Stardust Global Ventures

I’ve been thinking about the power many of us grant Twitter lately. It’s been fueled by a number of conversations and articles I’ve read. I’d like us to consider something I’ll call the Zen of Twitter.

In the visual, the little blue pie slice represents our network – our real network – the people we know that we know. Large numbers or small doesn’t matter. It’s a finite set of people we know we have an established connection with.

The larger coral section represents a larger group – the people we know that we don’t know. We aren’t connected, but we know they exist. We saw someone speak to them or of them. They were on some video we saw and mentioned their Twitter name. We know these people use Twitter, yet we have no connection. We’re simply aware they’re outside our network.

The largest slice, the green one, represents most of Twitter. The people we don’t know that we don’t know. They’re there on Twitter. Some are more active than we are. Yet we don’t know that they exist. We don’t know what they do. We don’t know their value. They could easily become part of our network, but we’re unaware of each other, so far.

Consider how much effort is spent in follower counts. It’s the holy grail for the clueless on Twitter. More is good, more is better, I need more. More, more, more.  I won’t name anyone, but the misconception that more has higher value is rampant among even the most elite of the Twitterati. And many speak of little else at times.

I’m not denigrating the value of enlarging your network, but I am going to make a point.

Twitter exists inside that pie. It’s a closed ecosystem. True, the barrier to entry is zero but let’s be realistic and not give Twitter more power than it has. I know you want me to explain that, right? Read on.

Let’s be generous (delusional if you prefer) and say that Twitter has 100 million users. They don’t but we’ll grant the the assumption of one for each Monopoly dollar they’ve been valued at by general public decree.

There are 3.5 billion telephones in use today. So the user population of Twitter makes up .028% of the universe of telephones. Wow, there’s a stat that takes your breath away and demonstrates how freaking huge and powerful Twitter is, right? We won’t even do the comparison with the population of the planet who don’t all have or use phones.

The circle that makes up the pie that is Twitter comprises .028% of the purple box – the rest of the “network” or world.

The telephone network is a good analogy because we all talk about iPhones and Blackberries and Internet as they’ve blurred into one large network. We could even call it the cloud. Oh wait. We do.

Twitter wants to be a utility. I’d argue they are. They’re a very small (ok teensy tiny) rural telephone company. They provide a pipe and nothing more. Twitter is the “tip and ring” technology of the Internet. The Twitter firehose? It’s a teensy drip line in the stream of communications. In the growth of technologies to mainstream adoption, Twitter is a baby that can roll over and is learning to crawl. But that baby is awkward and loses its balance constantly.

The value in Twitter isn’t in Twitter and to argue otherwise is a specious argument that hasn’t been considered. The value in Twitter is in the community. The network. But that’s a tiny, and very short-sighted value. I’ll even go so far as to say the value of the community we enjoy on Twitter represents a human embodiment of the basic philosophy behind Small Pieces Loosely Joined.

Our problems are simple. We spend far too much time and effort preaching to the choir. Telling each other on Twitter how important we are, how cool Twitter is, how powerful this medium is doesn’t help. We’re tightening the mesh inside the circle. Like a tightly wound ball of string, Twitter can become an impenetrable mass. At some point that mesh becomes so tight that entry is impossible, and the only way a new connection can be made is to grasp a strand at the very edge.

We’ve already seen the problem that creates. New people join, but can’t find their way in to making any connections of value to them, so they simply fade away and become dormant participants. They start out trying, can’t gain any traction, become lurkers, then slip away.

We are at our finest when we’re loosely coupled. We’re more open, more receptive, more giving, more caring. As those strands that connect us grow tighter and tighter, we become less open, less receptive. We raise the barrier to entry into our community.

How many self-proclaimed social media experts are doing just that? Far too many. How many of them publish how to use, how to get more followers, grow your network, and yeah, buy my book or come to my webinar. Having written a number of books and papers, I consider myself something of a writer. And that, my friends, is pure hogwash. It’s the kind of thinking and approach that devalues Twitter, devalues our networks, and in the end, devalues the Internet. [See echo chamber]

I prefer to focus my energy on enlarging the circle and making the pie bigger. By doing so, I’d like to think I’m loosening the mesh of strands that connect us all and making it easier to join the global conversation. That’s where the value lies in my view. Not in meshing more tightly with people already in the circle.

Sure I want to connect where I can add value. But the value I bring is by making the pond bigger, not by being a bigger fish in this tiny little Twitterpond. One way I practice this is by looking at the people who follow me and evaluating why they find value; by asking myself how can I add more value to the people who discover me through chance. The value we get really is the value we give. The investment of ourselves we make in sharing, teaching and explaining is a huge value.

If someone tells me they aren’t on Twitter; they don’t have time for it; they don’t get it. I can’t afford to brush them off or call them lame. It’s simply not an option for me. To do so devalues me, my network and denies the online values I hold dear. It doesn’t just not add value. It actively detracts.

I’m trying to be a  missionary, and preaching to the choir isn’t going to gain converts. There’s a big world out there who hasn’t yet discovered the power of communications tools. I’d like to help them understand.