‘Citizen Starchitect’ is not an Oxymoron
“Potential unexpressed turns to pain.”- Robin Sharma
Time moves at warp speed on Twitter. So it’s easy to forget all the valuable nuggets you stumble upon while scrolling through your timeline. For example, I had shared the above quote and a link to its root article almost a year ago on April 11, 2014 and had forgotten all about it until a random guy on Twitter favorited my Retweet yesterday drawing my attention back to it, ironically, just in time for this post; here’s the link to the worthwhile read by Robin Sharma “62 Tips to Get Unstuck in 2013 (or any year for that matter, I would add):” http://www.robinsharma.com/blog/01/62-tips-to-get-unstuck-in-2013/
[Welcome back to Architalks #7. For this session, Bob Borson (@bobborson), creator and author of Life of an Architect blog, has chosen the word “Crafty.” I won’t be talking about honing one’s craft in architecture as others are going to cover that nor will I be writing about my one hobby Scrapbooking. Nor am I going to delve into the darker interpretation of the word crafty: “Cunning, deceitful, subtle.” One person said she’d be writing about witchcraft (hmmm…). So, for other interesting takes, please scroll down and click on the links to the rest of the bloggers who are participating in this go-around. They are sure to delight you with their “Crafty” posts.]
A Brief Intro, History
I joined Twitter in February, 2011. After hundreds of conversations and 49,000 tweets later, and with everything else I’m involved in, I have reached a level of burnout probably not unlike that of respected climate change activist @drgrist (David Roberts). He talks about his one-year unpaid 2013 Social Media Sabbatical here: http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/media/Reboot-or-Die-Trying.html
A lot of experts are talking about the need for Digital Detox. One of my favorites is author Alex SoojungKim Pang who wrote: The Distraction Addiction
This past Thursday, I made a big announcement on Twitter: that I’d be taking a 3 month sabbatical to reconnect with myself at the behest of my concerned family. So, I thought it would be appropriate to write about my experience on “crafting” a Twitter Sabbatical.
As I sat in Denny’s this past Saturday morning, mulling over ideas out loud to my (patient Luddite and self-imposed, predominantly analog-based) husband, I was fretting over some recent unfollowers (that I attributed to my big announcement). But what was bothering me is something that I think a lot of us fear, namely that:
***there’s no such thing as a vacation from social media– you’re either all in or you don’t exist.***.
Twitter is a stream, a constant flow or gush of information (depending on how many people you follow). For illustration, I’d like to compare it to a Water Park: you can choose the lazy river option where you merely coast along, reading and RTg what others post (in this regard, you’re a curator at best, a copycat at worst). Or you can ride the Rapids. There’s no in-between if you want to achieve lasting success or make your mark in Twitter history. And you can’t sit still in the Rapids or you’ll end up with your float overturned, or worse, your head slammed into the wall. And let’s not mention drowning (in the sea of endless information).
But what’s worse is leaving the park altogether. Unless you’re @drgrist, or @kimkardashian or @umairh, very few people are going to wait around for you to return– to stop being “inactive”– {{shudder}}. Per standard analytics, “Inactive” means you’ve not tweeted for one month or more. (You can get this kind of data from apps such as crowdfireapp.com (formerly known as @justunfollow)). From my observations, there may be an app that tracks if you’ve been inactive for even a mere minute. Full disclosure: I usually unfollow Inactive twitter users unless I’m personal friends with them.
Much like war, you need both an entrance and an exit strategy. This is where “craft” comes in. Before you enter a social media platform, it’s always best if you already know who you are, where you’re going, and what your company is all about– otherwise, you risk getting confused by the watershed of information, or worse, you go off track on-line or get sidelined in your real life.
For me, that is the biggest clue to realizing you need a vacation from social media: when it starts to interfere with your everyday life.
What Do I Tweet About?
I tweet mostly about architecture and interior design but I am interested in so much more, such as: foreign policy, U.S. Elections, politics in general, wars, conflict in the Middle East, Iran, ISIS, etc. And I like to reach out and follow folks who are not in my field. I enjoy conversations on Twitter as this increases the cross-pollination of ideas and you meet some great people. And, I find it very valuable in terms of research and news.
The flip side of getting into politics and foreign policy is you risk offending some people (and your follower count will reflect this). So, I thought about creating a second twitter account to keep one for professional use and one for personal views but I didn’t because I wanted to stay integrated and present my whole self.
