Does Twitter Need Its Bottom Spanked??

To answer my own question: No.

It's our culture of self-entitlement and unsupported expectations that needs taken over someone's knee. We're all guilty of it. I'm not throwing stones here (I expressed my displeasure at Facebook's change in the TOS and Twitter's dropping of @replies), it just that I've noticed this growing trend in the social networking world that not only cries foul when things change without consulting all of us (a general tenet of social media), but also increasingly demands more and more out the gurus behind these platforms to the point that it's like mom and dad got us a new BMW for our birthday and we're pissed that it's blue instead of red.

Earlier this week, Jason Baer posted a column on Social Media Today called Why Twitter Needs Its Bottom Spanked. You can read it here*. I suggest you do since the rest of this is a reply to Jason's post, which stated that If Twitter doesn’t get its act together and improve customer experience for the masses of new users signing on, it’s going to end up as an irrelevant, niche community for a self-referential subculture.

*For my Facebook followers, here's the hyperlink to Jason's post:
http://www.socialmediatoday.com/SMC/102089

He later went on to say: Where’s the video for new users? Where’s the getting started guide? Where’s the profile-creation ease-of-use? Where’s a search engine that searches the biography data that users include when they set up the profile? Where’s the “here’s a list of 100 people in your town, who have tweeted about x, y, and z”? Where’s the LOVE for the user?

I don't know how many of you use Twitter (if you don't, and want to, I'd be happy to offer up some tips or direct you to other people tips that helped me), so maybe this amounts to a hill of beans to you and you'll perceive this as two aspiring Twitterati spouting off. However you take it, here was my comment that I left on his post:

Lots of interesting points, Jason, but I would also play devil's advocate and remind us all that Twitter doesn't cost anything. I'm not paying for a service here, so why should I expect any? Like Gina Chen commented earlier, I don't mind diving in and figuring it out. It took some time, but now I'm happy with my current Twitterverse and how I use it. While I may agree that many of the features you mentioned would be wonderful additions and may help expand my ability to connect, I'm still just using a free communications tool from @ev and @biz. I have the same reaction to articles demanding more from Facebook and other social networking sites --- "you get what you pay for." As JimPeake mentioned, "we live in a society that rewards the TV remote (no thinking) behavior." We also live in a society that demands and expects a catered lifestyle. We've been handed communication tools that are fundamentally changing how we talk, connect, and do business --- all at absolutely no cost to us --- and we're still not happy. Why does Twitter (or its contemporaries) owe us anything when most of us haven't put anything into it?

Discuss.

Waking Up to Flashing Lights

Continuing my new (albeit poor) tradition of blogging about once every lunar cycle, I'm sitting here somewhere on South Water in northwest Ohio (don't worry, I actually know where I am, the ambiguity is purposeful), and enjoying a weekend that has been productive and illuminating in some aspects as to how theatre will continue to impact my life in the coming years.

In general this month has become very symbolic in terms of milestones, rites of passages, and anything else that can happen to a man in his early 30s when things wrap up and transition. Perhaps that's why the blog has fallen by the wayside. There was only so much time for everything and as I've said before, blogging was always last on the "to do" list of life.

Both work and theatre have been jammed packed for me lately. And while neither has in any way vanished (thankfully), there is a gear shift happening all around. The major work event that consumed us has passed and now our department is focusing on our next major project. In the interim, there is a sudden downshift at work. Vacations are being taken, relaxing has begun. It's nice. It's summer. Funny how even in adulthood, we put a lot of stock into these three months.

In less than a month, I finish my term as President of Curtain Players. And that is truly bittersweet. While I'm not disappearing from CP, I am stepping back and letting go of a lot. It will be good for me, mentally, to rest, and pragmatically since I've still got Theatre Daedalus.

Ah yes, the new theatre company. It too wrapped a major endeavor in early June. Project 10 (2009) turned out really well. It evolved from it's origins in 2008 and I hope to see it evolve further in 2010. For those reading this and wondering what the heck I'm talking about (and that would surprise me), check out the Daedalus website.

