Twitter is Toast?

The source of the image above is from: Why Social Media Innovation Has Hit a Plateau - an oped piece on Mashable.

Saturday mornings are great. Multiple cups of coffee. No rush. A little extra "me time" to catch-up on what's happening in the world.

Scrolling through my LinkedIn newsfeed, one of my good friends who is the Chief Futurologist at Volvo shared the following link: The End of Twitter which was published recently in the New Yorker.

My first thought was "Twitter is Toast?"

Great. Sigh...

It's only taken me the last two years to attract roughly 1,398 (hard-earned) followers during the eight years total that I've been on Twitter. OK, yes, apparently I'm a dinosaur, too. But, I'm also rather pragmatic and realistic so I know that my content probably only appeals to a very narrow band of Twitter users. But, should the service disappear, I wonder how much impact it really would have on my day-to-day working life?  

Something to muse over.

There is an old proverb (from King Solomon) that "where there is no vision, the people perish." When the flames are up to your ears on the main deck, it is hard to focus on Vision ... you're probably just hoping that you have enough water and fire hoses available to douse the raging fire and survive. But, with the mass exodus of executive leadership from Twitter, it is clear that those VPs, etc., have read (and, by their actions, confirmed) the hand-writing on the wall: Twitter is Toast. 

But, even if Twitter does survive, will there be anyone left with the right Vision to which everyone left behind in that organization can rally? No organization can absorb that much of a loss at the leadership level without facing some serious consequences.  

And, all of those fleeing executives (that are rushing to Twitter's competitors) do not bode well for those other social media platforms that just hired them, either. There is an old Greek (or is it Chinese?) proverb that says, "the fish rots from the head." What is the risk involved to a live fish if you transplant a "rotten head" from a dead fish to it? Hmm.

The latest battle cry in the consulting world is "Innovation" and it has emerged as one of the new "buzzwords" in the past year or so. However, innovation for the sake of innovation (and not guided by a clear Vision) is not the right way to create something sustainable. 

If there is no profit, then it is not sustainable.

So, Twitter is toast today? Who will be toast tomorrow? Guess I need to tweet the link to this post out to the Twitterverse and find out...

;-)

PS  My next book, "Flow" (co-authored with my brother Ted), touches on the topic of Innovation and it will be out in paperback this spring.

PPS If you'd like a more in-depth discussion about Vision, then feel free to download Ted's and my recent book, "The Nehemiah Effect" from Kindle.  By the way, “The Nehemiah Effect” is a #1 National Best Seller on Amazon.com and was #1 again as recently as this past September 2015 (i.e. #1 in the following 4 sub-categories: Decision-making, Business, Consulting and Project Management) for 5 of the last 20 months, #2 for 2 months and a top-10 seller in almost every other month. And, a survey of Agile Coaches that was conducted by Spotify includes "Nehemiah Effect" on the list of must read books (scroll down to get to the list) if you want to become a great Agile Coach.

PPS We also have a white paper on how to Unify Vision on our PMO Brothers website. Yes ... I know ... how "Web 2.0" can you be? :D