I had a ten day Cortes Island end of the year quiet time. The focus was family, reading, walking, firewood, dvd's, and a rich reflective period to sort the world shifts of 2008 and to plan strategies for 2009 for myself and my organization. 

My learning project of year end was a new language. Twitter. Years studying with Jason Mogus of Communicopia as he helped push forward the field of social tech, had me know better than to scoff at another new social networking tool that many were extolling. Profound as is my work with Jason on non virtual social networking like Web of Change and Social Venture Institute (SVI) at Hollyhock each year, there are a lot of days between those events on the calendar. There is a lot more communicating, connecting, and collaborating to be done every day. 

Facebook took me a while to understand enough to feel the power. I’ve been feeling it for a while. Tenant prospects, investors, job applicants, wonderful places to stay in cities I’m travelling to, hot event notices, political organizing, restaurant, movie, and tech advice, and keeping up with all the light of my life youngsters, have hooked me. I even had a kidney transplant enhanced by Facebook, through the easy ability for all of us involved to give so many loved ones a way to follow our experience.  

So far Twitter is doing more of the same, in a more concentrated way. I see it as an easy extension. My Twitter one liners of less than 140 characters, automatically go to my Facebook status reports. Twitterers must choose who to "follow".  

I’m reaching and staying in contact with a whole next universe of people. Active Twitter users are only one subset of what is an explosively growing online networking galaxy. There are important nuances of distinction between Twitter and Facebook you'll have to explore for yourself. While Facebook isn’t for everyone, Twitter is even less so. 

For people like me who are interested in a myriad of subjects, multitaskers, communicators, and intentional social change drivers of one kind or another, Twitter adds an easy multiplier. Scanning quickly, like with a daily newspaper, I keep informed about friends, family, business associates, interesting public figures, news sources, teachers, advisors, and plain old fun, in a highly customizable format.  

I’m loving Twitter so far. The users and content are more focused and perhaps more business and politics oriented. At least those are the ones I’m "following". My deeper agenda in experiencing these tools is that they are part of a revolution that I think is necessary. As an investor, I want to have a grasp of this overhaul underway in how things are done. 

Perhaps, in another year I'll be on to even better tools. For now, I like it all so much better than I ever did television. Used well, the tangible value can be impressive. Thank you to all you visionary innovators who have brought us these brand new tools.  

Maybe you'll check it out yourself. Good luck! @joelsolomon is my twitter tag. You can find me there.