Chapter 4

Microsharing for a Healthy Culture

Productive people, busy people, busier and more productive than you can imagine people feel better connected and in touch with the ideas around them than ever before because of microsharing. This aggregation of thoughts is easy to assimilate, without adding more data load on them, and without sacrificing their attention.”

—Montgomery Flinsch

Senior Technical Architect, Mayo Clinic

Humans have conveyed short messages, long with meaning, for as long as 40,000 years. Smoke signals have traversed the airways. Expressive quips filled the Seinfeld show. At all stages and ages, we move forward in small bursts of communication. Some people just don’t notice how much can be conveyed when just a little is said.

Microsharing is the class of social software tools that enables people to update one another with short bursts of text, links, and multimedia either through standalone applications or as part of larger online communities or social networks.

Messages sent this way usually can’t exceed 140 characters. This restriction isn’t arbitrary. One hundred and sixty characters is the total that mobile devices (SMS) can accept; 140 characters for the message and the remaining 20 for the bits of data necessary for identifying the source of the information. Within these 140 characters, people can ask questions, post feedback, highlight news stories, and link to items on the Internet.

Microsharing emerges from a trend to make digital content smaller and faster to spread. It is eclipsing email (too slow) and texting (too restricted an audience). Microbursts of information are easy to read and write, there is nothing to delete, you can communicate one to one or one to many, and replies are optional.

Microsharing doesn’t require any special technical knowledge to use or any complex technology to deploy. The software can route messages to people’s desktops, laptops, and devices already in pockets and purses without depending on local email servers or phone trees. These utilities can quickly convey text messages or images to an extended enterprise, a decentralized workforce, a dispersed campus, a community of practice, a small group of friends, or just one person who needs to know.

 

 

The best-known microsharing software, at the time of writing this book, is Twitter. The actor Ashton Kutcher was the first to acquire a million followers on Twitter (beating out rival CNN Breaking News for the honor). Barack Obama’s campaign for president made wide use of Twitter to reach voters. And millions of ordinary people use it every day to send and receive very short messages, amplifying voices, netting people-picked answers fast, facilitating listening, and enabling a natural approach to being aware of the community around them.

Microsharing is a powerful way to connect people for personal, professional, or corporate benefit. With enterprise-focused Twitter-like tools such as Socialcast, Socialtext Signals, Cubetree, and Yammer, designed specifically for private use, organizations can now bring microsharing capabilities in house. Because they operate behind the firewall, these tools help protect confidential information and can link back to other enterprise systems.

The Mayo Clinic experience with microsharing illustrates the tool’s power. When you leave the Mayo Clinic you may not be cured, but you will know what’s wrong and you will feel capable of making the decisions ahead of you. That’s enormous comfort for the half a million people who pass through one of Mayo’s three campuses each year. For those who have suffered with chronic illness or a medical matter their local doctor knew little about, their trip to Mayo has changed them, providing answers, insights, and a better quality of life. In many cases, it gives them their lives back.

The first and largest integrated not-for-profit medical practice in the world, the Mayo Clinic employs more than 57,000 physicians, scientists, researchers, allied health professionals, and residents. The world-class staff, deeply entrenched in labor-intensive intellectual work, aim to create a culture of collaborative care—with social media, a new and vital resource.

Consider, for example, a Mayo radiologist who was sitting alone in a darkened room looking at x-rays. He saw something he’d never seen before and asked himself, “What the heck is that?” A few minutes later, he used Mayo’s internal microsharing network, asking the question, “How can we use [microsharing] clinically?” Also referred to as microblogging, social messaging, and micromessaging, this network carries very small Twitter-like messages, using systems specifically designed for use within organizations. His question led to a two-week conversation online about what using microsharing clinically might mean. Out of that dialogue, three people, the radiologist, a physician, and a technical program manager, who had never crossed paths before, agreed to do something about this question.

They could see their colleagues were curious and interested in the topic of microsharing in a shared clinical environment to provide just-intime knowledge support for an unusual diagnosis. The wisdom of crowds told them the topic was worth taking on.

