After hearing Amber Case give a presentation on Twitter and social media to my co-workers, we took a break.
A senior manager who shall remain nameless walked by while I was talking to a friend. The manager is friendly and appears honest and direct; in the short time he’s worked for our department, I’ve decided I like him.
I joked with him about how he had been unsure how to get to the conference center, had asked me for directions, and yet still beat me here from our office.
My friend, following up on Amber’s talk, asked the manager, “So, is it OK for us to check out Twitter?”
The manager’s friendly smile froze in place as he processed the question. “You… you mean… at work?“
My friend nodded. “Well, yeah. We just had a presentation on it, Chair Wheeler is talking about it… can we use it to keep up on things?”
There followed a long pause as the implications of the county’s restrictive policies on internet use collided with the open, broadcast nature of social media inside the manager’s head. “I… I’m not… I’ll have to check to see what gets logged.”
My friend nodded.
I would call the grin on her face a “gotcha” grin.
The manager retreated back to his seat. Break was over.