Anatomy of a Tweet by @markadairauthor http://ow.ly/4UZeS #amwriting #trend #blog #twitter #TheFathersChild Plz #RT

Imagine everyone – Mom, Dad, spouse, friends, nerdy guy behind the counter at the gas station, Shakespeare – communicating in no more than 140 characters. No impassioned soliloquies or extensive, well thought out arguments...just short blurbs, sound-bites if you will, chocked full of acronyms. Welcome to Life in Pithy Land; welcome to…

“Twitter is an information network made up of 140-character messages called Tweets. It's a new and easy way to discover the latest news (“what’s happening”) related to subjects you care about.” -- Twitter Online Help.

Several months ago, my son introduced me to the Land of Tweets. My first reaction after the initial, brief visit? Frustration! I’m a novelist, not a headline writer! I can carry a single thought for pages on end, in theory. I never met a word I didn’t like…except for very - I’m not very fond of using very, very often because it very quickly loses the very soul of its very purpose. Point being: I felt confined by the arbitrary message length limitation. Like some unseen techno-terrorist cutting me off in the middle of my paragraph, over and over again.

I realize many of you don’t need a Twitter tutorial but for those who do and/or want to be entertained by a witty and interesting personality such as myself, please tag along. The most basic Twitter premise: in 140 characters say whatever you’d like and it will be broadcast to anyone who’s chosen to follow you.

So let’s quickly dissect this thing called a Tweet. If we take a look at the headline you’ll find several common components. It started with good old-fashioned text “Anatomy of a Tweet by” followed by a handle/username @markadairauthor. Next I included a shortened URL/ link to the blog site. I concluded my tweet with a series of hashtags (keywords preceded by #).

When someone uses my handle I can see those tweets easily in my list of “Mentions”. I can search or follow hashtags on any subjects that interest me. For those following me or finding my tweet via the hashtag, the URL/Link is clickable, taking them to a webpage with more info. So handles and hashtags help me find a specific person’s tweets or specific tweets on a subject of interest. BTW, “RT” stands for retweet – requesting others to re-broadcast my tweet to their followers.

Technically, that’s about it. But why…why would I want to spend time in this strange little world of bite-sized conversations? Good question. First and foremost, twitter is social and many of our calendars reveal an over-scheduled, almost dizzying array of tasks leaving virtually no time for in-depth socializing. With Twitter I can give others access, via tiny windows, to my life and vice versa. And I can sneak in that tweet (sneaky tweety) from most any smart device during commercials or while driving down the freeway (just kidding, Officer).

Secondly, it works quite nicely for headlines – short promos about my novels, works in progress, and promoting those of my writer friends. The trick here is to balance this with other more truly social interactions, and not run off my wonderful, intelligent, beautiful followers.

When I started down this road, frustration exceeded value. However, after meeting many fascinating men/women from across the globe, I’m seeing it differently. It won’t replace an evening at the pub with friends but it can #connect me with people who may someday become those #friends at the #pub. #love Plz #RT!

Confessions of a Kindleholic

Last night, like every night for the past several months, I meandered into my bedroom, checked the closets for spies from the paperbook industry, and slipped under the covers. Peering out from my hiding place, I quietly reached over and snagged the 7.5x4.8”, 8.5 ounce techno-beauty from my nightstand (aka ugly red chair). As my heart skipped a beat, I flipped open the black leather cover. After surveying my surroundings one last time, I celebrated the “all clear” by sliding out the light extender, and signing in to my sexy little ereading device.

Hi, my name is Mark. I’m a Kindleholic.

I don’t remember the exact moment when I crossed over the line from oh-that’s-an-interesting-little-toy-for-non-literary-purists to food-optional-air-optional-kindle-required, but I do recall why I began the journey. Several months ago, a good friend challenged me to stop making excuses and get on with my writing career. After licking my wounds, I began exploring e-publishing and e-readers. My suspense/thriller, The Father’s Child, needed a place to spread its fledgling wings and soar out into the readersphere, and devices like the Kindle could help make that dream a reality.