They agreed to write a proposal and contemplated how they should do it. The project manager suggested two weeks of meetings. The radiologist and physician suggested they should send ideas across the microsharing system until they figured out what they wanted, until the ideas were better formed, and only then move their primary collaboration space to an internal wiki. That’s what they did. They challenged themselves to hold no face-to-face meetings and exchange no email. They met that challenge, wrote the proposal to study how to do microsharing well clinically, got funded to run the project, and only met in person for the first time when they received the funding. Out of their microsharing experiment, they gained tangible examples and practice with the tools and produced enduring tangible work: the conversation they had with one another and others chiming in and the wiki. They left behind no voice-mails, texts, file attachments—no digital clutter. And they did this all in about three weeks, super fast by most medical community standards. The process wasn’t dramatically different than if the same people worked well together in a small office every day. A new idea was identified and moved into productive work. A team was formed, with synchronous time coordination. When most people don’t work side by side, how do you find the right people, put them together, and form a cohesive team to do productive work without flying everyone to Atlanta once a week or adjusting everyone’s schedule so they can meet together down the hall?

Monty Flinsch, who has led technical initiatives at Mayo’s central campus in Rochester, Minnesota, for more than a decade, sees the endless potential of microsharing to establish and support relationships between people and departments. He doesn’t see these tools used to develop knowledge. He sees microsharing as a critical component for Mayo clinicians to make vital connections.¹

A physical scientist by training, Flinsch likens microsharing to cloud seeding, the distribution of silver iodine that changes the energy in clouds and leads to rain. When people ask a question or post a link to a resource across Mayo’s internal microsharing tools, their open sharing creates a place where ideas get crystallized. Ideas ignite more sharing and then normal human relationships take off. People go to lunch, talk on the phone, or invite each other to see something they are working on.

Because this happens more frequently and sooner than if someone had to make introductions, or they read about the challenge on a piece of paper near the elevator, people at Mayo are making more substantial contacts. They spark off of one another’s ideas. Connecting again online or in person reinvigorates the process and brings new energy to their communications. For busy people who need to find ways to manage their attention stream, microsharing seems just little enough to not seem like a burden. It’s akin to writing a paper or a blog without the time commitment. It’s sufficiently lightweight to fit into the spaces between the critical work people do.

Physicians at Mayo, like people in many professions, face a huge number of system alerts begging for their attention. Microsharing can become their unified activity stream, which they can look at through the corner of an eye and receive alerts and gain an ambient awareness of conversations going on. Rather than being bombarded with notices that blood work is complete, a room is ready, or a package has arrived, this unified stream is there when they are ready to review it.

Although some people believe that microsharing adds to chaos and perceive it as just more noise, others find threads of relevance in their first few experiences. They use it as a digest, checking in once in a while and getting an idea where the institution is on a topic, what’s up. One more blip isn’t distracting; they view the microsharing stream when they have time. They can engage when appropriate.

 

 

Ideas get tossed out, and some fall to the bottom of the pile (when there isn’t a reply or conversation). Others stick, and engagement ensues. Messages touch a nerve or mix with threads that keep popping up, forming a pulse of the institution. When there’s internal rumbling, you can sense it across the stream. Ideas are refined in the space, issues get aired, and people feel connected to one another and to the vibe of the organization.

Mayo also uses microsharing and other social media tools to reach out beyond its campuses, connecting with and educating people about Mayo Clinic practices. The organization engages with three key audiences: the public with health-related questions and concerns, prospective patients, and the medical and research communities.

The technology chosen for this communication gives both Mayo employees and the larger community a sense of personal connectedness to the organization and its people and a sustained commitment to leading-edge use of technologies that always put people first.

In 2009, Mayo Clinic held a conference called “Transform,” run by its center for innovation. The 400 participants included the inventor of Swiffer at Procter & Gamble and people from IDEO, GE, IBM, MIT Media Lab, Massachusetts General Hospital, and the Darden School of Business. It was a gathering of large enterprise innovators, specifically designed to spark interaction among leading-edge thinkers and promote conversation about innovation at Mayo itself.

Run six months after the launch of its microsharing network pilot, the organization saw a 50 percent increase in the number of people sharing online. Inside the organization, people who were not at the event but were watching it unfold online introduced new thoughts, shared ideas, and chronicled highlights as if they were at the conference.

Virtual participants across the microsharing stream appointed themselves as connectors and advocates, spreading ideas out several nodes to all corners of the organization. People wouldn’t have had that special feeling of “I got to participate in something amazing” if it weren’t for microsharing. It extended creative thinking to the whole organization without the cost and logistical headaches of a 50,000-person seminar.

