DISQUS

Stuart MacDonald · 10 months ago

Well put 'thewie.

mathewi · 10 months ago

Thanks, Stuie :-)

Peter · 10 months ago

There were certainly some lines crossed here, but I don't think the personal/professional boundary was one of them. While the reporter was using his personal Twitter account, he was very much acting in his professional role.

Had he been having a meltdown about a parking ticket for instance, and had that meltdown resulted in being dragged in front of the boss, we'd have grounds for a discussion about personal vs professional. In this case though, it was all professional.

mathewi · 10 months ago

I'm not sure I agree, Peter. I think you're right that it *should* have been professional, but the personal crept in. That's part of what I'm talking about -- although the other part is the kind of thing you're describing, where what you do in your personal life impacts on your job somehow. I'm talking more about being a person, and how that jibes with trying to be professional on a social platform like Twitter.

davefleet · 10 months ago

I agree, Mathew.

This whole incident provides a useful reminder that when you post something online, you're often talking to many, many people rather than the singles you were perhaps intending to talk to. Bottom line: Think before you hit "post."

andrew · 10 months ago

more growing pains for twitter, been a few of them in the last week or so. thanks.

Bo Gowan · 10 months ago

Mistakes like these can't easily be erased either. Yes the reporter deleted the posts (and took his blog offline), but if you google his name this incident already shows up on page 1, and will likely only rise as this story spreads.

Unfortunately that's about the same as putting it directly in your resume.

Jon E Worren · 10 months ago

This case doesn't reflect well on either of the involved persons or their professional identities. It takes two to party and at any given time each had the option to take the high road and bow out. Especially given that this isn't a "live" conversation - although admittedly it is close to live - Twitter offers time to think between each of the 140 character messages - but in this case they let the egos take charge which is never a good thing.

In both cases, their professional integrity has been damaged; The journalist - not only disgracing his employer, but failing to recognize that he is a public profile because of his work. He depends on access to busy people and would probably benefit from displaying less arrogance/rudeness while the marketing consultant has displayed a surprisingly limited understanding of personal brand management.

My verdict: They should both submit themselves for twanger-management and apologize to each other - on Twitter.

Guhmshoo · 10 months ago

There are no mistakes. People do things for a reason. She "tweeted" her frustration with the Post reporter knowing that he might see it (and also knowing that he might react in an explosive manner). She threw the first punch, it's as simple as that. Twitter has made it far too easy for people to say things publicly that ought to be said privately or directly to someone's face. Now we must worry that every private exchange could end up "tweeted" publicly on a platform that can't provide the proper context so needed in these cases. I've read many posts about this exchange and still don't know the back story. None of us do. They fail and we fail. If you're interested, I've posted a solution to this issue at my blog.

Gordon Haff · 10 months ago

Guhmshoo:
>She "tweeted" her frustration with the Post reporter knowing that he might see it (and also knowing that he might react in an explosive manner).

That's an assumption. Maybe yes, maybe know. There has been more than one occasion where I have been tempted to make a snarky comment on twitter about some email or briefing or whatever but haven't done so even though I would (and often do) make it by IM or email to a friend or colleague--more of less as a way of venting.

Why not on twitter even if I leave names and companies out of it? Well, because in many cases some of the people involved follow me or may follow me and from the context it would be pretty obvious to them who I was talking about. And my intent is (usually) not to take a shot at them personally even if effectively in private.

But we're talking pretty subtle behaviors here so I wouldn't automatically assume that something put into a twitter feed is necessarily aimed at a particular person.

Guhmshoo · 10 months ago

Gordon:
"There has been more than one occasion where I have been tempted to make a snarky comment on Twitter...but haven't done so." See, you used restraint. And why did you do that? Fear of reprisal? Unjustified? Pointless?

Raul · 10 months ago

Mathew,

Excellent post. The truth is, twitter meltdowns are happening very, very open. My concern is that they become the norm rather than the exception and that newcomers to Twitter decide that just because people can have social drama over Twitter, they should refrain or protect their tweets or use some other form of non-openness. That would detract substantially from the enormous value of Twitter.

mathewi · 10 months ago

I think you're right, Raul -- as more people do that, it becomes less personal, and it loses some of its appeal (I think). Thanks for the comment.