The Small Chats
Ben | December 3, 2008I’m told, although being deaf, I can’t promise this is true, that there is the concept known as “small talk” like this:
Small Talk Practice 2: At the Office
that happens in the office that I, to be sociable, am supposed to overhear and get involved with!
Emergency! I’m deaf, I don’t get to hear the small talk?
Twitter to the rescue. What? I see you say.
Twitter is the online version of social “small talk”, another of the social networking tools. I get to overhear and, if I like, participate in “small talk” amongst my colleagues and this is really a great way of making new contacts at IBM.
With thanks to Twitter, I have made new colleagues and achieved a lot. To illustrate how, I will show you some examples. But first some background on Twitter. Twitter is where people send and read other people’s updates about any subject – as long as each update is 140 characters in length.
These updates are checked like with emails, as pop-up boxes from the status bar on the computer, or through the mobile phone like texts.
Some example of updates I get from my colleagues, please note that the names are random and fictional!
ScottA: “any flash developers willing to discuss what is or isn’t possible with it? dm me a phone #”
JohnB: tired
MrBoss: Playing with Google Friend Connect : Seems good
An example of a small talk:
RemoteWorker: Great, Nitrox qualification arrived. Now, when’s my next diving holiday…? 
AnotherWorker: @RemoteWorker hope you fare better than me. I haven’t dived in the two years since I got EAN certified and ended up selling all my gear.
Here’s an example of how Twitter’s small talk has directly helped my work:
bjfletcher: keen to join BCS, does anyone at IBM know how to as an IBMer? is there a page with a form or something?
almost immediately, I got a update from someone at my work that I hadn’t met before:
UnknownGuy: @bjfletcher There’s a fast track membership process for members of the IBM professions. Sent you a note with a link to the info.
and likewise but from someone I already knew:
KnownGuy: @bjfletcher just sign up through the bcs website, then claim the cost back..this may not be the best time..
some more updates within 5 minutes:
Thomas: @bjfletcher the hursley library have copies
LeeA: @bjfletcher BCS membership : more for you to look over… http://tinyurl.com/5fnarb – ;o)
Another example, there was a small chat about keeping an empty inbox. A colleague then instant messenged with me and mentioned a book. I proceeded to order it and told Twitter:
bjfletcher: the “Getting Things Done” book is on order, thanks @thecolleague.. it’s also known as “Zen and the Art of Schedule Maintenance”
Later I received an update from someone I didn’t know based at an IBM office in Leeds who clearly noticed in my profile that I worked with Lotus products:
Yorkie @bjfletcher If you like GTD, you should try to get to LS09… (or at least get the slides!) http://snurl.com/6t7xj
Of course I thanked him:
@Yorkie thanks for the Getting Things Done heads up! Have added the link will eagerly check it out tonight!
Well, isn’t Twitter absolutely brilliant? As a deaf contact, I now love my interactive small chats with people all around the world! This is especially so given that IBM is global.
Well said. :-)
kellypuffs | December 3, 2008Well said.
Yes! I love it too. I made few hearing/Deaf friends thru
Ecnarb | December 3, 2008Yes! I love it too.
I made few hearing/Deaf friends thru this Twitter. I used TweetDeck on my Macbook Pro.
Good post!
Ecnarb
Yes, I agreed with you that Twitter was awesome!
Ecnarb | December 3, 2008Yes, I agreed with you that Twitter was awesome!
Twitter gives us all that "ambient intimacy" of being surrounded
Andy S-C | December 3, 2008Twitter gives us all that “ambient intimacy” of being surrounded by friends, even when we’re not… it hadn’t occurred to me how much MORE that’s true for you as a deafie! Thanks for sharing that insight! Twitter-on
Very well said. Twitter extends the reach of small talk
James Taylor | December 3, 2008Very well said. Twitter extends the reach of small talk to places other chitchat cannot reach.
I've enjoyed getting to know you so much more through
andyp | December 3, 2008I’ve enjoyed getting to know you so much more through things like Twitter – I see it as an enabling technology for *ME* to get to know smart people like yourself, as much as it’s enabling you to keep up with the chit-chat. Great post, useful thoughts. I’m going to use it as an example the next time I’m challenged about the value of Twitter.
Great, just what we need, more deaf trivia lol......
MM | December 3, 2008Great, just what we need, more deaf trivia lol…… bluddy ‘ell if the above is an example of trivia, you move in some funny social circles lol.. Do these people discuss Einstein’s theory of relativity, and the issues of quantum theorem displacement, to pass the time or what
My advice is avoid twitter, FB and Bebo and get a life instead with real people (I know it is old fashioned but…) Isn’t all this the sole domain of bored students and under 30s anyway ? Surely ‘deaf’ twittering (not that I would ever use it), is totally different to hearing ? Mostly it is question and answer little else… I thought the main advantage to being deaf is you stuck to basics and didn’t waste time with trivia, it was our main advantage, now we are all drowning in a sea of pointless nonsense….
