcasts and audios, twitpics and Flip videos and of course tweets were going out to the world by the thousands every minute. More and more conferences will become more like this.

Again, New Communicators must have not only the messenger and the message at peak performance, but also the medium.

Critical point though, that almost ALL neglect is getting video feedback and seeing themselves – so many at SXSW have distracting and nervous habits that it doesn’t matter how good their content or medium use is – they get in their own way. Observed behavior changes. The smart New Communicators at SXSW and all conferences will get themselves on video!

(9) What blogs are you reading most these days and why?

• Well, this one: EdgeHopper - Always well written and lengthy posts on relevant communication subjects – interactive media and personal behavior.

• Presentation Zen - Garr Reynolds is the leader (along with Nancy Duarte) of slide design and communications quality. His posts are in depth, and insightful.

• Seth Godin’s Blog – At first I didn’t like Seth’s text only posts, but then they grew on me for two reasons. They are short and pithy. 80% of them are original and thought provoking. (Pareto’s Law comes into play.)

(10) Who are your favorite follows on Twitter and why?

@ed – a very unusual man of integrity, insight and influence that I have gotten to know well on Twitter.

@OliviaMitchell – great communication research, tips and blog.

@Mashable – always good, up to date links and info on Twitter and the tech world.

But it’s a very tough question because there are so many Twitterers AND blogs that are good. [Chris' note: If you want to follow Bert on Twitter, and I highly recommend it, he's @BertDecker]

A.J. Jacobs: My Outsourced Life
© 2009 The Moth. All Rights Reserved.
OK, so if you didn’t listen here’s a brief excerpt to set the stage for this post:

“It began a month ago. I was midway through The World Is Flat, the bestseller by Tom Friedman. I like Friedman, despite his puzzling decision to wear a mustache. His book is all about how outsourcing to India and China is not just for tech support and carmakers but is poised to transform every industry in America, from law to banking to accounting.

I don’t have a corporation; I don’t even have an up-to-date business card. I’m a writer and editor working from home, usually in my boxer shorts or, if I’m feeling formal, my penguin-themed pajama bottoms.

Then again, I think, why should Fortune 500 firms have all the fun? Why can’t I join in on the biggest business trend of the new century? Why can’t I outsource my low-end tasks? Why can’t I outsource my life?

The next day I e-mail Brickwork, one of the companies Friedman mentions in his book. Brickwork—based in Bangalore, India—offers “remote executive assistants,” mostly to financial firms and health-care companies that want data processed. I explain that I’d like to hire someone to help with Esquire-related tasks—doing research, formatting memos, like that. The company’s CEO, Vivek Kulkarni, responds, “It would be a great pleasure to be talking to a person of your stature.” Already I’m liking this. I’ve never had stature before. In America, I barely command respect from a Bennigan’s maître d’, so it’s nice to know that in India I have stature. A couple of days later, I get an e-mail from my new “remote executive assistant.”

Dear Mr. Jacobs,

My name is Honey K. Balani. I would be assisting you in your editorial and personal job…. I would try to adapt myself as per your requirements that would lead to desired satisfaction.

Desired satisfaction. This is great. Back when I worked at an office, I had assistants, but there was never any talk of desired satisfaction. In fact, if anyone ever used the phrase “desired satisfaction,” we’d all end up in a solemn meeting with HR.”

Jacobs goes on to detail hiring a team of people in Bangalore, India to live his life for him – answer his emails, call his coworkers, argue with his wife, and read bedtime stories to his son. It’s fascinating. So, after listening to this podcast I thought, hmmm, I could use some of that. Then I wondered, what are the low-level tasks that I would love to outsource to free up my time to do more meaningful things. I don’t think I’d go to the extreme of outsourcing story time with my kids (it’s too priceless to me), but there are things I would actually consider, especially in my ever increasing involvement in the world of social media. So, here are some of the things I would really pay someone else to do for me:

• I spend a lot of time reading (and yes skimming) over 200 blogs each day. On average, I read/skim probably between 200 and 350 posts each day. Then, I make selected clippings in NetNewsWire to read in more detail or make notes on later.  I also flag posts to share with you all on this blog and on Twitter. I would LOVE to outsource some of that. Give someone my RSS feeds and say, skim these and look for things people would be interested in. I probably wouldn’t outsource writing this blog, but I would consider outsourcing posting interesting links to Twitter. It takes a lot of time to do. Here’s what I’d ask them to do: Look for interesting stuff out there. When you find something useful, use HootSuite to schedule a Tweet sometime later in the day. Basically, I’d ask them to fill the HootSuite schedule with Tweets of interesting items to be dispensed throughout the day. That would free up my Twitter time to interact more with everyone instead of just posting links. I would be able to focus on connecting instead of broadcasting.
• I would love to outsource just about everything on my Facebook account! They could throw water balloons for me, catch beads, give hugs, wish friends Happy Birthday and finally answer my 25 questions for me! They could even scan old school-days pictures and upload them for me and add some witty captions so my old friends still think I’m funny. They could find people I knew way back when and invite them to be friends. I’d love it. All the things I want to do on Facebook but just don’t have time to do, they could do it for me!
• Find interesting people on Twitter for me to follow. As much as it seems Twitter is about getting followers, I actually enjoy finding and following new, interesting people. In fact, every few days, I search Twitter on keywords that interest me and see who pops up. If their profile and recent Tweets are interesting, I follow them for a while. Sometime I follow up to 200 people who aren’t following me! What I’d love to outsource is the time consuming searching part. If I could pay someone to find me 100 interesting people to follow each week I gladly would. That would make my life simpler. Then all I have to do is read their updates and decide if I still want to follow them or not!
• Manage my LinkedIn account. I can never seem to keep LinkedIn up to date. I also manage two LinkedIn groups (Agilistas and Rally Software) and I’m a terrible moderator. I always forget to accept new members and to check what’s going on in my group discussions. Easy spot to outsource. Manage the groups and give me a weekly digest of what’s going in the discussions.
• I would definitely get help keeping my Flickr account up to date. Most of my family and my wife’s family live out-of-state, so they rely on Flickr to see the latest goings-on of our five- and two-year old boys. We’re both terrible parents about keeping it up to date. We take plenty of pictures. We just never upload them. Again, I’d gladly pay someone to go through our cameras and on a weekly basis pick the best shots and post them on Flickr with some family-friendly descriptions. That would make our families so much happier! I’d probably have them update my Posterous and TwitPic accounts while they were at it too!
• I’d even have them do some old-school clearing for me: email. I have 7 different email accounts and get hundreds of emails every day. If they could weed through the accounts and delete spam and junk, and flag only the things I need to respond to, that would be amazing. I get way too much email and this would cut down so much time from my day! If they could answer my email, that would be even better!
• Another thing I’d outsource from my online life is managing my Dopplr travel account. I do a ton of travel for my job and our team uses Dopplr to keep each other updated on where we’re at. We also use it to track our carbon footprint. But it’s such a burden to have to keep getting my travel details from our corporate travel agent and transferring them into Dopplr. I’d outsource that with no problem.

I figure that if I could just outsource these simpler tasks in my life, I’d have at least one more free day every week. And that goes a long way to getting me to my goal of achieving Timothy Ferriss‘ much fabled 4-hour Workweek. But I have a feeling that if I outsourced these simple things, I might start getting like A.J. Jacobs and want to outsource more! I mean, what scares me is at the heart of it, I’d probably outsource everything if I could just so I could spend more time with my wife and kids and have more time for cycling the beautiful roads of Colorado. After compiling this short little list, I might actually try outsourcing some of it to see how it works. I looked into pricing for basic executive assistants and A.J. Jacobs is right, you can get a week of assistance for the price of a nice dinner. Pretty cheap, but I think that’s what troubles me on a moral level. I’m not opposed to the outsourcing part, but am opposed to paying people unfair wages for their work (but that’s a whole other blog post). If I can get around my moral objections I might try it. If I actually do it, I’ll be sure to keep you posted.

So I’d like to hear from all of you now: If you could outsource the little things in your life, what would they be and how would you use that new found time?

I think too many people are merely replicating their social media content in every way possible these days. I don’t know about you, but that makes me not want to look at someone’s Facebook page if all it is is their Twitter stream. In my opinion, keep your social media sites slightly segregated. Keep your content distributed amongst them, but not replicated. This gives you a wider platform to speak and be heard from. My advice is to come up with a strategy for how you’re using each site and what kind of interaction and content you’re going to put in each place so as to maximize your personal brand. Here’s how I’m using each of my four main social media sites:

1. My Edgehopper.com Blog: I use this for posting extended content. When I want to discuss things in depth and generate good discussions, I’ll write a blog post. Some are longer. Some are shorter. Some are heavily researched. Some are quick writes. I also love posting great design and presentation examples on my blog. In any case, my blog is my forum and I love to write there. It’s where I can share the most information how and when I like to.

