Why I Hired Twitter
Nine months ago, I had few footprints in the land of social media. Sure, I had the obligatory LinkedIn account, because if you are gainfully employed or seek to be, that’s what you do. A friend of mine educated me about Facebook, promoting its obvious benefit of helping me keep up with old friends. While that remains an interesting notion, I haven’t hired Facebook. I’m simply not interested in everything that everyone is doing all of the time. I also have no interest in sharing what I am doing all of the time and my privacy radar is fairly sensitive. I’m just not ready to be part of the algorithms. Finally, I don’t want to spend time maintaining a page, curating my life for all to see. I know that I could probably use Facebook in a way that suits me, but there’s just not enough pulls, no big push — plenty of anxieties. And it doesn’t seem like something I can undo.
For those of you familiar with Jobs to be Done Theory, the words “hire”, “pulls”, “pushes” and “anxieties” likely resonate. If you are not, it’s really easy to get on Twitter to learn about it. If you haven’t hired Twitter yet, you can hire Google to learn about Jobs to be Done. I’ll just cover the basics here. The definition provided by Harvard Business School’s Prof. Clayton Christensen is that a job is “the progress that a person is trying to make in a particular circumstance.” Jobs arise in our lives, and we hire products to perform them. It’s an elegant yet simple theory, and Prof. Christensen has provided wonderful language to help us explain why we pull products into our lives. Or anything, for that matter.
Jobs to be Done was a push for me to hire Twitter last year. I had been learning the theory through the excellent podcasts produced by The Rewired Group and was hungry for more. I was also trying to learn other methods of innovation as my career was evolving beyond strategic planning into the realms of product development and consumer experience. Some of my coworkers were on Twitter, which was a pull. It was easy to see who they were following, so in no time I had a decent feed established. My anxiety was fairly low, since your Twitter profile is easy to create and by necessity it’s short. I felt a little nervous “being out there”, but felt like I had good control over my footprint.
I quickly learned what an amazing product Twitter is. I had easy, nearly unfettered access to great content. Nine months later, I still only follow 60 or so people or sites — even that small number is a lot to keep up with. I see what they like, and that opens new avenues of learning. What I didn’t expect is the opportunity for personal connection. If I read a tweet, listen to a podcast, or read an article or book that I value, I can let that person know directly that I appreciate their work and their insights. That is simply amazing to me. Often those people respond back with genuine appreciation for the recognition. It blows my mind that I’ve experienced even a minuscule connection with these incredibly talented individuals, some of whom are on the other side of the world. Some of the connections have been more substantive and beneficial for my work.
Twitter is free. The ads don’t impede my user experience, and I’ve never clicked into one. (Sorry Twitter) But I do give it something of value — my time and attention. I don’t function well on less sleep, and I need to work a good bit, so time is finite. Magazines used to appear on my coffee table because I hired them — Sports Illustrated, and I hate to admit, guilty pleasures such as People and Entertainment magazine. After hiring Twitter, the magazines piled up. I fired Entertainment and now People goes straight to my mother-in-law, which makes her very happy. I don’t have the heart to fire SI yet, and I probably won’t because I’m male. But it’s going mostly unread. I don’t feel bad about shifting my time and attention to Twitter, because I’m reading more substantive material and learning much more professionally relevant and interesting things.
So, what jobs did I hire Twitter to do? One is more functional: When I am undertaking a next phase in my career, help me easily access relevant content, so that I can quickly gain new knowledge and skills. I’ve learned more in the past year than the previous five. Professionally, I’m rejuvenated. That’s not just due to Twitter — there’ve been other larger and more impactful developments. But Twitter has played a role.
The second job is more social and emotional: When I am undertaking a next phase in my life, help me express myself and connect with interesting people with similar interests, so that I can feel relevant on a larger stage. I’m 49. If you’ve been 49 or thought much about being 49, it’s a time for some reflection and often change. It manifests differently for different people — some positively, some not so much. I’m naturally somewhat introverted and have never required a large network of friends or contacts for fulfillment. Nor do I require much recognition. However, at this stage of life — which is certainly a work in progress — the occasional opportunities to post a thoughtful tweet that a couple of people might like are gratifying. (By the way, when I say a couple, I really mean, like, two. I have no pretensions or worries about being a very small Twitter presence.) I’m also learning more each day that it’s gratifying to express appreciation to people, and Twitter provides a unique opportunity to do so with highly accomplished people whom I may never meet.
There are clearly other jobs for which people hire Twitter that I can appreciate, but don’t necessarily have. At this point in time, I don’t use it much for news, debate, activism or some personal interest. I have a fairly defined set of professional interests and my jobs for which I hire Twitter are related to those. As my circumstances change over time, other jobs may become more important to me and my hiring criteria could evolve.
I hope Twitter is able to solve its business model problem. I haven’t studied their history yet, but have heard some of the criticisms about their inability to innovate, and I do understand their challenge to monetize in a world in which Google and Facebook vacuum up unbelievable sums of ad revenue. But like many active users, for me, Twitter is an amazing window into the world, and it performs my jobs magnificently.