Sitting here in the middle of the year, it feels like lots of endings all around. But then I started realizing that no, it's more of a turning point and jumping off point all rolled into one. To punctuate the clarity, I awoke last night and for just one second thought I was dreaming about a play I once wrote (I know now where I would film Do They Expedite There. It makes perfect sense to me). So there I am, sore from falling asleep on a love seat, stirring into reality, when I notice all the flashing lights outside. Red and blue, pulsating in the night. They can only be one thing. The police.

Don't worry. They weren't there for me. But the sight made me laugh. And it reminded me of a play I'd written long ago. Gave me ideas for the future. And oddly enough, seemed to be just the thing I needed to get me blogging again. I'm sure the person who was being questioned/arrested at the moment wouldn't appreciate the serendipity, but hey, there it is.

The rest of 2009, on all fronts, is going to be something else. A good something. Work is moving full-steam ahead. I'm enjoying the new projects coming up and my job has evolved into something that challenges me everyday. The writing is turning up good things. New play festivals in Ohio and Maine are doing my work this summer (road-trip!). Glass City films is pushing forward on Separation Anxiety and I'm excited to be at a point where I hand them the ball and see where they run with it. Writing for Daedalus will continue through the summer, as I wrap up my post as Playwright-in-Residence and turn in my plays to the company.

And somewhere along the way, ... well, I see other shifts happening. I talk a lot and there are times when talkin' ain't doin', so I'll keep the details of the future to myself for now and use that as my fuel to make it happen. Maybe it was turning thirty. Maybe it's the state of the world that surrounds us. Perhaps there comes a point in life when people see the path before them. Or I'm just inspired at South Water. Which is altogether possible considering the caliber of company I keep when I'm here.

You let me ramble again. I'll try not to wander too far next time. Thanks for reading.

All this has happened before...

...and all this will happen again. I have fallen into a particulary nasty habit of popping on this blog every month or so with claims of change and promises of more words. It is no wonder I only have three followers. It's not any wonder people don't bookmark my blog. Why should they? Far more people are blogging about far more things in a week than I seem to in a year.

So I won't promise anything today. I'll just say that I've been thinking about blogging again as of late. Thinking of so many things in my life that have slipped by the wayside. Casualties of scheduling, of commitments, of some burning desire I have to push myself to the limit.

We shall see if I return to this space with any regularity, or if I find other ways of communicating to an online world. One day and post at a time. Right now, that's about all I can muster.

Reappearing... repositioning.

Blogging has fallen out of form with me. So much so that it's been one month (to the day) since I last posted here. Longer still for other blogs of mine that slowly gather cyber-dust and wonder why I abandoned them.

I didn't mean to abandon them. It just happened. With all the creative writing happening week in and week out, there's only so much time I can spend on a keyboard. Even now, as I type this, I can't help but feel guilty that I'm not tackling one of three writing projects -- one that's on deck and two that are on the operating table with their guts ripped open.

This past weekend, I spent a lovely (albeit short) amount of time in the shadows of the Golden Dome. Everytime I venture back to Notre Dame, I am reminded more and more of how very different life is for the current student compared to my days there nearly a decade ago -- and yet I'm equally amazed when people watching in the student union how frighteningly similar their existences are when held up against the mirror of my college days.

It's good to venture "home" now and then. And I say home with the ubiquitous quotes because I wasn't born and raised in South Bend; but there was a period of four years when I began my journey from boyhood to manhood, growing up bit by bit. Not that I would ever claim to be grown up at 22. How terrifying to think how young I really was when I graduated. How little about everything I truly knew. College can prepare you as best it can, but life does the rest.

And I think, as I near 30, how much more experience I will take in over the years. How my writing will hopefully improve with each passing day. Each friendship. Each job. Each project. Each lover. Over time, the experiences that I chalk up inevitably influence every line of dialogue, every character imagined.

And like many of my postings, this one is digressing. And like many of my postings, this one is about out of time. I am off to begin rehearsals for the third incarnation of "The Guys", which began about eight months ago this week. I'll explain that one soon enough. Hopefully before April 16th.

Look for the blog to keep evolving. In trying to keep my blog very centered on my creative life, I neglected it for that very life. There has been quite a bit creatively in the past month, and an equal amount of living. I think both should be captured in some form or another. So watch for that here.

Until next time...