Suffering from chronic wrist pain, Erin Turner, an account supervisor at a health-focused public relations agency, noticed a tweet from @MayoClinic about a Twitter chat with a prestigious hand surgeon about wrist pain. Thinking this could be her opportunity for some answers, Turner followed the provided link to a page on the Mayo website with a link to a USA Today article about a different type of ligament tear; illustrations and video about the condition; a patient testimonial video; a pod-cast; a list of doctors trained in diagnosing and treating this condition; video of Dr. Richard Berger, the surgeon, explaining his discovery and the typical treatment course; and even a journal article about the condition.

Over the course of an hour-long chat, Turner was able to tell Dr. Berger about the pain she experienced and the options she had been provided. He thought more was going on with her wrist than previous diagnoses had shown. For the first time in a long time, she felt hope for a future without chronic pain. She gathered all her medical information and made an appointment with Berger at the Mayo Clinic.

Less than 24 hours after her appointment, she not only had a new diagnosis, she also had surgery to correct the problem. She had a brighter future that, without Twitter and people in the medical community willing to experiment with new communications tools, might not exist.²

Microsharing holds great promise for the scientific process because it allows scientists even in unrelated fields to discuss their thorniest problems with each other in ways that don’t intrude too much into their lives.

Monty Flinsch says, “These technologies create energy that is self-sustaining. Microsharing provides a simple way for people to connect, set ideas on fire, and make ideas rain.”

Burst Forward

Enterprise microsharing can help address a dueling dilemma for organizations needing to move knowledge where people need it now and keeping information from leaking out of the organization. Most microsharing tools allow message writers to control how messages are shared and who sees them. They also allow message receivers to keep track of (“follow”) the people writing them.

When you read a timeline from the list of followers that you have chosen personally, you have total control. Therefore, if the tweets you are reading are 40 percent pointless babble, you can easily fix this by not following them anymore.

Although some organizations formally ban these tools, doing so leaves them out of an important loop encompassing customers, partner networks, and even families. As the boundaries between personal and work life dissolve, organizations see more productivity and loyalty from people who once dreaded leaving their private lives in the parking lot as they walked through the door to work. Microsharing, the technological equivalent of water-cooler chat, offers clues to those around us, leading us to know, trust, and help one another. It’s in the little learning moments that you recall that Jeff isn’t just a guy in product development, but a parent with a daughter about the same age as your son. People tell us they have learned more about their co-workers and customers from their micro-messages and social media profiles than they have from working together for years.

Aaron Silvers, community manager for Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL), describes social networking as an act of sharing actions. He began using Twitter to connect with peers and industry leaders who could help solve his toughest on-the-job challenges. He was working at the industrial supply company Grainger and saw that microsharing could add value to Grainger’s education initiatives and provide people across the organization new ways to engage. Says Silvers, “Once Twitter made sense to me, I saw its potential as a tool to connect employees to each other. Maybe not Twitter itself, but at least a tool like it. Something that could be secure yet accessible could kick start social networking in an organization.”³

Then a senior executive at Grainger saw the media attention over Twitter and signed up for the grassroots enterprise microsharing community Silvers helped set up. Two hours later, the executive posted to his company blog that he had created an internal microsharing account and that he’d begun using it to talk with employees. By 8:00 a.m. the following morning, the system had 306 users. Within a few weeks, more than a thousand people had joined in.

A year later, more than 3,000 people were microsharing back and forth, many using the system for far more than learning what’s on the leaders’ minds. People shared stories and observations, what they’d learned with customers, and how they could improve their work. Microsharing hasn’t changed the company’s culture dramatically. Silvers maintains that culture change was not the explicit goal; learning was. People at all levels share what they’re working on and have conversations on topics they feel passionate about. This gives everyone an opportunity to learn from those who are willing to share their expertise.

Too frequently organizational knowledge sharing mirrors the news-cycle society around us, in which we share the highs and lows, ignoring the ordinary stuff in the middle. It’s in that middle ground that people make sense of the work going on around them, understand how to help fulfill the company vision, and know where to turn to find help.

These slender messages are interstitial; they lie in and fill the seams of organizations. Learning often entails asking people how to do things. The trouble is we customarily ask the person closest to us rather than someone known to have the right answer. Microsharing helps us reach the right people without even knowing who they are. You can also enlist help en masse by asking large groups of people to focus on the same issue for a short burst of time to find a creative solution quickly.

The threads help us collectively construct understanding, foster new connections, and grow existing bonds, making for more agile perspectives, tighter teams, and resilient morale.

