The article is reprinted from the August 2009 T+D

Think Twitter is just for narcissists with too much time on their hands? Think again. Workplace learning professionals have begun to realize a learning return. If you’re not part of this social networking phenomenon, you risk getting left behind.

Stephen Hart, a corporate trainer specializing in recruitment and management training, read about Twitter in a computer magazine. He questioned the value of the “microblogging” tool and its 140-character messages. Yet he was curious and signed on. After a month of dipping in and out, he still believed the site to be pointless and void of business benefit. To prove to himself that Twitter wasn’t worth his time, he ran an experiment, posting a personal development idea or quote each day from his @edenchanges account. He didn’t imagine anyone would care.

A week later, a dozen people had signed up to read his posts. In Twitter parlance, they “followed” his “tweets.” Some repeated ideas he had posted originally. They told him they followed him because he provided thoughtful messages that affected their work. He began to follow some people back. Their updates introduced fascinating notions and lively exchanges. He realized Twitter wasn’t simply about blogging and posting thoughts online. It connects people around shared interests. His perspective began to shift.

Twitter is for smart people, too

Hart isn’t the only one who at first thought Twitter was pointless. Even experts refer to it as a dumb technology. When people expect Twitter, in itself, to be deep, meaningful, or complex, they often dismiss its microsharing outright, never looking back. Type 140 characters into a little box in the wee free moments you have?

Yet people across the globe—people smarter and busier than you—use Twitter and its enterprise-strength counterparts including Yammer, Present.ly, Socialcast, and Socialtext Signals. They may doubt its value at first, but when they wade into the stream, they find it invaluable and a complete surprise.

What are your doubts? You—like many learning professionals who have yet to try Twitter—may think you have too much to say, nothing to say, or not enough time. Perhaps you believe Twitter was not designed for the training department but for young people who like to waste time. Maybe your company blocks its use, you find it too overwhelming, or you don’t know anyone else who is using it. Or, is your excuse simply that you don’t know how to use Twitter?

1| I have too much to say
At first it may take several posts to convey your meaning, though in time you’ll discover more precise ways to write. Amid shrinking attention spans and economic distractions, we all need skills to craft clear and concise messages. Once mastered, you can apply this sharpness to other venues: when answering questions, writing crisp instructions, or making a case for launching something new. Just because you can explain more doesn’t mean you should. Be brief, even if becoming more succinct takes time.

Use your 140 characters for interesting statistics, personal analysis, or as a launch pad to longer and more finessed content on your blog, an online course, or any compelling site. Link people directly to what you see, and tell them why you care.

2| I don’t have time
If you think, “I have real work to do,” ask yourself this question: In the two minutes between a phone call and a meeting, could you share what you learned on the call and seek insight for the meeting? What about while waiting for a webinar to start or, if you carry a mobile phone, in line at the grocery store or the post office? Turn your open minutes into learning moments.

When you connect with people on Twitter who share your professional and personal interests, you may also save time. They’ll point you to vetted materials in less time than it would take for you to scan through Google results or an RSS feed. Your network distributes useful information to you wherever you are and on your own terms.

3| I have nothing to say
Twitter’s question, “What are you doing now?” can mislead you. Most people don’t answer that question. Instead, they answer an unsaid question such as, “What has your attention,” “Can you assist me,” or “What did you learn today?” Answering these questions encourages you to mindfully reflect on what’s occurring around you and to consider what’s on your mind.

Dave Wilkins (@dwilkinsnh), executive director of product marketing at Learn.com says, “Twitter is not for sharing the minutiae of my day. I use it to share the insights and sources that shape my professional thinking, and to connect my professional dots.”

Too frequently, organizational knowledge sharing mirrors our news-cycle society, sharing the highs and lows and bypassing the ordinary links in between. Through that middle ground you can frame work done around you, understand how you contribute to the organization’s vision, and find the help you need.

4| It’s not designed for the training department
Even at its best, formal training can deliver only so much. People need more information, knowledge, and skills for their jobs than any organization provides. Learning happens between people, while doing their jobs, and in the context of groups and interpersonal communication. As Tom King (@mobilemind), an interoperability evangelist for Questionmark, says, “Twitter provides a means for learners to update learners before trainers can update training.”

Twitter also helps trainers prime the conversation in the days leading up to a course or e-learning rollout. No way to reach participants beforehand? Create and collect Twitter usernames during your program and use the medium for follow-up and culling examples of practical applications. Your Twitter exchanges after events establish a social support network, ensuring that learning doesn’t stop. You can also use Twitter to point people to updated materials and related interactions within social media blogs, podcasts, wikis, and topic-based online communities.

5| I can’t participate because my company blocks its use
Consider signing up for a personal account from home so that when your employer loosens their restrictions, you’ll have experience with the tools. Each day organizations across industries are amending their strict policies as they realize employees have iPhones in their pockets, and a younger, more digitally minded generation expects their workplace to support online engagement.

