Humour

Benefits of brevity

T A Balasubramanian on the adoption of micro-blogging

Once more, a new project sweeps in to challenge Doodh Byramji, also known simply as Doodh. An intrepid IT research engineer at Baffle Technologies (Baff-Tech for short), Byramji is usually found probing into the murky areas of the computer world, especially when he is assigned these tasks by his CEO, Baidyanath Baffle, the founder and owner of Baff-Tech.

“Doodh, have you been using blogs and e-mail lately?” says Baffle.

“Yes, Baffleji. Quite a lot, I should say.”

“Ah, well, me too. However, it is daunting—even frightful—when I have to figure out what to put on a big chunk of blog. With

e-mail and blogs, you have all this scary structure, like a subject line, spelling check, formatting and so on. Then you have this huge space in which to write. All this can be a nuisance, especially when you just want to get a small one-line message across. I always think it is much easier to work with a small visiting card size space. You can be a little bit more casual, especially if you are in the mood to tap out a just a few curt words.”

“Yes, yes, I can see that.”

“Well, given my short attention span, instant messaging has always fascinated me, particularly the ‘memo’ messages you leave for friends. I used to leave memo messages on Post-It style yellow spaces such as ‘Out for lunch’ or ‘Going to a seminar’, but this was frustrating because I was always bound to my computer. I think you should be out doing something and still be able to update your friends and get an update on what they are doing. But I don’t want to be on my computer—a few years ago, the technology was not there to do that. Now, with short message service—SMS—and mobile phones, we can.”

“Sure, we can, Baffleji,” nods Byramji.

“I hear that there is this trendy new application for our mobile phones. In the past few months now, everybody at Baff-Tech has been engaged in a fierce game of micro-blogging. You know, this is a vast improvement on plain vanilla blogs, which have this tendency to be suited to those who write long, thoughtful sentences full of links and pearls of wisdom. I prefer brevity, which as you know is the soul of wit.”

“Ha, ha. Yes, I have an attraction for shortness too.”

“Well, Byramji, our CTO started it, and a lot of us have become somewhat addicted to it—as though it were a game. Now, as you know, micro-blogging is not normally a game. It is really just a new, popular form of blogging that allows people to write mini text updates about themselves, and then broadcast this information through text messaging, Instant Messaging (IM), e-mail, MP3 or the Web. But I understand that the website Twitter has helped make micro-blogging popular among millions of people. I want you to make a report on Twitter and what it can do for Baffle, if anything. And I want it fast.”

Byramji is happy and excited at the prospect of catching up with the latest technology. “Oh, wonderful, Baffleji. I will make a thorough investigation of this micro-blogging Flutter … I mean, Twitter.”

So here, in due course, is the detailed diary of Byramji, artfully and meticulously preserved for the records.

Dear Diary: My first task is to learn more about what micro-blogging is all about. And to do this, I approach Groucho Goose, Manager, Slinky Marketing Strategy for Confusing Clients, from Duckbill & Goose.

Groucho has been sending me enthusiastic little messages on my cell phone for many months about how Twitter could transform my life, and I think he will be more than happy to button-hole me a provide the necessary research data I need for this project.

“Well, well, what a surprise, Doodh,” says Groucho. “I knew all that tweeting would work.”

“Tweeting?”

“Oh, it is just a word we Twitters use. As I was saying in my last SMS to you, Twitter is what you should be doing, my friend. I am a little disappointed that you are not following me on Twitter, but I guess that makes us even ... I am not following you.”

“Ah, Groucho, is that the way Twitter works? It comes down to those Tweets you follow interacting with you? But only if they follow you?”

“It is not a Zen place, Doodh, where you can hear the sound of just one hand clapping,” says Goose, cackling. “Interaction is what makes Twitter popular and a good business tool ... it is not just to post something and then not interact with people who take the trouble to reply.”

“But all those millions of … Twitters … are making millions of responses? After all, I do not respond to every SMS message that comes to me, Groucho. I would become insane if I did that.”

“Well, you can certainly pick and choose who or what you respond to—or tweet back to—as we say. Twitter has gained a following among the social media digerati because it neatly bypasses the problem of information overload on the Web by requiring that users keep their posts brief and concise—just 140 characters or less—a phenomenon known as ‘micro-blogging,’ Twitters track their friends, colleagues, media figures, bloggers, online publishers and even complete strangers whose updates they find fascinating enough to read.”

“So I send these short micro-blogs to my network of other micro-bloggers?”

“Yes. You communicate what you are doing, where you are going, even what the weather is like at the beach.”

“But how is that going to help Baff-Tech?”

“Just change the phrase, ‘At the beach’ with ‘In a meeting,’ and voila, you have got micro-blogging for professionals. So what’s the game—or really the challenge—with micro-blogging at Baff-Tech? If you ask me, you can be as whimsical and creative as possible with your posts.”

“Brevity being the soul of wit, eh?”

“Right, Doodh. Often, the e-mails I get from CFOs or IT directors are half a line anyway. Being able to get your business case through in 140 characters or less could be very valuable for everyone’s time. And talking of time—it’s 7:20 am—I can see that my partner, Harpo Goose is doing his early morning yoga. I know not to bother calling him. Of course, catching your business associate doing yoga is not especially creative, but for me, it is the aggregate of Harpo’s posts for the day that gives him top dog status at Duckbill & Goose. He’s great at giving us a serial micro-blog account of his day, and he’s always on the move. Last week he posted his impressions of a convention tour during his trip to Europe, seminar by seminar, slice by slice. One of the more interesting posts was ‘Listening to Gates live,’ which is his way of telling us that he has finally converted to the Windoves camp.”

“So it is really up to your imagination as to how you would want to make your presence felt?”

“Exactly. The beauty of tweeting is that you can write whatever you want, you can change it as frequently as you want and if you are creatively inclined, you can flourish the Twitter brush and paint little word scenes of your day as artistically as you want. I am going to switch now from ‘Talking with Doodh’ to ‘Taking a coffee break with Doodh.’ I’m not sure what I’ll post after that. Maybe a comment about the restaurant we are entering.”

“Well, Groucho. You’re tweeting me very well,” I say. “I must say that Duckbill & Goose is moving up the social network ladder.”