These tools work similarly to how we converse while passing one another in the hallway, representing a live ecosystem that shifts from moment to moment, where it is easier, faster, and more effective for us to brain dump as events happen.

 

 

Dave Wilkins, vice president of product marketing at Learn.com says, “Microsharing is not for sharing the minutiae of my day. I use it to share the insights and sources that shape my professional thinking and to connect my professional dots.”⁴

Edu-Tweet

The ability to send and receive updates is a key feature of microsharing. Update boxes usually have a phrase that prompts you to answer a question. Twitter’s has been, “What Are You Doing?” and “What’s Happening?” Yammer and Socialtext Signals ask, “What Are You Working On?” Socialcast says, “Share something with ____” and the blank is a dropdown of your groups and streams. Cubetree asks, “What’s on your mind?” And some systems don’t have prompt questions at all, but provide a freeform space where you compose your message.

Most people don’t answer those precise questions. Instead they ask and answer questions relevant to their own situations. Or they answer an unspoken question such as, “What has your attention?” “Can you assist me?” or “What did you learn today?” Answering these questions encourages you to reflect on what’s occurring around you and to consider what’s on your mind.

In general, updates fall into three types: the current status of what you are doing, questions about what others are doing and how they might help you, and general information that many might need quickly.

Here are some examples.

I. Questions from You to Others

“Can You Help Me?”

This type of question has many variants, which all involve seeking something from other people—advice, feedback, recommendations, answers, and so on.

New York Times writer David Pogue likes to share an example that won him over to Twitter, which he used to think of as an ego-massaging, social-networking time drain. “Who on earth has the bandwidth to keep interrupting their work to visit a website and type in, ‘I’m now having lunch’ and to read the same trivia from a hundred other people?” He didn’t get it, and he didn’t think he wanted to get it.⁵

Then his eyes opened. He was one of 12 judges for a MacArthur grant. As the jury looked over one particular application, someone asked, “Hasn’t this project been tried before?” Everyone looked blank. Then the guy sitting next to Pogue posed the question to his followers on Twitter. Within 30 seconds, two people replied that it had been done before and provided links.

They harnessed the power of a large group of people—a process often referred to as “crowdsourcing”—in real time. No email, chat, web page, phone call, or FedEx package could have achieved the same thing. People who use microsharing to get expert advice on the fly, even those with fairly small groups of people who have opted to receive their tweets (followers), can attest to the fact that it usually returns results immediately.

Ben Betts, operations director for HT2 Ltd., a UK-based e-learning and organization development company, used one of his first Twitter updates to ask about the Adobe Flash player. Much to his surprise and delight, someone from Adobe responded within moments.⁶

Companies including JetBlue, Comcast, Wellpoint, and The Home Depot use Twitter for instant customer support. Associates who are stumped for answers to customers’ questions put out a request through their internal microsharing systems for help from their colleagues, and the answers come streaming back.

 

“What Are You Learning?”

You’re attending a conference. Minutes into a session, you notice people in the audience tapping furiously on their smartphones and reading incoming messages. Some of them get up and leave the room, while another bunch trickles in.

Chances are they’re tweeting about the session, asking questions, and getting the scoop on sessions their friends are attending that might be more relevant than the one they’re in. This kind of instant learning has become the subtext of many conferences.

Gary Hegenbart, senior training developer at Calix, said of one conference, “The Twitter activity was overwhelming. In every session I attended there were people tweeting about it. Although it was sometimes hard to pay attention and tweet at the same time, we wanted to share small nuggets of learning. I got real-time reports—positive and negative—on the sessions I missed, and I benefited from others sharing the highlights of those sessions.”⁷

“How Can I Excel Here?”

This is a common question from new employees. Independently or using systems set up by their employers, new hires find out with one click who has influence, what practices have been vetted, and how they can get ahead quickly. Because these tools record exchanges, it’s possible to learn how a concept, plan, or project evolved in the company, even if you didn’t participate in the original process.

Faith LeGendre, senior global consultant for customer advocacy in Cisco’s collaboration software group, used microsharing to help her thrive in Cisco’s culture. When she was a new employee, working away from headquarters, she sought a seasoned employee to mentor her. Within seconds of making her request on Cisco’s internal microsharing system, a woman in a completely different area responded. They have shared and learned together ever since.