With the emergence of Twitter-like tools for the enterprise, even the most security-conscious organizations can bring microsharing capabilities in-house. Some even offer the safety of working behind a firewall to protect discussions around confidential, proprietary, or personally identifiable information.

6| It’s only for young people wasting time
CEOs and industry leaders of all ages are beginning to use Twitter. Microsharing provides them an opportunity to open dialogues within their organizations, throughout enterprises, and with potential customers. By responding to a few words and a question mark, people provide expert testimony, gut-level hunches, and a field view that organizations might never capture otherwise.

Are senior leaders telling their Twitter followers what they had for lunch? Probably not. Are they distributing observations while waiting for a delayed flight? Maybe. Do they believe microsharing offers business value? Certainly.

My professional network of more than 2,000 collaborators helps me learn about industry innovations and promising enterprise practices, and puts them into context on a schedule that works for me.

7| It’s overwhelming
Twitter is a serendipity engine. Rather than expecting yourself to keep up with every tweet, focus on what’s before you when you check in and rely on direct messages, replies, and retweets to learn who is ready to engage.

Short messages allow you to approach updates with a newspaper headline mindset, scanning assorted posts quickly, ignoring the uninteresting, and focusing on those that captivate you. This means you can easily process a message stream and then turn your attention back to other tasks.

8| I don’t know anyone using it
Twitter excels at widening your network. Those you follow and who follow you create personalized, overlapping networks organized around shared interests. Twitter offers many ways to get to know other people, and each will help you develop a wider view.

If you attend a conference, you can find others tweeting from the event by using Twitter search to seek out references to the event. You’ll instantly find people online and can organize a place to meet in person.

Clark Quinn (@quinnovator), Mark Oehlert (@moehlert), Koreen Olbrish (@koreenolbrish), and I moderate a weekly online chat using Twitter technology, focused on learning. Hundreds of people get together and learn from one another by including “#lrnchat” in their posts at one regularly scheduled time.

The @slqotd (Social Learning Question of the Day), started by Kevin Jones (@kevindjones) focuses professionals in the learning field on a single topic each day, providing them an opportunity to hear other’s insights. In a similar way, @lrn2day—created by Jane Bozarth (@janebozarth) and me—reminds everyone who follows the group to tweet what they learn each day and provides one more avenue for people to learn and meet.

9| I don’t know how to use it
Twitter tutorials are everywhere. A quick search will yield blogs, online courses, in-person workshops, and video instruction on YouTube. Create an account, connect to several people mentioned here, think about what’s holding your attention, and tell us a little about what you’ve learned.

The fundamental shift in global sharing that Twitter represents—connecting people in disparate networks around self-identified topics—will grow long after this specific service fades. By joining in now, you’ll be participating in a quiet revolution, changing the way people everywhere learn together.

——————

Marcia Conner (@marciamarcia) is an enterprise learning and social media analyst and a 20-year veteran of the enterprise technology market. She writes the Fast Company Learn at All Levels blog and is Senior Enterprise Strategist for Pistachio Consulting. She has a book coming out in May on how social media furthers the learning process.

If you write about the intersection of social media and learning, consider submitting your work for reprint on the Touchbase blog by contacting Marcia directly.

This is Part 2 of a 3-part 4-part series cross-posted from adelemcaler.com

Read Part 1: What Are Twitter Lists?

Unfortunately, if you are not part of the Beta roll out, Twitter will not allow you to see the URLs of lists, even if they’ve been tagged as public. For the benefit of everyone, I will include screen shots, where practical, in addition to the link.

WHY DID TWITTER LISTS LEAVE DEVELOPERS OUT?

In the September 30th blog announcement, Nick Kallen, the project lead on Twitter Lists, stated on the Twitter blog that there will be a Lists API. “This will allow developers to add support for Lists into your favorite Twitter apps.”

It seems that developers were an afterthought on this Twitter feature. Normally, developers are notified of major feature roll-outs such as this well in advance and are afforded the opportunity to work with the API before the launch. However, the development community wasn’t even informed that Twitter Lists was on the development roadmap until September 30th, likely well after Twitter started working on it.

When the feature was released yesterday, the vast majority of developers (but interestingly, not all) didn’t even have access to the Lists API documentation until last night. When users like Robert Scoble started building lists and tweeting about them, the dev community cried foul and a draft of the API documentation was quickly made available, sending developers scrambling to integrate Lists into their offerings throughout the wee hours of last night.

HOW WILL TWITTER LISTS IMPACT DESKTOP CLIENTS?

Many original users of TweetDeck or Seesmic Desktop were drawn to the services because of the list/group functionality that they offered. Those services have now evolved to offer a host of additional features, but, for many the list/group function remains the primary benefit. With the Lists API, TweetDeck and Seesmic Desktop will face a whole slew of Twitter client competition who didn’t previously have a lists or a grouping function.