2. @ChrisSpagnuolo on Twitter: I love Twitter and I use it to connect with the wider social media world. I connect with everyone I can here. I love the amazing flow of information and the conversations I can have here. I also use it to share the interesting, valuable and fun things that I find on blogs and across the web. I also use it to get answers to questions from a wide variety of people. And yes, I sometimes use it to promote my blog posts, but not gratuitously.

3. Chris Spagnuolo on Facebook: This is what I consider to be my “private” social media space. It’s where I can connect with family and the people I consider to be close friends (and apparently a steady stream of high school friends too…is Facebook the new Classmates.com?). There’s so much personal stuff I put on Facebook that I feel a bit uncomfortable “sharing” it with everyone. So, if you try connecting with me on Facebook and I ignore your request, it’s nothing personal, unless you’re family and I’m ignoring you for a reason .  I also don’t cross post my Tweets there because the things my family and friends are interested in are not the same things my Twitter followers are interested in and vice versa.

4. Chris Spagnuolo on LinkedIn: LinkedIn is where I conduct my professional social media life. I connect with everyone on LinkedIn that is in the software development industry, as well as with graphic designers, project managers, and corporate executives. I focus heavily on agile software development there. I also participate heavily in discussion groups for software architects, project managers, and agile groups. I even have my own group called Agilistas that I moderate and manage. In addition, I help my company, Rally Software Development, manage and run their own LinkedIn group. From time to time I post questions in the discussion groups on LinkedIn that provide the “research” basis for some of my blog posts. I’m a lot more professional here than I am on Twitter.

So, as you can see, I have a widespread social media face that looks a little different depending on the outlet. I feel this broadens my personal brand without diluting it. What I’ve managed to do is connect with 766 people on LinkedIn, over 60,000 on Twitter, have over 57,000 regular subscribers to my blog, and just over 275 friends on Facebook. That’s a decent-sized network made up mostly of people that do NOT overlap for the most part. And if they do happen to overlap, they’re getting new, different, and fresh content in each place they follow me. That’s what I consider extending personal branding without diluting it.

I’m interested in other strategies for maximizing personal branding via social media without dilution. How do you manage your social media brand?

[flickr]set:72157622208215825[/flickr]

Let me just say that I love crowdsourcing and crowdsourced projects. With all the things that are being crowdsourced today, one of the most interesting is the trend toward crowdsourcing journalism. On the forefront of this effort is HARO….or Help A Reporter Out. HARO is the brainchild of Peter Shankman, an entrepreneur and the CEO of The Geek Factory, a PR and Marketing boutique firm in New York City. Essentially HARO connects journalists who have questions or queries for their stories with YOU. It’s such a simple but amazing way to connect journalists with the widest possible selection of sources available to them. They ask a question…you answer it. As I said, I absolutely love crowdsourcing and I think that HARO has hit it out of the park with this one. As for rules, HARO has just this simple advice (and you might apply this in other areas of your life/business as well):

“Just promise me and yourself that you’ll ask yourself before you send a response: Is this response really on target? Is this response really going to help the journalist, or is this just a BS way for me to get my client in front of the reporter? If you have to think for more than three seconds, chances are, you shouldn’t send the response.”

That’s it. It’s simple, it’s effective and it requires very little effort…oh yeah, and did I mention it’s FREE. That’s what makes crowdsourcing work the best! Four letters: F-R-E-E.

Here’s how it works: After you register on HARO’s website, you receive a simple email a few times a day with questions and queries from legitimate reporters around the globe (totally not spammy either). If you are really able to answer the questions or are a qualified expert in an area of need, you can become a real source for the reporter. Today, there are 30,000 journalists who have used HARO, sending out more than 3000 queries per month to over 80,000 members. That’s a great network and a tremendous crowd to source from.

Right now, the emails contain queries for all sorts of categories. But, future plans are for additional break-outs with specific HARO notices for specific industry verticals.

If you didn’t get your Facebook user name yet, you still can at http://www.facebook.com/username/. And if you did already get you user name, why not post it here for everyone to see and let us all know if you got the name you wanted.

“Consolidate your debts and grab your copy of the Sexy Twitter Secrets at www.bz9.com/debtconsolidationunsecured” (Sexy Twitter secrets? Really, hmm, I’ll have to head over there immediately!)

“Don’t worry about managing your debt payments individually. Visit www.personal-loans-united-states.com and learn how” (Seems to be a recurring debt theme in this country these days eh?)

“I’ve enjoyed your tweets! I’m looking for help! Please refer your friends to http://GreatAgentsWanted.com if they want to make more money!” (Who doesn’t want to make more money? Good tag line, I’m there and so are all of my friends that I’ll refer!)

“Step Towards a Better Financial Future @ http://www.kooko.ws” (Not as good as make more money, but wow, sounds great!)

“Please join me. I’d like to recruit you as a spymaster to my spy ring – http://playspymaster.com” (I spy something very annoying. I don’t want to play, please stop asking.)

“good morning an thank you for the follow. please review my website at www.attainresponse.com/javau. tell me what you think” (just a bad attempt to drive traffic in lowercase. my thoughts: you should try using some capital letters and proof reading your tweets.)

“Join me on Blip.fm, it’s like Twitter for music” (I wasn’t sure if Blip.fm was like Twitter for music after getting this a thousand times. Now I’m convinced. Thanks!)

“Your small business can grow much larger if you had a bigger client base http://twttr.me/dS4″ (It’s always about size isn’t it?)

Sorry for the little rant (again), but if you want to be effective at marketing or getting me to visit your website, try building a relationship instead of getting in my face as soon as we meet. You wouldn’t do that in person (I hope), so why does it seem alright to do it on Twitter?

The Whuffie Factor from Tara Hunt.

Profile Dashboards

For each of your multiple-profiles that you manage with HootSuite, you can view an individual profile dashboard:

There are some basic tabs in the dashboard that allow you to view all of your updates, replies and direct messages related to each profile. For each Tweet in the list, you can reply, direct message or retweet easily using the small icons on the top right of each Tweet. You can also view all of the updates you’ve sent and filter the results by those you sent today, this week, this month or this year. And, you can filter the Tweets you see in the Sent tab by specific date ranges.

SCHEDULED TWEETS

You’ll notice a Pending tab in the profile dashboard. This allows you to see all of the pending scheduled Tweets related to this profile. You can see what time the Tweet is scheduled to be posted and you also have the ability to edit the Tweet before it is sent, set an e-mail notification for a scheduled Tweet or delete it before it’s Tweeted.

Speaking of scheduled Tweets, yes, you can schedule Tweets with HootSuite. It’s very easy. Simply create a new Tweet from a profile. In the new Tweet dialog, enter the text for the Tweet, enter a URL to shorten if you need to, and then use the scheduler at the bottom right. Click the Later radio button, set the date and time for your Tweet and if you want an email notification when the Tweet is sent, check the alert me box. Click submit and you’ve scheduled a Tweet to be sent. The newly scheduled Tweet will now show up in your Pending tab on the profile dashboard. This is a great feature if you have specific times you’d like to send Tweets. I’ve used it to send Tweets at times when I’m flying. I can still Tweet even when I’m not there!

TWEET STATISTICS

One of the coolest features of HootSuite is its statistics about each of your Tweet’s click-throughs. When you create a Tweet, you have the option of using HootSuite’s URL shortener ow.ly. If you shorten your URLs with ow.ly, HootSuite can track the number of clicks each of these shortened URLs receives once it’s been Tweeted. When you click on the Stats tab in the profile dashboard, you get a view of of the aggregate statistics for all of your Tweets. These can be filtered by stats for today’s Tweets as well as Tweets from this week, this month, and this year. You can also filter Tweet statistics by specified date ranges.

You get some cool stats like total daily clicks on all of your Tweets, where those clicks came from, and what the top referrers were. It’s not overly robust, but if you’re looking to get an idea if your followers are clicking through on your URLs, this will get you there. By the way, thanks to the Twitter army for clicking some URLs for me so I could show you this sample click data (you know who you are, so, thank you). In addition to getting some basic stats, HootSuite also shows your most popular Tweets based on clicks.