In other companies, LeGendre had spent hours searching through intranets and distant servers to learn about her employer, her role, and how things really worked. Now, by asking others for guidance via microsharing, she not only receives the exact information she needs, but it often comes with extra insights. For example, someone might respond, “Don’t forget 2 fill out section C way at bottom or it will get rejected in the automatic system.” She constantly learns from colleagues around the globe and saves time while increasing her productivity and accuracy.⁸

“How Does This Work?”

This is a question you will often see when people are trying to figure out how to do something new and they’re pretty sure someone else has already tried it. They’re tapping into that wisdom of crowds that so impressed David Pogue.

Manish Mohan in Chennai, India, and Tom Stone in Rochester, New York, use an internal microsharing system at Element K to share links, seek insights from their colleagues, and test a pilot of an internal microsharing system across their entire organization, including their sister company Cognitive Arts and their parent company, NIIT, based in Delhi.

The benefits of microsharing became evident to Mohan early on when he asked his followers about a function in Lotus Notes. It happened to be a question that many others were also curious about, and Stone knew the answer. If Mohan had asked his question by email, his chances of getting an answer would have been low unless he sent the message to a big list. It was more efficient for him to cast his question across microsharing where people tune in with the expectation of engaging in conversation. It was also better for his colleagues because they saw his question and Stone’s response, which they wouldn’t have seen over email.⁹

“How Am I Doing?”

Pragmatic people want feedback on their performance in real time and can now get it faster than ever before. Instead of waiting months for a formal review from their manager, people have begun to ask others, using microsharing tools and other social software, to help them learn how to improve right away.

Although most microsharing tools were not designed for performance feedback, many people use them that way. “What do you think of this article I wrote? See the link here . . .” or “Was it dumb to attempt running the compiler before I. . . .” Likewise, at conferences, attendees tweet feedback to presenters and share their reviews of sessions with their online networks, not just the people at the event.

Conference speakers and educators have begun to use microsharing to create and sustain relationships and dialogue around sessions and classes. Jane Hart, social learning consultant and founder of the Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies in Wiltshire, England, says, “As an instructor, you can have immediate feedback on the relevance of your class. It turns training into a more participatory activity.”¹⁰

Companies are also using updating tools to make regular checks on what people are learning and how they are progressing toward their objectives. Employees microshare their goals with a group of people selected to provide input. Sending regular updates encourages people to reflect on what they’re doing and learning and makes them mindful of sharing with people they work with or serve.

Niche microsharing tools such as Rypple, Coworkers.com, and en.dorse. me are specifically for those times when employees want to go to trusted friends and advisors to get what they consider real feedback. These tools make it quick and easy to collect input from the bottom up and from peers.

 

“Which People Should I Know?”

People often use microsharing networks to find subject matter experts, grow their professional networks, or maximize a conference experience.

Michelle Lentz, an independent trainer and professional blogger, began using Twitter to get to know other training professionals.¹¹ Within months, she was posting regular updates about her work, getting help from experts, and attracting followers of her own. She found it expanded her network tenfold. At conferences, she began to hear a recurring theme from people she met, “I follow you on Twitter.” Instant friendship.

She tells her students that they must go out and find the right people on Twitter (or their internal microsharing sites). Do you want to know more about your brand? Monitor it through Twitter. A simple Twitter search, or use of sites such as Twellow, can open up doors for you. Do you want to know more about a hobby? Do a search on that hobby and follow the people discussing it.

Such microsharing-based encounters really can create instantaneous camaraderie based on similar interests and a history of online conversations. Microsharing accelerates the conversation because if you just met someone you follow or who follows you, then you already know a lot about the person. You’ve experienced ambient awareness. It feels like a reunion and conversation flows freely.

Lentz landed a new part-time job for a technology blog after she started following on Twitter the author of several of her favorite social media marketing books, Brian Solis. He tweeted that he was looking for someone he could pay to write occasional technology and gadget posts. She replied via Twitter, having never spoken to him before, and within 24 hours she had a fantastic and fun new writing job and had connected over the phone with one of her favorite authors. Instant opportunity.

Microsharing encourages you to share and be involved, even if it’s only 140 characters at a time. The sense of community and wanting to give back to the community can be palpable because now there are people there you know, trust, and want to learn with.