Sounds great! I'm not completely sold on Twitter, but
Kevin Aires | December 3, 2008Sounds great! I’m not completely sold on Twitter, but as a home worker, I do agree with the comment from Andy SC of “ambient intimacy”. Malburns mentioned to me that he using a tool that reads out twitters and he has it going as a kind of background radio station, so blind people would be able play too.
MM - poor advice there...I'll have to agree with Ben...in
JGJones | December 3, 2008MM – poor advice there…I’ll have to agree with Ben…in my case Twitter wasn’t just for small talk too…
While I was in Spain, having burnt my hand badly just before leaving Ireland, I needed fresh bandages, but couldn’t find the Spanish for it in the book, so I twitted it to Twitter. Within a few minutes I had a dozen of texts from Twitter from all of the people following me all giving me all the Spanish translation I needed to show to the chemist to get fresh bandages. Any other method couldn’t be as quick as that
Hardly pointless nonsense unless you don’t get it.
Ben – one major downside to Twitter is the inability to get mobile updates since they pulled it for UK. I’m happy to subscribe to it to recieve mobile updates as I know how useful it was. I wonder…on your linux based systems, you use Gwibber or something similar to follow updates?
@Kevin Aires, twitter as a radio, that's fascinating! it's like
Ben | December 3, 2008@Kevin Aires, twitter as a radio, that’s fascinating! it’s like deaf’s radio.. I should steal ETS’s public display and fix it to the ceiling
@Andy S-C, “ambient intimacy”!?? a deaf studies PhD student (me?) is gonna love a thesis on this
@MM, it’s very important to me to stretch my network to new people and Twitter is how I meet useful colleagues of colleagues like you have friends of friends on Facebook. It’s not just all about deaf trivia…
@JGJones great story there, I hope you were ok! I use Twhirl, phone’s Opera Mini (to read updates when I do), and TweetSMS where it costs me 5p to receive replies and direct messages to my phone’s SMS inbox, and 0p to send updates and direct messages. It’s well worth it bearing in mind that TweetSMS sometimes deliver updates to your phone 6 hours later! I.e., not to be used for crit sits. I’m giving them the benefit of doubt that this will be improved in time to come.
more about "ambient intimacy" can be read over at Leisa
Ben | December 3, 2008more about “ambient intimacy” can be read over at Leisa Reichelt’s blog.
@MM you may want to search for “Who cares? Who wants this level of detail? Isn’t this all just annoying noise?” and “real life” in the post.
Fascinating. Small talk seemed to me a neurotic filling up
Dianrez | December 3, 2008Fascinating. Small talk seemed to me a neurotic filling up of the air just so hearing people can keep a minimum of noise around them…like background music that keeps so many addicted to the radios that they bring to the office. Twitter would be the cyber equivalent of that…but as a visual medium, wouldn’t it compete with other tasks such as editing manuscripts or tweaking spreadsheets? Would it add to the multitasking one already does (against the advice of computer-based professionals?)
On the other hand, it gives the deaf worker a leg up in equality when one can join in the endless small talk that flows around the workplace. Having Qs and As constantly available on call, keen. Let’s see more articles on how we can all join in the Twitter community.
I don't have 'friends' on Facebook either, lol.......... I don't
MM | December 3, 2008I don’t have ‘friends’ on Facebook either, lol………. I don’t bother with it, I don’t ‘do’ social sites none are deemed safe…. fantasy friends aren’t my thing really, I prefer the real kind I can see and talk to. I think it is each to their own, no doubt at ages 14-30 it’s the bees knees, but to anyone else……. Twitter I gather is a means of tracking people down who link up to it, so some civil liberty issues here I would have thought ? isn’t there a ‘map’ system that shows where the caller is making the call ? Bad enough everyone hacks into FB and Bebo without that. What JG was on about could just as well be done on a mobile phone, anyway these are people obsessed with online gimmicks and technology really… these things you can and many do, manage quite well without… I ‘don’t care’ for twitter really
@Dianrez it can work for some, not for others.. it
Ben | December 4, 2008@Dianrez it can work for some, not for others.. it all depends on who you are and what works for you
@MM possible…
GTD is super. I started using it here at the
HannahP | December 4, 2008GTD is super. I started using it here at the recommendation of Stephan Wissell…notessensai to the rest of us!
I have to admit, I don’t follow it too religiously, but when things get a bit much, then I revert back to the GTD templates.
Good luck with it!
Han
I'm a dedicated technophobe and anti the social websites, the
MM | December 4, 2008I’m a dedicated technophobe and anti the social websites, the world needs more like me….
and less who love trivia for trivia sake…. In the UK being called a ‘Twit’ is a derogatory term, and twittering (Wittering), is pointless and inane conversation, so what does that make the users of twitter? 