Have a Break

In my earlier post “Let Blogs Speak For Themselves” I touched on the topic of a need for constantly changing vocabulary, especially tech terms. As a kind of follow up to the subject I decided to have a look for some of the more humorous “definitions” during lunch today and found a couple worth the mention.

High Tech Humour - This one discusses the intricacies of  writing technical documents for your boss. A few simple techniques go a long way.

Tech One Liners - “Daddy, what does ‘FORMATTING DRIVE C’ mean?”

More  over the coming lunches….

Life is Tweet

I’d like to quickly look at Twitter.com, source of the craze that has recently struck mainstream internet users.  Known as micro blogging, Twitter allows it’s users to post brief (140 character) statements and receive feedback,  allowing the conversation to be extended towards a wide audience.  Sounds great to some and fairly standard to others but how can Twitter really have an effect on both personal and professional lives?

Businesses that are looking for an Enterprise 2.0 edge are eager to be a part of Twitter. The results are immediate, it is cheap and the feedback is genuine. The fact of the matter is that any new line of communication with customers is beneficial to a business. Tweeting enables direct communication to and from the consumer which brings a plethora of requests, complaints, suggestions and questions that help develop rapore and enhance the brand. However, the indirect discussion is often where the real benefits lay. When a company can get unbiased and unregulated opinions and discussion on how well they are providing a product or service, they can not only improve themselves before a threat escalates, but capitalise on the potential for innovation at no cost of their own. An example of this is the use of Twitter coupons whereby simply using Twitter, a company adds benefit to their product or service and also promotes their brand all in the space of a tweet.

Twitter began as an experiment in 2006 and due to exponential growth over the next eighteen months Twitter Inc opened officially in 2007. Though, before it became a leading marketing and intelligence tool, Twitter was just people. Individuals use Twitter both socially and professionally to many rewards. The idea of having a personal web identity and presence goes further than providing an online CV.  It is used as a constant reminder of who you want to be by focusing on how you appear online. It provides a way to reframe reality by feeding off the positive attitudes others display in their own posts. The site provides a sense of accomplishment and the feeling of providing a positive impact on the lives of others.

Although an effective tool in many respects there are some contextual limitations to the benefits of Twitter. For example, the limited character count means that posts are only useful for providing updates and comments. This means that for a business that would like to convey any amount of detail, there will be a lot of linking and redirecting to the “genuine article”. As for individuals, micro blogging is much quicker, but there is not as much room to review and backtrack. A traveller may not find it to be as useful as a regular blog.

In a future post (later this week) I would like to investigate some cases of how some businesses have used Twitter to improve their performance and more specificly, what methods they are employing to achieve this.