There’s always a story behind what inspires bloggers to write specific posts.
Unfortunately we aren’t always able to include that aspect in our posts 😦
Maybe it is me? But often the story behind the post is just as intriguing and fascinating as the post.
So I thought you might be interested in the story behind A Twitteraholic’s Guide to tweets, hashtags, and all things Twitter?
The Inspiration
Being at a large conference like ISTE, where you have over 13,000 people attending, reminded me of how much my life has changed as a result of using twitter.
Life before Twitter at a conference was like the first day at a new school — really lonely, isolating experience and take days to connect with others.
While life with Twitter at a conference is like walking into a big party where you know everyone and are meeting up with old friends. And it’s probably even harder to understand for those that don’t use twitter (or only use it a bit) but often we haven’t even connected with each other online before the conference.
But Twitter brings us together — regardless of whether we’ve already built a relationship online. And the time we spend together face-to-face enhances our online relationships so the next time we meet up its even better!
Connecting with others was as simple as sending tweets like ‘Who wants to go out for dinner #iste10’, ‘Who wants to go out for breakfast — I’m hungry #iste10’, ‘Where is everyone? #iste10’ or monitoring the hashtag #iste10 to find out what was happening.
What other technology really allows you to connect with some many people so quickly?
And That line…
Off course there is often stories behind specific lines within a post.
My two favorite line in A Twitteraholic’s Guide to tweets, hashtags, and all things Twitter? are:
- “Twitter is for people with too much time on their hands”
- “using it like a big teachers lunch room that’s open 24/7”
The “Twitter is for people with too much time on their hands” has the best story 😎
Here’s how it goes…..
The day I flew out to USA I crashed my car — managing to break the suspension underneath my car and damage my left hand.
Unfortunately due to travel commitments I couldn’t get my hand x-rayed until I returned home 3 1/2 weeks later. So while it was being x-rayed I tried to explain why there had been a delay in getting it done due to traveling as part of my work.
Explaining what it meant to support a blogging company wasn’t working — so I tried the opposite approach by saying blogging is sort of like Twitter since most people have heard of twitter.
That’s when he replied “Twitter is for people with too much time on their hands” — we’ve all had others say exactly that to us. For me it was we have to that line in the post because too often that is exactly what people think and say to us!
And since I had managed to break my hand in the car crash I can confirm true crazy Twitteraholics don’t let things like a broken hand get in our way of tweeting or writing blog posts.
Here’s the x-ray and my story remains that the concrete pillar was driving on the wrong side of the road!
And back to “using it like a big teachers lunch room that’s open 24/7” — someone on tweeted that on Twitter during the time I was writing the post. Thanks whoever tweeted it!
Final Thoughts
Hope my story has added more meaning to my A Twitteraholic’s Guide to tweets, hashtags, and all things Twitter? post and makes it as memorable for you as it was for me — especially considering it was written over at least week and from two countries at opposite sides of the World.
And would love to hear the stories behind what inspired you to write your different posts!
Sue Waters 
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