I’m live-blogging and tweeting an intensive all-day Twitter event in Washington, DC, today. Room is full of influential, high-impact learners and doers from federal agencies, media outlets, and corporations.
Two of the most succinct pieces of advice about being online were shared this morning by Laura Fitton of www.oneforty.com and Alan Murray of the Wall Street Journal.
- Laura said her two-word summation of successful and effective Twittering was: Be useful.
- Alan said the WSJ’s social media policy could be summed up in three words: “Don’t be stupid.”
One of the virtues of Twitter’s forced brevity (140 characters including spaces and punctuation) is the opportunity to distill a message with clarity. “Be useful” and “don’t be stupid” aren’t just good social media practices, they’re good life practices. Go Twitter!
On the left: Morning keynote speaker Craig Newmark, founder of craigslist. On the right: Alan Murray of the Wall Street Journal.
Craig Newmark was a keynote speaker this morning, and is one of my heroes. A fellow San Franciscan geek with a desire to do good, Craig not only founded craigslist, he is one of their customer service reps. Beyond that, Craig cares about effective public service and the military, two passions I share. Craig is deeply involved in “Gov 2.0,” the growing movement to connect the government with its people and empower both with tools to share knowledge, share power, and do good.
On his way from the conference to an advocacy session on Capitol Hill, Craig stopped long enough to talk with me about Gov 2.0 and his support of military service members and veterans. Watch this blog for the post with Craig’s podcasts.
If you’d like to follow us on Twitter today, we’re live-tweeting at @MilitaryTweets. That is, if the conference hall internet stays up!
