26 March 2010 a landmark day in my evolving social-networking persona. After five months of relentless tweeting, I stopped. Cold tukey. Turned it off. Took a deep breath and waited to see what would transpire. I remember, it was pretty much a beautiful sunny Friday in London and I was preparing for my return for my US stint. I wondered would anyone be interested in my tweets about my upcoming BA experience (not always good; but always newsworthy, kind of like going to a casino). I just had a sense that I needed to take a step back and try and make some sense of this relatively new medium and how it had affected my life. For better or worse, what follows are some of those observations.

What did not happen.

1. A lot of stuff happened. Wars, famine, natural disasters, births, deaths, the usual but, the world did not end.
2. Best Loved Hotels did not go out of business. Though I wonder what would happen in three to five years as the way in which we communicate with each other changes.
3. Looking at twitter-folk, there are some great people making me aware of great news, observation and comment but there is so much that people need to do and think about before they consider tweeting. The knowledge curve for newbies is still too steep and I don’t think it has improved.

What happened.

1. I became calmer and was less frustrated by my fellow Hotel Twitterers screaming their special offers to 100 followers or fewer and other inane tweets and desperately wanting to get in touch with them and help them develop their own unique voice and rationale for tweeting.

2. I re-engaged with my family on a face to face basis as my nose was not firmly fixed inches from my Palm 24/7. I love them.

3. I actually found that I enjoyed not obsessing about the number of followers I had each day, the number of clicks to my links, or the need to find Twitterers to follow me. This is purely my issue and is simply a warning to others. Relax!

4. I missed the true ‘social-networking’ features of Twitter and the engaging tweet-alogs with fantastic travel related twitterers.

5. I missed learning about places and destinations outside the United Kingdom and Ireland, my realm of travel expertise, and following some fantastic travel experts and aspiring experts on their explorations and discoveries.

6. I found that travel-related Twitter inhabits an amazingly benign, interested, helpful and generally positive space in the twitter-sphere. There are places in the Twitter-verse that can be quite hostile, aggressive, and unpleasant. Choose who you wish to follow carefully. They can bring you down.

7. I learned the hard way, you need to manage Twitter not let Twitter manage you.

8. I have come to realize that you need to think before you tweet. Count to three slowly, take a deep breath, and ask youself, “How will this tweet this affect my followers?” Don’t tweet for tweet’s sake!

9. I observed and believe now that Twitter is like the most amazing ‘drinks party’. There must be a reason they call it social-networking. You get out of it what you put into it. Those who are truly interested in others and want to expand their tiny world succeed professionally on Twitter. Would you go to a reception, walk up to a perfect stranger, tap them on the shoulder and shout, “Tonight my hotel is offering 30% off.” And then walk away? Think about it!

10. I now know that Twitter works best when you are sincere, altruistic and truly take an interest in others not because it will help you promote your business, products, services, or special-interest but because it is a wonderful tool for releasing our innate goodness, and demonstrates our inherent connection as social creatures.

So in short, I am back at least for now. I firmly believe that the benefits of Twitter far outweigh the negatives and I look forward to learning more, sharing more, and enjoying Twitter with all of you.