Sporting my naiveté like a gold medal, I e-trotted over to Amazon and took a look around. I reminded myself that my over 25 years of technology expertise should make successfully uploading my file and becoming “e-published” a breeze. After many tears, some therapy, and a few choice 4-letter words repeated often and with great conviction, I’d completed my task. Now I wanted to see the results.

Thanks to Amazon, ebooks can be purchased once and then subsequently read on your smartphone, computer/tablet, and/or Kindle device. Within minutes, I’d purchased the first copy, downloaded it to my PC, and began reading. For those of you who’ve read long works of any sort on the computer, you know how tired your eyes can get trying to track the thousands and thousands of pixel refreshes. Knowing that the Kindle used e-ink technology that refreshes only on a page turn (unlike the iPad or Nook Color or computer), it took me mere minutes to rationalize my purchase…fine, it was seconds, but it seemed like minutes.

At this point in my process I wanted the device for only one reason: to check out the look and formatting of my new novel (see IRS deduction). When I pulled out the sleek pearl reader I thought I heard angels singing…turns out the neighbor dog had cornered a Siamese kitten. In any case, I love technology with a simple, intuitive interface and my new toy, I mean necessary business appliance, fit the bill perfectly. It’s pretty straightforward – a 6” diagonal grayscale screen covers the top 80% and a small keyboard with a few control buttons fills out the bottom. The right and left edges sport easy to access paging buttons (forward and back).

After I registered the device to the same email account I used for Amazon ebook purchases, it magically synced via WhisperSync, making any books previously purchased available on my Kindle (complete with bookmarks). Without further delay, I moved down to my new novel and selected it. I thought I heard the same dog terrorizing the poor little kitten but it turned out angels were actually singing…at least that’s the way I remember it.

After I scanned through my book, I noticed that my new little friend could directly access the Amazon bookstore. How convenient! Several purchases later…well…my name is Mark, and I’m a Kindleholic.

Technology, a Lesson in Humanity #samplesunday

My past and technology’s history intertwine. Before I understood the ramifications of my decision I’d jumped into the technology field as a wet-behind-the-ears software engineer. Exciting days…and nights. The early adopters and creators like me found it exhilarating, exhausting, and addicting. Perfect for the obsession-friendly set. With a never-ending promise of new, it beckoned us to follow. And it delivered on its promise, transforming our idea of stability into one of never ending transition. Thanks to technology, change is no longer that occasional bump in the road of life. Change is life.

A bit of history, if I may: I’ve watched the kings come and go. I’ve not only watched, I’ve bowed before their altars and lived in their inner courts. When I entered the field, the mainframes of IBM, Burroughs, Honeywell ruled the kingdom. Rooms packed with their mammoth circuitry, tape drives, and printers flaunted their permanent place in our society and in our pocketbooks. Like many emperors, they brought new laws and new ways of thinking about things. And like many rulers, they didn’t ask what we thought about it. They dared you to stand in their way, the generals making a Sherman-like march through the Confederate state of the way-we-used-to-do-it. The glory, the magnificence, the power! All hail to International Business Machines, may they reign forever.

One day this sort of mousey, nerdy, introverted college dropout somehow managed to parlay his little toy operating system into IBM’s next step in dominance, the personal computer. The monolith knew how to manipulate the geeks. They may be smart, even genius, but they weren’t business people. And this Bill Gates would be no exception. They would use him, siphon off what they wanted, and then burn the rest. Besides, a personal computer?!?!?!? Hahahahaha. What a huge, friggin’ waste of time! We make real computers for real business. No one wants a computer in their home! Their unspoken motto echoed in the techno valleys, “Resistance is futile; you will be assimilated.”

