A Favor

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I was chatting with @tsudo last week after the Heifer Village @passonthegift LRTweetup, and bemoaning how few people we had managed to capture on video telling their stories for the upcoming Tweetie Awards.

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Thanks to the generous, creative and talented @jeffdailey, we should have an amazing video highlighting our community, a representative few of its members and how they came to be involved with Twitter and LRTweetup.

It will be kinda like the death reel during the Oscars ceremony, the small serious moment amidst all the laughs and awards fun. Except everyone in ours is still alive. At least I hope they will be. Perhaps this is a bad comparison. Let’s move on.

To those of you who participated, thank you. To those of you who couldn’t make it, I’m sorry we missed you. Those of you who slipped past me, I saw you (not naming names @bryanjones). Those of you who flat out refused, I know where you live (we all do, since you’re always checking in from there). And while you avoided me, @jeffdailey and his professional lav mics, as a person who’s much better behind a keyboard than in front of a camera, it’s okay. I understand.

So here’s your chance to make it up to me.

I will accept, in no particular order: Cash (small bills preferred), Food (wide preference here, but partial to Vietnamese restaurants and greasy burger joints), Drinks (wine or beer, and no, I’m not doing shots with you @jgreghenderson) or to make things simple you could tell me your story here, right now.

Who or what got you started on Twitter?

How did you hear about LRTweetup?

What’s your favorite thing about this community?

Boxers or briefs?

Well, perhaps not that last one, unless you really want us to know. And I’m not sure what that says about you.

It doesn’t have to be fancy, although you can submit video as well as audio if you please. It just has to be yours. And after spending a year around you people, I for one would really like to hear it. I’m betting the rest of us might, too.

Leave your story in the comments below, upload a video to your favorite video site, record your story, (Cinch makes this very easy) or blog your story (if you don’t have a blog, email your story to keith [at] lrtweetup.com and we’ll post your story here). – Keith

  • jgreghenderson

    No shots with me? What sort of party is this?

  • http://twitter.com/angelmg Angel Galloway

    One that definitely won't end in a hotel room in Vegas with Mike Tyson's tiger, a random baby and you missing a tooth.

  • jgreghenderson

    Damn, and I was just about to ask you to go to Vegas with me in a couple of weeks.

  • http://KnowtheNetwork.com Keith

    My twitter experience and how #LRtweetup became my community. http://bit.ly/9kKMl8 [Audio Post]

  • Pingback: My @LRTweetup Story « Stay Classy Little Rock

  • http://twitter.com/kellimarks Kelli Marks

    If my story were more exciting, I would have done the video thing, but it's not. Also, I suffer from spastic blinking whenever I get in front of a camera, so there's that too.
    Short story short, during a slow period at work near the end of the year, Bryan Jones suggested I get on Twitter. He had suggested it before. Every time I asked why he would respond, 'Because you're a writer.'
    So I joined, December 2, 2008.
    A lot of people at work joined after what can only be called a 'Come to Jesus/Social Media meeting,' leading me to want to start an #IwasherebeforeCJRW hashtag. Except I wasn't, because we all know @Bryanjones IS CJRW. :)
    I went to the next tweetup after that, the one at Copper Grill.
    I've been to several since then, but I'm kind of like the lame cousin that only shows up to the family reunions every other time and says stupid stuff.
    But that's just me.

  • http://twitter.com/mattbarnette Matt Barnette

    I'm part of this community. I am also not part of this community.

    I live in Little Rock, and while not a native, it has been my home for the better part of a decade. For years, I lived in my little bubble of TV production and seldom, if ever, ventured out to meet anyone outside of our myopic little society of camera guys, editors, and “producers” who ran all around the country shooting things and bring them back here to cut down to what could, for lack of a better term, be referred to as entertainment. Back in 2007, I read about John Edwards (yeah, yeah) on the campaign trail using something called “Twitter” to tell people where he was on his baby-kissing (and, I guess, in hindsight, baby *making*), hand shaking Presidential campaign trail.

    I was at once intrigued and kind of confused by the whole thing. As in, what would make someone put themselves out there with something like this, and also, what kind of creepy freak show of a human being would waste their time reading where someone was eating lunch or what they were doing?

    Anyway, I signed up as my musical alter ego, and tested the waters, mostly following celebrities and people I would stumble across that I thought were amusing (Cobra Commander, The Hulk, etc.) in hopes that I would eventually “get” Twitter. I eventually just went ahead and set up an account using my real name as I dislike a pseudonym more than just about anyone.

    All my friends and colleagues thought I was stupid for signing up to this site, and it was “just a fad”, but over time they've mostly signed up. I try my best to stay on the outside of the periphery. I have no intentions of injecting myself in the community for any sort of professional means, as I like to keep my opinions/jokes/thoughts/etc. and my 9-to-5 work as separate as possible.

