It’s my 12th anniversary on Twitter. I might have missed this milestone, but for the wonderful algorithm and data capture, and delightful, digitally-designed numbers that appeared in my tweet stream.
A dozen years of learning about each other. And I say, without hesitation, it’s been the best dozen years of my life. Twitter opened doors, crushed silos, entertained and explained. has been my undergrad to PhD.
Which is not to say previous decades have not been filled with wonder and insights and successes. Fulfilling careers, marriage(s) raising children, and, most recently, entrepreneurship that paid off the mortgage and ensured two holidays a year.
Twitter in its early days
When I first dipped my toe into the tweet stream, I had no idea the wealth of possibilities that would continually flow, up for grabs at no cost and no obligation.
Way back then, twitter was all about what people had for lunch, cramming information into 140 characters, turning ‘you’ into ‘u’ and ’see’ into ‘c’ (this reminded me of my children’s book, with two children on the cover, looking as a bee flew by. “C D B’ was its title and it was filled with clever use of letters as words “F -U-N E X? S. V. F. X)
You see, I’d just wound down the business I developed – digitally-produced patient education, delivered via hospitals bedside televisions. It was my first foray into Entrepreneurship, having honed my crafts in advertising and broadcast television as producer and on-camera reporter.
I then created a website, and took my health content online. Of course I needed all the socials with their cute icons.
The magic started with the hashtags
Back then, twitter was still in its infancy, and I stumbled and fumbled until I found #HCSM –Health Communications and Social Media –helmed by Dana Lewis, who would go on to create the first do-it-yourself-pancreas. She structured this hour-long ‘tweet chat’ as a three-topic discussion that was inclusive, respectful, encouraging. From there, special interest groups split off, and I fell into #HAPC – Hospice and Palliative Care chat which led me to a new focus, a new website: BestEndings.com, a book, Death Kills, a TED talk, Exit Laughing, and speaker engagements the world over.
My connections include the best brains from around the world, each one generous with their knowledge, their links their communities.
These days, I still follow the gentler, kinder rules of those early days: respect, useful links, meaningful insights. Twitter celebrating my dozen years, made me nostalgic for the early days.
This then, is my ask, Mr Musk: bring ’em back. Bring back the days of collaboration, encouragement, connection and kindness.
Twitter changed my life for the better and richer – although my definition of ‘richer’ is probably different than yours, Mr Musk