Surprise! Before you could say “the emperor has no clothes”, Microsoft banished the old guard while the world announced its undying allegiance to the new and sexier one. As did I. After years of living off IBM’s success, I dumped them like an old cell phone. Trading in my blue 3-piece suit on a fun, sporty red t-shirt, I switched so quickly I think it made my own head spin. For those of you who haven’t lived through the changes or haven’t been integrally connected to them, I hope you appreciate the enormity of what Microsoft introduced to the world. I know there are plenty of Redmond haters and I feel some of their pain. But regardless of who actually gets credit for creating the first GUI interface – Xerox, Apple, Microsoft, or some teenager in a basement who mysteriously died shortly thereafter – Microsoft put Windows in front of people and boldly led the way into a new paradigm in computing.

And they put a human face on it. Quickly, tell me who ran IBM during the 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s? Anyone? Now tell me who ran Microsoft? William Henry Gates III showed us that someone who couldn’t comb his hair need not be ashamed because he could rule the entire world. He’s come a long way, especially after he married and his wife took responsibility for his personal appearance, but back in the day he impressed no one and cared nothing at all about that. I’m speaking as someone who’s been in the same room with him, only a few yards away. No, we’re not buddies, although I’m guessing he’s a quite interesting pal to hang around with. Almost overnight he challenged and defeated the century’s old, time-tested, business maxim that one must look good to be taken seriously. Do you understand the ramifications of what I’m saying? Maybe he didn’t intend to, but he made computing personal and approachable.

Over the years I’ve attended many technology conferences. When I showed up at my first Microsoft Tech-Ed conference I felt a bit giddy. The technology rated a 10 on the fun meter for a technologist like me, but I will never forget sitting down in my first meeting. I watched this twenty-something guy with a pony tail, tat, earrings, t-shirt, jeans, and sandals amble up to the stage. In a surfer dude style he began talking about the guts of the technology like only a developer could. I wanted to run up and kiss him. For the first time in my career I felt a part of something…more than technology, part of a team of like-minded people.

Well, you know the rest of the story. The company from Redmond turned into a huge success, and then it grew to the point where it could no longer adapt, at least not quickly. Bill, the very human techno geek, stepped down; Steve, the business-like salesman, stepped up. They quickly reached the point where they overestimated their corporate place in the world and underestimated the hunger and passion of their competitors, and the technology addicted masses. In their lethargy they slid into the IBM trap of arrogance, spouting “Resistance is futile; you will be assimilated.” Meanwhile Google, Facebook, Twitter, Apple, and myriads of open source types busted their butts, working night and day, to perfect their niche technology in the world and then expand it to more mainstream concerns. However, it is important to understand that unlike IBM’s day, these large companies are much more interdependent - they need each other, and the rest of us appreciate the competition that keeps them at least somewhat honest. Quick aside: I happen to believe Microsoft may very well turn the corner and find its place in the new land of Social; I very much like my new Windows smartphone.

Sorry for the longish post, almost 50 tweets worth, but there’s a point that needs to be made. Technology is a transitory enabler – the codependent of all codependents. It will never tell you or me to stop or slow down or think twice about our addictive behavior. It embraces and encourages us, whispering sweet nothings in our ear – consume, consume, consume. It makes grand promises yet it may not be around tomorrow to fulfill any of them. As an author I do appreciate how technology assists me in my journey of writing, publishing, connecting with readers and writers, promoting, etc. But I must remind myself that it is a tool, nothing more. It can’t love me or correct me (well, spell checker maybe). It doesn’t hug or kiss me. It has no facility to create art, music, or stories in and of itself. It mimics but does not invent. Technology is not human…in spite of our best efforts to humanize it. It makes a pathetic king and an even more pathetic god. And it can’t measure up to to the lousiest of friends who at least cares for us a little.

It can teach us valuable lessons though. If we take a moment to sit in technology’s classroom and listen to its stories we can learn a great deal about humanity, such as: we like to be entertained; we enjoy being in control; we’re addicted to new; we learn technology quickly but not necessarily the ramifications of it. But the most important subject on which it educates us? What it can’t do and why we must turn to one another. In a way it calls out to us, reminding us that all of its glorious history of silicon efficiencies and entertainment-friendly facilities cannot compare to a single interaction with the stranger next to us…much less our friends and loved ones.

Class dismissed. Don’t forget your homework.