    Where it is helpful is knowing that there are people thinking and doing entertaining things in the area code you live in. I won't say that Little Rock's Tweetup community is great, because really, I don't know the majority of you, and probably won't ever meet any of you, and I haven't been a legitimate part of it so it just isn't my place to say it. I just don't go out of my way to be that social. It's not that there's anything wrong with meeting people from the internet (hell, I met my wife there in the 90s), it's just that I have a capacity for being social and meeting hordes of people with a moderate string of related interests based solely around our shared nature to tell people where we're at, and what we're eating.

    Boil that down, though. At the heart of everything, isn't everyone reaching out to tell people their story? Where you've been, what you like, what you dislike, the list of things that make you go on and on. This isn't anything new. Twitter has just put it into clear and succinct, easy to follow, unbelievably simple to digest pieces. It's Clarity-To-Go. It serves a purpose.

    Therein lies my main problem with Tweetups, LJ Meetups (which, ironically, my wife and I actually founded in Central Arkansas), and any sort of meetup based on a communal want/need to find out what kind of people live in our community. It's the same kind of people that were there long before Twitter. There are brilliant, insightful, sincere, thought-provoking, geniuses doing amazing things. There are insular, sullen, folks doing unimaginable things. There are boring people, going through the motions, trying and failing to make a mark. You just have to look around. Listen instead of broadcast.

    It was all there before. Don't blame Twitter for it showing up in your viewfinder, finally. Maybe you just woke up from the National Coma the majority of the world seems to be in. Welcome to having your eyes open. No, I haven't been here for long, either. Enjoy your stay.

    I will say that I am friends with a decent chunk of the LR Tweetup community. I like their company very much when I can be dragged out of my office or my house. Amy Bradley-Hole, for instance, was one of the first I followed, just because I thought she was funny. I didn't care what her job was, or what she did…I just followed because she made me laugh sometimes.

    With all that being said, I realize what kind of people are out there, and I, more than anyone (and this will seem strange coming from me, probably) am in love with the world. I am constantly amazed, dumbfounded, and learning about the world I live in and the people who inhabit it. Sure, when life on our planet is gone it will barely be a blip on the galaxy's radar, but I am part of that larger community and it is beautiful and I am proud to have been a tiny speck of dust in it.

    I appreciate what Tweetup is trying to do. But it's not networking for me, and it's not a place for me to advance my career, and really it's not a place for me to make friends. It's a sociology experiment, and I'm happy the people who have allowed me to peek into their lives have done so. You are a fascinating bunch and I appreciate you. If you see me at the River Market at lunchtime, say hi.

  • http://stephswonderfullife.blogspot.com/ Stephanie Haley Williams
  • http://twitter.com/ARCCABlog John G. Anderson

    I'm going to be honest with you, at first I thought Twitter was going to go the way of Linkedln and that LR Tweet up's were going to be a place where artsy, latte drinking, egocentric busy bodies got together to pat each other on the back and tell each other how awesome they all are.

    Thankfully this has been far, far from the truth.

    I started using Twitter because I saw that it was quickly becoming a tool that groups like mine could use to disseminate information. Suddenly it was on the sidebar of every blog I read and every website I visited. I figured I had better get with the program.

    I'm not a social media guru, I'm not a communications specialist, I'm not even a tech wiz kid. I'm just a lowly blogger, and an accidental one at that. I was pretty much making it up as I went along and hoping it all worked out okay.

    The Refresh groups and the LR Tweet Up's I thought would be a good way for me to soak up information from people who did this kind of thing for a living. Also, I love meeting new and interesting people but I really didn't know what to expect. At the very least It would mean a couple of beers and staring at my watch so what the heck?! Right?!

    At the very first LR Tweet up I was pleasantly surprised to find very friendly, very out going people from all backgrounds and all walks of life. I re-connected with old friends from high school, met face to face people I had been convesring with yet had never shaken their hand and made some new friends along the way. Some went out of their way to make me feel welcome and I really appreciate it.

    Ive had offers to go on tours, offers to speak, offers to write, offers to go have a drink and It wasn't from people who follow the blog I write It was from Twitter and the people I've met on Twitter.

    So in kind of a corny way my life is a little bit richer because of the people I've met on Twitter and at the LR Tweet ups. I'm glad I got to meet each and every one of you. My paying gig sometimes conflicts with the get togethers but I try to make every one of them I can and I look forward to the next time.

    Thanks for the opportunity.

  • Pingback: Sharing your #LRtweetup story — #LRTweetup

  • merlisser
  • http://thedramatic.com sarabeth

    I'm SO glad he talked you into it. Because right after he talked you into it, he told me I should follow you – for the same reason – “because she's a writer.” What he means to say is you're a good one, and he knew I would love reading you even in 140 or less.

  • http://twitter.com/audcole Audreya Cole Parks
  • http://flairification.com/ BryanJones