Our work worlds are extremely noisy places. Mine is evermore packed with extraneous information and a multitude of potential time wasting paths. In our largely unstructured workplaces, time management has become the ultimate challenge. I'd say that the Greek directive to "know thyself" has morphed into "know thy priorities" (and manage thy time accordingly).
Yet (sigh) we are human after all and, if the Internet, social apps, and collaborative environments have taught us anything, it is that people like to think, learn, and communicate in ways that are not always logical, structured, or linear. Therefore, if we want to be most productive at work, we need to be able to structure our flow of information and ideas in ways that may not always conform to a Gantt chart or a prioritized task list. Yes, prioritization and scheduling is critical to success but so is the collaboration and community engendered by social media tools.
Twitter is unique in that it allows us to create interactive communities that can share information in real time. And I particularly like the 140 alphanumeric limit because it tends to steer us toward more succinct communication and a conveyance of focused information. Twitter is to email as headlines are to copy. The copy can be provided as a URL in the Twitter message (I still have trouble calling these messages "tweets"), but the key points should be called out in the Twitter message.
Think of Twitter as a means for sharing potentially key information across groups of people. By carefully choosing your Twitter community and by building protocols of communication that provide value (and a sense of shared spirit), Twitter can help channel and prioritize information that should be important to you and others within your network.
The following link from zappos.com provides some interesting perspective on a company that is using Twitter to build their corporate community and culture.
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