Generally, you want a reminder about why a bit of expertise is so helpful.
After writing what was primarily an obituary about Twitter, I got here throughout a management podcast with the well-known pastor and management knowledgeable Andy Stanley.
Truthfully, it made me like Twitter a bit bit extra.
He was chatting with one other well-known luminary within the management area named John Maxwell. These guys know what they’re speaking about and are gifted communicators and e book authors. Your entire chat is on YouTube proper right here:
It was a passing remark about Twitter that caught my consideration.
Andy Stanley lately wrote a e book about division and battle, and he talked about how he makes use of Twitter to do a few of his analysis. He understands some folks don’t like Twitter, however he’s a fan. “I like Twitter, I comply with all types of individuals,” he stated.
Stanley went on to elucidate a remark he learn on Twitter and the way it impacted his writing and thought course of. The tweet he discovered had a nuance and an articulate expression that impressed him. “Issues could be solved the place there is usually a dialog with nuance,” he stated a bit later within the episode.
That final remark floored me. Wait, is he actually speaking about Twitter? The Twitter I like to hate? Sure, and that’s the nice hope with the platform, particularly as we enter a brand new time period when Elon Musk may be really buying the platform, and as we launch into a brand new political season within the coming weeks.
It additionally jogs my memory of one in every of my favourite quotes about social media, from the director and producer J.J. Abrams: “We reside in a second the place every thing instantly appears to default to outrage,” Abrams instructed EW.com not way back. “There’s an M.O. the place ‘it’s both precisely as I see it otherwise you’re my enemy’. It’s a loopy factor that there’s such a norm that appears to be devoid of nuance and compassion….we knew each determination we made would please somebody and infuriate another person.”
I like that abstract. It means Twitter has two choices.
One is to permit nuanced discussions, to supply salient data and good analysis to assist management specialists like Andy Stanley and e book authors like John Maxwell. The opposite is to let nuance result in fixed debate, the splitting of hairs over the fantastic factors of any and each subject beneath the solar. Nuance is definitely a optimistic phrase. It occurs once we discover the nuance of music, or an incredible speech, or an inventive expression. Nuance means there’s a subtlety of excellence and you need to search for it rigorously.
Stanley was hinting at one of many nice advantages of utilizing Twitter.
Yow will discover the nuance; it does exist. You possibly can uncover some wonderful truths, even with the character limits in place. I’ve seen numerous pithy statements, brief expressions of brilliance, and humorous (and nuanced) jokes. I hate to confess it in public, however I like these BuzzFeed round-ups of the very best Twitter jokes. They’re hilarious.
I hope that by no means adjustments. The opposite form of nuance results in splitting hairs and fixed pointless debate. The sky is blue, however probably not. Minor discrepancies are operating rampant and break your entire expertise. It appears to depend upon who’s tweeting and who’s studying the tweets. Everybody loses once we solely cut up hairs.
For now, each nuances exist. The optimistic variety exists, these golden nuggets that may assist e book authors specific in just a few phrases one thing that may change your life. The opposite nuance is competing for our consideration, championed by trolls.
Whether or not Twitter even survives depends upon which nuance wins out.