Social Networking's Promise

It will be one year ago this week that I first tried Twitter. I think my experience has been similar to others. I began with a curiosity to see what it was about and was there value to be had beyond “Just polished off a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough by myself”.

I used Twitter sporadically from January to May and by May entered my “disillusioned phase”. And I abandoned Twitter for the most part until September where I picked it up again, becoming more judicious about how I used it. I began to target the discussions I chose to follow and followed individuals with seemingly similar interests, but had fun pursuing those discussions. My use of Twitter became more purposeful.

With this being the first full business week of the New Year, I didn’t expect much in the way of business productivity. Maybe the lesson is in maintaining low expectations while working toward big things. I had always known in an intuitive way social networking’s promise, but to experience it in such a visceral way was unknown to me until this past Friday.

My good friends at @capgemini in response to a post I had made, sent me to Chuck Hollis’ blog to download his white paper on EMC’s journey with social networking. Getting Chuck's whitepaper was not only highly supportive in helping me move the ball forward on my company’s social networking journey, it validated finally social networking’s promise; the promise that dedicated, smart people working together can reach better business decisions faster.