Running and attention

My mom loves aphorisms (sometimes cliches). One I remember: You can't please all the people all the time. It's true. This public unfollowing got me thinking about how we use social media and capture lasting attention.

I've gotten a couple complaints about feeding my workout information to Twitter. Not many, but definitely a few. First, an explanation about the origin of this information. It comes from DailyMile , a great social training site that I use to keep track of my running, swimming and biking. One of the options it has is to tie the info into your existing social networks. This is pretty smart, in my opinion.

At times, I feel pretty goofy about this. I don't update Twitter on how much I've run to show off as some super athlete. I'm not. I do it because running (and now training for a triathlon) is an important part of what I do. If you buy into the theory of ambient intimacy, these are precisely the updates that fill in the picture. It's not part of a strategy. I started using Twitter not as a professional tool but a way to keep in touch with a few friends and family members. It became something different, but I'd rather that didn't completely change what I share, even if plenty of people, like former follower David Felfoldi, find it superfluous. Most of my followers are in some way in the marketing industry. I understand that. But several dozen are runners or endurance athletes not very interested in ad stuff. I've thought about and decided against having a separate account for running. Would I then need a separate account for French mimes? As Michael Lebowitz said, "One thing Twitter isn't is one thing." This is why Fred Wilson continues to intersperse his updates related to digital media and innovation with music recommendations. Fred is not just a VC. He's passionate about music.

The interesting part I've found is that when I run into people, what they remember is the running updates. They're only about 10% of what I write, but they're what captures lasting attention. My guess is they're somewhat unique, as opposed to the usual blather about marketing. Just this morning, three people mentioned my running updates (in a positive way, I think) when we spoke at an event. This is always the case. That's nice because running is something I'm quite passionate about. This is the flip side to an experience I had a year ago when I used Twitter to complain about intrusive and brain-dead PR practices. Even though PR also was never more than 10 percent of what I wrote, many people thought it was much more. I soon realized this was a bad thing. The last thing I want to be known as is a PR scold. Mike Arrington can do that. That's why I don't write about PR anymore, for the most part. They're not for everyone. A year ago, my running updates and PR complaints became a key part of a Twitter doppelganger's @fakebmorrissey act.

What it teaches me is something I wrote about earlier: the need for differentiation. There are hundreds of people out there sharing the same links, making the same observations and cracking similar wisecracks. Twitter is wonderful, yet completely ephemeral. It's the things outside the norm that capture people's attention. What's more, it's things you're genuinely passionate about that capture attention. The great promise of social media is there's no faking it. People will find you out, whether it's a company or individual, if you're not what you present. The cost is some people won't like it and will unfollow me. I'm OK with that.

Comments

[Uwe Hook]

I had the same experience: People were asking me why I post my running updates, were fairly annoyed by it. As if I wanted to show off. I just wanted to expand on my Twitter identity and be more than a link farm. Sharing more personal information transforms us from 2-D avatars to 2.5-D people. Time will tell if this space will evolve to a place where we become 3-D.
P.S.: 5 miles in 39 minutes at the crazy hour of 5.20am.

[Ana Andjelic]

That dude is a douche. He is posting his own workout routines, but somehow they are not measuring up. If he is really a "triathlon-wannabe" as his twitter bio claims, wouldn't he be inspired by your updates? Like this, he just came across as jealous. Bad promo.

[Connie Brown]

I'm a whole person so sometimes I Tweet my workouts, my kids stuff, my work stuff, it just depends. I do get folks complaining that they don't want to see work or they don't want to see personal. Well, I'm a package deal. You want to follow me, you get the whole me.

And I like seeing other folks running updates, it keeps me motivated!

[Janeen]

I wish you'd post less about advertising. It really annoys me. ;)

[Ben Kunz]

Authenticity lies in the details.

Twitter reminds me of what Sean McGuire, the character played by Robin Williams, said in "Good Will Hunting"...

