My 1,700+ followers on Twitter may have caught a few of my tweets recently about my frustration with Twitter’s 2,000 follow limit. That is, one can only follow up to 2,000 people until one’s own followers has caught up to that number.

As it turns out, one’s followers only have to reach 1,850 before one can add more follows. (For those of you that don’t really understand what I’m talking about, please join twitter and follow me, and I’ll be happy to explain further. Or, watch Commoncraft’s ‘Twitter In Plain English’.)

I learned this new information last night, as I saw that I had surpassed 1,800 followers and was also now following 2,013 tweeters. This ratio had apparently been “approved” by the twitter code and database, allowing me to continue to find more great people to tweet with. I understand that Twitter needs some type of processs or security against spammers, who generally follow hundreds of tweeters without reciprocal follows using scripts and other techniques. For this reason, new twitter users soon learn the value of gauging the ratio of follows to followers, filtering for spammers. Basically, if you don’t “earn” the followers, you’ll be limited to 2,000 people…

Also last night, the Twitter team chose to eliminate accounts they judged as spam accounts. I woke up to about 90 less “followers” and was only now following about 1,975. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to follow or be followed by spammers, but this couldn’t have happened at a worse time for me. I’m now once again struggling with the 2K barrier designed to thwart spammers — and only because all the spammers were removed.

Every community needs spam and abuse measures. However, Twitter’s 2K barrier is an over-simplistic measure that should have other checks and balances that don’t limit power users like me. If followers see that my follow-to-follower ratio is suspect, they can choose not to follow me. This is allowing the community and users to self-police.

I should be back up to 1,850 soon enough, but a little more thought should have been put into this measure. Say, once a user has passed the 1,850 mark, dropping under again no longer applies; or, before the Twitter team hits the big trapdoor lever to dump spammers, they could have thought about how this would affect their user types… With such “simple and elegant” functionality, one would think that this wouldn’t be too long a conversation.

A few days ago, I did my part to support the North American car industry by purchasing a Ford Flex. Among the myriad of standard features, Ford (and I’m sure many other manufacturers) has upgraded, compacted and simplified the key fob. This remote entry system used to be a separate piece of equipment dangling from my keychain. Now, it has been integrated into the key itself; it’s overall foot print is smaller and more intuitive — one item gets me into the vehicle.

I’m not trying to sell you a Flex. (You can follow @scottmonty for that.) The point here is that car designers push forward with all of their designs on a macro and micro level. There is always room for improvement on any interface (more times than not, there is lots of room).

Follow these eight recommendations to improve your user experience:

1. Plan your strategy and your user experience before you build
2. Develop a long-term strategy
3. Prototype — e.g. with Axure, or paper prototyping
4. Build a site using a malleable CMS, structure and design
5. Never assume what’s been done in the past is perfect
6. Test and analyze your interface
7. Listen to your users
8. Experiment, but try not to make your users think

Exceptional work from Mark Rozeluk, Dave Sylvestre and Nicholas Barnett. Happy Holidays!

Who might you meet (in person! wha?) at a Toronto tweetup? I was honoured to meet someof Toronto’s finest Twitterers at a great pub last Friday.

The intrinsic nature of Twitter allows for quick planning and somewhat viral spread of “tweetups” — a phenomenon that will surely gain momentum as Twitter further penetrates the mainstream. Now, people of somewhat like minds can organize a casual event involving more degrees of one’s social graph.

Among others, I had great conversation with @isfan, @rlangdon, @communicable, @Merlene, @conniecrosby, @photojunkie, @stevesaylor, @danielerossi… and look forward to continuing the conversation.

What were the themes of conversation? Twitter. Marketing. PR. Hey, it’s what we had in common. My only issue? The word “Tweetup.” It’s difficult for me to use with non-twitterers, prior to the event. (I wonder if @chrisbrogan and @mitchjoel have gotten used to saying “tweeple” and “tweetup” out loud…)

@johncpiercy uploaded pictures here and here.

If you’re wondering if there are tweetups coming up in your area, I recommend search.twitter.com. Also, get over to twitter.grader.com and follow the Twelite in your city.

For those who were there, I invite you to leave a brief bio and your twitter link in the comment area below. Thanks!

And thanks to planner Dave Delaney (
@davedelaney) — Toronto ex-pat turned Nashville resident (Go Titans!).

Participants of Camp Organic 14. More on Camp Organic on the AllHands blog. Also, view the documentary
Photo by Dave Sylvestre.

After a few weeks in my new role as a Strategist for Organic, I’m compelled to add a quick post to “reset” my blog and get back to the task of blogging on an ongoing basis.

As the Digital Native demographic ages and press their elders to move beyond their fear of technology; as the heralded “web” comes to be with the explosion of new open platforms and tools; as new world leaders emerge and embrace technology for it’s community-building benefits, many organizations struggle to avoid falling irreconsilably behind the thought leaders and visionaries.

Organic is not one of these organizations. It is a true “digital shop,” at the point of the spear of modern marketing. Managing the evolution of one’s brand and product offering online has become increasingly complex, and it requires a deep understanding and acceptance of the new paradigm to succeed. Clinging to past strategies and processes will lead only to failure.

Organic is “platform agnostic,” which means the teams put strategy and goals first, and doesn’t waste time and energy on hiding ideas from the public, firewalling staff from Facebook and Twitter or lighting candles for push marketing and Microsoft products.

Organic attracts leaders in the industry and promotes idea generation and experimentation.

Organic boasts a proven process, where great minds converge and diverge to generate world-class work for its clients.

And finally (not really, but for the purpose of this post, it’s enough), the ThreeMinds culture permeates the day-to-day work and drives forward the long-term vision, creating a unified passion for quality and creating “Exceptional Experiences.”

It’s been years since I read Good To Great, and I’ve waited a long time to find an organization with such a drive… let’s just say if you see “Organic” on your RFP list, it’s okay to tell the other agencies to turn around and go home.

“The purpose of bureaucracy is to compensate for incomptence and lack of discipline–a problem that largely goes away if you have the right people in the first place.” — Jim Collins, Good To Great