I have a strange new addiction that is almost as powerful as my compulsion to read.
It isn’t chocolate, although it’s nearly as potent.
No, it’s the GNO.
“GNO?,” you ask.
What Is GNO?
“Yes, GNO. Girl’s Night Out is the newest weekly ritual, organized by a couple of Twitter Moms, where women from all over the globe, and all walks of life, get together on Tuesday nights to chat on one topic. Or, this being women, after all, to talk about just about everything under the sun.”
Over the past month, this phenomenon has grown to the point that on a typical night you might feel like you’re playing Double Dutch keeping up with multiple conversations simultaneously, and trying to tweet in as you can.
The Beauty of Twitter
It’s a blast! You connect with women who may share some of your experiences, but with a wide variety of interpretation. We’re all so different that it’s amazing that we’re able to get along in this forum, but that’s the beauty of Twitter.
You choose who you want to follow.
Sure, you can follow all the conversational threads, but if you find that someone is offensive, you can choose to not follow them. Not that this happens, much, on the GNO, but it’s always an option.
Getting Into GNO
Last night, Guest Tweeter Michelle Duffy, travel expert of Wanderlust and Lipstick, led a spirited GNO on all things related to travel. Everyone benefited from lots of suggestions on where to go, and how to get there, especially traveling with kids. It was wild!
Non-GNO tweeple kept asking how to get in, and a couple of the GNO’ers were temporarily booted out for going over the maximum tweet limit per hour.
I was afraid to leave my laptop and miss the riot.
If you’d like to join us on the GNO, sign up on Mommy Gossip - GNO and share your ideas on future GNO topics.
My Suggestion For A GNO Topic
I have a few topics that I’d like to mull over with other moms about kids online… Ooh, I’ve got a fabulous suggestion.
I wonder if we can get Amy Jussel, of Shaping Youth, to Guest Tweet along with her “dream team of co-hosts for Kids Online: Balancing Safety and Fun.” GNO tweeters can discuss the unconference questions that Shaping Youth has posted about kids online:
• Who and what are we trying to protect digital kids from?
• Are there standards and norms in practice we can leverage to formalize for industry?
• How can we create cyber-spaces that balance interesting and fun with safety?
• What is the role of government in either defining or supporting best practices?
• How do we create best practices that are flexible based on age range, content and willingness for parental involvement by industry or the child?
• Kids fake their ages to gain access to online content, do we as an industry care? If so, then…? Let’s add other ideas, issues, concepts that you think are important in this area…
What do you think?
Would you like to get the ball rolling? What do you think about kids online? Do you have an opinion on any of the above questions, or questions of your own? Please share in a comment!
More On Living By Learning About Twitter
Why Twitter? Find out what the Twitter hullabaloo is all about.
You’re No One If You’re Not On Twitter - Find out how to connect with like-minded peers on Twitter.
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{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
jessiev 10.22.08 at 3:10 pm
great ideas! last night was fun!
Melissa, Multitasking Mama 10.22.08 at 3:38 pm
I want in on this- sounds like I’m missing out!
Barbara 10.22.08 at 7:08 pm
I tried doing this last night and FAILED miserably. May try it again next week,
wandermom 10.22.08 at 7:28 pm
Hi Sandra,
Glad you enjoyed the chatter last night. I was totally having a blast - although struggling to keep up with all the questions and comments.
These are really great ideas for future GNO chats.
Keep well and travel happy
Amy Jussel 10.22.08 at 8:05 pm
Love the idea, reminds me of the Meebo ‘multitasking mom’ handle I used at the Ypulse National Mashup…fun to hear the different perspectives for sure!
I confess I’ve gone off and on Twitter incognito as I’ve had a bunch of pings to be ‘followed’ and I’m so digitally driven as it is, my fear is that it would add to my social media slushpile where I’m in overload mode about 90% of the time already. That said, it’s SO inspiring to meet intelligent life forces on the planet and the techno tools have delivered me an abundance of ‘cool mom picks’ that I can barely filter/find or fit them into my reader!
My reticence with becoming a regular is watching powerhouse media gal pals like Beth Kanter of the Twitterati set, and knowing how all-consuming it could become for me. (btw, Did you see the ‘Twinfluence’ tool? I KNOW I should be tweetin’ for Shaping Youth, I just need a clone. Here’s her post with a good slate of questions about data interpretation:
http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2008/10/whats-your-twit.html
p.s. Another topic for future GNO chats? ‘Positive picks’ for BOYS in the media and marketing sphere…I’m hosting an “all things girl” week on Shaping Youth Nov. 1-8 of some fun picks and sites and sources, but I’d like to get readers to lob some cool sites for boys my way.
In fact, I could donate a few copies of PackagingGirlhood.com to your readers/Tweeters for the best list of recommendations for boys?(the authors/Dr. Lamb & Dr. Mikel Brown are on my advisory board, so I bought a case of books to use in our work!) They’re doing a sequel to the book and I’ll bet they’d like some crowdsourcing of mom minds too?
A thought anyway…you could check w/your scout troop?
Moms At Work 10.23.08 at 9:17 am
Why have I never heard of this? I am soooooooooo out of the loop. Sounds like fun!
Sandra Foyt 10.23.08 at 11:21 am
Amy,
I totally understand what you mean. It’s awesome to connect with great minds online, but you also have to prioritize how you allocate your time.
Twitter can be a fabulous connection tool, but it can also be a time sucking pit.
I am intrigued by the idea of coming up with a list of positive picks for boys, I’ll definitely follow up on that!
Thank you!
Beth Coming Up 10.23.08 at 2:03 pm
Wasn’t #GNO so fun? I am looking forward to next week! It’s been nice seeing you on Twitter too! Hope your week is going well! I really like your topic idea. This is a big thing for us because we have 4 kids - one being 18 - and I worry about their surfing. Our computer is in our living room where everyone can see. But I’d love to hear what other moms are doing!!
Anne 10.23.08 at 7:25 pm
Sounds like fun.
Amy Jussel 10.24.08 at 3:53 pm
I’d love to hear too, Beth, Anne, et al…as all too often there’s polarity in thinking on this issue where there’s either fear-mongering in play or laissez-faire brush-offs, assuming kids ‘know it all’ and can navigate the surf just fine. Sometimes yes, sometimes no…the teens we work with love the forums on ConnectSafely.org too, because there are adults AND kids sounding off on things that have surfaced in their own personal lives and when they have an ‘eep! how to handle?’ query, they often land in a sea of sage ‘been there done that’ wisdom.
Internet educator/author Anne Collier, who moderates ConnectSafely.org also runs NetFamily News, which is a must-read for “totally wired” parents and kids too!—Good stuff all around!
Here are links to all in a piece I wrote awhile back on Shaping Youth about Meebo’s chat rooms: http://www.shapingyouth.org/blog/?p=1900
(you’ll see Sandra there too!)
And here’s the one just on the safety forum/cyberbullying stuff http://www.shapingyouth.org/blog/?p=395
Deb Williams 10.28.08 at 7:58 am
hey sandra,
you summed up GNO quite well… and you almost made us sound downright civilized! see you tonight…
yes, love the idea of online safety for the kiddos.