This week on TwitterStars.com, I’m featuring a series of guest posts featuring stories from several of my Twitter followers on how they quit smoking. I quit smoking last week and thought featuring stories from other people about how they quit cigarettes would be a fun project for the blog.

Guest Blog Post by @d_paul

Addiction has such the connotation doesn’t it? I can just hear the pointed whisper—”she’s an addict”. The funny thing is we’re all addicts. I can hear what you’re thinking. “Maybe my college roommate and my uncle Jimmy, but not me”. Really? I thought I’d look this up: “devotion to a certain habit: dependency”. Hmm. This may be the strict definition, but I think they’re leaving something out. If it were all about devotion and dependency, there would be a lot of families addicted to one another. I thought there must be something more ominous about it than this. Wikipedia gives us a little more detail by adding:

“an obsession, compulsion, or excessive physical dependence or psychological dependence… state in which the body relies on a substance for normal functioning and develops physical dependence”

OK, we now have it that an addiction is maybe a bit more than a habit. It’s more of a compulsion - that which compels physically and psychologically. I still think something is missing, so I’ll just add my own little flare by saying it’s something that ****s up your life—whether it’s your health, your relationships, your job or simply your peace.

We all can name the classic addictions. Sure, the moment I said it you thought about drugs, alcohol, and gambling. Most would mention the “harmless” ones afterward like smoking, and caffeine. What about texting, sex, and shop lifting? I say it doesn’t matter. They all meet my definition. I’ve blurred them together for “Paul’s All Encompassing Definition of Addiction”. It goes something like this—if you have a compulsion to do something—something which seems to control you and has the potential to bring harm or even disharmony in your life—you have a problem. I have friends (men & women) who are addicted to chasing the opposite sex. I have a neighbor that cleans her house to all hours of the night every day. In the summer, with the windows down, you can hear the vacuum at 11:00. This has caused the ruin of her marriage and the estrangement of her children. And yes, I have people very close to me that have nearly ruined their lives thanks to drugs and alcohol. My grandfather died of lung cancer and 3 members of my family wrestled with cigarettes.

Do you see the common thread? Whether it’s smoking cigarettes to relieve some tension, another affair to alleviate the bad marriage, or cleaning for the quest of fleeting perfection—we all have a void to fill. It comes down to our habit as humans to always look outward for something missing inside. I can hear it now: “I’m not filling any void—I just like cigarettes”. Maybe you do. I like cigarettes too. In fact, I like every type of tobacco. You’ll notice my picture has me with a cigar in my hand. This isn’t some high handed judgment, I assure you. For whatever reason, tobacco never grabbed me as a habit though—once a month or less. I have other flaws…

I’ve watched people give up their addictions and I’ve watched people go back to them again and again. It seems that every one of them has a common thread that leads to their success or failure. Alcoholics Anonymous has the famous 12 Step Program, which I think is really very good. This said, it seems to me that it really comes down to the first one on the list: “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol-that our lives had become unmanageable”. Well, you can substitute alcohol for anything you like. Let’s use cigarettes.

I mentioned the members of my family that wrestled with cigarettes. One quit effortlessly after years of 2 packs a day. The next used gum, lozenges, and prescriptions for years and finally just dropped all of it. Finally, the last person is still smoking, though they have tried nearly everything. We’ll call them Tom, Dick, and Harry.

What is it about Tom that made him so able to simply “go cold turkey” as he put it? I should mention that he hasn’t smoked for 20 years. If you ask him, he’ll tell you that he just didn’t want to smoke anymore. Really? Just like that? I asked, “I thought you loved cigarettes”. He said, “Well, I did but things changed—cigarettes had become a problem for me. I had a little tottler at the time that wanted to smoke like me. After realizing this, I was horrified and quit”. Interesting.

Dick, on the other hand, did not want to quit smoking. Not at all. He loved it. His wife hated it, his friends hated it. His doctor told him to stop. So, he tried. And he tried. After a few years of this, for whatever reason, he decided to become a runner. Frankly I can’t imagine what he was thinking. He had never been a jock before and nobody encouraged him. He’d go out every day and run, then smoke. It got so that he loved running and he simply stopped smoking because—you guessed it—he didn’t want to. He doesn’t even remember a monumental moment. He said to me, “It was like taking off your jacket when you’re hot—it’s just annoying so you get rid of it”. Interesting.

