I feel like a father.  Well, at least the leader of a really smart and cool crowd.  It was a Kodak Moment for me.

At a recent tweet up/conference, I gave a keynote about Kodak's leadership in the social networking scene.  It was at the 140 Characters Conference in NYC on June 16, 2009.  It was a great conference and a lot was shared and learned.  In fact, more of them are being planned, so check out www.140conf.com. If you want to know the what or the who of Twitter, then you should go.

Back to being a father... in my keynote, I spoke about how Kodak is a leader in social media and how we're using Twitter to reach customers. But it was during a brief discussion of those people who microblog in bad form that we gave birth to a new word and phrase. 

I don't like people who are rude and I tend to be direct about it when confronted with it, no matter what the form, be it Twitter or face-to-face.  So with a great deal of my South Dakota directness, I felt those in the twittering world should point these people out, make a list of their transgressions, and give these people a name. 

Who better to help to give a new name than the Twitteratti, those in attendance!  Surely they were some of the biggest tweeters of all--- and definitely "characters" in their own right.  My question was simple--- "What should we call those people on Twitter that behave with rude and poor manners or operate with bad form?"  The resounding response from the crowd was, drum roll please, "twanker. Then I gave a few examples of those using bad form or rude behavior.  Upon hearing the transgression, the entire audience responded by shouting "you are a twanker."  Thus a new word was born.  Certainly suitable for those on the internet, the newly formed twitteratti, and now you know, too.  Perhaps might even make Webster's?

To make it easy, here is a formal definition and a few examples of twankers as I see them.  Feel free to add your own.  That is the cool thing about crowd sourcing and being innovative.  It's likely to change. And change is usually a good thing.  We certainly know that at Kodak.

Twanker  (noun) a person, organization, or company who uses bad form on or exhibits bad behavior on Twitter.

Origin:  2009;  Twanker" is the result of a crowdsourcing exercise led by Jeffrey Hayzlett, Chief Marketing Officer, Kodak during the 140 Characters Conference keynote on June 16, 2009 in New York, New York.

Use twanker in a sentence:
"His constant posting of misinformed, and mean-spirited tweets resulted in the group labeling him a twanker."

Here are a few twanker examples I cited during my keynote:

Hijackers: These people are not genuine.  They hide their true reason for being on twitter.  Kodak hosted a twitter event, a conversation on line, and one of our competitors, let's call them BIG INK (the folks who charge a fortune for inkjet cartridges), joined in.  This person/company came into the conversation and did not disclose his affiliation and bad mouthed our consumer inkjet printer.  The twitters  searched him out and found out that he worked for BIG INK and therefore had a bias and was being less than honest by not disclosing his ties to BIG INK.  They requested he apologize and if he could not say something nice to move on.  He finally did but only after he was discovered.  Bad form.  Rude.  Go find your own event and at least tell the truth.  You, my friend, are a twanker.

Ambushers:  These come out of nowhere.  They just jump in and follow you and start ranting about one thing or another, many times using bad language.  A month or so ago, I had a person send me a tweet to tell us to get out of business and go away in especially offensive terms.  Dude, that is out of line.  My mom reads these.  You, my friend, are a twanker.

Lazy Auto Repliers:  Everyone on Twitter knows it's proper twitter etiquette to follow those who follow you.  You don't have to but it's polite.  What I do find interesting is when I politely click to follow a person who first follows me and I get the following message:  "Thanks for following me, I hope to reciprocate and follow you soon as I can get to it.  I am so busy responding to the thousands who want XXX."  Ummm, forgive me, but you started this by following me first, I was being polite by responding back.  It's not the best way to start off our new relationship.  You, my friend, are a twanker.

Tweeting Terrorists:  This is more from a company perspective but I suspect that people see this personally too.  This is when someone takes a product, a comment or a company and out of the blue creates some kind of controversy out of it only to backs out to watch the hornet's nest they have stirred up. Then they pop back up a few days later to let me know they are a social media consultant or some other type of potential vendor and they can help us to solve the problem.  Frankly, we didn't have one until you artificially started one and then tried to ride in on a not-so-white horse to make it go away.  You, my friend, are a twanker.

Fake Followers:  Twitter asks you to answer the fundamental question of "Where am I?" Recently a reporter for a major worldwide newspaper was following Sir Richard Branson and me.  She wrote a story about it and in the article commented she didn't really care about some of the meetings we were tweeting about.  In fact, she cited a meeting I had with a Kodak marketing team in Brussels.  Well, I did not ask her to follow me.  I look at it like...I did not ask you to follow me, you signed up for it, and you volunteered.  My response to her about her not liking my activities--- "If you don't like what I do, then quit following me!"  I started twittering for my family and my extended Kodak family, and others, who for some reason or another, have chosen to follow me.  I am grateful for whatever reason they do.  But, if you volunteered of your own free time to follow me, then don't criticize me for what I say or the activities I do.  They are mine, it's personal and you are a visitor.  If you know me really, really well you might feel you offer some "constructive criticism" but if you ever have done that for a friend face-to-face, even that can be tricky!  Thanks for following me, but this does not entitle you to criticize my my own version of "where am I."   You, my friend are a twanker. 

Hawkers:   These are the people who don't want to really be in a conversation with you.  They are just screaming to the world that they have something to sell, like a slicked up barker at a carnival.  It might work some places but not here.  And don't ask me or others to re-tweet your tweets.  If we find them interesting, funny or educating, we will. Promise.   Don't be rude and ask me to get it out to my own follower network.   You, my friend, are a twanker.

As I said, feel free to propose some more examples; I am sure there will be more as Twitter becomes a more popular medium.  That is, IF it can get even more popular than it is already.  And, if you object to my suggestions, that's okay; healthy debate is a good thing.

Social media is exciting and useful to both people and companies.  Those participating in a genuine way can and will be rewarded properly.  At Kodak, we believe we should use social media to engage, educate, excite and evangelize with our communities.  We encourage you to find your own way to use Twitter to do the same. You can follow me on Twitter at @jeffreyhayzlett

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