Do You have a Backup Twitter Strategy?

If you are a heavy Twitter user, you probably have favourite programs that you use regularly. There are any number of alternatives, all with different features and their own distinct advantages, but for whatever reason, there’ll be one (or a few) that you favour over all others. When this goes wrong, it can throw your Twitter strategy into a spin.

Yesterday, some time in the afternoon, HootSuite threw a wobbly. It wasn’t anything major, but I howled like a pained Wookie for a good 45 minutes while I tried to figure out what was going on. My tweets weren’t being accepted, I couldn’t see what I had queued up, and I had trouble navigating from account to account. I don’t tweet just for myself, I handle accounts on behalf of others as well, and when HootSuite began playing up, I had ten different IDs up that all needed attention, one of whom needs a big publicity push during this week.

Of course, I could always go to an alternative program, like TweetDeck, or even just use the main Twitter page. But the whole point of using HootSuite was that I could jump from account to account, scheduling posts for a point later in time, while still monitoring @ replies and direct messages in real time. I couldn’t do all of that in either of the above alternatives, and even when I found something that seemed to be good, it turned out that I hadn’t updated it with all the different accounts I needed. The frustration was tremendous, and as I went through all the most popular platforms I felt more and more despondent. I even considered booting up separate computers simultaneously and running four different browsers on each of them so that I could get each of the accounts running on the main Twitter page.

In the end, I came to my senses and remembered this blog, and also my (sadly neglected) Freeware of the Week feature. I fired up MahTweets to see if I could salvage anything from the wreckage of my afternoon plans. Luckily for me, I had most of the accounts I needed already loaded in my installation, so all I needed to do was to add a couple more and I was good to go. It was a little disconcerting dealing with a desktop app when I am so used to a web-based platform, but I soon got the hang of it and was able to create the columns I needed to keep track of everything.

The one thing I couldn’t do was schedule tweets for a later time, which was a major handicap, as I then had to keep note of the links I wanted to send out and keep them waiting until I was ready (I hate sending out multiple tweets at the same time). Still, it wasn’t as much trouble as not being able to keep an eye on everything, so while I still grumbled, I didn’t feel the need to reach for a tumbler of whiskey. Instead, I prioritised which tweets were the most important, queued them up and hoped for the best.

As it was the troubles with HootSuite didn’t last for more than a couple of hours, and I was soon back to my normal routine. Still, the experience did serve to remind me of the dangers of becoming too dependent on one particular platform for my Twitter needs. I am now diversifying, seeking out new ways to take control of my Twitter accounts and to mitigate against any similar snafus in the future. Twitter is a remarkably easy way of communicating… when it works. When part of the chain breaks down, however, a user can be left floundering for an alternative. I now have a backup plan in case HootSuite messes up again. What are you doing to make sure you don’t get left in the dark?

[Images by JamesJosephImages.com]

After the Rubberneckers: How to Stay Up to Date on Haiti

Thirteen days after the country was hit by a powerful earthquake that has devastated the country, Haiti is already beginning to slip down the news agenda. From being the lead item all of last week, news outlets are now reporting other items, from local politics to celebrity news, ahead of the plight of the Caribbean island. With the world’s attention is drawn to events closer to home, the situation in Haiti is in danger of slipping off the radar entirely, as special correspondents are recalled to their bases begin searching for the next big story.

Those of us who have an interest in how one goes about virtually rebuilding a country from scratch, or who wonder what sort of progress will be made might catch the occasional update on an obscure channel or website. We might check in with the aid organisations we know are working in the country to see what they are up to. The majority of news organisations, sadly, will move on, and will probably restrict their follow-up pieces to the end of the year, or the first anniversary of the earthquake.

There are, however, outlets where the primary focus has always been on Haiti and her people, and they will continue be be sources of news and information once the jet-setting reporters and their camera teams have packed up and left. If you want to be kept in the loop, you can check out some of the following websites.

News
HaitiAnalysis: news and editorial. Seems to update fairly regularly
UHHP: the United Haitians Home Page.  News and analysis
Reuters AlertNet: also has a section dedicated to the 2010 earthquake
OneWorld.net: news headlines and articles

NGOs
United Nations Development Programme: information and updates about what the UN is doing on the ground
Oxfam: information about the organisation’s work in Haiti
ReleifWeb: updates on the latest efforts

Blogs
Haiti KONPAY: distributes emergency assistance to human rights and women’s organisations
Global Voices Online: articles and commentary from a variety of contributors
Michel Deibert: author and journalist living and and working in Haiti

This is a far from exhaustive list, and there are probably thousands of websites out there that I could also be linking to, but it’s a start. If you have any resources where people can continue to get news from Haiti once it is no longer a lead story, feel free to link to them in the comments.

[Image by UNDP]

Are You Always Game-Ready?

Over the weekend, intoxicated by the power of Twitter lists, and falling down into the rabbit hole of looking up the followers of the followers of the people I had decided to follow, I went on a bit of an adding spree. My numbers have been bumped up across all my accounts, I had a load of reciprocal follows to deal with once I was finished, and I went to bed on Saturday night dreaming of various page backgrounds. Then, in an attempt to improve my social networking, I also included all of my main accounts in a post discussing Twitter on one of my LinkedIn groups.

