Twenty People To Follow On Twitter

Every game has its rule. I have made up this one. But it works.Twitter Rule No 1: Follow FortyDo not follow more than forty people on twitter – at a time. If you follow less than forty, you run the risk of not having enough variety. If you follow more than forty, you risk getting tweets at a rate faster than the rate of inflation. Before you click the first interesting link, there are 400 more that have showed up. I find that overwhelming.I know there are a lot of people who use it to have animated conversations but I must say that it is hard for me to follow someone whose timeline will show plenty of tweets that state,  “I agree” or “Why not”. Did I tell you I hate cryptic clues – either take me into confidence or spare me the whispers with your best friend. I also avoid following people who feel compelled to share updates of their lives – breath by breath. “Going for a shower – back in fifteen”. If it is such a rare event that you need to tell the world, add that minute scrubbing yourself instead of tweeting about your intent.

Shake Up the List

From time to time I notice some of the people I follow have started live-tweeting about their lives. I thank Twitter for the “unfollow” button and use it to banish them to cyberspace. I follow 20 people and then throw in a mix of magazines, newspapers and research agencies. I follow people who are curators. Some are specialists in their field while the others have fleeting interests in a zillion things. They lead me to subjects I would never explored. Their curious minds are contagious. So if you think that is interesting then … here’s the list20 People You Should Follow On Twitter