Harry on the other hand does not want to stop. He never has. When I last spoke to him, he was using those disgusting lozenges to appease his wife while stealing cigarettes here and there. If my theory of desire tells me anything, he will not stop smoking any time soon.

I think what it comes down to is this: you must first acknowledge that something has become a problem for YOU. You must believe it. You must really want it to stop. Cigarettes are often referred to as one of the milder addictions. I suppose this is because they kill you slowly over 30 years rather than run you into financial ruin or kill you within the year. All this is true, but the message is still the same. Cigarettes can be just has difficult to throw off as cocaine if you don’t genuinely want to stop. If you really don’t want to do something, you’ll find a way to stop doing it.

I hope you won’t find this offensive if you’re one that has struggled with addiction. I don’t mean to minimize it. I’ve watched it ruin lives. I’ve visited more than one person in rehab and jail. I’ve sat through classes in support of loved ones. They all say the same thing. “Let them fall—only they can stop what they’re doing to themselves and they need to want to”.

A copy of this guest post has also been posted to The Nicotine Asylum.

Below are a collection of Twitter blurbs I made in the month of August. I’ve decided to archive them here more or less in their original form. Some are @ Replies and some are broadcast statements. I’ve re-worded some of my Twitter blurbs and expanded on others.

markdavidson Reminder to myself: I’m going to start writing a personal blog expanding upon my ideas on how to build community, direct traffic, and develop online followings. 02:15 AM September 05, 2008

In the first section, I’m addressing the Pareto principle or 80–20 rule as it applies to what I’ve been finding on blogs for over a year now. I believe that 80% of your results will come from 20% of your knowledge. If the sum of all marketing knowledge is represented as a pie, the 80% that you are getting, will only yield 20% of your results. You aren’t getting the 20% of that pie that will yield you the 80% of your results. If you were getting that last 20% from the newsfeeds you subscribe to, you’d have a rockstar blog of your own. I also bring up the subject of hard work. Without action, there is no magic. Anything truly worth doing is going to be hard work and will most likely require overcoming some kind of fear or apprehension.

The best course of action is the right thing. The next best is the wrong thing. The worse course of action is to do nothing. The secret to success in all things is to do those things you don’t feel like doing because it’s hard work.

In the second section, I was blurbing about developing an awareness of what works and what doesn’t work. This is tied directly into the first section. If nobody is writing about the magical 20%, then how do you gain that knowledge? Through observation. That’s how. I don’t believe that success is random. I don’t believe that success comes easily. I believe that results can be measured and duplicated. Start developing your awareness of what works, what doesn’t work, and most importantly, why. Unless you understand the mechanics behind effective online marketing and internet communication, your results will be random and unpredictable. Ultimately you want to deploy strategies with laser-like precision.

In the third section, I throw out some random thoughts.

The fourth section I blurbed live from Gnomedex. At the time, I was watching the Ma.gnolia presentation. They were solely focused on the technology. I felt like they had missed the whole point. It’s not about the technology, it’s all about the people using the technology. This is a key difference between Ma.gnolia and Kwippy.com. One of my favorite things I’ve heard @lizstrauss say over and over is, “It’s not about us, it’s about them.” Liz treats her audience like family, your social networking platform should too.

It’s important that we are constantly mindful of our audience. The two key take-aways from Gnomedex for me were that we need to make the available tools easier to use and we need to find new ways to lower the barrier to entry. The less intimidating new media and social networks become, the broader our audience will be. This is essential moving forward. It’s not about the tools, it’s 100% about the people using the tools. It’s all about “them”.

Rockstar Blogs

August 09, 2008

All the rockstar blogs give you 80% of what you need to know. It’s that last 20% that will give you 80% of your results.

Here’s my advice. Don’t read what they write. Watch what they do instead. That’s how you’ll get the last 20% that you’re missing.

You can have all the tools. You can use all the tools. The “magic” is in what you do daily and how you tie everything together.

Oh and as long as I’m pontificating, the secret to success in all things is to do those things you don’t feel like doing because it’s hard.

That last 20% produces 80% of the results (percentages not to scale, objects seem closer than they appear).