My wife's been dead two years, Will.
And when I think about her, those are
the things I think about most. Little
idiosyncrasies that only I knew about.
Those made her my wife. And she had
the goods on me too. Little things I
do out of habit. People call these
things imperfections Will. It's just
who we are. And we get to choose who
we're going to let into out weird
little worlds. You're not perfect.
And let me save you the suspense, this
girl you met isn't either. The question
is, whether or not you're perfect for
each other. You can know everything
in the world, but the only way you're
findin' that one out is by giving it a
shot. You sure won't get the answer
from an old fucker like me. And even
if I did know, I wouldn't tell you.

[@bethbellor]

On the flip side, your blog was in my "read occasionally" folder and I found this post interesting enough to check out your tweets and then follow you. How many people are monotopical? I don't care about Arizona politics either, but some of @wbaustin's recipes and even some of the old jokes are worthwhile enough that I overlook what doesn't interest me. It's not that hard to screen, folks.

[Michael Maurillo]

Nice use of the anti-link bait "link bait" for this article via your tweet...

Your point on passion is a great real-life example of why the brands that do have a passion beyond (read: in addition to) selling their product and aren't afraid to express it actually stand out amongst all the sameness. If I think about the people I enjoy following on twitter there is always at least one thing that I know they're passionate about - @ischafer it's the Mets, @armano his motorcycle, @darrellwhitelaw single-gear cycling, @socialmedium her 'boy', @bud_caddell LOLcats... and so on. What they all have in common is 'marketing', but to your point that is not what immediately comes to mind (consciously or not) when I think about them. And I like that.

If brands only communicated the way David wants you to communicate, then everything would just be "feature lists". Important, relevant, but pretty boring if you ask me.

[Erik Wennerstrom]

I like the variety of updates that come from the people I follow on Twitter. You find out more things you have in common that way.

[Tanya]

Nice post. I feel the same way about Facebook. I have friends from every part of my life you could think of -- people I've known since I was 7 and those who I only know superficially via work. I have school friends from h.s., college, law school. And then there's all the people I know via animal rescue and animal law. So everyone gets to read about everything. And so far no one has complained or publicly unfriended me (Facebook is now calling it "remove connection" by the way, which cracks me up. I guess "unfriend" was too mean.)

[@mikimel]

I could not agree more with your last paragraph. So I've Posted it on my blog.

[David Felfoldi]

Brian, Glad to hear my tweet inspired these thoughts. I completely agree with you on ambient intimacy -- see my own tweets to see I share your passion in triathlon training.

Please read my blog response to understand what I was trying to say in 142 characters.
http://felfoldi.wordpress.com/2009/07/15/twitter-etiquette/

[RunShorts]

I blog about running and I tweet about running. 90% of the people I follow on twitter exclusively tweet about running. Most of my 'followers' are runners, so no complaints (so far) on my lack of diversity in tweet topics. We are a group chattering about a common passion/hobby/goal and that, to me, is the appeal of twitter - the connections are based on shared interests, not some chance meeting in sixth grade that compels you to be "friends" later in life on a social networking site.

[Brian Morrissey]

Thanks for the thoughts. It's an interesting topic. David makes an interesting point: Many, if not most, of my followers are because of my professional role. Whether I intended that or not, it's a fact. And I admittedly take that into account with some of my updates. I don't talk about personal things, for example. (David and I disagree about whether running info is personal.) Maybe it's the DailyMile updates themselves that are irrelevant rather than updating about running. Admittedly, most people don't need to know the stats side of workouts. That makes sense, although I wonder why these updates are the ones that stick with people. Perhaps I'll try shutting those off and updating about running whenever something strikes me. As my friend Kamau said to me the other night, "Unless you see a dead body on your run, I don't really need to know about it."

[Jim Killinger]

As you know, I am not one of your followers that pays too much attention to the professional side of your life. Though I care, I am personally more into the personal observations that you make in your twitter updates (sidewalk pictures of Michael Jackson, comparisons of CitiField vs. Yankee Stadium, how the Eagles are doing, or how much cream cheese you get on your bagels to name a few favorites). However, as someone who also uses DailyMile to track workouts (and gets some heat on Facebook for it), I appreciate learning updates from others who also enjoy running and are training towards a goal. I would encourage you to continue to do so.