Now you may be thinking, yes, but I use TweetDeck/Seesmic and so using Twitter Lists doesn’t bring me any extra value. Consider that TweetDeck’s groups are confined to TweetDeck . Twitter Lists, once the developers set to work on it, will start popping up in all sorts of different apps and locations that have been built specifically to add value to the user experience. Twitter Lists will not be confined to the client that you’re running. And that reality will surely cut into established client applications’ market share.

WHAT WILL TWITTER LISTS DO TO “FOLLOW” DIRECTORIES?

The inclusion of a Lists API will threaten recommendation applications like WeFollow, Twellow, Mr. Tweet or Twibes. The categorization of people on these types of services are usually self-submitted, or in some cases, chosen by an algorithm. The resulting recommendations may not always be vetted according to your personal standards. And let’s face it, following people based on their own self-categorization is just not the same as having a personal recommendation from someone you know. Personal referrals are the preferred way that people make purchasing decisions and deciding who to invest your time with on Twitter is not much different.

Rather than taking random recommendations from Follow Directories, you could easily visit the profile of someone whose opinion you trust and select from their lists. Let’s say you want to learn more about the players in venture capital. By clicking on his lists counter from the profile page, I can examine which lists that Guy Kawasaki has been included on. This netted me a great starter list from Christine Lu: http://twitter.com/christinelu/vc-and-angels.

As it’s possible to subscribe to lists without actually following each individual in the group, I can simply click “Follow List” from the main list page and follow the tweets of a great subset of Twitter, chosen by someone I know.

Twitter Lists also go head-to-head with other applications which allow you to follow groups with a single click. Take TweepML for example. The developers launched their one-click group app on September 9th, exactly 3 weeks before Twitter announced Lists. Had the developers known what lay ahead on the Twitter features road map,  I wonder if they’d have developed the same product. As it stands, TweepML was quick off the mark and explained on their blog last night that it was easy to import your Twitter Lists to their service.

Thousands of applications currently exist that work with the Twitter API, from desktop and mobile clients to statistics and search properties. Smart developers should follow the lead of TweepML and integrate Twitter Lists into their products. By finding ways to use Twitter Lists to add value to existing applications, they’ll be in a better position to survive the inevitable surge of new offerings that have surely sprouted in the last 16 days.

Next up: Part 3: Popularity

Read Part 1: What Are Twitter Lists?

Part 4 will look at the opportunities that brands will have with Twitter Lists.

This is Part 1 of a 3-part series cross-posted from adelemcalear.com

WHAT IS IT?

Back on September 30th, Twitter announced on their blog that they would be launching their new Lists feature to a small group of users to beta test. Lists allow Twitter users to organize the people they follow into groups. By segmenting your following list into groups, you can then filter tweets from your main stream and just view the tweets originating from a selected list. You can also subscribe to other people’s lists.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

There is a new section in the right-hand sidebar for List management. Create a new list by clicking on New List the sidebar. Give the list a name and it will become a URL that you can use wherever, for example, http://twitter.com/adelemcalear/montrealers. Decide if you want the list public or private.

There is a new Lists drop down menu located beside the Tools menu. From the Lists drop down you can add people to any of your groups from their profile page or from your following list.

If you’ve been added to a list it will show up in a new Lists counter beside the number of following and followers you have. If you’ve added someone to a private list, it will not register on their counter.

When you click on the URL to someone’s list, you are given the single click option to “Follow This List.” According to How Twitter Lists Work, when you follow a list your following count does not increase, because “you don’t have to be following someone to add them to a list.”

When visiting someone’s profile page, you can click on their list counter under their bio to see which lists they have been included on and which they follow. (The Twitter url ends in /lists/memberships.)

The Lists membership dashboard shows two tabs: Lists following you and Lists your are following. The Twitter user and name of list on the left side. On this page Following refers to how many people are included on the list. Followers refers to how many people have subscribed to the list.

If you want to view the lists that someone has created themselves, you will see a list of them in the right-hand side bar on that person’s profile page, right underneath their Favorites link. The lists  I followed showed up hear as well.

LIMITATIONS

While merrily starting out making my lists, it occurred to me that I might hit a limit. So I sought out the person I knew who would be trying his best to break the new feature, Robert Scoble. Sure enough, he’d found limits already.

It’s not yet clear if the limit of 20 lists includes created and subscribed to, or created only.

There were some  annoyances that came up in my brief test prior to writing this post.

At this time, you must add people individually to your lists, which could be quite time consuming if you follow a lot of people. It would be much faster if you could select multiple people from your following page and add them in bunches to lists.

There is no way of organizing the order in which your lists appear, either in the drop down menu when adding people or in the right-hand side bar of your profile page. The newest list is always on top, with the oldest at the bottom.

