Pistachio Consulting published one of the first comprehensive surveys of the enterprise microsharing tools market in fall 2008. This report is available for free on our site. That report was based, in part, on a 15-question survey that we invited the tool providers to complete about their products. We verified the information and, in many cases, conducted follow-up interviews.

Much has happen since it first appeared and so we are developing an update now. For example, many of the enterprise collaboration application providers have integrated microsharing into their feature sets. In addition, many new features have been introduced to better adapt microsharing to the enterprise environment and to take advantage of the possibilities within the contained, secure, and trusted community that an enterprise offers. We have expanded our questions to take these changes into consideration.

Our new survey contains 30 questions to reflect the advances in current offerings. We now invite interested enterprise microsharing vendors to participate in this new research effort. There is a brief explanation of each question. Be sure to refer to these explanations as you complete the survey. We look forward to sharing the results. The survey is now open and will be open for participation until Monday May 3, 2010.

We will again be verifying the input and contacting many of the participating vendors for follow-up conversations. Bill Ives will be instrumental in doing the research. Gina Minks, our intern, will offer additional enterprise perspective and assist in the process. Laura Fitton will provide her unique perspective on the microsharing space, and I’ll work closely on the report writing.

We look forward to producing something valuable to the enterprise 2.0 community and to each of us doggedly determined to learn as much as we can with our colleagues, in the little moments between the rest of our work.

This is a guest post from esteemed presentations and speaking expert Olivia Mitchell.

There’s a new story almost every week of a presenter getting roasted on Twitter. The possibility that this might happen to you could be scary. Presenting at conferences is hard enough without the added complication of Twitter.

But it’s not all bad. Conference organizers and presenters are experimenting with using the backchannel to proactively engage audiences using the backchannel. (The backchannel refers to an online conversation taking place at the same time as a live speaker or speakers).

I’ve written an eBook “How to present with Twitter (and other backchannels)” to help you thrive in this new presentation world. In the eBook I take you through the three stages of presenting with Twitter (or any other backchannel) from survival through to engagement. Here’s a summary of the stages:

1. Survive the experience

Preparation

If you prepare thoughtfully, respecting the needs of your audience and do your best, you will survive presenting to the backchannel. An audience will generally (notwithstanding a few rogue tweeters) be tolerant unless you present content that is out-of-date, wrong or insulting to their intelligence and experience. Audit your presentation for the hot buttons which will get even the kindliest audience member tapping out a tweet. For example, look for and remove:

• Out of date examples
• Overused cliches or buzzwords
• Stories with unknown origins — they could be urban myths
• Thinly-veiled sales pitches.

Prepare yourself psychologically for what’s its going to be like presenting to a tweeting audience. Gather together a few colleagues and present to them while they keep busy on their laptops. If you can do that for 10 minutes you’ll be more at ease when you face your real audience.

During the presentation

Take control of the presentation environment. If there’s a big screen display of the backchannel ask for it to be turned off.

These are the essential things to do. The next stage is to use Twitter to react in real-time.

2. Respond to the audience’s needs

Twitter is a fantastic tool for finding out what people are thinking while you’re presenting. And if you find you’re not meeting their needs, you can respond and change tracks.

To do this you need to monitor the backchannel. Unless you’re a practiced multi-tasker or supremely-skilled presenter, get some help with this task. When you’re presenting you need to be 100% focused on living your words and connecting with your audience. I know that I can’t do that and scan the backchannel at the same time. There are two ways that you can monitor the backchannel during your presentation:

Twitter moderator

Ask a Twitter-savvy friend or colleague to be your Twitter moderator. If you don’t have anyone who can play this role, ask for a tweeting volunteer from the audience. Their role is to monitor the backchannel and alert you to tweets that you can or should respond to (see more on this below).

Twitter breaks

As well as having a Twitter moderator take Twitter breaks. After each part of your presentation, take a short break in your presentation so that you can have a look at the Twitterstream, check you’re on the right track and answer any tweeted questions. Combine the Twitter break with taking questions in the frontchannel.

Here are some of the types of tweets you might see and how to respond to them:

1. Positive contributions. The backchannel can contain incredibly useful information. It will likely shatter the illusion that you’re the only expert on your topic. Highlight useful tweets and thank people for their contributions.
2. Points of disagreement. These tweets may be a bit confronting, but here’s how to think of it — your audience is engaging and participating in your presentation. See them as an opportunity to engage deeper. Read out the tweets (or display them on the screen) and ask the tweeter to elaborate. This is important because it can be quite tricky to make a complex point in 140 characters. Then respond the same way that you would if this were a traditional Q&A session.
3. Environmental issues. Sound issues and other distractions are all things that people may tweet about. Ask your moderator, conference host or a volunteer to get the issue fixed as soon as possible.
4. Content disconnect. If your content is not meeting the needs of the audience you’ll get to hear about it. Here’s where you need to exercise some judgment. If there is only one tweet like this you can probably disregard it, but if it is retweeted or others reply in agreement, then you should take some action. This may be very disconcerting for you as a presenter, but better to know now and attempt to put things right, than to find out later that you bombed when you can no longer do anything about it.

3. Engage your audience

The third stage is not just to survive and respond, but to use Twitter proactively to engage your audience. There are now a number of Twitter tools which have been developed to make it easy to use Twitter in your presentation.

Tweet your key points

To ensure that your key points are tweeted, craft them into tweetbites — short sentences ready-made for tweeting. Both PowerPoint and Keynote have add-ins so that you can schedule your tweet to be posted at the same time as you click on a specific slide.

Use backchannel tools other than Twitter to create engagement

If you plan to use the backchannel proactively in your presentation, it may be better to use a backchannel tool other than Twitter. This is because:

1. Twitter users won’t have to be concerned about overwhelming their followers with a series of presentation-specific tweets.
2. Anybody can access and contribute to the backchannel without having to register.

That makes the backchannel more inclusive: no Twitter-divide — and it allows the backchannel to become more intimate amongst conference attendees.

Nina Simon of Museum 2.0 has written a great account of using both Twitter and a no-registration backchannel tool, TodaysMeet, at the WebWise 2009 conference:

“Whereas Twitter provided the conference highlights to a wider audience, TodaysMeet allowed attendees to delve deeper into individual moments and questions.”

If you’re presenting to a conference you need to be ready for the backchannel. Download my free eBook “How to present with Twitter and other backchannels” (no sign up required) for more help.

Olivia Mitchell blogs at Speaking about Presenting. Visit her blog for more presentation tips.

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.”

——————

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.

—–

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.