Recently in communication Category

In my personal twittersphere, there has been an undercurrent of dissatisfaction with being unfollowed by certain people in certain circles. Okay, specifically Brad J. Ward, a young gun who is a very focused wiz and entrepreneur. I myself have been followed by, then met in real life, then unfollowed by this guy, so I understand why others in the same circle might be miffed. Today Brad wrote a post about how he uses Twitter and you should read it. Yeah, it's like everything else Brad does: it's serious, it's intense, it comes with charts and graphs, and is pretty much waaaay over the top in trying to explain why he has unfollowed people. But it is also a really good description of how he uses this social media platform, and it closes with a great question: How do you use Twitter? In fact, it has me so fired up that, despite the fact I have a huge amount of work to do today, I feel a pressing need to answer the call to respond. While Brad makes some very good points, he is dead on: the way he uses twitter is not the way I use twitter.

Last night I got home and was immediately hit with "Can I borrow the car?" from the Senior Teenager In Residence (STIR). I really didn't mind, as the only plans I had for the care was to run it through a car wash to get some of the winter grime off now that it is a bit warmer out (I can't seem to get it out of the garage each morning without brushing up against grunge). "Sure, as long as you get it washed before you come home. I'll even give you money." A win-win solution, I thought, as he could drive to his basketball game, and I could stay home and focus on work while still getting the task accomplished.

Fast forward to this morning. I get dressed, grab my stuff, and have a happy mental moment of joy as I walk around my clean car in the garage, all ready for a full day. (Yes, folks, it's the simple things.) On time and ready for work. Right?

Wrong.

Seriously, this is kind of creepy, and one of the reasons I am happy that my twitter feed is protected. Yesterday we discovered that State College Police Dept has joined the twittersphere as @StateCollegePD. Now they are stalking following everyone and anyone in the local area:



Now, I know they've been on Facebook for years, using the collective data on there, but I think I'm at a bit of a loss as to why I would a) want them to follow me, b) want to follow them, and c) even have a reason to use their tweets as a resource? Their initial explanatory tweets state: