You have most likely heard of the microblogging site, Twitter.com. Twitter allows you to create short (160 char limit) frequent posts. Any Twitter user who chooses to “follow” you will see the messages you post. Twitter now has over a million users. In October, 2008, Yammer launched a Twitter-like microblogging site targeted at internal corporate use. Yammer allows you to create a microblogging site that only employees from your company can access. There are more build-your-own microblogging sites springing up now as well. A new service that allows you to easily create group specific microblogging sites is shout’em.
For those who want to host their own microblogging application, there is an excellent open source option Laconica.
What is microblogging?
I like to describe these microblogging sites as a cross between instant messaging, email, and blogging. Microblogging has features of each of these collaboration tools. Like email, you can send messages to users and groups of users and reply to messages. Unlike with email, your microblogging messages or posts are typically one to many, as opposed to one-to-one email messaging. Although you can send targeted messages to specific users, most of your posts will be more like broadcasts to anyone who is following you. As with a blog, there is a persistent searchable history created of everything that is posted. You can view all of the messages posted, or you can choose to follow a subset of users and filter the posts you see to those from that set of users. This concept is similar to an IM buddy list. Microblogging posts usualy have more of a real-time context than emails, again making it similar to instant messaging. Microblog posts are also short like instant messages. Most systems in fact limit them to around 160 characters.
Using microblogging in your organization
Most of these microblogging services implement a common core set of features that includes content tagging, direct messages, replies and the ability to search through all of the posts. These tools can be used effectively to capture information knowledge and information across your organization. By giving your organization a platform for communicating with each other in a very open manner, you will uncover new ideas, encourage more innovation, and discover alot of ways towards improvement. It is usually easier to get your company to participate in microblogging as it does not require the same time commitment and writing skills that might be required to maintain a regular blog.
You might use microblogging to reach out to find expertise within your company, or to advertise new opportunities within the company. You might want to use it for organizational announcements within your company or group, or to get feedback on your ideas. You can also use a microblogging tool within a project team to facilitate project communication, such as letting the team know what your working on, and to provide status updates related to the project. Unlike with email, or instant messaging, all of this history is persisted and searchable which builds of a knowledge base of tacit knowledge for your organization.
If your company wants to improve the way you collaborate and share knowledge I strongly encourage you to give microblogging a try.