If you want to dig in deeper on your Tweet stats, you can get statistics for individual Tweets as well. First, go to the profile dashboard, and click on the Sent tab. On the right side of each Tweet you’ll notice a little blue bar chart. Clicking on the bar chart brings up the statistics for each individual Tweet. In this example you can see a few days worth of data for a single Tweet.

You can mouse over the days to see specific stats for each Tweet. You can also click and drag over the chart to dynamically define the date range on the statistics chart.

TWEET SEARCHES

HootSuite has integrated Twitter’s search functionality. You can use the HootSuite search to search through your own Tweets or the entire public timeline. If you’ve used Twitter search before, this shouldn’t be too foreign for you. The nice thing is that HootSuite saves your keywords as buttons so you can use them again for future searches. It also provides some out-of-the-box buttons for replies (@yourprofile) and Tweets from your profile (from: yourprofile).

If you’ve never used Twitter search, here are some ways you can used Twitter’s search syntax to find what you’re looking for:

The HootSuite Hootlet

The last cool feature of HootSuite is its Hootlet bookmark toolbar applet. To install the Hootlet, just drag the Hootlet logo to your bookmark toolbar. Currently, Hootlet works in FireFox, Safari, and Internet Exporer.

Once it’s on your bookmark toolbar, just click it to quickly Tweet about the pages you’re browsing. When you click the Hootlet, it will open a Create Tweet window. First, select the profile you want to Tweet from if you have multiple profiles.

After selecting your profile, HootSuite pre-populates the Tweet dialog for you with the title of the page you are browsing, it automatically shortens the URL with ow.ly and appends it to the end of your Tweet. You can edit the Tweet and the URL if you want. You can also decide if you want to send the Tweet now or schedule it for later. Click on submit and you’re done.

So, there you have it, a guided tour of all of the features in the current version of HootSuite. Hope you start using it soon.

GUEST POST FROM OLIVIA MITCHELL:

Olivia Mitchell

Audience engagement and participation is a common goal for presenters. But participation in particular can be hard to get by traditional means. People enjoy the comfort zone of being passive in the audience and often need significant prodding to do anything.

But now we have a new tool to get engagement – that’s Twitter. Many presenters are scared of presenting while people are twittering. But as Dean Shareski says:

The more I’m allowed to interact and play with the content the more engaged and ultimately the more learning happens.

Twitter makes it easy to engage. There’s not the risk of humiliation which is always present when you say something out loud. And if there’s a power heirarchy in the room, it gets flattened somewhat – everybody has 140 characters to have their say.

So rather than seeing the Twitter back channel as an intimidating third force in your presentation, embrace it.

Later this month, I’m going to be presenting remotely from New Zealand at PresentationCamp in San Francisco. I’m going to experiment with using Twitter as a channel to get active participation from my audience.

Here’s a variety of ways that you could use Twitter to engage your audience.

1. Introductions

If you would normally get people in your audience to introduce themselves, why not do it via twitter. Many people dread the round-robin introduction – doing it on twitter is quicker and less onerous.

2. Poll your audience

If you haven’t been able to find out about your audience before the presentation (which I do recommend), then ask a question and get them to respond on Twitter. In the past, I’ve seen presenters ask their audience what they want to get out of the presentation by going round the room and writing it up on a flipchart or whiteboard. This can get tedious. Ask out-loud, but get the responses on twitter. Ta-da. Instant recorded feedback.

3. Encourage questions through twitter

Instead of waiting till the end for questions, encourage people to tweet their questions as soon as they occur to them.

4. Active engagement with the substance of your presentation

My session at PresentationCamp is on developing the core message of a presentation. My plan is to have people tweet their core messages (which conveniently should be under 140 characters long) as they develop them through the session. How could you get your audience engaging, rather than just listening, with the substance of your presentation?

5. Encourage audience members to add their own ideas to yours

The best presentations are the ones that spark insights and ideas for your audience. Encourage them to tweet these ideas.

6. Get input and feedback from your audience

Consultation-type meetings have always been tricky. I’ve used flipcharts, post-it notes, forms for people to fill in. With a twitter-enabled audience, all that paraphernalia will be a thing of the past.

7. Gather evaluations

Presenters have already realised that twitter is a great way to get real-time evaluations by reviewing the stream of tweets that happened while you were presenting.

Paul Gillin Having recently waited six months to get audience evaluations from one presentation, I can tell you that the immediacy of the tweeted feedback was wonderful.

So make it official – at the end of your presentation – ask your audience to tweet their evaluation of the presentation.

Practical stuff

To create a stream of tweets just for your presentation, you’ll need to create a special hashtag for your presentation and then use an application that tracks just those tags (hashtags.org, spy, eventtrack, twitter search).

You may also want to display the tweet stream on a screen so that everyone – including you – can easily see it. If you want the stream to be on display all the time, you’ll need a second laptop, datashow and screen. But you could also display the stream at certain breaks in your presentation, in which case a second laptop plugged into the datashow will do fine.

Your thoughts

Have you used Twitter to engage your audience? What ideas do you have for how it could be used?

About Olivia Mitchell

Olivia Mitchell is a presentation trainer and blogger from New Zealand.  Olivia blogs at Speaking about Presenting. Visit her blog for more tips on how to prepare and deliver an engaging presentation.

Manage Multiple Twitter Profiles

One of the first things you’ll notice about my HootSuite dashboard is that there are multiple Twitter profiles being managed from my HootSuite account (two are fakes I’m using for this demo).

From, the HootSuite dashboard, we can get a quick glimpse of the recent activity on each profile. You can also quickly create a new Tweet from any of the profiles by clicking on the Create New Tweet button on each profile. Adding a new profile to your HootSuite account is as easy as clicking the Add Twitter Profile button in the upper right and filling in the short Add New Twitter Profile dialog:

You’ll notice that the dialog allows you to select multiple-editors for the profile, a feature I’ll discuss a little later. The ability to monitor and manage several Twitter profiles from one centralized location is great, especially if you’re managing a personal profile and other profiles for your company, blog or website. You can manage your profile settings in the Settings area. Simply click Settings in the upper right, and then click on the Manage Profiles tab. From here, you can synchronize your profiles with Twitter and synchronize your avatar as well (something you’ll have to do the first time you set up a profile, unless you like the default Twitter avatar 0_o). You can also edit individual profile login credentials and the editors on the profile. And finally, you can add a new profile or delete any existing profiles from here as well.

Multiple Editors/Users

While we’re on the settings screen, let’s take a look at the multiple editor feature in HootSuite. This feature allows you to create multiple users on your HootSuite account. Once a user is created, they can be assigned to any or all of the profiles on the account. Again, this is particularly useful if you manage a personal profile and a corporate profile. For instance, I may want to manage and track my own personal profile as well as one that I Tweet on for my company. But, I may want other people from my company to be able to Tweet and see stats, etc., for the corporate account, but not my personal account. No problem with HootSuite. Just add them as users and assign them as editors to only the corporate account. Here’s how it works. First, go to the Settings screen and click on Manage Users tab:

Adding a new user is as simple as clicking the Add User button and completing this dialog:

And voila, a new user on the account:

You can now see we have an account Admin (Chris Spagnuolo) and three editors (Dave, Ted, and Luke) that we can assign to our profiles on the account. The account admin by default can Tweet from and access all profiles on the account. So, let’s assign some editors to the profile called 101_owls. We simply return to the Settings screen, click the Manage Profiles tab, click Edit on the 101_owls profile and check the boxes next to the editors we want to allow for the profile.

Done. Now, just Save Changes and Dave and Ted the Editors can now send Tweets and access stats and other information for the 101_owls profile.

Let’s stay on the settings screen and check out the other features you can manage for your entire HootSuite account.

General Account Management

Clicking on the Account tab gives you access to your general account settings. No big surprises here: manage account name, profile info, time zones, email addresses, etc. But one cool feature you’ll notice is the little checkbox that says Enable Auto Initial. This is a nifty little feature that comes in really handy when you have multiple editors. By checking the box and adding your initials, HootSuite pre-populates your Tweets with your initials. If you want keep track of who Tweeted what, definitely use this feature.

