The Next Web

Brian Solis: “What are you doing?” is the wrong question…

Brian Solis: What are you doing? is the wrong question...Brian Solis was the first speaker today at Next09 in Hamburg (Germany) which we are attending and partly moderating (and moderately partying at!).

Brian asks the audience “Who do you want to be online?” in a presentation titled “Social Economy”. What you do, say and post online defines who you are and broadcasts this image ahead of you wherever you go. Some people might find that disconcerting but it seems to be the new reality.

So what and who do you want to be? How do you design your online public image? The decisions you make will influence your chances finding a job, a relationship and happiness in general. You could say that this might be one of the most important question you should ask yourself.

Having said that Brian also offers a simple improvement to Twitter. Fortunately you don’t have to wait until Twitter implements it.

Twitter / Home

The question Twitter asks is wrong. Nobody cares “What you are doing” right now. Drinking a cup of coffee? Going to bed? Getting up?

Keep it to yourself!

The question you should answer is “What inspires you?” or “What did you learn today?”.

And when you answer that question make sure you use no more than 120 characters. In fact, Brian says “120 is the new 140″.

If you can inspire or teach your followers with your tiny bits of knowledge sticking to 120 characters will give your followers a chance to retweet you and spread that knowledge.


  • The question I answer is changing all the time. Varies between something like "what's bothering you?", "what should you actually be doing now?" and "is there anything you really need to share?".
  • btw, I think you missed an s in speaker (Brian Solis was the first peaker today ).
  • thanks! fixed it...
  • yeaaa cool
  • I prefer what Facebook does with their Status Update:
    "What's in your mind", that fits perfectly with what I perceive my Tweets all about; it's a sequence of bursts of what I am currently in my 'brain' :)
  • I think there is an even more intriguing question. Not, "what are you doing right now" (which I personally actually find fascinating. It make the Twitter reader like god, with direct awareness of live happenings).

    However, imagine a Twitter that asks "What are you going to do". That would make Twitter part of the world's prediction engine.
  • Twitter - The World’s Prediction Engine

    I like it... :-)
  • Maybe Twitter should shorten it's question as well. Just ask one thing: "Whazzup?!" :-)
    I could see a businessmodel with a big brewery for this as well, just bring back those old viral heroes!
  • I think I remember Chris Sacca mentioning that it was a flawed question at NextWeb 09. Even so, they found that it gave direction to new users, experienced users don't even see it, especially with the variety of Twitter clients available.
  • Yeah I remember that too. But in my experience it doesn't work like that. New users are confused and generally dismiss Twitter with the argument that they don't want to share what they are doing all day because what they do all day is either private or boring. When you explain that that is NOT what Twitter is for they sometimes get it...
  • In fact, there are so many questions asked on the Public Stream, that ONE question is almost too hard to define. With its evolving userbase, Twitter and microblogging has gone thru so many transformations and leveraging collective wisdom and collaborative redefinitions that identifying a common denominator from a moving target is an impossible task.

    Adding to the plate that there are a heap of services who integrates in your Private Timeline not even shared with your peers 1x1, triggering d webservice-twitter-ID (twitter-for-productivity), I think the space open for 140 characters comes to the point that you could add to the conversation through #neverleavetwitter I hashtagged as a meta-conversation.

    Then - maybe it should be "What's in your lifestream?"

    Anyways, I shared a temporary picture at the Norrköping Twestival, Feb 12, 2009 - sharing my slides http://tr.im/hT37 -

    "Microblogging - why? what? and how?"

    Slide 22;

    • Sharing discoveries - ideas, news, people, projects, businesses, solutions - care!

    • Engaging in your community and network - through dialouge - converse!

    • Updateing your peers on what, how, when, why - one2many or 1to1 - coordinate!

    Letting this convo continue through hashtag #tweetquestion on twitter? Too important to just stay here in one comment stream and spot from Amsterdam and @briansolis :).

    Questions are more important than Answers.

    Period ;).

    Peace,
    Anders
    Sustainopreneurial Facilitator
    (and e. g. Programme Director of Social Media Club Östergötland)
  • Hashtagging of the TweetQuestion is now live and you can follow the #tweetquestion conversation e. g. through @Twingly Microblog Search http://tr.im/TweetquestionTwingly.
  • This comment will be in Dutch be cause it links also to a dutch article.

    Grootse paarsebroeken nonsense die ik in tijden heb gehoord. Verkeerde vraag? Men wordt niet voor niets herinnerd om zijn daden en zijn doen. Ook wel reputatie genoemd. De vraag die Twitter stelt is mede daarom daarom bijzonder relevant! Daarover heb ik een blogpost geschreven waar het verschil tussen hyves, facebook, myspace en twitter wordt uitgelegd.

    http://www.cherrytwist.nl/2009/05/06/het-versch...
  • So ganz habe ich den text ja nicht muss ich zugeben. Werde da wohl noch mehr Englisch lernen müssen.
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