As one NYU Prof @mentioned me : it’s the idiosyncrasies in others that make their tweets unique and interesting to us.
Why do I want to take a break? Well, here are some reasons:
1. I want to get in better physical fitness. My love of Twitter has led to a very sedentary lifestyle. To combat this, I’m taking the stairs more often.
2. My IRL to do list is bursting and is umpteen million pages long.
3. I’ve just completed a sweet build-out of a small commercial office space for my own design firm and, in addition to focusing on my clients’ needs, I want to brush up on my AutoCAD skills and learn REVIT, Sketch-up, etc….etc, etc.
Appreciating My Twitter Community:
I hope my online friends will be patient while I hit the Refresh button on my life. I’m very grateful for the +8300 people who follow me, including @kathyireland, @tom_peters (WOW is right). And @valaafshar, @walterkirn, and just this past week I was followed by @joshmedia (Josh Felser, former EVP of Sony Pictures Entertainment and self-described Seed investor/serial entrepreneur, Co-founder of Freestyle, Spinner, Grouper/Crackle & @hashtagclimate) ~~ when graciously thanked by one of the other folks he’d recently followed, he said he had decided to open things up, broaden his scope (his exact words were: “@shkjalal thx. trying to expand my follower world to mix it up a bit”). The best part is when these thought leaders take time to engage you in conversation. It’s dizzying, priceless.
A Funny Story:
About a year and a half ago, I was followed by this guy who looked like he was wearing red lipstick and he had a ton of followers but no blue checkmark to authenticate that he was anyone of import. So, I didn’t follow him back because another red flag was he had thousands of followers but wasn’t following very many folks– this is usually evidence of a fake account or a poser, i.e. Someone who has purchased followers. Most of us have to follow people back in order to maintain a high level of followers– unless, we’re providing high quality content, curation, or interesting viewpoints on a regular basis– like @randydeutsch, for example, in the #AEC realm.
More on this funny story later…
Crafting a Good Tweet:
Meanwhile, if you’re thinking to join Twitter, remember it’s crucial to know how to “craft” a good Tweet. A good tweet is defined as something that gets RT’d (Retweeted, i.e. shared, reposted by others) or read or replied to.
A valuable tweet usually consists of one of the following (remember, each tweet is limited to 140 characters):
1. An outstanding photo with a brief description, and proper credit.
2. A good article with news we can all use
3. A great quote properly attributed to the person who said it
4. Your opinion + a link to an article + a photo = Twitter gold
(FYI: I just came across @narendra’s Twitter account last week; according to his Twitter Bio, he created the Retweet. I thought that was cool.)
The Apex of Twitter Success:
The top two Twitter accounts, in my opinion, are both successful due to their conversational (and, yes, their social online listening) skills: Tom Peters (@tom_peters) and Umair Haque (@umairh). I particularly enjoy following their tweets as they connect with people on a daily basis, and they are not afraid to share their unique insights and intelligent commentary on current culture and world events while encouraging and engaging lots of folks to chime in.
A couple of other thoughts and back to that funny story…
I am blessed with a wise friend on Twitter whom I often confide in when making big decisions, or to run ideas by. Upon hearing of my sabbatical, he said “this will be good for all to experience and upon my return will likely rationalize my contacts.” I agree. It will be a good way to test the waters again.
I had allowed Twitter to take a position of too much prominence in my daily life. So, right now, it feels like I’m in freefall. I admit I’ve not been totally away from Twitter since my announcement. I’ve needed to communicate with certain folks to let them know what’s going on (via DMs- direct messages) and I’ve continued to use it as a research tool for this post, especially. It’s hard to pull away in one clean break.
One main reason I may not pull away entirely is that I carefully vette each and every one of my followers. I don’t knowingly allow Spammers and bots to follow me as I want to protect myself and my family from intruders.
Also, the other main pull is my own curiosity and to make sure I follow back great people that I don’t want to miss, so as to not lose them (the way I lost Aaron Levie (@levie) ~~ yes, he was the guy with the naturally red lips).
Who knows how he found me? Regrettably, I lost him as it was during a busy time and I was not as tuned in to Twitter. Missed opportunity. C’est la vie.