Google AdSense Support

The other cool thing you’ll find on the Account tab is support for Google AdSense. You can generate money from your tweets by adding Google AdSense code to enable ads on your Tweet links when you use HootSuite’s ow.ly URL shortener. Simply set up a Google AdSense account if you don’t already have one, set up a 234X60 banner ad, copy the AdSense code and paste it in your account settings like this:

After you enter your Google AdSense code, you can select which profiles you want to apply AdSense to. When you add your Google AdSense code and use the URL shortener from an active AdSense profile, HootSuite adds a banner to the linked website with some ads from Google. Half the time, the banner contains your ads and half the time, it will contain HootSuite’s ads. The banners look like this when linked to from the ow.ly URL shortener:

Tweet Your RSS Feed

The last tab in the settings area is the RSS/Atom Feeds tab. This tab allows you to send automated Tweets when your RSS feed is updated. This is really great if you’re a blogger and want to send a Tweet out to announce your latest blog post. To add your feed for auto-Tweeting, simply click the Add Feed button and fill in the requested information.

You’ll notice that you can select the frequency of Tweets for your RSS updates. You can select 1 through 5 Tweets for selected time intervals that range from every hour to 24 hours. I would recommend not being annoying and doing no more than 1 Tweet every 3 hours. More than that and I think you start to look spammy. Aside from Tweet frequency, you can also prepend these automated Tweets with whatever you like. Just remember that your RSS item title is going to be the Tweet text so plan your 140 characters accordingly. I would recommend that you use something like Blogged: or Latest post: to prepend these Tweets if you want to. Finally, select which profiles you’d like to send these RSS Tweets from. Click Save and you’ve now automated your announcements of updates to your RSS feed.

That concludes Part 1 of our tour of HootSuite. In How to Use HootSuite: Part 2, we’ll cover how to schedule Tweets, Tweet statistics and tracking, date range searches and more.

Frankie Andreu

But the commentary itself is not really what troubled me. What troubled me was that during yesterday’s great stage from Merced to Clovis, Joe and Frankie did a short interview with Road Magazine’s Neil Brown. Neil gave a good interview and also spoke a little about his use of Twitter to provide cycling news and to engage the cycling community in discussion (you can follow him at http://twitter.com/neilroad). And that’s where it all fell apart. Joe and Frankie, in particular, began joking about and then criticizing Twitter and the use of it by some professional cyclists and managers. Then Frankie began dismissing Twitter as an invalid source of information. Frankie actually said (and the quote may not be precise, there’s no replay on the live stream) “It’s ridiculous that Lance Armstrong is Twittering and people are quoting his Tweets. That’s not a real quote!” Frankie’s tirade continued, bashing Armstrong and other cyclists for Tweeting nonsense and for the public wanting to follow it. Neil teased Frankie a bit and suggested that maybe he should try Twitter. Frankie’s response “Oh yeah, I could say Frankie ate breakfast! or Frankie took the kids to school!” Based on his argument and his tone of voice, I guess we won’t be seeing Frankie on Twitter any time soon.

Frankie is what my friend Bert Decker would call an Old Communicator. In his commentary itself, Frankie is not connecting with his audience. (And please, don’t say it’s because it’s a boring cycling race. Phil Liggett, Paul Sherwen, and Bob Roll have been doing it for years and people love them!) Aside from his unemotional commentary, the statements like those he made about Twitter would indicate to me that Mr. Andreu isn’t very interested in connecting with people at all. I’m really not picking on Frankie here. I’m just using him as an example of an Old Communicator. They see the world in their terms and don’t make the effort to connect and engage with people. More importantly, they don’t motivate people to action. And that’s the other problem with Frankie. The Amgen Tour of California has a goal to support the fight against cancer. Many times during the race, Frankie and Joe interviewed folks from various organizations who are helping in this fight. Because of the basic lack of connection to the audience, I’m really afraid that the call to action for these guests was probably lost. That is the real shame here.

Lance Armstrong

Now, let’s look at the flip side of this coin. And since Frankie brought him up, let’s talk about Lance Armstrong in particular. (Disclaimer: Yes, I’m a Lance fanboy, but this post has nothing to do with that.) Lance is an excellent communicator. All during his reign as 7-time Tour de France champion, he always communicated well with the media and the public. Sure, he had his ups and downs and was under fire numerous times. But, he always maintained his cool. Lance also connects with people. I’ve seen him speak at numerous events and watched him connect both onstage and off with people. He cares enough to take the time to talk with them and get to know them. And he really takes the time to connect with cancer survivors. But more importantly, Lance not only connects with people, he truly motivates them to action. So, according to Bert’s definition, I’d say that Lance Armstrong is a New Communicator.

But I’d like to define Lance as even more. I’d like to define him, in direct response to Frankie’s statements, as a “New” New Communicator. Lance has gone beyond the traditional forums of communication and has embraced the new world of social media to further his connections with people around the world. Lance, and other cycling stars including Lance’s manager Johan Bruyneel, have taken the big plunge into Twitter, blogging, TwitPics and more. And they’re good at it. Really good at it. We’re not seeing Tweets or blogs about taking the trash out or feeding the dogs. We’re getting a real insight into what its like to be Lance Armstrong, professional cyclist and cancer fighter, on a daily basis on Twitter. We’re getting inside photos of Lance’s travels as he trains, races, and spreads his message around the world on TwitPic. And we’re getting real information that motivates people to action from Lance’s own blog and videos on his Livestrong website. And in case you’re wondering, it is Lance who is doing this, not some PR firm. People are interested in Lance and Lance knows that. And he’s making connections with the people who are interested and motivating them to do something. So, if I can revise Bert’s definition, here’s my definition of a “New” New Communicator: “New” New Communicators don’t just provide information, they influence and motivate others to action through the emotional connections they make, both in-person and through a wide variety of other interactive media. And according to that, I’d qualify Lance Armstrong as a “New” New Communicator.

[Start of mini rant] As for Frankie Andreu and his statement that Twitter and other social media sources can’t be quoted, I have this to say: Yes they can. And they are! You don’t get to make the rules anymore.  Until the Old Communicators learn that these new mediums of communication are valid and important in our ever shrinking world, they’ll remain Old Communicators. As long as the Old Communicators believe that “information” can only come from certain sources, they’ll remain Old Communicators. And until Old Communicators realize that they DO need to connect with people to be successful and motivate people, they will remain Old Communicators. There is hope, but just know that there are still many Old Communicators out there to be converted. [End of mini rant.  I feel better now]

Here’s my main TweetDeck screen:

I have 5 columns displayed: All Friends, The A-List, The B-List, Replies, and Direct Messages. Let’s take a look at each column and how I use them.

All Friends: This is my complete Twitter stream. All 21,540 of the people I follow show up in this column. About every hour or so, I scroll through this column and look for any interesting links or conversations to join in.

The A-List: The A-list is a TweetDeck Group Column. I use this group to pull a stream of people that I follow very closely. These are people that I work with, people that I have an established relationship with, or people that I find the most interesting to follow. I try to keep this group limited to no more than 25 people at any given time. Beyond that, I find it difficult to keep up with Tweets on a regular basis. Whenever TweetDeck detects a post to my A-List, I get a visual and audible alert. Unless I’m seriously engrossed in my work, or coaching a team, I usually check my A-List when my alerts go off. The visible alerts are small popup windows that look like this:

The B-List: The B-List is another TweetDeck Group Column. This is a group of people that I follow closely, but not in a critical way. This is a mixed group of people I’d like to get to know better, people who are top Tweeters (like Guy Kawasaki, Arleen Anderson (Aloha Arleen) and GaryVee), brands and companies that I’m observing to understand how they use Twitter, people that I find interesting or funny, and other friends. I get visual and audible alerts when Tweets are posted in this group as well. However, they’re usually not critical Tweets, so I read them whenever I have some free time. I try to check this stream about every half-hour or so.

The Replies Column: This is a standard TweetDeck column that searches Twitter’s public timeline for any @replies to your username. This is really useful to keep track of who is talking about you or with you. It allows you to quickly respond to any conversations directed toward or about you. I have visual and audible alerts set for this column and usually check these as they come in (unless I’m busy). It let’s me interact with the Twitterati effectively and I try to respond to anyone who @replies to me (unless it’s really Spammy).

The Direct Messages Column: Another standard TweetDeck column. This keeps track of all of the Direct Messages sent to you and those sent by you. I really like this functionality. The only problem is, I autofollow anyone who follows me. So, if those people have automatic direct messages sent whenever someone follows them, you guessed it, they end up in this column. Unfortunately, that means that some important DM’s get buried in an avalanche of DM’s that say “Hey, thanks for the follow. And check out my website at http://IAmDesparateForSubscribers.com!” or “Great to meet you @<username>. If you’re looking for real estate in the Tri-State area, check out http://I’mALameRealEstateAgent.com!”. (BTW: Have you noticed that real estate agents seem to outnumber everybody else on Twitter these days?). Now, I have nothing against auto-DM’s, it’s nice to at least get some confirmation when you follow someone. Just don’t make them pushy, I hate that. OK, sorry for the mini-rant.