II. Updates About You to Others

“Here’s What I’m Doing”

Many people at work use microsharing updates to let others know what they are working on, reading, and thinking about. This is not self-centered boasting. By sharing their interests, people plant seeds that might lead to a connection with someone who could reveal new insights, point to new resources, help with a project, or simply confirm that you’re not the only person in your network interested in Egyptian art or complexity theory.

“Here’s What Our Organization Is Doing”

Although many such updates from companies are a form of marketing, they also remind people what’s coming up that they should know about, learning opportunities they might want to explore, or trends in an industry.

A growing number of organizations use Twitter to foster communication among employees and customers. Southwest Airlines tweets first-time customers with the message, “Hope you enjoyed your first-ever Southwest flight! Can’t wait to see you onboard again.” Mayo Clinic uses its Twitter account to share integrated health care practices, publicize medical news, and answer health-related questions.

Gina Minks, senior social media program manager at EMC, uses its internal microsharing network for internal marketing messages such as, “Please ask your customers to participate in the global survey on managing information and storage. Click here for details.” And, “Wondering about Cloud Computing? Check out the Cloud Computing Fundamentals eLearning, free till March 31.”¹²

“What Are You Working On?”

Instead of asking for periodic progress reports, Claudia Miro, when she led client services at a midsize coaching and consulting firm, used microsharing and other social media tools to keep tabs on her virtual workforce spread throughout North America. They relied on short exchanges to share, collaborate, and communicate about the work they were doing with clients. It was not unusual for a consultant to get a quick microburst from Miro, broadcast to all the consultants, asking for a report on who they met, how much time they spent, and what were the outcomes. The organization began using social tools as an internal document repository for operations; yet over time, it grew to become a dynamic communications tool across their internal and external partners. By capturing learning in the moment, the organization could quickly leverage the collective knowledge of its consultants and provide more value and collective intelligence, to the organizations it served.¹³

“Where Are You Heading?”

Bob Picciano, general manager of IBM Software Sales, uses microsharing tools to narrate part of his work and share his whereabouts with various teams. When he posted on IBM’s internal microsharing tool that he was heading to a town where he hadn’t been before for an important customer meeting, within a few minutes an IBM sales rep asked if Picciano might have time to meet with another customer in the same city. Picciano met with both customers that day, helped close a sale he didn’t even know about when he woke up that morning, and established a new and now long-standing relationship with another part of his organization.¹⁴

III: Information Many People Need Now

“What Do People Need to Know Right Now?”

Companies have operational updates that need to reach people at certain times to coordinate the system that is an organization. There’s information each person in an organizational ecosystem needs to help that enterprise succeed. This information can be broadcast (“Amazing guest speaking in the auditorium on Friday afternoon”) or narrowcast to specific groups (“Our meeting has moved to the fourth floor conference room”).

Although people—for instance someone in human resources, accounting, legal, or the front desk—generate most broadcast messages, they can also be automated to inform people at critical times. An order-processing system can kick out events and exceptions. A benefits system can signal coverage changes and enrollment deadlines. A learning management system can prompt people to renew certifications or announce a new online course.

Shel Israel, author of Twitterville and co-author of Naked Conversations, tells of the San Diego Metro Transit System, one of many public transit systems using Twitter to give passengers real-time information about delays, snags, and changes. Newcastle [UK] City Council’s secretary Alistair Smith tweets school closings with greater currency than the BBC provides.¹⁵

Microsharing systems offer unified access to information relevant to each of us, one at a time and all at the same time.

 

“Let Me Help You Learn”

A few years ago it would have been hard to imagine teaching anything 140 characters at a time. But as training events and courses give way to more immediate forms of instruction, microsharing plays a role in training. Informal information exchanges in real time supplement structured learning events.

Kelly Forrister, vice president of interactive learning at The David Allen Company, has been using Twitter to lead classes on lessons from Allen’s book Getting Things Done. She selected two modules, GTD Weekly Review and Mind Sweep, because they have somewhat set models and structures. She created a special Twitter account and at specific dates and times, she pushes content out—140 characters at a time—to people who follow that account. They take action based on the tweet and ask her questions along the way through @replies.

 

 

Nearly 1,500 people follow the account from around the globe. Feedback floods in about its value. Many people especially like having someone guide them through a process they don’t have the discipline or motivation to go through on their own. Forrister doesn’t consider this a replacement for instructor-led or e-learning courses but rather a compelling way to lead people and engage with them virtually.¹⁶

Microsharing gives students a way to toss insights and questions to other students without taking time away from the instructor. Microsharing can provide links to articles, webinars, and other resources. It can also be used to reinforce and sustain learning. Educators can post tips of the day, answers to questions from students, writing assignments, and other prompts and reminders about key points to keep learning going. It’s an easy way to stimulate conversation among a group before, during, and after any sort of event. Anyone in the group can share his or her points of view and familiar practices.

