Twitter @largowight

Posted on March 31, 2012 by Erin Largo-Wight, PhD

I was happy to meet Twitter.

I think Twitter has amazing potential for professional use.  Twitter tailors your “daily briefing” on information you want to learn from sources you want to hear from.  My twitter handle is @largowight and the link is www.twitter.com/largowight  Here is a snipped view of my page today:

There is a concern that Twitter just adds to the daily “to-do” list. For me, Twitter will take items OFF of the to-do list. I believe Twitter will help me save time.   Because I am receiving information from sources I want to hear from, I may rely less on my email ListSERVs, for example. I am a member of professional organizations and associations and a member of those associations’ ListSERVs.  Using twitter as a replacement of email-based ListSERVs could save me a lot of time AND I could get the information I really want from those sources I voluntarily follow. I like that.

Twitter can also introduce networking or collaboration opportunities among professionals with similar interests that otherwise may not know each other. Today, for example, I read a retweet from Dr. Andrew Weil (I follow him) that shared a LA times article summarizing a study that was published in business journal. I do not read LA times and, because I am in public health, I do not often cite or read business journals. However, this study was focused on my area of research – nature contact interventions experienced during the work day and employee health and stress. So, I logged off Twitter and located and read the full study. Then, I emailed the primary author and introduced myself, sent a related article I published last year, and invited the opportunity for future collaboration. He replied to my email and we are in contact.

So, I’m a fan.

Twitter can also be used to to interact with my students. There are many ideas presented in the articles below. In my teaching, I plan to design an activity so that students would create accounts and explore the functions of twitter so they could realize the value of Twitter for professional use. I know we feel that most of our students are on technology savvy and already familiar with Twitter, but an informal poll of my graduate students on Monday (N=11 only) found that only one student reported using Twitter, ever. My graduate students would really benefit from and value the opportunity of this resource.

Here are some TT1221 social networking resources that you may find valuable:

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