Yes, I'm a CEO who really uses Twitter

Last fall, when I met Laura Fitton (Twitter name @pistachio) at a conference, I heard that she was the Queen of Twitter. So I asked her, "Do you really have time to get online and find out which of your friends is in the bathroom?" She persuaded me that Twitter was the real deal, so I invited her to come to Communispace, my company (which builds online customer communities), and present to our staff about the Twitter phenomenon.

Two weeks later, Laura introduced us all to the world of hashtags (Twitter keywords preceded by a #) and DMs and @s and RTs (you can look them up). I learned that a follower didn't have to be as close as a Facebook friend, that Barack Obama had the most followers of anyone, and that if I wanted to witness a company doing a good job with Twitter, I should check out Starbucks.

Frankly, it was all mystifying. But clients were starting to ask me if they should be Twittering, or if their online communities should be. I just didn't know the answer. It was time to experiment.

It has now been six months, and I have found Twitter to be more valuable and more fun than just about any of my other social media adventures. However, it didn't happen immediately. Here's my experience:

Phase One: Loneliness. In the beginning, I read countless articles about how Twitter would be a vehicle for learning, connecting, business-building, friend-making, insight-sharing and more, but it wasn't any of that for me. I followed a few courageous work colleagues, and they followed me back, but most of the time my fascinating 140-character tweets seemed to disappear into the ether, to be read by no one.

I asked a provocative question and nobody responded, except for maybe @pistachio. I said something interesting, and only my colleague Debi (@drkleiman) acknowledged it. I tried reading @jimmyfallon to see how he was planning for his show, but hearing about it in short bursts seemed a waste of time. Maybe I was just too old.

Phase Two: Finding Some Killer Apps. At the end of November, I had two bona fide Twitter moments. The first: I needed help from Comcast about my home Internet hook-up and couldn't get an appointment for two weeks. I turned to @comcastcares and suddenly was connected to Comcast Executive Service and an obsequious representative who apologized -- and who had a service person at my condo the next day.

The second: During the attacks in Mumbai, I logged on to search.twitter.com, searched via "#mumbai" and was captivated by a continuous stream of tweets from people who were right there in the streets of a city under siege. I had CNN on at the time, but my Twitter feed was at least 10 minutes ahead of CNN. I knew Twitter, and I was powerful!

Maybe no one wanted to read my tweets, but I was part of a community of people who were faster and hipper and more in the know than everyone else.

Phase Three: Learning. Since Communispace's job is to help companies listen to their customers, I decided to practice what we preach and just listen to what people were saying in the Twitterverse. I went to MrTweet, a service for making Twitter connections, and found scores of fascinating people to follow: marketers, social media experts, professors, journalists, scientists, politicians and even professional baseball players (@nickswisher, although he's on the wrong team). I followed those people, and, amazingly, most of them followed me back.

This was getting more interesting.