7 enterprise uses for Twitter

Toddlers explore a dozen different ways to use a new toy. Twitter is an oddly seductive new toy. Twitterers – and non-Twitterers – are busy looking for productive ways to use it. Some find it can offer personal wellbeing, support networking, amuse professionals, or create “social proprioception”. Others find out that it’s better not to bang yourself on the head with it .

So how can enterprises / small businesses play with this toy? Dodging the danger of helplessly floating in a river of tweets, here are seven theoretically productive enterprise uses for Twitter:

1. Task status updates from team members.
Your team probably spends considerable time asking each other “What have you been doing”? Once members start twittering their activities, most verbal updates become obsolete. Added benefit: If I see that Laura is doing some research on The Monkey Corporation, I’m more likely to let her know that I just happened to tag a couple of blog posts about them on del.icio.us over the weekend.

2. Real-time presence status for IM.
Few people update their IM status regularly. Using Twitterific to automatically update status messages on Adium or mood messages on Skype will encourage colleagues to consider IM status before interrupting. If my status says you are “Crafting the Best Article of the Year”, the guy next door might be less likely to IM the latest joke.

3. Informal timelog.
As a personal motivational timelog, Twitter is without equal. By the time the entire world knows that I’m Crafting that Best Article, I feel a little more disposed to actually launch MS Word. If my co-workers know as well, I might actually write a couple of sentences by the end of the day. Added benefit: If someone forgot to log billable hours on a project, the information could be extracted from Twitter postings.

4. Assign tasks while away from the office.
In good GTD manner, items should be processed only once. If I’m on the subway and suddenly remember that Alex should install a new MediaWiki plugin, I can Twitter it from my mobile phone – rather than write it down and hope I’ll look through my notes by the end of the week.

5. Notify of important wiki updates.
Teams using wikis for project management can twitter mission-critical wiki updates. Bill: “Just off the phone with Jobs; see http://monkeycorp.server/mediawiki/apple_hostile_takeover“

6. Update everyone on last-minute schedule changes.
Whether I’m running 10 minutes late for that staff meeting or my next client meeting just got delayed, I often end up calling one co-worker and asking her to update critical others. Twitter will easily update everyone from my mobile phone.

7. Process IM in batches.
Twitterrific is automatically set up to receive updates every 30 minutes. This hits a sweet spot between the immediacy of IM and the impossible ideal of checking email once a day. If it’s burning, co-workers can use direct IM. Otherwise, message updates are processed in batches every 30 minutes. I remain available but retain some sanity.

Twitter is no corporate powertoy. It still lacks usergroups; you can’t get privacy, either (Update: as twittersweet indicated in the comments, you can make your updates private and improvise groups). Small businesses might cope by using anonymous accounts. In corporations, do you think we’ll see Twitter look-alikes in next-generation IM systems?