Respond to Critics

Possibly more than any other social media tool, microsharing seems frivolous to people who have never tried it; even some who have tried it don’t see its usefulness. To encourage people to use it long enough to find value, you may need to talk with them about it and show them specifically how to get past first impressions. Here are the most common objections we hear and ways we believe you can address them.

I Have Too Much to Say

At first it may take several posts to convey your meaning, though in time you’ll discover more precise ways to write. Amid shrinking attention spans and increasing distractions, we all need skills to craft clear and concise messages. Once mastered, you can apply this sharpness to other tasks: answering questions, writing crisp instructions, or making a case for launching something new. Just because you can explain more doesn’t mean you should. Be brief, even if writing succinctly takes time.

Use your 140 characters for interesting statistics, personal analysis, or as a launch pad to longer and more nuanced content on your blog, comments you’ve posted elsewhere, or your online community profile. Link people directly to what you see and tell them why you care.

I Don’t Have Time

If you think, “I can’t tweet. I have real work to do,” ask yourself this question: In the two minutes between a phone call and a meeting, could you share what you learned on the call and seek insight for the meeting? What about while waiting for a webinar to start or, if you carry a smartphone, in line at the grocery store or the post office? Turn your open minutes into learning moments.

When you connect through microsharing with people who share your professional and personal interests, you may also save time. They’ll point you to vetted materials in less time than it would take you to scan through Google results or an RSS feed. Your network distributes useful information to you wherever you are and on your own terms.

I Can’t Participate Because My Company Blocks Its Use

Consider signing up for a personal Twitter account from home so that when your company loosens restrictions, you’ll have experience with the tools. This will happen. Each day more organizations are amending their strict policies as they realize employees have smartphones in their pockets and a younger, more digitally minded generation expects the workplace to support online engagement.

Until then or in addition, with the emergence of microsharing tools for the enterprise, even the most security-conscious organizations can bring these capabilities in house. Some tools even offer the safety of working behind a firewall to protect discussions about confidential, proprietary, or personally identifiable information. You can find more information about these tools on The New Social Learning website (http:// thenewsociallearning.com).

It’s Only for Young People with Time on Their Hands

CEOs and industry leaders of all ages are beginning to use microsharing to open dialogues within their organizations, throughout enterprises, and with potential customers. By responding to a few words and a question mark, people provide expert testimony, gut-level hunches, and a field view that organizations might never capture otherwise.

Are senior leaders telling their microsharing followers what they had for lunch? Probably not. Are they distributing observations while waiting for a delayed flight? Maybe. Do they believe microsharing offers business value? Certainly.

Dan Cathy, COO of Chick-fil-A, told us in an interview that he and the company are enthusiastic users of microsharing tools. “We see it as leveraging influence. . . . The reason I’m on Facebook is not because I need something else to do with my time. Through my activity on Twitter, more people will know that I’m practicing what I preach.”¹⁷

Bill Ives, vice president of marketing at Darwin Ecosystems and a 20-year veteran of the enterprise software industry points out, “These tools allow me to connect with smart people regardless of age or tech-savvy. They honor my busy schedule and let me focus on my business.”¹⁸

It’s Overwhelming

Microsharing is a serendipity engine. Rather than expecting yourself to keep up with every message, focus on what’s before you when you check in and rely on direct messages, replies, and retweets to learn who is ready to engage.

Short messages allow you to approach updates with a newspaper headline mindset, scanning assorted posts quickly, ignoring the uninteresting, and focusing on those that captivate you. This means you can easily process a message stream and then turn your attention back to other tasks.

Answers Are Hit or Miss

Sometimes someone new to microsharing posts a question and no one replies. That’s often because they don’t have many followers accustomed to replying. Or maybe the question isn’t worded in a way that makes it clear you’re asking for a response. Or people may be ignoring your question because they don’t know you.

Microsharing can be compared to a large party filled with people you don’t know. If you huddle near the punch bowl and hors d’oeuvres, you’re not likely to have many conversations. At first, you might wonder why you came. Early posts often include phrases such as, “Trying to figure this out,” and “Why am I here?” Then you begin listening in on other people’s conversations, looking for a good time to speak up. Once others notice you, they may involve you in the conversation, and you may see a good opening to ask a question. At that point, the likelihood of a reply is far higher than when you first showed up.

