Streamline Training & Documentation: Aliza Sherman on Twitter

Monday, February 09, 2009

Aliza Sherman on Twitter

Today at salon.com, Aliza Sherman offers her take — certainly more informed than mine — on how Twitter can be a productivity tool, and how it can waste time.

First, the productivity possibilities:

Short messages

Filtering, i.e., guidance from knowledgeable types on what to pay attention to.

Quick answers to technical questions.

Ability to set up reminders for yourself, e.g., of when you need to head out to appointments.

Ability to set up alerts, based on key words, that let you monitor what people are saying about your company, your clients, and you.

An especially immediate connectedness with others in your network who use Twitter.

Viral messaging through "retweets," i.e., copying other people's tweets that you want to spread in your own network.

Twitter's easy accessibility on multiple platforms, i.e., cell phone, web, etc.

Development of skill for using other applications that are similar to Twitter and that offer their own productivity advantages (e.g., Joint Contact) (something I need to do).

"Feel the Twitter Love. You feel it when you tweet a link to your latest blog post or podcast. You feel it when you ask your followers for support on a project. Twitter is full of love that can ease a web worker's workload (quickly identifying outsourcing talent), can ease a web worker's frustration (nothing better than a good sounding board), and ease a web worker's soul (like ego-stroking tweets from twittering fans)."

And then, the ways you can use Twitter to waste time:

Sometimes having to struggle to stay within the 140-character limit.

Following mindless chatter.

Following people playing dumb (even if entertaining) games.

Plowing through emails letting you know of new followers.

Coping with too many tweets coming in from people you're following.

Sending out a questions and not getting a quick response.

Checking too often for replies to your tweets.

Letting tweets come to you via SMS, which can mean endless interruptions.

Having the Twitter system go down.

Getting caught up in trying to handle negative tweets, e.g., about you.

For advice on how to keep track of the ever-expanding and improving universe of Twitter applications, you can turn to Robin Wauters.

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Labels: Communication, Networking, Productivity

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