A Reason to Twitter

Last week's NETA conference was spectacular as always. The NETA Board does such a great job of choosing presentations and speakers. There are so many positive sessions that it's impossible to see them all. Thankfully we have enough staff members go that we pile our notes together and get a lot of the information. Can't wait until next year in the new pad!

Previously we've discussed what Twitter is and my flirtatious dealings with it. I liked it, but wasn't sure how to make it benefit what I do. NETA was all that I needed. Thanks to one of the NETA Board members, who created a NETA Twitter account, I was able to keep up with much of what was going on in the other rooms and got other people's perspective on the keynotes and sessions. I even got to meet a couple of the people I follow on Twitter. NECC 2008 has their own Twitter account as well.
One of the things that I like least about my job is how I don't always know what is going on in the buildings. And people in the building rarely know what is happening in other buildings. So, this is where Twitter is going to come in. I've learned about so many new things through Twitter that I think this will greatly benefit our tech people, used properly, of course. Our tech people are going to set up their own Twitter accounts with the intent that they tweet, at minimum one per week, about the technology activities in their buildings. They also must follow all other tech people so that they see their tweets. One joked with me last week that I had "mandated" the use of Google Docs at NETA. I laughed at the thought that I had ever mandated anything...until now.

The other "mandate" has to do with the poll at the right hand side of the blog concerning the use of social bookmarking. I have to say I have been pretty surprised at the results. As of right now, Diigo is ahead of Delicious 26-21. More on this later.