Last night, I met quite a number of Victoria tweeples who are actively engaged in social media. In fact I met so many that it’s taken me the best part of today to retrace our conversation.
Coincidentally, I had awoken yesterday morning, reflecting that in the last couple of months, I have followed, learned, and met some remarkable people on twitter. I’ve been having great conversations mostly about Canadian politics in my desire to learn & participate in democracy. My next thought was wondering why I haven’t connected much with anyone here in Victoria on this topic. So I made it my goal to do so. Wow, if only all my goals were so easily achieved!
Just a few hours later, what to my wondering eyes should appear on my twitter stream, than a post from Janice, a local gal, asking some other local people their opinions about my recent blog. That blog resulted from my having posed a suggestion to The Honorable Tony Clement CPC about maintaining a second twitter account to keep his official correspondence via this media apart from his personal chats.
It is a matter with which I’ve been grappling myself. My twitter account was initially set up for business reasons (selling fishing holidays). I became concerned as my #cdnpoli tweets started to far outnumber my #fishing tweets, that my customers would have a hard time finding and following the information pertinent to their interest. So I painstakingly figured out how to have two separate accounts – one professional and one for my own poli stuff. I am just getting that second account up and running now. (Take heart, dear customers; soon you’ll be able to get my fish reports easily)
There are many more serious issues facing Canada and the world than a choice to have one, two, or more Twitter accounts. I had not heard this topic debated and it hadn’t crossed my mind that it would be of any great interest to anyone. But I have come to the conclusion that for me it is a good idea. Likewise I think it would be appropriate for our elected public servants to have dedicated business accounts that speak about their job and to their constituents.
So naturally when Janice began this conversation I was intrigued and curious to hear opinions from my fellow Victorians. Gladly I dove into the conversation, and I’m afraid I got in a little (a lot?) over my head. Before long there were quite a few people chatting at a rapid pace. Well, ‘rapid’ to me perhaps, more so than to them! I have no experience with group twitter conversations. I am more comfortable chatting one on one. It may have behooved me to have practised this in the shallow end with people I already know!
I quickly became overwhelmed at the pace of the conversation and with trying to reply to each person. And I am afraid I behaved rather badly. I ought to have followed the wise advice of one tweeter to “read in context”. Sadly, I was unable to follow the context of so many people at once. I took offense when none was meant. And I fear I gave offense, again unmeant and unwarranted.
I awoke this morning thinking that an apology from me is definitely in order.
Which I now freely and sincerely offer to anyone I may have offended. I am truly delighted to have met you all and to engage in this exchange of ideas. I look forward to getting to know you better. I regret if I’ve made it more difficult to do so!
Hoping you’ll still “love me in the morning”,
Maggie
I welcome all opinions