Also, and this has nothing to do with functionality, but the font style used on the individual list pages doesn’t match anything else in the Twitter brand. What can I say? I’m a marketer and for years I’ve worked with companies to build brands through consistency. I find it irritating and unprofessional for a company with $155 million in funding  to launch a new feature that doesn’t  seamlessly blend with the rest of their look and feel.

In Part 2 of this series I’ll look at the impact of Twitter Lists on desktop client applications, followers services and popularity ratings.

Part 3 will look at the opportunities that brands will have with Twitter Lists.

When Laura Fitton (@pistachio) told me she was starting another company, “An appstore for Twitter,” I knew my life was going to change. Perhaps that seems too dramatic. Hear me out.

What she’d envisioned wasn’t just about to change my life. It was about to change the landscape of Twitter, a tool many of us find indispensable and turn to each day as our virtual water cooler, classroom and mental gym.

Her idea was poised to improve the productivity of all of us braving the new frontier. OK, that seems overly dramatic. Yet that’s how I felt. In the grand scheme of what microsharing offers all of us, and with Twitter’s 54.7 million unique visitors worldwide in August, productivity increases add up. See for yourself, though.

oneforty is now in open beta, ready for you to take it for a twirl.

The easy-to-navigate online marketplace for the Twitter community allows you to find, rate, collect and share the best services with others also interested in improving how they work. It offers categories, tags, keywords, screenshots and “essentials,” as well as an easy to use review feature so you can tell other people why these tools matter to you. New users and power users will find value here, even if they follow people who are constantly throwing out their favorite this or that. Imagine those reviews organized, categorized, and explained — all in one place.

This isn’t just a boon for Twitter users. By providing a business platform for developers to market their innovations, it helps grow their user base and get their work found. Just like with other appstores, oneforty is paid a percentage of the transaction price for the items sold by the marketplace. Those that are free remain free. The revenue model is based on the belief developers deserve a fair marketplace to sustain their innovations. Laura explains it candidly, “Too many great Twitter apps have gone defunct because while all the users were having fun, the developer couldn’t even maintain server costs. The app’s fans couldn’t depend on the app still being there, and the whole thing just killed innovation and some really great ideas.”

Before I close let me answer the other question I’ve been asked often recently… “Does the Pistachio Consulting team also work for oneforty?” No. Laura’s the only one of us working on both projects. Some of the people who assist her behind the scenes here may help her a little there, too, but we’re two separate organizations, sharing a passion for microsharing.

And in the event you’re wondering: I wasn’t asked to write this post. I wrote it because oneforty is big news in the microsharing space, with implications for businesses who use Twitter to extend their brands. The more ways individuals and organizations can improve both their effectiveness and efficiency with Twitter, the more valuable it becomes for everyone.

In some companies there remains a socialmedia-phobic culture which spends millions to block access to sites such as Twitter and Facebook. There are many reasons for this mistrust of social media but it also reflects a distrust of employees and their ability to use their time constructively.

One fear is there will be a waste of time. At the same time, though, most companies allow for breaks in the work routine by providing water coolers, coffee rooms, and other similar spaces. The byproduct of such spaces is the ability of workers to establish better working networks and share useful information. Studies have shown that this time off actually increases productivity (see for example, “Learning to be Productive at the Water Cooler,” and even the BCC report on napping at work).

Many people who work on their own mention that one thing they most miss about working for a company is the ability to share experiences at the water cooler or break room. Many studies have shown that that most employees say real learning about work occurs through informal channels at places like the coffee room rather than formal training classes.  If used wisely, Twitter and other social media can act like a virtual water cooler and achieve the same effect. That has been my experience as someone who largely works at home. This benefit is not limited to homebodies like me. For example, one study found that workers are more productive if allowed to use the internet for leisure in moderation at work (see Freedom to surf).

Of all the social media, Twitter is especially designed for the quick break and the sharing of useful information. You can get the benefit of both. People ask me how do I have the time to do Twitter. I respond that I use it as a break between tasks and my time is almost always rewarded with new insights from my virtual water cooler colleagues. We do not even have to show up at the same time. For example all of the studies mentioned in this post came from taking a break at Twitter.

I recently compared Twitter to the social networking of going for a smoke (without the cancer risk) and the refreshing break of taking a nap. But I think the water cooler serves as the best metaphor of the three, as you get both a break and useful social networking.

If you want to provide a productive virtual break room for your employees, encourage them to consider Twitter and trust them to use it wisely. A few guidelines and policy statements will help with their wise use.

I will further explore the business benefits of Twitter at Webcom 2009 on October 22 in Montreal in a session titled, “Twitter for Business is Not an Oxymoron.”

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Bill Ives (@billives) is an enterprise social media strategist and a 28 veteran of the enterprise technology market, focusing of emerging technologies. He writes the Portals and KM blog and will be contributing periodically here to TouchbaseBlog.

We’ve reported on the growing use of Twitter to connect people at conferences during sessions. Now examples of Twitter use during other parts of conferences and events have begun to surface. One fabulous success story comes from The Chicago Market: Living and Giving, the country’s longest-running gift show,  spanning 5 show floors.

