This year’s Blog Action Day topic is water, and I find it hard to ignore.

Water is the first thing I drink in the morning and the last thing I drink at night.

At my house we gave up bottled water about two years ago, and I’m very pleased about all the plastic we’ve saved. We’re lucky where I live to have clean water from the tap, and we have a large filter tank in the refrigerator.

This year however, I spent a lot of time and attention watching the water in the Gulf of Mexico, wondering if it would ever be clean again. I still worry about the sealife there, and the wildlife in the marshlands on the perimeter of the Gulf. The ocean covers approximately 71% of the Earth’s surface. We need to show some respect.

Sadly, the old adage is still true for many – ocean, ocean, everywhere and not a drop to drink.

In developing countries, drinkable water is hard towards impossible to find, and developed nations are doing the same thing to their natural resources.

Polluted rivers and streams are undrinkable and produce contaminated food sources, as well as polluted river deltas and fishing areas in the ocean at the end of the rivers. Hey guess what, we’re talking about the United States, too! How can this happen? It’s as simple as pesticides and other untreated nastiness draining off of large hog farms into the Mississippi River. Read more: 11 Facts about Pollution

Want to do something? I’ve added a link on this page to the UN Petition for Blog Action Day 2010. Join us! And thanks for reading.

I took part in the third annual Women Who Tech Telesummit yesterday. (Thanks to winning a free pass, thanks Allyson!) I must confess I was multitasking, but nevertheless, I got a lot out of this day-long web conference. I’m looking forward to listening to the recorded sessions that I wasn’t able to attend, and already looking forward to next year!

Topics ranged from diversity to self promotion to social media ROI to launching your own business. We talked about building the ultimate user experience and discussed how to get more women in leadership roles in the tech industry.

My quick little brain-dump of my top ten takeaways from the day:

1. You get the best ideas when you are listening, not speaking.
2. Women tend to be perfectionists about their expertise. Allow yourself some room to fail.
3. Interested in doing public speaking? Practice. In your car, in your shower, on video or audio recordings, to gain confidence.
4. Foursquare is a public relations tool. It’s free, so use it. Manage your organization’s presence there.
5. Google Analytics: also free, so use it. Even if you’re just getting data on your Facebook or Linked In pages.
6. User Experience is every department’s responsibility.
7. To attain the Ultimate User Experience, you need to watch/listen how your customer is engaging with your products.
8. Risk is an abstract element. If you’re afraid of taking a step, ask yourself, “What happens if I fail?” and really answer the question.
9. I need to find the source of this mash-up: it’s not “Rocket Surgery” – I just love that!
10. All-girl events are fun/empowering.

If you have some others, including links you might want to share, please add them in the comments! For more great nuggets, look for the hashtag #WWT on Twitter, follow @WomenWhoTech, and be on the lookout for next year’s conference.

My friends who are not on Twitter constantly ask me, “Why are you on Twitter?” Yesterday I attended my first 140 Character Conference — #140conf — and like Twitter, it moved quickly and in short bursts, on various unrelated topics. Speakers had 10 minutes each, panels lasted 20 minutes each. Someone unfamiliar with Twitter may have felt that the conference had no direction or purpose. On the contrary, I left with a feeling of empowerment. Twitter, social media and the real-time Internet in general, can help one do many great things.

Listening — Hear what your neighbors, customers, clients, target market or constituents are talking about. Should you know more about some topics? What are they saying about you? Can you offer a solution? If you are in customer service, or looking for more business, this is a great way to use Twitter. But as @JustinKownacki reminded us, when you’re a business person trying to join the conversation around the community water cooler, don’t go into a hard sales pitch. Have a conversation like adults.

Discovery — Find news as it is happening. Read about it from primary sources or from your favorite investigative journalists. Discover stories (or restaurants or recipes or hotels) through recommendations from friends. Those on the media panel said they use Twitter as their personal news wire, both to know what’s being released by news media, and to get ahead of their competition.

Revelation — Find out more about yourself, your likes and dislikes. Do you have an expertise you’ve been keeping quiet about? You’ll be able to find a group of people on Twitter that appreciate your specialties. There are regular chat groups, like the #edchat education group, that bring together experts and interested folks around certain topics. Search and you shall find.

