A few nights ago, something kept me up (apart from our impending trip to Ireland, which is now only three sleeps away).

Before I hit the sack, I tweeted about comedian Jason Byrne, who I had just watched perform at the Enmore Theatre. I alluded to one of his jokes involving, well, nuts (if you were there, you’re probably laughing hysterically now).

Lying in bed, I started to feel uneasy. I did a mental stock-take of my followers, including some of my clients, not to mention the CEO of a very large organisation who has recently handed me a dream job.

I whipped on my dressing gown, ran upstairs, booted up my laptop and in the still of the night deleted the tweet. I went back to bed but I still couldn’t sleep. Now I was uneasy that I felt the need to self-censor.

I first joined Twitter as a communications professional who had to keep up with the times. In my first few months I followed people in my field and posted ‘professional’ tweets to a small group of followers, who didn’t respond much.

Ho hum. I was starting to switch off.

Then I stumbled across some tweeps who tweeted about, well, ‘real’ stuff, as well as professional stuff. Some poked fun at some of life’s realities, like: surviving kids; surviving dogs; surviving marriage; and surviving hangovers. Others had more moving personal stories to share.

Those ‘real’ tweeps connected me to others, and soon my own ‘real stuff’ crept into my tweets. Before I knew it my ‘personal brand’ was busting loose and my followers increased ten-fold. People were actually interested in what I was saying. Most importantly, I was having fun.

That’s the thing about having fun. Sometimes we need a little encouragement to cut loose – especially us ‘professional types’, who are often on-guard to make the so-called ‘right’ impression.

Stepping back into the corporate world after a five-year break, it’s obvious to me many professionals leave their ‘real’ selves at home. It’s their version of self-censorship. I wrote about this in Undercover Mums, but I think this applies to a wider group. Just look at the sea of black conformity that pours from a city’s trains and buses every morning at 8.30am.

But is that what our bosses really want?

Throughout my career I’ve helped large corporations improve their communications, particularly to employees. The need to get employees to listen and respond is the same, but the method is changing. Companies are keen to ‘personalise’ their communications, and god forbid, have a bit of fun.

That’s because they realise when people have fun they are more inclined to listen, and if they feel they are in a supportive and safe environment, they will eventually participate. Believe it or not, as I type, textbooks are being written about this.

Don’t get me wrong, a level of so-called ‘professionalism’ will always be necessary – what’s fun for one person could be offensive for another. But professionalism should translate into mutual respect – not uniformity.

This blog post is just the tip of an iceberg of a subject I could go on and on and on about. But I’ll stop now – otherwise I’ll have to start charging. 😉

So, going back to my censored tweet about nuts. Should I have resisted the urge to censor that tweet? Well, only if no one felt a-salted. Get it?! A-salted. Assaulted. Nuts?

Ok…I really will stop now.