“We need a witness to our lives. There’s a billion people on the planet… I mean, what does any one life really mean? ‘Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go un-witnessed because (twitter) will be your witness’.” (Shall we dance, 2004)

Its becoming increasingly apparent to me that twitter is playing a familiar role in my life, its just packaged differently, and I wonder if in yours?

Late last year I left the comfort of sheltered employment to embark on my own consulting adventure, and with that, I left the kitchen download of the previous nights’ activities, the boardroom gossip, the stairway catchups, the passing by your desk and leave 20 minutes later, disguised as “work” discussion about weekend plans. I left group mails, I left memos. I left fridge notices of exciting events or info I should be aware of. I left discarded magazines and read newspapers.

Twitter has become a workplace for me, and some twitterers/tweeples are my new colleagues. Twitter is a new witness to my life.

I feel the need to say this, I have family and good friends, and clients and am a natural networker so am continuously chatting in the non-virtual realm, but I would hazard a guess that the people who are getting to know me best, perhaps without realising it, are my 156 (and hopefully growing) twitter followers, my twitter community and my new set of colleagues. They see and read my frustrations, my praises, my music preference, my successes, my thoughts, my ideas, my daily activities, when Im pitching , what I’m reading, and know where my interests lie by what I post. They give feedback. They are witness to my life.

There are a couple of beauties to this.

One is, that once on twitter and that people like what I have to say enough to stick around, I have a community for life. Assuming also that twitter too will be around for life. Unlike leaving a work place and the banter, this community is stuck with me, and I’m stuck with them. I don’t think I’ll go anywhere if twitter doesn’t. Saying that however, my use of fbook has decreased, so perhaps if something else comes along, we will all naturally migrate and use of this medium will decrease too.

The other beaut, is that its a great argument against social media being a distraction and reducing productivity. Addressing the “new” global uptake of single tasking. Yes, single task. Focus and get the job at hand done. But if, in a normal work environment, i.e. one with phones and colleagues and chipped coffee cups and the quest for the m.i.a teaspoons, its like they all decide to get up and leave the building together. (This is where I wish I was a designer and I could animate a “troop” of teaspoons sneaking out the front door, or better yet, salad fingers hoarding all of the spoons til they rust)

Back to normal environments, distraction or the buzz word “friction” is a natural occurrence in the office space, so for people like me who work from home, Vida, coffee shops and more Vida, its a perfect, natural way to feel connected, and its not friction, its normal. If a collegue interrupts you to chat, you’re still interrupted, even if you ask to get back to them.

I know I’m not the only one. Aside from the great, current content that people post and RT, tweets like, “must.eat.now”, “ex.hausted” and from one twitterer in particular “plotting” are common, failwhales and brand+/- are indicative of people’s frustrations and a recent favourite “oops.the prev tweet was heavily influenced by too much wine ”! entertain at best.

Its a great, educated, informed and engaging community and I’m chuffed to have a new, lasting set of colleagues and to become a witness to their professional and every now and then personal lives.

Part II – What this means to brands.