1 February 2012

Andrew Leigh takes to Twitter

| johnboy
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andrew leigh

Member for Fraser Andrew Leigh has blogged that he’s taking half heartedly to Twitter:

over the past 17 months, enough people who I respect have made a good case for twitter that it seems churlish to base my decision on theory alone. In other contexts, I frequently complain about people who make decisions without looking at the evidence, so I figured I really ought to test the theory, and find out once and for all: does twitter make me happier and more productive?

So, following in the footsteps of my good friend Justin Wolfers, I’m embarking on a month-long twitter randomised trial. Each morning in February, I’ll toss a coin. Heads, I’ll tweet for the day. Tails, I shan’t. At the end of each day, I’ll record how happy I’ve been, and how productive. And at the end of February, I’ll tally it all up.

I’m not entirely sure a person’s overall happiness can be determined by their Twitter usage, but will concede that all else being equal it might show up in the statistics over time.

If nothing else Twitter does wonders for the ego gratification of the moderately famous, which is happiness of a sort, if not a particularly healthy one.

I would suggest to Dr Leigh that he set up a program to pump his excellent blog into his twitter and public facebook automatically via his RSS feed, using those services (and any others that come along) to drive eyeballs to the content he owns and controls.

If you’re so inclined you can find him here.

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Gungahlin Al2:12 pm 01 Feb 12

Gungahlin Al said :

EvanJames said :

I like to see a pollie actually communicating naturally, rather than feeding it through a media machine so it comes out sanitised and all motherhood-ish. People keep complaining that they want to know what pollies really think, rather than only saying what won’t get them into trouble. And then if the pollie says something they don’t like, they launch a massive attack on them.

So this is good. Risky for him, people with teeth and knives will be lining up waiting to pounce. If he handles such attacks in the same spirit as he’s started out, he should do well.

I tend to agree. Much like people seemed to appreciate Simon Crean’s candour the other day about the machinations of the Rudd camp.

And on his blog autoposting to Twitter and Facebook, his is WordPress so it should be simple to set up. I know it was easy for my blog on Blogger to do this through Networked Blogs, and since I have, visits to my blog have shot up to around 1000 a week.

On Twitter, I also was a naysayer. But I’ve around big time. As with much in life, it is what you make of and put into it.

“come” around . Sheesh. Must proof read…

Gungahlin Al2:05 pm 01 Feb 12

EvanJames said :

I like to see a pollie actually communicating naturally, rather than feeding it through a media machine so it comes out sanitised and all motherhood-ish. People keep complaining that they want to know what pollies really think, rather than only saying what won’t get them into trouble. And then if the pollie says something they don’t like, they launch a massive attack on them.

So this is good. Risky for him, people with teeth and knives will be lining up waiting to pounce. If he handles such attacks in the same spirit as he’s started out, he should do well.

I tend to agree. Much like people seemed to appreciate Simon Crean’s candour the other day about the machinations of the Rudd camp.

And on his blog autoposting to Twitter and Facebook, his is WordPress so it should be simple to set up. I know it was easy for my blog on Blogger to do this through Networked Blogs, and since I have, visits to my blog have shot up to around 1000 a week.

On Twitter, I also was a naysayer. But I’ve around big time. As with much in life, it is what you make of and put into it.

NoImRight said :

Im not sure Twitter is for people that use “churlish” as part of theri normal conversation.

Or ‘shan’t’, for that matter.

Im not sure Twitter is for people that use “churlish” as part of theri normal conversation.

He is so full of himself – this seems to be an attempt for some book sales. People who voted for him must be hoping for another election soon.

I like to see a pollie actually communicating naturally, rather than feeding it through a media machine so it comes out sanitised and all motherhood-ish. People keep complaining that they want to know what pollies really think, rather than only saying what won’t get them into trouble. And then if the pollie says something they don’t like, they launch a massive attack on them.

So this is good. Risky for him, people with teeth and knives will be lining up waiting to pounce. If he handles such attacks in the same spirit as he’s started out, he should do well.

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