Then, after almost deciding to delete my account to refocus on my art and blogging, I realized I needed to refocus on Twitter. As Seth says, every interraction should have connection as its intent. So I scaled back breadth and increased depth, posting events and thoughts relevant to my art, evesdropping less, and following people I feel like connecting with meaningfully.

I’ve since begun developing relationships that go beyond Twitter with relevance to my art, very rewarding and inspiring ones, with the likes of Brian Clark and John T. Unger.

Like everything in Life, it’s all about balance and intent.

Peace.

By the way Chuck Frey has produced a good list of innnovation Twitter users, which I’ll edit into the post: http://www.innovationtools.com/weblog/innovationblog-detail.asp?ArticleID=1254

Secondly, the update count helps me to question my progress and activity online qualitatively and also numerically. It forces me to critically question what i do online and how much of what i do makes sense in relation to where i am headed. I see it as a way of building a personal brand online, so everytime i want to update my status through twitter, i basically ask myself this; “are you just gonna say anything just to increase your updates or are you going to say something, that builds up your brand equity?”

Also, knowing that there is an update count, forces me to be more productive, since i dont want my followers reading a two month old update of mine! Lol

This two things are interrelated for me, twitter helps me focus my mind on what “really matters” when i am online and that enhances my personal brand online.

However, I do wonder how productive i am being with this kind of creativity and if the time I spend on Twitter takes away from time when I could be writing blog posts or working on an e-book, things that feel more tangibly “productive”. I don’t know. One thing that I do know is that I will go onto Twitter when I am too tired or burnt out to do anything else and it can re=energize me.

Good question…. and I don’t know the answer!

– allowing me to interact with interesting people in many fields on a continuous basis

– exposing me to blogs and other resources that have enhanced my understanding of subjects I am interested in

– showing me the inside of so many people’s heads….how they form and develop ideas, through seeing the link between their tweets, blog posts, videos, books, etc.

– increased my fluency in using social media by exposing me to how many other people use social media.

I like to benchmark my work against that of others in my mind; it helps me to stretch my thoughts and to detect and develop very subtle ideas. It’s a joy to be around so many sharp, creative people all the time via twitter. My perception is that my idea production and idea quality have increased in the several months I have used twitter.