John Mahaffie

I am writing this in the midst of the January 2011 revolution in Egypt. The unfolding events in Egypt are much more interesting, and, I would argue, clearer on Twitter than on CNN. This is a surprise. Most of what’s on Twitter is not posted by journalists, nor by people who even pretend to be reporting objectively, or checking sources. They simply share what they see, the best among them saying when they are unsure about something. And they let their emotions be part of their postings.

I have followed, for several days, a dozen or so Twitterers who are in Cairo, often among the protesting crowds in Tahrir Square. Their updates have led news from CNN, BBC, and others by as much as hours, and there is nothing like the completeness of view the Twitterers give in the news updates on US Cable TV and on the cable news or newspaper websites. The exception is when those traditional media journalists share their own Tweets.

The TV networks are, by contrast, weak vessels of what’s happening, and their strengths—offering context, analysis, and expertise, can blunt, suppress, and sometimes distort what seems to be the truth about what is happening in Egypt. They report, quite even-handedly, what the different factions think, and that allows in not just opinion, but deliberate distortions and distractions. Too often when there’s fresh news, and first-hand views coming from Egypt, they have lined up a New York, or Washington-based expert to tell us what’s happening. They bring in a geopolitical angle—the conversation Henry Kissinger would want to have—instead of a closer focus on what is actually happening. And often they seem simply to be wrong.

We don’t yet have the journalism of the future figured out yet—that seems to be happening right now, with the interplay between new forms of sharing like Twitter and conventional journalism. But it’s clear that instant, eye witness reporting and the first-hand views that show up on social network sites will be part of it, and it should. I think the networks and traditional news media recognize that–they're reading the Tweet stream too.

Newspaper image: DRB62, via flickr, cc attribution license

Twitter (www.twitter.com) is not for everyone. It involves your time and attention, regularly, though in very small portions. Your impression of Twitter may be that it’s a place where someone you care only a little about, or not at all, will update you on the fascinating minutia of his/her daily life: "Eating a bagel at Panera," or, "Wishing Friday Night Lights was back on." But you don’t have to use it that way.

If you consider Twitter’s value for environmental scanning, you might find it worth a second look. For many people, Twitter has become an information sharing place, not information about their daily minutia, but information important to them professionally.

Consider two parts of this. First, Twitter, used for by following a set of people who share useful things, is an environmental scanning channel. Not only can you tap into thousands of people who do free work for you by following all sorts of developments, news, and events, and sharing web links about them, those people also often add their interpretations to the things they share.

Second, your use of Twitter can represent a first step in your interpretation of things you find. As you "pay it forward," you can and you should add your brief thought to the link you share. Doing that, you have begun to analyze and interpret information. You have made it meaningful for yourself and whomever is following your Tweets. But it can be to your benefit most of all. Most of us see far too much information, every day, without taking the time to find and add meaning to it–meaning for us. Having people following what you post adds a little incentive to do this regular, small task. On Twitter, too, there is plenty of cooperation, sharing, and reciprocation.

You don’t need Twitter to do this, of course. But you may find that using it adds a bit of discipline to your environmental scanning and, if you can imagine, makes you more efficient. What looks like a trivial time-waster may be a time-saver and may make a difference in keeping a foresight channel open and flowing in your life.

I’ve shared other thoughts on environmental scanning here. See, for comparison, my thoughts on using del.icio.us tagging for scanning and for adding value to the information you discover.