Oneupweb Reviews: ExecTweets IT, a Community for IT Professionals
Microsoft’s tweet aggregator ExecTweets has new features that encourage more insightful collaboration from industry professionals.
Harnessing the power of social search engine Aardvark, ExecTweets now provides a forum for IT-related questions. This latest feature was added around the same time Microsoft expanded ExecTweets by creating an additional community for IT professionals called ExecTweets IT.
You can access the new IT community from the ExecTweets homepage by clicking on “IT” in the industries tab. While this tab shows four other industry categories – Government and Education, Healthcare, Media/Advertising/PR and Retail – only IT professionals have a customized community.
Like the general ExecTweets community, IT professionals vote on members and topics in an effort to ensure the best content is the most visible. (Read my review of ExecTweets for more information about how the community works.) What’s new are the ways in which ExecTweets IT encourages involvement. It’s these collaborative advances that make this community more than just a place to rehash Twitter posts. Let’s start with the new Q&A feature.
Most members ask for product suggestions or how certain forms of technology will impact their business. Users click on a link that redirects them to Aardvark for their answer.
ExecTweets IT explains this Q&A feature doesn’t require members to join Aardvark. However, you do have to become a member of the ITPros Aardvark group in order to answer posted questions. Many of the people who are involved with the ITPros Aardvark group also write the IT Expert Blog, which is another new feature on ExecTweets IT.
In addition to the blog, there is also a “Town Hall” section to discuss IT industry issues. ExectTweets does this by posting a question that gets community members thinking. The current question is “How has the state of the economy impacted your company’s IT spending strategy?” This same question appears in the “Town Hall” forum in the main ExecTweets community, allowing IT professionals to see what other industries think.
Despite its members-only attitude, more than a million people have started following ExecTweets on Twitter. This overwhelming interest makes me wonder whether Microsoft will create custom communities for other industries. There would be tremendous opportunity for these industries to share insights if that were to happen. One of the major challenges, however, would be how ExecTweets would encourage relevant cross-industry collaboration.
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