This year, the event organizers created a Twitter campaign and an event hashtag (#Chicago09) for buyers and retailers to share updates on specials, events, photos and other useful information during the show. Organizers’ expectations were met and surpassed when they saw attendees streaming live show content every day directly from the show floors.

Joan Ulrich, senior vice president, Merchandise Mart Properties, Inc. who puts on this event, said, “Showrooms and exhibitors were able to communicate specials during market and buyers shared their hot picks. This new communication method proved to be a great on-site tool for all involved.”

Attendees who tweeted before, during and right after the show with the hashtag #Chicago09 were automatically entered into the official market raffle. Prizes included an iTouch, iPod Nano, burton + Burton Bucks (Burton gift certificates) and other great prizes.

Here are a few telling sample tweets:

@wordsonstyle: Quick stop at Scooters–then off to my old stomping grounds, #Chicago09, to scout new home decor finds.
@funkythings: Met AWESOME vendors today! So happy with the orders I made. Can’t wait to get Ecodots! Customers are gonna flip!#chicago09
@cindabaxter: Wow…standing room only at Social Media & The 3/50 Project seminar. Cool! #350proj #chicago09

“The Twitter campaign definitely generated some buzz around our showroom,” said Steve Casso, General Manager, burton + BURTON (sponsor of the raffle). “Buyers were drawn in by the promotion, and it no doubt had a positive effect on the traffic we saw. The Chicago Mart continues to present us with unique promotional opportunities that are on-target and relevant.”

Given today some events don’t even have wifi or cell service from the show floor, we can all learn from success stories like these, pointing out there are additional factors event professions should consider when selecting their venue and new expectations event participants will have as they engage.

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If you’re an event professional, considering how to use Twitter in innovative ways, join others twice weekly on the #eventprofs chats (Tues 9-10pm EST + Thurs 12-1pm EST) and by all means, share your experiences in the comments here.

This is a guest post written by Valeria Maltoni.

Thursday at 12:00 pm ET/11:00 am CT/9:00 am PT is the new Twitter chat #kaizenblog. It was inspired by the idea that blogging for me has been a way to practice kaizen, the art of continuous improvement for writing, ideas, and community-building.

It can be the same for businesses large and small – the ability to keep the pulse on what energizes people, while at the same time receive bite-sized feedback from customers and prospects is a way to integrate practice and doing while conceptualizing and planning.

In our opening conversation a couple of weeks ago, a few thoughts emerged that will help frame the understanding of the new culture of microsharing:

• Continuous practice of sharing and community building yields productivity improvements
• We-smarter-than-me attitude leads to macro results from many micro interactions
• Practicing by writing comments and participating in the content of others breeds reflection
• While it’s easy to blog/publish, it’s not as easy to build a meaningful/compelling community
• The best social media types see the Twitter community as a communications tool
• As we see (and learn from) how one another polishes bit by bit, we all shine brighter

Brian spoke about the “golden rule” – leave the sort of comments you want to get. Don’t treat comments as free link space. He was inspired to write a post on this concept.

The most interesting aspect of microsharing by far is the fact that it is more focused on process than outcome. One of the reasons why businesses are having a hard time figuring out how to leverage it is the fact that in order to put time and attention towards it, they need validation that there will be outcomes.

It doesn’t stop there. Sharing in small portions, or bites, has been germane to pop culture and led to the adoption of media snacking. We’re doing this and in many respects, it’s the only way we know how to consume information these days and still hold jobs and have personal lives. We’re exchanging and consuming information in small chunks at the edges of other activities, or in between – we create while we wait.

What became apparent with Twitter will become even more prevalent as mobile applications raise in popularity and go mainstream – iPhone and BlackBerry from fascinating objects to utilities without which we cannot live, just like the laptop or computer.

One interesting application of the microsharing idea could be to learn a specific skill, like mastering words, or words in a new language. The other is the polishing and improvement of stories by clustering – adding additional data points and resources from the network.

How will businesses benefit from this ? Beyond the obvious ability to have a fast dialogue or point of access with customers, they can learn to understand what to listen for, to help guide and connect people to resources, and connect to what’s next for ideas, trends, and executions.

What are your thoughts?

Valeria Maltoni, Conversation Agent, helps businesses understand how customers and communities have changed marketing, PR, and communications – and how to bring value in this new environment. Join her every Thursday on #kaizenblog.

Written with Bill Ives, who works with Pistachio Consulting periodically on the enterprise space.

Social media tools have begun to migrate from the consumer web to the business web, sometimes facing outward, sometimes focused in. Just as public-facing applications need broad appeal, enterprise tools need to be designed for a defined organizational space to be effective (see Enterprise 2.0 is not Web 2.0 nor is it an Oxymoron). With the explosion of the Twitter market, some of these new tools are designed specifically for enterprise microsharing (sometimes called microblogging and social messaging). Although Twitter can be used within an organization, it was created for the broader web and does not have the functionality that appeals to enterprise decision-makers, seeking multifaceted tools.

