Twittervention

It was a cool summer morning. Thursday, August 27, 2015. My best friend/mentor/sister (@LarainBK) and my entrepreneur-role-model in residence/brother-in-law (@nyckidsmagician) sat me down. Our gathering that morning was planned. I sat there, cringing at the thought of the conversation we were about to have, but knew it was the right thing.

It was a Twittervention… to stop my trash talking and start tweeting.

My sister and brother-in-law, Twitter advocates, decided that my #progress was no longer good enough. I had moved to a new city, was meeting new people, and could no longer sit on the social-media-sidelines while my latest-and-greatest thoughts went unshared with the masses. For the next hour, they educated me on the benefits of #joiningtheconversation. We reinvented my profile, contemplated a description, and worked together to develop a “following” strategy. I followed authors of books that I had read and loved (@ZeynepTon), places that I visited and enjoyed (@PeanutButterCo), a few TED speakers (@BarrySch), several professors and mentors, and, obviously, friends who say and send hilarious things (@LaLoo1620).

On August 30th I sent my first tweet. Unspectacularly, it was about peanut butter and baked apples… a delicious idea and combination… but I felt dirty. I felt like I needed to yell and kick and scream about how terrible I felt tweeting. But, that’s why it was an intervention. 

I stuck with Twitter. I told them I would. 15-minutes per day. I needed to create that habit. I needed to use the system. I needed to tweet. I needed to build my on-line brand… #noteasy

Then, I let Twitter work for me. On September 18, 2015 I read a tweet: Imagine getting #bizgrowth advice from @MCuban. Now open your eyes, and click here: http://bit.ly/1NIjfc0  #growthhacks

I had just finished Mark Cuban’s book and had moments earlier pressed “publish” on my #fangirl post about him. The tweet was from Verne Harnish (@thegrowthguy), author of Scaling Up 2.0, one of the best (work)books out there for companies looking to grow effectively and scale appropriately… and the one book that I had to stop highlighting because my highlights were encompassing entire pages of text. #ineffective #lbdproducers #workcandy

I saw the tweet, clicked on the link, and learned about The Growth Summit (#GS15Grow) where Mark Cuban would be delivering the closing keynote. I knew I had to be at that conference… and that without Twitter I would not have even heard about it!

The story of my attendance at the conference this past week was the impetus for my post on (Intentional) Accelerated Serendipity. I was in the right place, at the right time, talking about the right stuff… and then magically found myself attending weeks later. The conference was amazing. The value in being there was unbelievable. And sitting in the 6th row listening to Mark Cuban deliver #bizgrowth advice was an opportunity that I almost could have missed.

Thank you, @LarainBK and @nyckidsmagician. Learning about and attending The Growth Summit proved the value of your #twittervention.