So as I sit back reflecting on another weekend I notice that much of this weekend has been dominated by activities which were organised via Twitter. Yes! Believe it or not a website which gets you out of the house and doing stuff. How does it do this? Simple, it does the one thing the internet was built for; it connects you to people.
The way which I connected with most of these people is BTUB – the Brisbane Twitter Users Brigade1. As a regular attendee to BTUB functions organised via Twitter I’ve met many lovely and interesting people. Some of these people I like to think have become friends rather than merely acquaintances.
So if you’ve got this far and are still asking “what the hell is BTUB?” then here is a quote shamelessly lifted from the BTUB About page:
BTUB is a loose association of Twitter users located in Brisbane, Australia.
Similar groups exist in other Australian cities, using the *TUB format, such as STUB (Sydney) and MTUB (Melbourne).
Mostly, a BTUB occurs when several Twitter users publicly get together in Brisbane for any ol’ purpose. It’s always social and it usually includes drinking.
So as I understand it a group of Twitter users got together at a pub for a few drinks to meet people they’d spoken with online in person. They liked what happened and so more events were arranged. This became known as BTUB.
Recently I’ve seen and heard some discussion around BTUB organisation and the events via Twitter and in person. I felt that I had a few ideas to put forward about this and the best way to do that was via my blog so I can express them at length and everyone can read and comment.
I like the fact that people are questioning and discussing BTUB events. It shows there are people out there who care about the Brisbane Twitter community. It is through these questions, comments and opinions BTUB as an idea stays current and relevant to the wide range of people it is made up of.
There is no doubt in my mind that most of the people who I’ve met at BTUB activities I would never have met in an alternate course of events. Even if I did meet them some other way I doubt that we would have maintained contact without Twitter and, more specifically, BTUB. I’ve met teachers, musicians, lawyers, lecturers, students, IT professionals, librarians and so many more. I’ve re-connected with people from my past and met people who I’m sure will part of my future.
The challenge of having all these wonderfully interesting people together is that their likes and dislikes are obviously going to differ. Some people don’t like crowds and pubs while some can’t get enough of mosh pits and loud music. Others enjoy relaxing with a coffee while some are out playing sport. So surely this can’t work – right?
I think it can and my reasoning for this can be summed up with a quote from The Matrix changed around a little:
Do not try to bend BTUB - that’s impossible - instead only try to realise the truth.
There is no BTUB.
There’s no constitution, no charter, no president, no clubhouse, no meeting room, no committee, no membership fees & no membership card. Sure, I’ll admit there are a few individuals who guide the group by posting contact on the BTUB Twitter account and btub.org website but that’s as organised as it gets.
What this means for you is that your idea for an event can happen. All you need to do is put the details together, ask @BTUB to put it on the calendar and tweet about it with the "#BTUB" hashtag. There are some tips you can follow on the BTUB FAQ page and plenty of other Twiter users who'd be happy to help.
I don't want to go to every BTUB event. I don't even want to want to go to every one. What I do want is for everyone to have the desire to attend at least one event. That means there's a variety of events going on to cater to this crazy variety of people who just happen to all identify themselves as #BTUB.
1: I know originally the "u" stood for "underground" however I personally feel the group is a bit big for that now. I also feel that "users" better explains what we are. YMMV
So welcome to another Aydsblog post. I’m not sure who out there in the big wide world actually reads this blog but since it’s also posted to Facebook automagically I’m pretty sure the numbers are larger than when I first started writing.
When this blog first started it was basically just so I could muck around and say I had a blog. True to my character there wasn’t much of a plan and wasn’t much of a direction. Which can be seen - even with the small number of posts I’ve made – from looking at the content and how different it is. Some posts are short, some posts are long, some are related to my work, some are related to me, some are personal, some were about events and some posted live from events. The advantage of this lack of a plan is I can write just about anything and be fairly confident that it will fit into the grand scheme of things.
The question I’m asking myself is, should I be posting to this forum?
Currently I have a profile on Facebook and also an account on Twitter which I use frequently. Both of these accounts have been great for interacting with both friends I had met before and also, particularly in the case of Twitter, new friends who I’m still getting to know. An interesting thing has happened which I’ve recently started to notice and that is everyone seems to know everything. Each group of people I know, however, has a different set of experiences and a different set of stories which make sense to them. The only commonality in some cases is me.
In the past this wouldn’t matter because the stories were shared through experience, verbally or even in the modern world via separate websites. However these days that separation seems to be diminishing. While certainly this is a great thing to happen if the information is simple and of a wide interest (well, to all 3 of you guys who are actually interested in me anyway), it isn’t so great when the information is open to interpretation or requires some context to be understood.
I’ve certainly been surprised a few times at people who have made it known that they’ve seen things I’ve done or posts I’ve made. Not that there’s been anything I didn’t necessarily want them to know but it was just not something I’d always considered before I posted.
Just like any other piece of new technology we’ve seen eventually the general etiquette, moral and social structures will be in place to guide us in the right direction. They’ll be taught and learned just as all the other rules and guidelines of society are passed from one to another. Software (well, good software anyway) will be written to take these conventions into account so it will compliment how their users expect to interact.
Of course what might be most interesting is to turn that last paragraph on it’s head and ask yourself how much the websites of today such as Facebook and Twitter will change the way everyone defines acceptable communication in the future.
