Earlier this week I presented to a local group of social media insiders and influencers at Social Media Breakfast #5 in Inman Square. Organized by Bryan Person, SMB is growing in propularity with each event. This breakfast drew 50+ people despite an overnight snowstorm that changed over to freezing rain by early morning.

The format was a series of short, five minute presentations* on "How Twitter Changed My Life (and how it could change yours too!)." I was one of four presenters and was clearly the undercard next to Scott Monty, Doug Haslem and Laura "Pistachio" Fitton. We all took a different approach to the question and Doug did such a good job summarizing it all on his blog (with photos) that I'll just point there for those of you with ADD.

I do want to take a few minutes to provide a little more background on my perspective on Twitter. It started back in March/April 2007 when David Pitkin suggested I give it a look. I quickly followed a few friends, updated a few times and just as quickly lost interest. Three or four months later, I gave it another try once my colleague (Aaron Strout) mentioned he was building a great network.

What I found early on was I had a really hard time with the signal to noise ratio on Twitter. It just seemed like so much of what I read was useless info that was a waste of time. This is likely a typical response in the early days of using Twitter. For example, here are two concurrent tweets in my stream from the other night...

jstorerj @chrisbrogan is there anything better than Fritos Scoops and Green Mountain salsa with a block of Philly cream cheese floating in it?   07:29 PM February 12, 2008

JasonCalacanis Google's Marissa Mayer talks about social search with VentureBeat. She likes it! :-) : http://tinyurl.com/3c6hne 04:33 PM February 12, 2008

...for 99% of the people reading these tweets, my tweet was complete noise. But Jason's? Pure gold!

It wasn't until I looped back with David for a discussion on stocks and flows* that it started to dawn on me. The Twitter stream was a bit overwhelming, but by using favorites it was easy to make sense of it all. I now use favorites religiously to create a stock of interesting information that I check back on regularly. I also use favorites to learn more about people I follow and find interesting information I might have missed along the way. I've begun to think about how there are two distinct profiles on Twitter... those that "hunt" and those that "gather." Hunters follow the stream and publish frequently, but rarely collect intelligence using favorites. Gatherers actively collect tweets as favorites while posting less frequently. Ultimately, I think favorites are the "secret sauce" of Twitter, exposing the collective intelligence of a very varied ecosystem. I'd love to be able to subscribe to the tweets that some of my followers choose to favorite. Another great idea in this area was Tweeted by Shel Israel back in early January (courtesy of my favorites)...

shelisrael It would be neat if Twitter told us when somebody made our tweets favorites. 01:25 PM January 10, 2008 from web

How Twitter has changed my life?
So back to the point of this post. More than any other community I belong to, Twitter keeps me connected to an active group of people interested in social media. The fact that you often learn deep information about the people you follow quickly fosters trust, which builds a sense of community. When I explain Twitter to people unfamiliar with it, they immediately associate it with IM. They see it as a way to message with others, which it is, but it's much more. The network I've established on Twitter keeps me posted on what's happening in social media to the point that I'm often aware of important information before it hits the mainstream media. This gives me an edge in my community strategy role with Mzinga. Finally, I know longer gravitate to Google or the NY Times to get my morning information... I go to Twitter.

How Twitter Can Change Your Life
For anyone just getting started in Twitter, take a minute that it's really a community. There are rules of engagement that you can learn slowly over time or by listen to the "experts." Jeremiah Owyang is an early adopter and he wrote a great primer on Twitter to get you started (courtesy of my favorites). It's probably obvious now, but I'll say it again.. consider using favorites to build up a stock of good information you can always refer back to. Finally, don't get sucked downstream. Early on I found myself looking back to see what I'd missed. I still do sometimes, but in general I just let the stream pass me by. Occasionally, I'll look at specific people to see what they've said recently and what I've missed, but I can stress it enough... let it go. Once you start following a large number of people it's just moving too fast. Enjoy it... don't fight it.

This was the second SMB I've attended (first time presenting) and I look forward to the next one. If you're not familiar with SMB and would like to attend the next one, point your reader at www.socialmediabreakfast.com and sign up before it's sold out!

*Just in case you're interested, there's a clean video of my presentation over at PerkettPR. Thanks to Jeff Glasson for recording/posting. My apologies for all the hand waving. ;-)

**Lee LeFever from Commoncraft authored a great 3-part series on stocks and flows.