I think that most of us are getting the 80% of the efforts that will lead to 20% of our results on most of the rock star blogs.

But the 20% that will lead to 80% of our results is not… and I completely understand why and wouldn’t do any differently.

BUT the 20% that leads to 80% of their results can be observed because it’s demonstrated. Also, there’s no other way to learn.

Place more emphasis on watching what people do and how they do it, rather than listening to what people say, right?

Thanks. It’s been a while since I’ve last done this. It’s like handing someone only 80% of a recipe and hoping it turns out.

I don’t know if it’s about teaching success so much as the 20% probably isn’t very compelling, easily explained, or marketable.

For example, Chris Pirillo is really smart, has been at this for over a decade, is 100% committed, and works 14+ hours a day.

Now what kind of an ebook would that make? lol. Nobody wants to read that! What sells the best is the promise of instant success!

I have yet to read an ebook or see a website with a warning label: “Hard work and lots of reading ahead. Marketing experience a plus.”

Awareness

August 09, 2008

Good PR is an amazingly powerful force. The skill to change people’s perceptions with words and images.

Everyone who has ever spoken to me offline knows that I have a methodology behind everything, keep metrics, and eliminate randomness.

They also know that I diagram successful sites and blogs. I analyze why things work and how. I analyze copy, the use of colors and images.

I don’t believe that success is random. I don’t believe that success comes easily. I believe that results can be measured and duplicated.

Exercise: Analyze every element on your 5 favorite sites or blogs. Particularly analyze what they are doing off-site and how. Diagram it.

How do those site/blogs use color and images? How are they branded? What is the frequency of their updates on site and off?

What tools do they use? View their page source. Analyze their keywords. Do they use anchors in their copy or deploy cognitive biases?

Analyze where your eyes are drawn. What grabs your attention? Does the copy create mental pictures in your mind’s eye or create an emotion?

What provokes an internal response? What motivates you to take some kind of action & why? Monitor your internal responses and write them down.

Good copy and marketing hits you on multiple levels. Some of it on a conscious level and some on a subconscious level. Develop an awareness.

What are your triggers? Identify them. Write them down. Observe. Experiment. Read. Take notes. Monitor. Test. Measure. Keep a journal.

Random Thoughts

August 12, 2008

Random Thought For the Moment: There are no shortcuts in life. Luck is short lived and squandered without preparation and hard work.

Internet communication media is dynamic, fluid, and viral. The tools have changed since BBS days but people remain the same.

I think social behavior, internet culture, and how people organize are pretty important concepts to understand for any “new media expert”.

Gnomedex

August 22, 2008

I don’t think the specific technology matters. What matters is how do we get non-tech people like my mom online and using these tools.

How do we reduce the number of steps needed to bookmark a site? The easier a tool is to use, the more popular it will be. Keep it simple.

This is a very basic concept that needs more emphasis. The best tools—for any task—help us to get a job done quickly and with ease.

One of the reasons why the telephone is so popular is because it doesn’t require instructions and is as easy to use as dialing 10 numbers.

What any web-technology company should strive for is making their tools as easy to use as dialing 10 numbers. Reduce the number of steps.

Twitter works so well because it doesn’t require anyone to learn something new. Technology is all about people. It’s not about the tools.

Guest Blog Post by @Danacea

Recently I used the word twactic as a throwaway quip in a tweet. Inexplicably, this landed me blog love and a place in the Twitter twiki twictionary… and left me amazed at how something so simple had made such an impact.

Haven’t we done this to death? I mean…

Twusts - The things you can tell in confidence to twitter friends - precisely because you’ve never met them

Twabbit - Potential contact tracked down through Summize (as in: be vewy, vewy qwiet…)

TWAT - Acronym for Twitter Weapons and Tactics - the art of using your account to promote your brand. (Why, what were you thinking I meant?)

Twagic - Losing 15 followers and instantly becoming paranoid

Twigger - The tweet that touches a nerve and explodes you into a seething mass of fury

Twaturation - The chatty types are awake

Twechie - The guy who has 10,000 followers, yet tweets only techspeak and that rarely

Twalker - The creepy guy who follows 40 people, all of them women - yet never speaks.

