[nabs-l] Need More Of You On Twitter - Washington Seminar Resources

[Mika Pyyhkala]

Good Afternoon,

This message is being sent to both the national and Massachusetts student lists.

First, we need a lot more of you to join the Twitter social networking
service.  This can be done at:
http://twitter.com/signup

The reason we need a lot more of us on Twitter, among other things, is
so that when someone is trying to advocate that a company or
organization increase accessibility or otherwise end a discriminatory
practice, that we have large numbers of people expressing support for
that.  This is often done by each person sending, what they call in
Twitter lingo, an at reply to the organization.  It essentially means
you are sending a somewhat public message to the organization.  Its
also important that we create buzz on the internet about our upcoming
Washington seminar events.

I wanted to also bring to your attention a number of Twitter resources
relating to the 2010 Washington Seminar and related weekend events
that have recently been created.

A hashtag of
#NFBWS10
has been set up for the event.  A hashtag is simply a way of
categorizing mesages regarding a topic.  You enter the above hashtag
in your Twitter post or tweet, and then someone can search on that
hashtag to get more information and related posts or tweets about
whatever it is the tag is about.  Anyone can read these so tagged
tweets or posts at the web page:
http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23nfbws10

For example you might tweet:
"Making last minute appointments for California's #nfbws10 legislative
meetings."

In the above example on the Twitter service someone can click on the
#NFBWS10
which would appear in the system as a link and find related posts.
You might think that some posts like the above are mundane and boring,
and maybe on some level they might be, but they show internet buzz and
chatter is building about the event.  They also connect people who may
be going to the event or who may be reading about it for the first
time.

Many of our representatives in Congress are also on Twitter, and we
can create tweets or posts linking their Twitter accounts to ours when
we meet with them to highlight our legislative issues.  Also many of
the organizations that will address the NABS conference on Sunday are
on Twitter, and this is a quick way to ask them questions, give them
feedback, etc.

The NFB of Massachusetts has also set up a Twitter list (lists are a
new feature in Twitter) for those attending the event.  The list is
located at
http://twitter.com/nfbma/nfbws10
Someone can go to this web page and both see who will be attending, as
well as read the posts (tweets) of the attendees.  Note that when
accessing the list, people will see all Tweets not just those with the
hashtag.  The list could also be used for networking or other efforts.

Finally I've set up a shortened URL that points directly at the NFB
2010 Washington Seminar official web page agenda:
http://bit.ly/nfbws10
(note the above is all in lower case and unlike most of the other
resources noted in this message it is case sensitive, again all lower
case)
This provides a short web page address that you can easily remember,
and give to people who may need to access fact sheets, or the agenda.
You may also want to put this short web address in some of your
Twitter posts or tweets.

NABS has a Twitter page which you can read and follow at:
http://twitter.com/nabslink

In conclusion, the most important thing you can do is begin
participating in these social networks such as Twitter and Facebook in
order to move our agenda forward, as well as educate your own networks
of contacts about what we are doing.  On top of that, you may well
find other interesting uses for these web sites.  Once you join the
sites, you will pick up jargon like hashtags, trending topics, at
replys, status updates, and soon be an expert in such things.  Email
while still widely used is ever so gradually (depending on what group
we are talking about) being replaced by communication in more
collaborative social networking services that essentially permit a 1
to many conversation and interaction.  In some newer conferences, for
example, tweets are used to solicit questions from the audience, and
also to give the event a sort of presence on the internet.

Thanks to those of you who who have already gotten involved in
creating buzz about Washington Seminar on Twitter and other social
networks.  I look forward to seeing many of you this weekend, and
remember its still really not too late to make plans to attend if you
find you are able to do so at the last minute.

The weekend is a fun event like a mid year convention, and of course
you can experience all Washington DC has to offer while visiting.

Best,
Mika Pyyhkala
President
National Federation of the Blind of Massachusetts
pyyhkala at gmail.com
http://twitter.com/pyyhkala
http://twitter.com/nfbma
http://twitter.com/nfb_voice
http://twitter.com/nabslink