Last week Laura Fitton, aka Pistachio posted a well-received blog about the Twitter Village. It's more than a cute thought. It explains how a virtual community, managed by no one, designed to serve no brand or commercial interest self organizes.
In reality, the Twitter Village is fast becoming a megalopolis. Unofficial census takers say there are now over 700,000 denizens to the virtual place and it is growing rapidly. In fact, this doesn't really matter to the people who go there. Thanks to the self-organizing attributes, we keep subdividing into smaller "global neighborhoods," sorted by diverse interests. Laura and I belong to one of the largest of these neighborhoods, the one whose shared passion is social media itself. We occasionally meander into other neighborhoods where the residents are more passionate about politics, sports, entertainment, cooking, etc.
But for the most part most of my closest Twitter friends are social about social media.
A couple hours ago, in some old fashioned email conversation, Connie Reece, an extremely well-respected and frequent Tweeter, as we call each other in the 'hood, suggested that Chris Brogan (chrisbrogan on Twitter) should be the Mayor of our Tweeter Village. In fact, Chris has lots of the attributes. To begin with, he's Boston. He's Irish. He knows just about everyone. He's a great virtual glad-hander. But, it is not for Connie and I to decide. Neither of us like that top-down approach. It is for all the residents to decide.
So I am now accepting nominations for who should be Twitter Village mayor.
In fact, let's nominate a whole slate of Twitter Village officers. Because it is virtual, not all out titles need to be the same as in a city. For example, I don't think we need a fire chief. But here are a few titles that come to mind, for people in my neighborhood.
I nominate:
Connie Reece (conniereece on Twitter) Secretary of Health, for the work she has done building the Pea Foundation
Jeremiah Owyang (jowyang), secretary of community development, although I reserve the right to occasionally heckle him.
I (shelisrael) nominate me to be the Director of the Twitter Village Senior Center. I have seniority.
Scoble (scobleizer), of course, is the press secretary because of his hyperactive communications gene.KD Paine as director of weights and measures. This, of course, is a step down from her current position of Measurement Queen, but it could pay better.
Hugh MacLeod (gapingvoid) is clearly our Illustrator in Chief.
Paul Walsh (paulwalsh). Secretary of State, For speaking out about doing evil in China and getting banned in one or two places.
Loic LeMeur (loiclmeur), Secretary of Tweesmic, a new bi-lingual post.
These are just my nominations. You can make yours. Do it on your own blog or in Twitter. You can leave your nominations here, but warning: I learned to count ballots in Boston.