Twouch! - The moment of horror when you see your last DM in the public timeline

Twelief - Understanding the DM wasn’t one of yours

Twincing - Realizing the person you had IM sex with last night is going to make pointed public remarks for the next three days

Twit - Feeling like one

This list can go on and on… feel free to add your own.

Twitter is—what?—eighteen months old? It’s growing by the day, its tantrums are getting worse—I guess this means it isn’t a baby any more—and that means its language skills are developing rapidly. Twitter-branding words by putting a ‘t’ and a ‘w’ in front of them is getting as annoying as txtspk… We’re a smart bunch; if we, in our microcosm, are going to develop our own linguistic structure, then I think it’s time we took a step up the evolutionary ladder.

Before we end up with an in-joke that no-one else understands.

Twalliteration is a one-twick pony. Let’s expand our horizons.

Maybe something in a vowel…

Danie Ware is behind the PR, marketing, and event organizing for Forbidden Planet (London).

If you’ve enjoyed Danie’s guest post on digital culture, please consider reading her fiction at:

danieware.googlepages.com

Or Danie’s blog at:

I’m a professional on- and off-line Marketeer for Forbidden Planet London as well as being a Mum, a keen cyclist and weight-trainer, an old school geek, a bit of a longhair and a social media convert. This is my professional and personal thoughts, stream-of-consciousness style.

Guest Blog Post by @lesliecarbone

To paraphrase Tom Lehrer, twitter is like a sewer: What you get out of it depends on what you put in to it. I’m truly grateful for the many tweeps who help keep the solitary life of this freelance consultant from becoming too lonesome. Many thanks to @markdavidson for this opportunity to guest post and for being one of my favorite tweeps!

I first learned about twitter from @newmediajim last year at a Direct Marketing Association of Washington meeting; I started tweeting soon after and was genuinely surprised when people started following me pretty quickly.

Perhaps the best unforeseen benefit of twitter has been the opportunity to connect with so many tweeps from the greater Boston area, especially over Red Sox games. Though I’ve been living in Virginia for nearly 20 years, I grew up in Massachusetts, and it’s so nice to build relationships with people from my native commonwealth, even as I feel pangs of homesick envy when they tweet about going to Fenway Park.

Besides Red Sox games, my favorite thing to tweet is political events. The primary debates were especially fun, and I can’t wait to tweet and argue and laugh over the upcoming conventions and general debates with my fellow poli-tweeps.

Through @jptrenn, twitter brought me the great opportunity to participate in My ooVoo Day-Political Edition. I hosted a chat on whether conservatives should support John McCain—imo NO! The following night, I held a session on how conservatives should improve our use of social media, with tweeps @jennsierra, @ccubedblogger, and @morningbrewva.

Little did any of us on the latter chat know that twitter would really prove its mettle less than a day later with the start of the #dontgo movement. When Speaker Nancy Pelosi adjourned the House without action to lower gas prices, House Republicans staged a protest, staying in the House chamber and giving speeches on the importance of increasing domestic oil production. But the Democrats, who control Congress, shut off the cameras and even the lights. So word of the Republican Revolt spread through twitter!

But that’s half the fun of twitter. You just never know what’ll happen next.

Leslie Carbone is the author of Slaying Leviathan: The Moral Case for Tax Reform (Potomac, 2009). Her work has appeared in magazines including The Weekly Standard and The American Enterprise, in newspapers from The Philadelphia Inquirer to The San Francisco Chronicle, and on Web sites like BreakPoint and National Review Online.

She has appeared on more than 200 radio and television talk shows, been quoted in national newspapers including The Wall Street Journal and USA Today, and lectured at more than 100 campuses across the United States and in Canada, including Northwestern University, UCLA, and Cornell University.

Ms. Carbone has served as Chief-of-Staff to the late Assemblyman Gil Ferguson of California, Director of Family Tax Policy at Family Research Council, Senior Writer at Koch Industries, Inc., and Speechwriter for U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao.

If you’ve enjoyed Leslies’s guest post on digital culture, please consider reading some of the other articles she’s written or has appeared in on the web.

Leslie Carbone on Writers Net.

Leslie Carbone on Roots Wire.

Leslie Carbone on Union Leader.

Leslie Carbone on Righty Blogs.

Leslie Carbone on Town Hall.