Is Twitter a useful enterprise 2.0 application?

Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger published their thoughts on Situated Learning "Legitimate peripheral participation" in 1991. A rather theoretical book on how people evolve from newcomers to key members of communities of practice. I remember an example of Etienne:

think of taxidrivers and their radio network. On the radio they get calls from the station and their colleagues. They do not listen actively to the radio, but they catch messages that might be of their interest. Some colleague mentioning a traffic jam, some other problem that they may circumnavigate, et cetera. They are in peripheral mode. When something occurs that might be of interest to other colleagues, they send a message to all others listening. Hence, they become active and center of the network for a short while.

The same goes for communities of practice. Sometimes you are merely listening, sometimes you jump in the center and participate actively. My perspective on Twitter is that it's the web version (of the radio network) of groups of people with a common interest, or practice. As Twitter states:

"people follow the sources most relevant to them and access information via Twitter as it happens"

If Twitter gets adopted by the business community, meaning adopted as a tool in the context of work and learning in the context of the enterprise, it may well become the means to follow what is going on in the enterprise, without being as disruptive as the "Beep Beep: you've got mail" If you think Twitter is just another gadget keeping employees from working, you're wrong! Twitter is the community radio!

In the meanwhile, taking co-ordination to an extreme level

Lightweight women’s double (LW2x) final race for Olympic Qualification, today, Poznan, Poland.
Six remaining teams wanted the two Olympic spots. Perhaps the Netherlands wanted it the most. Kirsten van der Kolk of the Netherlands finished with bronze at Athens. Van der Kolk then semi-retired from rowing, had a baby, named the baby Nike and came back to join her Athens partner Marit van Eupen late last year. They put gold shoes in their boat and started their comeback. Jumping out at the start, however, wasn’t the Dutch. It was Poland with Renee Hykel and Jennifer Goldsack of the United States following closely. This didn’t last long as the Dutch worked their way into the lead with a steady 35 stroke rate pace. In the last 500m it looked like only Goldsack and Hykel had enough to hold on to the Dutch leading pace. What could Poland do? At the line the Netherlands add another boat to their Olympic team and the United States add boat number 13 to their Olympic team. Congratulations Marit, Kirsten and their coach Josy.