NOTE: People are often concerned about falsehoods on the Internet, but @acarvin of NPR said that Twitter is often where “rumors go to die.” Since so much information can be passed around so quickly, as fast as a false rumor is started, it is revealed to be a hoax.

Volunteer recruitment — Non-profits are having great success at getting volunteers and donations of time and resources (outside of cash donations) through Twitter. It’s easy to be specific and local. Even investors have been found, as @MelissaPierce found making Life In Perpetual Beta.

Amplify your voice — Remember that old ad, “I told two friends… and they told two friends, and they told two friends, and so on, and so on…”? Twitter works like that, but it can be almost immediate. Instead of waiting for you to run into a friend, people can re-tweet ideas as soon as they receive them. And they are often telling hundreds of their friends as soon as they hit send.

Research — Some people argue that “lunchies” (thanks for that word, @doctorjeff) — those that tweet about what they’re having for lunch — are the problem with Twitter. But a writer like @girlinblack can use these minute-by-minute journals for character development, and our host @jeffpulver pointed out that these Twitter accounts may belong to someone’s grandfather one day. As the Library of Congress is going to archive all our tweets, even these little throwaway tweets may give us some valuable historical, biographical information someday. No? Well, imagine if you could read your grandparents’ tweets. Was your grandma excited to change her name or was it a hassle? How excited was grandpa on his first day back from World War II? Maybe not everyone wants to read their grandparents’ tweets. But check out @bus2antarctica.

Many people are hesitating to log on to Twitter because they anticipate it may be too involved, too much like Facebook, or because they feel they already get all the information they need from websites and e-mail. In actuality, Twitter is less complicated than Facebook, websites or e-mail and that is its strength. Some of the interesting new websites I learned about from the 140 Character Conference (#140conf) follow. I hope you’ll check them out. Know that you wouldn’t have found out about them without Twitter.

• JustCoz: Launched by conference host Jeff Pulver at the DC #140conf, this is a great way for non-profits to get the word out at no cost. If you are a non-profit, check it out right now.
• TroopSwap: an online marketplace that allows active duty military to connect with other service members, veterans, community members, and small businesses both locally and nationally to buy or sell almost anything related to military life. For now, these items fall into the categories of: gear, household items, cars and homes.
• BetterHumanRace.com: Search to benefit charities.
• Rock the Vote: 20 years old this year, and getting ramped up for the midterm elections.
• The Remarkable Power of Twitter: A Water Cooler for the 21st Century – by @doctorjeff
• Life In Perpetual Beta – a film by @MelissaPierce

Also read: Getting the most out of Twitter, Tips on being a corporate Tweeter, 10 tips to help you learn to fly on Twitter

There is lots of info out there about how to get more followers for your Twitter account. And then there are all kinds of links offering to get you more followers the quick and easy way. DO NOT CLICK THERE.

Personally, I get much more out of quality people I follow, not quantity people following me. Sure, with my corporate accounts we want to reach lots of customers with our message. But even there, we want it to be the right people that we reach.

Geoff Livingston, Allison Fine, Beth Kanter and Kami Huyse started a smart meme on “Ways to Increase Your Twitter Following Ethically” – if you’re looking to build a Twitter presence, I highly recommend it.

They’ve invited us all to extend the conversation: I have a few tips of my own to add.

1. Have a goal. Know what you want to get out of people you reach as well as those you’re following. Why are you doing this Twitter thing anyway? Do I have to mention this? Well, yes, from what I’ve read on Twitter it seems I do. Even if your goal is just to communicate with your friends and get news faster. Know that this is your goal.
2. Focus. When someone asks you what you tweet about, can you answer them? Try narrowing tweets from your personal account to just a few topics important to you. I recommend that you focus on topics you know best. This way people find it easier to associate you with a topic or two. Your profile and any directory tags should reflect these topics.
3. Engage. When someone follows you, check out their profile and see what you have in common. Twitter is about making connections, and that’s a two-way street. Make a conscious decision whether to follow someone back or not. And don’t follow so many people that you can’t manage reading your incoming Tweets.
4. Use etiquette. Be positive. If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything. Of course correcting false information and participating in healthy debate is appropriate. Give credit where it is due — label retweets as RT or /via.
5. Don’t overtweet. This does no one any favors. Taking over everyone’s Twitter stream is just rude, and unless you’re covering a specific event, you need to leave space between your Tweets to allow folks to consider what you’ve said.
6. Be patient. Your numbers will come in time. If you have built your audience slowly it will be a much more reliable audience than one that’s been built overnight.