I was feeling quite happy with myself, and rather purposeful, but then a sickening thought hit me: what if people took one look at my Twitter accounts and decided to block me forever? Even worse, what if they clicked through to this blog and found it somehow lacking? I started kicking myself for not having taken the time to craft a series of fascinating blog posts and erudite tweets before embarking on my following frenzy. I’d never get a chance to make a decent impression now! I had accomplished the virtual equivalent of getting hit by a bus while wearing a mismatched bra and knickers, marking myself out as an online slattern.

Or at least that is how it seemed in my melodramatic nightmares. But really, it isn’t that bad. While I would always consider doing special posts if I were going to be doing a big publicity drive or marketing push to drive people to the site, all I had done was to make my existing Twitter accounts known to a larger audience. It’s flattering that any decided to follow me based on my weekend’s output anyway, especially as one of my last tweets was on the merits of listening to Norwegian black metal music during the winter (it soothes me). And it would have been impossible to plan specific tweets anyway, as I usually just link to interesting stuff I’ve found and have the occasional chat, which is not the sort of thing you plan three weeks in advance.

There is a lot written these days about personal branding and social media, and it can seem as though you always need to be planning your next move, triangulating all your efforts for maximum impact and making each and every blog post a succulent morsel with which to tempt passing visitors. But that is an untenable amount of pressure to put yourself under. If you spent all your time tarting up your blog and primping your social network profiles, when would you actually get anything done? Far better to have the occasional spring-clean, make a few days’ worth of concerted effort, then get back to doing what you do best.

Being at the top of your game is not necessarily spending each day at the coalface of promotion. Rather, it is being ready for a sudden uptick in traffic, or enquiries about your services, and being able to respond quickly to the demands that places on you or on your business. So while I may not have gussied up the blog or rejigged any of my social profiles in anticipation of a tsunami of new interest, I am aware that I will probably have more eyeballs on me in the week to come, and I am prepared for that. While I could have done things differently, I didn’t, and instead have now changed my approach with what is to come. I may not have gone about my promotional effort in the conventional manner, but I am game-ready now. Are you?

[Image by Adamrhoades]

Whining About Weather and Work

I’m working from home today, but then that is my default setting. The UK is gong through a cold snap at the moment, and the advice has been to stay off the roads unless absolutely necessary, so I’d imagine that I am not as much of a rarity as I usually am. Thousands of schools are also shut for the day, so that will bump up the numbers too, as parents have to stay home to make sure their kids don’t pelt little old ladies with snowballs or set the house on fire trying to get the heating on.

So far, there haven’t been reports of any major disruption, unless you count the poor souls who came unstuck driving in icy conditions, but I am still positively steaming over reports on the BBC, one on the radio this morning, and one during the lunchtime news bulletin. I think I’m mostly irked because the source of my ire is an organisation I normally support and like to hear from: the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB).

I opened my bleary eyes this morning to hear FSB spokesperson Stephen Alambritis complaining about the closed schools, accusing headteachers and school authorities about closing schools “unnecessarily,” despite a reasoned explanation from a headmaster on why closures occur. Next came another whine, this time during the 1pm television broadcast, where the FSB had decided that the cost of people not being able to get into work would “cost the economy” over a billion pounds. And that’s when I started throwing wine corks at the television and ranting.

Time and again, whenever proposals have been put forward on how to make work more family-friendly, or enable people to take more control over their careers, employers’ bodies such as the FSB and the Confederation of British Industry (CBI, the Dick Dastardly to their Muttley) are the first to howl about how making any concessions is likely to lead to the collapse of the economy and civilisation as we know it. Flexible working is too difficult for them; paying a living wage in one of the most expensive cities on Earth is an unbearable burden; health and safety regulations stifle innovation; and making sure they aren’t discriminating against women is far too much effort for ensuring something as piffling as fairness in the workplace.

So because the transport infrastructure is grinding to a halt and roads are barely navigable, twenty percent of the working population may have failed to make it into work. Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? The weather is out to get them! Or, rather, because of the culture of presenteeism so prevalent in Anglo-Saxon capitalism, people have to be seen to be working, meaning that employees are expected to be in the office, when they could be doing their jobs just as well at home. And believe me, quite a few are probably getting just as much done using their home phones and internet connections as they would have done if they had managed to get into work or get their children to school.

The majority of businesses in the UK are office-based these days, meaning that with a bit of imagination and some decent computer policies, employees do not need to be physically in the office to carry out their jobs. It baffles me, given the overheads involved in running an office, why any business would willingly shell out commercial rents for the entire company when a couple of rooms would do. I suppose bosses worry that if they couldn’t see what people were up to, they might not actually be working. They might be at home watching daytime TV in their pyjamas while munching chocolate biscuits; that’s all very well, but it would be pretty apparent that nothing was being done when tasks weren’t completed, and that’s what disciplinary procedures are for.

