@Clare_McGregor is a self-employed consultant who has spent most of the last two years developing a coaching service in Styal prison for free. Read her Blog about this work.
Tweets by @Clare_McGregor
Hello. What do you do?
Be wary of sitting near me on a train or standing next to me in a queue. I love working out how much of a laugh changing the world with new people will be and Twitter’s my virtual extension of this.
I run my consultancy as a social enterprise (i.e. to change lives, not make me rich). I bring people together and help voluntary and statutory organisations develop.
This is infinitely more fun than it sounds. Ten years ago I decided to be curious not furious.
This means all my energy now goes into working with offenders, communities and people like you to reduce inequality and change the culture of our society.
Through the gate
I set up two Twitter accounts a year ago after watching a friend to see how it worked. Once I found my tweet I realised I could support others and let people laugh at my many flaws rather than bore them with how fabulously inspirational my facilitation skills are.
The prison wanted me to keep quiet about coaching initially so I did my best to be careful and tweeted as Alex Swift @UrsaCara. However, this just meant I regularly blew my own cover and fretted about the Official Secrets Act. On reflection, it may have been a little over the top giving the cats pseudonyms too.
Now we’ve gone public @Clare_McGregor shares ideas, quotes and reflections about HMP Styal and it’s @UrsaCara who goes cycling in office hours or mouse-catching after midnight.
I don’t tweet to get work, just as I don’t ‘network’ or sell what I do in real life. Instead both leadership coaching and consultancy seem to come my way regardless.
Most excitingly, thanks to unseen Twitter connections, I’ve been asked if I’d like to write a book based on the Coaching with Styal blog. [You heard it here first – Ed.] Twitter’s fabulous but the blog takes people into the heart of the prison with longer stories, including future ones told by prisoners themselves.
ReTweets and MeTweets
I read everything tweeted by those I follow and I mean everything. I know it’s odd but I don’t dip in and out, because I really care how people are. I really don’t mean to be rude if I don’t follow you. However much I love you I can still get overwhelmed by too many tweets.
The ways I keep sane are to:
- turn off most RTs because I’m interested in what you have to say.
- follow the blogs of prolific tweeters and put them on Lists to scan at a glance.
- cut down on weekend and evening work tweets, as most people only have one account and like a break from the day job.
MeTweets put me off too. You know the ones where people retweet #FFs or tweets in which someone else praises them? I find myself thinking: “I know you’re great that’s why I follow you!” Please give me a friendly kick whenever I do a MeTweet myself as they can be irresistible at times.
Handle with care
A (new) friend surprised me when he wrote: “people interact here on a fairly superficial basis as it’s difficult to form trust with an internet entity.”
I know I’ve formed strong and supportive friendships behind the scenes (and more openly) on Twitter. You don’t even need to trust completely to do this (although I tend to trust unless my instincts say otherwise).
I’m very open about details that are online anyway but don’t share identifying information (such as my birthday). I’m still vague about where I live too, even though finding me would be easy enough (and being regularly spattered in cycling mud narrows it down).
What I’m really careful about is my client confidentiality, even though I have permission to share anonymous tales. The ways I do this are to:
- Delay some tweets so that quotes or stories are not directly connected to that day’s clients.
- Draft and don’t send 1 in 5 tweets, particularly replies, to avoid boring or scandalising people.
The joy
Twitter’s addictive and I watch very little television now, as it’s much more likely to make me laugh or teach me something interesting .
My supportive and hilarious followers (most of whom I’ve never met and many I’ve never spoken to) are a constant source of banter, information and inspiration. I work alone at home so Twitter is my vast virtual office with everyone sat at a desk right opposite me. It’s not just a day thing either. Last Saturday I put out an “Anyone else awake?” tweet at 02:47 and three insomniacs and an American said yes.
People wander past too so I catch snippets of conversations or, best of all, the mistweets of half heard DMs or missed off mentions. I also love the way profile pics and bios challenge our assumptions. I laughed when someone rang to chat (after we’d ‘met’ through Twitter) and was very surprised I didn’t have a broad Lancashire accent.
And the pain
As I was writing this on Tuesday 19 September I learnt PC Fiona Bone and PC Nicola Hughes had been brutally murdered . I’ve worked with Greater Manchester Police for nearly a decade and this hit hard. Twitter brought me the horrific news but it also meant I could unobtrusively follow people I know and love who are devastatingly affected by the atrocity and offer support behind the scenes without needing to ask how they are.
Twitter is there for us all at times of joy as well as times of extreme personal and collective sorrow. It helps us to remember friends and colleagues who are not sat at a nearby desk and to ensure that those who are no longer with us are never forgotten.
Next Wednesday: Sara Williams, @lincolnslawyer, a pupil barrister at 5 St. Andrew’s Hill, who specialises in criminal law, on why she tweets.
Get Russell’s free guide to Twitterfectiveness.
