Posted by Christopher Stevenson
Those of you who attended CUES Experience may have heard social media gurus Tim McAlpine, Morriss Partee, and Brent Dixon talk a bit about Twitter, the social media service that allows users to post short messages for their friends and "followers." It's a great tool to help me to keep tabs on innovators in financial services and trends in the industry, but I don't think I realized its potential value for professional development. Throughout CUES Experience, Twitter friends posted short "tweets" about the key points speakers made during their sessions. Check out Robbie Wright's tweets from Arkadi Kuhlmann's session (note to Twitter novices: tweets are listed newest to oldest).
In Robbie's few short posts, he pulled out the points that were most interesting to him, the facts that he might have shared with a friend over coffee: ING Direct's profits, their unique cultural characteristics, and which tools they use to measure their effectiveness. The difference is that Robbie was posting to Twitter with his phone and the tweets were happening in real time as Arkadi was speaking.
What's great about these updates is that there were three or four folks at Experience posting tweets all week long. No matter which sessions I attended, I could get the updates from friends in other rooms. And since each person had his or her own perspective on the sessions, the key points they shared were unique.
Twitter continues to surprise me with its versatility. Folks are constantly finding new ways to use it to enhance their business relationships, improve their professional development, and keep track of their colleagues' new blog posts. Give it a try. Sign up and follow some folks. Feel free to start with me (my user name is "cjsteven"), and then build your Twitter kingdom from there.