In terms of someone publicly breaking up with you because of these updates, I think that Ana summed it up pretty nicely. However, I would have referred to him as a 'total douche.' I guess that is just my own literary flare.

[Adam Kleinberg]

I had a similar experience when Spymaster mania rippled through Twitter a month back. Except it was my Creative Director telling me I HAD TO shut off auto-tweets from the game or he was going to stop following me.

I think an interesting phenomenon is emerging. Call it Auto-Tweet Pollution?

One of the things I love about 3rd party apps is the ease with which I can manage multiple accounts. From my Seesmic dashboard I control @adamkleinberg, @traction and my Facebook feed thrown in for good measure. If I were to sign up for something like Spymaster or DailyMile again I'd probably create a unique account for it.

My 2 cents.

[Eugene Mandel]

Rather than the writer creating a new Twitter account for every topic he tweets about ("personal", "running", "spymaster", "marketing"), the reader's Twitter client could allow filtering the feed by topic. I have not seen a Twitter client like that yet (suggestions?). Here is a good illustration for possible UI: the personalized news website http://jaanix.com/ (disclosure: created by a friend of mine) used sliders. If today you are interested in running, but not in marketing, you just tune up the "running" slider and tune down the "marketing" one. The client adjusts your feed accordingly.

[Alan Wolk]

It's funny Brian: you and I both started messing with Twitter back when it was still more of a way to keep up with an extended group of friends. I remember being somewhat surprised when strangers started following me (e.g. people whom I had zero connection to, not just friends of friends whom I hadn't actually met) because I couldn't imagine what I had to say that would be of interest to someone who didn't actually know me.

Like you, I've never really changed my tweeting style all that much: much of it is work related, some is personal, some is stuff I read that I think is interesting enough to share with my friends. If others want to come along for the ride, more power to them.

Keep up your running tweets. You and I are good enough real life friends that I know it's a big part of who you are and it's as big a part of who you are as my kids' sports teams or Armano's motorcycle or Schafer's Mets' obsession. And if people who don't know you are bummed that you're not interested in becoming nothing more than their personal ad world news feed, then good riddance. You're doing this for yourself, not them.

And as someone who can barely break a 10 minute mile, I'm always in awe of the fact that I actually know someone who, at time, is close to breaking 7;)

[Stephanie Gerson]

"I've thought about and decided against having a separate account for running. Would I then need a separate account for French mimes?..."

without requiring separate accounts, Facebook enables users to decide which networks of friends get to see which of their data streams, e.g. read their updates, see their pictures, etc. might this be desirable for Twitter, or does ambient intimacy trump content-oriented relevance?

"What it teaches me is something I wrote about earlier: the need for differentiation."

in Seth Godin's word, your tweets should be purple cows ;)

[Joe A]

You should tweet as you please. If someone only tweets just one thing constantly, then it may get boring at a certain point. A little variety is always good. And as you quoted Michael Lebowitz's saying on twitter, that applies to anyone who is on twitter.

[BigJimSlade]

The reality is that 99.9% of the Twitterati have nothing interesting to say. It's simply dividing people's '15 minutes of fame' into smaller and smaller increments.

And some will wish they had their full 15 minutes back, when something truly original runs across their cerebellum.

[Tom Hume]

I've not seen your updates, but I tend to find statistics on recent runs from other folks I follow pretty uninteresting... if they've run 12k on Wednesday and 10k on Monday that's great, but on Wednesday I won't have remembered where they're coming from.

So could I suggest that, if this is the case for you, your tweets don't deliver stats on calories burned, distance run, time taken, but details on improvements (or degradation) since last time? That'd be a bite-sized update with a bit more context, which your friends and followers could usefully comment on...

[WapamumsSar]

Thank you for details. It helped me in my mission