When people ask me what the fuss is all about on Twitter, and how I can comprehend all the information, I try to explain the power of random and the tremendous source to knowledge. Twitter is a random stream of information, but the stream makes sense, because we as individuals are able to unconsciously screen much more input than we are aware of.
It might seem chaotic, but when you occasionally dip into the stream, you are conscious about the topics and keywords that matters to you right now. And somehow you are able to spot those tweets that matters.
I wrote a blog post in 2008 about the “Pattern of random” that received a comment on the similarity with Synchronicity (by Jung). And after reading the book it often strikes me that the phenomena of synchronicity also rules on Twitter and other social services. Somehow the topics I am working on at the moment are always supported by great links and thoughts from other users, giving me valuable sources for my work. 3 years ago I had to rely on meeting someone in the real world as in the train, at a party or over lunch. Thanks to Twitter I now need to take a deep breathe, jump into the massive pool of information, follow the stream and grasp on to everything that catch my interest.
Bronwen Clune CEO at Norg Media put it this way at the 140 CC in NYC.
“Chaos theory, making order from random information – that is what Twitter does for us”
Hear hear Bronwen!
Flickr