One of the initial players in the enterprise microsharing space is Socialcast who we have covered before (see Enterprise Microsharing Tools Comparison, Socialcast Brings Twitter Style Functionality into the Enterprise, and Socialcast Adds iPhone and Gmail Plug-ins).

Last week Socialcast released a priority broadcast message capability that gives designated participants authority to elevate need-to-know messages to a community in real time, separating this information from regular traffic and denoting its importance. Broadcast messages appear prominently in the network, highlighted with unique colors and triggering instant email alerts of a new broadcast.

This new capability was developed from customer comments and it is has been tested in over thirty companies. Organizations have broadcast emergency alerts, quarterly messages from the President, key promotions and congratulatory announcements; intermittent bursts relevant to everyone receiving the signal.

We like the idea of bringing important messages inside the microsharing environment because it reaches people where they are, through mobile devices and desktops alike. It also demonstrates leadership support and purposeful engagement with the tools. If done right, it may entice more participation from people throughout the organization because conversation happens around the broadcast within the stream, rather than in corporate email silos.

For this feature to influence the culture in 2.0 ways, it should be the content, not the sender’s seniority, that determines when this capability is used. It should broadcast important messages from those holding the corporate vision alongside those outside the executive suite. People at many organizational levels are privy to news that affects everyone and they should have the power to use it.

Someone in the transportation department may learn of a roadway accident that will have an impact on everyone leaving work. An ad hoc speaker in the auditorium could be announced by someone in community relations or PR. An imminent change to social media policy could be shared by a member of the peer council no matter their department. They each have a real reason to use the system and should have a mechanism to do so. At the same time, it should not be over used or it will appear as spam.

Senior leaders should likewise demonstrate they are listening to what employees are saying. They should also post regular messages, not only broadcasts, showing they want to be part of the ongoing conversation with all levels of the enterprise. This will demonstrate real engagement and allow them to gain the full benefit of these tools.

Broadcasting is one examples of an emergent capability not appropriate for use on the broader web, that can work well within the enterprise. This feature would not even be relevant to Twitter because users have access to only one follower pool and the system depends on its distributed nature. In an enterprise you can have layers of participation and parallel systems for those who aren’t microsharing yet. This feature can provide a greater sense of community within the enterprise as all levels of the organization can now respond to breaking broadcasted news through a channel that provides greater collaboration than email.  We look forward to more innovations like this one within the market as it adapts to the needs of the enterprise.

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Bill Ives has made a career helping firms with business applications of emerging technologies. He covers the enterprise 2.0 space through three blogs: Portals and KM, FastForward and the AppGap. You will begin to see him now on TouchbaseBlog, too. We welcome his contributions.

Marcia Conner is an enterprise learning and social media analyst and a 20-year veteran of the enterprise technology market. She writes the Fast Company Learn at All Levels blog and is Senior Enterprise Strategist for Pistachio Consulting.

Today marks the official publication of Pistachio Consulting’s book Twitter for Dummies. Truly a team effort between me, Michael Gruen and Leslie Poston, (and a supporting cast of dozens!) we hope we’ve compiled a useful and convenient reference to help people get the most of Twitter.

Have folks around the office who still just don’t get it? Give them a copy. As we’ve said many, many times, it’s not at all unusual for Twitter not to make sense to people immediately. One of the single best things anyone can do is explain a specific use of Twitter that make sense to the person you are trying to convince. We included lots and lots of great Twitter success stories in the book for just this reason. There’s nothing at all “dumb” about looking at Twitter and not immediately seeing the value.

The book is available in softcover, for your Kindle, and as a “Getting Started with Twitter for Dummies” Kindle Special Edition that is just $3.99, instantly downloads and is the perfect easy-reference starter kit to get friends and family up the Twitter learning curve.

An earlier version of this article was published on FastCompany.com and is reprinted here with permission.

If you can’t fathom how Twitter can help your company, read on.

When a student opened fire on the Virginia Tech campus, the school had no systematic way to alert those in harm’s way. In the days that followed, organizations nationwide began asking, “Does my organization have the ability, in a few minutes, in the event of a crisis, to notify everyone involved?” What if fire, an earthquake, an explosion, or a hurricane rendered our email and phone systems useless? How would people receive information critical to their lives?

Today organizations are considering how to systematically use micro-sharing, an emerging communications channel, made possible by Twitter and tools like it, to connect with the people they care about most. It allows organizations to reach people’s desktops, laptops, and devices already in pockets and purses without any dependency on local email servers or a phone tree.

In a few compact sentences, these utilities can quickly and effectively convey text or image messages across an extended enterprise, a decentralized workforce, a dispersed campus, a community of practice, a small group of friends, or just one person who needs to know.