So, that’s my main TweetDeck setup. You can order these columns however you want to by sliding them left or right. I keep these 5 columns visible all the time on the left of my TweetDeck screen. I also have several other columns to the right of these that I can scroll to when I want to check them. So, here’s the other half of my TweetDeck screen:

On this side, I have a few search columns, another group column, a favorites column, and a TweetScoop column. Here’s what’s in each one:

Search EdgeHopper: This is a TweetDeck Search Column. It allows you to specify a search term and then scours Twitter’s public timeline for that term. It displays all Tweets containing that term to the search column. I use this search column to see who is Tweeting about my blog called EdgeHopper. It let’s me monitor the public timeline for people including, but not limited to, my followers who are discussing or commenting on my blog. It’s very useful and allows me to interact with people very quickly.

Search Chris Spagnuolo: This is another Search Column. This one searches for my name: Chris Spagnuolo. Unfortunately, after the NY Giants were eliminated from the NFL playoffs and their defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo was shopping for a new job, a lot of people were talking about him…and they all showed up in my search column. And before you ask, no, we are not related.

Cycling Column: I’m seriously into cycling and am a cycling fan-atic. This is a TweetDeck Group Column that I use to keep track of several professional cyclists who Twitter (including Ivan Basso and Lance Armstrong who is a great Tweeter and TwitPic user). I also follow several cycling coaches, some bike shops, a few cycling news streams, and a couple of cycling political action groups. Very handy for keeping track of a special interest without doing broad search term columns.

Favorites: A standard TweetDeck column that keeps track of Tweets that I’ve favorited. Very nice feature as it let’s me go back to these Tweets whenever I want to re-read them or use a favorite link that was posted.

TwitScoop: This is a standard TweetDeck column based on an integration with TwitScoop. TwitScoop crawls hundreds of tweets every minute and extracts the words which are mentionned more often than usual. The result is displayed in a Tag Cloud in the TwitScoop column. It’s a really cool way to stay on top of what’s buzzing in the Twitterverse at any given time. It also has a Trending Topics section that shows emerging trends in Tweets.

The one column type I haven’t been using (but probably will) is TweetDeck’s 12 Seconds TV column. This keeps track of your 12 Seconds TV stream if you have one. Nice feature, I just haven’t done much in 12 Seconds TV yet.

In addition to breaking your Tweets into topic or group specific columns, you can filter the stream within a column based on one of several attributes including keywords in the Tweet text, Twitter user name, source, or even time frame. This gives you complete control over what you see in your TweetDeck columns.

In addition to the filter tool, there are several other tools at the base of each column. They enable you to slide the column left or right, mark all the Tweets in the column as seen, clear all of the seen Tweets, and clear all Tweets in the column.

Also, from any Tweet, you can click on the user name of the Tweeter and TweetDeck will display that user’s profile and Tweet stream as well as a follow button in case you’re not already following them. Here’s my buddy Bert Decker’s profile à la TweetDeck:

Other Cool Tools in TweetDeck

So, that’s the basic set up for columns and separating your Twitter stream. But, beyond breaking your information into easily digestible bites, TweetDeck has a great collection of tools built in to help you Tweet better, smarter, and faster. First, there is the nice Tweet Window:

Easy Tweet entry in the Tweet Window. It even has a spell checker built in. It also keeps track of your remaining character limit and turns the entire Tweet Window red if you’ve exceeded your Tweet character limit:

The Tweet Window also includes some cool tools for URL shortening. Just enter the URL in the Shorten URL window below the main Tweet Window and click the Shorten URL button. And, voila, a nice, short URL. You can also select from several different URL shortening services if you have a particular preference:

If that’s not enough, there’s a great little TwitPic integration. Just click the TwitPic button while your writing a Tweet and it opens a dialog box to select a picture from your desktop. After you select a picture, it automatically uploads it to TwitPic for you and adds the URL to the picture into your Tweet automatically:

There is also another nice integration with TweetShrink. TweetShrink tries its best to fit your text within the 140 character limit of a tweet by replacing common phrases and words with shorter representations. Kind of like running your new text through the dryer or sending it to fat camp. I don’t use this much, but if you’re from the cell-phone-texting generation like my 20-year-old niece, my guess is this works for you. In any case, with one click on the TweetShrink button you can go from this:

to this:

Another nice feature is the Twitter API Limit Tracker. The API Tracker allows you to see how much of your Twitter API limit you’ve used and at what time your API limit will reset to 100%.

And speaking of your API limit, you have complete control over how TweetDeck is using your API limit for each type of function. Within the TweetDeck settings dialog you can control what percentage of your API limit is dedicated to your entire Twitter stream, your Replies and your Direct Messages. This essentially controls how often TweetDeck updates each category:

And since we’re in the TweetDeck settings panel, you can control where you want your Tweet window, how you want update notifications to occur and your column widths from the General settings tab.

And finally, you can manage the appearance of TweetDeck to suit your personal style through the Colors/Font tab in the settings panel:

So, that’s my guided tour of TweetDeck. If you’re looking for a great client for Twitter, look no further. This is the only Twitter client. But don’t take my word for it, Guy Kawasaki says ” I swear by Tweetdeck and Tweetie.” You can’t get a better endorsement than that. And no, I didn’t build TweetDeck or have anything to gain by sharing this except to help you find an awesome client for managing your Twitter stream. Have fun and keep Tweeting!

UPDATE February 12, 2009: TweetDeck v0.21.5

From the TweetDeck Blog: Since this is a point release, rather than a full new version, it contains mainly minor functionality updates and bug fixes but there are one or two interesting new features:

TweetDeck v0.21.5 from Iain Dodsworth on Vimeo.

Update:March 16, 2009: TweetDeck v0.24 Pre-Release

TweetDeck v0.24 Pre-Release is out today for downloading. Key feature: Facebook Integration http://is.gd/nz1V

Update: April 8, 2009: TweetDeck v0.25 Release

TweetDeck v0.25 is out today.  Key features/improvements:

• Major memory leak fixed
• FaceBook integration
• Short URL preview in TweetDeck
• TwitPic preview in TweetDeck
• Record 12seconds Videos direct from Tweetdeck
• Option to have usernames auto-complete in the tweet box.
• Option to automatically include hashtags when replying to messages.
• Removing the ability to DM yourself, and in so doing stopping many of you from feeling foolish.
• Updating the list of URL shortening services to the top 5 only and adding the Digg URL shortener.
• Making it easier to tab between the tweet box and the shorten box.
• Removing unread counter at top of each column.

The update will automatically be pushed out to everyone using TweetDeck today or it can be downloaded direct from http://tweetdeck.com.

Twellow: Allows searches by category. The category search is based on what people have in their Twitter profile.

TwitSeeker: From the same folks who brought you twInfluence, TwitSeeker helps you find others by allowing you to enter search terms and searching through actual Tweets for keywords.

Mr.Tweet: A lot of buzz around this one lately. Looks through your network and tweets and regularly suggests good people and followers you are missing out on.

Just Tweet It: Users enter their Twitter name and place themselves into categories within a directory. You can search the directory by category and find users that match your interests.

Find and Follow: This is a brand new one with a lot promise from my buddy Dave Bouwman. Users enter their Twitter name and tag their Tweets with categories. You can find people to follow based on these tags. Still in Beta so give Dave your feedback, he’s a great guy (and now he owes me $20).

Twubble: It searches your “friend graph” and picks out people who you may like to follow. Not exactly sure what that means, but it finds people for you?!?!

So that should at least get you started in the right direction. I thought it would be good to provide you with some other interesting starting points as well. I could just list the Twitterholic Top 100, but you can find that anytime. Instead, here are a few lists of some of the more “interesting” people that you can follow on Twitter. And, you can always follow me on Twitter too.

My Personal Top Ten

1. Guy Kawasaki: Yes, everyone follows Guy and for a good reason. He’s awesome.
2. Andrew Warner: Founder of Mixergy.com. Great Tweets and he’s always talking to interesting people.
3. Bert Decker: Founder and chairman of Decker Communications. Always interesting Tweets and just an all-around nice guy.
4. O’Reilly Media: They Tweet more useful information in a day than some people do in a year.
5. Ben McConnell: Co-author of the Church of the Customer blog. The blog is like “the word of mouth gospel”.
6. Jackie Huba: Ben McConnell’s partner in crime at the Church of the Customer blog.
7. Nancy Duarte: Author of Slide:ology and an amazing presentation designer
8. Kathy Sierra: Web developer, author, former blogger (we miss you Kathy), and another all around good person
9. 37 Signals: A few guys who know a thing or two about elegant interfaces, thoughtful features…you know, design and usability
10. Doug Ulman: The CEO of Livestrong, the Lance Armstrong non-profit that believes everyone has the power to make their life better.

