June 1, 2009
Connections Department
Yes, You Do Have Staff, But You've Got to Be Staff, Too
Yes, You Do Have Staff, But You've Got to Be Staff, First Too Both First and Too
Twitter, the Favor Economy, and the Power of Crowds
You've seen the ad: some bozo, trying to project competence and connections, tells a potential customer: "I've got people to handle that." By which he means he can look up folks in the Yellow Pages, hire some,
and take his chances that they can deliver. After all, they bought an ad in the Yellow Pages, and that takes, competence, commitment, and a checkbook.
Well, a checkbook. Credit card, maybe. You can do better. Hell, I do better, and I'm, well, just a guy. Look it up.
Before I get to twitter, let me tell you about a friend of mine, who I'll call Bob. (That's not his name; that is his face.) We met something like fifteen years ago, when he was dating another friend of mine, and we've hung out a fair amount, since. There are folks who call me a Renaissance Man, but well, Bob's downright Heinleinian: he can (and does) pilot airplanes, maintain cars, fix stuff, build houses from the foundation up (he's done that, and can do any of the tasks required in all of that), sail a small boat (although it did tip over, that time I went with him, throwing us into the icy cold waters of Lake Minnetonka; then again, I was at the helm), load his own ammunition, and Ghu knows what else.
Some years ago (long past the statute of limitations; chill), he decided that the house he owned then was eighteen and a half inches too short -- he had a cool stove that wouldn't quite fit -- so late on a Friday evening, he and his brother, Al (also not his name) tore off one side of it, put in all the framing and other stuff, including the additional flooring, and put the side back up and had it all painted and sealed up, better than what code requires, by Monday morning.
I could tell you a lot of Bob stories, but let's leave it that he can do damn near anything that can be done with one's hands, and that, from time to time, I've asked a favor or two of him. The one thing that he can't do is maintain his own computers, and -- very rarely -- I get a call asking just how one farbles a glimrod under Vista, or whatever, and for two reasons, I get to farbling his computer's glimrod.
Yes: I'm making out a like a bandit, and if I told you more of the stories --
-- you'd get it, even more. (Yes, we do have fun; there was the time that we tracked a stolen car through city streets... yes, "tracked," not "followed." )
"Yes?"
"Hey, Bob? It's Joel. I know it's 2:30 in the morning, but there's water pouring out of the ceiling in my kitchen, and -- "
"I got it. Put on a pot of coffee."
"That'll stop it?"
"Nah. But I'm on my way, and a cup of coffee would be nice. Don't worry. We'll get it done."
I also do some other stuff that Bob thinks is a good thing to be doing -- some of the political stuff -- and while he always makes himself available to help out in that when he can, he's of the opinion that, say, the writing and blogging is something that I can do pretty well, and that he can't do it near as well, and would rather folks like me who enjoy it spend time on. Works for me.
I don't want to overanalyze this -- well, more than I already did -- but it's a pretty common thing: friends do favors for friends, and it all makes the world a better place. Other than the fact that we enjoy hanging out together, both Bob and I do pretty well -- not just by the favors that we do for each other, but by those we do for others.
Not a big deal, but a friend of Bob's once needed a quick carry class; he called me and asked me, and yeah, she got a quick carry class. I'm not asking for a medal, which is just as well -- nobody offered me one, after all. I just want to make the point that this doing stuff for folks stuff won't go only in one direction. For long; you know the kind of person who acts as though they think a favor is something that you do for them, because they're too busy with their own lives, and all. How well does that work out for them?
Which brings me to twitter.
A few months ago, I followed the lead of some friends-who-I've-never-met-in-the-flesh, and -- while I thought it was silly -- took out a twitter account. Mainly, I use it as an ongoing party line, a way to play with other kids while I'm doing something else, and that's fun.
But . . .
You'll see it now and then. A tweet something like, say:
Request: anybody got a link to a good javabuttons generator? I'm thinking something like http://twurl.nl/vcpzki , but Open Source.
Which was quickly followed by:
Check this site out. Tons of great java ideas if you have never been here: http://www.dynamicdrive.com/Which is how I ended up with javabuttons and a neat nav bar over here, over the weekend. I like it.
Here's another one of mine. I'd been looking into a lawsuit in another state (never mind quite why) and tweeted:
Anybody got a shortcut to information about case C 05-04532 JW in US District Court Northern District of California, San Jose Division?A few minutes later, an attorney (I'm grateful, but I'm not going to name him without permission, lest other folks think that they get to importune him for legal research -- and I'll get back to that in a minute, I promise), tweeted:
And, if you go to the link, you'll find -- as I did -- that it was just the document I wanted, and would have looked for myself, if I'd known where to. (I don't know exactly where he got it, or how -- but it's public information, and if I had access to the sort of tools he has at his fingertips and the knowledge of where to find that sort of stuff that he's developed, I could have found it, too. And if my zayda had breasts, he would have -- but I digress.)
Ask, and ye shall receive. http://is.gd/B7NB
But I don't, and I didn't. I just relied on whoever was a: listening on the party line that is twitter, b: had, in the past, found what I contributed interesting or valuable (in his individual opinion; nobody else gets a vote, and that particularly goes for me) enough to take some time out of his day to look something up for me, and c: -- and this is one of the keys -- wasn't being importuned by me for "yet another favor," without me doing anything for anybody else in return, because, at least among some of the folks I meta-hang-out-with, I've contributed enough (in their opinion; mine doesn't count) putting a few work credits into the favor economy is worth the trouble, to them, even though, smart folks they are, they're probably thinking the same thing that I am when a neat query comes across:
Cool. I can find that.
So, yeah: the world in general -- and twitter, in particular -- is full of folks who know stuff, many of whom will be happy to lend a hand, from time to time, and all you have to do to tap in on it is, well, obvious: Go out and do stuff. Have fun. Talk to folks; solve interesting problems. Get your own work credits in, but have fun with it. Help folks, and put a call out there for assistance.
It'll be fine. Trust me.
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