Stories

My name is Kate Hughes and I love Twitter. As addictions go, it’s hardly up there with drinking in the morning or gambling away the housekeeping is it?

Kate Hughes

But nevertheless, it’s still a new enough phenomenon to be met with smirks or raised eyebrows, so, why do I love it?

I started tweeting just over a year ago and for the first few months I couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about. I followed Stephen Fry, Barack Obama and Jonathan Ross and wondered why nobody was following me.

Then I started tweeting about work, saying things like ‘I’m working on a newsletter’: quite frankly my tweets were so dull that even I was bored.

After a few months of struggling to get into it, I was lucky enough to stumble across a blog post by Stef Lewandowski about 50 Brummies to follow on Twitter.

Brum Twestival on Twitter

My delight

I followed every single one and all of a sudden I could see there was a whole world of people who not only chatted on Twitter, but met up, shared ideas, made each other laugh, collaborated on creative projects and found ways to work together.

I started replying to them and to my delight, they replied back.

As my confidence grew, I started tweeting about all aspects of my life and was surprised by the tenderness and wittiness of the responses I received.

Bar in Cheers

Before long I was following more than 800 people, all of whom are interesting, funny and add to life.

Twitter fans at a recent event

My favourite thing about Twitter is a genuine sense of community: it’s kind of like the bar in Cheers ‘everybody knows your name’. Join in and you’ll get a warm welcome.

As part of a global celebration of Twitter, hundreds of cities around the world are holding Twestivals between 10-13 September to raise money for causes voted for by their local online communities.

The Orchard

To see a cool map of all the places hosting Twestivals click the link.

They're aiming to raise the final £1.5 million of the required £13.5 million, over the next 12-15 months from fundraising events and donations.

The Orchard will contain 83 apartments for formerly homeless people, allotments, an internal orange grove, a multi-use sports hall, training rooms, community café, social enterprise centre, youth ‘chill out’ zone, nursery and soft play area.

Based on Reservoir Road, Erdington, it will be a facility for the whole community of Birmingham.

Sence Bar

Brum Twestival is taking place on 11 September 2009 at The Sence Bar and Club on Hurst Street, Birmingham, from 1800 BST.

So if you’d like to come along, have a few drinks and see what Twitter's about click on the link.]

We’re also looking for businesses to sponsor Brum Twestival.

Tickets are £10, with 100 per cent of the proceeds going to charity.

Life-enhancing support system

We would be so grateful for any support.

Of course. when I was asked to write this feature, I tweeted about it and asked why other people love Twitter.

Twitter is online

These are some of the answers I got:

@jaynehowarth (in two tweets) Discovering people in your ‘work sphere’ who you can connect with immediately: easier to build up a connection with them...and, increasingly, I’m getting news feeds faster on Twitter than anywhere else

@docdelete As a home worker, Twitter reminds me that there’s world outside the four walls – akin to mixed office chatter

@gabysslave Social engagement – real social connections made from seemingly frivolous babbling connections, life enhancing support system

Beer and a tweet

@SLGneil It opens up your personal and professional networks to share new and interesting info with like-minded ppl. Hope this helps Kate? 

And last but not least:

@PhotosbyLee I have no real friends so pretend I’m popular on Twitter ;)

Well, I think he was joking, but there's only way to find out for sure.

See you at the Twestival!