The Cool Geeks (Technology and Social Media Experts)

1. Chris Brogan
2. Leo Laporte
3. Chris Pirillo
4. Jason Calacanis
   
5. Robert Scoble
6. Tim O’Reilly
7. Shannon Paul
8. Gary Vaynerchuk
9. Brian Carter
10. Pete Cashmore

Celebrities (If you’re into that sort of thing)

1. Tina Fey
2. Jimmy Fallon
3. John Cleese
4. John Hodgman (The Daily Show/PC guys from the Mac ads)
5. Elijah Wood
6. Demi Moore
7. William Shatner
8. Luke Wilson
   
9. Wil Wheaton
   
10. Yoko Ono

Athletes

1. Lance Armstrong
2. Andy Murray
3. Eli Manning
4. Jerry Rice
5. Kerry Rhodes
6. Michael Phelps
7. Natalie Gulbis
8. Shaquille O’Neal
9. Shaun White
10. Wil Carling

Politicians

1. Barack Obama
2. Al Gore
3. Joe Biden
4. Hillary Clinton
5. John McCain
6. Karl Rove (I guess he counts)
7. Chuck Grassley
8. James Demint
9. James Inhofe
10. Arnold Schwarzenegger
    

Musicians

1. Dave Matthews
2. Willie Nelson
3. Oasis
4. Colplay
5. Rivers Cuomo (Weezer)
6. Snoop Dogg
7. Pearl Jam
8. Bjork
9. Lil Wayne
10. MC Hammer (dated, but funny)

Tweeting Brands

1. Starbucks
2. JetBlue Airways
3. Carnival Cruise Lines
4. Comcast
5. Intuit
6. Best Buy
7. Home Depot
8. Whole Foods
9. Zappos
10. Dunkin Donuts

Agile Software Development (It’s what I coach)

1. Ryan Martens
2. Jean Tabaka
3. David Anderson
4. Martin Fowler
5. Mike Cottmeyer
6. Kent Beck
7. Jurgen Appelo
8. Brian Marick
9. Dave Bouwman (and GIS)
10. Esther Derby

And a few cyclists (I love cycling)

1. Ivan Basso
2. Team Slipstream
3. Dave Zabriskie
4. George Hincapie
5. Axel Merckx
6. Johan Bruyneel
7. Christian Vandevelde
8. Tom Danielson
9. Taylor Phinney
10. Michael Rogers

The Standards

Twitterholic ranks Barack Obama as number one with 223,909 followers, 227,134 friends, and only 264 updates. But at number 10 we have one of my favorites Guy Kawasaki with 57,240 followers, 60,436 friends, and an astounding 17,837 updates. Who’s more influential in the Twitterverse? Probably Guy. And me, I’m ranked 2,363rd with 2,208 followers, 2,197 friends, and just over 900 updates. So, according to Twitterholic, I’ve got some work to do.

TwitterCounter also uses number of followers to rank Tweeters. Once again Barack Obama is #1 with 223,923 followers. And again, Guy Kawasaki is hanging at #10 with 57,239 followers. And me, I’m 2,275. So, pretty consistent ranking across the two larger ranking sites based on followers. But is Barack influential in the Twitterverse? Popular: Yes. Influential: Maybe not.

Enter the Smart Kids

So, if you’re like me, you might be thinking “Is influence really all about the number of followers you have?”. Well, some of the smart kids think it’s about more than that and have pulled together more robust ways to measure your influence on Twitter using top secret algorithms (well, not really, but some of them wouldn’t share with me!). Let’s take a look at three of the newer kids on the block and how they work out Twitter influence.

TwitterRank uses a proprietary algorithm to determine your rank. Why don’t they just use followers? According to TwitterRank “That’s a little bit like asking, “Why didn’t Google just count the number of inbound links?” The short answer is, “there are many other signals.” Someone who has a lot of followers might be famous and interesting, famous but not interesting, or they might be sitting at home all night creating fake accounts in their parents’ basement. So, Twitterank currently doesn’t use your follower count or list at all, and uses other signals.” The algorithm apparently relies heavily on the number of @replies you get. You can read more about the algorithm here. So, who’s on top in TwitterRank terms? There is no Barack Obama or Guy Kawasaki in this list. Here’s the TwitterRank top ten:

1. briansolis (249.323)
2. pistachio (247.509)
3. jowyang (242.39)
4. iknowcalripken (240.742)
5. loiclemeur (239.624)
6. dweinberger (238.804)
7. ross (238.173)
8. tamar (237.6)
9. gaberivera (235.546)
10. TDefren (235.124)

And me, I’ve got a score of 162.98 (better than 97.98 percent of the known Twitterverse). That puts me much closer to Barack Obama’s 202.95 (at 99.72 percentile). And, Guy Kawasaki pulls ahead of the President with a score of 215.28 at 99.88 percentile. So clearly, Barack’s “influence” on Twitter has dropped when we go beyond followers alone.

Smart Kid #2 is HubSpot. HubSpot is more than just a smart kid though. They’re a major inbound marketing company who know a thing or two about ranking websites, blogs, FaceBook and now Twitter. Their TwitterGrader ranking algorithm is based on “The number of followers you have, the power of this network of followers, the pace of your updates, the completeness of your profile, and ‘a few others‘. Here are the top ten according to TwitterGrader:

Not exactly household names, but if you’re a social media follower, you probably know them all. These are influential people with a lot to say. An now, Mr. President is ranked at 684th, with a score of 99.94, Guy Kawasaki is at number 14 with a score of 100, and little old me is at 2,083 with a score of 99.8. Clearly, we’re starting to see that the number of followers you have does not necessarily make you influential on Twitter.

Finally, we’ve got the latest newcomer to the rankings race twInfluence. I love the name. “Being Twinfluential“. Has a ring to it. The twInfluence ranking is based on a few really interesting metrics like social capital, first and second order networks, network growth velocity, reach, and network centralization. There is a whole lot to it and I don’t want to bore you with every last detail here. If you want to read everything about the algorithm, check it out here. So, who has the most twInfluence? Guy Kawasaki if you’re going by reach, @kb24777 if you’re looking at sheer velocity, and @17SyllableSales if you’re talking about real social capital. And sorry Mr. President, you didn’t make the grade on this one. As for me, I settled in at a respectable 270th.

And just for fun…

There’s TweetValue.  This one tells you how much your Twitter profile is worth.  Looks like it’s based on followers and @replies.  In any case, mine is worth $761 if anyone wants it.  Here’s the top ten from TweetValue:

1. barackobama, $41,150 (he is The President)
2. jasoncalacanis, $14,235
3. nprpolitics, $12,832
4. yobird, $11,871
5. itisnow, $10,971
6. guykawasaki, $10,011
7. scobleizer, $9,668
8. Astronautics, $9,632
9. osen, $8,752
10. shortyawards, $8,530

So what does it all mean?

So there you have it, the confusing world of Twitter metrics and rankings. I guess you can slice and dice the numbers in an infinite number of ways to get the results you want. I mean, if I wanted to impress someone who knew nothing about Twitter, I’d obviously tell them I’m ranked 270th (according to twInfluence). Really, it means nothing. But do you know what does mean something to me? Finding my name listed on a website or a blog amongst peers in my industry saying “This guy ranks”. I found out this week that I was listed at #25 on the “Top 100 List for Software Developers to Follow on Twitter” from NOOP. That felt good. And even more important to me is when someone just flat out Tweets “You should follow @ChrisSpagnuolo. Great stuff”. That feels awesome…the best! Providing something useful or valuable to someone else. Word of mouth (not rankings, not algorithms) is what really matters. Whether you have 100 followers or 100,000 followers, if people like what you have to say, that should be good enough for you. It’s not all about the numbers!

STEP 1: FOLLOW OTHER PEOPLE

Follow as many people as you can that share your interests or are in your industry. That’s where it all starts.

Follow people you know: If you’re just starting out on Twitter, use the Find People Tool in Twitter to help you find people you already know. When you find them, follow them. Since they already know you, chances are they’ll follow you back.

Follow the big names and who they’re following: Find the big names in your industry or area of interest and follow them. And then, click on their Following list and start following the people they follow.

