“All too often programs are initiated in the spirit of doing something meaningful and aspirational, yet degrade to the point of becoming meaningless and even fueling resignation and cynicism.”

I’ve certainly seen this happen in schools and youth programs for children, and I think it has a lot to do with your recent post, “A Problem with Problem Solving.” People tend to have a lot of answers, but may not be asking all the right questions before they provide those answers. Once a program is set in motion, it’s also kind of like playing a game of “telephone.” The original intention or message is significantly altered as it passes through more and more people.

I am relatively new to Twitter, and I have stayed away from #followfriday because I didn’t really understand what it was about. I was afraid I would hurt someone’s feelings if I left them out. I tend to be extremely selective when it comes to the recommendations on my blog, and such is also the case with my Twitter posts.

I will give #followfriday more thought, and maybe I will give it a try. It certainly is a wonderful idea. In the meantime, it is Friday today, so I tweeted this post because I think that every person who uses Twitter would benefit from reading it!

Thank you for yet another thought-provoking post.

Fortunately we can choose whose tweets we follow and even who can see ours so we can build the kind of community we want.

@JoeWilliams The pull to just go through the motions is unfortunately strong as well.

@MarianSparks All great points. It is so easy to fall into a trance. Was happy to have my trance broken! We also seem to be compelled to efficiency at the expense of effectiveness. This is just one example of that.

What a great post and discussion! I love the energy from the commenters. In the spirit of not rehashing what’s already been discussed, I offer the following as my approach/two cents….

*READ the recommendations of who you trust

Building relationships virtually through Twitter requires us to heighten our other senses in order to get a “feel” for whether the person is credible, genuine and worthy of our attention! So when Tweeps I know (you, @cmusciano, @strategicsense, etc) recommend people, I pay attention. Then decide whether to follow.

–side comment–
I must confess it drives me batty to read a list of @’s. And if you could be a fly on the wall when I have my Tweetdeck open, you’d hear me mumbling, “so what?!” or “and?!” in response to someone recommending a twitterer as “great” or submitting a list of names. A UK twitter/skype friend laughs when I cringe at the word “great” to describe me. It does nothing for me personally (i.e. what did I DO, so I can keep doing it?) and people who don’t know the endorser can’t gauge the difference between “great”, “good” or “mediocre” because they don’t “know” the person.

*REINFORCE the desired behavior

When I catch people doing #followfriday “good” by taking the time to provide meaning with their recommendations, I make a point to thank them specifically for that action. And I include the #followfriday hashtag. It makes me feel wonderful to recognize the person(s). And it encourages them to repeat the behavior. And if doing so influences others to stop for a moment to think, then I’m happy.

When you see tweet after tweet with a list of names and then an “odd” tweet that is targeted, the “trance” is broken even if for just 2 seconds! And THAT gets attention.

What’s interesting about Twitter is that community enclaves (group of followers) cross boundaries on #followfriday. And that’s where these value systems and behaviors collide.

The truth is that if there is an easy route, most people take it. It’s easy to list a bunch of names. As this blog community knows, it takes time, care and skill to craft a meaningful tweet recommending a person(s) in 140 characters! And that’s what distinguishes the leaders from the followers. They lead by example, even when no one or everyone is looking.

Thanks for allowing me to share!

I see #followfriday as a way for me to share interesting people worth following. When I first created an account with Twitter I had no one to follow. I slowly built a list of interesting people to follow based on other people’s recommendations of who they thought was interesting. Since I mostly connect with people in my network, or people I find interesting, this has allowed me to organically grow a Twitter stream that is interesting and stimulating. People who #followfriday just to grow followership quickly drop from my stream.

I am really beginning to think that Twitter has jumped the shark (or jumped the Fail Whale?). This obsession with followers is dysfunctional. Twitter is an incredibly valuable tool to keep network links fresh. It is also useful as a information source from interesting people. Beyond that, it is being polluted by marketers trying to build customer bases, social media “experts” who see a gold mine in consulting opportunities, and insecure individuals who are obsessed with the number of followers they have.

As a tool to keep links fresh between me and the people in my network it is an amazing communication tool. You will have to wrestle Twitter from my cold, dead hands for that reason alone. But beyond that, the Twitterspere has become quite noisy.

@gwyn Acknowledgment is certainly the core. And authentic and public acknowledgment is a great way to build community, too.

@cmusciano I want to build on your point about having a sustainable plan and an exit strategy.” I think the biggest problem with the way many programs are designed is they are activity based vs. outcome based. The outcome gives the activity meaning and helps you know to change the way you are doing things when they aren’t working. Also any activity that is disconnected from a larger purpose is hard to sustain, especially when it involves extra work that doesn’t have a short term payoff. I also think that the best exit strategy is based on achieving the desired outcome. Once a practice is sustainable without formal process it is no longer a program, but rather has become a cultural norm.

This post exactly mirrors my frustration with #followfriday: tweet after tweet of random Twitter accounts. How do you make sense of it? Going forward, I pledge to tweet one at a time, with a good reason.

Your larger view of programs like this is spot on as well. So many useful program start out big and fizzle into mundane failures. In my organization, we often have these great ideas but then catch ourselves: are you willing to maintain this practice *forever*? If not, why not? If so, what will it take? Not that everything lasts forever, but if you can’t come up with a sustainable plan and an exit strategy, you may not want to start.

That’s why good blogging is so hard. It’s easy to write the first ten articles; it’s hard to write the next 200. Similarly, I had a friend that was a “near professional” musician. He claimed that anyone can produce one good album. It’s the second one that separates the stars from the also-rans.

I think though, that the notion around #followfriday is acknowledgement.

Just to be mentioned may be enough for some people but I think most of us want to feel that the folks recommending us see something in us that is worth sharing…and we kind of want to know what that something is too.

As you so cleverly pointed out, this gift of acknowledgement carries over into other areas of life and most certainly into organizations where people often crave opportunities to be held as unique.

@jerryroberts I too have seen the “check the box” mentality you refer to. I think a lot of people still think there is no way to effectively deal with the soft stuff so they put a program together seeking to get an A for effort. I think that is why coaching support beyond the training is essential for successful implementation of new learning.