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In the December issue of intercom, the Society for Technical Communication’s magazine, there was an article about using Twitter to facilitate technical communication. I feel the article is very informative, and I think that it is very important to address the new tools technical communicators can use. However, I have a bloated two-part post filled with thoughts on how Twitter is not a tool for technical communication, but a tool for conversation. Technical communicators can still use Twitter effectively, but should not think of Twitter as anything other than a simple conversational tool. For the sake of full disclosure, I must say that even the thought of Twitter causes a strange sense of creeping dread and revulsion in my gut: a combination of my own paranoia and the self-proclaimed significance others attribute to themselves. But this has actually caused me to think a little more deeply about Twitter and try to turn my feelings of distrust into meaningful arguments. Here in part 1 of 2, I would like to talk about the difference between conversation and technical communication.
This is probably the aspect of Twitter that appeals most to people, the reason that Twitter may be the first social networking tool boasting a billion participants. The freeform nature coupled with URL shortening algorithms makes Twitter probably the most immediate and open way to share information, to a potentially enormous audience—every member of Twitter—or to a very small pinpoint audience–a small network. For example, the fact that cousin Andy painted his house isn’t all that interesting, but that you found out what he was doing at the exact moment he was doing it is; or, a constructive critique on Dr. Hofstadter’s lecture during the final week of class might lose the poignancy of a tweet seconds after the lecture ended. Twitter is instantaneous and spontaneous–two very human characteristics. But these are not characteristics that help a technical document. A successful tutorial, grant, or report needs to be timely, but not instantaneous, and it needs to be about as far from spontaneous as possible—if a document isn’t completely thought through from concept, design, draft, and user-testing, it shouldn’t be a surprise if it fails. And this is why Twitter is only a tool for conversation. You can use Twitter to help edit something, but Twitter functions only as a means of communication, the content of the tweets is the technical communication, and that information is independent of Twitter. A text message, an email, a face-to-face conversation, Twitter is only another way to converse. The article does say that Twitter is a tool, but it does not make the distinction between the content of a communication and the method of its transmission. In part 2, I will discuss the really despair-inducing aspect of Twitter, the democratization of information, and I will use that to expand the difference between conversation and technical communication. |
I’m glad that my article gave you pause to consider your own opinion about Twitter. That was one of my goals in writing it. The micro-blogging tool isn’t for everyone, I grant you that. You note that Twitter is only a tool for conversation. Here is where I disagree with you: I don’t know if it should be relegated just to conversation. Twitter is a tool for communication, both not the only means of communicating. I think a lot of people see it as a medium that will corrupt traditional face-to-face communication; that is simply not accurate (I’m not saying you’re writing that – just that it’s a common myth).
Let’s say that you are hired to create *and* distribute instructions for filling out a grant application for community fundraising efforts (it’s late – go with it for now). As the TC expert who was hired to do a piece, your job is then twofold: write it and distribute it. So you do the first part, but what about the second? Twitter can be one means in that distribution route (not the only). Many businesses are using Twitter not as a direct means of communication (although others are) but as a device to augment their traditional modes of mediated communication.
As a technical communicator, think about the advantages of how you can use Twitter to create the document you were hired to write. You might query other writers or get opinions on word choice. You might even test out the doc before releasing it to the client and general public – this can be done via Twitter, especially if you have a locked network of individuals (not open to the general public, rather a private network of your creation). Here is what I’m getting at in some respects.
First of all we’d all three like to thank you for taking time out to comment on our out-of-the way blog. We hadn’t expected any comments from the authors of articles we talk about. And second, I’ll mention that my article intentionally takes the dimmest possible view of Twitter. For some reason, I can only really think about something as I criticize it brutally. I think now would be a good place to comment on the fact that the Library of Congress has archived the entire Twitter database. So people with much more expertise on cultural phenomena see something in Twitter that I never will.
With regard to your hypothetical situation: would you recommend using multiple Twitter accounts? For instance, one for locked business situations, and another for professional conversations with colleagues. I can see potential value in each situation, but I can also see either confusing overlaps on a single account or time wasted on monitoring multiple accounts.
I think a critical perspective is a healthy one. Naturally I am pro-Twitter however I do see and acknowledge its limitations. No social media tool is perfect, and that is the crux of what we are actually searching for in trying out all of these tools: something communicatively “perfect.”
Yes, I do recommend multiple accounts. In fact, I have more than one Twitter account depending on the context in which I am using it. I have my main account (@alechosterman), an account I use when I integrate Twitter into my classes, and an account to send out information and links on visual rhetoric/communication (@VizRhetoric). The one account I lock is my class Twitter account, simply because I think it’s important to show students Twitter can be used to create an intranet of sorts (if that makes sense).
What helps keep everything straight is a 3rd party application like TweetDeck, Twhirl, or Nambu (which is what I use on my Mac). These are organizational wonders, especially so for someone who is in a PR role or deals with multiple personas.
Twitter is morphing and changing rapidly. It’s still an infant in some ways, and I think supporters and critics alike are helping to shape it into something more than a “I ate fish for dinner” tool. I saw a report the other day that showed more people are turning to Twitter for breaking news than websites – journalism is changing because of its immediacy. I think other disciplines, like TC, can help shape Twitter to be a useful tool.
Alec