Twitter's going to change everything. No matter who you are or what you do, twitter means business is required reading.
The idea of Facebook turns me off. The whole Friending thing reminds me of the superficial unpleasantness of my time in a sorority during college. I was happily doing my very unsorority-type thing with my then and now best friends, but I got talked into it. Not this time. I know a stint on Facebook would quickly land me in the same category as it did then. "Inactive."
I'd love to know as it happens what cool things are being thought and discovered by people like Chris Lindland of Cordarounds, Kenneth Brown of Kenneth Brown Design, and my most accomplished, well traveled, devilish friend Sarah Hurst (none of whom are tweeting, to my dismay). So thank goodness for Twitter that it's possible. I'm finding it great fun to think 140-character thoughts and quite valuable to know what 140-character thoughts the people I'm following are having.
But the business value of the thing has my mind spinning. Think of this one small example of the possibilities inherent in Twitter. My husband works for the power company here. A power company exec in another state at another company tweeted the other day about how she's interested in the smart metering program he's been working on. Here's the tweet: Dominion Power in Virginia is looking at some unique and creative applications for their smart metering. I'm excited to learn more. 8:17 AM Jan 14th...Name T_McLeod...Location Phoenix, AZ...Bio Expresso consuming energy exec
So let's say my husband (jon_lohman) replies, "I'm with Dominion's smart metering group, and I'm excited to teach you." I imagine a very happy ending.
It's not about accruing followers, unless you're a tweeter like 1MILLIONorBUST or you really want to be among the Who's Who in the Twitterverse (see Twitterati). As the book says, it's more than a communication tool--it is an engagement tool. It's about two-way conversation. It gets us ever closer to the old way of doing business. Ironically now we find ourselves advanced enough, and with Twitter evolved enough, to be able to go back. Remember Nels Oleson, the proprietor of the town's general store in Little House on the Prairie? There's your original tweeter. He had stuff for sale, but what people bought was him. He sold a lot of stuff that way.
On Twitter I'm "ashleylohman" without the quotes. Come tweet with me!
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