Also read: Tips on being a corporate Tweeter, 10 tips to help you learn to fly on Twitter

I’m looking forward to embarking on a new adventure as a corporate tweeter. As such, I’ve taken a good deal of time accumulating best practices for corporate accounts. Many of these are the same as I would recommend for anyone operating a business Twitter account for themselves:

1. Have a mission/message in mind before you post your first tweet.
2. Your message should also consider your target audience.
3. Twitter directories are a good way to gain some followers initially, but there is no get followers quick solution.
4. Be selective in following. There is no need to follow everyone who follows you.
5. Be careful of your language. This is even more important for corporations than for individuals.
6. Your posts are 100% public. Remember that bad news travels faster than good news and anything your shareholders wouldn’t like will travel out of the Twitterverse and onto TV screens and into newspapers.
7. Corporations need to select a voice. It’s best if one person, or a couple of people, man the account, for consistency, and to be sure there’s no redundancy. Most corporations invoke the royal ‘we.’  Other more customer-service oriented Twitter accounts have used an individual speaking from the first person.
8. A regular stream of content is important to any Twitter feed to maintain followers. Appropriate corporate topics include:

• • respond to follower/customer inquiries
  • retweet satisfied customer tweets
  • link to updated/interesting information on corporate websites/blogs
  • retweet updates from affiliated Twitter accounts
  • Twitter contests
  • advance notice of corporate news
  • Twitter discount codes
  • stimulate Twitter discussions with product-related questions
  • product-related trivia
  • run online surveys
  • photos of corporate events

Have some other ideas? Please share in the comments!

Bird art by Triax Mills.

A friend of mine and I have been talking about doing this for a while, and I procrastinated as much as is socially acceptable. Now it’s happening. My first Tweet Up is next week. And I helped plan it!

Let me rephrase that. A person I don’t know at all — to whom I was introduced through Twitter — and I have been exchanging 140-character thoughts about this concept for a while. She and I planned a party together via Twitter, for folks we know on Twitter and their Twitter friends. Ah, the mysteries of social media!

For those who don’t know, a Tweet Up is when people who have met each other on Twitter meet up in person.

@seakisst and I hit it off, via Twitter, and according to the information she’s shared with me, we will probably get along great in person. (She meets my empathy standard.)

To be honest, I’m just really excited to go downtown and have a beer at happy hour, because I don’t really do that much anymore without a good reason.

I think a Tweet Up is a good reason to go downtown and have a beer. Will you join me? My friend @seakisst will be there with me, @dcgrrl.

DC Tweet Up
Thurs. August 13
http://twtvite.com/vwnivf

The four corners of Wisconsin and M Street Northwest in Washington, DC have gone through a lot of changes in the last twenty years. But Nathans Restaurant of Georgetown has been the same for 40 years.

Twenty years ago, I was a waitress there on weekends with my roommate Mary. Just for brunches, because to be a waiter at dinner at Nathans, Mr. Joynt required waiters to have real experience, and I was just a college girl, and this was my first restaurant job. Nevertheless, during my brunch service, I got to wait on Walter Cronkite and Donna Shalala. Nathans was the place.

Not only that, I learned about wine waiting tables at Nathans. They had over 100 pages in their wine list at the time, and when I started working there, I only knew red or white. When I finally got a ‘real’ job, I knew the difference between Cabernet and Merlot, and I could open a bottle of wine with a wine key. I also learned how to make a really good Bloody Mary.

So besides just appreciating the familiarity of Nathans in Georgetown, I’ve had a special place in my heart for the bar/restaurant.  I was understandably disturbed to hear earlier this year that Carol Joynt, who inherited management when her husband passed away, was having difficulty keeping the place running. I’m even sadder to hear that she’s finally announced she’s closing it July 12.

But running one’s own business is a choice one makes very carefully, and Mr. J made that choice for himself. Carol didn’t choose to run a restaurant, she was thrown into it. From what I’ve read on her blog, she’s done her very best to keep Nathans afloat.

I’m very glad I managed to schedule my most recent birthday brunch at Nathans, for old time’s sake, and we had a great time. So sorry we won’t be able to do it again. Nathans will be missed!