Category: twitter

Twitter verse (for World Poetry Day)

Today is World Poetry Day. It also happens to be the fifth anniversary of Twitter – or twttr, as co-founder Jack Dorsey called it in his very first status update.

To mark the occasion, The New York Times has appealed to the twitterverse to wax poetic on Twitter (no more than 140 characters).

I was happy to oblige.

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How about you? Care to share some Twitter verse?

Fire up Twitter and tweet out a post a poem to commemorate this special day. Tag it with #poetweet so we’ll have a record. And if you feel like it, leave a comment here — in verse, prose, haiku or however your creative muse dictates.

And happy World Poetry Day to all.

Twitter to the rescue (or, How I became a junior firefighter)

It was one of those mornings. A lot of interruptions, “urgent” calls for assistance, endless email loops, petty irritations, administrivia — all the stuff that sucks the productivity out of the day. You know those kind of days, right?

So I did what any passive-aggressive, digitally connected marketer would do. I vented my frustration to the twitterverse:

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And the twitterverse, in the form of @smith_ron_e, responded:

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@smith_ron_e is the Twitter handle of Ron Smith, the training officer for Rolla Fire and Rescue. Ron is also an avid social media fan and, like any good firefighter, always on the alert.

I didn’t think any more about Ron’s tweet. But that afternoon, he showed up at my office with several “junior firefighter” helmets for me and others on our staff.

And that’s how I became a junior firefighter.

FireMarshallAC

Thank you, Ron. You (and Twitter) brought some joy into an otherwise frustrating day. And you also reminded me that the figurative “fires” I deal with from time to time are no match for the life-threatening conflagrations you and your fellow firefighters have to respond to. I tip my junior firefighter’s hat to you.

(Photo by B.A. Rupert.)