Lasher on Learning

I’ve been looking at Twitter as a learning tool. Convinced that there is some way we really can make this tool work for us and not just as a noise that gets in the way.

This morning a well know US pundit started to follow me after a post I made that they obviously liked. I was astonished to see they were following over 3000 others.

So I started to look at everyone and how many they were following, was I lacking in playing this game, not following enough and therefore missing something?

Some stats!

British gurus seem to follow far less than our US peers.

The average guru here follows less that 200 people, in the USA it averages at almost 1000.

I saw 127 tweets in the last 24 hours and I follow 60 people. So my hypothesis is that there is a 2:1 ratio of how many tweets you see to how many people you follow. Love to know if anyone can confirm this!

With that in mind, the guru following 3200 people must see 6400 tweets every 24 hours. Whoa!

I spend about 15 minutes, 4 times a day looking at twitter and following the odd link I find interesting. 1 hour a day. So another off the wall calculation says 1 minute per person being followed per day?

So for the guru following 3200 people they need to spend 53 hours a day to get the same level of information as I do from Twitter.

Some others I looked at!

Donald Clark, following 47. 47 minutes very manageable.

David Wilson following 162, does David spend 2.5 hours a day on Twitter?

Clive Shepherd follows 190. 3 hours a day? Maybe!

At what level does it get to be unmanageable? How many is too many to be able to see all of the information?

And, if we just skim the information, what do we miss and/or learn incorrectly!

If we want to use tools like Twitter in the workplace, can we limit the number of people our staff follow.

My crazy calculations would suggest an 8 hour day is equal to following 480 people and doing no work!

Have I got it wrong….