Twittering my Diabetes
UPDATE: This event is now over and the complete transcript of the Diabetic Day's Twittering's are now available.
Twitter is a new thing on the 'net lately. You can send text messages of up to 140 characters into the cloud, and folks who are your "friends" or "followers" (read: digital stalkers) can receive those updates. You can send your updates to twitter via their Web Interface, via their Mobile Browser interface at http://m.twitter.com, but the really compelling way is via their 5-digit SMS code "40404." Here's a Twitter SMS Cheatsheet. For example, to "subscribe" to me, you'd SMS/text "follow shanselman" to code 40404. To stop, you'd SMS/text "leave shanselman."
Personally I find it a little silly to need to be THAT connected to folks, but I've found twitter to be useful in temporary situations, like conferences when you WANT to let folks know what's going on and what you're doing. It was very useful at Mix to meet up with folks I wanted to talk to, so from a just-in-time networking point of view, it was brilliant. I didn't update after Mix, though, until RailsConf2007.
I've been trying to raise money for Diabetes Research as I'm a Type I diabetic. Driving home today, I had an even better idea on how I could use Twitter.
Tomorrow, Thursday, May 18th, I'm going to "twitter" my Diabetes for one day. By this, I mean, every time I take a manual shot, update my pump, prick my finger, have a high blood sugar, have a low blood sugar, eat, calibrate my continuous meter, or do ANYTHING related to diabetes, I'll send an update to Twitter.
My hope is that this will give folks who don't think about diabetes a little insight into how often I, and 20 million others, either do, or should, be thinking about their diabetes. I'd also like you to imagine if a small child had this disease, and how a parent of a small child deals with it.
Please spread the word by , and I encourage you and yours to subscribe to my Twitter account just for 1 day. If you don't want to make an account, just visit http://www.twitter.com/shanselman throughout Tomorrow and watch the updates. I hope it'll give you some insight into diabetes, and maybe open some eyes.
About Scott
Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.
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secretGeek
It seems to me that most of your downtime(NLP) you are spending worrying about it. every intelligent person knows that the world reflects exactly as we see it. By changing your belief and way of thinking, you change your world. You should know that, specially because you indirectly speak about it.
What actually you are doing is installing a fear motivation in these people, some actually become so afraid they either get diabeties (law of attraction, NLP) or help you out with money raising. Although a Fear Motivation is one of the 9 motivations by Napoleon Hill, it is a bad one to install on people.
Ignorance may be bliss, but rarely do the ignorant solve problems.
Is Scott really motivating with fear? Or might it be empathy?
I suppose one's perspective could be influenced by capacity for each.
Scot, wouldn't you say ignorant people are not aware of their eco-system, no? It is not about ignorant, isn't it? it is about how you effect your eco-system, both internally and externally.
It is a purely voluntary action to follow what Scott is planning to do. If you believe it spreads fear then don't "twitter" it.
If someone wants to find out how much of an impact it makes on the life of someone with Diabetes then this is one way they can find out. It is by no means the only way but it does provide an insight into what happens over the course of a day.
Mark
I had joined the RailsConf twitter page and saw your posts. Good idea, it should be interesting. :-)
But be warned it is very addictive!
Denis
My wife has Type I we're working on getting her a pump.
I had no idea you had to check it this often.
What a cool way to raise awareness! I was wondering, and this question is for anyone and everyone, what do you know about Byetta? I just started the shots this week (first time ever for shots), so it has been an interesting week. I am insulin resistant, so my doctor thought Byetta would be worth a try.
I wish you lots of luck!
Thanks,
Ashley
Great idea. I'll be following your updates today. Joanna and I are planning on sponsoring Team Hanselman.
Otto
I did a similar thing last year - just kept track of everytime I did something d-related for one day and wrote up a single blog post about it. Came out with something like 46 times in 24 hours - and that was on a really good day. If you follow the link to my blog you can see it under "24 hours of being me" in the previous posts....
Good luck!
http://manuelhp42.blogspot.com/2007/05/nice-niche-that-twitter-fills.html.
Great minds think alike, I guess! :)
Wanted to invite you to join TuDiabetes.com, a Social Network for Diabetics I started earlier this year. It'd be amazing to have you in it as a member.
Keep up the diabetes posts, Scott. You can't believe how much it helps us teach.
Bob, RN
It's important to understand possible causes and effects of diabetes and what being Type I means versus Type II . You can't worry yourself into having diabetes. The fact that Scott is showing a typical day in is life isn't going to cause people to worry anymore than they normally would. But it might show some people that you can live with either type of diabetes and it isn't a death sentence.
- Every time you have to say "no" to an offer of candy, or dessert, or beer/liquor, or anything else loaded with sugar that people regularly try to foist upon you.
- Every time you wonder if you're sweating because of a hyper/hypo, or just because it's hot.
- Every time you have to leave an event early, or decline an invitation because it conflicts with your regularly scheduled mealtime.
..and all those other "little things" that happen throughout the course of a day, that most people take for granted.
And I would say to Moshe that worrying about it every minute of every day is A NECESSITY, because you are now acting as your own pancreas, and you never get a break from diabetes. There is no "mind over matter" philosophy that will change that.
Interesting approach by the way utilizing twitter this way. I often wonder why Twitter and not utilize the Blog? Want to separate the two?
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