Why Twitter?

Gil says-

One of the outstanding developers I have worked with in the past few weeks asked me about the advantages or benefits of using Twitter. He asked me this in response to my invitation to follow me on Twitter. That wasn't the first time someone had asked me a similar question and it wasn't and won't be the last. Now I will have a place to refer those questions.

I have seen Twitter in the news (mostly CNN) since the Saffron Revolution in Burma in 2007. Since that event I have seen Rick Sanchez and others on CNN use Twitter and I never paid attention much to those bits because I didn't really understand the technology..... So I always wondered what it was really used for? What was the craze? What were people doing on Twitter. Why was the application itself so special? This was when we at CSG decided to check it out.  There are many good primers on how and why to use twitter.  We've found it to be very useful in recruiting.  

Dave says:

I'm highly skeptical whenever I see hordes of people moving in a given direction. I'm not one of the people riding the bandwagon.  I'm the wolf loping alongside the bandwagon waiting to see what cliff it is going to go over.  However we have found tweeting brings a ton of benefit.  

Interacting on twitter is like moving through the biggest bar in the world.  You'll need to wade through a lot of people that don't offer much value to your line of business.  It's a constant stream of conversation of which maybe 1% at any given time is applicable to your business.  But that 1% is VERY interesting.  You walk past the dude with the bone in his nose to talk to the cerebral looking guy in the corner who is a software thought leader.  Many people link to their blog, website, or resume which is where you decide if they are who you are looking for.  We use Tweetdeck to manage twitter.  I run search strings relevant to searches I am running.  For example I'm working a search for C# talent in NYC.  Any tweet that mentions idisposable comes to me.  Odds are very strong that this person is going to be a potential candidate for my search.  I get a quick surface view of a person which helps me decide if I want to learn more about them.  Many people offer a link to their blog or website which is usually more than enough information for me to make a decision-do I want to talk with this person?

Since the whole point of twitter is the conversation we're able to post searches we're working on for folks to look at with less of a resistance level than more traditional forms of sourcing.  If you're one of the most highly sophisticated software engineers on the planet you're a lot more likely to respond positively to real information than some cold call at your work phone. 

Core Search Group, over and out.