Also referred to as micro-blogging, micro-sharing tools prove enterprise software need not be boring and difficult. It can be easy, engaging, portable, and rewarding.

With the unveiling of enterprise-focused Twitter cousins such as Yammer, Socialtext Signals, Socialcast, and Present.ly, managers can now bring micro-sharing capabilities in-house with the security of working behind the firewall to protect confidential information and the potential for explicit links back into enterprise-strength systems.

Enterprise micro-sharing can help address the dueling dilemmas organizations face — needing to move knowledge where people need it now as they work through business processes, while relieving worries and fears information is leaking out of the organization too easily.

Although some execs ban these tools and consumer counterparts widely available today, doing so leaves their organizations out of an important loop encompassing customers, partner networks and, even, families. Human Resources Executive has featured these tools on their front page several times in the last few year and last summer, technology market consultancy Gartner added micro-sharing to its list of technologies that will transform business over the next two to five years.

Twitter, a public micro-sharing network used by many early adopters, has become an integral part of my own professional practice and personal brain-building. I use it to connect, share, and discover information far beyond any other network. I’ve grown to realize the field might better be thought of as micro-learning where the conduit is tiny and the lessons spread are vast. Across an enterprise — be it around the globe or down the hall — the learning potential is endless, while the opportunities to connect to knowledge are exploding in number and variety.

I use it in a way similar to how I touch base with my friends and family, briefly and frequently, and I now extend that level of care to involve my coworkers and business partners. I can find someone to review an article as effortlessly as I can offer personal experience to a colleague on how to select a webinar platform or which organizations have successfully launched their own brand Wikipedia. This is all akin to the magic of open-source software, created through public grassroots collaboration.

Whether I’m working remotely or onsite, I find micro-sharing (micro-learning?) mediates a conversation where what we’re learning is not merely exchanged. Knowledge is extended, transformed, reshaped, and built on as we actually create new trains of thought.

See if any of these other benefits would prove valuable to your extended organization and your developing communications plans.

Individualized Updates

The meeting in the Wintergreen room moved to Culpepper… The sandwich cart won’t be downstairs today… The supplier has only two mini-laptops left… Reviews are due on Friday… A colleague can’t make the pitch in the morning so I’m on… Email is sent… Directions are scribbled on paper affixed to a door… A high priority phone message is left… I wade through fourteen screens. Ugh. Everyday stuff.

More common than occasional safety announcement, companies have operational updates that need to reach people at certain times to coordinate the dance that is an organization. There’s information each participant in an organizational ecosystem needs to learn to successfully help that enterprise succeed. This information can be broadcast to those needing a reminder about the speaker in the auditorium (until it becomes habit that’s the place to be Friday afternoons), narrowcast to groups like those whose meeting locale has changed or directed to individuals who have paperwork being processed.

Although most messages are generated by people (for instance someone from HR, accounting, at the front desk or in legal), some can be automated to inform people at critical times. An order processing system can kick out events and exceptions. A benefits system can signal coverage changes and enrollment deadlines. A learning management system can prompt it’s time for a certification renewal or a newly available online course. Micro-sharing systems offer unified access for information relevant to each of us, one at a time and all at the same time.

Yet that’s still only half of the story for organizational communication. I can follow news about my meetings, my paperwork or my provisions and I can also — here’s where it gets exciting — (at my own peril) select to be blissfully ignorant. We are far more attentive when we can actively choose to pay attention to what matters to us, and we feel the most empowered when we can select to organize our lives in ways that don’t overwhelm us and actually create value. Micro-sharing can be:

Me-centered. When individuals, rather than senders or suppliers, choose who to and how to trail interesting people, groups or even favorite key words, it heralds the beginning of a Network of Me. As needs and interests change over time, messaging systems let us adjust our inputs and conversations quickly. The network becomes a distributed relevancy mechanism to reach me wherever I am and on my own terms.

Free-market. Offer me information that matters to me, and I’ll follow what you have to say. Spit out junk, and I will stop the flow of information to the device in my hand or the screen in front of me. Instead, I’ll relegate it to the more cumbersome systems, available in the background, and look at them only when I have extra time.

Borderless options. There is a nothing to stop an organization from also publishing (or even just syndicating their micro bursts) to the intranet, communications wiki, personal dashboards, or even an electronic ticker tape running through the lobby.

Nestled between the big blocks called work, micro-sharing enables a people-focused value network and truly modern supply chain. Everyday stuff.

Collective Intelligence

A teammate goes to a conference and promises to share highlights in real-time… Anyone know the source of this stat I heard on my way into work?… I want to include customer stories in a whitepaper I’m writing… Is there a way the spreadsheet template can provide mean rather than average?… I’m new around here and wonder if anyone could use my expertise… My stuff and your stuff, together.

