Friday, October 28, 2011

Follow Friday Director's Cut

And now for something completely different... (Actually this can't possibly be an original idea. Can it?)

140 characters sometimes just isn't enough to adequately express why people should care about your Follow Friday tweet. The idea of Follow Friday Director's Cut (or #FFDC) is to give your followers a bit more of an idea of why you follow somebody and why they might want to as well.

I know that part of Follow Friday's charm is its relative ease. I also know that I follow a lot of bloggers, many of whom revel in finding les mots justes, ease be damned. Follow Friday is fundamentally about providing positive feedback, and G215 taught me that feedback is more meaningful when it's specific.

So without further ado...

My first #FFDC is @georgewenzel. George is a federal public servant from Edmonton and a very active member of the #GoC community on Twitter. One of the things I like best about George is that he often posts great links that I don't see anywhere else. The first post of George's that I retweeted was an article about prioritizing fatherhood and rejecting lifestyle inflation. He's a tech geek but he comes up with stuff like 7 High-leverage life skills they should teach in grade school and 10 Things You Should Be Able To Say Before You Die. Interesting, thought-provoking stuff that otherwise doesn't usually show up in my tweet stream, which skews fairly techie. George would also be a good "gateway" follow if you're in the GoC, new to Twitter, and interested in finding other actively engaged public servants.

I'd love for this idea to catch on, and if you think it's cool, I'd appreciate a retweet, or better yet, an #FFDC of your own. I'm planning to do more of them regardless, and any feedback would be welcome!