But, Don’t worry Twitter, I’ll be back…
The thing is, the lazy river keeps moving. It’s never static. I look forward to easing back in soon. June 26th, 2015 seems a long way away. But in Twitter time, it will seem like a mere moment. For instance, I didn’t even know @drgrist had taken an unpaid sabbatical until I saw all the posts and Retweets on Twitter upon his return last September, 2014.
One last favor:
Follow my brother on Twitter: @michaeldmathena and see some really cool #work #travel pics.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Here are the other bloggers who are participating in Architalks #7. Please check out their posts. I’ve read a few and I assure you, you won’t be disappointed:
Let’s start with my personal favorite (as is often the case, Bob has hit another home run with this one):
“Bob Borson – Life of An Architect
@bobborson
Architects are Crafty”
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“Cindy Black – Rick & Cindy Black Architects
merging architecture and craftiness”
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“Mark R. LePage – Entrepreneur Architect
@EntreArchitect
How to Craft an Effective Blog Post in 90 Minutes or Less” <<<<<<Gee, I could have used this info last night when it was past crunch time! 😉
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“Jeff Echols – Architect Of The Internet
@Jeff_Echols
Master Your Craft – A Tale of Architecture and Beer”
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“Lee Calisti, AIA – Think Architect
@LeeCalisti
panel craft”
https://thinkarchitect.wordpress.com/2015/03/30/panel-craft/
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“Lora Teagarden – L² Design, LLC
@L2DesignLLC
Oh, you crafty!”
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“Marica McKeel – Studio MM
@ArchitectMM
Why I Love My Craft: Residential Architecture”
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“Matthew Stanfield – FiELD9: architecture
@FiELD9arch
On the Craft of Drafting: A Lament” <<<<<<< Oh, this sounds juicy, can’t wait to read it! Drafting is one of my favorite topics in architecture. 🙂
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“Rosa Sheng – Equity by Design / The Missing 32% Project
@miss32percent
Which Craft?” <<<<<<< Hey, I thought you promised witches! 😉
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“Eric Wittman – intern[life]
@rico_w
arts and [crafty]”
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“Michele Grace Hottel – Michele Grace Hottel, Architect
@mghottel
krafte”
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“Jonathan Brown – Proto-Architecture
@mondo_tiki_man
Crafty”
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“Meghana Joshi – IRA Consultants, LLC
@MeghanaIRA
Crafty-in Architecture as a Craft”
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“Brian Paletz – The Emerging Architect
@bpaletz
Underhanded Evil Schemes”
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“Stephen Ramos – BUILDINGS ARE COOL
@sramos_BAC
Ghost Lab”
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Thanks for reading!
And congrats on scrolling this far…. I’d like to leave you with one of my favorite songs: ‘Sara’- by Fleetwood Mac, 1979
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHJb87nNsGY
Comments:
So, tell me about yourself. Have you taken any sabbaticals? What was the purpose– to reach a goal or to relax? Or maybe you have a story about a time when you took part in a digital detox.
Please feel free to share your stories and thoughts below.
Thanks…
Tara,
I am glad that you decided to join in. You shouldn’t feel guilty about taking a break from Twitter. We will still be here when you get back!
Rosa
Hi Rosa,
Thank you for your comment. I’m so glad to see you here on my blog.
As always, I appreciate your thoughtfulness and understanding.
I look forward to Tweeting again soon!
Kind regards,
Tara
Wow. I joined Twitter 3 years before you and boast half as many tweets. I’ve honestly never really thought about how engaged I am, or am not. I’m obsessive compulsive with many things, but those themes tend to run in streaks. I may focus on twitter heavily for a couple weeks, then I’m playing Xbox all the time for a couple more, and neglect the former. Then I move on to something else. I think it balances pretty well for me.
I think this is a good plan. Cheers, and good luck with it! We’ll be here for you when you return.
JB
@mondo_tiki_man
Hi Jonathan,
Thanks for reading my post and sharing your experience. I am definitely drawn to and enamored by Twitter. I have not grown tired of it that way I did with Facebook. My other social media interest is Instagram.
I’m not a big Xbox player (I’ve never played it, actually)– must be the generational divide. My daughter on the other hand could probably give you a run for your money on Call of Duty (is that the right name?) 🙂
Thanks for your support and friendship. I truly appreciate it.
Tara
Good blog Tara, thanks for the shout!
Mike
@michaeldmathena
But you won’t see this, right…