Too frequently organizational knowledge-sharing mirrors the news-cycle society around us, in which we share the highs and lows, ignoring the ordinary stuff in the middle. It’s in that middle ground people make sense of the work done around them, understand how we can play a part to help fulfill the vision, and know where we can turn to find the help we need. It’s the middle stuff that’s truly interesting and helps us connect with one another.

One message I saw said, “You all make me feel like I’m always surrounded by the most brilliant people on earth.” Another said, “I can get an answer to practically any question within minutes!” When we were beside one another as we did the work, we conveyed the information flow with every breath. Now to get smarter, we must connect intentionally.

Although receiving news from the enterprise meme-stream helps us work within the systems around us, learning with and from the people around us (physically or virtually in our space) increases organizational value.

Information we glean from one another exhibits bird-like flocking behavior, joining with other information that adds more value to it, creating clusters of concepts with the capacity to become something stronger than we can come up with alone.

Effortless-discovery. Learning often entails asking people how to do things. The trouble is, no matter our age, we customarily ask the person closest to us rather than someone known to have the right answer. Micro-sharing helps us reach the right people without even requiring us to know who they are. You can also enlist help en masse by asking large groups of people to focus on the same issue for a short burst of time to quickly bring about a creative solution.

Far-reaching collaboration. Most micro-sharing services require only an Internet connection so your colleagues and stakeholders in Australia, Ireland, Russia, Mexico and North Carolina can communicate, cooperate, and share information at the same time. Adding business partners, investors and customers in the learning mix no longer requires complex planning.

Culture-trickle. By identifying a few key influencers, new hires can follow ephemeral information and vetted practices can be shared easily and in real-time with little burden on a designated guide. A directory of personable resident experts, followed through micro-sharing with one click, makes targeted communication more efficient. Because these tools record exchanges, other people can watch how a concept, plan or project evolves.

In conjunction with individuals’ personal stream of reflections and observations, possibly with a link to a source for additional detail, the intelligence we gather and share becomes transparent and available to everyone. Organization power. My stuff and your stuff, together.

Social Seaming

Liz in benefits rocks… I need more sleep… This project is going to change the world… Extra sandwiches in Culpepper (not everyone showed for the meeting)… Who borrowed my stapler?… My kid’s sick, heading home, ping me there. Stuff in between.

How we feel influences our productivity in both subtle and obvious ways. Something fills the moments between doing our work and reading all the lame emails preventing us from reading messages that matter. It contributes to us feeling on target or out of sorts. If those empty “thanks” and “lights on in the parking lot” notes moved to a micro-sharing system, one where we could choose to follow based on the quality of posts or the interest we had in what someone said, we’d probably free up enough time to contribute to the flow, too, and get back to feel on.

These slender messages are interstitial; they lie in and fill the seams of organizations. The threads help us collectively construct understanding, foster new connections and grow existing bonds, making for more agile perspectives, tighter teams, and resilient morale.

Detail intimacy. As organizations and society-at-large dismantle boundaries between personal and work life, they enrich corporate cultures as well as foster greater productivity and loyalty from people who have long-dreaded leaving their private life in the parking lot as they walked through the door. Micro-sharing, the technological equivalent of water-cooler chat, offer us clues into those around us, leading us to help one another because we know and trust one another. It’s in the little learning moments where we’re reminded Jeff isn’t only a guy in product development, but a parent with a daughter about the same age as my son. Clients frequently tell me they have learned more about their coworkers and customers from their micro-messages and social media profiles than they have from working together for years.

Social serendipity. From technical information to breaking news, from what my friends are thinking about to what I need to be looking at and thinking about. These tools work similarly to how we converse while passing one another in the hallway, representing a live ecosystem that shifts from moment to moment, where it’s easier, faster and more effective for us to brain dump as events happen in a live and ongoing environment.

Life-stream immediacy. If you’re thinking, “…but my people have real work to do,” ask yourself this question: In the two minutes they have between a phone call and a report, would it be better for them to be sharing what they learned on the call or asking for insight for the report, rather than doodling, making a shopping list, or checking on their fantasy football spread? People need down time, change of pace time, rhythm of the day time, and for those of us who have discovered a gold mine in their micro-messages, we’ve been able to stay on task and gain a little peace. In-between.

Organizations are human creations and they change as people change. They adapt to serve social needs. Real-world knowledge sharing is social, business, and technical all rolled into one. An enterprise is an ecosystem of various parts all working together, even when they don’t know exactly how, and offering a simply way to reach the parts that doesn’t hamper the work getting on already can help us make great change. Micro-blogging is the capillary system.

Poet Nikki Giovanni said at the memorial service for those at Virginia Tech, “[we] embrace our own and reach out with open heart and hand to those who offer their hearts and minds. We are strong and brave and innocent and unafraid. We are better than we think, and not quite what we want to be.”

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Marcia Conner is an enterprise learning and social media analyst and a 20-year veteran of the enterprise technology market. She writes the Fast Company Learn at All Levels blog and is Senior Enterprise Strategist for Pistachio Consulting.