Most of us have heard about Twitter by now... that social networking phenom based around people posting short messages about themselves and what they're doing. Short meaning 140 characters or less. What better way to lose context and meaning? Or perhaps force oneself to be concise?
Up until this past weekend I thought it was entirely ridiculous, and when I had checked several months ago the posts were along the lines of "going to the store to pick up some milk." Who cares? Who has time for that nonsense? How much more connected do you really want to be? Of course I said the same about Skype a couple years ago, and now I couldn't live without it!
A few days ago fellow lean blogger Ron at Lean Six Sigma Academy had the audacity to email me an article on Twitter, suggesting there could be more to this idiocy. Two days after I began my New Year's resolution to simplify and remove the unimportant. Thanks to Ron I've accomplished very little over the past couple days.
You see, it's no longer a bunch of nonsensical posts about fetching milk and feeding the cats; it's a bunch of nonsensical posts about fetching milk PLUS a bunch of posts pointing out valuable business articles, questioning current events, and collaborating on projects such as the CPSIA regulatory disaster. There is some real meat, and over four million members spewing forth such meat.
Thanks Ron. Dagnamit. Why did you do this? And he did the same to some of our other favorite lean guys such as Mark and Jon and they've been similarly enthralled. Some like Pete and Kathleen were already ahead of the curve and welcomed us into the fold.
So now what? Already I'm dealing with a deluge of information, much of it real meaty, interesting information, greater than my old nearly-overwhelming flow of email. There are some tools, such as Tweet Deck, that will organize the flood into manageable streams. And there are apps for the iPhone and Blackberry in case you can't resist checking the "tweats" on the road. You won't be able to resist... it is addictive.
I'm not going to be someone that comments on the weather or the cats... I just don't have the time. But you might want to join in some interesting conversations on lean and business by following us. If you follow my Twitter stream you'll soon see some of your other favorite bloggers. And you'll see how we deal with the world of 140 character posts...