I describe Twitter to average Joes as “mini-emails that everyone sees.” I know that’s a lame way to capture the spirit of Twitter but for it to get adoption in the enterprise, it’s going to have to be that simple. That said, I really do think that something like Twitter could go a long way to replacing a lot of the messaging we currently do with email.
I’ve been thinking about a way to use a Twitter-like service with Clearspace. As I’ve been using Twitter, I’ve realized that there are some posts I make (or that I’d like to make) that are related to the work I’m currently doing. For example, I’ll post a URL that I’d want the people working on Clearspace 2.0 and our PR Agency to see. I’d love for posts like that to be visible to both my coworkers and appropriate outsiders (like my PR peeps). More, I want to be able to publish them to appropriate areas within Clearspace so that they become associated with the most appropriate work-effort. That could be my to-do list or a project space for our product launch.
I can imagine going to a product launch space and seeing a thread of tweets that people have saved to it that are related to that project. That would keep me even more in the loop on what’s going on with that effort. Then I could stay connected via RSS, comment on the posts, and otherwise make them actionable. Obviously, this would all be built on XMPP. I’ve sketched out how this could work below. Love to know what you think.
. now my remote team often uses it to share news and keep abreast if someone is sick / having a baby / on vacation / quitting / buried in paperwork. it’s so much better than the awkward emails to lists, “hi, my son is throwing up, I need to give him a bath and I’ll be on later” etc. It’s also great for announcing highlights that need to be shared both externally and internally (we just launched a new xyz!), brainstorming, and replaces the water cooler chitchat for those who don’t work in an office together.
