This is Twitter week. Yesterday was a good Twitter story, now here is a cautionary one. Back when I worked for a large consulting firm I would go to work on airplanes. On a number of assignments I would go to a large firm located in small places. This meant that many of the people in the airport waiting area were consultants from a variety of firms. I was always amazed that many of our competitors would openly discuss their client experiences and their sales approach to the client in the airport waiting area in a loud or, at least normal voice. Without trying, we could hear what they were doing. Now they could have been supplying misinformation but I doubt this was the case.
This also happens on occasion on cell phones in the airport and even on the plane itself. Now Twitter opens up a whole new way to give away your company secrets to anyone anywhere who wants to listen. I was talking with a marketing person who subscribes to his competitors Twitter feeds. He finds that they often discuss recent sales calls on Twitter. He can then forward the competitive intelligence on to the appropriate people in his sales force. Again, misinformation could be supplied but I think this would be counterproductive for a number of obvious reasons. This is the same type of blindness that the Ketchum PR guy demonstrated. However, it is magnified as there are even more audiences that you do not want with this type of information.
Now I am not against Twitter. I am actually using it more now and seeing its value. Among other things, I learn about a lot of interesting things to write about on my various blogs and stay more current in my field. I also keep up with many people I am interested in. BTW - check out Twitter Sheep - Here is the profile of my followers. Thanks to @jackvinson. However, I am just amazed how some people do not understand its power but then I guess it should not surprise me based on my airport waiting area experience.
Post script - The Economist recently wrote on How Twitter stopped a coup. One of the losing side said, "Be authentic on Twitter...But still keep a frickin' secret when you need to."
I could not resist doing this cross post from the FastForward blog. What has been your experience with Twitter? What do you learn? Do you learn anything that the sender might not want you to know?
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