Thanks for the name-check on my higher ed twitter list: that’s definitely a fire hose, aggregating every higher ed person on twitter I know (though of course it’s a work in progress–folks who want to be added can always ping me). Glad to hear that it helps others too.

I did also make a higher-ed-select list for a little more streamlined an experience. Though I’m afraid it might make some folks feel excluded, it was too valuable for me not to create, and I think it might also help others, so I’ve chosen to keep it public. We’ll see how that experiment turns out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7m_xywqWoVs

I appreciate and respect everything you said here. Family needs to come first. And you do have to do what is best for you.

Twitter takes me back to High School in some respects. There are several circles and cliques. Yeah and in my mind you are in the “cool” kid circle. Being new to the HigherEd community this year it was awesome to be followed by the cool kids. Being Unfollowed told me my part of the conversation with you wasn’t important unless specifically mentioned @bradjward.

Just so you know, while I might not have ever tweeted this, I have told some people in the HigherEd Circle that I have really wanted to meet the @bradjward that was on Twitter. I was hoping that at one of the two conferences I was able to convince my boss to let me to come to this year I would be able to, but alas I could not.

Again thanks for letting us know that you are listening.

I hope you continue to rock @bluefuego and that one day we will be able to meet IRL.

I think the etiquette of how to connect with one another and share connections is still evolving. I connect with you, Brad, and many of the commenters here on many platforms — Twitter, Facebook, Google Reader, LinkedIn, Plaxo, etc. (Just kidding about Plaxo). There’s probably no reason to have all of these connections, from an efficiency standpoint. But it’s kind of like running into someone at the grocery store, then seeing them again at a restaurant, coffee shop or church. You say hi, “like” their Facebook status, comment on their blog, retweet their tweet.

The analogy I use in terms of connecting with others via these networks is that they are all tributaries that flow into the great social media stream. I stop by the stream from time to time — or one of the tributaries — and see what’s going on. Then I move on to real life, to meatspace.

I follow a lot of people on Twitter, but I don’t worry about trying to keep up with every moment of their online lives, nor do I expect them to do the same with me.

You might be worrying too much about what other people think, Brad. People have different ways of reacting to situations. I’ve been unfollowed by some people and was bothered by it. But I’ve gotten over it and moved on.

By the way, I have no idea what the Twitter drama was that prompted you to post about this, and I don’t care to know. But judging from the volume of comments here, it seems like a discussion a lot of people are interested in.

See you on the innernets.

Truth is, Twitter has become so unwieldy for me that I pop in and out of conversations as I have time. I check my @ replies and DM, see what’s on a few saved searches and now rely on lists for some of the local events and stuff I don’t want to miss. But by and large, it’s a low priority in the big scheme of things. Facebook is where my friends and family are (and a bunch of former friends I don’t really remember).

Anyhow, I’m sorry. While you don’t need to explain yourself, I see you realize that actions in social sites can have unintended consequences. At least you didn’t follow me to get me to follow you, then unfollow me the next day! No hard feelings on my end.

My way of addressing the issue has been to limit the number of people I follow — and to only add when I feel like the person I’m adding is significant. Last time, I also purged a number of people who previously followed me but no longer did; it’s easier to cut the ones who don’t want to hear you than the ones who do. But right now, I’m trying to hover right around 400 on my follow list.

The problem, of course, is Klout argues that I’m a “persona,” and the best way for personas to grow their audience is to follow everyone back. The fact I don’t has probably dinged my “personal brand” on Twitter — I’d probably have 30-50% more followers. Having more followers would help position me to get a better job, or expand on my speaking engagements. (And I’ve watched a number of people who started much later blow well past me in followers.) But I do want to keep it manageable and in a single stream. My life, which is spread between work in higher ed, hobbies in blogging and local news, my town of Seattle, and whatever the hell pops into my head, is already extremely fragmented. Fragmenting my Twitter stream, ironically, wouldn’t help compartmentalize things but instead make it even harder to get everything running together. I’ve had thoughts over this year of trying to break the interests up into accounts, but then I lose my cohesive voice.

I totally understand Brad’s issues, and I don’t blame him for shifting some of the traffic from his personal account to @BlueFuego. It’s funny how a lot of us are into “personal brand management” now, something that would have seemed ridiculous just three years ago (and honestly, seems ridiculous now). And the noise problem, even if there’s a lot of signal in the transmission, will remain a problem as we move more and more online. Eventually we’ll figure out how to work in this new world, but it’s going to take us disconnecting our ego from our online presences, and that will be a long, hard process of filter-making and learning to shrug at what other people think.

I’m just happy I’m dealing with all this at 37. If I were 17, this all would have crushed my pea-sized self-esteem.

Andrew – It’s always healthy for me to do the same. At the beginning of November, I took 5 or 6 days off of Twitter. Every time I wanted to tweet, I would stop and ask myself similar questions: What value does this add?, Is this worth tweeting?, etc. While I don’t ask myself this every single time I tweet (obviously) I think it’s a healthy practice to review what you’re doing and saying occasionally. I do this a few days very two months.

Rob – Thanks for the skim!

I follow enough people on Twitter to gain some insights but not have information overload.

If I don’t check Twitter and I miss insights as a result, I don’t feel guilty.

I’ve unfollowed a few people when there is too much noise or they tweet too often, even when signal is mixed in.

I rarely add someone to follow if they tweet a lot. (No offense, I don’t follow you for that very reason.) This prevents a future unfollow.

I follow @tsand because he adds humor to my day.

As you said, people should use Twitter as is best fit for them.