twitter

so, I never win ANYTHING

100_6967You can imagine how skeptical I was when I checked my twitter one morning last week and discovered a bunch of congratulations (and a few bitter, but funny insults) about having won a MacBook Pro.

Yeah, right.

The beautiful thing is that it happened quite by accident. I innocently re-tweeted a message from Pat Padley, (run, don’t walk and check out the podcast he does with his brother Nick–InBetweenSundays). I didn’t notice a tag at the end of his line, but evidently it was enough to get me a chance at winning the laptop, and … well … the rest is history.

My skepticism was so great that I actually got a direct message from the guys running the contest to tell me that, yes, indeed, I had won and it was real. LOL! Consequently, I will no longer be playing the state lottery because I’ve used up my allotment of luck for the year.

So that brings to me to a couple of things. First, my sincere thanks to guys at MPORA who ran the contest on Twitter @mpora and gave away all kinds of cool prizes, including my MacBook Pro. Of course, the prize was a nice lure, but I bounced around their website and found that it’s pretty cool, and while not the kind of thing you’d see my lazy butt doing, filled with amazing videos (the kind, I think, that my brother and sister-in-law and their friends would think is cool).

Check out Nick and Pat at InBetweenSundays. Afterall, I am enjoying creating this blogpost thanks to them.

And, MPORA, cuz you know, it’s pretty obvious they deserve a shout out, too!

Micro-blogging, social networks, and slackers

Here’s a question for you folks who micro-blog on the likes of Twitter and Plurk, etc., and also have your own blogs. I’m not asking the chicken and egg question–I don’t care if the micro-blogging came first. I am curious to know if the manner in which you approach blogging has changed since you started using the other utilities. Bonnie Gillespie posted a pretty comprehensive observation about her experience that got me thinking. I’ll be delivering a workshop on blogging, micro-blogging, and social utilities in a couple of weeks, and so I am actually posing this as a serious work-related question.

It has not escaped me that work and play are overlapping. I’m curious about how that affects you as well.

I’ve noticed that my own blog, from the original one to this revamped one, has undergone several style changes. At first, it was totally reflective and observational, but I’ve noticed a shift in self-awareness as I have gained (and lost) readers and the content that I now post. There’s no question that I’ve seen some changes.

How have you been affected in your writing?