1. Dan Ariely @danariely : Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics says his bio. You have to check out his newly started column for the Wall Street Journal <click here> where he uses insights of Behavioral Economics to solve everyday problems of readers.
2. Eric Barker @bakadesuyo : He writes for Wired Magazine. His blog’s latest question asks, “How effective are office team-building exercises?” His answer based on research says, “Coercing employees into awkward icebreakers or forced bonding activities, like making everyone at a meeting share something about their private lives, only breeds disconnection and mistrust.”
3. Amit Agarwal @labnol : Amit Agarwal is a personal technology columnist at WSJ India, author and founder of Digital Inspiration, a widely-read tech and how-to blog. His Facebook page called Digital Inspiration has been endorsed by more than 70,000 people. I learnt about http://hundredzeros.com a site that has frequently updated catalog of best-sellers that are free on Amazon.
4. Annie Murphy Paul ‏ @anniemurphypaul: She writes about how we learn and how we can do it better. A columnist at Time.com, CNN.com, Forbes.com, MindShift.com,  PsychologyToday.com and HuffingtonPost.com. Her website http://anniemurphypaul.com gives you tips you can use. The most recent one: Those teenagers who use tech-speak or sms language(for  eg gdnite for good night or gr8 for great) are likely to have bad grammar.
5. Jane Friedman @JaneFriedman : She was the publisher of Writer Digest. “I’ve probably read, reviewed, or at least seen every single advice book and website for writers. I could recommend dozens of resources, but I’ll just focus on the most helpful for new writers. If you are a writer or want to be one – ever – read this post first <click here>
6. George Anders @GeorgeAnders : This Pulitzer prize winning journo is a columnist for Forbes. He has written a terrific book on going beyond the resume to hire the right people. The book I am recommending is called The Rare Find – a book that introduced the concept of a “jagged resume”. He writes about management, careers and unforgettable personalities. His recent column is about CEOs who are inventors and hold patents.
7. Madhavan Narayanan ‏ @madversity: Writes limericks, this punster can write with equal ease about technology, music and movies. He is also a friend. So I might be biased, but his 18,800 followers on Twitter don’t think so. His latest limerick in Hindi goes like this.  “Naam hai uska Kareena/Shaadi ab yeh na karee na/Agar ban jayegi wife/married to saif/Kya woh rah payegi haseena?” He keeps me posted about Indian politics, gossip, music and tech.
8. Maria Popova ‏ @brainpicker: MIT Fellow describes herself as an “interestingness hunter-gatherer obsessed with combinatorial creativity.” She writes for Wired.com and The Atlantic. Expect to see a film about coffee made in 1961 <click here> to David Ogilvy’s ten tips on writing. Tip no 3 says, “Use short words, short sentences and short paragraphs.” Or her ever popular post on “Everything You Need to Know about Culture in 10 Books“
9. Dan Schawbel ‏ @DanSchawbel: Founder at Millennial Branding, personal branding expert, #1 international bestselling author of Me 2.0, speaker, TIME/Forbes columnist. I first learnt about the term personal branding from Dan’s articles and YouTube videos. This incredibly young expert shows that you can get 10,000 hours on a subject in your twenties and become a writer for Time/Forbes at that age.
10. Atanu Basu ‏ @atanubasu:He is the CEO of the Silicon Valley based firm AYATA that specializes in  Prescriptive Analytics. What’s that? He says, “Prescriptive Analytics  = Predictions + Decisions + Effects = Final Phase of Analytics.” He is the one who got me hooked on to the possibilities of using Predictive Analytics in HR when we collaborated on this article <click here>
11. Estelle Metayer ‏ @Competia: She  tweets about CEOs, boards, governance, trends, innovation, strategy, competitive intelligence analysis. Her tweets are always useful, trendy and insightful. The latest one was about a free guide on how to use Pinterest for B2B companies.
12. Daniel Pink ‏ @DanielPink : He is the author of bestselling books like Drive, A Whole New Mind, The Adventures of Johnny Bunko, & Free Agent Nation. I have read the first two and highly recommend you read them. His recommended articles are always helpful. The latest one was about the five questions that you can ask to start a conversation in any room. The one you could use even in a job interview, “How did you come to be in your line of work?”
13. Greg Satell ‏ @Digitaltonto : He blogs about the intersection of Media, Marketing and Technology at www.digitaltonto.com. Tonto as you know is the fictional character Lone Ranger’s companion. In the recent post on the Open Architecture of Brands he speaks of the influence of the four major drivers of this change: smartphones, smart homes, smart cars and smart retail. Always interesting and sets me thinking.
14. Bri Williams ‏ @peoplepatterns: Her twitter bio says, “I’m all about Buying Behaviour; how businesses can improve sales and marketing conversion with behavioural science. Author, speaker, trainer, funster.” Yeah I do find human behavior fascinating. For instance, while selling stuff at a discount, it is better to say “up to 50% off” instead of saying “20% to 50% off”. Research shows that buyers believe the lower range ie 20% off. I read that on her blog <click here>
15. Bill Fischer ‏ @bill_fischer: He is a Professor at IMD; Co-director of IMD/MIT-Sloan Driving Strategic Innovation program. Co-author of the highly recommended book The Idea Hunter and also Virtuoso Teams. An expert on Innovation, he said famously, “Your employees and your suppliers are the greatest barriers for innovation. Their self – interest will seek to protect status quo.” He has an insiders view of China.
16. Abduzeedo ‏ @abduzeedo : This designer at Google runs a great site that brings together the work of artists, designers, visualizers from every corner of the world. I look forward to the daily inspiration series <click here>. The tutorials are brilliant if you wish to learn. This is what I check every morning as I sip my coffee.
17. Shane Parrish @Farnamstreet : Shane has been blogrolled by the WSJ & FT. He curates a broad cross-section of worldly wisdom and thought provoking “interestingness”. You do want to get smarter, don’t you? In one day you could get the links of how to learn to invest, top 100 books of 2012 and more.
18. David Pogue @Pogue: He is a tech columnist at NYTimes. A nod of approval from him will send a gadget manufacture go crazy about the profits they’ll make. His latest post raises the question, “If you’re a Mac owner, then, here’s the question: Is Mountain Lion worth $20?… There’s only one precise way to answer that, of course: assign a dollar value to each new feature.”
19. Gautam Ghosh ‏ @GautamGhosh : Ask people to name a few social media gurus HR. Gautam’s name is likely to be there. He writes about how Work, People, Careers and Organizations are changing. Talent Management. Learning. Online Communities.” As a downside, there are several tweets every day about what he is eating or even smelling at that moment. I look at that as a price I have to pay for learning about all the cool stuff GG is reading.
20. Marcia Conner @Marciamarcia: Her blog marciaconner.com says it best. “I rarely answer the question, “What are you doing?” or “What’s happen’?” and it’s even more rare for me to tell you what I’m eating, when I’m going to bed, or what my family is up to unless my 7-yr old son, “boywonder,” did something too astounding to keep to myself. Most of my posts are related to learning, social media, people-centric business practices, leadership, communications, women in business, innovation, design and improving the world.” Her book The New Social Learning (am reading it now) firmly puts her in the list of thought leaders on social media.

This is my list as of today. What do you think of it? Who should have been on this list of twenty must follow tweeple? Who should I drop from this list to make place for others? Who are the notable twitterati I have missed. You can leave your comment here or on twitter @abhijitbhaduri————–List updated on 1 Dec 2012. Have dropped @jonahlehrer and subsitituted it with Shane Parrish. Thanks Ruchi for the reco.