Thursday
May212009
Twitter or Twit - Benefit or Fad?
Thursday, May 21, 2009 at 12:07AM
Ok so I have given in and decided that I would give twitter a go. The notion of micro blogging never really worked for me. For one thing I hate the term micro blogging - it just sounds so pretentious and secondly it was not convinced that anything that would be posted would be meaningful or interesting.
Having thought about it for a wee while I figured that as someone who works in IT, I should maybe have a look and see whether there was anything too it and whether it would actually be of any use. Setting it up and picking some people to follow was pretty easy and surprisingly some of the recommended followings were of interest to me - though I was not sure if it would get any benefit. In order to give it a fair run I also figured I that I would pick one of the phone apps so that I could use it on the go.
Having used it for a day, though not all that heavily I think that I can see some uses for communities. If you want to promote articles then it is a good way to put a link up with a one line comment. I know that there are wikis and the like but having something that is short and too the point may well be useful. If you do want to have discussions that are more than a line or so long then you would need to make sure that you have somewhere else to do it.
An interesting notion for this is around whether or not business should make use of these tools for allowing their organizational communities to interact, while absorbing the cost. It was in the papers not too long ago that business' loose money becuase of people in the organsisation using twitter rather than working, treating it as a social networking type site. Another article I looked up places the cost of twitter at about $13.5bn per year (worked out at a $20/per hour productivity loss per person -link I am sure that figures like these will lead, or maybe have lead to some companies blocking access to twitter from the employees desktop, but there is a chance that by encouraging positive use you could actually get some productivity gains or at least increase knowledge share.
What we need to remember is that the easier you make it from someone to do something - the more likely they are to do it. In a lot of organizations knowledge sharing is hampered by the fact that it is difficult, prescriptive or they just don't have the time. Perhaps use to twitter would help alleviate some of this. Thinking back to cost - I would have to wonder whether the use of other tools would be just as high as the use to twitter and prove just as costly. I don't have stats on instant messaging but I would think that there are similar costs and similar benefits, though perhaps a few more logistical issues.
One thing that does come to mind and it not business related it the notion of chain of consciousness blogging. In terms of changing the way that people think about the effort for sharing their thoughts with others informally just putting it out there, this is the next logical step from blogging. For some folks the idea of sitting and keying in line upon line of text is just not something that they have the time/notion/inclination to do. Tools like twitter may encourage them to start getting their thoughts out. Whether these end up as meaningful conversations, is debatable but I guess if people feel like they are interacting with others and they get something from their conversations then perhaps it is no bad thing, to give people the means to have a voice.
Am I a convert to micro blogging - I would say no. I need to think about it and use it a bit more to get my head around its use. Can I see some possible benefits, yes I think so but only time will tell. In the mean time, should you wish to twitter you can find me there under JennyLally (imaginative don't you think - lol). I look forward to twittering you soon!
Having thought about it for a wee while I figured that as someone who works in IT, I should maybe have a look and see whether there was anything too it and whether it would actually be of any use. Setting it up and picking some people to follow was pretty easy and surprisingly some of the recommended followings were of interest to me - though I was not sure if it would get any benefit. In order to give it a fair run I also figured I that I would pick one of the phone apps so that I could use it on the go.
Having used it for a day, though not all that heavily I think that I can see some uses for communities. If you want to promote articles then it is a good way to put a link up with a one line comment. I know that there are wikis and the like but having something that is short and too the point may well be useful. If you do want to have discussions that are more than a line or so long then you would need to make sure that you have somewhere else to do it.
An interesting notion for this is around whether or not business should make use of these tools for allowing their organizational communities to interact, while absorbing the cost. It was in the papers not too long ago that business' loose money becuase of people in the organsisation using twitter rather than working, treating it as a social networking type site. Another article I looked up places the cost of twitter at about $13.5bn per year (worked out at a $20/per hour productivity loss per person -link I am sure that figures like these will lead, or maybe have lead to some companies blocking access to twitter from the employees desktop, but there is a chance that by encouraging positive use you could actually get some productivity gains or at least increase knowledge share.
What we need to remember is that the easier you make it from someone to do something - the more likely they are to do it. In a lot of organizations knowledge sharing is hampered by the fact that it is difficult, prescriptive or they just don't have the time. Perhaps use to twitter would help alleviate some of this. Thinking back to cost - I would have to wonder whether the use of other tools would be just as high as the use to twitter and prove just as costly. I don't have stats on instant messaging but I would think that there are similar costs and similar benefits, though perhaps a few more logistical issues.
One thing that does come to mind and it not business related it the notion of chain of consciousness blogging. In terms of changing the way that people think about the effort for sharing their thoughts with others informally just putting it out there, this is the next logical step from blogging. For some folks the idea of sitting and keying in line upon line of text is just not something that they have the time/notion/inclination to do. Tools like twitter may encourage them to start getting their thoughts out. Whether these end up as meaningful conversations, is debatable but I guess if people feel like they are interacting with others and they get something from their conversations then perhaps it is no bad thing, to give people the means to have a voice.
Am I a convert to micro blogging - I would say no. I need to think about it and use it a bit more to get my head around its use. Can I see some possible benefits, yes I think so but only time will tell. In the mean time, should you wish to twitter you can find me there under JennyLally (imaginative don't you think - lol). I look forward to twittering you soon!
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