Tonight was #dsma. (It's every Wednesday @ 9PM EST if you're interested.) And so I got to talk with a number of other diabetics who are outside of my normal #doc feed.
While I don't have an exact number, I'd bet I follow fewer than 50 diabetics on Twitter. There are tons more. There are the celebrities of the community like @diabetic_iz_me or @diabetesalic that I don't follow. Absolutely nothing against them, but I use Twitter for bantering with real-life friends, political posturing and technical issues as well. They and many other core group of DOC members are so followed that the number of tweets in the timeline grows exponentially because not only do I see them, I see the bantering between them and everyone else too. It's part of it being a community but given the tools I have, volume-control is the best way to keep Twitter generally useful.
#dsma is a way around that problem. For once a week, I can forsake all matters non-diabetic and see the spectrum of peoples and their thoughts. One hope from this blog is I can follow more in a less instant manner. Still won't see every thought, but it enables seeing more than I would on Twitter alone. And until I can handle the volume on day-to-day Twitter, #dsma is the outlet to the community at large.
this makes me feel even more honored to have you following me! especially since i follow few people without diabetes! ;)
ReplyDeletebut that is the power of #dsma to bring people together. so glad you're a part of the DOC!
What a great post, Brian. It's interesting, the Twitter-verse! I didn't start until a fellow D-blogger mentioned it to me back in early 2009 and so that was my entry. But now, many of my non-D friends have started and so more and more are getting engaged in Twitter-use. But yes, so much of it comes down to time and what we need as far as regular interaction. Now, I'm interested in your political posturing... :))
ReplyDeleteMichael, not sure you really want to see my politics :) Politically I run contrary to many diabetic interests. The UN NCD situation was the last one in recent memory. From everything I understood about it, I opposed involvement in it. Not exactly a popular position in the #DOC.
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