A #dystopian tale of human enslavement and microblogging

Chapter Two
Sticking it to the man was easier than I thought (my line manager Keith was very understanding). Just six weeks later I was in Frisco International Airport queuing for a hire car. Suddenly I was the most spontaneous guy I knew – including Pete in MIS, and I know for a fact he goes snowboarding twice a year.

Who’s a ‘tedious, flatulent middle-management drone’ now, Linda? If only my ex-wife could see me now. I could just imagine the look on her face. Not much of a pay-off for ten years’ investment in Botox treatments, but I’d take what I could get.

I booked a room in the nearest Holiday Inn, grabbed a shower and got ready to meet my own personal Jesus. I considered phoning ahead. But what was I thinking? They probably don’t even have phones at Twitter. I still had my head stuck up the legacy paradigm, and I needed to upshift quickly. A man like Biz is gonna recognise a soul mate on sight. He’s spent the last five years in a dark room eating pizza and developing social networking systems. He’s the ultimate people person, for chrissakes!

Minutes later I was on the road, Twitter HQ locked into my TomTom. 164 South Park, San Francisco. South Park. Like that’s a coincidence! Classic. Still chuckling, I wound down the windows, loosened my tie and edged my Nissan Pixo right up to just below the speed limit.

“You have arrived at your destination,” announced TomTom finally. The adrenaline was pumping like the first time I tagged an inaccurate tax rebate. I switched off the engine and glanced round the half-empty car park. It looked pretty normal. In fact, it looked a lot like a business park. A really dull business park. But of course it would! They don’t want people just dropping by unannounced. That would be weird. Freakish. Criminally actionable, even.

I put the Pixo in park, clambered out and waited for a sign. Well, I say waited. I saw one pretty much immediately. A massive great Twitter sign. That was good enough for me.

Steadying myself with a deep breath, I strode confidently towards my goal. Slowed down. Realised I was heading towards the loading bay. Did that thing when you pretend you were just checking out something over there but, with that task now completed, you’re free to proceed in the opposite direction.

Cock-up styled out, I approached my date with destiny. Nice door. All big and glassy. Business up front, but you just know there’s a party going on behind. The kind of door that…No, enough delaying. Here we go. Here we freakin’ go! Let’s do this. I reached out, hesitated, then thrust my trembling digit forward.

Beeeeeeeep…

How will our dashing protagonist be received at Twitter HQ? Will he be offered a soda, coffee or restraining order? Or is there, in fact, a dark secret lurking at the heart of social networking’s current belle du jour – a dark secret strongly hinted at by this blognov’s subtitle and that, were it not to exist, would make aforesaid subtitle highly misleading if not downright erroneous? Give us a break. We’re working on it…

A #dystopian tale of human enslavement and microblogging

Chapter One
Did you read that article in The Guardian. Twitter HQ looks pretty sweet, right? I mean, yeah we’ve all worked in open plan offices. Heck, I’ve even pimped out my own little pod with a mini basketball net for when I need some downtime. But a plasma TV for break-time gaming? A red telephone box in the corner? A freakin’ green plastic deer in the corner for no reason whatsoever?! That’s nuts. That’s out there.

And then there’s him.

Biz Stone. Biz. Stone. The Biz. The Bizzard. The Stoner. Alright, not that. Well, maybe. Probably. But, damn that’s a cool name. The name of a man who’s got one eye on the future, one eye on tomorrow and his iPhone hooked into SETI. The handle of a guy who’s gonna shake things up, scoop up whatever comes loose and build a break-dancing robot that dispenses Red Bull from its groin.

No wonder he came up with something as freakin’ sweet as Twitter. 140 characters a pop. It’s just so perfect. You can say literally nothing and sound zen. Embarrassing misspellings are a thing of the past (tx, leetspeak). And you can follow people you’d never have met before. It’s almost like being their friends, just without the personal relationship bit. #awesome.

Anyway, that article. Read it. Loved it. Wanted more. Then it hit me. This is what I’d been waiting for. The chance to discover something bigger than myself. The chance to make a pilgrimage that would change my life forever. The chance to use up all that time in lieu I’d built up during the Simpkins audit.

I was going to Twitter HQ in San Francisco – and damn the pro rata bonus penalty for taking three weeks’ consecutive leave during the busy Q3 period!

Biz wouldn’t sweat deets like that.

What will our intrepid hero discover upon his arrival at Twitter HQ? Will Biz live up to his wildly hyperbolic expectations? Where does the weak ‘Matrix’ pun fit into the overall plot arc? Does this have a plot arc, or is the author patently making it up as he goes along? Find out in Chapter Two of The Matwits. Coming soon to a blog near you. Provided you’ve bookmarked this blog.

Isn’t humour funny? Get it right and you’ve a tool to create something truly memorable. Get it wrong and there’s no better way to look like a wally. For a painful example of the latter, just ask for my ‘Weekend at Bernie’s’ funeral story.

So, does humour have a place in the serious world of corporate comms? Done right, the answer’s a resounding yes. Something I was reminded of today when one of my half-arsed Google searches culminated in a couple of very entertaining, but very different, videos.

First up’s a Microsoft training video from 2004.

Admittedly, it does help if you’ve got a couple of million hanging about to splurge on some big name comedians. But you can do it on the cheap too; and why do the all the work when you can get your people to do it for you? Last year, Deloitte launched a project asking employees to make short films that addressed the question ‘what’s your Deloitte?’. The results weren’t half bad. Take a look at this one.

Both are great examples of how to create some engaging comms by not taking yourself too seriously.