(picture of my favorite shirt, courtesy of despair.com)

I was very hesitant to jump on to Twitter, because I kept hearing all sorts of snarky comments about it from people who weren't even users.  I mean, I didn't really care to know what my friends were having for lunch, and I was already hooked up with a lot of them on Facebook anyway.  I kept thinking about it, and realized that if I went into it with a purpose and stuck to it, then I could check it out my way.

I decided to focus on professional development.  I have been at the same job for nearly ten years, and knew that I needed an influx of fresh ideas so that I wouldn't become a stagnant and unhappy bean counter.  I went on the hunt for other accountants like me out in the Twitterverse.  This proved harder than I thought it would.  I'm not a CPA and don't have much of an interest in the latest pronouncements from FASB (that's the Financial Accounting Standards Board for all of you who don't speak jive).  I also don't have a focus on tax, except for minimizing my own personal offerings to the government.  I did find some awesome CPAs out there who are using social media to reach out and make these sorts of things less scary for people.  They're also talking about their families, sports, and the other things that interest them, just like the rest of us humans.  They also talk about their calculators sometimes, so that gives me an extra little thrill.  Don't hate.  

I switched my focus over to another part of my job, which is HR.  Man, HR knows how to represent on Twitter!  You guys should really give yourselves more love.  You can have a seat at my table anytime!  There are some serious thought leaders out there who inspire me to raise my, albeit very limited, game.  HR is only a small part of my job (most days), but the whole function in our company is pretty limited to executing what upper management wants done (our main focus is to "keep us legal" and we do) along with normal everyday things like handling payroll, medical leaves, open enrollment, workers comp, etc.  I hope the HR tweeple don't mind having me in their network or stalking the HR Happy Hour, because I'm really enjoying all the learning going on out there.

Now my Google Reader is full of great blogs from my Twitter connections, so thanks to all of you for sharing your smarts.  You keep me company when I'm having my breakfast in the office in the morning, and when I'm settling in for the night.  

Now I've got two new problems:

1.  All those great ideas from your blogs tend to keep me awake longer than planned.  

2.  Now you've got me blogging.  I never thought that would happen.  

Hope you find it entertaining in some small way!