Seek out people who share your interests and who are most likely to have answers to the types of question you ask. After you enter the fray, if you still aren’t getting answers, direct a question to someone you’d especially like to hear from, and make it clear you’d welcome responses from others as well. Rather than, “Do you know which Nikon lenses work with a full-frame sensor camera?”—which can be interpreted as a yes-no quiz instead of a question—try “Anyone know if the Nikon AF-S VR 24-120 lens works with the D700? Welcome your insights.”

I Don’t Know How to Use It

Twitter tutorials are everywhere. A quick search will yield blogs, online courses, in-person workshops, books, and video instruction on YouTube. Really, all you need to do is create an account, connect to several people mentioned in this book, think about what’s holding your attention, and tell us a little about what you’ve learned.

When the people you follow round out their contributions with something educational, learning will zing wild and flow free. Twitter founder Jack Dorsey says, “Twitter is for connecting people through real-time updates that spark conversation and expose trends.”¹⁹ We believe that enterprise microsharing may be bigger than that. Just as blogs give us all a free, personal printing press on the Internet, microsharing provides an instant, real-time connection to people we want to learn from.

We challenge everyone who reads this to try edu-twittering for a week. Tell us through the @NewSocialLearn account on Twitter that you’re on board. We’ll learn together what happens.

Recommendations

Whether you are interested in using Twitter or an internal microsharing platform, the steps for getting started are fairly similar. The main difference is where you sign up or sign in.

Sign Up

To create a Twitter account, go to http://twitter.com. If your organization already has a relationship with an enterprise microsharing vendor (or microsharing is a feature in another social medium such as an online community), you’ll go to the entrance to that site to sign up there. If your organization hasn’t begun working with an internal tool, you can find a list of providers on The New Social Learning website (http://thenewsocial learning.com), which tells you a little bit about the differences and benefits of each. Basically, you’ll go to the provider’s website and supply a bit of information about your organization to create the account and then sign up. Once you create a username and password, you will be asked for additional information such as a basic biography, a photo, and a link to where people can learn more about you. Don’t wait to add those details—especially a photo—because these are the touches of someone interested in engaging.

Start Smart

Use your first several posts to establish the type of information that interests you and you are likely to share over time. Prospective followers will look at your previous messages to learn if they want to follow you in the future.

Post Regularly

Build a loyal community of followers who look forward to learning with you. Post once a day, several times each day, or whatever your schedule (and attention span) supports. Because people use Twitter around the world, someone is always looking at it.

Keep Posts Short

With space for only 140 characters, don’t waste words. Enlist the help of a thesaurus and learn some texting abbreviations. When you include links to a website, use a URL shortener like http://bit.ly. When you do write, mix up the post types to include retweets (RT), @replies, original thoughts, and links to other people’s content.

Follow Carefully

Identify a few people who share your interests and follow them. Look at their homepages to see who they engage with and whom they follow. Find other people by searching topics you care about. On Twitter, seek out companies, competitors, and leaders in your industry to see how they use these tools. In your organization, look for people in other departments, different locations, or outside your usual sphere.

Go Mobile

Seek Twitter applications specifically designed for mobile devices so you can tweet on the go. What you lose in surface area, you gain in convenience.

Engage

When you see a post that catches your interest or asks a question, respond. Contribute. Add to the conversation. Once you have followers, check the @replies in the margin of your homepage to see who is connecting with you.

List

On Twitter and internal systems with a similar feature, create a list with the account names of people who are interested in a specific topic. This allows you to quickly focus on just their posts. Look at the lists of those you follow to see who else you might want to follow or to keep track of the posts of whom they follow.

Get Savvy

After you experiment with Twitter for a while, you may find it more convenient to use a third-party application that works with Twitter to manage your followers and your stream of bursts. Search the Internet for various tools to help you get the most from your Twitter experience. oneforty (http://oneforty.com) is an online directory and store for tools specifically created for use with Twitter. Most are free and easy to download.

Be Yourself

Microsharing works best when you represent yourself in an authentic way. One hundred and forty characters offer no extra space to spin messages or hype products (although plenty of people try). Share with people what you are thinking, what you need, and how together you can create sparks.