One subtle but important effect of Twitter

My first-ever website is currently nearing completion and I was discussing the finishing touches with Andrew Eberlin, who is also the chairman of the town Chamber of Commerce and a fellow stalwart of our local photo group.

We discussed integration of Social Media features into the website, which led on to Twitter. The core members of our photo group, plus the odd honorary member, keep up with each other on Twitter between face-to-face meetings.

Andrew described how Twitter has brought him closer to a couple of old friends who leave just a few miles away in Bath. Over the years, they contact each other sporadically, each time finishing off with "we must meet up" - but they rarely did. Then Andrew and his friends started bumping into each other on Twitter, getting familiar with the latest in each others' lives, and started meeting up in person more often. Now they see each other regularly.

What happened?

One of the problems with people we don't know, or people we know but see rarely, is that our lives are out of sync with each other. Or rather, our knowledge of each other's lives is out of sync. So at a first meeting, or first meeting for some time, there's a lot of catching up and trying to find common ground. In NLP terms, we're trying to get into rapport. In IT terms, we're trying to get into sync.

What Twitter does, for those who are patient, is to enable people to stay more or less in sync with each other's lives. Of course it's hard to be profound and deeply meaningful in 140 characters, but it is possible to enhance meaningful connections through regularly interactions on Twitter. I'm not talking theory here, or conjecture - I'm talking about my own experience and the experience of people I know.