Some of My Twitter Mentors

Even without having twittered long enough to be an accomplished tweeter, it is still worth paying homage to those who've brought me this far. These are the people who taught me how to tweet. In particular, these are people that I specifically chose to emulate or learn something about tweeting from. There are, of course, lots of others, I respect on twitter, but these, in particular, had a specific impact on how and what I tweet about.

My initial thanks go to @ShebaJo for bringing this idea to my attention. If you want someone to pick you up with a laugh or a great song, she is a go-to woman. In fact, if she hadn't cajoled me into blipping, I wouldn't have done that either, would have just happily listened to others music. She also knows more about photography that I want to imagine it is possible to know.

Next, I think I should honor the people who got me started. First, Jessica Lortli, who appears not be on twitter any longer. In any event, she ran the brown-bag event that introduced the idea of having twittering and blogging for Intel as something one didn't not need to be a PR or marketing person to do. Having been a Usenet news poster, long before people thought is was Google groups, I happily jumped at the chance.

The next mentor has to be @dmadey, who was the Voce person assigned to teach me the ropes. I cannot give him enough credit for getting me going in the right direction. I still have some lessons from him on blogging that I'm trying to incorporate.

I also want to mention my fellow "Embassadors" @geek8ive, @intel_jim, @intel_rhonda, and @intel_stewart who've always been a great source of mutual support. Many of the other people on this list, I met by raiding my fellow embassadors following list.

@geekgirls was my next mentor with her blog entry on tweeps as real friends. I've used this as my guide for how I want to deal with my fellow tweeps. Really inspiring for me was how @dracona1031 stepped up and demonstrated what being a friend on twitter was about in the next week. Nothing like an excellent example to drive a point home.

The next four twitter mentors I met at approximately the same time. I'm not really certain who I met first. They were all instrumental in my development.

@mistygirlph was my next mentor and she lead me to the entire @bitrebels team and blog. The personal touch they use is an absolute inspiration. @adamsconsulting could easily have been my intro to this wonderful team, but I met Mindy first.

@terrinakamura became one of my mentors about the same time. She is my gold standard for what it means to be a twitter all-star. The fact that she also introduced me to more than a few of my other favorite twitterers, such as @lindacriddle, @krystynchong, and @nonglin does not hurt either.

@lanny_S is another mentor I met at the same time. She was influential in my learning that one could truly mix different styles of tweets successfully. Her tweets cover a variety of topics, including ones on security that I would otherwise miss. On top of that, she displays true class.

@nurul54 was instantly recognizable to me as someone I wanted as a mentor. She certainly came through. In particular, when I reached a point of frustration about not being able to keep up with all the people I was following, she since gave me the insight that it was okay. I depend on her for deep and abiding insights. She regularly delivers. Everyone should have a mentor that enriches their soul.

@rickasaurus is my mentor on tweeting about programming topics. He is always on top of interesting articles and comments.

@nigelfenwick is great example of someone who does an important job but does not let it go to his head. He has a great sense of humor and doesn't talk down to people.

@fortaliceLLC is representative of the whole online-safety community I associate with. She is a most capable choice to select though, displaying dedication and tenacity. She has certain inspired me to stick-with-it and keep trying to help keep people vigilant about the topic. As I mentioned in the post about the community, they have impacted not only how I tweet, but who I am.

As I mentioned at the outset, these are tweeps who have specifically influenced what and how I tweet.

There is a whole list of other people who I respect on twitter and like what they tweet. You can tell that by looking at the lists I keep. Each list represents a column in tweetdeck. And, while I RT mostly the people in my security-all and security-2 lists because that's my area of work, I could easily fill my stream by RTing just things I like from any one of my lists.

You can easily see that by watching the people who I RT regularly with the sad part being that I can't keep up with the number of great things to tweet that come in and so there are more than is visible. As they say, you can see only the tip-of-the-iceberg.

I love the #140char community, exemplified by @teksquisite, @technobozo, @mikerigsby, and @strikerdlh.

I also love the people who work regularly on security either as researchers or vendors, such as @vikphtak and @FSecure.

Also the journalists that translate our complex field into something more accessible, like @HelpNetSecurity, @RWW, and @DarkReading.

The law is another source of tweeps I enjoy like @clarinette02, @rcalo, and @econwriter5.

As a programmer, I also have specific technical people who I find interesting like @redzor and @tehlike.

Finally, there are just people who I admire and respect personally such as @modelsupplies and @mllyssa. I'd love to tweet more of their material, but I just can't keep up. :-(

I just want to go on listing people who I really enjoy following, but at some point one must stop.