Well, Since Time Keeps on Slippin', Slippin', Slippin'

Life after getting laid off is all about time (mis)management. Suddenly, time is either a great source of power or a big ugly chunk of Kryponite strapped to your back. Having all kinds of free time becomes a rollercoaster of motivation and devastation. It’s equal parts introspective journey through self-awareness and self-indulgent pity party; maniacal resume writing and compulsive Scramble playing; social networking and hiding under the covers. The highs and lows are dizzying. Meanwhile … my fascination with Twitter has grown faster than Russell Brand’s list of followers so I’ve decided to use my new power for good, not evil.

The Twitterverse, as it turns out, is about much more than mini-communication feeds and updates in 140 characters or less on Twitter.com. (more on that later) And while I’d usually trust a groundhog’s predictions of the future before my own prognostications, there’s no denying that tweets and the twittering twitterers who twrite them are forcing the discussion. Businesses and individuals alike must think about this social networking tool and find ways to optimize it.

We’ve already seen the ripple effect that sites like Friendster, Facebook, Myspace, Hi5, LinkedIn, BrightFuse and Going can have on our personal and professional lives. Quick confession: I was a little slow on the uptake with many of those. I didn't really start using Facebook until this past summer and it was several months before I'd familiarized myself with it. For reasons that are still a mystery to me, some of my friends openly resist hopping on this most recent bandwagon. These same people were tearing through Friendster and Myspace before I'd even heard of those sites.

Now, I'm not out to convert people—that's a little crazy—I just want to explore the benefits of using this service for my own education. It's still fairly new and unfamiliar—even to the early adopters—so if others find some useful info here too, even better. All I know is, for the first time it matters to me to not be the last in the know.