The trouble with twitter: context
I love Twitter. Twitter has helped to push me off of Facebook and into my own space, here at the Big Bad Blog. It provides an interesting way to interact with friends and strangers online, and is a fantastic interface for sharing random thoughts that occur to me at any time, in any place. While it may make me seem boring on some days, I hope it occasionally makes it seem like I lead an interesting and insightful life.
But social media can be a landmine, and Twitter is no exception. Take the case of the Man from Ketchum.
Ketchum has an office in New York. Federal Express has their head offices in Memphis. The Man from Ketchum arrives at a hotel in Memphis to work with the FedExers and Twitters:
I’m in one of those towns where I scratch my head and say “I would die if I had to live here”
A FedEx employee finds this and responds with an e-mail, copying FedEx and Ketchum executives and directors, essentially ripping him a new one on this basis.
What happened here? Clearly the Man from Ketchum did not mean to offend anybody.
Ask yourself: Have you ever found yourself in a place and thought: I would not want to live here. Did it mean that you did not like the place? Maybe. Maybe not. All it really meant is that you do not want to live there.
The employee at FedEx lists problems near the airport — crime, prostitution, potholes — indicating some thought went into why the Man from Ketchum might have had a bad first impression. It does not occur to him that the Man from Ketchum is from “the city that never sleeps”. Somebody from New York is probably not arriving in another city and bemoaning what is there — they would bemoan something they are accustomed to and is missing. The Memphian’s laundry list of problems is a list of why locals leave. “The potholes” is not a likely reason for someone who has been in Memphis for three hours to not want to live there.
In fact, it is unlikely that the FedEx employee is upset with the Man from Ketchum at all — he is just a convenient scapegoat for FedEx management’s decision to outsource some work to Ketchum, rather than keeping it in house. But that is a digression — the anger is pouring out towards the Man from Ketchum (and Ketchum itself) all the same.
While there is clearly a disconnect between the Man from Ketchum and the FedEx employee, what is truly at play is the complete lack of context. Had the Man from Ketchum blogged, context would have been provided. The reason for Memphis not being a suitable location for the Man from Ketchum to reside would have been clear and most likely unoffensive. Perhaps disaster would have been averted.
The average person is not used to having bits of their words or thoughts clipped and broadcast, as though they were a politician or celebrity. Politicians make a science of this — every sentence, every word constructed so the “sound bite” cannot be used against them in the press. Athletes make a mockery of it, with their “give 110%” type speech, devoid of originality.
Suddenly, everybody on Twitter is a potential victim of the out-of-context sound bite — and they do it to themselves. Twitter is fast, in your pocket, and immediately broadcast to millions of people you do not know. If you say the wrong thing, your audience knows no limits.
Which does not mean that you should stop writing interesting things. Just be prepared for the damage control.
The lesson of the Man from Ketchum is not to “be careful what you say”, but to imagine the context that in which your readers might place your words. Easier said than done.
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