Use Twitter follow tools: Later this week I’ll cover this in detail, but use any one of a wide variety of tools to help you find good people to follow on Twitter.

Know your limits: Technically, there is no limit on how many people you can follow on Twitter. But know and understand that Twitter puts a flexible cap on how many people you can follow. You can initially only follow up to 2,000 people on Twitter. Once you are following 2,000 people, you must bring your Follower count to within 10% of 2,000 to follow more people. Once you pass the 2,000 limit, the number of people you follow must always be within 10% of the number of people who are following you. For example, if you have 4,000 Followers, you can follow up to 4,400 people. Twitter does this to help cut down on Follow Spam: Follow Spam is the act of following mass numbers of people, not because you’re actually interested in their tweets, but simply to gain attention.

Look for good followers: When considering who to follow, look at content first. You always want to follow interesting people. And pay attention to how many updates people make. Low updaters are probably lurkers and not likely to help you expand your network very much. Take a good look at their followers to following ratio too. You want to follow people who’ll follow you back. So, if someone has 5,000 followers but they are only only following 25 people, consider the value of their content to you versus the chances of them actually following you back. If their content is highly valuable, follow them. If not, you may not want to bother following. However, someone who has 800 followers and is following 950 people is much more likely to follow you back. And if their content is valuable to you, it’s a win-win.

Follow those who follow you: It’s all about the network, so follow the people who decide to follow you. That’s just common courtesy right? If you have a hard time keeping up with following people as they follow you, consider using an autofollow tool like SocialToo. (I’ll have a post later this week about more useful Twitter tools)

STEP 2: GET TWEETING

OK, so now you’ve got some people following you and you’re following others. That’s good for a start. So how do you continue to grow a good following that you can maintain. Simple: GET TWEETING! Well, maybe it’s not that simple, but if you’re not Tweeting, nobody is going to keep following you. My best advice: Tweet and Tweet often. It takes a bit of commitment. When I made my resolution, I resolved to Tweet at least 10-20 good Tweets a day. I often do much more depending on what I run across each day. But make sure your Tweets are good. Nobody cares that you just changed the litter in your kitty’s box (unless you found something funny in there).

Provide value: Make sure that your Tweets provide value to the rest of the Twitter community. If you’re producing content, make it worthwhile and Tweet about it. Or if you like to comb the web or read blogs, find the most interesting items and share them with the community. Interesting, valuable ideas and links get ReTweeted. ReTweets increase your exposure to people in your extended network who may not be following you already. The more ReTweets you get of your original Tweets, the more followers you’re likely to gain.

Have an opinion: If you have an opinion, people are interested. And everyone has an opinion right? So feel free to join in the conversation and offer your opinion where you can.

Be an expert: Set yourself up to be an expert in a particular area of interest. Engage in conversations about that area of interest with an air of expertise (and hopefully you actually have some expertise). You can use tools like TweetDeck to help you find and filter those conversations you’d like to be a part of.

Ask questions: Use Twitter to engage the community to help you answer questions. Ask good questions and encourage everyone to pipe in. And use common courtesy and be sure to thank everyone for their help. “Please” and “thank you” go a long way on Twitter.

Just be involved: In general, just be active and involved. Participate in conversations with others. That would be the SOCIAL part of social media and it’s what makes this all so interesting. If you’re a one-way broadcaster, people will tune you out after a while.

Be yourself: Let yourself shine through in your Tweets. A constant stream of overly personal or completely impersonal Tweets can be irritating. Keep a good mix of your personality in your Tweets and let others get to know you a bit. And if you can provide a little humor every now and then, that always works too.

STEP 3: THE LITTLE THINGS

Avatars: Have a decent avatar. Don’t use a cheesy avatar. People use social media because it’s SOCIAL. They want to “see” you. If you’re confused about what a “good” avatar is, check out Dan Schwabel’s excellent blog post “11 Rules for Best Personal Branding Results with Avatars“.

Just ask: Sometimes, if you really want someone in particular to follow you, just ask them to follow you. Worst case: They say no.

More than words: Make your content about more than words. Try using tools like Posterous to Tweet using multimedia.

AND REMEMBER, IT’S NOT A CONTEST

There is a little bit of “Follower Frenzy” going on with Twitter these days. Please don’t take this post to be an extension of that frenzy. One of the worst things you can do on Twitter is build a huge following of irrelevant followers. If the people who are following you are not reading your Tweets, they’re useless. You want followers that are engaged with you and your content. To that end, don’t go “autofollow hunting“. That is, don’t trawl Twitter looking for people who will automatically follow you back no matter what. Work hard on your content, be sincere, provide value and follow relevant people. That’s the basis to building a good, solid, stable Twitter following. You can do it. And if you want to follow me on Twitter, I’m at http://twitter.com/ChrisSpagnuolo

So, we worked through getting this little fun fixed and EdgeHopper was back up and running…for about 20 minutes. Then I started getting getting Tweets about a 503 error that looked like this:

My host was unable to handle the traffic on a shared server. They were gracious enough to move EdgeHopper to another server for a while and that fixed the problem (Thanks Bluehost!).

So, why is this relevant to you? Well, in less than 3 hours from the time GST posted the link on Reddit, EdgeHopper.com experienced in excess of 350,000 hits, even with all the interruptions in service! This was because the link on Reddit moved into the top 3 on their “What’s Hot” list. Wired.com also picked up on it and it made into Wired’s top 3 Hottest Web Links (mostly because it’s based on Reddit’s list).  By the end of the day, just this one single post had been linked to and referred to by 317 other websites and blogs mostly because of what you see in the image below:

These numbers are super relevant to you. Not because my blog had a good day…that’s completely irrelevant.  Because they emphasize the value and power of social media to you, your blog, your company, whatever! If you do something that people find remarkable, timely, relevant, etc., and someone else uses word of mouth to spread the goodness around, you win! This is the power of word of mouth. The traffic my blog experienced in 3 hours was about 100 times what it usually is thanks not only to some compelling content, but more because of someone that I don’t know talking it up. And, the sheer number of inbound links suggests that people who read the post, told two people they knew, and they told two friends and they told two friends, and so on and so on and so on…(remember the old Breck Shampoo commercials?).  As I am writing this post, the Toyota/GM post already has just over 865,000 hits, 427 comments on Reddit.com, and 95 direct comments in less than 2 days (thanks to everyone who visited and commented)!  So, the next time you’re wondering about the power of word of mouth and social media, just remember this little post. Oh yeah, that, and make sure you get a hosting provider that can handle big traffic!

NOTE: If and when you get a day like EdgeHopper had on Monday, remember, you have a lot of work to do to sustain those numbers.  The day after my BIG day, I was back to just over 88,000 hits, a little more than 10% of the previous day’s traffic.  EpiBlogger has a great post on this he calls Digg: A Bloggers One Night Stand.  While big numbers are fun and exciting, sustaining them is hard work!

Although the world around it is moving ahead at breakneck speeds, Kiel (and other towns just like it) is a living anachronism. My father in-law still uses a dial up modem connected at 54 kbps to find things on “those interwebs”. There is a 48-inch LCD flat panel television in his living room with rabbit ears attached to it. Yes, no cable, no satellite. I’ve been wondering who all of those digital television transition commercials were talking to and now I know. In my in-law’s home you hear statements like “This wind energy is just a temporary thing” (I’m not sure if they mean we’ll run out of wind or if wind energy is just a fad). To me, Kiel seems like a town straight out of Bill Bryson’s “The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-town America“.

So, why am I telling you so much about Kiel and my in-laws? It’s not because I’m a big city snob. In fact, I kind of like the peacefulness and slower pace of life in small towns. And I like my in-laws. I’m telling you about Kiel and my in-laws because sometimes when we’re developing software or products we forget that places like Kiel and people like my in-laws still exist. They don’t read the latest blog posts every morning on their iPhones. They read the local newspaper while eating breakfast in a small diner while they drink black coffee (not Starbuck’s). They don’t check to see how many new friends they have on FaceBook. They say good morning to the same friends they’ve had for the last 20 years at that diner. Chris Brogan recently wrote a post about social media and people in the “real world” that really puts this dilemma into perspective. The point is, if I walked into one of those bars on Fremont Street or the diner in downtown Kiel and said “I write a really popular blog”, most people would probably think, “That’s nice”, and that would be the end of that conversation.

