The eDiscovery Paradigm Shift: 140-Characters or Less!

Thursday, March 10, 2011

140-Characters or Less!

I am in the middle of a self imposed 60 day hiatus from posting articles to the “eDiscovery Paradigm Shift” blog and have been exercising my opinions about eDiscovery, Cloud Computing and Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) in 140- characters or less on Twitter (http://twitter.com/ediscoverygroup). And, I actually have over 400 fellow Tweeters that are interested in what I have to say. However, as a result, I have dramatically reduced posting original articles of more than 140 characters to my various LinkedIn Group, including: The eDiscovery Solutions Group (http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1895044); The Early Case Assessment Group (http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1827179); Enterprise eDiscovery in the Cloud (http://www.linkedin.com/groups?mostPopular=&gid=3663508); and, The International Association of Data Mapping Professionals ((http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=3036409). And, I am not sure I like the results. Therefore, after careful examination of these past 6 weeks weeks and with much soul searching, I am not convinced that Twitter affords me the same opportunity to fully express my opinion and commentary.

140-characters is just not enough real estate for me to say what has to be said. Maybe I want to say too much? Maybe I just don’t understand all of the Twitter abbreviations and codes?

I guess that the advent of Twitter and other social networking sites, as well as the popularity of text messaging, have made short-form communication an everyday reality. But expressing yourself clearly in short bursts-particularly in the 140-character limit of Twitter-takes special writing skill. So, I actually bought and read Dom Sagolla’s book titled, “140 Characters: A Style Guide for the Short Form.” And, I have been studying other writer’s styles and trying to formulate a methodology and style of my own. Unfortunately, more often than not, I end up just deleting the end of my messages until I get down to 140-characters and I am sure that most times readers are left wondering what the heck I was talking about.

You would think the social media technology that is single handedly brining down the Middle East (please note that Mark Zuckerberg probably wants a little credit also) and enables Charlie Sheen to communicate his wisdom to millions would be sufficient to tackle the requirements of addressing the state of eDiscovery, Cloud Computing and Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC). And maybe for some, it is. However, for me, Twitter just doesn’t get it done. Don’t get me wrong. Twitter definitely has a place. In fact, ironically, I will be Twittering this Blog posting (has Twittering risen to point where it needs to be capitalized?). And, when I want to let everyone know what coffee shop I am sitting in or want to organize a community to “take action”, I will definitely use Twitter. However, for the stuff that takes more than 140-character to express, I going back to writing my Blog at least a couple of times a week.