It’s touching that some bosses assume that if they see people at their desks, tapping away at keyboards, that they are actually doing something outlined in their job description, not checking their Facebook friends or IM-ing their significant other. I wish I were that trusting. The fact is, despite the stereotypical nine-to-five working day, much of what we do at the office could probably be done in far less time. Not only that, but it could be done while not having to actually be in the office itself. Communications are good enough now that remote working is a possibility for a significant number of workers, but their employers have been truculently reluctant to embrace it.

Had the employers’ bodies in the UK been more proactive about telecommuting, they would probably have been more sanguine about the recent snow. They would have suffered less disruption, and would not have felt the need to throw such a hissy fit over the fact that only four out of five of their employees turned up to work this week. Instead, I am willing to bet good money that after the snow has cleared, and they have recovered from their latest conniptions, that they will be back to obstructing a more flexible way of doing things just as soon as a new proposal is put forward.

[Image by Sue E]

The Personal, the Political and the Professional

The story behind this post occurred before Christmas, but is still rumbling on in various forums and on Facebook, so I thought it might be worth addressing here, as it’s something that everyone will probably have to deal with at some point in their career. Basic story: a teacher has been  suspended from her private tutoring position because she refused to stop talking about Christianity after being asked to when she was supposed to be teaching maths. The Daily Mail, in typical tabloid style, chose to run the story as a “Christians are being oppressed and political correctness has gone mad! OMG!” whine, which they do a couple of times a year.

MacGuffin at Tabloid Watch has already done a brilliant takedown of the whole affair, so there’s no need to rehash it here. What interests me are the reactions from people, especially those on the Facebook group who are screaming persecution. What cannot be denied is that the teacher in question, Olive Jones, had been asked on more than one occasion to keep religion out of her teaching; evidently she didn’t think these guidelines for her employers were important enough to take seriously. Next, the parents of the child she was supposed to be teaching didn’t ask for her to be punished; all they asked was that somebody else be sent to teach their child in her place. Also, despite all the hysteria about her “sacking,” she has merely been suspended; her employers have asked her to come in for a meeting, but she has yet to set a date.

From my point of view, it seems incredibly simple: she was employed to teach maths, and on more than one occasion with more than one client, chose instead to proselytise. By the time she was suspended she had already received at least one warning. Quite frankly, she so far has has been treated very fairly. As an agency worker here in the UK, she could have been dismissed much earlier with no comeback for her employers. But is she being persecurted or oppressed? Do an employee’s personal or political beliefs override their professional duties when they are at work? Conversely, should an employer’s beliefs be extended to their employees?

As a godless heathen, I would probably not be suited to working for an evangelical ministry. However, if I did, would I attempt to convince my co-workers of the merits of atheism? Not unless I was determined to start an argument. I have worked in offices which are majority Christian, majority Muslim, and a mix of various religions, including — memorably — a committed Satanist. Generally, as long as everyone is respectful of each other’s beliefs and doesn’t ask for special consideration to the detriment of others, things can come rub along smoothly.

This isn’t to say that there is no religion at all in offices. Some businesses allow Muslim employees to leave early on Fridays, a majority don’t operate on Sundays, and quite a few will happily give time off for festivals such as Diwali. Conflict is only likely to arise if religious practices start interfering with the operating of the business: taking a few breaks during the working day for prayer could be fine; going round to each of your co-workers desks for an attempted conversion is less likely to be so. The first doesn’t particularly affect anyone else in the office, especially if a room or area set aside for everyone’s use is made available; the second could lead to alienation and ill-will between colleagues.

So employees should respect each other’s beliefs and try to keep religious conflict to a minimum, but what about employers? In the UK, the unions are still a major force in the Labour party, and a portion of union members’ subscriptions are used to make donations to the party. There is an opt-out available for those members who don’t wish to donate to Labour, but what about employers who are supporters of a political party? In addition to making individual donations, some businesses offer offices and even staff to help with political campaigns. How much freedom do employees have to refuse to work on a political campaign if they are not supporters of a party, and would they face any sanction if they did? What about employers who encourage their staff to vote a particular way? While it may not be illegal to champion a particular candidate or party, the power differential that exists between an employer and their staff means that employees could feel under pressure to participate. Just as well that actual votes are anonymous.

Stories such as that of Olive Jones emerge with tedious regularity in the tabloid press; generally, once you get past the froth and the fury, there is usually a far more mundane story beneath the cries of persecution and oppression. In the workplace, a few well thought-out policies emphasising respect and tolerance for all should be enough to avoid the worst conflicts. However, there will always be times when beliefs, whether personal or political, will need to be taken into consideration and sometimes addressed head-on. When this happens, before taking drastic action (which happily hasn’t occurred in the Jones case) it might be a better idea to sit down and think about what is fair to all, rather than a particular individual. People are not automatons, and it can be difficult for somebody to leave their personal beliefs at the door when they come into work. Rather than expecting them to, working to minimise potential conflict before it occurs will probably be more profitable than waiting for a disgruntled employee to go running to the papers.

[Image by Svadilfari]