Actually written 28th February 2010: So much for the instant nature of blogging !

“Today” I had one of the most interesting experiences of my life, courtesy of Twitter! I was expecting to attend an Enterprise event, specifically a talk on Twitter by Lisa Harris. Sitting in my PJs, checking into my Twitter account, I saw that @documentally was en route to the University of Winchester (well, after a fashion, clearly stuck in traffic!). I sent a Tweet, assuming that he was coming to the same event! Soon after I received the following Direct Message “Am uber late. Are you free to take the class should I teach remotely?” Seemed like a small favour to do, so shortly afterwards I’m dressed and en route to work to take a class I haven’t prepared for, but essentially prepared to talk about my own experience with Twitter – to a group from Winchester City Council as I soon discover, not the Enterprise group!

The following message appears on Twitter from @documentally: “Thankfully @digitalfprint is on the way to stand in for me for half an hour. #wincc“! Through a combination of Twitter/mobiles, I find out where I am, and discover that the group have watched an audiocast created by @documentally en route. So, we start on the basics… to find that Twitter isn’t creating new accounts right now.. always a fun moment! A handful of people have got in, or already use Twitter in a limited way, so I boot up my Twitter accounts and talk about why I’ve set it up, what I’ve learnt in the year that I’ve been using Twitter (and that it took me 3 months to “get it” in any way), why I have different accounts, some of the etiquette of Twitter, including Retweets, etc. as we followed the progress of his car (which has its own Twitter feed @bongomentally) which was geo-tagged towards Winchester! Interestingly, other members of the family are @minimentally and @granumentally!

The group were very surprised to find that I had never met documentally, and that this was a real example of Twitter-ness in action! Great example, we thought! About an hour after I’d arrived (and been chatting to a few of Winchester’s museums who are on Twitter… that could be helpful for my module ‘Creating and Consuming History’ in which I will be giving a lecture on digitisation and some of its effects on the museum!), @documentally arrived, a hectic bundle of energy, with great stories (especially the one about how he rolled his Landrover, and gained all the help he needed from a couple of Tweets) and great examples of how social media has grown his profile (really, that’s its strongest purpose, building profiles and relationships)! I would have stayed all day, but I had another meeting to get to! NOW, where’s my notes from that day? Much of it is in this article.

Feedback

@mazzawinch: “Bex you saved the day! once signed up things got moving & it was fun! @MDRNelles and @kw1lson seem to have fallen apart since then tho ”

@SherKent: “RT @kw1lson: Hearing tales of how @drbexl and social media saved the day this morning.”

@documentally: “Once again.. big thank You to @drbexl who is also @digitalfprint for taking my class for the first hour. #wincc”

@WinchesterCity: “Back from Winch Uni where @Documentally is giving a talk to #wincc. Got to meet @drbexl too who is a lovely lady! Lots of work to do now!”