Month: July 2010

Top 10 Philly Influencers on Twitter?

I want to preface this post with this disclaimer – I LOVE the guys at Technically Philly.  They are smart wonderful people who are doing great things for Philadelphia and its tech community and I support them 100%.  If you are not reading Technically Philly, you should be!  Just one of the truly great things about all of the guys at Technically Philly is they are open-minded.  If someone does not agree with them, they quickly and willingly reach out to find out why and are open to lively, respectful debate.

While it is not the first time and I am sure will not be the last, Technically Philly, I respectfully disagree with you.

On 7/27/2010 Technically Philly contributed an article to their partner, Philly Mag’s section The Philly Post – ” Philadelphia’s 10 Most Influential Twitter Users“.  The premise of the article was their view of not who the are the most followed Philly Twitter users but who are the “must-follows”.  As a Technically Philly reader, an active member of Philly’s tech and social media communities and a self-admitted Twitter addict, I was intrigued.  Till I read their list.  Of the 10 people on the list there is 1 musician, 1 techie, 1 serial entrepreneur, 1 athlete and 6 newspeople/journalists. While I don’t disagree that the people on their list are influential.  I follow almost all of them myself, but to consider them the 10 MOST influential Philadelphians on Twitter.  I don’t think so.  Technically Philly and I have different definitions of influence as evidenced by our Twitter convo on the subject –

GloriaBell: @TechnicallyPHL I found it interesting that a news magazine picked primarily news people as the most influential – really?
TechnicallyPHL: @gloriabell Who do you think we missed?
GloriaBell: @TechnicallyPHL I guess who you may have missed depends on your definition of influence. I don’t consider news ppl as the only influencers
GloriaBell: @TechnicallyPHL IMHO There are a lot of influencers as defined by ppl making things happen in Philly as opposed to just reporting it
To be clear, I am not defining influence by numbers (most followers) or interaction (amount of time/effort put into interacting with their Twittersphere).  My basic definition of influence is rooted in how many people you touch on and off line, how many people you help, how many people not only listen to what you say, but are moved to action by your words – whether those words are on Twitter, some where else online or offline and mostly by whether you are, at least in part, using your Twitter interactions to help make things happen in our wonderful city.
But here is my quandary – How to answer the question that Technically Philly posed to me – “Who do you think we missed?”   I know that I disagree with their list, but to name who I consider the top 10 – I am at a loss.  I can think of so many people who are part of the Philly Twitter community that I consider influencers for different reasons that it would be difficult for me to name a “top 10”.  So I leave you with the same question – Who would you name as your top 10 Philly Twitter influencers?
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