My guess is, most of the people in Kiel don’t have a blog, don’t use Twitter, and don’t have a LinkedIn profile. Most people in Kiel (and most other places for that matter) aren’t techies like “us”. So why do we keep developing applications and products for people like “us”? I think that if we want to make a bigger, more remarkable impact, we need to help bridge the gap to the folks in the bars and diners on Fremont Street. And we need to understand that they aren’t moving at the same speed as “we” are. They’re not the early adopters on the technology adoption curve. They’re the conservative herd. They don’t want bells and whistles. They want an easy-button. So, when you start to design your next product or write your next application, think of the good folks in Kiel, and build something they’d use.

To see more pictures of Kiel, check out my Kiel photo set on Flickr.

• 60% of those surveyed interact with companies using social media

Of those 60%:

• 93% say a company should have a presence in social media
• 85% say a company should not only be present but also interact with its customers via social media
• 56% say they feel a stronger connection with and better served by companies when they can interact with them in a social media environment
• 43% say companies should use social networks to solve customers’ problems
• 41% say companies should use social media to solicit feedback about products and services

Now, granted, this is an online survey, so the results may be a bit skewed. There is probably still a large population out there who have no idea what Twitter or Facebook or LinkedIn even is (much less participate in online surveys). In fact, here’s a great post from Chris Brogan about keeping it real with real people (who aren’t geeks like us). But for those of your customers who are connected, you can’t afford to ignore the numbers uncovered by Cone in their study.

And, if you’re looking to start using social media in your marketing and PR efforts, HubSpot has a free webinar this week on How to Use Twitter for Marketing and PR. Here are the details:

Date: Friday, October 10, 2008

Time: 2PM EDT (GMT-4)

Duration: 1 Hour

Register here

srdny76 I just learned I was steps away from a vegan ice cream parlor yesterday! Yay! There’s a vegan ice cream parlor!

caseypatton ate some sweet, sweet moe’s bbq tonight.

CheesecakeBree Tired… but I have a few things I need to do before bed. (It’s not late enough for me to fall asleep anyway.)

girliegeek if your friends won’t tell ya you got spinach in your teeth, WHO WILL?

Truly scintillating, I know.  But, I’m trying to figure out how useful Twitter can be beyond reporting the mundane details of your life for all the world to see.  At first I thought, maybe this is a good replacement for instant messaging.  You can type something in and instantly message, well…everyone else on Twitter (or at least those who want to follow your life).  Is this effective communication?  Not sure.  Maybe, just maybe Twitter can be put to good use after all.  Good meaning: productive, useful, not wasting your time, not tying you to technology when you can be doing something else with your time (work or dare I say, even fun stuff like going outdoors!).  Here’s my list of potentially good uses for Twitter:

1. Emergency response: People can use the relatively low bandwidth messaging of Twitter to send messages to entire response teams instantaneously.  No mixed messages.  No dropped calls. Everyone on the team gets the Tweets (it’s what Twitter posts are called).  Very effective, and they can be tagged with locations as well.
2. Conference back-channels: OK, so maybe not super productive, but if you’re at a conference, you can provide live commentary about the speakers, their lame PowerPoints, their incorrect statements, bad haircuts…you name it.  Not only are you sharing with other conference attendees, you’re sharing your commentary on the conference with others who may not have been able to attend.  Plus, it’s great for adding some fun and excitement during really bad PowerPoints (it worked really well at Where 2.0 recently).
3. Task tracking: OK, not exciting, but useful…use it track your daily work tasks.  “Started working on foo functionality”…”Finished working on foo functionality”. Boring to the world, useful to you.  Plus, if you’re team is all following, it provides instant status updates on your tasks…and you thought daily stand ups gave good visibility into task status!!!
4. IN/OUT of office: OK, another not real sexy use, but it’s good for in/out of office status with location info.  Especially good when you’re on the road.
5. Promoting you blog posts: Slightly self serving, but effective.  You can let people know when you have a new blog post up.  Hopefully, you’re blog is compelling enough to have established a good subscriber base and you don’t need to resort to this tactic…but worth a try if you’re trying to build your blog base.  Probably good for directing traffic to a website too. I’ll test this out and let you know how many people visit this blog and our website after posting the addresses on Twitter.
6. News Reader: Some online news sources now issue Tweets.  Good for those people who like their news items short and sweet…can you say Short Attention Span Theater? Check out CNN, BBC and many others.
7. Quick feedback: On project teams, use it to do voting.  Post an idea and ask your followers or team members to vote on it or comment on it.  Really good for geographically dispersed teams.
8. Live coverage: For real time events or for folks who do field work, provide live coverage of what’s going on to your followers (OK, a lot like #2, but I’m trying to get to 10 here to make this whole argument worthwhile).
9. Release/Build notifications: Notify team members or customers/clients of current software releases or builds.
10. Job candidate backgrounds: Alright, this one may be borderline, but if someone is interviewing with you for a job, check to see if they Twitter.  If they do, check their Twitter feed to find out a little bit more about them.  You may not want to know that they are part of the Society for Creative Anachronism…but hey, it could be useful.

Whew, made it to 10…didn’t think I’d get there.  I’m sure there are plenty of other good uses for Twitter and I’d like to hear them if you have some ideas.  Hopefully, Twitter works out better than instant messaging.  When I think about IM’ing, I think about people taking longer to say less (just pick up the phone and talk to me).  I think Twitter is potentially more useful than IM but we’ll have to see where it all goes.  However, if I have to constantly wade through Tweets like these:

PhilippaJane trim milk hot chocolate and marshmellows- helps me through today

I might be more inclined to spend my time checking out I Can Has Cheezburger…it’s much more entertaining.  BTW, if you want to follow me on Twitter, check me out at http://twitter.com/ChrisSpagnuolo…but I’m not promising anything!!!

more cat pictures

“You must always work not just within but below your means. If you can handle three elements, handle only two. If you can handle ten, then handle five. In that way the ones you do handle, you handle with more ease, more mastery and you create a feeling of strength in reserve.”

This is a really interesting quote in light of some of the reading I’ve been doing lately on multi-tasking, context switching and work interruptions.  Multi-tasking, context-switching and interruptions can be the biggest killers to the effectiveness and efficiency of agile teams.  According to David E. Mayer, who is a cognitive scientist and director of the Brain, Cognition and Action Laboratory at the University of Michigan, “Multitasking is going to slow you down, increasing the chances of mistakes.  Disruptions and interruptions are a bad deal from the standpoint of our ability to process information.”

Unfortunately for most of us in the software development world (and the “new” world at large), we have a plethora of technology at our disposal that we heavily rely upon to “manage” our multi-tasked lives.  We firmly believe that Outlook, our Blackberries, iPods, Instant Messaging, multiple monitors and other cool things will help us get through our days more effectively.  The truth is, they don’t.  They provide too many distractions from what we get paid to do…develop software.

A recent context switching study conducted by Microsoft Research and the University of Illinois examined diaries of the daily tasks performed by a variety of users.  What they found was that 45% of the reported tasks in the diaries were project-related or routine tasks that were part of the users jobs.  That figure would be astounding on its own, but when considered along with the tasks that comprise the other 55%, you’ll really be amazed.  23% of the daily tasks were related to e-mail and 13% were related to tracking their multiple tasks.  That’s 36% of time spent managing email and tasks!  The remainder of the tasks were pretty evenly split between phone calls (8%), meetings (6%), and personal time (5%).

I have personally fallen prey to this same pattern, especially with regard to emails.  I’ve tried several solutions to the issue including e-mail free Fridays, closing Outlook, disabling my IM client, turning off my cell phone, etc.  They’ve all been somewhat effective in creating more focus on my work.  However, the most effective solution I have found to my email “problem” came from Tim Ferriss’ book The 4-Hour Work Week.  It’s very simple.  Check your email twice a day.  I check mine at around noon and 4:00 (I don’t check it first thing in the morning).  If you’re going to do this, set up an email auto-response in your email client that says something like mine does (thanks to Tim for the “template”):

“Due to my high current workload, I am checking and responding to my e-mails twice a day at 12:00 P.M. MST and 4:00 MST.  If you have an urgent request that cannot wait until those times, please call me on my office phone at (123) 987-6543. Thank you for understanding this move to more efficiency and effectiveness.  It helps me accomplish more to serve you better.”

It sounds a bit extreme, and I received more than my share of concerned comments when I first implemented my lean e-mail diet plan, but over time it worked.  You may not be able to use this idea, but the general advice I’m trying to get out there is, don’t rely on technology to manage your multi-tasking.  It never works.  Instead, focus on managing those technologies so that they don’t interfere with your effectiveness and efficiency.