Twitter as a Knowledge Network

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Twitter offers direct access to global experts, opinion makers, newsmakers, academics,  politicians and business leaders. Their communication is available without going through any kind of secondary filtering, such as an editor, a critical differentiator from published articles or reviewed blogs. Think of Twitter as a two-way  newswire for the individual, or as a personal telegraph; short bursts of information are always being sent from and delivered to you from all over.

Not everyone will Twitter (nor should they), and not every piece of information a  network yields will be worth something. But as a research tool, Twitter is not only au courant, it’s limitless. Twitter is a way to build a knowledge network with those you  know, or don’t know, and who live anywhere, from whom you will learn.  It takes your network from wherever it starts out  – 50, 200, 800 people — and it propels it into the stratosphere  – farther than you could ever reach – or be reached,   including thousands of people you will never meet in person.

A knowledge network is always a work in progress, and because of Twitter’s design, ease of use, and ever-growing population, that knowledge network has some significant advantages because it can be: global; private; commercial; educational, non-profit or  governmental. The network can also  include  Nobel winners;  fictional characters; alive people; dead  people and yet-to-be-born people. Real people can assume fictional personas or the spirit of the dearly departed.

I started to build my Twitter network by “following the followers.”  In Twitter, you are either a follower or are being followed. As a follower, you sign up to read the tweets of another person. If you are being followed, other people read your tweets.

I could follow President Obama (I don’t), information guru Mitch Kapor (I do), various sections of The New York Times (sometimes), current and former colleagues, professors,  students, business people, and new thinkers to whom I could have never had such easy and regular unedited access.  Faster and easier than a blog, the critical differentiator is the ability to easily network to those you already know, as well as to those you have never met,  if  you perceive that there is value in the communication.

To build a good knowledge network, “follow the followers” to find the interesting people, set up your own network to exchange information , or  explore short- or long-term research issues. There’s someone out there for everyone, and in the case of Twitter, many “someones” are out there for all of us.