As of yesterday, Tuesday, 2 August, ThoughtWorks Studios decided they no longer needed my services. “Your position is no longer being funded” is the terminology they used. Yeah.

Needless to say, I’m looking forward. A single tweet produced some fantastic results, and I’m overwhelmed by the nature and volume of the responses I’ve received.

More to come as I discover it.

A friend sent me the following tweet…

Him: Dammit Steven…who cares? Love you man, but your tweet content is sometimes questionable. BTW, I’m sitting at my kitchen table

Me: I’m happy that you love me I’ll strive for greater profundity

Him: Your profundity inspires me. When you get off track, it’s like when Metallica does a power ballad

So here I am wondering about something that I’ve talked to others about… everything I tweet, as well as everything I blog, and everything I say in any public situation, contributes to how I’m perceived in the world. Since the world includes my professional community, it’s incumbent on me to think about what I say and how I say it.  Right?

I believe that it is. So when I tweet something about the weather or where I’m having dinner, it contributes to people’s opinion and impression of me, sometimes in very subtle ways. Mostly, I think about that before I tweet.  Sometimes I just think “the heck with it – I feel like saying this” and I go ahead.

I know several people whose Twitter personality or blog personality is DRAMATICALLY different from their in-person personality. This always makes me wonder.  For instance, some folks are amazingly nice in person, but downright caustic electronically.  I don’t get that. Why should there be such a difference, and why do they do it?

So I’m occasionally random and pointless, and clearly this annoys/disappoints/frustrates at least one friend and Twitter follower. It definitely gives me pause for thought.

How does my humor come across? How do my random/sarcastic/playful comments come across? Am I really being aware of not only myself, but how I affect others? And am I considering this in the generally-less-safe in-person context and the generally-more-safe electronic context?

This is one of the big lessons: being self-aware is work, and the work is never done.