Businessman & lawyer Tom Kilroy @kilroyt, on how @campbellclaret kick-started his journey on Twitter.
Why do I tweet?
It’s an interesting question. There are various ways to try to answer it. At the most literal, I tweet because Alistair Campbell (@campbellclaret) persuaded me it was good idea during an evening in a bar in January 2011 (orange juice for him, beer for me and the others present). We were at the Pinsent Masons client retreat and Alistair was a speaker. Tim Bratton of the FT (@legalbrat – already by then an experienced tweeter) was also there. We had a good debate about social media and its relevance to lawyers. The attendees at the retreat were mostly senior lawyers. Few of them, including me, could honestly call themselves “early adopters”.
Alistair’s a persuasive sort of fellow. I paraphrase slightly, but he said something along these lines …
“This isn’t just about what you had for breakfast. There’s a whole generation coming into the workforce for whom this is completely normal. If you aren’t on Twitter and part of the conversation, they won’t hear from you. Whole industries are changing because of it. If you’re in the movie business, it used to be the case that you advertised your film heavily, and first Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights were guaranteed to be big at the box office. Now, if the film’s a dud, now matter how big your marketing budget, it’s dead on Friday night. Everyone on Twitter has reviewed it already.”
It was hard to argue with the man. So I decided to sign up for Twitter and see how it went.
Tips
The next question was where to start? That was fairly easy. The core of what I tweet about is a topic on which I have something to say and a point of view that might interest other people – the role of lawyers in business. At the same time as signing up to Twitter, I started a blog on that same subject. I don’t limit my tweets to this topic, because I think that would be very one-dimensional. But I try to make sure I return to this theme periodically.
In deciding who to follow, I began by taking other people’s recommendations. If you had limitless amounts of time, it would be possible to follow thousands of interesting people. I don’t have much available time, so I mostly choose to follow people who tweet about aspects of the practice of law, although by no means exclusively.
The people I find most interesting on Twitter tend to have a wry sense of humour, with a core area of thought-provoking content and a smattering of other information around that. Some, such as Paul Gilbert (@lbcwisecounsel), have long running and amusing themes, in his case the excellent “unwritten rules”. Beyond that, all the interesting tweeters are prepared to get into a conversation. Those who simply set themselves to “transmit” and don’t engage are very off-putting.
Twitter and Work
Is Twitter relevant to my work? Not really. The company I work for has recently had a conversion to social media, but honestly I couldn’t say I’m on Twitter for work reasons. I meet lawyers in a work context who follow my tweets or say “I’ve read your blog”, normally followed by positive feedback. But it doesn’t go much further than that. In the boardroom, the fact that I like Twitter (by which I mean really like it and use it regularly) is regarded as slightly eccentric and is the subject of jokes.
But, looking at it from the other angle, it’s hardly as if senior business leaders have made a good job of making themselves seem normal or explaining to people that they have motivations that go beyond personal financial gain. Personally, I think those who believe Twitter is purely about trivia are rather missing the point. Which is, I think, part of what Alistair was saying in the first place.
What are the best and worst things about Twitter?
There are two really stand-out positives about Twitter. The first is how it makes the world flat. You can exchange tweets with everyone from QCs to law students to professors on the same topic. They take part and you hear directly from them. It’s very informal and immediate and it breaks down hierarchies entirely.
The second positive is the chance to connect with people working in different areas that you otherwise would not likely come across. As an example, I went to a fascinating seminar hosted by The Justice Gap after meeting Kim Evans (@LifeInCustody) on Twitter. The topic was an area of law in which I don’t practice, but which is nonetheless very interesting. I’ve met several people in real life after initially coming across them on Twitter, all of which meetings I’ve greatly enjoyed. It’s enriching to be able to listen to people with different viewpoints doing different kinds of things.
The worst thing about Twitter is the anger. Mostly the discussion is humorous and intelligent. But there is clearly a lot of repressed rage out there and Twitter does seem to act as a channel for angry people venting. Some of the behaviour is of a kind you’d be amazed by if it happened in person.
I enjoy Twitter. I don’t have as much time for it as I’d like. But it’s like a continuously entertaining and thought-provoking discussion at a drinks party with an amazingly eclectic guest list, taking place only a couple of clicks away.
Why wouldn’t you join in?
The Blog is on holiday next week.
“Why I tweet” is back on 22 August with @probation_pract, a frontline probation officer who loves Twitter for the chance to engage in country-wide professional debate.
Get Russell’s free guide to Twitterfectiveness.
