I was reminded of this quote from David Allen:

For example – Steve Clayton showed me a tool called Terraminds, which allows you to search exclusively inside the Twitter eco-system, I’ve been experimenting to find out whether people are twittering about me, or AdCenter or the competition – it means that I don’t have to follow these people on twitter, I can just look at the whole eco-system at once.

This really adds to one of the reasons I suggested you should be using Twitter, it’s a ‘pull’ environment which is less intrusive than mail and IM – so people are using it to capture digital ephemera and thoughts.

I’m convinced this is where all the fast moving conversations are happening on the web. Try terraminds with some search terms and you’ll see the buzz happening.

So – why should you be using Twitter – here are five of my top reasons:

• Twitter is really quick and easy to update – you can use the web page itself,  a whole bunch of lovely looking desktop clients and even SMS from your cellphone. I use a Windows Vista sidebar gadget called Twadget, which is always open and chirrups peacefully everytime news arrives.
• You can integrate Twitter with any service you like (it publishes in RSS), I automatically update my Facebook profile with my ‘tweets’, and I also publish them automatically here on this blog (over to the right there).
• You can follow your online friends and here what they have to say, and where they are (lots of people use Twitter as a mini travelog/diary)
• You can follow news and blog services in Twitter and get a really concise feed of information quickly and effectively, news travels fast on the internets – and twitter seems to be one of the quickest ways to see news happening. Following an event like CES is really easy on Twitter.
• Its not a deluge – you choose what you follow and don’t follow (like RSS) but (unlike RSS) the messages are short (140 characters), so people are brief and concise.

Steve Claytons post on Twitter has some really interesting debate on how Twitter is becoming more and more mainstream, and eventually may become the new facebook. I’m looking forward to seeing what else Steve has to say on Twitter – and if he needs anyone inside Microsoft to bounce ideas off – I’m two floors down from him!

So – my suggestion is that you get over to Twitter, sign up and then add me to your list – I’d love to hear what’s going on.

Corporate Cup

Originally uploaded by mattr.

delivered in a corporate cup, end of day 1 in Beijing…the offices are really cool, full of clearly very talented people. Japanese lunch, Udon Noodles with Chicken…now dinner time – this trip has been one long meal!

Here’s the easy way to set-up run commands from within the toolbar:

1. Click in the window for searching – I keep mine on the taskbar, but you can have it on the desktop if you prefer

2. Type @shortcutname,=[program command] so, for instance @outlook,=c:\program files\outlook.exe

3. Then…to start Outlook – you can just type !outlook

You can use this call files you use regularly as well – just by replacing the [program command] with the path and filename of the file you wish to access – I have !daily and !weekly for report templates.

So there you have it, a very simple tool for setting up frequently used commands that can be easily and quickly accessed from the toolbar – MSN Search handles these well – its a good byproduct of a useful tool.

That means I need to queue at the sandwich bar at work today…sniff.

Plants & Foliage – plants that are well-cared for indicates someone who plans to stay.

Now – I’m not convinced mine willl be well cared for – but I’ll try.