The world has gotten online (well, most of the world, Africa is getting there more slowly) and social networking has gone from consumer darling to corporate bugbear almost overnight. Does social networking have any redeeming features? Brainstorm decided to find out, posing the following question: Twitter – valuable tool or time-waster deluxe?

❒ Most super-duper technologies for corporates to improve knowledge-sharing and communications made little difference to business culture. People are people; they change very reluctantly. The ideal is a technology that synchs naturally with how real people do things. Chat. Share info. Seek status. Forget Twitter. It’s pretty mindless. But take the “Twitter model” of followers/ following/quick and searchable regular updates, etc, and redevelop it for business. It could be incredibly useful in building intelligence in a multinational sales force (intelligence sharwordsing, highlighting successes, storing knowledge). It’s a technology that fits easily into how people live and work and, therefore, has a chance of actually being adopted in daily work life. Forget Twitter – it’s a fad. But the Twitter model? That could be huge.